Bluetooth

Einstein's universe may be forever expanding, but mine is both collapsing and enlarging at the same time.  The simultaneity should trouble no one, for it is perfectly in sync with the relativistic theory of middle-age, which has nothing to do with the middle, but defines itself as any point short of the end...of existence.  Testing, one-two-three.  This is the sound of a 62-year-old mastering his Bluetooth headset.  Thing is, anyone properly schooled in Grimm, will want to know who Bluetooth is, his relationship to Bluebeard, and so on.  They would be barking up the wrong technological tree, of course, but never mind.  No one knows why the tooth is blue or why the chicken crossed the road.  The point is he is there, at last in my ear, after many months on my desk.

Thing is, the last time the voice-recognition people phoned to make me an offer I couldn't refuse, I didn't refuse.  I bought the latest version of their software, one Bluetooth headset and a Philips handheld digital recorder.  The software is nothing new.  I once ran a business on it.  I write this blog on it.  It is me, and I am it.  People unfamiliar with my way of non-finger typing do not understand why voice-recognition breeds a whole new breed of error.  Instead of typos -- there's no typing -- there are 'voice-o's'.  If you are waxing Edwardian, for example, and say that someone engaged in 'fisticuffs', the voice system likely will recognize 'fizzie fucks'.  That's how it is.  Warn your editor.

Voice-recognition requires a microphone, something worn on the head and plugged into the computer's USB port.  This derives from an old military term, Un-Soldierly Behavior in Port, but never mind.  The point is that the USB requires a wire, and you want to go wireless.  You are 62 years old and you want to be a real cool no-wires kind of guy.  You want to be like all the cool guys who stride out of high-rise buildings with inexplicable scarab beetle things stuck in their ears.  You want one of these, because you think it will make you look like a bond trader.  It will.  Except that there aren't any bond traders anymore, but you can't master this fact until you master your headset.

Thing is, when the software package arrives, the promised Bluetooth arrives also, and without instructions.  The latter are deemed unnecessary, because all the cool bond traders rip their Bluetooth headsets out of the bubble wrap, stick them in their ears and go to it.  Just like my nephew knew how to work my plasma TV before I bought it.  It's a young person's thing.  If you're cool enough to be a bond trader, you work the trapeze without a net.

All of which explains why the Bluetooth microphone sat in its bubble wrap on my desk for six months before I summoned help.  Naturally, the middle-aged friend who came by could not make the thing work either.  He resorted to the web.  And gradually all was revealed.  The little flange on the side of the Bluetooth controls everything.  Off/on, connection, volume.  Press a certain way, and it works.  Press wrong, and you might as well lie down in the middle of the street.  But over time, trial by error teaches you the way of the Bluetooth button.  

And now, this thing stuck prominently in my ear, I can roll over to Peet's and act cool.  I can pretend that my discussions with the barista are actually turning up on a computer screen back home.  The whole experience is cool beyond description.  As for the Philips USB digital recorder, which purports to actually capture random thoughts at Peet's or anywhere, I plan to open the box and inspect this gadget sometime soon.  Give it a few months.

This technology leap occurred at the same time as my sister's visit.  She and her husband proved to be a marvelous catalyst in getting the two of us out.  Under siege by cancer, Marlou tends to pull up the drawbridge and wait things out behind the battlements.  We haven't been to a movie or gone for a purely non-medical pleasure drive in quite a while.  So, the four of us made it out, Susie and her husband Andy, Marlou and me.  To the Stanford Theatre.  Over the hills to the coastal town of Pescadero.  And out to the garden.

Of course, first came the garden center.  I waited in the car while my sister purchased spinach, lettuce and flower seedlings.  Back home, we prepared the beds.  My raised beds inspire raised eyebrows in Marlou this time of year.  The remnants of the cover crop and, worse, the non-composted remains of last year's broccoli and tomato vines stick out of the earth.  Marlou always wants to tidy this stuff up, and we have an annual tug-of-war.  But having given ground on all matters pertaining to carpet, I probably give off a certain vibe in the garden.  Besides, my sister proved masterly at wielding of two bags of Nurseryman's Magic Nutrient Mix.  She placed each on the bed, ripped the plastic open lengthwise, like a surgeon doing a simultaneous appendectomy and heart bypass, and proceeded to spread the contents.  Within minutes, there was barely a trace of cover crop, living or dead.  The seedlings went into the ground.  And we went inside.  But not before one final act.

I'm not sure what possessed me to buy an industrial quantity of California poppy seeds.  But I found the stuff on the Internet, and the minimal order was enough to cover half a block.  So what?  My sister loaded an old spice bottle with a shaker top and sprinkled the seeds around the unplanted bed.  She put the unused poppy seeds back in the cardboard box with last year's remnants.  And poked around the box.  Which turned up a packet of mixed poppies.  Not to mention lupine.  And some foxglove.  The seeds dated from the first Clinton Administration.  And, no, there were no jokes or even thoughts about anyone spreading their seed.  It's just that the decade and a half had passed, and I was still here, and so were the seed packets.  My sister opened them all, flung the contents over the bed, and then we went inside.  To wait for dinner.  Wait for the rain.  To see what would come up.