There are times when misunderstandings are a bit humorous. A friend of mine accompanied me on a visit to an animal caretaker. The animal caretaker had a slight speech impediment. In the course of the conversation the caretaker inquired about the health of some kittens I had at that time. My friend was unaware of the speech impediment. The caretaker could not distinguish between the letter K and the letter T. "And how are your little kitties? " he inquired. My friend looked at me not knowing what to think. Remember, the caretaker's K's always came out as T's. It took me a little while to get presence of mind. Trying hard not to loose my composure I responded: "The little Kittens are just fine." Needless to say, that turned out to be one of lives little unforgettable moments. My Friend Dana remembered that for a long time. And so I'm having a few more moments like these, except now I am the person with the speech impediment. And when I talk to my friend Joann about scanning pictures and pixels and things it always comes out wrong. When I am working in Adobe I am frequently pixellating. To my way of thinking that means that I take a photo from very small to very large until each little pixel stands out like a square block. Joann is not familiar with the term pixel, meaning each individual minute unit. She understand dot per inch, dpi more easily. "You're doing what?" "I'm pixellating." That seems to me simple enough. From the way she looks at me I become aware of the similarity of pixy and pixel. And I hastily reassure her that I am not sprouting wings and getting smaller and smaller. Being the traditional computer neophyte I am filled with that zeal, that need to share my latest passion. My latest passion is photographs. I don't have to wait at the store to have a picture developed. I don't have to fight about the color in that color picture. I simply take my trusty little Sony and click away and when I'm done I'll take it home and put that little floppy in the computer. I can print my own picture with the quality and clarity and color that pleases my eye. It doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. I come away from that venture smiling, and thinking of the many misprints the countless dollars and the wasted hours I've spent in the company of less than friendly sales personnel lurking on the other side of the counter. And just when I thought it couldn't get better, I discovered converting old negatives black and white negatives in to shiny new prints. My computer guru Clarence has his own opinion about that. Something about my only-wanting-to-write-on-that-computer. He doesn't even have to say that out loud. He conveys that information with a knowing smile. What a surprise it was to find out that that disappointing little scanner was really capable of turning out good prints. My son, the giver of gifts, was right after all. He came to the house, with a grin and the usual better-late-than-never expression on his face:
"I've got forty-five minutes to show you how to do that------" The rest of the sentence was lost on the way to that little office space. I am now used to forty-five minute lessons that require hours of comprehension.
I was skeptical. The negatives I had were negatives my husband had stored in the attic in an old cigar box. They dated back to the forties. Of course by now Friend Gerry had taught me the essential art of cleaning a negative of putting it properly in to the scanner and of using the clone tool to clean them up. I was rather flippant about that. Cloning, I told my friends, is nothing new to me.
"I can clone anything I want to on the computer." Neophytes have a way of showing off new vocabulary. My friend Alexandra had just gotten used to the fact that I can lasso any image and that my ICON did not come from a Russian church. When my son takes the control of my little village here, nobody talks back. The computer computes, the scanner scans and the monitor shows the image. Son and I were in Adobe PhotoShop. I was in awe. Just think, I used to wash his diapers and now he makes an old negative give up its secret and hangs it out to dry on that monitor. "Hit invert!" he tells me and Hallelujah we have a picture. The dirt in that black-and-white-picture sky is no problem. We wave that magic Adobe Wand and it gathers all the little spots. He threatens the selected area with an eyedropper, he lassoes he selects and deselects and then all the annoying spots are gone. All I have to do is try to remember what comes after what. Isn't it remarkable how you can learn from your children? It took several hours for me to get a smidgen of understanding, long after he had gone on
his merry way. It also took a couple of evening telephone calls but I think I'm beginning to understand the magic that resides in my office. Imagine what all the generations that have gone before me could have done with this little magic. Imagine the magic that awaits the future generations. Not in my wildest dreams could I have dreamt of sitting here and creating magic.