3449 Jasper says, "Catnip?"

Sunday, January 29, 2012

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
-- Steven Wright --

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I don't seem to be updating much lately. Don't know why. Oh, well....

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Back when I was choosing my new glasses and lenses, the rep talked me out of progressives. After I had researched progressives and realized she had given me very good advice probably at the cost of a larger sale, I wrote a letter to LensCrafters' corporate complimenting her.

Early last week I went in to pick up the gold glasses, that they had told me would take about two weeks. They took a lot less. I was fitted by the store manager. He was really nice. The glasses were perfect, and then they replaced the badly-cut lenses in the silver frames, and they were perfect, too. Then as I stood up to leave, he said, "I want to thank you for the letter you wrote to corporate. That was really nice of you."

Wow. I thought it would be anonymous. Well, I've accidentally discovered the way to get great and fast service, I guess.

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I still don't understand men's ties. They've got to be more idiotic than women's high heels (although not as idiotic as those stupid platform shoes). And if you absolutely have to wear the tie because it's "traditional" and says "serious business attire", then what the heck is wrong with clip-on ties? Does it HAVE to be difficult and uncomfortable to count?

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I watched "Driving Miss Daisy" on cable a few days ago, and was shocked by something I missed the first umpteen times I'd watched it. I think it was probably the late '60s when the son gave the chauffeur a $75/week raise. It knocked me over. In the late '60s a teacher's starting salary was $4,500 per YEAR! The usual decent raise was $300 per YEAR! When I started with IBM, a programmer made about $9,000 per year.

I think I went into the wrong profession.

I mentioned it to Daughter, and she said quite seriously that when she graduated from college with the engineering degree in three areas, chauffeurs were earning more than she, and she had seriously considered switching careers.

Now, I think the chauffeur's raise in the movie had more to do with appreciation for his care for Miss Daisy than with the job, but although he showed appreciation for the amount, his reaction was not like he'd just won a million-dollar lottery, which is more like it. It was his "Wow. OK. Thanks." reaction that floored me.

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I had a brief discussion re macular degeneration with Zarina in the comments on a previous post. I agree with her that sometimes it can move quickly, and I'll need to have it checked often. Later I remembered something.

I'm trying to remember when it was. Jay was alive and healthy, so it must have been before 1998. My vision plan didn't cover optometrists but did cover ophthalmologists, so when it was time for a new prescription, I went to an ophthalmologist. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he did mention macular degeneration, both eyes, very small, nothing to worry about, but --- he gave me a square grid with a dot in the middle. I was to put it on the wall somewhere that I'd see it every day (I put it on the refrigerator), and I was to call him immediately if the lines ever got wavy.

It was there for years, got aged, stained, and tattered, and then one day somebody "helped" me by cleaning all the junk off the refrigerator (yeah, Daughter, I'm looking at you), and the grid disappeared. (The opthalmologist had died suddenly a few years before, and the scandal in the village was that his landlord had thrown out all his records.) I didn't bother replacing the grid.

Between then and now, probably 15 years or more, I've had four or five exams, all with dilation, some with ophthalmologists and some with optometrists, and no one has mentioned macular degeneration until this recent one.

So, it doesn't seem to be progressing. And the spots are in exactly the same place in both eyes, so it might even be congenital. Evidence arguing for a congenital spot of insufficient blood supply is that every ophthalmologist and optometrist I've ever seen since the age of 12 has remarked that they can't get me to 20-20.

So I doubt that it's a big deal. On the other hand, I have to watch for the effects of age, so it's a good idea to get an eye exam every year and mention that they should look for it.
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