Wednesday, December 30, 2009

HIGH BEAMS

I do not like driving in the dark anymore. Apparently for some of us the aging process includes "night blindness".
My employer allows workers to utilize flex time so we can set our own work schedules within certain guidelines. It gets dark very early up here in the forgotten land of Northern New York. By around 4:30 PM the long dismal shadows cast their dark blanket on the frozen tundra. Okay I'm exaggerating a little about the frozen tundra but this is the snow belt and the temperatures do dip into the subzero at times. So right now I am ending my workday at 4:oo so I can drive home before the light of day has completely faded into darkness. It sounds more than wimpy that I have begun to avoid night driving. I do it if I have to but the extent of it is now limited to familiar road ways near home.
I have experienced my fair share of white knuckle rides home during heavy snowfall and enjoyable it is not. I drive a Jeep Cherokee with four wheel drive which definitely helps keep me on the road but if it starts to snow really heavily and the visibility grows poor I slow down to 30 miles an hour so I don't end up in the ditch. Last year there were times when I was shaking by the time I slid into the driveway.
The other major danger is hitting a deer as they seem to enjoy bounding out of the woods without a cautious gaze to check if any machines are hurling toward them.It is prudent to focus peripheral vision along the roadsides for the telltale animal eyes. You know that expression "like a deer caught in the headlights!" People have actually been maimed and injured by flying deer carcasses landing on the hood of their vehicle smashing the windshield. I am not making this up nor exaggerating.
So here I am trying to drive home on the snow covered roads, slowing down to a cautious speed, vigilant in my quest to spot any stampeding deer when some yahoo in a large pickup truck decides he will try to pass me traveling 50 mph. Let 'em, as I spew a nasty epithet about their ancestry. I will lower my high beams as a courtesy and hope they have a safe trip home too.

Friday, December 11, 2009

New Glasses

Contacts are not for me. I realize it probably ages my appearance somewhat, however I have deluded myself into believing it makes me look smart. I have fairly good health benefits so I am able to get two pairs of new glasses every year. If you wear glasses every day it's nice to change what you look at in the mirror.

At about age forty I was informed by my optometrist that I needed bifocals. I nearly had a fit right there in his office. I was not happy with the news. When people begin to realize they need to keep adding more distance between themselves and the reading material and their arms are not going to grow any longer it's time to give up and do what you have to do.

I keep one pair as my office glasses and my second pair are the transition lenses that darken when you go outside in the sun. I love them but sometimes if you are going in and out of dark places and then back again into the sunlight it takes a little while for the lens color to adjust.

I get frustrated sometimes about the tightness behind my ears bothering me after awhile, like right now. It is usually after wearing the same glasses all day so sometimes I reposition them over my ears and they will stay on. If I go have the glasses adjusted to fit looser then they are always slipping down my nose and if I bend over they fall off my face.

So why don't I just get contacts or laser surgery? I've always had this aversion about anything going too close to my eyes. When my daughters were being fitted for their contacts I had to step outside the office because I couldn't bear to watch something being inserted in their eyes. So I doubt I'd ever be able to tolerate a Dr. or someone messing about with a laser beam. I guess I'll just have to keep wearing my old fashioned Ben Franklins. I guess if it's good enough for Jordy LaForge it's good enough for me.