Daily Log
We arewere doing our rides in 1/3 or 1/2-mile laps around our pasture. Link to standings, Doctor Whooves, Major Milton, All. Daily screenshots from VTevis results page.
Thursday, November 26, 2020. Milton. Today tracked 0.46 miles, then turned off, logged 0.37 to finish. Total 100 miles! Four times around the parking lot at Stepping Stone Farm.
Over on Whatever, John Scalzi considers personal boundaries in the future, “So: far fewer hugs in general, and in particular with people I don’t know well. While we’re at it, I’ll be fine with a lot fewer handshakes as well.” Whatever: The End of Casual Hugging(?)
Below, I have reposted my discussion of greeting etiquette that first ran in May of 2013 on Rodney’s Off Topic, a second, parallel blog that I had for a while because reasons.
This is one of the few from over there that did not get cross-posted or reposted here. Eventually, I gave it up and threw everything in the same pot. [New Project, Yay or Nay?]
Was I prescient? Or a case of be careful what you ask for?
I wish I could make Añjali Mudrā my default social greeting. You may not know the term but you know the gesture: hands in front of the chest, fingers pointing upwards, palms together, slight nod with head and upper body. It can be performed silently or with the verbal greeting, “Namaste”:
The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra.[8] The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. Wiki
The namaste ritual is respectful, non-invasive, self-protective, and centering. Other greetings, not so much.
Handshake
First of all, who shakes hands? Two men meeting in a business setting? Yes. Two women meeting in a social setting? Probably not. Men and women meeting in a quasi-business setting? Who knows? Toss in Southern men and a Yankee woman and the interaction becomes a poli-variable social equation beyond my ability to resolve.
Lets say I’m in a mixed group in an undefined setting. While the alpha males are exchanging testosterone, I spend far too many seconds thinking Should I? Shouldn’t I? If I offer to shake hands, am a being cordial? Or pushy? If I don’t, am I being considerate? Or caving in to the patriarchy? Then the moment has passed and instead of making a decision one way or the other, I have stood about looking gormless.
A handshake has the advantage of being one-handed. Hand to heart would be a non-invasive substitute for this. But then I’d look as if I was center stage at the Coliseum;
“Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant” [More Wiki]
An in-house joke drawn on my farewell card by a colleague*.
Air Kisses
The gesture is so unutterably French that unless one is in France or in a French-influenced location, air kisses come off as studied, pretentious even. If you are in France, do you use the the provincial two kisses or the Parisian trois fois? Or is it the other way around? In college, we had our own version, but we were all single then. Moving on.
Americans lack the innate style to handle this gesture. We are an enthusiastic, earnest, ambitious people but suave – collectively – we ain’t. A fashion-forward Frenchwoman could pull this off even in reddest America, but then the French can pull off a whole host of behaviors that Americans should never attempt. Bless our hearts.
Air kisses can be done without contact but not without an invasion of personal space.
Hugs
Hugs should be saved as a special gesture. For instance, recognizing someone as a close friend or family member. Or to display an excess of emotion, e.g. I’ll hug everyone in sight after a horse show. In each case, a hug elevates the recipient above the normal recognition of simply sharing the same time-space coordinates.
I’ve been known to drop a spontaneous hug into a professional situation when our lives are diverging. For example, the last time I left Lexington, KY, and knew it would be a long time before I was back in a press tent.
Hugging risks entanglement. Leaning in to hug puts me off balance. If the other person moves away, I fall over. If the other person is of the energy-sucking variety, I can be pulled into the drama. A neutral gesture means I stay centered within my own space. While this contains an element of selfishness, I am of no use to you if I am flat on my butt. A firefighter who does not protect his or her safety is in no position to rescue anyone else.
In the case of the one armed bro-hug, I lack the requisite chromosome to understand the nuances. To me it says, “I love you, man – but without all that messy yin.” Also, it strikes me more as a hug of the moment than a permanent social expression.
In Sum
The palm-to-palm gesture says:
I see you.
I acknowledge your existence.
However,
I will not disrupt your personal space.
I do not require that you perform any action in return.
*”Dan”: If you’re out there and ever see this, up to what have you been? I’d love to credit your brilliant work, but don’t want to use your name without permission.
Animation shows two pleasure riders trotting past, wearing helmets! Okay, there’s some tack confusion. They are dressed with long English boots but riding in Western saddles. Not sure what the bridle counts as. The sitting trot matches the tack but not the attire. Anyway, posting would be harder to animate. Then, horses and riders jump on a carousel. Not sure what the message is there.
The point is, riding as a mainstream activity! Helmets!
A man is putting a bale of hay into his truck. BTW, he’s using hay hooks. Does anyone actually use those things instead of just grabbing the baling twine, particularly for loading a few bales into your personal truck? But I digress. In the background, a horse is being led past as mobile scenery. As the horse comes behind the truck, the horse takes a few skitter steps indicating incipient meltdown. The scene cuts away. Probably not the message they were intending to convey.
I am not alone in stalking commercials. A blogger was happy to see his favorite car at the end of this commercial. “Chevrolet doesn’t do as many broad product commercials as you would think, and frankly, most TV advertising dollars are now dedicated to trucks and crossovers. So we’ll take any TV time we can get.” CorvetteBlogger.com: [VIDEO] 2020 Corvette Featured in New Chevrolet Commercial, ‘Just Better’, by Keith Cornett.
Awareness of the outside world. Discerning wider trends via responses to the blog?
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Monthly State of the Blog [archives].
Not-meh. The blog itself is humming along. I continue to be obsessed with it and unobsessed everything else. [Blogging In A Time Of Crisis]
Meh. Meta-level commentary. Usually, I use the post on the last Saturday of the month to reflect on the blog itself. At the moment, I have no deep thoughts. The blog is doing what it does. I’m doing what I do. Not sure where the blog is going. Not sure where I want it to go. Maybe keeping me – and you – entertained is enough.
I have noticed that the comment level is down recently, both in number and length. There are one or two entries in the comment thread, which I deeply appreciate, but crowded it is not. Even the regular commenters (waves hi!) are mostly stopping by to say hi. The hits are the same, even growing slightly, so y’all are out there. Nobody’s saying very much.
I am equally reticent. Well, reticent for me. I have not been commenting on other blogs. I have not been commenting on my own blog. I am … decides not to go back for an exact count… many days behind on responding to comments.
I wonder if we’ve all collectively decided to hunker down and keep trudging. Sparkling intellectual repartee can wait until we have bandwidth for it.
Awareness of the outside world. Zoom holiday gathering with family. I survived. Well, once I realized that the invite automatically corrected for time zones, having done the math myself and arrived an hour early. I am being dragged kicking and screaming into 21st century. [Art Week, Epilogue, Virtual Blogger Meetup]
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Before our ride at Full Circle Horse Park, we turned the horses loose in the ring to give them a chance to get the ya-yas out. [The Trip]
Awareness of the outside world. Thanksgiving in the US. I am worried for my country. Too many people will, to quote a famous philosopher, “Ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass.” IMDB.
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The 2020 Magic City Half Marathon & 5K
Official date – Nov 1 to Dec 1
My date – Friday, November 20, 2020
Location – Vulcan Trail, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Time – 1:04:03
Results – 23 of 26, as of yesterday
Tracker – RaceJoy
Results
Not final. Doesn’t really matter. We all know I’ll be way in the back.
Only 26 entrants? That is highly unusual for a virtual race. Usually more people participate virtually than IRL. I suspect a delay in processing. I used the official tracker that automatically loaded my numbers. Others may be using trackers that require intervention from management. We shall see.
No map image from RaceJoy. Route is out and back. Not particularly exciting to look at. Two miles straight that way. Turn around, two miles straight back thataway. Since the 5K took me within 1/2 mile of the other end, I walked to the end to check it out. Extra footsteps logged for virtual UK walk [LEJOG]. Wouldn’t want mileage to go to waste.
Awareness of the outside world. Ventured out yesterday for mammogram & flu shot. Have you had yours?
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… If I thought he would listen.
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Word of advice. If you are trying to convince the boss that you are too lame to ride, dashing out of the stall at a trot does not help your case.
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Dude, you really don’t need to spend the entire trip around the field bending your head stare to longingly in the direction of the mounting block. We are talking 25 minutes of gentle walking out of 24 hours of your day. Enough with the long-suffering horse routine.
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Thank you for accepting being put up in the run-in shed. When Milton’s on stall rest, everyone is on stall rest. [The Replay]
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FCHP, lap 1: You are slewing sideways like a pretzel. Curling your head in like a shrimp. Shrimp pretzel! This is new. [The Trip]
Lap 2: Oh, that’s right, back when we started the Virtual Tevis, you wanted Milton to lead the first lap. Okay, tuck in behind the fuzzy gray butt. Better? [Tailgating, Virtual Tevis Style]
Lap 3: Off you go. Take the lead. I’ve been dealing with pushy Rodney for months now. I didn’t realize we had reset to layer two Rodney. My bad. [Peeling The Emotional Onion]
Virtual Brush Box 