New Eyeglasses

 I finally got new eyeglasses Monday.  One for reading, one for driving.  I needed new reading glasses.  My previous ones were very abraded so I was using the 2014 ones.  My close-in vision hasn't changed much, but those were abraded too.  

I went to the optometrist only to pass the driver's license requirement (I passed) but I'm glad I had to.  The new reading glasses are better.  I mean, I could only read the 3rd line of a chart and with the new ones, I could read the smallest line.  

It's funny how you don't notice vision problems.  It is so gradual.  And the new ones fit better!  I guess your head changes slightly over time, too.

I'm not required to wear glasses driving.  But I put them on in the eyeglass store and looked at some distant store signs.  There was some slight improvement.  I can see clearly-enough 1/4 mile away but I can see better with them. So I will wear them when driving to unfamiliar places, in the rain, at night.  Anyplace where they seem to help.  

Maybe I should have chosen 2 different frames.  Even the person who fitted them to me got confused.  She put the "reading" glasses on me and my camo hat looked a bit fuzzy!  So I said there was something wrong with the prescription.  

Well, it was the identical frames that confused things.  When she checked some code on the frames (or maybe the holders) she came back and said "right glasses, wrong protective containers".  When she put the right reading glasses on me, my camo hat was "very defined".  I can't wait to read tomorrow's newspaper...

What they didn't have were soft shirt-pocket glass protectors.  The hard ones won't fit.  And abrasion is the curse of glasses for me.  They get in and out of my shirt-pocket too often.  5 minutes on the computer "in and out".  Check a recipe card "in and out".  Read a pill or food can label "in and out".  The reading glasses are probably "in and out" 50 times a day.  

I did go for the full "protection" options on the lenses.  Anti-scratch, anti-blue, anti U/V, etc, etc.  Well, why not?  I read an article in Consumer Reports magazine and couldn't find anything I thought was useless.

I do want to find polarized clip-on fold-down sunglasses for the driving glasses, though.  Something to search for tomorrow...

Added to edit:  Darn, placed an order with Amazon.  Ordered a non-abrasive shirt-pocket glasses-holder, rechargeable AA and AAA batteries (they do wear out eventually, and some of mine are very old), but forgot about the polarized flip-down sunglasses for the driving glasses!

Independence Day

Happy Fourth Of July (well it IS the Fourth of July everywhere).  But in the US, that also means Independence Day.

I will do as I usually do.  Which means that I will stand on the deck and read the Declaration Of Independence out loud.  I'll have a rather "Americanish" dinner of steak, corn on the cob, green beans, and a tomato/cucumber/onion salad with ranch dressing.  And a pale ale instead of my usual red wine.

Later, I will watch (from home on TV) the fireworks display on the Washington DC Mall.


Whatever you all do today (celebratory or not) be safe!

Newspaper Reading

I love newspapers.  And I am lucky that my "local" newspaper is The Washington Post.  So I get local and national news articles.  I love the editorials, science articles, political articles, and comics the best. 

But I got to the point where I wasn't reading the new newspaper every day.  When I got 3 months behind, I cancelled my subscription.  Kept reading the older papers of course. 

It was actually very interesting.  I could completely ignore the sports section as being old and the local news was outdated.  The comics were fine; few of them are topical. 

The editorials became hilarious!  You never realize how silly most columnists and editorials are until you read them after their predictions are made.  I was reading liberal and conservative ideas about what Trump would do in his first 100 days after the first 100 days.  None were right.  Well, some were, and those people were right very often!  It is a good way to decide who to pay attention to.

Looking back, what some of the columnists suggested would happen and knowing what DID happen was great reading.  George Will (conservative) was right about a lot, so was E J Dionne (liberal).  Charles Krauthammer was nearly almost always wrong.

I missed some of the comics that had story arcs.  But they aren't my favorites.  I find it pretty hard to care about those "soap opera" ones like Judge Parker. 

I missed the Style Invitational contest feature.  That suggests weird contests in the Sunday paper like writing haikus about current events, combining Kentucky race horse names together for humor, and creating puns by rearranging letters in Post headlines for anagrams and the like.  I entered the contests in the past and got mentioned twice.

For a first entry printed, you get one of those pine tree air fresheners.  Its your "first ink" (fir stink, get it?)

But reading old papers, I couldn't enter because of the deadlines.  Now I have new papers and can enter again hurray.

"There was a time when
I was gone but now I'm back
Never win again."

LOL!

But now I know which columnists to pay more attention to.