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:
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.
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.
my inner watch wakes me up at the same time!
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.
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.
That's mighty early! Even I, who rises at 0500 hours, thinks it an ungodly hour for anyone....
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.
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.
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.
Love this post especially the ROLEX cleaning:) I do not wear a watch either. Hug B
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!)
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
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...
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..
Carolyn - I used to think that I would rise when the roosters crowed. But the dang things crow off and on all night.
Jaz - We're in sync!!
Michelle - I am impressed that you have a work-issued FitBit! That is so cool!
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.
Mrs DM - It comes in handy during late spring and summer - but not so much in the dead of winter.
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.
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... :)
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.
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! :)
Mama Pea - HAHAHAHA! Snort.
Sandy - Heehee! There you go - there's no reason to have a two-watch household!
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... :)
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.
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. :-/
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.
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
My job is so time driven I have to wear a watch....
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!
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