An Abundance of Caution

It was breezy up on the pickleball court this afternoon, and hot, too-- we called it after a couple of games in 86-degree heat. Even so, we weren't prepared for it when Heidi's phone began to blow up; all of her water aerobics folks were abuzz about the tornado watch that had been issued for our area.

"Tell them you'll be at the pool if it's open," I advised.

"But they are sending me news articles and weather sites," she said with indecision. "And the Federal Government is closing at 3. Should we just call it right now?"

"You don't have to do anything; they'll close the pool if it's too dangerous."

"But they are predicted derecho force winds!" Just then, her phone dinged again. "The pool is closing at 5!" she reported.

"Well, that answers that," I shrugged and crossed my fingers that everyone was overreacting.

Incentive/Disincentive

I love using my smartwatch to track my activity. I have it synced to all sorts of activity and nutrition apps on my phone, too, to provide me with as much data as possible. Although I use the goal feature on several of those apps, I am not a fanatic about meeting the goals so much as I am about recording the relevant information, because you know what they say about data collection-- garbage in, garbage out. And I do like to know when I've bettered my past accomplishments; at my age, it's good to have reminders that there is still a chance to improve physically.

Last week we were half a mile or so into the holler on our way to the waterfall when our phone service dipped out. I wasn't concerned; I had downloaded the map of the Graveyard Fields hike onto my phone, and so I just switched from the internet to the saved file. 

A little while later it started to sprinkle and then rain in earnest, so we waited out a 10-minute cloudburst under a pine tree. By the time the storm rolled by, the stream was double its size, the trail was much muddier than when we started, and our feet were soaked when we made it back to the main loop. 

Even so, we pushed on to the second falls, and our dirty dog, Lucy, got cleaned up by taking a dip in the swimming hole at the top of the chute. A brief climb back up to the Blueridge Parkway brought us back to our car, and we turned back toward Ashville for a shower and dinner.

Somewhere along the line, my watch battery died, as it does more and more lately, especially when it's tracking my activity. It is an earlier model, though, and I understand what I have to put up with until I choose to replace it. 

But the next morning? I didn't understand what was happening after I fastened my watch to my wrist. All the activity indicators started going crazy, and there was a lot of dinging, too. When at last my device settled down, a few taps here and there failed to explain what the big deal was, so I reached for my phone. There I noticed that the trail app was still open, and having finally connected to wifi again, was giving me credit for hiking not only the 3-mile Graveyard Fields trail, but also the 39-mile drive home. 

Try as I might, I couldn't delete my 42-mile "accomplishment". So there's a garbage record I'm never going to beat.

Or will I?

For the Assist

I was feeling a little bored this afternoon, so I tapped open my bike share app to find myself a nearby ride. There was a well-charged e-bike about 10 minutes from here and so off I headed on foot. It was an ideal afternoon for such a pursuit, low 80s and sunny but breezy, so I headed west on the bike trail, and that pedal-assist made my 15-mile ride, well, a breeze.

I did feel a bit guilty as I trundled easily past many a bike without a motor, and I was glad when the serious bikers on the trail called out to let me know they were passing on my left, but in the end? An hour of steady pedaling is an hour of steady pedaling.

I just made it a bit farther than I might have otherwise.

Almost

"Wanna go to the movies?" I asked Heidi this afternoon.

We had already had the pleasure of playing pickleball with Bill and Emily for hours this morning, and Heidi was teaching water aerobics at 6:30, but the movies seemed like a perfect idea for a Friday afternoon in summer.

There was a showing of the new Mission Impossible that fit neatly with our plans for the rest of the day, so we just got our tickets and went to the movies. An act that four years ago might have seemed less than notable, was again today almost less than notable.

Almost.

Still Thinking

How strange to spend the earliest days of August windows open, a mild breeze wafting through the house! I nearly pinched myself-- the weather has been more like summers past spent in an oceanfront cottage in Maine, or in a cabin on an island in a little lake in Wisconsin, or even in a condo in Rochester, Minnesota. Going to bed without cranking the a/c dares me to dream of spending summers somewhere else.

But where?

(and what about those winters?)

Publicity Stunt

I'm not sure how I learned of the Frenchs Mustard-Skittles event, but when I did? I knew that our yellow-mustard-loving niece, Annabelle, was the target audience. 

Billed as a promotion for National Mustard Day on August 5th, Skittles and Frenchs chose three east coast cities to give away their bright yellow, limited edition mustard-flavored candies the week before the big day, August 5th. Those cities? Atlanta, Annabelle's home, DC, where many of her extended family live, and NYC, where she was born.

Unfortunately, we were leaving Atlanta the day before they were going to give away the special Skittles at Ponce City Market, right around the corner from my sister's house. Not to worry, though, Heidi and I headed downtown at 11 AM this morning for the 11-3 giveaway here in DC. Not gonna lie, the line stretching all the way around the block,  was daunting when we first drove by. And it took a minute for us to find parking, but when we did? We booked it the two and a half blocks to City Center Square to secure our place in line.

As we waited we admired the brightly painted vintage VW van and watched as those ahead of us tossed red and yellow bean bags at a target board for swag. The day was beautiful, too, low 80s with those big puffy clouds sailing through deep blue skies, and the mood of our fellow waiters was jolly. The guy behind us looked up the going price on eBay for the tiny bag of candy we were hoping to receive, and gleefully reported that there were several bidders above 50 bucks on the auctions he found.

It was fun to people watch-- notably the family of seven all dressed in mustard color t-shirts, but also the regular crowd of folks who might be there to shop at Tiffany and Gucci. About 30 minutes in, there was a rumble of disappointment, even as a celebrity chef arrived, posing for pictures with those a little farther ahead in line. A young woman with a bright yellow t-shirt and a sympathetic expression on her face began working the line to break the news that, according to their calculations, we wouldn't get any Skittles. Our consolation was a QR code that we could use to enter a drawing to win what we had already shown up to get.

Oh, the line held on for another 25-20 minutes, until the organizers announced that they were out of everything. Still a little loathe to lose our place in the line we had waited in for so long, we lingered, even as a couple in expensive suits walked by, loudly proclaiming how delicious the sweet and sour little yellow spheres were to all of us who would likely never know.

Crazy Odds, Part 3

 ...and we never saw a single white squirrel in Brevard.