It’s vacation! Not a change of laptop viewing venues!

The three of us clearly didn’t get the memo.

We had just had a very nice dinner of pesce spada (swordfish) for me, risotto con scampi for Leah and spaghetti vongale (pasta and clams) for Liz at one of the nicer restaurants in our little town of Massa Lubrense. They also do a very nice antipasto there …

So, when we got back to the villa, how did we commemorate the occasion?

By checking our e-mail, of course.

That’s me on my Dell, Leah on her Toshiba and Liz banging away on her iPhone. I think it’s an iPhone, anyway.

So, no, even when the three of us are anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 miles away from work, we can’t keep from checking to see if the office has sent us messages (well, actually they did, but …), or if friends have updated their Facebook status or to see the early ball scores coming in from the States.

We’re cyber junkies, like so many of those of our generation(s).

Instead of sitting down to read a book, or discuss international events, Italian cuisine or the Lakers’ chances against Boston … we were calling up our e-mail.

Marvin noticed the three of us staring off into another world while sitting on the couch, and got a picture of us … and it just seems to be a telling example of how we spend our free time, in 2010.

Vacations weren’t like that. Once upon a time, if you went to a little village in southern Italy, you were disconnected from the rest of the world — unless you happened to find a copy of the International Herald Tribune in the local newspaper kiosk. And even then the paper might be a day or two old. Other than that, you had no idea if World War III had broken out …

Maybe it was better that way. The full disconnect. The real vacation. The enforced isolation.

No. It was better that way. Not that we can or will go back.