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So, when was the last time you opened the phone book to look up a number? Around the same time that Tommy Tutone crooned about finding Jenny's on the wall? Or perhaps when, by definition, phone numbers suddenly had ten digits instead of seven?

Yep, same here.

Until we moved to Bismarck, where the phone book is more than a handy doorstop or a quarterly nuisance to drag to the recycle bin. (Assuming, of course, there was a recycling recepticle at the ready. But that's a story for another day.)

Upon moving into our home, our realtor Amy greeted us with the house keys and a warm welcome. She noticed there didn't seem to be a phone book around, and kindly offered to give us one of the extras she had in her office. We declined, brandishing iPad and Blackberry and bemused grins.

Fast forward to Valentine's Day. Dear Mike had arranged for a beautiful bouquet of red tulips to be delivered me at our home. Around 9 am, I received a call from Amanda, the delivery person.

"I have some flowers for you," she said. "But I can't find your house in the phone book. You know, on the map in the front. Where do you live?"

Our house has been here since 2002. We live in a fairly familiar part of town. Mike had given the florist our address and phone number.

I was excited about the flowers (which were beautiful, by the way -- what could be more precious than tulips when it's 30 below?), I bit my tongue and gave her directions.

In the ensuing weeks, we observed a related phenomenon: very few local businesses have their own websites. A Google search for everything from haircuts to hardware stores coughs up a list of aggregators. Marketing here is word of mouth, charmingly sincere radio advertising, and, you guessed it, the good old fashioned phone book.

On top of that, somehow GPS and Google maps are not yet in vogue. I have given everyone from the plumber to the electrician to the housekeeper directions to our place recently. In Seattle, you wouldn't insult someone's tech savvy by even offering. Here, it's common courtesy. That said, I can get by with "cross the river, get off at Mackenzie, and go left-right-left and stop at the white house" which seems to work even though our home does not have a number on it.

Recently, I spent nine days on the West Coast. I walked barefoot in the sand. I listened to top notch local radio. I drank really great coffee. I saw trees. And mountains. And had conversations about something other than the weather.

And I was homesick for this crazy flat snowy land, and a home that somehow is not on the map in the phone book.