On Monday I got to spend time with my daughter Emmy, mainly hanging out at her house and taking Winston for a walk. I was meeting a group to go for a hike at Mission Peak that evening, so in the afternoon I headed to Fremont and found a great spot to get some work done in the solarium at the Fremont library. What a treat to sit in a room with tomatoes and beets growing while listening to the background noises at the library – it’s such a great combination! I met up with the Mom’s Adventure Club, a Facebook group that I had been part of for a few years, but never had an opportunity to attend any of their events. It was the perfect evening for a hike up Mission Peak, a slight breeze making it a little cooler which was much appreciated as the first half of the hike was in direct sun before we got to the shade of a grove of trees. We didn’t make it up to the peak, as we realized we would miss the sunset and would have to navigate our return in the dark. Our reward was a splendid rainbow of a sunset as we wound our way back down. It was a wonderful group of women to hike with and I’m so glad I got to go on the hike and get to know them.
Tuesday was a day of errands – grocery shopping, picking up a library book and photos. Mom and I went to the Genius Bar at the Apple store to see if we could find out if the fall detection feature on her Apple Watch was actually working. She had a pretty severe fall which wasn’t detected and we tried to simulate fais with the watch which weren’t detect either. I was frustrated with our experience since we had been very specific when we signed up for help about the issue we had, but the person who was assigned to help us out had had no experience with Apple Watches and fall detection, so he basically ended up looking up the exact same information that I had and confirming what we already knew – that we had it all set up correctly. The associate who helped us was a nice guy, and checked everything out. As far as we could tell there was nothing wrong with the fall detection setup or her watch or iPhone. Since the watch is still under warranty we have the option of sending it in to have Apple check it out and make sure everything‘s OK, which I think we will plan to do. We left the store both a bit shellshocked from the constant noise – I don’t know how anyone can work in that kind of chaos. When we arrived we were directed to seats at the back of the store where someone was giving a lesson on how to set up a new iPhone using an amplified microphone. Added to that was the sound of the Genius Bar staff helping out customers, the sales staff helping people purchase new items, and finally the background music. I felt like this constant noise made our session last much longer than it needed to as we had to ask to have information repeated. If the Apple Store at least had a plexiglass wall around the area where they do demonstrations it would cut down on some of the noise. Looking around the store, it appeared that about half of the people being assisted were over the age of 65, so you would think given those demographics they would make modifications to the store layout, so that it was more conducive for an older crowd. This is why I have avoided going into the Apple Store whenever possible – too much going on (I’m getting too old for that crap!).
At home it was much more relaxing. I helped mom tie up her flourishing tomato plants, and spent time on my gap year guide. At the hike on Monday night I was encouraged to write an article about my experiences, so I also started doing that. It was an appropriate time to write it as today, August 1, is the first anniversary of the start of my gap year! I can’t believe it has already been a year – and what a year it has been – fantastic travels, wonderful people, and lots of learning about myself. Here’s to Year 2!!
