Location, location, location

On Friday, an message from Google Maps Timeline popped up in my gmail. Completely unsolicited. But apparently I had unwittingly opted into something called Location History.

This Timeline email is an automated summary of places you’ve been, which may be fewer this month due to the COVID-19 response in your area.

Ya think?

I really didn't need Google to let me know that, during the month of August, I spent every waking and sleeping hour in the friendly confines of the City of Boston. Which makes me wonder why they accompanied this tidbit with a street scene of Cambridge. Were they foreshadowing my September travels when I have, indeed, already walked over to Cambridge on one of my daily jaunts.

I really didn't need Google to let me know that I'd walked by the statue of the a 19th century Argentinian president - Domingo Faustino Sarmiento - on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. I walk by that statue a couple of times a week. 

And why'd they pick that particular statue? There are a lot of statues on the Comm Ave Mall. And if I were going to rank order those statues in terms of my personal interest, and relevance to someone from Massachusetts, I'd have put this one at the very bottom, behind Alexander Hamilton, John Glover, Patrick Collins, William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel Eliot Morrison, Abigail Adams, Phyllis Wheatley, Lucy Stone, and Leif Eriksson. (That's not my ranking, by the way. It's the order in which the statues appear, starting at Arlington on out.)

If Google knew me as well as they think they do, they'd have put up a picture of the Samuel Eliot Morrison statue. 

Morrison was an historian and Harvard professor. When I first moved to Beacon Hill in the 1970's, I lived in a studio apartment around the corner from his quite grand townhouse, and I used to see him walking around. 

President Sarmiento's connection to Boston (let alone to me) is a bit lighter. His claim to local fame is that he founded Argentina's school system and modeled it after the Boston school system set up by Horace Mann. A statue of Horace Mann would have made more sense, but the Argentinians gifted Boston with the statue, and you don't look a gift statue in the mouth. Which is about all you can see of Sarmiento's face in the photo that Google provided me with. 

My timeline also informed me that I'd been to a Panera and to Whole Foods. Well, yes and yes. I did get a takeout sandwich at Panera a couple of weeks ago. And I did make at least one trip to Whole Foods. (Just not the one whose picture Google gmailed me.) But why not Roche Brothers, the grocery store that I frequent. And I do mean frequent. I must be in there 3 or 4 time a week. 

What. Ever.

Anyway, it just seems like such useless non-information to have. Useless and incorrect.

According to my timeline, I spent 31 hours walking during August, and walked 91 miles. 

WRONG!

Thanks to Fitbit, I know that I averaged over 5 miles per day on foot during the month - those months calibrated to Google Maps info, so I know I'm not kidding myself. And those more than 5 miles per day took longer than an hour a day to walk.

Google also let me know that I traveled 5 miles in a car. That would be the day my brother took me and eight bags full of donated clothing over to Goodwill. And I am totes grateful to have those eight bags full of clothing out of my living room, where they have been languishing since right before the pandemic shutdown. I had them - mostly clothing from my sister Trish - poised and ready to go to St. Francis House when they stopped accepting clothing donations. So, there they sat. 

But I didn't need Google to let me know I'd been in a car - oooh, aaah - during August. 

Seriously, what sort of self-absorbed, compulsive person needs to know their travel timeline for a given month? Not that I'm not plenty self-absorbed and compulsive, but Jeez Louise. 

It's particularly depressing to get this missive when you're stuck sheltering in place.

Needless to say, I've turned off Location History, even though September promises to be a richer, more interesting month, location timeline-wise. I've already been to Cambridge. (Mary Chung's is open for takeout!) Down to Wellfleet on the Cape. And Truro. Plus there are still a few weeks left to go in the month. Maybe I'll step toe in Somerville. Or Brookline. Maybe I'll get in a car and go somewhere. Maybe I'll take a cruise of Boston Harbor. (Masked and outside, of course.) 

Oh, the places I'll go! I just won't be letting Google in on my whereabouts.