Crazy-Glue, Glass Eyes and Flat Tires

The last of my spring appointments in the medical realm of my life was polished off this week with a trip to the eye doctor. He says my cataracts are in the “iffy zone.” If glaring lights at night and daytime sun is bothering me then the cataracts can come off otherwise we can let them go a year or two. I’m in no danger to other drivers on the road, he said, and I asked if there’s a chance he’ll retire before my next appointment. “Yes, but I’ll find a good looking guy to take over,” he replied. I told him that in today’s world he shouldn’t exclude the possibility of a woman ophthalmologist taking over. “Oh, I’m not.” he said, laughing. “If you were a man I’d tell you I’ll find a good looking woman to take over my practice.” I went home thinking maybe I should have the surgery this year because I trust my doctor. I’ve been going to him for over 30 years, since he treated me in an emergency because I Crazy-Glued my eye shut and more recently he gave my husband 20/20 vision after his cataract surgeries. When I brought this dilemma up with the Gathering Girls they all thought I should wait until I get a young doctor because, they reasoned, a younger doctor will know better techniques and have steadier hands. I hate dilemmas like this. My dad once had a doctor have a heart attack and fall on top of him while he was laying on a treatment table, so I get what they’re saying. 

And for the curious-minded who want to know how one goes about Crazy-Gluing your eyelid to your eyeball, let me explain that it involved a wooden dowel and a hole where I wanted it to go. I filled up the hole with glue and then with too much force I pushed the dowel inside and the glue splashed up and into my eye. Talk about ball-of-fire painful! I went into that mode where you think if you scream-talk people will understand that it hurt like the devil had pushed a hot poker in my eye and he was twisting it at warp speed. I called Don who found the eye doctor and off we went. It’s such a common thing to happen that his office keeps a solution on hand that undoes Crazy-Glue. A chemical burn on my eyeball resulted but it healed surprisingly fast with no permanent damage. To this day I have never used Crazy-Glue without first putting safety glasses on. Eye issues freak me out. A couple of times I’ve rubbed my eye and accidentally flipped the lid outside in so it looked like I didn’t have any eyelashes at all. They were all up inside! Oh, yes, my eye doctor has gotten me through some strange things with his calm demeanor and sense of humor.

One of my friends from The Gathering (for people looking for friends) has a fake eye, technically called an ocular prosthesis. She’s had it since childhood when a neglected case of Pink Eye turned into a serious infection that caused her to lose her eye. Recently, she had an appointment to get a new eye painted by the only guy in the state who does that kind of work. It’s long process of literally sitting in a room while the “eye artist” works on the fake eye while using your real eye as his guide. Not able to let this tidbit go by without googling glass eyes, I found out an ocular prosthetic can cost $2,500 to $8,300 and the first known prosthesis was made of gold and worn by a woman back in circa 2900 BC. By the 5^th century fake eyes that were made out of clay were written about and by the 16^th century glass came into use. WWII soldiers brought on a need for lots of fake eyes and plastic eyes have been the norm ever since. In the U.S. there are only 170 ocularists (eyeball painters) and it takes a five year apprenticeship to get certificated. On e-Bay you can buy just about anything including vintage glass eyes for sale from $30 to $100. Ohmygod, do you think people buy those for do-it-yourself health care projects! If they do, I hope no one gets the bright idea to use Crazy-Glue to hold them in place.

I spent the morning yesterday talking myself into going to the gym when I really didn’t feel like it. But I bit the bullet and went anyway. Part way there I noticed a warning icon on the dashboard and in the parking lot of the YMCA I looked it up in the manual. My car was trying to tell me that my left, rear tire only had ten pounds of air---twelve when I first noticed it. I turned the motor off and back on, hoping that would cure it---works on computers---but the icon was still there so I drove to the nearest tire store and got in their service queue to wait a full two hours! I was given the option to make an appointment for the next day but I was afraid the air in the tire would be entirely gone by then. It was a good call. My tire had a screw in it. Emergency avoided. Of the seventeen others who came and went from the waiting room, I was the only one without a cell phone in front of my face. I felt like a dinosaur with a real book in my hands but it was laugh-out-loud entertaining and the time went quickly. I've had that emergency reading material in the car forever and it finally paid off. ©

Moles, Moose and Melania's Husband

I saw my dermatologist this week. It’s weird getting naked in front of him and his male nurse. I pretend they’re a gay couple but I doubt that’s true. The doctor is an older polish immigrant with a thick accent and his nurse is an x-military field nurse---a young, good looking and confident type. I hate the indignity of these yearly mole checks but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Given his background, I’m sure the younger man has seen worse than rolls and bulges on an old woman with enough moles on her back that he could play connect-a-dot and come up with a map of the galaxy. This time the doctor only found two suspicious moles. They were small enough to burn off but they were right above my lip and the shot to deaden the area was so painful! I tried my best not to show it to the nurse who gave the shot, knowing he’s dressed battlefield wounds but I was doing a low groan. They told me the swelling would be gone in two hours but it’s two days later and my lip still looks lopsided. The two burn spots will scab over and the scabs will fall off in two weeks. Until then, I’ll be studying my toes a lot when I’m out in public.

Recently I also attended a lecture about Isle Royale's yearly moose and wolf study. Isle Royale is an island in Lake Superior, which is a designated U.S. National Wilderness Park (along with its surrounding water). Its 45 miles long, 9 miles wide, an isolated island that’s billed as “unparalleled solitude and adventures for backpackers, hikers, boaters, kayakers, canoeists and scuba divers” and its home to some flowers and birds that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. If Mr. Trump has his way all the national parks will be privatized. Already he's used an executive order to dismantle protections Obama put in place to protect the parks against oil drilling and mineral mining. One day, we may see a luxury Trump Hunting Lodge on Isle Royale so his sons can slaughter all the wildlife for fun and wall décor. But I digress. 

The island is inaccessible in the winter but that’s when they use a helicopter to do a head count of the (1,400) moose and (3) wolves and in the spring teams of volunteers comb the island looking for moose skulls and femur bones that they backpack out to a command post. Teeth and femurs are sent to college labs for the purpose of studying the health, age, causes of death and the effects climate and disease has on the moose community. This yearly study has been going on for fifty years and looking at the flow charts that resulted was fascinating. The moose don’t fall subject to problems of inbreeding because moose looking for love are known to swim the eighteen miles of icy water from Canada to get to the island. The wolf population is not so lucky plus someone smuggled a sick dog onto the island that resulted in killing most of the wolves. Unless Trump’s administration puts a stop to it---a real worry to those in charge---20-30 wolves are will be moved to the island for the first time ever. Canada will be trapping and putting tracking collars on them, and then release them to wait until they’re sure they’ve got an entire wolf pack tagged before they’ll be moved all together. Of course, the people in favor of privatizing the national parks would rather just open Royal Isle up to hunters and not worry about the dwindling wolf population. Everything boils down to politics in the end, doesn’t it. Preserving a unique Eco-system for future generations verse spending the same money on a few more guns for the military---a no brainer decision for Melania’s husband who has a visceral love of phallus symbols. 

Technically, Isle Royale in part of my state, Michigan, but it’s not easily accessible less you rent a sea plane or take a ferry from Minnesota or the Upper Peninsula. With just 18,000 visitors a year it’s considered to be the most under used park in the U.S. Wilderness Park system and when you find out the only wheels allowed on the island are on push carts used to get your gear from the ferry to the lodge or campsites, you’ll understand this isn’t a place you visit unless you’re relatively healthy and fit. 98% of the island is designated as primitive America wilderness. We used to have friends who’d go every year to scuba dive, the place is a mecca for divers because it’s got the world largest collection of intact, underwater ship wrecks in the world. Others in our family went for the hiking. The place is so unique that the United Nations designated Isle Royale as an International Biosphere Reserve because of its “global scientific and educational significance.” Privatizing a place like that and the other national parks so rich men can get richer and/or turn them into personal playgrounds? I hate that Melania’s husband is making so many of us fight on so many fronts for what should be settled and noble values of society! Okay, I’ll put politics and my snide remarks back in the box of topics not to write about. Sorry. ©

 

Sowing Seeds for Friendship

Monday was what I call the Running of the Bulls down at the senior hall---a day that happens five times a year where we have to register for the events we want to attend over the upcoming months. We get a sixteen page newsletter in the mail, have a week to look it over and make our decisions, then not a second before 9:00 AM on an appointed day we’re allowed to respond by e-mails. By the end of that first day they will register between 1,500 to 1,700 RSVPs. The running of the bulls comes from all of us wanting the earliest time stamp we can manage on our e-mails. It could mean beating someone else out for a seat on the bus for a day trip, a ticket for a play or baseball game, a seat at a lecture or luncheon, etc. Many of those RSVPs will end up on waiting lists but if your whole social life revolves around the outcome of registration day, it can give you a rush if you snagged what you wanted. This time there were twenty-one events offered but I made a decision to cut way back on my summer sign-ups. I only RSVPed to one lecture, an ice-cream social and three Gatherings (for people looking for friends). It’s a risk for me because I usually pepper my summer with twice that, including a day trip or two. If I’m moaning and groaning this summer about being bored I’ll have no one to blame but myself. I did agonize over whether or not I wanted to go to an off-Broadway production of Wicked. The $85 for a matinee and transportation was probably a good deal but still that’s a big chunk of change.

My summers since my husband died have all had a theme. The first two summers were devoted to downsizing his stuff. The third summer I was obsessed with condo shopping that, in the end, I decided I’m not ready for yet. Last summer I was on a mission to find friends and that’s starting to pay off. Now that summer is on the horizon, six of us from the Gatherings set up monthly brunch dates and we had our first one this week where I’m sad to report we didn’t find a plan for world peace but we did talk about books, movies and going to an artists' street fair later in May, which will be our forth outing. Stepping up the number of times a month we see each other should speed up the developing friendships. “All the flowers of all the tomorrows are the seeds of today.” That saying is written on a clock that hangs in my garage. The clock was supposed to go to the Salvation Army but that’s as far as it would go without a gun held at its back.

Anyway, if I was working on a grade school theme paper on how I plan to spend my summer I’d write: “This summer I want to play with the Gathering Girls and make our budding friendships stronger and play at the gym and make my body stronger. I want to be happy and healthy and smile a lot and clean out my clothes closet.” My closet is so full that even my underwear is screaming in unison, “Get me out of here before I suffocate!”

Friendship means different things to different people. Certainly, all of us Gathering Girls want someone to hang out with and I, for one, am excited about the possibility of finding summer bonding experiences. Beyond that I’m hoping to develop a close friend or two with whom I can trade favors in case of emergencies---rides to the med center or we locked our keys in the car kind of emergencies. Friends count on each other in good times and bad. Funny thing is I never worried about those sorts of things when my husband was alive. His nephews live near-by and I figured they wouldn’t refuse helping their favorite uncle, if we ever called. (We didn't.) When they were younger Don was the good time uncle who rode them around in the back of his yellow convertible, who took them to the beach, hiking in the woods and filled them up with good memories. But Don is gone now and so is his nephew’s mother, father and the family get-togethers. As time marches on the connections with my husband’s family gets weaker and weaker. The blooms of yesterday are fading and ready to spread their seeds of friendship elsewhere, to a new generation where they’ve become the favorite uncles and the grandfathers who bounce babies on their knees. 

Looking back to past summers and to my plans for the upcoming sun-washed season apparently whipped my subconscious into a tizzy. Last night, dreams woke me up five-six times but the only one I remember is one in which I was stressed out because my husband was traveling around the country in a motor home. I could track him by a satellite feed, see what he was doing but I wanted to ring his neck because he wouldn’t answer his cell phone. What a topsy-turvy dream! I’m taking the dream to mean I still miss the best friend I ever had even though the dream dictionary indicates it’s more about suppressed anger carried over from my awake life. Oh, brother, now I have to spend the afternoon figuring out what I have to be angry about. ©