the vanderhydes

My friends Cass and Mark are pretty cool people. I've known both of them since my junior high days as an awkward homeschooler. I feel really lucky to have known them so long and Cass' family, too. People always ask me, hey, how can you know people so well who live on the other side of the country. Well I was thinking about this the other day, how people born in my decade are much different and have quite a different life even from people born a few years earlier. So much more technology to use nowadays and information is exchanged all the time, as often as you want.

I remember being seriously disappointed being stuck in a new job (nursing "shortage", pshaw) and a new town and being broke and unable to go to their wedding. And yet when the wedding day came, I was sent minute by minute a series of pictures from Sar's cell phone - "virtual" wedding attendance. I was still balling like a baby at the end of the ceremony, just like when I'm at a wedding in "real" life.














Now they are having their first baby, Cass has been in labor like friggin ALL night and day, and I paced around work, glancing at the labor and delivery ward, wishing I was not on the west coast at the moment, wondering if Mark was wandering around the hospital grounds with his iTouch looking for wifi. Wondering if Cass is in pain (duh, probably a lot), or was that nurse starting the IV alright, were they giving her too much fluid, who was monitoring the monitor anyway!

The thing is, I totally could've called or texted Mark or Cass, and asked how things were coming along, but it seems I don't even need to because there is like 1,000 (okay I'm exaggerating) facebook/twitter updates concerning the matter. It's kind of exciting, watching a little story unfold through a newsfeed...

certainly doesn't replace being there, but still interesting, and nice. :)