In all the various posts since my visit to India, I've talked in a high-falutin' sort of way about the importance of social media and how the women of the world need to work the Internet just like they work the daily gossip.
I've preached on about how this wave of webbed-up women can turn around the politics of the Arab world, how it can bring education to the Roma, how it can solve the problems of India's rural poor. Even my Gutenberg offerings in New Europe for women's day generally nagged about how all women needed rights, not just the women on top, as it were. (Gutenberg on women)
But back in Tiergarten, reality bites. Husband gets a horrible pain in the stomach, I do the mercy dash to the hospital and it's intensive care for the week.
Anyone in this position - be it with husband, kids or parents - will recognise the plight. The fight to get the info you need from clammed up white coaters. The trips too and from the hospital, snacking on nuts and seed - although luckily Offenburg has the foresight to provide a cake shop. The calculations of how much special leave I can take without it eating into the yearly allowance......oh yes, and the duty to tell all the friends and relations.
My man, as you might now, is the ultimate social butterfly, and has managed to keep friends that he knew at the age of eight. This is generally a trait I admire greatly, but faced with the prospect of telling all of his lonely languishing, I sort of wished that he was more hermit-like in his approach to networking.
Social media to the rescue! A few seconds on Facebook and health bulletins are going out to the world. Just a couple of emails for the older fashioned of his friends, and a couple of calls to family, and suddenly everything becomes a lot easier. I would have tweeted, but fear that the friend's club is not yet that advanced.
No comments:
Post a Comment