I was mostly offline this weekend, attending a family shindig way out in the boonies. It was nice to have a break from the onslaught of insane news.
A relative asked me if I’d like to have my great-grandmother’s old spectacles:
She’s been dead for ages. Who knows why we’ve hung onto her glasses all these years.
These may have been my great-grandma’s first pair of glasses — there’s a photo of her wearing them in 1912. But they weren’t her last. She lived to be almost 100.
In my earliest memories of her, she was wearing old-fashioned cat-eye glasses that would be stylish in some quarters today. She died in the 1980s, a crazy old bat to the end. In that era, she had thick, oversized glasses.
I tried the 100+-year-old glasses on, and the prescription was very close to mine.
Anyhoo, open thread!
Tenar Arha
I have been in NYC and it’s great, but I always forget how much 2 museums/day plus socializing every dinner can take out of you.
Karmus
I love you, Betty. You have the same name as my mom. Actually, not really; her name was Mary Elizabeth, but everyone called her “Betty” all her life. No one ever called her Mary. I don’t think too many people knew that was her name.
Anywhoo, neat specs. I wear glasses, too, nearsightedness inherited from (who else?) my mom, but mine are more like the bottoms of Coke bottles. Mexican Coke bottles these days, I guess they would be.
Lapassionara
What a find. Thx, Betty.
schrodingers_cat
They look like Gandhi’s glasses.
Gin & Tonic
It would be nice to have memories of great-grandparents. Even grandparents.
Major Major Major Major
I went to the eye doctor on Friday. The astigmatism in my right eye got noticeably worse over the last year, somehow. It was like a breath of fresh air when she held the correction up over my current lens.
So, not sure what that’s about, but very excited for the new frames.
NotMax
Four eyes.
efgoldman
@Karmus:
Mine used to be, since I was four years old. Then I had my cataracts done, and the ophthalmologist asked me what vision I wanted. I chose 20/40 instead of 20/20 because I couldn’t see myself, after 60++ years, going around without glasses.
As a kid, I had to have “super armorplate” lenses. Extra thick (just what I needed!) three layers like safety glass in a windshield.
Omnes Omnibus
My parents’ have my mom’s first pair of glasses (from 1947?) in a display case with my grandfather’s WWII medals, a great, great grandfather’s GAR medal and other sundries. Eventually, I’ll have it all because my brother is sensible and I am a rank sentimentalist like my dad. If dad goes first, I’ll cart the stuff off before my sensible mom tosses it.
schrodingers_cat
Speaking of glasses,Kala Chasma (black glasses) I have this ear worm that I am sharing with you.
efgoldman
@Gin & Tonic:
I knew all four of my grandparents; my greats on Dad’s side never left the old country, and probably died even before WW2, and on my Mom’s side they were long gone (Mom was the youngest, a tagalong baby in 1917; I think she might have known her paternal grands but i have no way of knowing for sure.)
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Tenar Arha: This was my experience when doing museum runs in July 2012 with my (deceased) paternal grandfather. I managed to complete MoMA and the Guggenheim, but it takes at least a day to fully absorb even a portion of the Met.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@efgoldman: My paternal great-grandmother just turned 100 last year, though I’ve only visited her twice – once in California during late autumn ’04 and the other summer ’15 at my grandfather’s funeral.
debbie
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
After I got laid off, I made it my mission to see everything in the Met. I was already a member and it was within walking distance. That place is unbelievable. I would have seen everything but they closed the Asian Wing for renovations.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: I only have vague memories of my dad’s father. He visited us when I was 4 and passed when I was 6.
lahke
Hi, I am down in DC for a conference, and staying over for a day or so to sight-see. Anyone around for a meetup on Thursday evening?
WaterGirl
Betty, I think you should photoshop those glasses onto your wedding photo to show us what they would like on you.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: All of my grands lived until I was an adult. I lost the first at 26 and the last at 46. I knew two greats. One died when I was seven and the other when I was 22. It was a privilege knowing the grands as an adult – warts and all.
Yarrow
Nice glasses and a treat to have something like that from your great-grandmother. And you have a spare pair of glasses now.
SiubhanDuinne
Betty, what a treasure to have your great-grandmother’s spectacles. Bonus that you can see through them!
I’ve worn glasses pretty steadily since I was about six years old, and should have probably started a couple of years earlier. In anticipation of a major birthday coming up this week, I’ve been putting together a collage of photos for my Facebook profile, from babyhood to recently, and noticed that I have worn my current glasses (which I love!) for the past six or seven years. Have always loved big dramatic oversized frames.
I hope, if you’re willing, that you’ll take and post a selfie of you in your ggm’s specs (I think you were wearing glasses in that adorable wedding photo you posted a couple of months ago).
Regardless, they are a very cool souvenir of her, and you’re lucky to own them.
efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
My dad’s parents lived into their 90s, having lived long enough to see six children, 17 grandchildren (of which I am the oldest) and a passel of great grandchildren, including out daughter.
My mom’s parents died in the late 1950s/early 1960s, both well into their 80s. They each had siblings who hit 100, as did my mom’s next oldest brother.
WaterGirl
The coolest thing I have along these lines is my dad’s baby bowl. It seems to be made out of a very fine porcelain, and it’s hand painted with ducks & bunnies around the rim, and it has his name on it, which was John. The amazing thing is that my dad’s dad had painted my dad’s name on the bowl, and their handwriting was exactly the same.
So I have this lovely little bowl to remind me of my dad, and it even comes with his handwriting.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Can’t speak to my great grandparents, aside from a couple of photos. I do have a few momentos from my grandfather, who had a rather varied life history. Deputy sheriff, railroad man, machinist, mechanic. Very interesting fellow.
Gelfling 545
@efgoldman: I’ve got to have a cataract removed sometime soon. The whole idea of letting someone mess with my vision has me a wreck. Still, the glasses aren’t doing the job very well now. Sigh. Getting old can really suck.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Both of my grandmothers lived well into their 90s — my dad’s mother died just a month shy of her 99th birthday, and my maternal grandmother died at 95. I also knew, and remember, all of their parents (four of my great-grandparents), the last of whom died when I was around 9 or 10.
My father’s father died when he (my dad) was 2, so I obviously never knew him. My mother’s father lived until I was 5, and I do remember him, in a snapshot kind of way.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
That’s a nice memory. I have my dad’s bronzed baby shoe. He was born in 1929, so it’s probably early Depression. The toe is very, very scuffed.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, those spectacles explain why you’re here, Betty.
They’re not birth control glasses.
Ruckus
Never met my mom’s dad, he died 13 yrs before I was born. Her mom died when I was 10. Dad’s dad died when I was 25, his mom died when I was 19. I even got to work a bit with my grand dad. I worked for over 20 yrs for, with and the last 5 my dad worked for me. All my grandparents were born in or right around 1890, all of my great grandparents were long gone when I arrived. I think I have some pictures but have no idea who’s who. I like to say that my dad’s dad got to see the automobile come to life and all the way to seeing a man on the moon. So far I’ve seen men on the moon and phones that can show the pictures. Not sure it’s quite the same.
Villago Delenda Est
One great regret about my maternal grandfather, who slapped me upside the head when I was in 6th grade and really turned me around, is that I never had a chance to compare notes on Korea with him. He worked for the UN after the war and spent a lot of time in post-armistice Korea helping with reconstruction, etc. He passed in 1985, and my tour was in 1987. I would have loved to hear his views on Korea since the 50’s.
PsiFighter37
Only 4 more episodes of GoT…
efgoldman
@Gelfling 545:
I was awake (but feeling nothing!) for the first one. The surgeon/ophthalmologist is chief of service at two very big Boston hospitals, and teaches at Harvard Med. I heard him chastise the assistant in the middle. Fun times.
Actually completely painless, slightly inconvenient. We did the other eye two weeks later.
Really? The worst part driving to and from Boston from RI along I-93.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: I have a picture of my dad and his twin sister(my grandfather also had a twin sister) when they were babies hanging in my bedroom. It’s a photograph and was hand tinted, I’m guessing from how old they look probably dates from 1920.
SiubhanDuinne
@Karmus:
My mother was also an Elizabeth, and it remains one of my favourite names. Nobody ever called her Betty or Beth, though. My stepfather sometimes called her Lizbeth, but it never seemed to suit her. In the family we called her Ibbet, but otherwise she was never one for nicknames.
Mike J
@Tenar Arha:
If you live there you’re not required to do any of that.
Today I had to install some software. The 15 minute install lasted six hours and it didn’t work. All because of bad hardware. Grrrrr. If I still smoked I would have loved it. I could have stood outside and ignored everybody all fucking day. That’s my idea of heaven. Frankly, it’s why I sail. When I’m the skipper I can say “tack” and people run around. The rest of the time I can sit at the back and scowl a lot.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
My dad’s parents had lives like that. Grandmother was a postmaster of a rural post office for a while, granddad, was a mechanic, a machinist and even owned his own piston ring company in the early part of the last century. I think lives like that used to be a lot more common than today or even in our parents time.
Quinerly
Priebus tells the Atlantic that the Republican Party is in the best shape it’s been since 1928.
Gelfling 545
@Gin & Tonic: I was lucky to know my great grandparents on my Dad’s side. Also several great aunts and uncles. I realize now that I am the last to have some of the family stories as my sister is quite a bit younger and didn’t know them as I did. Ive been trying to fill in the next generation on some of the tales. Q
efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I have a copy of a picture of my paternal grandfather’s family either shortly before he left the old country or soon after they came here.
I also have a framed, certified official copy of my maternal grandparents’ marriage certificate issued by the city of Boston. All the particulars elegantly handwritten in the spaces provided.
scuffletuffle
@Tenar Arha:Word, NYC is awesome but can kill you with exhaustion!
Ruckus
@Gelfling 545:
I was like that before I had laser surgery over 20 yrs ago. Absolutely the best thing ever. I wore glasses or contacts for over 30 yrs and hated it. Of course now I have to wear glasses again for close stuff. And am developing cataracts so I’ve got that to look forward to. But the surgery is no big deal and they do it so often any more that they are really good at it.
Mike J
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Why did they hang babies in your bedroom?
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s pretty macabre, if you ask me.
Felonius Monk
@Quinerly:
Delusional or smelling too many of Trump’s farts?
Schlemazel
@Gelfling 545:
Had both eyes done and you will be very glad to have them done. I went from seeing the world in sepatone to technicolor.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: My great grandmother who died when I was seven knew her dad who fought in the civil war. I was born in 1964 and I knew someone who knew someone who fought in a war that was going on 100 years before I was born. She was kind of scary. Big and tall for a woman of her time (5’8″). She raised her four surviving kids alone from the time her husband died of cancer in the mid ’20’s Her brothers helped out. Years later, my aunt asked my grandmother if uncles had provided any discipline. Grandma, replied, “Oh no, Ma would have kicked their asses.”
frosty fred
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Why were the babies hanging in your bedroom?
I do just remember my paternal great-grandfather. I’m the oldest child of two oldest children and each of my grandmothers was 19 when my parent was born (my father’s youngest maternal uncle was two months older than he was), so grandparents were major figures in my life. Grandfathers lived to 90 and 99, grandmothers not so long (parents only to 75 apiece).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quinerly: Who wants to break the news to Reince what happened to the Republican Party AFTER 1928.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gelfling 545:
Me too. I’ve been waiting for the cataracts in both eyes to ripen sufficiently. Last I had my eyes checked, a year ago, they were still at a point where I could let them go for a bit longer, but I think I need to deal with them now in the next few months.
I did have lasik surgery some years ago to correct myopia (as it turned out, the eyeballs do keep changing shape as one ages so eventually I had to return to glasses, albeit with lenses much less strong than I had been used to). The surgery is quick, easy, and completely painless. Don’t worry about it; you will be stunned at the immediate difference in vision.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike J:
@Gin & Tonic:
@frosty fred: Geez, you people. You’re all on the list now.
efgoldman
@Quinerly: Glad you’re here.
We’re talking about grandparents and families. You’re from Saint Louis, yes? Know of the Hopper Furs company? My maternal grandmother’s relatives.
Coincidentally, both my grandfathers were David, and my grandmothers had different English names but the same Jewish name.
Quinerly
@?BillinGlendaleCA
It’s a bizarre article: theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/the-final-humiliation-of-reince-priebus/535368/
JDM
Antique glasses are not only cool in themselves, but if you’re ever stuck in SF with no money for you and your crew, you can pawn them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
For real? Because (//SNARK ALERT//) it was in such good shape in 1928.
Karmus
@efgoldman: That is actually very encouraging. Thank you.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne:
I posted the link above. Molly Ball article.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: One of my closest friends became an opthalmologist, does cataracts and Lasik (TM). I asked him why he chose that specialty and he said your patients don’t die, and they are immediately grateful for whatever you do.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Sweet. A friend of mine is from Norway and I love that she keeps her baby shoes out on her computer table. Hers aren’t bronzed, though, and they are very scuffed and well worn.
Nicole
Just had to go for my annual eye exam- I had to bring my son and his friend (both entering second grade) and the doctor who dilated my eyes was not only very nice about it, but let them both look at my dilated pupil to see my retina. My dad’s eye doctor was never that cool.
Spent the day recording two episodes for the second season of our podcast and then spent the evening on the High Hill in Central Park, picnicking with friends. Good grief, there are a LOT of raccoons in the Park this year.
Felonius Monk
@efgoldman:
I’ll second that. I had my right eye done a couple of years ago. I was first surgery in the morning; walked out the door at 10:30 AM. Wife and I went out for breakfast.
Mike J
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You’re going to hang us in your room?
Ruckus
@Felonius Monk:
Both?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike J: Yup, you first.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Those old photos are cool. I don’t think I have any old photos of my mom or my dad. Nothing before their 20s.
Two sets of twins. Did your dad ever talk about what it was like having a twin? Easier to have a twin of a different gender, I think, but really amazing to have another human who looks like you.
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yet another reason to avoid California.
Quinerly
@Ruckus:
All of them, Katie.?
?BillinGlendaleCA
For the wise guys out there: I have a picture of my dad and his twin sister(my grandfather also had a twin sister) when they were babies, hanging in my bedroom.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: You’re second.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
You should wear your great grandmother’s glasses. I wear my grandfather’s glasses every day. I got lenses for them about ten years ago, and I’ve worn them ever since. I was only four when he died, so I didn’t get to know him as well as I’d have liked, and this is a way to kind of remember him.
Ruckus
@Quinerly:
I’ll go stand in the corner for an hour for missing that one, thank you very much.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I am heading there pretty quickly myself I think it would be pretty freaky to have your eyes open while someone did surgery on them. The idea of a needle anywhere near my eyeball totally freaks me out.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Spoil Sport.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl:
My dad had a darker complexion than my aunt(their grandmother was Cherokee).
MoxieM
All my grandparents were born in the mid-1880s. I knew 3 of them quite well, and even did an oral history interview with one (got the lowdown on horse-drawn omnibuses, among other things.) None of my grandfolks ever owned a car. Not necessary. And they were all educated people and so forth. My folks were both born in the ‘teens–my mom said that she could take the inter-urban trolley from Worcester (MA) (or maybe it was Cambridge where she was at college) to the beach for $.15 and get transfers. Imagine that! The best I can do is all of my friends kicking in for two bucks worth of gas to drive to the beach at Ipswich in my friend’s 1964 Ford Fairlane wagon–no auto anything, and the very first car I drove.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Heh, I’m takin’ names.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
That is true. It was an optometrist who noticed a slight abnormality in one of my vision tests, some 17-18 years ago now, sent me to an ophthalmologist for additional tests, ophth sent me to an otorhinolaryngologist who eventually surgically removed two largish (benign) tumours from my parotid (salivary) glands. Never had a moment’s discomfort or disfigurement, so without the routine eye test I might have gone to a dangerous point without even knowing the tumours were there. I was always exceptionally grateful to that optometrist.
Quinerly
@Ruckus:
While in the corner, look for Corner Stone….it seems he may have some sort of life without us.?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
Totally cool to get her glasses.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I had laser surgery very early on (PRK), my friend had hers done about a year before and they used the scalpel method rather than the laser. Another coworker had Lasik about 6 months after me. The doc corrected an astigmatism in one eye with a scalpel. It really isn’t a big deal at all. I made it a lot more of an issue than it needed to be and would tell any one who is a candidate to embrace it, you will like it.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Well, as someone who is profoundly needle-phobic (I mean, I don’t even have pierced ears, and freak out at the very thought of blood tests) I get that — but (a) it’s not needles, (b) your eyeballs are completely numbed up, and (c) everything goes dark so it’s not like you actually see the, er, implements zeroing in on you. Seriously, if anyone were going to freak out, it would be me, and I didn’t, so don’t you either.
HumboldtBlue
Bet those were good “granny-glaring-glasses”, do they come with a pair of arched eyebrows?
Gin & Tonic
@Quinerly: I think you should drive home via Houston and look around for him. Love may be in the air.
Ruckus
@MoxieM:
My dad was born in Kansas City and moved at about 1 yr old to CA. He went by horse drawn wagon in 1918. He of course didn’t remember it but my grandparents did and told me about it. That’s why I told about my granddad’s time, he went from traveling cross country by horse to seeing men on the moon 5 yrs before he died. A whole lot of change in those years.
Ruckus
@Quinerly:
Sorry, you are on your own in this fruitless search.
Cheryl Rofer
Lovely, Betty!
chris
@SiubhanDuinne: They gave me a small dose of Valium and put a tap in my arm, “Just in case,” the nurse said. I’m not the panicky type and it was a piece of cake. But the tap was there for a reason and I can imagine some peoples fears overcoming reason.
Omnes Omnibus
God damn it, I have had two replies to WaterGirl disappear.
stinger
So cool about your grandmother’s glasses! Going through my mother’s effects recently, my sister and I came upon a pair of glasses much like those you’ve pictured here. We haven’t yet figured out whose they were–certainly not either of our parents’, nor of my dad’s parents’. Possibly my dad’s grandmother’s–they’re very small, so would have been worn by someone smaller than adults typically are today, I suppose.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Must be something about having to have blood taken every 3 months that has made me cringe about needles, I didn’t used to. It may also be that in all the VA I’ve had two people that are completely painless every time. Just went on Friday, and when I saw who was assigned to stab me, it completely stopped bothering me. I wish they could train others to be as painless as these two. And as much fun. They are both a hoot. I always end up laughing.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s one downstairs.
david spikes
Was just over at Booman, and I’m with him. One more good word about John Kelly(or McMasters, Mattis and Tillerson) and I’m going to puke, or reach for the gin, or reach for the gin and then puke.
There is not a single decent person in this administration because if they were they wouldn’t be in this administration.
That said, beautiful evening after another scorching day. Thunderstorms drifting about making a spectacular sunset and I made the first garden tomato salad of the season-so no gin.
Ruckus
@stinger:
Grinding lens use to be far more expensive in relation to overall living costs and so the more glass you had to grind cost even more. I’ve build molds to make lenses and the same type of equipment was used to lap the steel that was used in grinding (lapping actually) glasses a long time ago. First it’s a rather slow process, second the more square area, it gets far more expensive. Amazing to watch though.
MoxieM
@Ruckus: Being “native” to California that early is kind of a big deal! (horses or otherwise). But yeah–my mom also told me that when she was a kid (1920s this would be) if an airplane flew overhead, people would rush out of their houses just to see it. By the time she died she had a cell phone.
piratedan
@lahke: I would suggest asking AL or Alain to broach the subject in one of the morning threads
frosty
@WaterGirl: I’ll just say this: I don’t know how any of you who aren’t twins can manage. I’ve had a friend who’s got my back since birth. With parents and friends both.
Mike in NC
If you have a photograph of her, you can make a shadow box to include the spectacles.
? Martin
@MoxieM: Indeed. My family didn’t come here until around 1970. My wife’s family came here in the 50s. But one of the things that I think is key to California’s culture is that almost everyone came from somewhere else – either elsewhere in the US, or China, Mexico, South America, India, Iran, you name it. I like the fact that there’s no sense of ‘this place was settled by xxx’ in SoCal. Everyone has equal claim here. Having grown up in NYC, I like that. I liked that in NYC you could only understand what the overheard conversation in the subway was about maybe 50% of the time. It was always a fun game trying to figure out what language people were speaking. I really, really don’t get this nativist shit.
Ruckus
@MoxieM:
Very few of the kids my age in my small town, pop 50,000 (incorporated in 1850) were born in CA. Almost none of my close friends were. My dad used to like to tell the story of my sister even being conceived in TX. He of course would only tell it when my sister was in the room. I do have a friend about my age that I know from business who was born in CA and we have a third person in common who I grew up with, is famous and born in CA. She is still in prison for murder though so I don’t expect to see her at our HS reunion.
Mom Says I'm Handsome
My 13-year-old non-neurotypical son says to me, “Since I’m an atheist, I don’t say, ‘Thank God.’ I say, ‘Thank odds.'”
He hates writing (specifically, he hates the idea that he has to edit his initial writing to match his flawlessly-thought-out thoughts) but has a talent for bon mots. Can you make money being a Twitterererererer?
? Martin
@david spikes: Go for the gin. I’m enjoying a quite nice Brooklyn and tonic.
While I admire people making the sacrifice to go into public service (as a public servant myself, taking quite a few blows in the last few days) there are limits. Any self-respecting public servant would not serve under Trump. I can appreciate those civil servants already in the job holding on, but nobody should be signing up for this.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
That is kind of neat isn’t it? I may be where I developed an ear for dialects, even of different languages. I’ve picked out the cities of where people were born/raised even in other countries, just by listening to them speak. It’s gotten a lot harder over the last 2 or 3 decades because of TV and movies. The world is becoming a bit more cosmopolitan. Maybe a lot more.
SFAW
@Mike J:
@Gin & Tonic:
@frosty fred:
It’s a SoCal thing, you wouldn’t understand.
Actually, I’m guessing Mnemosyne wouldn’t understand, either, and she’s SoCal (I think). So maybe it’s just a Bill thing.
? Martin
@Ruckus: Well, from my perspective, the parts of the world that are open to it are thriving. Those fighting it are struggling.
Most people can no longer tell I grew up in NYC. My accent comes out when I’m mad, but the rest of the time I think it’s just some random ‘American’.
SFAW
@Quinerly:
Thirty-one?
Ruckus
@MoxieM:
I also like to tell people that I was born in the first half of the last century. It freaks them out.
? Martin
@SFAW: Nah, I’m with you. Hanging babies is totally a thing here. Not in the noose sense, but more of a mobile of babies kind of way. It’s adorable.
Ohio Mom
@Gelfling 545: These are the two things I learned from my cataract surgery:
1. It’s a gas! You are doped up but still awake, and what you see is a fabulous light show. Lots of swirling colors. The only discomfort was when the doctor pulled the tape off my forehead. That’s how they kept my head still, with a big piece of tape. It’s a very easy procedure.
2. It is really, really important that you and the doctor are in sync about what kind of vision you want to end up with. I love being nearsighted, and being able to see up close. I don’t find bifocals easy to use. I did not want to lose my near vision, I like being able to take off my glasses and being able to thread a needle and hand-sew.
The first eye surgeon said he could give me perfect long-distance vision. I would not need glasses to play tennis or drive. Well, I don’t play tennis and I hate driving. That was a non-starter.
The second surgeon I went to seemed to understand what I was talking about but put a lens in that moves where I am able to focus from my old 6 inches in front of my nose to about a foot. I am not happy, and now depend on my other eye for close work. Not sure what I will do when my second eye needs surgery, which will be in the next year.
Eric S.
This is a little before the Travel thread but I’m in 100 person queue in the Budapest airport to check in. The self check in machines aren’t letting me self check. My flight is in 1 hour 20 minutes. Wish me luck.
SFAW
@? Martin:
It used to be, you could (almost) tell in which borough someone grew up. (Well, except for Staten Island, which was more a suburb of Joisey.) Probably can’t do that any longer.
SFBayAreaGal
@MoxieM: My grandparents left Oklahoma/Nebraska because of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. They finally arrived in CA about 1938-1940. Finally settled in San Francisco in the late 40s. My mom was able to graduate from high school in San Francisco.
I was born in San Francisco.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@WaterGirl: One of my father’s projects, when he retired in the mid-1970s, was to get his hands on as many old family pictures as he could have negatives made of them, so the entire (extremely extended) family could have copies. It’s a project my cousin & his sons have taken up, although they are able to do it all digitally now.
One of the earliest is my mother’s great-grandfather in uniform–he was drafted at the age of 40, late in the Civil War, although he did manage to spend much of his time in service on garrison duty. That side of the family has been Republican since the 1860s, in large part because of the guerilla warfare that took place in that part of Missouri. While he was away, the church they attended expelled my great-grandmother, as her family was from Kentucky and so presumed to be Confederate in sympathy, without any actual proof, and in spite of the fact that her husband was serving in the Federal army. After the war was over, he refused to return to that church because he was so angry about their behavior towards her.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
A lot of it is subtle. I think I wrote here once of doing this in Copenhagen. A buddy and I were in a shop and the sales girl came up and started talking to us in a specific English dialect/accent. I asked her if she was from the UK and she said no, she was born and raised in Copenhagen. I said it was amazing that she had a perfect Oxford accent. The look on her face was priceless. She told me that the teacher that taught her and her classmates was from Oxford and that everyone that learned English from him spoke the same way. That was a fun day. I was wrong and right at the same time.
SFAW
@? Martin:
Not sure I want to know how they’re suspended, if not with rope.
ETA: And I suspect it’s nigh-on impossible to find the CG of a baby, which might render the mobile non-operative.
? Martin
@SFAW: Yeah, I can still do that to some degree. The boroughs do have some key distinctions in terms of both accents but also word usage. It’s fading, though. And since NYC has gotten a lot more churn I expect it’ll break altogether soon.
Caphilldcne
@lahke: I’ve never gone to a meetup but could manage something after work. I’m close to the White House. My goddaughter is visiting from Germany so can’t stay too late. Maybe Claudia’s at 5:30? Or Hay Adams if you want a real D.C. Place. Check out the Renwick then easy walk over.
? Martin
@Ruckus: Very cool.
? Martin
@SFAW: You can do amazing things with velcro these days.
Amir Khalid
@Quinerly:
Per Reinhold Priebus:
And what is a political party supposed to do after it wins office?
SFBayAreaGal
@Ruckus: I’m like you, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I love hearing the different languages.
Mike in NC
@Eric S.: We flew out of Budapest in 2010 (to Frankfort) and the bus ride to the airport was about an hour long. Passed a lot of Soviet-era grungy apartment buildings and other structures you didn’t see in the historic area.
Mike in NC
@Amir Khalid: Priebus — with dismal employment prospects — could try seppuku and see if he likes it.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
In the case of the Rethugs:
1) Rule. Governing is for chumps.
2) Find the greatest number of ways to hurt the greatest number of non-rich/non-white people
3) Destroy a functioning government
4) Return to a quasi-feudal/fascist system. (Not exactly the same as #3, but close).
5) Did I mention “hurt the powerless wherever and whenever possible”?
6) Rob the country blind
SFAW
@Mike in NC:
If you were a good guy, you would offer to be his kaishakunin.
Ruckus
@SFBayAreaGal:
I owned a business in Marin county for 6 yrs and would have people on vacation come in the shop all the time. So not only the locals with a thousand different accents/languages but the foreigners as well. Always interesting to talk to people not only from all walks of life but from many parts of the globe. The world is a hoot or at least it could be if more people believed they live on a globe rather than in some fucking little corner of it. My travels have taken me from Norway to New Zealand and lots of places inbetween, I’ve traveled to 46 states, many of them repeatedly and lived in 4 of them. I’ve even been to Cuba. OK Guantanamo but still.
ETA I even tried to romance a Spanish girl on Majorca but I kept getting my Spanish and Latin mixed up. Still had a good time dancing, and a few laughs as well.
Original Lee
I was lucky to meet three of my four great-grandparents more than once. My mother’s grandfather taught me to play chess, and my sister has that chess set now. I also knew three of my four grandparents pretty well, although one grandfather died when I was seven, so I mostly remember him spoiling me rotten. I have a couple of brooches and a necklace from one grandmother and a ring and some earrings from the other. I also have the college class ring from the grandfather who died when I was in my twenties; the ring had been a little bit of a splurge by him and got him into some hot water with my grandmother because it was during the Depression and they couldn’t get married until he had a job and had saved up for a deposit on an apartment. My father’s mother wrote in a journal every day of her life from the time she was 10 years old. One of my uncles has them all and spends a few hours a week transcribing them. Occasionally he’ll send us a batch of entries, and I’ve been learning a lot of family stories when I talk to him about the contents. My mother took some time during her mother’s final illness to fill out one of those “For My Children” memory books with her. Fascinating stuff, with actually pretty good prompts to get the memory juices flowing, such as, What was your favorite game to play when you were a child? and Tell me about your first kiss.
Ruckus
@Original Lee:
That is cool. I only have the memories from the people I actually got to know a little, my dad’s parents. And they only filled in a very little bits of their lives. Seems like most of the family actually didn’t want to talk about family life. My cousin and I have filled in a few things but he’s a few years younger than me and never knew his grandparents on my aunt’s, his mothers side, grandmother died when he was 2 or 3, grandad 20 yrs before he was born. I’m the oldest left of the children of the 5 kids of my mother’s family and dad was an only.
Olivia
@Ohio Mom: When I had my second eye done I was offered a lens that would allow me to do close work. I chose to have it the same as the other eye. Sometimes I wish I had chosen the close up one. The doctor who did my first eye didn’t make that lens 20-20 because he said that the difference in the vision of my other eye would be too hard to get used to. I still don’t understand that but, oh well.
I had freaked out about my first surgery because, while they told me they would anesthetize my eye, I didn’t know enough about it and I really need details to stay sane. It turned out that they put me out for a few minutes to anesthetize it and when I woke, there was no vision in that eye, all I saw was gray light. It was such a relief to me because I had been so worried about viewing what they were doing. A few years later having the second eye done was a piece of cake because I knew exactly what would happen.
WaterGirl
@frosty: The thread is surely dead, but I’ll say it anyway. I am really happy to hear you say that. So happy that in fact I teared up as I read your comment.