Every Friday that Mike’s family is in town (and not traveling to Auburn for a football game), we get together at a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. Sometimes there may be as many 16 people or more.They have been meeting like this on Friday nights for over 20 years. As you probably can guess, the number has grown over the years. The restaurant is always very gracious in making room for all of us, and I can’t think of a time where we’ve had to wait more than a few minutes. They also work hard to bring us our food very quickly.and take good care of us.
It’s always a good time, and the nachos are probably the best I’ve ever had. I find it a sweet time with family, visiting and catching up on our week. As a matter of fact, I find it a little disappointing when we aren’t getting together. The last two weeks, Mike’s great niece, a precious 6 year old, honored me when she arrived and asked to sit next to me. I’m sure it’s not because she wanted to visit with me, but because she wanted to play with my hair! Last week she told me just how she wanted me to wear my hair this past week. Of course I made sure I wore it just as she’d requested because I don’t want to miss an opportunity to ‘hang with her.’
All of the kids usually ask for someone’s smartphone and spend a lot of time playing games or watching videos while the adults do their thing…chatting and catching up with each other. This week she had someone’s phone and I found her watching videos. The first video I saw made me laugh. It was so funny – I said to Mike ‘these are videos of people with blindfolds, doing yoga. She was quick to let me know – but very sweetly – that I was wrong and she asked me to look a little closer. And she was right. It was a video of two blindfolded folks, and each of them had a fish tank in front of them. There were various things in the tanks – some of them floated and some of them were on the bottom. Each person was racing to be the first to identify all of the items. When I really looked carefully, it was even funnier than I originally thought it was. Because it was quite specialized, I wondered how she found that video. Before the video ended, our food arrived and she very carefully set the phone down to eat her dinner. I might add she has great table manners, especially for someone her age!
Once she finished dinner, she picked up the phone to start watching new videos. She later let me know she was waiting for me to finish my dinner so she could play with my hair. She watched a few, and once I finished my dinner I leaned over to see what see was watching. She was trying to find one at that moment, and I watched to see what she was going to watch and how she would find it. I was ready for her to ask me to help her search Google to find what she was looking for – but as it turns out, she didn’t need my help at all. She pressed the home button on the phone and she said – and I repeat – exactly this: ‘Siri show me videos of puppies,’ and within just seconds there were more videos than I could count. She carefully chose one (of course I leaned in to see if the video was actually going to be one of puppies!) Just as she’d asked, the first video was a short video of puppies playing. And the next one was a video of puppies as well. 
Here’s the thing – I’ve never been a big fan of Siri, and I’ve have asked for her assistance less than a handful of times. After my experience with this dear 6-year-old, I might need to use Google a little less. I was impressed that it only pulled up exactly what she asked, with no sorting needed.
So all weekend, I found myself fighting the urge to ask Siri to find videos of puppies for me…was there something I’d missed in what she said? Finally at breakfast this Monday morning, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I pressed the home button on my phone and asked Siri to show me videos of puppies and just as she’d asked, there were those puppies for me, and the first one was the one she’d watched. How ‘bout that? Of course I had to try it with another request – I asked for videos of Giraffes, and within seconds there were videos of Giraffes! You might have noticed I really like them!
Yes, I think I might be asking for Siri’s help a little more.
Remember when it was the adults who were teaching the kids? We were even the ones who would pull up the videos for them. On this night, it was that sweet girl who pulled up the videos for me. The takeaway for me? We can learn something at anytime from anyone. Thank heavens I was open and ready to help her, however she helped me and I learned something that night. So in closing, why don’t you give it a try? ‘Siri show me videos of puppies (or anything that interests you fill in the blank).’ And when those videos come up, remember – this all started with a sweet 6 year old.
Celebrating Goodness 