Podcasts and Pregnancies

Now that I have joined the 21st century, the first half anyway, the second half will require either a serious life support system or something involving hooded robes, chanting and a pentagram, by becoming a blogger -this is cutting edge stuff, right?- I now have my keenly alert and alertly keen senses open to discover new adventures streaking down the technological highway. One of them I have recently mastered - okay mastered may not be quite the right word, bumbled upon while pushing random keys on my computer more closely approximates reality - is a nifty bit of modern wizardry called Podcasts. With Podcasts I can download - a funny word download - movies, television shows, parades, zoos, circuses -another funny word - and everything you do in the privacy of your own home. I'm kidding about that last part. I can't download circuses. Consequently, I have made a practise lately of loading, I don't understand the down part, Bill Maher's HBO show onto my computer and then playing it while I walk up and down, this down I understand, my stairs as part of a futile program to get into what is clearly one of the world's vaguest terms...shape. Maher's wit played at volume keeps me distracted and masks the sound of my huffing and puffing. The ultimate goal of my conditioning is not, as you may think, a sounder mind and body, but rather the last real job available to men of my age and that is selling juicers on infomercials. Apparently you have to be old and in shape to operate these machines properly.

Not all technology suits me though. My pregnant daughter has recently taken to sending us photos of the baby that is INSIDE of her body and describing all the prodding and probings and tests the mad scientists of the modern world are putting her through. This is a bit much in my opinion. Back in the day we got babies the old fashioned way. We had them delivered. You watched your wife eat enchanted combinations of foods like pickles and ice cream for nine months and then you took her to the hospital. There she was whisked away from you to the DELIVERY ROOM where Mumbo Jumbo, Abracadabra and other like phrases were intoned, the mother was given some good drugs and a baby was delivered. That's delivered, like pizza. There was none of that moaning, screaming push and all the bloody stuff so vivid in today's modern birthing. At least as far as we knew, the husbands. Our job was to pace the floor of the waiting room, where, you guessed it, we waited and chain smoked Winstons. "They also serve who stand and wait." It was a tough job and sure we coughed a lot, but it was all worth it when they handed you the kid, although a little bit less so when they handed you the bill.

Podcasts. Next week...Podpeople. The story of The Bush White House.