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Eyeglass Hit

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Lordie! So yesterday I dropped $830 on new visionwear. As a practical matter, I ended up with four new pairs of eyeglasses, so it’s not as drastic as it sounds. But still…like I had $830 just laying around the house?

Figure to make up for it by cutting $100 out of the monthly discretionary budget: for the next eight months, instead of having the usual $1100 to spend, the budget will have only $1000. That makes it seem like not such a big deal.

Except, of course, that most months I do spend all of $1100, and rather little of that is for indulgences. With every stitch in the house, including my underwear forgodsake, falling off my body, I do need to buy some clothing that fits.

But I think I can get away with it. There’s now plenty of stuff to wear while the weather’s relatively cool. And when I was wearing size 10 jeans, I discovered that I could convert the size 12 Costco specials into cut-offs and they fit just fine. So now that I’m down to size 8 in the Costco marvels, I should be able to turn the size 10 jeans into shorts for this summer. But that’s it: no new clothing  purchases between now and next October!

Managed to keep the average price down to under $200/pair (the progressives were significantly more than that!) by recycling old frames. The (very expensive) rimless frames I bought back when I had a job, will, I’m told, probably last a lifetime — all one has to do is reattach the temple and nose pieces to new lenses. Also, though, I had a couple of extravagantly old frames, from way, way way back in another lifetime. These were regular wire-rimmed frames, one from Costco and one from a private optometrist — the latter, a very nice pair. The lenses in the two antiques were even more out-dated than my regular glasses (…you realize…if I bought the fancy rimless frames when I was employed, then they are at least five years old —  but in fact they’re older than that).

Because I now can see neither in the distance nor in a close range (unless it’s held right up to my nose), and because of the amount of close work I do on computers, I need a whole goddamn vision system! And thanks to my stupidity in losing my very best pair of distance shades, I ended up having to replace a ton of hardware in the new prescriptions:

• 1 pair of progressives, for navigating grocery stores, classrooms, and other public places where I might need to see both in the distance and to read things
• 1 pair of clear distance lenses, for night driving
• 1 pair of extra-dark sunglass lenses, for day driving, neighborhood walks, and hikes
• 1 pair of computer-monitor-distance lenses, for working and for navigating the house and yard

In the depths of the Old Glasses Morgue, I found a pair of up-close glasses that still work nicely for reading hard copy — i.e., for  things that are closer than a computer monitor but not within six inches of my face.

All of which is to say that to get around in my world and see what on earth I’m doing, I need six pairs of glasses.

You doubt it?

• I can’t see to work on the computer in the progressives, because I can’t spend hour on hour on hour with my head tipped back, peering down my nose.

• Progressives don’t work for reading newspapers, either, because you can’t see even one full page, to say nothing of a double-truck spread. Often you can’t even read a small article without having to move your head and peer down your nose.

• I can’t drive in the progressives in the daytime, because they’re not sunglasses.

• I can’t drive in the progressives at night, because the distance portion is not strong enough, leaving me essentially night-blind.

• I can’t drive in the computer glasses, because they’re not strong enough to decipher road signs.

• The Arizona sun is so glaring, especially in the summer, that it actually hurts to drive or walk around in it without sunglasses — and, as a practical matter, that powerful sunlight and UV light indeed do damage your eyes over time. You’re crazy not to use a good pair of shades here.

That doesn’t count the nonprescription shades and the nonprescription readers for use with contact lenses. And right now I am wearing the contacts, because I can see a lot better through them.

Whatever was going on with the eyeball (and continues to go on, as of this morning) caused some kind of damage. Through just the right eye, things look kinda hazy, the effect one gets when peering down the street through thick smog. The sky’s a funny color through that eye, too — brown-smogged, one might say. Now, the air here in Phoenix is indeed very dirty during the winter, so there may objectively be some smoggification. But I think it’s mighty peculiar that the effect is visible only through one eye…

At any rate, until I get the Vision System updated, I’m falling back on the contacts, which are a hellacious nuisance…but not, possibly, any more of a nuisance than juggling six pairs of glasses, no one pair of which delivers decent vision.

ooohh well...

$$ Flying Out the Window (and back in…)

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Glasses ApostleQuiet around here just now. The only drama playing these days at the Funny Farm is the perennial Battle of the Checkbook. Lordie! I’ve spent so much money this month that I’ve lost count, and am about to spend some more, on glasses!

About eleven grand remained in the bank at the end of 2013. Of that, $7,700 will have to go to 2014’s property tax, house insurance, car insurance, and Medigap coverage. For 2014, instead of doling out savings in quarterly chunks as I did last year, I decided to draw down enough to cover the entire year’s needs in one swell foop. Figuring on teaching only two sections this year, English-major math suggests I’ll need about 15 grand from savings to supplement Social Security and the minimum-wage adjunct income. I hope.

So: bye-bye Vanguard fund!

Hello cash.

Meanwhile, since I made that calculation I picked up two other community college sections. So far, this spring’s magazine-writing course has only six students — Heavenly Gardens classes make at ten or twelve — but another eight weeks of registration remain for that section, so there’s a good chance it’ll pick up another few. The other extra course is a summer Eng. 102 section, which of course will be packed. So even if neither this spring’s nor next fall’s magazine-writing things makes, I’ll still end up with two sections. Every maga-writing course, then, is pure gravy.

At any rate, with all that booty in the account, for the nonce there’s enough money to cover the current costs.

BUT…the current costs are gonna have to be reined in! Every time I turn around, here’s another $125 or $150 bill. Though I got a smokin’ deal on the clothes I picked up on the latest run to My Sister’s Closet, for example (three very nice shirts, one of them still bearing its Chico’s price tag, a pair of Brooks Brothers slacks, a Dana Buchman skirt, a pair of Eileen Fisher slacks…not bad), it still was $138. I’ve gone out to eat a couple of times, had to stock up on groceries and dog meat, had to pay $50 for the vision assessment part of the late, great ophthalmalogical adventure, and on and on and endlessly on.

So, even though I haven’t calculated the damage to the penny, I know very well that I’ve way overspent this month’s budget. The extra teaching income should cover shortfalls like this, but…gosh, I sure do hate spending money I haven’t earned yet!

Yesterday I put my contact lenses in — haven’t worn them in forever, mostly because contacts are a nuisance. Especially when you’re swimming a lot, as I did this summer as part of the weight-loss campaign. As usual, I can see SO much better through contacts! Even when my glasses aren’t old and scratched, as they are now, contacts really open up the world.

So now that I have a prescription, I’m going down to the Contact Lady to buy a ton of the things (worn every day, one pair lasts three or four weeks). At the end of the year, I’ll buy another lifetime supply, by way of putting off having to pony up another 50 or 60 bucks for another pointless eye exam.

That notwithstanding, I need at least two new pairs of glasses: a new pair for distance and a new pair of progressives. I actually need a third pair: distance shades, since like the regular progressives, the distance progressive shades are pretty ridiculous, but if push comes to shove I can get by with the progressive shades. And right now I’m getting by OK with the up-close glasses. WhatEVER happened to my eye the other day finally seems to be settling down, and I can see through the close-up prescription almost as well as before.

The distance glasses: not so much. The progressives are even more annoying than before — apparently some sort of permanent damage occurred in the right eye, no matter what the doctor imagines. It’s so smoggy here right now that it’s hard to tell, but still: no question the haze is thicker when viewed through the right eye than through the left.

I should drive up to Yarnell, where the air is cleaner, and take a look into the crystalline distance. That way I’d be able to tell a little better just how much new impairment is really there.

At any rate:

• Indispensable: New clear progressive lenses
• Indispensable: New clear single-vision distance lenses (which may require new frames)

• Needed: New single-vision distance shades (which probably will require new frames)

The guys down at the eyeglasses shop can replace the existing prescription with new lenses in existing glasses frames. They definitely will be able to do that for the clear progressives. I lost my beloved pair of extra-strong distance shades some months ago, but I have several pairs of old — very old — metal frames around the house. (heh! NEVER throw out an old pair of glasses!) So I’m gonna ask if they’ll put new clear distance lenses and new distance sunglass lenses in those frames. If not, then it’s off to Costco for those two pairs.

Yeah, I know: order them online. Maybe. I’ll have to extract the pupillary distance from the quack’s office, adding another layer of hassle to my life, as if I didn’t have enough hassle. I think I’d rather pay a little extra at Costco for only slightly marked-up frames than dork around with trying to extract usable ultra-cheap glasses from the Internet.

Damn. Starting the year with a big expense — when you’ve cashed out a mutual fund to live on for the year — is not very pleasing.

Sure do hope all four sections make this year…

Image: Conrad von Soest. The Glasses Apostle. 1403. Public Domain.

Tamale Puppies!

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3 Weeks 120

LOL! They look like a plate of tamales here! These are Keelie’s puppies at three weeks. And here’s the one the breeder currently favors to  keep for herself:

3 Weeks 147Awwww! How cute can you get, eh?

Here’s a male from the Saydee’s pups, the group that the Queen’s new courtier will be coming from:

male red 3 Weeks 073

And a female from that litter:

female purple 3 Weeks 109At ten days old…not quite ready to take on the world, but gettin’ there. Breeder Lindsay thinks the second litter will open their eyes this week.

Another Bullet Dodged…Maybe?

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So, about a week ago I’m driving down Feeder Street a little after dark, and I see these weird flickering lights, sorta thumbnail-paring shaped, in the far right periphery of my right eye.

At first I think it’s headlights reflecting on some part of my glasses.

Wrong.

Then I think holy sh!t. Within a couple of minutes, though, the phenomenon dissipates. I’m wildly busy and don’t have any time to think about it and besides there’s not a thing I can do about it after doctor’s office hours anyway.

Next morning I’m heading out at the earliest crack of dawn for the weekly SBA meeting and the same damn thing happens. Only…uhm…there are no headlights at that moment.

When I get back from the morning’s junketing, I hit the Hypochondriac’s Treasure chest and and learn that flashing lights, especially when coupled with new eye floaters, are a sign of a retinal tear (serious) or retinal detachment (blindness!). Either occasions surgery, one more drastic than the other.

The weekend arrives and yea verily so does a new crop of floaters. And a headache.

Call Young Dr. Kildare’s office; get his partner, who’s on call. “Eek!” quoth she (not in so many words: think a doctorly “eek”), “you need to go to the emergency room.”

Ahhh shit. I hate the ER. But if this phenomenon weren’t alarming enough, a worried doctor saying “go to the emergency room!” will make it downright terrifying.

Amazingly, I get in and out of the Mayo’s ER in less than an hour. The doc on duty can’t see any obvious signs of a retinal tear or detachment; thinks it’s another optical migraine (ooooh no it’s not, I think, but refrain from saying so). He says I need to make an appointment with a specialist.

Monday the Mayo’s underlings are on the phone, trying to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist for me. Moi, not desiring to make yet another trip halfway to freaking Payson, I have already found a doc in town who will take Medicare assignment, very good. Make an appointment. Get in with him today.

He and his staff go to elaborate lengths to examine the suspect eye. After 90 minutes of eye dilating and examination, he delivers the good news: absolutely, positively, I do not have a torn or detaching retina. This interesting experience is yet another of the many entertaining events of advancing age.

He, who is even more advanced in age than I am, reports that he had the same darned thing happen to him a couple of years ago. And of course it happened on a weekend. He being the real deal — an actual living, breathing ophthalmologist — was petrified, understanding what this could mean. He betook himself to his office and was waiting with his eyes already dilated, early on Monday morning, for his partner to show up. The two docs came to the same conclusion in his case: old age creepin’ up, nothing much to worry about. Yet.

Then the bad news: he thinks I might have the start (maybe…maybe not) of macular degeneration. He recommends that I run out and start swallowing multivitamins and a special antioxidant snake oil concocted by Bausch & Lomb (which, we might add, paid to sponsor the study claiming this miracle supplement delays the advance of dry macular degeneration).

Delightful.

At least I’m not in any immediate danger of going blind, assuming I don’t accidentally stab myself in the eye with a fork while scarfing down a lamb chop. But…

Macular degeneration?

Not. Good.

I look up this study and find that the one published in 2010, the one sponsored by B&L, was a shade problematic and, even if you buy the results, proved rather little. A newer study, published in 2013, showed some benefit, maybe. However, the ingredients of the magical concoction of antioxidants pose some risks, not the least of them significantly enhanced chances of developing lung cancer if you have ever smoked (both my parents were very heavy smokers, and so I spent the first 16 years of my life inhaling the equivalent of several cigarettes a day in second-hand smoke). Neither study included people with “maybe” early symptoms: subjects were all people with intermediate to advanced age-related macular degeneration.

So. There we are: I’m not going blind, but maybe someday I will be going blind.

Here. Take these pills!

Cat Wars! The Battle of the Ramparts

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Cassie the Corgi
The Queen of the Galaxy

It is said that he who elects to go to war with a cat loses. And yea verily, that may be true.

Notwithstanding, the Realm of the Queen of the Universe and Empress of All Time, Space, and Eternity finds itself locked in combat with Other Daughter‘s pretty little, annoying little red tortoiseshell tabby.

Kitty, as you may recall, has been committing a variety of depredations around the queendom, the final straw of which has been converting the backyard into a gigantic cat loo, wherein Kitty likes to deposit little gifts for Cassie to eat.

Ruling out chemical warfare for a variety of reasons, I tried lashing a long row of carpet tacks to the top of the block walls around the yard. Looked pretty good, didn’t it?

Well, apparently Kitty thought so, too. Twice while I was sitting in the dining room munching my breakfast, what should I see but Kitty atop the wall, delicately stepping around and over the tack strips with all the grace of a prima ballerina. Argha!

One row of “extra wide” carpet tack strips, then, does not suffice to repel a cat determined to jump on top of your six-foot wall.

All right. Now we’ll see if two rows will do the trick.

Two tack strips laid side by side pretty well cover the top of the cinderblocks, except for the capstones atop the pillars. And this time instead of trying to tie the damn things on with string, I strapped them on with plastic zip-ties — the weather-resistant variety. Et voilà!

P1020773

{cackle!} If that doesn’t work, nothing will!

Now, I really don’t know what to do about the wall’s supporting columns. Each of these is topped by a thin block, creating a relatively smooth objet that, unlike the wall with its decorative top row, offers noplace to secure anti-cat devices.

I could glue pieces of carpet strip up there, but would rather not — I don’t much want to get glue all over those blocks. Tried tying pieces atop them, but couldn’t get enough purchase to do any good.

Finally, I had this idea:

P1020775

Caldrons of boiling oil! Or, in cat lexicon, about the equivalent: water! Lurking in the garage is a lifetime supply of cheap aluminum steam-table liners…perfect for roasting dog meat on the grill. It dawned upon me that these things are just about the size of one of those capstone blocks. If one were to half fill it with water and set it atop the column, the thing would fall on the cat the first time the damn cat tried to jump up there.

😀

If it tried to jump up there.

So far, I haven’t seen the cat anywhere on the wall. This noon when I got home from running around the city, one of the water pans had been tipped on the ground. With joy, I pictured The Enemy doused thoroughly.

But alas, no. After I filled it and replaced it atop the wall, what should come along but a bodacious mockingbird: he perched on the rim of the thing so he could drink the water. I expect it’s safe to assume he’s the one who knocked the pan off the wall.

Not sure how to deal with that the column issue. Obviously, I can’t leave pans of water sitting up there…we’ll all be overrun with mosquitoes. Can’t dose the water with detergent to discourage the mosquitoes if the birds are drinking the water — that would sicken the very creatures I would like to relieve from cat predation.

So I’ve gotta come up with a way to repel Kitty from the tops of those support columns.

One thought that occurs: Velcro. Stick-on Velcro will stick to the cinderblock, so in theory one could attach enough pieces of carpet tack to harass the cat. Another is double-sided tape, of which I have a little.

Tape is not very sticky, but the goop on the side of self-stick Velcro sets up like steel. It could be messy to get off, though. And it may not withstand rain and 115-degree heat. Still. The trick may be just to break Kitty’s habit of jumping over the wall — even if the stuff lasted only a few weeks, that might be enough to stop the cat invasions.

Heh.

You know, I used to like cats. I’ve had cats all my life — in Arabia, we weren’t allowed to have dogs because the jackals carried rabies into the camp. So everyone had cats, which could get up on top of cars and houses to stay out of reach of the jackals and hyenas, theoretically.

Out there, ours were outdoor cats. Really, in the 1950s I doubt if anyone had ever heard of such a thing as an “indoor cat.”

When my mother and I came back to the States, we wanted a cat. To get it, we had to smuggle it into our apartment, for cats were contraband in the whole development where we lived. This was when my mother got the idea that cats could be acclimated to live inside all the time.

And they can — most of them can, anyway.

Some years later, my then-husband and I acquired a pair of Siamese cats. The female was a prize lilac-point, and we stupidly bred her with the male’s sire before we had her fixed. The breeder took three of the kittens and we ended up with two of them. Which meant…yes! Now we had four cats.

Four indoor cats.

Well. This house we lived in had been massively renovated by the previous owners, who had intended to live in it for a good long time. Because their project was no fix-and-flip, they had outfitted the place with top-of-the-line everything, including gorgeous, luxurious shag carpets (it was now 1969) that were at least three inches thick. They were the most wonderful carpets I’ve ever seen, before or since.

Lemme tell you something about cats: anyone who thinks they can be relied upon to use a cat box labors under a false impression.

Once a cat decides to pee and poop outside a cat box, nothing will bring it back to the cat box. Ever afterward, it will urinate and defecate wherever it pleases.

And yes, the cat boxes were kept meticulously clean. And yes, we had several cat boxes to accommodate this tribe.

They decided the dining room — an absolutely beautiful room — was the new loo. And they destroyed the carpeting in there. The stink defied belief, and absolutely nothing we did to discourage them or to try to keep them out worked.

We are talking about thousands of dollars worth of high, high, high-end carpeting.

They did a lot of other damage, too.

I used my pregnancy to persuade my husband to let me get rid of the effing cats. But by then they’d pretty well trashed the place.

Some years later I rescued a kitten from the irrigation outside an office where I was working. This cat, we decided, would be an outdoor cat. And, let me add, it is another myth that outdoor cats will immediately keel over from feline leukemia, be eaten by coyotes, and be run over by garbage trucks. Well. Some of them are run over. But this cat lived to be around 15 years old. One of her offspring made it to around 18.

Our neighbors hated us. They hated the cats, to be specific. And one of them used to come over regularly and complain about the cat turning the planter in his house’s front entryway into a stinking toilet. I expressed empathy, suggested he set mousetraps around the plants to scare off the cats, and quietly declined to bring the damn things indoors. What a bitch.

The more I’ve learned of cats, over the years, the less I like them.

Domestic cats devastate native wildlife. In the city, a single outdoor cat kills more than twice a week. They kill off lizards (which, my friends, eat mosquitos and any number of other annoying insects and biting spiders), birds, and small mammals. Some of the most charming birds in North America are being decimated by pet and feral cats. The cat is, IMHO, truly a nasty creature.

Nevertheless, I don’t want to kill Other Daughter’s cat, upon which she professes to dote. Nor do I want a confrontation with Other Daughter. But sometimes I wonder what on earth is the matter with people.

In the past several days, Cassie and I have come upon the remains of two cats — coyote kills. A coyote leaves little but a pile of ripped-out hair. Interesting. We’re coming on to whelping season, and so of course the coyotes are hungry.

Other Daughter was all upset when one of the neighbors’ stray cats was, indeed, run over by a car in the alley. What a shock! But…if you let your cats run around the streets, what do you think will happen to them sooner or later?

Please. If you love your cat, keep it indoors! If you don’t want to be bothered with cleaning up after your cat and with replacing damaged carpeting, flooring, bedding, draperies, and furniture, don’t get a cat. And even if you don’t love your cat but simply must own one, have a little consideration for the environment and for your neighbors!

The State of Your Health: Is It Your Employer’s Business?

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Today at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, we heard a panel discussion on employee wellness programs, presented by folks who have a vested interest therein: mostly directors of such projects.

It was interesting, particularly as an effort to persuade corporate leadership that employees’ health bears, in ways obvious and subtle, on the bottom line. And the discussion pushed one of my buttons.

Among the strategies the panel presented is a program in which workers are coaxed, by way of a $15/month bonus added to the paycheck, into submitting to tests to determine whether they’ve been smoking tobacco. There are similar thrusts in these programs having to do with diabetes prevention and control, obesity control, and the like. But this one exemplifies most perfectly, to my mind, what is wrong with such Big Mommy schemes. Videlicet:

What you choose to do about your health maintenance is none of your employer’s business.

Your health care is between you and your doctor, not between you and your doctor and your department manager and HR.

While I personally do not smoke, chew, or snort tobacco — and no offense, dear nicotine-loving friends, but I fear people who do are a little stupid — the stuff is a legal product available freely all over the country. There’s no law against smoking tobacco. And your employer has absolutely no business telling you that you can’t engage in a lawful activity on your own time, outside of the plant.

And your employer has even less business (we’re in the negative numbers now!) demanding that you submit to a test to confirm your word that you do not smoke. It’s an unwarranted and unacceptable intrusion into your private life.

Whence this anxiety to insert a whole new level of nosiness into our private lives?

The almighty dollar, that’s whence. The hype generated around the so-called “obesity epidemic,” which was recognized as hooey when it first arose and which some inquiring minds still question, represents a vast money-making opportunity. As in billions and trillions of dollars. The very folks who, over today’s lunch, regaled us with the glories of in-house “wellness” programs themselves stand to profit. Whether they work as wage slaves for companies that institute the programs or whether they own businesses contracting to companies to run such programs, they’ll profit.

If we’re all being bribed — or ordered — to take tobacco tests, what will be next?

Alcohol use is one hell of a lot more detrimental to productivity than puffing tobacco on your own time. It really would make more sense to test people, regularly, to determine how many cocktails or glasses of wine they had with dinner the night before.

Sugar: Exceptionally bad for you. Will we all be required to take blood glucose tests on Monday before we sit down to work?

Salt: Worse yet! You don’t even have to be fat for salt to drive up your blood pressure. How’s about we add a blood sodium level while we’re drawing blood for those glucose tests? No more hot dogs and potato chips at those Sunday afternoon football games for you, pal!

Folks. We have got to get a grip on this kind or exploitation. And somehow, someday Americans really need to come back to a basic fact of pre-Facebook, pre-Google, pre-Big Brother life: what’s your business is your business. And no one has any right to demand to poke their corporate nose into it.