Wrist Watches and Classy Salesman

 

Before the pandemic I could just walk into the jewelry store to get fresh batteries put in watches---that is after looking into their security camera, pressing a button and after I’ve passed their look-and-see test. Yup, old woman not carrying a Glock 43 and an empty duffle bag, she can come in. The place is near my house and is a fancy-schmancy store that sells high-end stuff and probably has over a hundred Rolexes on display and a couple dozen Audermars Piguits. I don’t have high end watches in need of batteries but I do/did have watches I don’t want scratched by someone who just started working at K-Mart or wherever else you can buy batteries and get them installed. I’m down to the last two watches from my husband’s collection that are going on e-Bay. They are vintage Mickey Mouse watches that’ll I’ll probably get shy of $250 each. $500 wouldn’t cover a faction of the taxes on most of the watches they sell at Fancy Schmancy's.

For the first time, because of the pandemic, I had to leave the battery-needy watches, get a claim ticket and I’ll pick them up next week instead of waiting for them like I’ve done in the past. Fine by me. The place makes me nervous because it’s been hit by armed, daytime robbers at least five times since I’ve been living near-by. Maybe the owners don’t mind having a gun aimed point-blank at their heads but I’m not wanting to pee my pants that way. If I’m going to pee my pants in public---not saying I want to or ever have---I’d rather it to be because I am laughing uncontrollably.

Yes, I know other lesser quality jewelry stores will change batteries but this place also buys gold and when I dropped the watches off I sold them the last of my husband’s gold coin collection. He didn’t have many gold pieces to begin with---five-six, I lost track---but it feels good to have them gone. It did, however, give me pause thinking the world is going to become a dystopian and maybe I should have kept them to sew in the lining of that last coat I’ll own when I’m wandering around the bleak landscape that was once America, former home of free and brave. Can you tell, post-apocalypse books have been catching my interest since the pandemic? 

A therapist could probably explain my new attraction to books like that but all I know is there is something comforting about knowing life will go on even if Trump causes a nuclear disaster or a world-wide depression starts picking us off one-by-one as we die waiting in soup lines. In the end I decided that gold coins would not be the commodity that a dystopic world would trade in…it will be cell phone batteries. Everywhere I go people have cell phones attached to their ears. No more polite conversations between strangers. We back up when they come into our six foot bubble and talk into our cell phones like they're going to save us from real-time human interactions because they do. Dating in 2020 must be a bitch. “When this pandemic is over I’m going to remove your mask slow and easy and kiss you hard and fast.” Or as author Keri Beevis said in a meme, "If the conona-19 virus doesn't take you out, can I?"

Ohmygod, I need to lighten up the post and I think I’ll do that by explaining the canning jar full of watches up above. That pint of watch faces---27 in all---is practically every watch I’ve ever owned since my first one in the '50s. Unlike my husband’s watches mine were mostly cheap, throw-a-ways and I had planned to group them up in three logical lots to sell on e-Bay but many had bands that were so old they were literally falling apart. So I took a page out a fellow blogger’s playbook and stuffed the watch faces in a jar. Thanks to Dawn, at the Bohemian Valhalia I now have five jars full of pared down collections: one quart jar has a 100 wooden nickels, another is full of buttons and I have plans to fill up a two quart, wide mouth jar with Cracker Jack toys. I just have to get past the fact that it took me years to sort and date all those plastic and metal toys before I’m ready to undo it all to gain a smaller footprint to display them. I’ve already filled a two quart jar up with bits and pieces my husband and I picked up out West on what I consider the happiest day of my life, but I’m pretty sure I’ve shared that story already.  

While sorting through my box of old jewelry I came across a sterling silver ring that I remembered getting after seeing The King and I back in the ‘50s when I was a teenager. It’s stamped ‘Siam’ which is the country that was renamed ‘Thailand’ in 1939. I put it on and haven’t taken if off since. It’s got two fish on the front which, of course, I researched because that’s what I do for fun and I found out the fish symbolizes wealth, prosperity, strength and bravery. I forgot I was wearing it when I went into the jewelry store yesterday. Normally I haul out and wear the only good piece of jewelry I own---my wedding bands---when I go to the jewelry store because I want to look like have something of quality. The people who work there, however, are trained to treat everyone with equal respect and warmth whether you’re dressed in Woman Within clothes like me or high fashion designer duds. Wouldn’t it be nice if the whole world adopted that same attitude? We could have licked so many of our social ills by now if we did. ©

 

Fitness Trackers, Telling Time and Moving Forward

It doesn’t take much to make me happy. $32.00 to be precise. That’s what my new Fitfort Tracker watch cost which is considerably less that the Fitbit tracker it replaced that is selling for $149.00 unless you can find one on sale. The Fitfort finally came from Amazon---their two day, prime shipping went out the window during the pandemic---and I didn’t expect much for the price, but I was happily surprised at how easy it was to pair with my cell phone and to calibrate the blood pressure mode against my cuff style monitor. Once that was done, it’s shocking how easy and accurate it is to take your blood pressure through-out the day. Three touches to the screen and I know that my blood pressure, at this very moment, is 124/82. My internist will be pleased. Every time I’d go in for my by-annuals he’d grab my wrist and check the data on my old Fitbit until I finally got smart and printed him a readout of a week’s worth of information. Not sure if I can do that with this watch but it has functions I haven’t even begun to explore like a camera mode. Why would anyone want a camera mode on a watch unless you're a secret CIA agent like my ultra-ego likes to pretend?

What took me the longest to do with this tracker is to figure out how to tell time. One of the three time face choices showed a 15 over a 30 which confused the heck out of me. It wasn’t until a day later, looking at the faces again with one showing a 10 over 08 that it finally dawned on me that it was saying 10:08 and the 15 over 30 had to be military time. Duh! I’d rather have a digital style face or an old fashioned dial style but unlike Fitbit, the Fitfort doesn’t have those choices. At least the numbers are big enough to read without my glasses in the middle of the night. Fitbits sleep mode is much better which gives your rem, deep, light and awake time in percentages but I get too obsessed with sleep tracking so the lesser quality dashboard readings are probably good for me, will help break me of my obsession. The only other thing I like better with Fitbit is their very active user’s message board where you can get answers to just about anything. Fitfort doesn’t have a website or message board but for an extra $5.00 you can get a phone number that supposedly gives you 24/7 help. I paid it but don’t think I’ll ever need it. 

Back in the '90s my husband and I were kind of---what should I say---enamored with watches. Mine are mostly cheapies with plastic bands and faces featuring Monopoly, Gone with the Wind, Mona Lisa, Van Gogh, a paint palette and on and on with arty-farty themes. My husband had a lot of cartoon characters his favorites being Snoopy and Mickey Mouse. His tastes in watches ran from those you got out of cereal boxes back in the day to what I’d call expensive in the $300 range. I gave away his favorite watch after he died to the son-we-wish-we-had. But the others I’m getting close to listing on e-Bay, mostly grouped up and sold in lots minus a few to include individually in junk drawer lots. I really enjoy selling junk drawer lots. I do them by theme---World’s Fairs, Cowboys and Indians, radio premiums, auto related just a name a few I’ve put together. I’ve seen people list mystery boxes of stuff on e-Bay and I wish I knew who buys them and if they are happy with their surprise purchases. Not that I have an interesting selling or buying stuff that way, I'm just curious to know who spends $50 to $200 on something only described as "could be electronics, coins, toys or brand names things." No photos, no indication of how large the boxes are or if its new or used stuff.

I often wonder what I’ll collect once my display boxes and showcases are bare. I’d like to think I’ll just collect memories but I know I can’t hold on to them without visual clues to help pin the experience in my brain. Ya, I have day planners and blog posts to help me remember but I’m more visual than cerebral. If I didn’t know better I’d think I’ve got some Native American blood in my veins because I go through life metaphorically picking up peddles and feathers for the leather pouch I wear around my neck---souvenirs of the places I’ve been. My husband’s passion for collecting was more straight forward. He started out trying to buy back his childhood that two tornadoes, ten years apart, took away and dumped all over the county.

On the pandemic front: My lawn care service showed up and my yard looks great. I was able to score a 12 roll package of toilet paper, the first I’ve found since mid-March. And I’ve got an appointment to get my haircut June 1^st plus a house cleaning appointment the last week of May. That same week I’ve got a rescheduled eye doctor appointment lined up. The only other reschedules I’m waiting on are for a dental appointment, an infusion treatment for my bones, oil change appointment, a vet check and teeth cleaning for Levi and a guy to paint a ceiling. All of which will probably get backed up into July. I also got an email from the continuum care campus where construction has resumed. They’re going to have a new timeline figured out in a couple of weeks which will go a long way towards setting my world right again. And I’ve been shopping face masks online since it’s going to be the “fashion” accessory of the summer. Roll with the punches, isn't that what they say? Roll then get back up and start punching back. ©

October with Mickey Mouse

It’s October already. Cider and donuts. Cooler nights. Birds in flight, the south calling them to their winter homes. I see their flocks swooping in the sky above the river and it makes me sad. Sad that summer is ending. I hate fall. I know that’s almost sacrilegious to say and I do get the whole attraction to the colorful display of Mother Nature changing her dress from a palette of greens to a palette of rusts, oranges and yellows. But then she makes us work to get ready for winter. Those leaves that were so pretty while still attached to the trees have to be raked up. Those cool nights bringing frost to the pumpkins and killing the last of the perennials means our flower beds need to be worked to prepare them for winter. And while I no longer have to take window screens down and put up storm windows here or at the houses of the elderly people we helped in our journey through life, the idea that fall brings too much work is imprinted deeply within me. 

It occurred to me this week that I’ve got too many irons in the pot, so to speak, but as a bi-product of being too busy I haven’t had time to feel that illusive loneliness and discontent that plagues me from time to time. If you could see my calendar you’d discover every day filled in. The Handyman Connection guy filled up a couple of hours this week, here to put new seals around two exhaust vents on the roof. Now I have two ceilings that need repainting because those vents were leaking although not long enough to do any serious damage. But painting those ceilings will have to wait because: 1) I want to make sure the repairs solved the issue and those ceiling stains don’t grow over the next few months, and 2) I’m thinking of changing the wall color in my master bedroom and bath since I’ll have to hire a painter and I doubt he'll be able to match what's on my bathroom walls. In my rush to purge stuff over the past few months I got rid of the paint I could have used to touch up my bathroom and porch ceilings. Isn’t that always the way. The minute you let go of something, you need it. 

Another afternoon this past week was spent at my car’s service department because of a recall that “has to be done sooner rather than later” but no one could tell me what the recall fixed except for it involved a computer update that took an hour. Great. Computer updates at home mean changes that aren’t always welcome. Now we have to do the same with our vehicles? I like to pretend computers aren’t controlling what goes on underneath the hood of my Chevy Trax. Recalls like this give me visions of the car freezing up and the screen on the dashboard flashing a warning telling me to call a (scam) phone number. “Don’t turn off your car!”---let it sit there in traffic until you can wire us some money. 

My husband collected Mickey Mouse watches. I got them out this week to get them ready to put on e-Bay. Sounds simple but it’s not. We’re talking a dozen watches that have to have the stainless steel break-away bands removed (he worked around too many machines and heavy equipment to safely wear regular watchbands or rings) and the original bands and boxes needed to be matched up plus they’ll have to be tested to make sure the watches still work. His oldest Mickey Mouse watch is from the ‘40s but most are from the ‘70s and ‘80s. They were not the cheap, gift shop variety watches but only three will be well worth the effort to sell. Anyone who says selling on e-Bay is easy has never sold collectibles. The process goes like this: Clean an item, research it, photograph it, pack and weigh it, write up a description, list it and answer emails from people who don’t believe it when you write in the listings, “No Buy-it-Now Option!” When the auction ends you wait for payment then print a label and take the package to the post office.

I took two of the watches to a jewelry store today to get the backs off because I didn’t have the finger dexterity to do it. The closest place is a high-end store that sells Rolex’s and diamonds and they used to get robbed on a regular basis. Now, they trap you in between two doors for a photo opt before they buzz you into the store. So I put on what I call my ‘understated rich girl outfit’ because I was afraid they wouldn’t buzz me in if I was wearing my normal Kmart grade clothing. I’d been to the place a few years ago to sell some gold and before I got out of the place I spent the money they paid me on a pair of diamond studs. Those earrings were part of my rich girl outfit along with a brand-new coat I’ve dubbed my Steve Bannon hunting jacket paired with my only cashmere sweater. (Old but not much of it showed under the coat.) They let me in. They charged three times more than the local box store would have to put in new batteries, but I didn’t have to worry about some snot-nosed clerk messing up the watches by prying when they should have been twisting. While I was there I spotted a pair of white gold and pearl earrings, asked the price---nothing in the place is marked---and I made a mental note to come back and buy them after a couple of watches sell. In the meantime, Mickey Mouse and I will be spending time together this October. ©