Facebook, pets and table talks
January 27, 2010
By Judy Halone
NEW — 2:23 p.m. Jan. 27, 2010
Last week, I wrote about the talks that take place around our family’s supper table — like the one where our daughter confessed to once selling Popsicles through her bedroom window to the neighbor kids.
The conversations just don’t end, do they?
And I’ve learned that when we parents roll with the punches, we hear all kinds of gems. Like this one:
“Grover’s got his own Facebook page,” the same Popsicle-selling daughter announced over her chicken and baked potato one evening.
“Tell me about it,” I replied.
I’ve learned to carry a poker face when she breaks such topics. Grover, by the way, is her black, gray and beige, 13-pound yorkie-poo dog.
“He’s already got a few friends,” she bragged.
“Really – like who?” I asked
“Well, like Mystic,” she said.
Mystic sounded like a leftover from the hippie days.
“She’s a pretty gray cat with a dark-pink wig,” she explained.
The punches came; I rolled.
“You don’t say? And her Facebook friends are…?” I asked.
Could a Kong-loving, cuddly dog like Grover actually have friends on Facebook, I wondered?
“Well, there’s a few friends from school, family members and people who work in the media,” she replied and named them off, many whom I knew as my own friends.
“And Lilly and Poppy, too,” she added.
“Let me guess: Lilly and Poppy each have four legs,” I said.
“Yep, and they’re dogs – not cats,” she said.
“Lilly and Poppy each have their own Facebook pages?” I asked.
“Of course,” was her reply.
Rolling with the punches took a little work, but I managed — even as Grover whimpered near her chair for a piece of meat to accidentally fall. Either that or he was anxious to play Farmville.
“So, what does Grover Halone talk about on his Facebook page?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, just the ordinary stuff,” she said. “Like riding in cars, running at the beach and chasing squirrels in our back yard.”
“And people reply to his posts?” I asked.
“Of yeah — they love it!” she said.
I smiled, called Grover over to my side of the table and patted him on the head. Who wouldn’t want to be his Facebook friend, I reasoned.
After dinner I signed into Facebook. There it was: Grover Halone has invited you to be his friend. Naturally, I accepted — I’m sure you would, too.
After all, rolling with the punches means caring about what’s important to our kids, even when it means becoming friends with a dog that can’t even reach the keyboard but somehow manages to play Farmville and puts smiles on his friends’ faces.
Including mine.
Follow Judy Halone at www.littlepencilwriting@blogspot.com.
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