Seeing Eye to Eye…Maybe

Caution!  Eyeball discussion ahead…  

So, to take my mind off my teeth, my ankle, and my sometimes sucky life in general, I decided to add one more item to my already teetering stack of adventures in the wonderful world of health.  I got my eyes checked.  The good news is that I still see 20/20 with my glasses.  The even better news (I think) is that I found an optometrist willing to work with me on wearing contacts.  The doctor I went to for years was the one who flatly told me I wouldn’t like them.  I thought about insisting, but also felt like he wouldn’t be very helpful in a process he already considered doomed, or stupid. 

I got the contacts Friday and immediately fell in love with the close up vision, but not so much the far off stuff.  Everything is blurry when I look out across the room or down the road.  I wore them Friday, after struggling and struggling to get the darn things in at the doctor’s office.  I didn’t wear them Saturday because I was going to be driving in OKC and really needed to see the roadsigns from a distance.  Sunday morning I slept late and didn’t have time to put them in since it’s still a major ordeal that finally comes down to snot running and lots of sweating before the darn things are in, which was just a little on the embarrassing side in the doctor’s office.  

Sunday afternoon, I decided to put them in before I went to the show so I could see how they worked in a dark theater.  Got the right one in without too much of a struggle, and started working on the left one.  Took it out of it’s little container, squirted some of the solution in the palm of my hand and gave the lens a rub the way the doctor had shown me, I thought.  While staring at the contact so as not to lose it, I carefully let the solution run off the side of my hand and into the sink. 

Then I started trying to unfold the contact.  After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally realized why it wouln’t unfold.  There was nothing there to unfold.  Somehow I had managed to rip the sucker in two and apparently poured the other half down the drain.

Yeah, that’s the way I roll.  

So, anyhoo, I wore the right lens to the show sans the left one.  Driving was interesting since I get kind of a double image experience when I’m looking into the distance.  I see the image, i.e., highline pole, mailbox, fence post, etc., and a little to the left, I see a ghost image of the solid object.  Not so great for trying to focus.  But on the upside, the lens worked great in the theater.  No appreciable glare and the the ghost images were barely there, if at all.

Whether or not I ever get the great lens experiment to work properly waits to be seen, but for now I’m loving the freedom of not having to wear my glasses all day at work.  And that’s always a good thing.

Where Did All the Time Go?

I mentioned being fuzzy headed to someone this morning, and I know a huge part of my inability to think has to do with all the stuff I’ve been dealing with lately.  It just comes with the territory, but I didn’t know how bad it truly was until I started going through my email. 

My daughter-in-law in Okinawa had sent me a Mother’s Day poem, and as I read it, it finally dawned on me that I wouldn’t have enough time to mail her a card.  (She’s mother to three of my grandchildren and doing a great job!) 

I hated that I let the date slip up on me, but I reminded myself that she’s used to me never getting cards to her on time.  Especially birthday cards.  I usually have a card bought and then forget to mail it until her actual birthday comes around.  I know.  It makes no sense, but that’s how my mind tends to operate. 

Then it hit me.  Her birthday was May 6, TWO DAYS AGO, and I still haven’t even bought her a card.  Not only that, but today is my granddaughter’s (my daughter’s daugher’s) 17th birthday.  Did grandma get her a card or in any other way remember it?  Heck no!  I’d been telling people her birthday was coming up, but somehow it got here a lot quicker than I was ready for. 

I sent my daughter-in-law a groveling email apology and text messaged my husband to remind him about both birthdays in case, like me, he’s forgotten. 

Our granddaughter’s birthday can be salvaged, if I work quickly enough.  My daughter-in-law, on the other hand, is too far away, and her day has come and gone.  Something tells me the money I usually tuck in her card will be doubled this year…

Monday Morning Revision Angst

I’ve spent so long living in “I can’t” land I’ve become agoraphobic.  Stepping outside the box I live (cower) in is impossible.  Almost.  I do step out on occasion.  I stand on the front step, holding firmly to the doorknob, just in case.  What if I slip?  What if I fall?  What if the world suddenly shifts on its axis and I am pulled away from my box, from my fortress of security?  Yeah, I hold on tight.  It’s all I’ve got.  It’s the oxygen supply.  I can hold my breath for a minute or maybe two, but sooner rather than later, I need to crawl back inside and suck up some of that precious air.  I pretty sure if I don’t, I’ll die.  At least it feels that way. 

So I stand in the doorway, making sure not to venture too far from safety, and watch others as they glide by, fly by, battle their way by.  Most of them look fine.  They look like they know what they’re doing.  They look confidant.  They obviously know something I don’t know.  Where do you buy that rule book?  How come I never got mine?  I keep thinking if I knew the rules, I could get out there and swim with the rest of the world.  If I knew the rules.  Obviously I don’t, or I would at least be doing the dog paddle right now.  And so I stand in the doorway and watch the world go by.  Without me.

Chasin’ Chickens

The moment I saw this, I identified with Leroy and his fuzzy chicken dilemma. In spite of that voice of reason, the one that usually kills all the fun or potential for fun, I have been known to chase and pounce and sometimes even catch my own fuzzy chicken on occasion.

It also made me think about Renee Lynn Scott’s recent blog over at the Romance Roundtable. She talked about the fears and uncertainties of the writer’s plight when it comes to publication, but more than anything, she talked about writing. Just writing. (Think Nike and just do it!)

As writers, we might look at publication as the fuzzy chicken we chase after, but I think the true fuzzy chicken is the writing itself. We’ve all heard it said in many different ways, but the bottom line is WRITE. Write because you love it, because you have to, because your muse just will not shut up. When you do that, the fuzzy chicken is all yours.

Brain Drain

Never Forget

It doesn’t matter where you stand on the war issue.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re for or against it.  It doesn’t matter what your political affilliation is.  It doesn’t matter what your religion is or if you have none.  What does matter is that there are too many people suffering because of it.  You may know someone personally who is hurting, maybe grieving, because of it.  You may be further removed, only seeing and hearing what the news media drops into the appropriate time slots between commercials.  It doesn’t matter.  All that matters is that we don’t forget.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080720/ap_on_re_us/military_the_enemy_within;_ylt=Ag3.9bwirsfzFB_i.vA0sKRH2ocA

Mmmm…Mmmm…Good!

The other day, the mister brought home a zip-lock bag of fresh shelled black-eyed peas, complements of the wife of one of his friends.  These are the same people who occasionally share summer squash, tomatoes and okra from the overabundance of their garden with us, and I’m always appreciative of their generosity.  Because, after all, who doesn’t love veggies straight from the garden? 

The next afternoon, I grabbed the bag of peas, dumped them in a strainer, and gave them a good rinse before starting them on a long, slow simmer.  I baked a skillet of crusty, sweet cornbread and grilled a couple of thick slices of ham.  Talk about a feast!  I was even impressed with the flavor of the black-eyes.  I had gotten the seasoning just right and they were gooood!  So good that we had them again the next day, and even the day after when lunch time rolled around. 

By then we were down to the nubbins on the peas, and I debated throwing the last little bit out, but darn it, they were good and only getting better with each reheat.  So I decided to save the last little dab.  If nothing else, I could freeze them and add them to a pot of home-made soup when the weather started to cool off. 

That’s when the unthinkable happened.  I dumped them into a freezer container, and there, floating in the middle of all that soupy pea goodness, was a little fat white worm. 

“Do you see what I see?” I screeched at the mister who happened to be standing next to me. 

He leaned over and looked.  “Oh, it’s a weevil.”  Then he gave me a reassuring smile.  “Don’t worry.  They’ll digest.” 

I spluttered but nothing else would come out.  They’ll digest?  I shouldn’t worry because even if I ate a little fat white worm, it would digest?  Seriously?  Do I look like I’m worried about the digestibility of little fat white worms???  I stared down at the bloated carcass.  Maybe he was the only one, I tried to reason.  Maybe I hadn’t eaten any of his unfortunate relatives.  Maybe. 

I found little comfort in that theory.  After all, even if he was the lone ranger, so to speak, he was still floating in the juice, contaminating it by his very presence.  I couldn’t ignore the fact that I had consumed worm-tainted pea juice. 

“You want me to take it out for you?” the mister asked.  He can be so thoughtful.  I mean, that would fix the whole problem, now wouldn’t it? 

I declined his offer, fished the dead body out all by myself, and slapped a lid on the container.  Maybe I will serve them again.  To the mister. 

Me?  I’ll settle for a warm piece of buttered cornbread, and please, PLEASE, don’t tell me what gets ground up with the cornmeal. 

Purrfect

Matches My Mood

SeXXXy