Time Marches On! (and drags me along behind it, kicking and screaming)

Today's post is a rambling, random mishmash of things that have happened recently and thoughts that have been in my head.

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I can think of a whole bunch of things I'd rather do than spend two hours on a Tuesday morning at the eye doctor's office trying to determine whether or not I have glaucoma.  They used to do that puff of air blast to check the pressure in your eye.  I was never a big fan of that test, but at least it was quick.  

They have newer tests now.  I have had enough of stinging yellow drops and focusing on the blue light.  I've had enough of staring at the red light and the blue ball while cameras zoom in and make a video and take pictures in an MRI, of sorts, of my eyeballs.  I've also had QUITE enough of the tedious side vision, video-game-like test where I have to push the button on the clicker in my hand every time I see a flash of light---thank you very much.

Good news is that the doctor found lots of green in my eyeball photo shoot pictures.  Green is apparently a good thing.  Lots of green means my retina isn't thinning...yet.  I really didn't need or want to hear my ophthalmologist add that word "yet" on the end of the sentence, but he added it anyway.

Bad news is that the pressure in my eyes is still too high, higher than it should be for someone my age.  I'm too young to have such a high pressure, he says.  So in three months I get to go back and see him again and have more drops and tests and such.  Oh boy. Thanks, Doc.  I can't wait (pardon my lack of enthusiasm).


While I was there I also got new lenses with a changed prescription put into my glasses frames.  With luck, it will help with the trouble I've been having lately seeing things clearly on the other side of the room.

I still have bad vision---no news flash there.  The eye doctors have been telling me that nearly my whole life.  My vision can be improved and corrected though. It can't be corrected to 20/20 vision, but pretty close.  So I can see.  I can see just fine, as a matter of fact. (Well, I don't see very well to drive at night, but things could be much worse.)  There are so many people who are blind who would probably love to have my old myopic eyes.  I really have no right to complain, do I?  I am actually quite lucky.

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As a related note, on my last birthday, I turned fifty years old.  Because of my eyes and because of the genetic history in my family, the special vitamins for the 50 and over set were recommended to me by my physician.  You can't make me.  You can't make me.  You can't make me!  Oh, all right, I'll take the "old people" vitamins.  Whatever.  I take a multivitamin every day anyway, so I guess I can switch and take the ones in the bottle labeled "Silver" for adults 50+.  I don't have to be happy about it, but I will do it.

So I buy the drugstore version of the "Silver" brand of vitamins and take them home.  I open up the bottle and find these inside.

Can you believe this?  The vitamins, themselves, are colored silver.  Or to be more exact, cloudy day gray.  Seriously, is this necessary?  Did they have to make the actual pills silver?  How depressing is that?  They look as if they are old and stale and spoiled.  They certainly don't look like they are designed to improve my health or like they are anything I should willingly swallow.  I think they should have made them a bright red or a sparkling blue or hot pink or green like spring grass.  Some color that represents life and living would have been a much better choice instead of this dreary hue reserved for cement and tombstones. 

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I had to go buy crickets today for the lizard.  If someone had told me years ago that someday when I was older I'd go every week to buy crickets to feed a lizard, I would not have believed them.  Care of the family pets, no matter who the pets actually are supposed to belong to, has always eventually fallen to my shoulders.  Just part of my lot in life that I care for the creatures, I suppose.  They do give me a lot of love and entertainment in return, so it seems like a fair enough deal.

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I can tell you one thing that I know for sure.  I have had my fill of static electricity.  I am tired of my hair sticking out every which way in the air above my head.  I am tired of it sticking to my face and my clothes.  Even more than the static in my hair, I am fed up with the static charges that are zapping me with every thing I touch: the lamp, the kitchen sink, light switches, the dog, the telephone, and other people. 

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I am also tired of the window on the driver's side of my car door being frozen shut.  Have you ever tried to go through a drive through (doesn't matter what kind: bank, fast food, post office mail box, turnpike ticket machine) when your car window is frozen shut and you can't open it.  Do you know how annoying it is to have to open your car door and get out of the car when you are at a drive through window because your car window won't open?  Take it from me, it is very annoying. 

I know,  I know. I live in Ohio, and it is January, and it is supposed to be cold here in the wintertime, and I should expect my car window to be frozen as a result.  Well, I know all of that, but I still don't like it!  Is it really too much to ask to have the temperature get up above freezing just long enough to thaw out my car window?!

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My son and his girlfriend went to the winter dance at the high school this past weekend.  This picture makes me smile.

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Woot!  Woot!  My older son made Dean's List at his college, and my younger son is on the all-A honor roll right now as a freshman in high school.  My hands are in the air, and I am doing a happy dance.

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There was some good news on the work front for me today too.  Our computer tech guy set up our phones at the library on an answering machine type of system that will answer the phone for us and direct calls to the proper person or department. This used to be part of our job at the circulation desk.  Now the phone will only ring for us to answer if it is for our department, and we don't have to play switchboard operator by fielding all the calls that come in to the building and transferring them to the proper person or department.  This will be a huge time saver for us and make our job easier to handle without having the constant interruption of the ringing phone to deal with.

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Max is barking.  The mailman must be going by outside.  Probably nothing but bills and letters from AARP wanting me to sign up (as if  I don't have enough reminders lately of the passing of time!)  I don't know how they found me so fast.  They sure are persistent.

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I won't end with a video of dance music this time around, but I do want to end with this little bit about dancing that I read somewhere recently.  

"The Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about." 

Makes perfect sense to me!