Don’t Hate Me Because I Am Perfect
March 14, 2008
Today I finally made it to the eye doctor for an eye exam. The last time I went to the eye doctor it was the late 1980’s and really I have had no need to have an eye exam since then.
But the past few years I have noticed that I don’t see as well. I used to be able to read street signs from really far away, like almost as soon as I noticed there was a sign. But not anymore. Of course being me and slightly melodramatic, I had convinced myself that I was going blind.
So I sat down at the eye doctor’s office and read the chart. All the little letters and numbers. But I couldn’t see the bottom row. Dammit, it must be worse that I imagined, I thought.
He put that eyeglasses machine on me and flipped the little lenses around.
I was already mentally preparing for the cute glasses I was going to pick out. Oh, okay, I’ll admit it I was kind of looking forward to having glasses.
He then broke the news to me, I have perfect 20/20 vision. I apparently used to have better than 20/20 vision and now have slipped down to merely perfect.
Then I had the glaucoma test and some other eye drops that were orange. I passed whatever those tests were. I left the office without any cute glasses, which is really for the best anyway since I can not even seem to keep track of my $10 Target sunglasses.
From there I stopped at the grocery store for a few things. Then I went home and picked up the kids to bring them to a maple syrup place for a field trip to learn about tapping trees and making syrup, where I spent my children’s college education fund on Grade A maple syrup.
On the way home I looked at myself in the rear view mirror and realized that all around my eyes were stained orange. ORANGE. Like I had colored in my eyelids and under my eyes with an orange magic marker.
I turned to my son and said, “Look at my eyes! Why didn’t you tell me that I looked all orangey.”
You know what he said? “I thought that was just your makeup.”
Clearly I need some makeup lessons.
Those of you who wanted to see the whole stove cleaning mess that I am forced to endure weekly, here ya go. It takes days for my hand to look normal again. Just giving you a glimpse into my glamorous life.
I know. Try to contain that jealousy why don’t you.
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De-lurking to say you have the same eye troubles as my dad, he saw better than 20/20 for many yrs and now that hes getting older he JUST* sees at 20/20,he whines about it all the time!
I have no understanding since I have terrible vision and would kill to have 20/20.
Have a great weekend!
March 14th, 2008 at 10:03 pmI’m glad your vision is fine. Me, when I go to get my eyes tested and I can’t even see the big E at the top (or where the chart is to read in the first place). The maple syrup field trip sounds like fun. Would wearing rubber gloves help to clean the woodstove? Or handy-man type gloves (I have no idea what they are called) We used to live in WV and had an outdoor wood boiler to heat the house — it was quite a pain having to go outside in the snow to load the fire three times a day during the winter, but it made the house very warm and kept the ashes and smoke outside instead of inside the house — and it was much cheaper than natural gas when my husband was in town to cut wood, but no so cheap when he was out of town and I had to buy loads of wood.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:09 pmTwo words: rubber gloves.
Do you think your orange eyeshadow will start a new fad?
LOL
Chris says: I could buy gloves. But then what will I have to bitch about?
March 14th, 2008 at 10:10 pmHi Chris - What in the world do you do in that stove (I’m not sure I really want to know)? I’ve maintained wood and coal fired stoves that look a lot like your’s and never has such grime gotten spread around like that. We’ll there was the time I tripped over the cat carrying the ash pan
Chris says: It’s a pellet stove and the ash gets into all the (poorly designed) nooks and crannies.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:43 pmLOL…and while you’re buying those gloves, why don’t you pick up some new sunglasses. If you hadn’t lost your other ones, you could have covered those orangey eyes of yours!
I have lived the same eye melodrama - going blind is scary stuff!
March 14th, 2008 at 11:05 pmHey there… love our blog so I thought I would tag you… You’re it!
March 14th, 2008 at 11:21 pmI have a blog game for you to play if you want — read mine and consider yourself tagged.
rae
I pretended for a long time my eyes were “fine.” My first trip to the eye doctor and he wanted me to get BI-FOCALS. I don’t think so. Maybe when I’m older. I left there with some cute reading glasses and that’s the end of it. I don’t want to tell you to be happy you don’t have cute bi-focals, just sharin’ my story.
You do have a handy light to help with your dirty deed, so that should make up for the hands.
What, no orange make-up picture?
March 14th, 2008 at 11:22 pmI used to have perfect vision in one eye, but I noticed it’s been slipping. I asked the eye doctor why it would change with age, and her answer, essentially, was that the stuff inside my eye is sagging. Isn’t that nice? It will match the rest of my face. Damn gravity.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:36 pmI love the maple syrup photos!
~~
March 14th, 2008 at 11:53 pmI use dishwashing gloves when I clean out the fireplace. Ugh. Worst. Job. Ever. Not really. Anything involving poop is worse, I guess, because you never have time to don dishwashing gloves then.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:53 pmLaughing at the sooty mess, at least you clean it, many people don’t and then wonder why it smokes them out of the house on occasion. I know that it’s a pellet, but what kind? Is it an Enviro? It look just like ours - until last year we ran a stove store…
March 15th, 2008 at 12:01 amChris, I bought a box of medical gloves, (use once and toss). So much easier now.
Chris says: I had a box of those and the kids ran off with all of them
March 15th, 2008 at 12:19 amI think the fact that you actually *do* this once a week is one of the fine-print details of being an adult that I just don’t get yet. Because today I have done dishes twice and my husband has done dishes once (all in the same day) because we seriously haven’t done dishes since before Sunday. And then the 2nd time I washed dishes was because I had to clean out the fridge of leftovers and threw away from stuff that we couldn’t even remember when we’d cooked.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:40 amOh, to have 20/20 vision again. Mine is 20/1200. I’m thinking my yellow lab could double as a seeing eye dog someday.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:10 amI so wish we had a place around here that tapped trees for maple syrup.
My wife gets annoyed that my eyes don’t seem to get any worse (I am 20/25), every year she bets me that “this year” my prescription will change, but it has been exactly the same for 20 years. (knocking on everything wood I can find).
Oh, and Thank You. I wanted a stove like that for many years, you have cured me from those desires.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:28 am“I thought that was your make-up.” Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha…
March 15th, 2008 at 5:27 amI bought rubber gloves, but do I ever remember to wear them?
I like to pretend that seeing the buckets on the maple trees is the first sign of spring. Sigh!
My eye doc says I need bifocals, but being only 5 feet tall, I ALREADY have to tilt my head back to see whoever is talking to me. If I wanted to look at them through the bottom half of my lenses, it would be even worse!
March 15th, 2008 at 7:15 amI can’t believe you have to clean out your stove every week like that!!! We use wood in ours. You can wear gloves to spare your hands.
March 15th, 2008 at 7:26 amYou are so lucky you have great vision! My Dad does too. he is 64 and just recently had to get glasses for reading. Doesn’t need glasses for anything else. Lucky!
Lol! I went to the eye doctor last week after years - the only reason being I’d run out of contacts. The pupil dilation is the worst for me. No dye for me - but I’m sure The Minion would have had a snappy reponse too.
I saw the most beautiful sight of sap buckets and steaming sugarhouses just the other day. Spring is almost here - YIPPEE!
March 15th, 2008 at 8:00 amWell shoot, I can give you some genuine jealously over your eyesight….I’ve worn glasses or contacts since I was 10 years old. Up until a year or so ago, I was merely blind-as-a-bat near-sighted….now I am far-sighted as well (can’t see close up), so - I now wear reading glasses to read WHILE I am wearing my expensive toric soft contact lenses (I have an astigmatsim too! which really just means my eyes are bumpy!) and although Boeing has really good health insurance, it doesn’t cover the lasik surgery that I would love to have but have not had because it would be really expensive for me because my near-sightedness is so bad. So, you see what one little pair of glasses can start - even if they’re cute??!!! Enjoy your good eyesight, kiddo. Because the opposite is a pain in the butt (not to mention the eyes)!!
March 15th, 2008 at 8:23 amI’m going to a maple syrup ‘place’ as you called it tonight (we say “Cabane à sucre” in French)! I’m not eating all day so that I can eat all the desserts I want.
As you can see, I have very healthy eating habits.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:26 amPS - I’m 20/900.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:26 amI have had the same trouble with my eyes. They were better than 20/20 when I was a kid and now they are just normal - which to me means my eyesight is failing with age.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:42 amboys, one time I went into school - meeting for something. Anyway after we left and I was back in the car — looked up into the rear view mirror. How can I put this . . . windy day, needed a haircut, too much spray. Flock of seagulls would have been proud. I asked my son — his reply “your hair never looks good?” what?
March 15th, 2008 at 8:51 amI was thinking that as I read your post that you must have had better vision than 20/20 to begin with. I’m the same way. My vision is 20/13 and hopefully I still have a few more years to go before I “slip down to” 20/20. lol
March 15th, 2008 at 8:54 amI was hoping for a picture of your orange eye shadow! Or was it eyeliner? Or maybe both!
Love your old stove & I am jealous. But that’s OK, I live in Texas anyway! I do collect a lot of vintage kitchen things though.
Come by for a visit at http://anapronaday.blogspot.com
March 15th, 2008 at 9:00 amNothing about eyes…but your HAIR! it’s GORGEOUS!
Chris says: Gosh, thank-you. And no, I don’t have any secrets.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:02 amMy dad worked on antique cars and tractors when I was a kid, and no one could tell. There is this soap, brand name “lava” that takes the gunk off as soon as you’re done. I’ve actually seen it here at Target.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:15 amEventually you’ll probably need reading glasses, and they do make really cute ones, so there’s that to look forward to. Enjoy your 20/20 vision!
March 15th, 2008 at 9:28 amUntil we got Reverse Cycled Airconditioning installed 5 years ago, we had a solid fuel ( wood buring stove) It heated the whole house throughout winter. Mind you we don’t have the cold winters you guys have but it was generally on 24/7 for many weeks of winter but we seemed to only ever have to clean it out every two or three years.
and even then it was only about a bucket and a half if you were lucky.
Defnitely get some gloves and hide them from the kids.
Take Care and enjoy
March 15th, 2008 at 9:29 amLots of Love Carolynn xxx
I did something like that to my Mom once…She had taken out her curlers and then forgot to comb out her hair. We ran errands all over our “everyone knows you” small town with her with these perfectly formed curls all over her head! The last place we stopped was the gas station where she glance in the rear view mirror. She GASPED and said “why didn’t you tell me my hair looked like that?” My sister said “I thought you wanted it to look like that!”
March 15th, 2008 at 10:13 amI leave the pellet stove cleaning (the weekly one) to my husband. I’ll empty the little tray thingy and I’ll windex the glass, but I have no desire to learn any more than that. I will also vacuum the pool, but I refuse to learn how to backwash.
Maybe you can pass the job off to your oldest son?
March 15th, 2008 at 11:01 amWe had woodstoves in all of our cabins at the Land, and the fun part was climbing on the roofs to clean out the chimneys because of the creosote. It’s a different kind of life when you know what creosote is. And then chopping kindling, chopping WOOD, chopping chopping chopping. Methinks a pellet stove might be an okay way to go, despite the cleaning. Unless you can afford to buy all your wood perfectly chopped and shaped.
I miss the smell, though.
March 15th, 2008 at 12:57 pmHuge props to Jenni for telling it like it is up above, re dishwashing….I am slowly making the transition to acting like an adult, but I used to have EXTREME rules about the number of dishes we acquire. The idea is that once all the dishes are dirty we will wash them, but alas once all the dishes are dirty, we often just ate out for days on end, because who can cook like that? I am making slow progress though. Never give up the dream Jenni!
March 15th, 2008 at 1:13 pmawww little Miles, his expression is so cute. And if it makes you feel any better, you look adorable while cleaning your lovely, sooty, grimy stove.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:20 pmGod, I wish I were you.
Chris says: I know.
March 15th, 2008 at 5:01 pm“I thought that was just your makeup” OMG ,that was so funny! kids! don’t you just love them?
March 15th, 2008 at 7:14 pmSeeing you having “fun” with that sooty mess, I’m loving my gas fireplace more and more each second. I agree with the previous commenters…. Get thee some gloves, woman. And hide them from the kidlets.
On another note, I went to work one day without blending my concealer on all the little blemish scars scattered about my face. DH didn’t mention it before I left… my coworkers didn’t say anything… my customers didn’t say anything… I encountered about 30 people before I went to the ladies room and saw these light-colored blotches all over my face. WTF? If you’ve got something in your teeth, I’m gonna’ tell you because I expect the same!
Oh, and my chiropractor never tells me when I look like Tammy Fae after laying face down on his table with mascara getting smooshed all over my face. Men suck.
March 15th, 2008 at 7:16 pmWOW, that’s a mighty clean pellet stove. You could totally cook dinner in there. We only clean our pellet stove when we think about it or every 5 months, whichever comes first -it’s the hub’s job.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:14 pmChris says: Damn, I wish I had whatever stove you have. I *have* to clean it at least once a week.
Maybe you can still be a fighter pilot, a la Top Gun, with your super-human vision!
March 15th, 2008 at 10:19 pmYay! A picture of you! Looks like fun!
March 15th, 2008 at 11:30 pmThose are beautiful photos of the maple trees . . . is that what they’re called? I have no idea.
And kudos to you for cleaning that pellet stove once a week. I am soooo showing my sis-in-law, I don’t think she’s EVER cleaned hers (it’s about 10 years old).
March 16th, 2008 at 3:30 amGod, those maple syrup photos. It is my dream to visit New England during syrup season. I like the really dark stuff, is that grade B? I can’t remember. I have a small bottle in my fridge from VT that has just a drizzle left, and I guard it like gold - the kids and my hubby only get the ‘cheap’ (hah!) Grade A stuff. Mean, yes - but it cost me an airfare from England to buy the real deal, and there is no way I am sharing! (my husband actually prefers the lighter syrup, and my kids wouldn’t know the difference).
March 16th, 2008 at 10:36 amNot so jealous of the oven cleaning, but I’m WAY jealous of your 20/20 vision. My husband and I are both legally blind (though we can see quite well with corrective lenses) . . . our poor kid!
By the way, filthy hands work GREAT for dinner parties . . . as in “Here is your wonderful meal that I have prepared for you!” served with filthy hands . . .
March 16th, 2008 at 10:53 amWhat a cool field trip. I wish we had something like that down her ein the south! Kids are so funny…. my daughter does the same type of thing to me all the time.
Thanks for reminding me I need to clean the fireplace!
March 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pmdidn’t read any of the other comments. but i say screw the soot, i want to see photos of the ‘orange eye make-up’.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:11 pmI have freakishly good vision– I am that gal who can read signs far away. Awhile ago, though, I had headaches and convinced myself I needed glasses. Was totally ready to find cute ones to go with my outfits– only to find out my vision was still perfect.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:21 pmDelurking to say thanks for the best laugh I’ve had in a coouple months, at least.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:32 amAhahaha, i had that exact same experience at school once when i was younger! A guy had hit me in the face the evening before, and when i was walking in to school with my friend, i finally asked her why she hadn’t commented on the whapping big bruise on my eye, and she said she thought it was makeup! What??
Congrats on the perfect eyesight, if only you had known it was more-than-perfect before, you could have made Six Million Dollar Man noises when looking at faraway things. Hell, do it now, anyway. I do.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:47 am…and i’ve just realised what you’re saying about your stove. We have a wood-burning, and we’ve not cleaned it in 4 years. We empty the soot trap out occassionally, but that just involves carrying it to the bin and then carrying it back (the trap, not the stove!). It has a self-cleaning glass window, and the rest can stay as sooty and dirty as it likes, it still works perfectly. Never heard of a pellet stove, but i guess it burns coal does it? We have an endless supply of free wood around these parts, so wood-burning suits us better. Probably takes a little more minding, but my dad enjoys it. Yours likely has advantage in that if you leave it for 2 hours it won’t die completely?
March 17th, 2008 at 4:51 amNo comments about vision tests, only a thank you…for my first big belly laugh of the week. (after I read the orange ‘make up’ story) I have many boys under my roof and can see the same scenario playing out around here. (I am also not great with real makeup…)
March 17th, 2008 at 8:50 amThanks for the Monday morning start up laugh!
Judy
I don’t hate you for your perfect eyesight, I hate you for your damned fresh maple syrup! JK….
March 17th, 2008 at 1:29 pmI love love love the make-up comment. Kids will say the craziest things and do with such straight forwardness!
Oh I just hate you for well….everything!
March 17th, 2008 at 4:10 pm