MountainMornings

Do you ever feel out of step? I hate to admit that our 50th high school reunion will be coming right up next year, because admitting that means the end of an era. The Class of ’66 was the first to stage a protest walk-out, to almost win the Principal of the Year award at a NY radio station. And we were not the first, and probably not the last, to send our young men off to fight a war we had no business fighting.

And for most of us, our Millennial children have paved the road to our Golden Years with lessons in technology. Every time I visit the Rocker, my iPhone gets a complete overhaul. Whenever I return from Nashville, my laptop is clean and moving faster along its wifi/cloud connectivity circuit. And even though I am pretty savvy with social media, sharing my thoughts on life through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I’ve only recently entered into the non-virtual, non-fiction sharing society.

Now I understand that for some of us this is scary. After all, we’re used to booking hotel rooms when we travel. If you stay at one Hilton in Bermuda, the Hilton in Dallas will be a similar experience. Maybe they’ll have different pictures hanging on the walls. We know what to expect, we become frequent flyers, we humans are creatures of habit. The more adventurous might try staying at a quaint Bed and Breakfast on Martha’s Vineyard. But that’s about it. Until Airbnb.https://www.airbnb.com

I’m about to stay at my second Airbnb. The first time I let my son schedule the whole thing. After all, I was delivering a cat to LA, alone, and had no idea where his neighborhood was, plus he said the hotels were exorbitant. And I was delightfully surprised. The host gave my son the key before I arrived, and there was a bottle of wine waiting for me and coffee in the fridge for the morning. It didn’t matter that the TV was internet/Netlix/Hulu only. I wasn’t there to watch TV, in fact I listened to the Serial podcast on my downtime.

Eventually I met the host and his 3 Pit Bulls! We all had great fun on the patio. I wanted to book with him again, but the time Bob and I will be in California was already booked. Sooo, I started my own Airbnb account and started looking. The Rocker told me it’s all about the reviews – read them! And soon enough, Bob too will be experiencing this sharing society of which I speak.

I lorded it over the Bride that her old Mama had tried Airbnb before her, but now she has too, and she and the Groom have used Uber for getting around Nashville late at night. Since I’m usually not out partying anymore late at night, it may be awhile until I get to try this particular car sharing service. But it’s good to change it up every now and then; good for our brain, good for our soul. If you believe in Annie Dillard’s famous saying,“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” then let’s climb out of our automatic pilot frame of mind and take the wheel in this new society. Fifty years later, we can still learn a few new tricks.

And right on time, I read a Tweet by Peter Greenberg telling us what we “need to know” when booking through Airbnb. Maybe the travel industry is catching up with our kids after all? http://petergreenberg.com/2015/02/23/airbnb-tips-and-tricks-for-first-timers/

ps The Parlor Mob will be playing at the Skate and Surf Festival in Asbury park, NJ this Sunday – they should hit the World Stage around 2 pm!

            Mother and Son