Mary, my sister from Montana. is visiting the Tucson area. She’s here with her husband Dennis, staying with Dennis’ sister and her husband in Green Valley, a retirement community 40 miles south of Tucson. It’s been difficult trying to hook up and I suspect some Trumpian family dynamics are in play. After some back & forth, we have agreed to meet at Pima Air and Space Museum Thursday morning, where I’ll give the two couples a guided tour, followed by lunch at the Triple T truck stop, another local landmark. Sadly, Donna will be on a weekend retreat in Show Low, so they’ll have to settle for just me.
An old friend, Rhoda, is also in town. We’ll get together next week, once Donna’s home. I’m having another damn skin cancer removed Tuesday. It’s by my left ear and if past procedures are any indication, I’ll be wrapped up like a mummy for a day or two afterward. I won’t want to go out in public, so we’ll have Rhoda over for dinner rather than go out somewhere.
To date I’ve recorded four wristwatch videos for YouTube and TikTok. They’re amateurish and though I claim the lack of polish is intentional, I’m secretly tempted to redo them. That’s the curse of being a Type A. I don’t know why, but the ones I uploaded to TikTok have scratchier audio than the ones on YouTube, so I’ll share the YouTube links here. You can find them easily enough on TikTok if you prefer that platform — just search for “Watch Show & Tell by Paul.”
- Watch Show & Tell by Paul: Yankee Air Pirate Watches
- Watch Show & Tell by Paul: Talkin’ About Timex
- Watch Show & Tell by Paul: I’m Being Followed by a Moon Phaser
- Watch Show & Tell by Paul: The Sparkle in My China
The Timex video is the one I like best, done with a handheld smart phone, and better yet, minus my own talking head.
You probably think I’m lying, but this photo was not staged. When I started wearing an Apple Watch, nearly a year ago now, I uploaded photos to use with one of the optional watch faces, one of them a two-year-old shot of Fritzi with a yellow tennis ball in her mouth. When I select that watch face, which isn’t often (I prefer one that looks more like a traditional watch, with a dial and hands), it shuffles photos every fifteen minutes.
I was grilling lamb chops for dinner on Valentine’s Day when Fritzi ran up with that same ball — one of a dozen different balls littering our back yard — and when I glanced down at the watch, the photo of Fritzi with the ball just happened to be one showing. My iPhone was on the patio table by my side, so I grabbed it with my other hand and took this photo.
I have a bunch of regular wristwatches and wear them, picking a different one every morning — you may have seen some of my watch o’ the day photos on Facebook or Instagram. So what’s with the smarty on my wrist? Early last year I was diagnosed with AFib, and shortly afterward started wearing an Apple Watch to monitor my heart rate. For a while I wore it 24/7, but since undergoing an ablation procedure my heart rate has been regular, so now I just wear it overnight. I reckon if the AFib sneaks back into my life it’s as likely to happen by night as by day, and if and when (let’s hope if) that happens I’ll start wearing it full-time again. For now, with the AFib under control, I can at least wear my beloved “real” watches by day.
Speaking of wrapped up like a mummy, am I the only one who hears “wrapped up like a douche” in Manfred Man’s “Blinded by the Light,” even though I know it’s supposed to be “wrapped up like a Deuce”? Who the hell pronounces deuce as douche, outside of Manfred Man? In the original, recorded by Bruce Springsteen, it’s pronounced correctly. The Who does a job on “bomb’ in “Athena,” pronouncing it “bone,” as in “she’s a bone,” which is what I thought they were actually saying for years, assuming it was some kind of Brit slang for a hot chick. Which “bomb” is in both British and American English, but so could “bone” be if you don’t mind everyone assuming you get an erection every time you see a hot chick.
But I ramble. Stay fresh, cheese bags!