Meet my new friend Pandora

One of the things that makes my relationship with my Mr. Urban wonderfully cozy is that we usually genuinely enjoy the same things.

And where we have dissimilar interests, we really enjoy hearing about the other persons interests and pursuits du jour over a good cup of coffee or glass of wine or sometimes late at night...

So, even though I would never make time for Jonah Lehrer, Malcolm Gladwell, Dostoevsky, Plato, or John Stewart (although he has an infinitely higher chance of persuading me to make time for him than the others mentioned) in my overly busy life, I absolutely love hearing about their work through the mouth of my beloved Mr. Urban.

He is a great story teller. And an excellent teacher.

BUT, there is a limit to all things wonderful. And although my Mr. Urban's third greatest love of all time is Technology, I feel that I am often an unsatisfying partner in that department for him.

I mean I am not rigid or anti technology. I did switch to Google for him years ago. I use Amazon and Gilt.com. And I did meet him as a result of online technology... (another story)

But there are days that he looks over at me with a twinkle in his eyes, a sway in his torso, offering to get me the latest Ipad or Iphone or Kindle, sounding as though he is offering diamonds... and all he gets in return is an uncomfortable chuckle.

How could I ever forgo books? I love turning pages, its my thing. I love the smell of paper. I love worrying about running out of room in our book case.

And why would I keep my appointments in anything other than on good paper bound inside a leather cover? As I write this I see how environmentally unfriendly it all must be, but I must be saving on the over use of wireless energy which surely also is damaging to the environment... RIGHT????

And what about texting? Is that technology ever going to stick? I disabled that service on my phone years ago...

But this Mr. Urban is a shrewd and seamless negotiator... a couple of months ago a new Blu-Ray player found itself in our home, hooked up to our internet. Mr. Urban set up a Pandora radio for me on it, although I had told him many times over the past couple of years that I didn't need a Pandora Radio.

But I am in love... How did I ever live without Pandora before? Pandora has brightened my life and my home.

What ever I am in the mood for, Pandora provides. It invites people into my home that I didn't even know I would so adore visiting with.

And the advantage of having it streamed through the DVD player is that the sound comes out of the speakers throughout the house... I don't need to carry my laptop around when I run up to fold the laundry, you see?

As I am writing this I am listening to the most beautiful jazz holiday songs by Louis Armstrong and Tony Bennett...

If you are a "late adopter" as I am, stall no more my friends. Get yourself or your mom or better yet, your Mr. Urban (if you want to score huge points) one of these players for Christmas... it costs less than $150. And getting free Pandora is just the tip of the iceberg... It can also store a ton of those pictures you don't know where to put, clean your house and babysit for you, but only if you also have a tech savvy husband that you adore, who can set it up for you....

FORTY THREE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND FORTY DAYS

My life and the life of every Iranian I know, is bookended by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It doesn't matter that I was barely old enough to remember this historic event or that I spent the decades that followed it, far far away from Iran, the Revolution of 1979 is a heavy, tacky, cruel bookend that defines who we used to be, who we are and the recurring nightmares and dreams we’ve had for 43 years. I can pinpoint with certainty the exact month after which a general feeling of displacement settled like sticky dust all over me, my family, my classroom, my teachers, our closest friends, our home, our city… In the years and decades that followed, I never experienced another event that brought such a magnitude of change to the nucleus of life. Not in Iran, and definitely not after a whole life lived outside of Iran. Perhaps only recently, the experience of the Trump years and the Covid-19 pandemic, the significant fear, change and frustration that both events brought to our col

On Donald Trump, Crunchy Bananas and our Children... A "How To" on keeping up Spirits and Sanity

The other morning at breakfast, my four year old looked, yet again somberly, at the breakfast before her. Despite having enthusiastically selected a hodgepodge of liberally salted hard boiled egg whites on the side of toasted hamburger buns, strawberries and vanilla yogurt and a cup of milk, she still could not bring herself to enjoy her breakfast. Her face was wrinkled, as was mine with exasperation from yet another failed attempt at assembling a palatable breakfast for my picky eater. This one, she is quite the philosopher. And before I could ask her why she wasn't eating, she said: "Two Things!" Holding up two tiny fingers. "The smells of these foods I picked, don't go with each other! And I wish Donald Trump would magically become Hillary Clinton, and the word (world) would be GREAT again". Despite our best efforts to protect our children from the anxiety of these times, they are alert and picking up on the mood (and the lingo) in the wor

Safa

I have always loved words. The way some people love shiny new objects. As soon as I heard a new word, a word that captured my imagination, my energy, my hundreds of unnamed inner thoughts and feelings, I would latch on to it with fearceness, joy and curiosity. I have also always been intrigued by how regular old words can be used in an unexpected context and evoke bursts of unexpected feelings in the listener, such as laughter, anticipation or tears. I would search for those words coming out of the mouths of everyone around me, and mentally catalog them like a dutiful librarian, and await the opportunity to say the words with my own mouth out loud to an audience, or better yet use it in an essay where the teacher could grade it, get a kick out of it, or read it to the whole class. As a child I always loved the Persian word Safa . For one thing the word sounds so simple, yet sophisticated and beautiful, and for another, each of my memories of hearing this word is stored in th

An Urban Girl

Search This Blog