Dear Blog Reader.
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. The
glorious moment that we have all been waiting for has finally arrived. That’s
right! Black Raspberry winter is upon us. Last week we had highs in the 80’s
lows in the 60’s. Tuesday this week the high will be 65. The lovely Miss
Beverly has been using my Black Raspberry winter ravings as an opportunity to
question my veracity. I have been defending my honor; exclaiming that it
“really is a thing.” It has always been a thing. I have not been lying to you.
Thankfully, Wiki has my back.
“Blackberry winter is a colloquial expression used in south
and Midwest North America referring to a cold snap that often occurs in late
spring when blackberries are in bloom.” True as cold snaps go a high of 65
isn’t much of a cold snap, but compared to 85 of last week, several people will
be scurrying to find their light jackets. And as far as proof that I wasn’t
just making this crap up, 65 for the high is proof positive that the old sage
was correct once again. Another indicator, that reading this blog provides you
with the opportunity to connect to a time that was simpler and wiser, is the
rest of the Wiki entry.
“Another colloquialism for these spring cold snaps is
“Linsey-Woolsey Britches winter”, referring to a type of winter long underwear
which could be put away after the last cold snap.” No, you did not just read
Lindsey Lohan B*&^%$es winter. Stick with me, slow down and read just a
little slower. It will stop much confusion and misunderstanding down the road.
Linsey-Woolsey Britches should read flannel sheets. That’s correct. It is time
to put away the flannel sheets. The Wild Black Raspberries are blooming. Soon
the lovely Miss Beverly will be donning her long sleeve shirt, coating herself
with bug spray and wondering out to the raspberry patch to pick several gallons
worth of God’s free goodness for cobbler and pie.
I live a paradoxical life. On the one hand, I rely on old
sayings from my grandmother to explain why I needed to keep a jacket handy
while heading out on a bright spring morning to do some sort of farm chore and
on the other hand I am a slave to technology.
I love electrical doodads. I always have. For the younger
readers in the audience, I was a young child when calculators made it to the
main stream. I had to have one. Never mind that my mathematical requirements
barely exceeded the need to add a series of 3 digits numbers with all of that
messy carrying the number over to the next column. Besides my teachers were
never going to let me use it for my homework. You had to mark out and show the
carried number forward. You couldn’t just fake it and randomly make a scribble
that could conceivably be that 10 you carried over from the ones column. You
had to show that you knew the process. Still the Casio 5 function (yes, it
could do square roots) 9 digit calculator in the Hooks (CVS) drugstore was
calling my name. Never mind that it cost 40 dollars. I had to have it.
So I saved and I saved and I saved my money. I still
remember taking it home and pulling it out of the box in its form cut Styrofoam
perfection. I remember plugging the adapter in because we had no batteries at
home and flipping the switch and having those green lit 9 digits stream across
the screen. How was I to know that I would later be betrayed by the horizontal
middle bar on the second digit when it failed to light and I wrote that the
answer to 100 + 88 was 108 instead of the correct number, 188. I should have known. If I had not been using a
calculator, there is a chance that I would have known that there was not any
ones to carry and it was a pretty simple calculation.
I have a long string of brief love affairs with electronic
doodads. The calculator was followed by a portable cassette recorder, followed
by a TI30, a calculator mandated by the chemistry teacher and had the added
benefit of a biorhythm chart. It was such an eye opening experience to suddenly
know that a chemistry test next Friday was out of the question. My intelligence
biorhythm was off the charts low that week. This called for a preemptive sick
day or three so that my brain would be fully engaged in the problems at hand.
My chasing after the latest technology was severely hampered after I left for
college.
I suddenly had no more disposable income to pay for my
technology cravings. Those were lean years. The microwave, VCR, and CD player
had to be postponed until other necessities like food, rent, diapers, and
school books could be purchased. I am happy to say that one of the greatest
advantages of the empty nest is that the technology chasing hounds are fully
funded once again and I am free to pursue my quarry once again.
I have numerous gps biking computers. Thankfully, the folks
at Garmin have made improvements every year. I can now take my bike with me to
another state. Put the Garmin on my bike, ride for 50 miles and have some
assurance that I will get back home. It is very liberating. What isn’t
liberating is that, there are times when I can’t proclaim if my bike ride was
good or not until the data from said bike ride has been uploaded to the web and
compared to the bike rides of millions of other riders.
My quest for gadgets that map out my life; that record the
statistics of all things Roger has taken me into the realm of fitness bands and
smart watches. This is for a good cause (I tell myself). The health plan at
work has an incentive for healthy living activities. Last year, we were able to
put our steps in from any old pedometer and if a certain level was reached a
discount was offered for your health insurance. As with many things done on the
honor system, it was ruined by the dishonorable. So this year in order to stop
the cheating (1,000,000 steps in 3 months), participants have to log steps
through an unalterable fitness band hooked up to an app on the internet. So I
had to buy a fitbit.
Then the apple watch went on sale. (well sort of. You sale
leaves a connotation that when you buy it you actually get to take possession
of it. Not buy it with the promise of getting it some day at some point in the
distant future.) Well I could tell that the apple watch could do so much more
that the fitbit. It would take your heart rate, tell how long you had been
sitting, and make several general observations about the overall welfare of
your life. (Real time biorhythms). However, it cannot tell you how well you
sleep. The fitbit can though. I have found out that I spend 8 hours in bed to
get 6.5 good hours of sleep. The rest is spent tossing and turning, and getting
up to relieve my 52 year old bladder. In fact, I did not know how poorly I was
sleeping before I owned my fitbit.
All of this and I have still been thwarted because I do not know
how fast my heart is beating (or even if it is beating for that matter.) To
make matters worse, it may stop beating before an apple watch would ever be
delivered. Thankfully, Microsoft created the Band. It does the heart beat
thing. I am glad to know that my heart is beating. In fact my heart beats at a leisurely
42 beats per minute when I am sleeping soundly. Which isn’t very long each
night. Remember the tossing, turning and relieving. I must admit that I am
relieved that I have documented proof of a beating heart.
All of this chasing around for something that is as plain as
the nose on your face is a bit silly. Of course my heart beats, exercise is
good for me, if I ride north for a while, east for a while, south for the same
while as I road north and back west, I will get back to where I started. If I
don’t get enough sleep during the night a quick nap at lunch will set things
right.
Still I chase, not trusting that after the cold snap that accompanies
the blooming of the black raspberries it is safe to take off the flannels.
Take care
Roger
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