What will your neighborhood look like in 100 years?

It sounds like a new meme, but it's the question I'm asking myself as I plot my new post apocalyptic YA book. It's grim fun to decide what's fallen apart and what's survived. I also find myself looking at my own world with new eyes. I have a lot of stuff, and if I lost most of it, I'd still be okay. Lamps, sofas, garden tools, that concrete gargoyle that lives under the blueberry bushes - all if it could vanish (okay, not Phred the Gargoyle, but everything else) and I'd be fine.

Here's another question that I've asked myself for this book: If I had to flee tomorrow with just a backpack, what would be in it? And given that the backpack now represents everything I have in the world, what would I do to keep it?

My iPhone is coming! Pardon my geek moment.

I have a blended household. In my case, that doesn't mean kids who started off in separate households, it means Mac and PC. My husband, who is against all things PC, started us on our Apple journey back in 2001.

My little Mac iBook is a powerhouse machine, but I still have a PC laptop and a PC tower. I like them too, although I've learned to save frequently to conserve my work. I don't want to repeat the heart-stopping panic of having my PC seize up in the middle of a complicated Photoshop file, or an almost finished chapter blink out of existance. The Apple is much more stable.

On Tuesday the 30th I'm going to add to my Apple tech stash when I toddle over to the AT&T store to pick up my iPhone. Then I'll go app shopping. Ahhh....techie bliss.

Just don't tell my PC. It's still trying to save my last session of Sims3.