visionary
This was quite the unusual weekend, given I usually don't post at all on Saturdays or Sundays (aside from the usual morning Twitter digests). This time around, however, I posted three times -- twice on Saturday (Happy Hour with Laney at SPIN playing ping pong and Neko Cate Café with Ivan on Friday night; Blue Angels viewing from Mount Baker Beach with Gina and Beth on Saturday afternoon) and once yesterday (solo trek to Lusio light art festival at Volunteer Park on Saturday night).
None of that even covered yesterday, which I will cover today. I never posted any movie reviews, as this week has proved to be terrible in terms of choices for anything new to go and see. Of the nine movies playing at Pacific Place downtown, I have already seen four of them and have no interest in the other five; of the six movies at the AMC 10 in the U District I have already seen four and have no interest in the other two; at the three SIFF Cinema theatres to choose from, of the six movies playing, I have already seen five of them and have no interest in the sixth. But wait! I did just notice Crawl is still playing at the Regal Meridian 16 downtown, and I still have a discount Regal ticket from Costco in my wallet. I have at least one movie I'm semi interested in seeing this week that's playing! I guess I'll go see that while Shobhit is working tomorrow night then.
Anyway all that would be why I saw no movies over the weekend, which is unusual, especially if I'm in town for the whole weekend. But! Not only was Friday my regularly scheduled monthly Happy Hour with Laney, but I also spent time with three different out-of-town guests on two days: Ivan on Friday, and Gina and Beth on Saturday. And that is also unusual.
It was Sunday -- yesterday -- that was far more laid back and comparatively uneventful, even though I did go get an eye exam, only one year after my last one, which theoretically I did not need to do until next year. But my eyes have been refusing to focus the way they used to, and the eye doctor did indeed find that my prescription has shifted, itself in response to what I suspected and feared: vision changing due to middle age. The way the eye doctor -- who was fun and we laughed more than I think I ever have with any other eye doctor before -- described it was, yes, it's time for multifocal contact lenses, the change of which caused my left eye, which has historically had far worse vision than my right, work harder to correct the vision between my two eyes. The result? My regular prescription in my left eye has actually improved! The prescription number between my eyes is now closer than they have ever been before: -6.5 on the let and -6 on the right.
But, she also have me two different brands of multifocal lenses to try, the first of which I will wear for August and the second for September. Assuming they work okay, whichever one I like best is what I will then order a year's supply of.
Texting with Shobhit, as always his primary focus was cost. Don't multifocal lenses cost a lot more, he asked? Actually I have no idea, but it's something I'm willing to eat if it means being able to see properly. I've spent too much time the past few months feeling like my eyes have just given up on trying to focus on things. Also, this is precisely what I signed up for an FSA card for. I don't feel much hit hard at all if the FSA covers these expenses, and it does. The year is more than half over, after all, and I still have over half of the $1000 on it to spend -- which I lose if I don't spend all of it by the end of the year; it does not carry over. Well, I had to cover more than a hundred bucks with it last night, between the retina imaging and the stupid-ass "lens fitting fee." At least I didn't have to pay for it with cash straight out of my checking account. Anyway, I also have no "hardware benefit" again until after the first of the year so I will have to use the FSA to cover the supply of contact lenses as well.
The lady told me she would email me the itemized receipt and I still haven't received it. I should call them today about that, as tomorrow they close for three weeks as they move to a temporary location at the north end of Northgate Mall, which is about to be subject to a massive renovation that has already at least 75% of the stores in the mall closed. It was more of a ghost town yesterday than I had ever seen it, with so few people walking through and the majority of the stores shuttered.
I'm going to need some time to decide how I feel about these new lenses. My vision sure felt improved when I put the first trial pair on yesterday, but the experience in front of a desktop computer all day at work is a bit different. It seems pretty good when I am focused on a particular height of vision on my screens for a long enough time, but when I shift my eyes to another location it all gets wonky again. I'm hoping it's just a matter of my eyes getting used to something very different on them.
Anyway I took the bus back home to write about the Lusio Festival, after which I made a good batch of pasta with enough leftovers to cover two lunches each for Shobhit and me this week, and I watched an episode of Stranger Things 3 until Shobhit got home. For some reason he put on Clash of the Titans soon after that, but we did stop it to catch up on the last two episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Then it was time for bed, even though I did not actually get to sleep until close to 11:30, probably because I had fallen asleep in the afternoon and taken a nap -- something that is ironically far easier for me to do when I have slept eight hours or more the previous night, as I had indeed done Saturday night. Why getting eight hours of sleep makes me more tired the next afternoon, I have no idea.
[posted 12:23 pm]