Petunia rambles on and on….

When weird things happen – and I mean good-weird, things that are odd or unusual but in a good way – I don’t usually blog about them. The reasons for this? Part of it is the fact that women seem to like to bitch and complain, so things that are weird in a bad way give me us a definite target, a reason to gripe and an appropriate direction to send our general anger and annoyance. The second reason is what my mother used to call “tempting fate.” If something good has happened or is still currently happening, and I blog about it, I’ll somehow screw it up! Immediately, it will all reverse, end, fall apart. So in a strange superstitious way, I keep my big trap shut in fear of upsetting the lovely applecart. Last reason, I suppose, is that people would rather read about catastrophes; me falling on my ass, getting hauled to hospital and all the entertaining things that can happen there are probably more of an interesting read than paragraphs about me doing laundry and folding towels.

So…   The weather is weird in a good-weird way. Huh? It’s February – I admit we’re not living in Minot, but still, it should be cold in this state in February. And it should have been in January, and I usually freeze my ass off going from shop to store to mall Christmas shopping in December. I have 3 winter coats. One is a long, ankle-length “dressy” coat that is rarely used anymore. Another is for “nice” winter days, a black “pea coat” style. Looks good with slacks that I wear to work and with jeans. The other one is a heavy L. L. Bean parka, with a hood that will drawstring down around my face, deep pockets, drawstring at the waist to keep cold air from blowing inside, cuffs that tighten for the same reason. This coat would keep  me warm most of the way to Antarctica. I have hats and gloves and scarves. None of this cold weather gear is getting used. I’ve worn the parka once this winter. I traded and worked a 3-11p shift to help out a co-worker, and thought that I might need it that late at night. I didn’t. After the 2 years I spent in upstate NY and the 8 hours I spent stuck in my Chevy Cavalier that bottomed out in deep snow on the Hazletville Road in ‘92, I always keep cold weather gear in the car. I always have hats, gloves, blankets, towels in the car, just in case. None of them have been used this year. I pay my heating costs with a “budget plan.” The company averages out the gas usage, adjusts it according to current pricing, divides by 9 and I pay that amount from September to May. I am way overpaid this year. I’m paying the set amount and just not using it.

Can’t think how many times I’ve been out and about running errands and have only worn a sweater, times I’ve brought my pea coat and just left it in the car. Didn’t need it. This is FEBRUARY!! It’s supposed to be COLD. It’s supposed to snow. I mean, I hate snow, but this is just unnatural!

When I was down at my daughter’s last week, we took the boys to a nearby park.

This was taken on the first of February. That’s one of my grandsons there with the red sweatshirt/hoodie. Kid on the slide is wearing shorts! This was a large area of fun things for the kids, open grassy area surrounding it and then trees in the distance. While sitting there with the camera, I noticed a bird’s nest way off in the top of one of the trees, and took a picture of it. And then, with my telephoto lens extended, I noticed……

… the trees have buds that are opening. What????

In the mornings, I’ve scraped ice off my windshield maybe 3 times? I mean, I hate scraping ice, but that’s in integral part of winter here. So I kept my mouth shut about all this, didn’t mention weather on the blog, in fear of that “tempting fate” business, in fear that opening my mouth would cause a blizzard to shut down the whole East Coast for a week or more, and it would all be my fault.

Sometime during the night, it started to snow here. Early this morning, the ground was partially covered.

This is the view from inside my car before leaving for work, before starting the wipers.

This may be the worst that we get all winter!!

Have a bunch of stuff to gab about and I may just put it in sections.

Medical

Had my annual vision check-up this morning. Last month’s medical visit got a follow-up and for now, I’m off pressure-reducing eye drops. Right eye (the bad sicko eye) is good and the pressure in the left eye is up slightly. Maybe 2 points. For such a small elevation, and after the bad allergic reaction I had to the last pressure meds in January, he’s taking me off them altogether. We’ll see what the future brings with this – as the doctor said, the minor elevation of pressure that I have would be of no concern to the average patient; it is the family history that makes him give extra attention to it. My mother received treatment for glaucoma for many years, and eventually went blind from it. I go back in 6 months for another pressure check.

Then after I’ve had lights slightly brighter than the sun shined in my eyes, flashing on and off, and I’ve stared at the red dot and had slit-lamp exams, all of which are hideously painful to uveitis patients, I’m sent to the other side of the office to pick out frames. This is worse than sending me into a yarn store and telling me I can only get ONE skein of yarn! Worse because I don’t have to wear that skein every day for the next year! They have 2 gazillion pairs to pick from.  I’m having difficulty seeing because the sicko eye has about shut down from the lights during the exam, the brightness of the room and the extra bright lighting in each of the “windows” that display the frames. In order to see the ones higher up, I had to look upward toward these “sun lamps” which is not good for me. I needed all the help that was provided to weed out the ones I could safely ignore. All the ones on the 4 left “windows” are men’s frames; all the ones on the 2 right “windows” are for children. That cut my choices down to 1.4 gazillion. The vision insurance that I have pays a set amount towards the cost of the frames. I advised the clerk that I could go over that amount BUT was unwilling to pay hundreds of dollars extra to have some designer’s name emblazoned on the side. This eliminated almost a gazillion pairs! There were still a lot to choose from and I’m female. And oh, I liked the ones with a bit of Celtic Knotwork looking thingie on the sides but not the colors they came in. Damn! As I’ve been wearing small, wire rimmed glasses (or more recently, the ones with wire framing on the top only) since John Lennon was wearing them, and I’d seen women I know make the change into more current styles, I thought I, too, would consider updating my look. Finally, after probably trying on most of the available stock in the whole damn store, I made my decision. As the clerk was looking up stock and color numbers, I casually mentioned to her that I spend a lot of time with my neck craned back, looking through the lower part of the progressive lens at a computer screen 40 hours a week at work and then often for hours at home . And if I’m not on the computer, my recreation is either reading or fiber-related knitting or spinning. The lady stares at me, looks at the frames I’ve picked, looks at the prescription that the doctor has ordered and says, “We’re gonna start over!”   Huh?

She presents her thoughts on another option for me. There is very little, if any, prescription change in the lenses that I will be getting. The doctor had advised me that if I were paying out of pocket, he would recommend just keeping what I have for another year. The frame is still sturdy, the glass unscratched, and such. I don’t really NEED new glasses; any change would be cosmetic – updated frames/look. What she suggested is something called “task-related” lenses and they are making more and  more of these as us baby-boomers go into bifocal needs and sit in front of computers. I will get a new pair that have progressive lenses that focus from very close up to a distance of about 12-15 feet – being a photography nut, I understand focal lengths. The difference is that by cramming less focal lengths into the small lens, the bands of them will be greater? Does that make sense? Anyway, it should all translate to being able to see close tasks and computer screens with less tilting of my head back, less neck strain and a bit more freedom of movement. (Now, I have one tiny strip across the lens that is right for the distance to the screen; if I move my head up or down, I fuck blur it up)

As my distance vision is quite good, post-cataract surgery, I’ll be able to look over the top of them to find my way to the toilet. I’m actually right at the legal limit to drive without correction although I never had my driver’s license changed. I will keep the current glasses, as they do “tweak” my distance vision, correcting the astigmatism. I really do feel better about having them on when driving – that’s why I never bothered to get it officially changed on my license. By the time I got home from all this, my husband said he had started to worry about what now might be wrong with my eyes!

I remembered to make the appointment with my regular doctor for my cholesterol check-up in March. And I called Benefit Express to find out why they denied my claim to get my co-pay reimbursed. My doctor does not take any credit cards so I can’t use my FSA card, must pay at time of service and then file to get the money back. When idiots fail to SIGN the damn claim form, their claims are denied. Oh, well.

Doing the Right Thing

Last night I attended a Memorial Service for a woman that I do not know, never met. Before you kids start looking into asylums for me, please let me explain. Quite a few of my Facebook “friends” started out as friends of my kids. They have been in and out of my home for years, ones I’ve fed many meals to, chauffeured around, hollered at, cared about. Last week, I saw a post from one of these kids (using the term loosely here, as this “kid” has a child of his own who is now of legal age!) and he mentioned getting ready for a very quick trip home. It didn’t sound right to me, I contacted my oldest right away and asked what was up. There had been a death in the family, his friend had lost his grandmother and was coming home for the services. He and my son met when they were about 15, when we last moved to DE (we’ve done that twice!). They were close all through school and have remained so through all these years. They have daughters who are months apart; both are sports nuts. In the fall, my son has flown south to attend football games in Tampa with his friend; in the summer, they go to Orioles games in Baltimore together. Still. All these years, they’ve been there for each other, with each other, good times and bad. I respect and admire a friendship that lasts a very long time; I’m fortunate to have one like that myself. I know my oldest would have been there if he could, but he’s just started a new job, still in a “training” status, works an evening shift 2 hours away so it would mean taking time off. His friend knew and understood. When I got off work, I went down to pay my respects. I stood at the back of the room, not recognizing anyone, looking at the backs of heads. Then I thought I saw him sitting up near the front, dressed in suit and tie, not in his usual T-shirt and jeans from the teenager days. Yeah, it was him, I thought, because I recognized his daughter sitting beside him when she turned her head. And as I stood there, thinking how proud I was of the man he’d become, he turned around in his seat, looked directly back, spotted me and was out of his chair coming towards me in an instant. As I told my son, “I like hugs from tall handsome men, and I take ‘em where and when I can get ‘em.” My thoughts are with you and your family, Scott, and I miss you almost as much as Jim does.

Knitting

I finished a shawl – Autumn Flutters. Had to make some adjustments to it. I used Dream in Color Smooshy which has less yardage that what is called for, so I knew I’d have to play with the pattern a bit – but it’s a beautiful, pattern, is well-written, and I’ll probably do it again. A nice knit that doesn’t get mindlessly boring and also isn’t so complicated that you can’t work near people, in the same room with the TV going or even risk getting the hiccups and having that cause you to hopelessly screw it up!

Family

Plans still on-going for daughter to move to Florida with her USMC husband. I thought to boycott the Marine Corp entirely but fear that this will have little effect other than to cause my daughter to laugh until she wets herself.

No, it won’t actually be mitten crazy – It’ll be stash busting!!  That sounds so much more productive. I’ve got so many little bits of leftover yarn cause I can’t bear to part with anything that will be just perfect for a project like this.

Again, it’s the blog reading that’s gotten me in trouble, led me down the garden path, as it were. This has been a hellacious month with problems and doctor’s appointments and who knew my eyes were allergic to the medicine they were giving me to lower the pressure? I mean, just one damn thing after another. And extra hours at work. And just now, a few days off to go south and visit with daughter and her children before they leave to move to Florida.

So I’m trying to catch up on the blogs that I follow and tonight I’m sitting here reading through The Yarn Harlot’s January posts, and get to the one about the mittens. Colorwork patterns that, when done with black, look like little stained-glass windows. And I’ve got 6.5 shit-tons of leftover bits, and enough Cascade 220 here to re-insulate the whole house.

I bought the pattern – there’s a link from her blog post and it’s available on Ravelry, too. Sad that I find this wonderful pattern as my favorite mitten-wearers are heading south.

No problems on my trip home today, Just under two and a half hours of driving. The first half hour or so was in light rain, but then it eased off and was clear the rest of the way so I didn’t have to shit myself driving over that damn Bay Bridge in a rainstorm with no visibility. I must admit that the last few times I’ve had no “issues” with driving over that stinking bridge. I’m hysterically afraid of heights, don’t do well on the second rung of a stepladder and bridges have a lot of “UP.”

Still, I live in fear of getting stuck up there, hitting stop-and-go traffic, or stalled for a while due to an accident. I just don’t know how well I would cope with that – as long as I stay moving and the radio is up full blast, I do OK now.