The Eyes Have It

I had my head eyes examined yesterday, and as I expected, I need a slightly new prescription. My optometrist says I'm on the verge of needing bifocals; If I have spare money this year (and I might, on account of over-committing on an FSA), she wrote me two prescriptions: one is for progressive-lens bifocals.

Then it was time for the awful eye drops. At least this time I remembered to bring my MP3 player so that I had something to occupy my mind as my eyes dilated and my ability to read vanished. Good news: no signs of any macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy or any other nasty stuff. After that, I sought out dark places for an hour or so. Even with double sunglasses over and under my regular glasses, it was bright out there. I hate having to drive after a dilation, given how fuzzy the world is. When I lived on the Peninsula and it was practical to do so, I would take the train or bus to appointments where my eyes were to be dilated so that I wouldn't have to drive thereafter.

I carefully picked my way through traffic down to Coco's. Since I was there a bit early, I sat in the van with my eyes closed and the seat reclined for about thirty minutes, listening to an episode of Johnny Dollar before heading inside. About halfway through the meeting, my eyes finally recovered to the point of being able to read small print again, but I wasn't really fully recovered until this morning.

On my way to the office today, I need to stop by the optician and look at new glasses. I reckon that if I can get them ordered today, they might actually have them by the time I get back from Oregon, so the repairs on my broken frame will only have to last another month.

Happy Trail(er)s

travelswithkuma reports that the utility trailer is repaired. This will make a huge difference in getting work done on the property in Mehama, because it holds about ten times as much as the little hand-trailer. Some time ago (about fifteen months ago, as I recall), we started a project to rebuild the trailer, whose timbers were rotted out. The metal framework was sound, but the boards needed replacing. The original idea was to go buy some pressure-treated boards and just put them into place, but the lumberyard didn't have enough boards of the right size, and the pressure-treated stuff is expensive, so instead we bought untreated boards and wood treatment goop. Poor Lisa! She had to coat all of those boards (multiple times) with smelly wood treatment.

In retrospect, economizing on this element was not a great idea. It takes a lot of time and effort to coat those boards, and they started warping and expanding anyway. However, I'm happy to see that the utility trailer is back online (a few odd side boards notwithstanding; we'll replace them as time permits) in time for my next trip up north. I foresee many loads of junk to be hauled; organics to the on-property "coal seam" and maybe some other things to the landfill or scrap metal recycling yard.