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Sunday, March 22, 2015

Time.

I had been thinking about time recently - and how I used to be so diligent about wearing a watch.  I think it was also a matter of fashion (yes, I once actually thought about what I was wearing and how it fit into the larger world around me).  At one point I owned six watches!  Now?  I almost never wear one.  It got so frustrating to have the batteries wear down and then have to go in search of someone who would replace them. 

While I was musing away about time and watches, I received an email from someone at invaluable, an online auction house.  He wanted to know if I would be interested in joining in their 'watch' project, posting on my blog about watches.  Whoa.  While I don't, as a rule, do any link-ups with commercial sites, this was sort of, well, serendipitous.  So, I am going to do my usual randomness on watches.  I'm not sure this is what they had in mind (they have lots and lots of very nice watches), but once I get going, there's no reining me in.

My first watch was covered in fake pearl, to match the pearl-studded snap buttons on my pink and green plaid Western cowgirl shirt.  If I could have found fake pearl cowgirl boots, holster and six guns, I would have lived in them.  It was all about the style back then - when I was 9.  I was very careful with that watch and managed to keep it until my second adult move, when the box in which it was carefully packed was stolen.

Aside here - I moved often in my life.  And I moved myself 98% of the time.  Almost every move cost me a box.  Apparently, there were nefarious forces at work.  Even when I moved to the Netherlands, customs managed to 'forget' to put one of my boxes back in the container.  That is how I ended up with a china service for 8 with no dinner plates.

After that, I gradually accumulated six watches - a gold Omega watch, a silver watch, a watch with a fake black alligator skin band, two Swatch watches, and an old wind-up watch that I found in the bottom of a box of buttons I got for a dollar at an estate sale.  I was at the peak of my fashion-ness.  That was also the era in which I wore pink platform shoes with sparkles in the three-inch soles.  And hot pants.  It didn't get more fashionable than that.   How things have changed....

When I worked in the City, my boss wore a Rolex and so did his wife.  He was always buying her lovely gifts - emerald earrings from Tiffany's, 18th Century oil paintings of dogs from Christie's of London (he'd come in early in the morning, bid over the phone, then leave me a message telling me to work out how to get the paintings from London to the City.)  I got to toddle over to the Rolex cleaning suite, hand over her watch and wait in the darkened, plushy waiting room until I was summoned over to collect it.  To me?  It looked like a watch.  A very nice watch, but a watch just the same. 

And, honestly, how much do we need our watches to do for us?  Take our pulse, track our mileage, weigh our protein, assist us with our speed-dating?  I will wear a watch if I have to keep track of time.  Otherwise, time is rather a fuzzy thing.  I am constantly guessing what time it is (most often, wrongly).  I have two (working) watches now.  One is an Orient - a self-winding watch.  The other is a watch that clips to a belt loop, so I can look down and check how far behind I am.... 

The timepiece that I rely on the most, however, is my inner clock.  It routinely wakes me up between 3:55 to 4:14 AM.  Sometimes it runs fast, sometimes slow.  But at least I don't lose it...


32 comments:

DFW said...

I guess we all develop inner watches as we get older. I remember when I was about 25, an aunt (who was a nurse & had to be at the hospital by 6:45a) tell me that she never owned an alarm clock in her life. I didn't understand then, but do now for sure. I have about 6 watches myself but only wear my last 30 year gift from my company (pick your prize) which is a very expensive Tag Heuer. All the others have lost battery but are still good items.

Carolyn said...

I still wear a watch whenever I leave the homestead. Granted, this isn't very often, but I feel naked without it. Around the homestead? Time? The only time keeping device I use is the sun and the screaming of the goats because it's close to supper time. Oh, wait a second, Pickles and Lira scream ALL the time. Guess that timepiece doesn't keep very accurate time.

jaz@octoberfarm said...

my inner watch wakes me up at the same time!

Michelle said...

I like watches, but am unwilling to spend what the ones which appeal to me cost. So I've gone to using my iPhone as my timepiece, and wear my work-issued FitBit on my wrist.

Susan said...

I wore pale blue panty hose with my pink platform shoes and a pink and blue mini skirt, fortunately no photograhic record, the memory is bad enough.

MrsDuncanMahogany said...

That's mighty early! Even I, who rises at 0500 hours, thinks it an ungodly hour for anyone....

Tyche's Minder said...

I've got a box somewhere filled with old watches with dead batteries. Before I gave up watches altogether, it got to where it was cheaper and easier to just go to Target and buy another one than to track down someone who could change the batteries. (Probably because I moved a lot too and Targets are easier to find in a new place than the watch repair guy apparently.) Now I have my phone. The battery runs down and I just recharge it. Problem solved.

Leigh said...

Funny, but I don't wear a watch anymore either. Just doesn't seem all that important. When it's feeding time, the critters let me know! I kinda think batteries don't last as long as they used to. Poorer quality everywhere we look, so some things just aren't worth it anymore.

Sue said...

The last time I wore a watch was the day my first husband and I separated.
Watches bring back a flood of bad memories for me. He kept me on such a strict schedule. And lord help me if I took even 5 minutes longer to do something than he felt it should have taken.
It ook me YEARS to learn how to slow down and realize I wasn't "on the clock".

I never EVER want to go through that again.

Buttons Thoughts said...

Love this post especially the ROLEX cleaning:) I do not wear a watch either. Hug B

Mama Pea said...

Oh, my. This post and the comments already made prompt me to write oodles regarding the subject. But this morning I don't have time. (Hahaheehohohoheehee!)

Sandy Livesay said...

Susan,

Excuse me, do you have the time?? Just teasing........
I've stopped wearing a watch for sometime now and rely on the sunlight and of course my husband's watch, lol

Janice Grinyer said...

I wear a watch for others people's time...being late because Im a feral person just doesnt cut it with the general populace, and living in an isolated area makes one desperate for others peoples time when you need it LOL

That being said, I have a stainless steel bulova with a sapphire face and I cant destroy the thing. Its like kryptonite on my wrist...

Susan said...

DFW - I have almost always been an early riser and a very light sleeper. If I ever set an alarm, I wake up before it goes off. I always thought that having to wake to an alarm would ruin my day..

Susan said...

Carolyn - I used to think that I would rise when the roosters crowed. But the dang things crow off and on all night.

Susan said...

Jaz - We're in sync!!

Susan said...

Michelle - I am impressed that you have a work-issued FitBit! That is so cool!

Susan said...

Susan - Oh, boy. We must have had the same stylist. And I am, too, so very glad there is no photographic evidence of my 'style' in those days.

Susan said...

Mrs DM - It comes in handy during late spring and summer - but not so much in the dead of winter.

Susan said...

TM - I just discovered that my local Target will change a battery in my watch. I could probably do it myself but, as with auto workings, I refuse to learn. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Susan said...

Leigh - I think when we work with livestock and land, we learn to read time by noises and light. You are so right - even my rather expensive Orient lost its little strap band within two weeks. I have been hunting for a black rubber band... :)

Susan said...

Sue - I can relate. It takes ages to get past that kind of abuse. I am still working on a few things myself. I really can't wait to retire so that I don't have to worry about time. As much.

Susan said...

Buttons - It was so overwhelming, that I whispered everything to the repair frontman - and he whispered back. I stuck out like a sore thumb in the waiting room, as I was the only one with knitting! :)

Susan said...

Mama Pea - HAHAHAHA! Snort.

Susan said...

Sandy - Heehee! There you go - there's no reason to have a two-watch household!

Susan said...

JG - Wow! That sounds like a watch with super powers! Can you time warp? I usually am so worried about being late that I am way early. I don't think that feral people should have to worry about anyone's time... :)

Florida Farm Girl said...

I feel undressed without my watch. It's a Seiko and I've had it for a couple of years. It's one of those motion wind things and so far its worked like a charm.

Michelle said...

I think so, too! I had a cheap Skechers activity tracker, but the FitBit is much nicer (it stays on, and gives much better info). The only problem is, I now KNOW how little I sleep at night, and it makes me feel even tireder than I already did. :-/

Michelle said...

I always had my batteries changed at Walmart; they did it for free when you bought your battery there – and the battery was pretty cheap.

Michelle said...

Waking to an obnoxious alarm sound DOES ruin a day. We have a Bose radio/CD player, and I have a lovely piano CD in it. Sometimes I listen to it as I'm going to sleep, because it is very soothing, and it is what comes on as an "alarm" as well. Nothing about it is jarring; I love it

Dave said...

My job is so time driven I have to wear a watch....

Jenyfer Matthews said...

When I was a child I desperately wanted to wear a watch but no matter what watch I wore, it would stop. I was a watch killer. I don't know how many I sent back to Timex for a replacement before I realized it wasn't the watches - it was me.

I seem to have outgrown that tendency so I wore watches every day in my late teens, 20s and much of my 30s. I had quite a collection. Inevitably all the batteries would run out at the same time. Once cell phones became common I just looked at that for the time. And once you stop wearing a watch you realized that even if don't have a phone handy there are clocks everywhere - on my computer, the stove, the cable box, my car... Just try to get away from a clock without actually taking a long walk in the woods!