Today, my Mom and I were talking on the phone. I am trying to find a window for the garage in my house. The wall where the window will be faces the street, so Jane and I decided it would be best to have a horizontally-long narrow window up near the ceiling. That way, we'll get light and a breeze, without prying eyes from the street.

"You want a Clerstory window," Mom said from her law office in Chicago.
"Clerstory?" I fingered a patch of loose fabric on the living room couch.
"I think that's what they're called."
"How do you spell it?"
"c-l-e-r-s-t-o-r-y, I think. Hold on," she said, "Yes, it's clerstory, I just googled it."

Hearing my Mom use the verb "to google" in conversation made the internet more tangible today.

"Or there might be an extra 'e' in there - yes, here they are," she read from her screen: "'A high range of windows to ... to lift the eye to heaven.'"

Searching for facts is one thing, but using the web/search/google to confirm memory of spelling? Now she and I share the same internet resource as an extension of our memory banks, our personal processing power. Amazing! Now if I can just help her get a computer running at home, and start making her photo albums with digital pictures on the web.