jimsjournal
a
jimsjournal |
Vision 2 -- 06/20/13 |
|||||
The problem I was grumbling about yesterday with my eyeglasses is that the left nose pad snapped off. I had a problem with one of the pads coming off a couple of years ago -- during Hurricane Irene. My glasses broke that Sunday. Tried to get it fixed on Monday but the office complex where my eye doctor and eyeglass shot was located was without power (and ended up without power for five days). The Main Street area in town had power on Tuesday so I got my glasses fixed in a little shop there. A few months ago the other nose pad came off and I got it fixed at my usual optical shop. So I went there this week to get this one repaired and their office was empty. The eye doctors and their glasses shop had moved to South County Commons... South County Commons is modern retail complex designed to look like the business district of a small New England town. Okay, I've got to admit that although it annoyed the heck out of me when they built it, it's actually not a bad place (although I still wish these shops had been put on our actual genuine small New England town Main Street. So I go there and I try to find them. Up and down and around and around and I cannot find them. Finally I went into a store and asked a clerk if he knew where they were. He laughed and told me where they were. This area (running roughly from north to south) has a bunch of condos and a senior assisted living area and some more condos and then the commercial area with shops and offices and restaurants, etc., then a movie theater and then a motel. The medical offices were in a new building between the multiplex cinema and the motel. I had not know there was anything there except a parking lot for the motel. But, they could not fix my glasses -- the only way to repair them would be to solder a new nose piece on and apparently "nobody" does soldering anymore. The optical tech suggested calling a jeweler's shop in Wickford. (I did -- they said sure, they would give it a try -- and they would try do have it ready the same day if I brought it in early enough and the cost would probably be between 25 to 50 dollars, although maybe more, depending, and they would give no guarantee.... so instead I dug out an older pair of glasses and I will contentedly wear them until I have my annual eye exam and checkup in August and will get a new pair of glasses.) However, the optical tech was very helpful when I asked for advice about prescription swim goggles. She had me ask the records department to get my folder and she explained my current (August 2012) prescription. So yesterday I went to SwimOutlet.com and followed their instructions for figuring out how to convert my prescription into a single number that really just represents an approximation of my distance vision (not unlike grabbing reading glasses off a rack in a pharmacy). The idea is just to be able to see where I'm going, not to watch a movie or drive a car. (One day a week or so ago my coach told me to watch the guy in the third lane, to try to hold my head the same way and I told him I could not see the guy in that lane. I don't mean I had difficulty picking out details, I mean I could not even see if there was someone in that lane until he came down toward the end of the pool where we were standing.) The goggles were very inexpensive -- less than half of what I spent to buy the non-prescription off-the-rack goggles I have been wearing. So I splurged for two day delivery so I can have them for this weekend rather than waiting until the middle of next week. Okay, almost time for Nancy and me to get ready for our weekly Bootcamp workout class at the Y. Below, an advertisement for optical services from the Narragansett Times from 125 years ago. Narragansett was a summer resort town and M. Schwab was a New York City optician who apparently set up shop in Narragansett for most of the month of July so he could enjoy a bit of a working vacation. 
|