So, what is this?

I’ll explain.

It all started when the pandemic did. We were in Jupiter, Florida watching the last Cardinal Spring Training game. My daughter, Talia, was calling me, begging, “Just go home. Just go home.” My son, Zachary, who was living with us at the time, was going out and buying food, toilet paper, and apple pies. My other son, Michael, bought an Echo Show and sent it to our home. The kids had collaborated and gotten the idea to get an Echo Show, so we could see and talk with my mom should we not be allowed to visit.

Once home in St. Charles, Missouri, the very next day I went and installed the Echo device. Michael, though living in Dallas, helped me. I was kind of proud of myself. I got it all set up and on the retirement home’s wireless network. Michael, on his end, got it registered with his amazon account and set it up, so we could “drop in.”

The only little glitch was that in order for me to Echo my mom, I had to choose the only contact listed – which was “Allie S.” “Allie S.” is my son’s now new wife, and she and Michael lived in downtown Dallas.

I tried to reinstall the Echo, but I never could get it to give me any other choices to Echo. This was okay, as even though it said “Allie”, it Echoed my mom. The main thing was that it worked, which was good because the following day, we were no longer allowed to visit my mom.

The Echo worked great for over a year, and we used it often. But then Michael and Allie bought a house, moved, got married, and went off to Costa Rica for their honeymoon.

Somewhere in there and while we were away for the wedding, the Echo stopped working. So, we restarted it several times; that had always worked in the past. But it didn’t fix things this time.

Well, perhaps it’s related to them moving, I thought. I decided a “Factory Reset” was in order.

I followed the procedure. I set up an Amazon account for my 98 year old mother. This should be okay unless she starts ordering massive amounts of chocolate and boxes of “those little cakes” that she repeatedly asks for.

I also set up a gmail account for her. So, if you’d like to email her, let me know.

Next, the device was telling me to install the Alexa app. Since I already have the Alexa app on my phone, I installed it on Dan’s phone. I linked it to my mom’s amazon and gmail and anything else I could think of. I did achieve some level of success. Dan can actually Echo my mom.

But the rest of us get a view straight from Dallas, of under a bed, hopefully in a guest room, where we mostly likely see at least one of Michael and Allie’s two cats.

Of course, we’ll let them know what’s going on as soon as they get home from Costa Rica.

But for now, all we know for sure is that their cats are doing just fine.