Pacer app rabbit hole

 In an effort to bring me and her dad kicking and screaming into 2012, our daughter, The Girl recently bought us iPhones.
 It’s been perplexing on a lot of levels. Never being an iAnything sort of family, this seemed like answering the ringing in my purse with an actual apple.
 I was thrilled with the lady who lived in my phone, and who utimately lived to serve me by alerting me when to pull the meatloaf out of the oven before the smoke detector went off. Isn’t that what all moms need; a very overqualified oven timer?
 Siri and I became fast friends, even though I was late to the voice-activated party.
 She quipped, “No problem,” when I thanked her for finding out how old Jon Hamm is, and then doing the math to figure out our not-as-creepy-as-you-think age difference.
 She didn’t even make fun of me when I asked her, “What flights are overhead?” like I was running late and thought I might catch a plane at 25,000 feet.
 Siri addresses me by name and makes me feel very important. She understands my urgency to know what movies are playing at the Cinelux, and what time the Starbucks inside the Safeway on First Street closes.
 But as interesting as Siri is, I was even more enthralled with something that may come as a total surprise to anyone who knows of my love of peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.
 Pacer is a neat little app that in full color, lets you know that even though you took 3,500 steps today, you are still classified as “Sedentary”. I know, because even after walking up to five laps around the office with an office buddy in far better shape than I, in between actually working, I still managed to only rack up 3,500 steps.
 I felt like I ran a marthon the next day, when I topped out at 4,332 steps.
 By the way,“Siri, where’s my medal?”
 Unfortunately, I had only acheived “Lightly Active” staus.
It’s the only thing alive that knows my true weight. It also calculated that since I am a mere 5 feet, 2 inches, my strides are 36 inches long.
 I knew that I was seriously invested in this app, and clearly, my health, when I ran – okay fine, walked faster than normal – back to my desk to grab my phone for the walk, 26 steps, across the office, to grab a donut out of the signature pink box. I was comforted, knowing that round trip, that meant a total of 52 steps!
 I’m indebted to a co-worker who kindly pointed out that just lying in bed for 24 hours, you can burn up to 500 calories, just with the simple involuntary act of resipration. But this is not about calories for me, which is odd; I get that. It’s about walking and seeing those steps tally up.
Quick trip to the bathroom? Yup, brought my phone. Quick jaunt to the mailbox? Youbetcha.
 This thing goes everywhere with me.
 I am determined to find out what the next level is after “Lightly Active”. If it’s “Slightly More Lightly Active”, I’m going to be so annoyed. I’m not just going to walk 4,333 steps and get nothing out of it, although, I do think that might finally win Siri’s approval.
 Email Kelly Sinon at

sk*****@ao*.com