Modern Day Mission Impossible

2026-09-22T22:21:55Z

Like Secret Agents converging upon the clandestine meeting point, we each make our way by plane, train and automobile to the pre-agreed destination in Berkeley. We are disguised as old ladies, our gray hair complementing our comfortable age-appropriate clothing. Wait! We ARE old ladies. As my husband lovingly says, old bee-atches. It’s time for the fourth annual reunion of the subcommittee of special operatives of the Girl Scout troop who graduated from high school back in the Pleistocene, in 1971.

Ann has picked up Pam, arriving from Eugene via SFO. Susan has slipped in from South Carolina a few days prior by plane and BART, the light rail serving the Bay Area. Julie is dropped off by the aforementioned husband after his triathlon in Santa Cruz. She climbs out of the car that is as much bicycle transport vehicle as passenger modality.

Berkeley is our rendezvous point One Point Oh. On an alternate trajectory, Diane is self-transporting by private vehicle from the northern, forested hinterlands, We’ll all rendezvous at Ground Zero, a private and exclusive base in the Sierra Nevada.

First stop: provisioning. With technology assisted navigation, we locate the food depot, a Trader Joe’s along the route. The four of us approach the mission with zeal. “Steel cut oats”, suggests Pam, slipping the specially designed grain cylinder into the cart.

“How about apples,” parries Ann. A serious discussion ensues, weighing the merits of green versus red. A bag of Cosmic apples joins our stash.

2% or 4% yogurt? Or shall we get sour cream? We compromise on 4% yogurt but opt to also get sour cream. Both are added, plus cottage cheese. Of course. Ann wants it and nobody disagrees.

But then we must consider the advantages of butter. Salted vs. unsalted? Each has its proponents. Rationalizing that one could always take individual initiative to salt one’s own buttered bread, unsalted wins the day. Susan smiles.

An hour later, our shopping basket is burgeoning. “I’m guessing that’s about $200 worth,” Julie speculates. When the receipt totals at $205.57, the others acknowledge Julie’s acumen.

We prepare for take-off. Bags of groceries are wedged into crevices of trunk space and between our legs in the passenger compartment. Susan and Ann trade off roles as pilot and navigator. All four actively participate in the requisite data dump. Family news and recent developments in personal history are traded nonstop. True confession, this activity is maintained throughout the duration of our five-day mission.

Zooming several hours eastward along I-80, we hove into range of our target location. A massive stylish edifice stands before us. Forget the time-honored rustic mountain cabin, this spacious retreat is modernity personified.

We hear from Diane. She has been halted by a road closure, adding more delay to her arrival. We vow to have supper ready by the time she joins us. We fill the previously empty refrigerator with our haul. I privately wonder when we’ll have time to consume all this food in a mere five days. It’s a tough job, but we’re up for the task.

Like our rooms, the kitchen is a showcase of Architecture Digest-worthy décor and gleaming white cabinetry. I ogle the Henckel knives in the drawers and the obviously pricey full sets of pots and pans in the cabinets.

In preparing our first meal we encounter our first glitch. How the heck do we operate this induction stove?! The display panel consists of tiny icons and mysterious runes and arrows. First one of us, then most of us take turns poking at the half centimeter-sized symbols. Miraculously, someone figures out which tiny rune turns on the stove and how to control the heat. It is determined that the arrows must be massaged along greater or narrower arrow points to control the burner level. Each time throughout our stay when a new person cooks, this must be reviewed for the new chef.

First meal on the agenda is baked potatoes. We set to work chopping and slicing a cornucopia of options. By dinnertime, a dozen or more bowls of enticing options are arrayed on the gleaming countertop, which, not surprisingly, is roomier than most people’s dining room tables. Grated cheese, the celebrated sour cream, green onions, two kinds of chili, both meat and vegetarian are on offer. Like the enormous house, the potatoes are similarly gargantuan, not unlike our appetites.

And then it’s time to operate the Murano dishwasher. Unlike the stove, there are no visible guiding “instructions”. Conveniently busy elsewhere, I am involved only to the extent of hearing befuddled voices lamenting about complete ignorance about how to get this thing to tackle our multitude of messy dishes and chili bowls. This time-saving device has undoubtedly deployed advanced cleaning methodology into its sleek design. But what we save in manual labor becomes an investment in mental despair. Eventually I hear, “AHH!” and the process is declared accomplished.

Bedtime rolls around for some of us. I limp off to bed around 10 p.m. Sue is happy that our west coast time zone puts her east coast night owl habit into sync with the rest of us. Diane and I in our separate basement accommodations, swelter through the night. The duvets are fully six inches thick, designed for snowy Donner Lake nights, but there is a heater keeping everybody cozy. Too cozy; I eventually open the window to let in some refreshing mountain air; bears be damned.

At six a.m., I pop up, out of habit as well as the memory that last visit, Pam and I enjoyed bird watching before the others got up. Upstairs I find no Pam. Outside, no birds. Sad.

People filter out on their own schedules. Someone reaches for the dishwasher to begin the breakfast process. “Oh no!” The dishwasher never turned on! Consternation ensues. We peer at the indecipherable control panel one more time.

Three of us declare our desire to visit the local Farmers’ Market. We pile into Diane’s car and back out of the left side of the two-car, double-door garage. She activates the remote garage door opener to close it as we leave. While we had exited the left side bay of the garage, it is the right-side door that opens. Now we have two garage doors open instead of both closed. With three buttons on the remote, it is anybody’s guess as to which combination will accomplish our goal. After several button pressing trials, the two doors alternately going up and down, Pam finally walks into the garage, presses the button inside, and then exits by going around and out through the front door of the house. We are definitely feeling outsmarted by all this upscale technology.

After a full day of yakking, hot tubbing, yakking, shopping, eating, yakking and hiking along the Truckee River, we are ready to turn in for the night. At ten o’clock, Ann and I examine the thermostat downstairs to dial in a more comfortable sleeping temperature. We are stymied. We decide we will just turn the whole thing off. By eleven o’clock, we have called the owner of the house (Ann’s daughter) and she recommends we just turn off the heater. “But how?!” we wail. “We tried that!” She directs us to a hidden black button on the side of the device. “Ah,” success now in hand, we survive a much cooler night. I still keep my window cracked. Hi Bears!

At breakfast the next morning, we discuss with chagrin that this house was designed by and for Bay Area Google techie types who live by stylish design, QR codes, and phone operated appliances. The world has passed us by. However, we are feeling slightly accomplished because we have almost mastered the stove and we start the dishwasher without too much angst. We cross our fingers.

By the end of the week, we have eaten most but not all of the food, heard most but not all of everyone’s stories, and made tentative plans for next year’s reunion. With hugs all around, we pile back into the cars and head off back down the mountain to go back to our regular lives. Missions accomplished!

That evening, back in town, I am back in the bosom of my son’s family, enjoying the charms and chaos of their young family. We attend a Friday evening outdoor gathering of his former Google workmates with take-out food from a local Mediterranean restaurant. It also is a reunion of work colleagues from a former Google project. Everyone is trading stories of what they’ve been doing since their previous joint gig. My mid-forties son offers his latest.

“So, we finally bought a new dishwasher.”

“Oh, what kind?” someone asks.

“A Bosch,” he replies.

“How do you like it?”

“Well, we’re still figuring it out,” he replies. “I got tired of repairing the last one so many times. However, our six-year-old son loves readjusting the racks up and down. And we’re amazed by its “crystal” setting where it completely dries the dishes. It’s got some complicated humidity/super-heating drying programs. Compared to our last one, it’s some kind of hi-tech magic.”

Another friend of his remarked on a different model of dishwasher, “Did you ever see those ones with no visible instructions but it projected operational guidance by lights onto the floor beneath it?”

“Oh, that sounds cool!” another responds.

***

I reflect on my son’s frequent admonition that “You have to be smarter than the thing you are trying to deal with.” When we’re talking about something mundane like a can opener, that can be a rather harsh commentary. Obviously, these dishwashers ARE smarter than we are. Now, I reassure myself that it’s not just old ladies who fumble in the modern world to get things to work.

comments

Jeez

2026-09-09T16:04:50Z

They say with age comes wisdom. Since all of us are, by definition, aging, you would think I might be exhibiting some vestige of wisdom. But you would be wrong. Because...

I have somehow succumbed to signing up for therealljidol ONE MORE TIME....wanders off laughing maniacally.

comments

Julie R Fricke

Modern Day Mission Impossible

Jeez