Humpday Happenings...
Today is one of those "good news - bad news" days...
I knew that much even before I went to bed last night.
And NO, it's got nothing at all to do with being precognitive in ANY way.
It's just logic...plain and simple.
First, the good news...I woke up...(taa-daaaaa)!
Like I said yesterday, mortality stares at me every day, and I live to stare right BACK at it.
Now, the "bad" news...
Going to the eye doctor today...another vision "update".
The LAST time I went, I wound up with some "groovy octafocals", or as the "pros" call 'em...PROGRESSIVE LENSES.
Granted, it makes flashing my peepers from the car's dashboard to the road and back a lot less problematic...everything is in focus once again. I suffer from MYOPIA, or nearsightedness, but that does NOT mean I am ever "short-sighted"...I just have short eyeballs...LOL!
But it always costs money...(doesn't everything?)
And then you have to go through the "breaking-in" period for new lenses. With my glasses, it took a while to not feel a sense of vertigo whenever I moved my head from side-to-side (like being in the damn Hitchcock movie - doc told me about it, and that I'd get used to it...and I did after a few weeks).
Let's face it...as all of us age, stuff that used to work as originally designed tends to falter, and in some cases, fail altogether.







I always think of our bodies like CARS...or GUNS.
It's a "man thing".
Things break down, need to be repaired or replaced, and definitely need to be kept well maintained, in order to prevent all that nasty "parts swap" crap.
Dad used to say that nothing keeps a car running better than proper lubrication. and that meant changing the oil RELIGIOUSLY every 2K miles. And facts show it DOES keep engine wear to a minimum.
Mom used to say that Dad should have lived a lot longer, because he kept HIMSELF "well-oiled", and back in MY day, that meant he wasn't above tying one on every weekend at home...LOL.
Guess you can't fight genetics, though, hmm?
But still, when it comes to the HUMAN BODY, there are lot more things that can go wrong, than with any other mechanical contrivance.
If it's not the eyes, it's your bones, or hearing, or teeth, or (dare I say it?) your digestive system.
And all these systems are a LOT more prone to problems than, say the air-conditioner on the old "Batmobile".
I mean, the car drives just fine without having the A/C functional (just don't drive around a lot in a black car at noon in the middle of SUMMER), but I can't function if I can't see properly, can I?
Now, I used to have 20/10 vision, which means that I USED to be able to see at TWENTY FEET what others could only see at TEN FEET. And that worked for me damn well. Used to build a lot of models with SMALL parts, too.
Well, the model gig is all but defunct nowadays, and my vision has slipped to 20/70, corrected to 20/20, but that STILL isn't good enough to get me in the cockpit of an F-22 Raptor...(oh, well...NEXT life).
I can still see well enough to shoot straight and hit whatever I'm aiming at (in my neighborhood, that's a HUGE PLUS), so all's well there.
The missus is another story. She has poor vision all across the spectrum, and her glasses, although they're not coke bottle bottoms, are a very strong prescription (as are her contacts).
I don't really like contact lenses myself...shouldn't have to put foreign objects in your eyes...it's not natural.
I mean, I've already had a steel shard removed from one cornea years ago (painful as all hell) so I'm in NO hurry to stick things in there that do NOT belong.
Like I said yesterday...I've been fortunate.
I might not be able to see with the cat-like precision I once enjoyed, but I still have my "dog ears".
And that itself is both blessing and curse.
It's nice to be able to hear things others don't, and tell if it's a "good" sound, or something you should NOT be hearing. And it comes in handy when wondering WTF the car's been doing...or the fridge...or the furnace.
And I can usually tell the difference between a .22, a .38, a 9mm, or a .45 round going off (again, in MY neighborhood, that's a PLUS...especially when you're chatting up the PD for that all-too-frequent "shots fired" call emanating from up the block).
The down side is that I can also hear these damnable boomcars coming BLOCKS away..it's all in the frequency range, folks.
Like I said...a blessing AND a curse.
But, you know...when it comes to SEEING THINGS as they were MEANT TO BE SEEN, it doesn't have to come down to having the proper eyewear. It DOES come down to being able to pay the hell attention.
It's not so much what you VIEW that's important, but how your brain INTERPRETS it.
And that's where all the OTHER senses comes into play.
For example...making GOOD decisions in life isn't predicated upon having 20/20 "vision".
One might say it takes "20/20" RESPONSIBILITY instead.
The ability to properly assess everything or anything in our life becomes the basis for our elevation to the top of the "food chain", when it comes to being an EVOLVED species.
Some people, sadly, never figure that one out...that's why we have LAWS...and PRISONS.
We can "view" anything in our life using our own resources, and it doesn't always have to include our eyesight.
We can "see" what people are trying to tell us.
We can "see" their point of view.
We can "see" where their life is headed (or ours for that matter).
And we can do it all without using our eyes.
Truly, the human body, and the human experience are remarkable things.
See things as they are, and learn to look beyond the use of just your eyes...save THEM for all the small-font typefaces in all those damn books, newspapers and magazines...(where IS that page magnifier I got the other week?)...you're going to NEED them.
Stay safe out there, America.