Overheard

Little Girl has eyes a lot like Sweetie's -- she needs glasses to see.  She needs glasses to find her glasses!

The first time i realized she needed them, and she put them on, as we drove into our tree filled neighborhood she said, "Oh, the trees have leaves!  Not just green blobs on top!"

That's been a couple of years, and though she fights me on it, saying she doesn't need another exam, she's gone whenever i notice she can't recognize people at a distance any more.  It's usually every year, but one time her eyes changed so fast that we went after 6 months.

With school starting up soon, it was time she (and i) took another trek to the eye doctor.  It's one of those "get two pair and an eye exam for X price" places, which works for the rest of us.  Sweetie's retinal problems and glaucoma require more attention, and he goes to the M.D. Ophthalmologist, but she and i and #1 Son all make do with the Doctor of Optometry at the glasses place.

We had a 10:30am appointment, and since they always make me fill out the same paperwork, i make sure we get there by a bit after 10.  Once i had us checked in, told them that yes, we want the visual field test (always, always pay the $15 extra for that test! it is worth it to detect glaucoma and macular degeneration or retinal problems early), we sat and waited.

And waited, and waited.  The place takes walk-ins or appointments.  People who just walk in have to wait until they can be worked in, but we've never had to wait long since i always make an appointment.

This time, we waited, along with another man who was talking on his phone, very loudly.  Why can they never figure out how loudly they are speaking?  Anyway, we got to overhear that he had an appointment at the same time as ours (overbooking was part of the problem today, perhaps?), and that his sister was having surgery, and that with this new breach that means tons of passwords have been hacked he has to change his passwords and how's he going to do that?  He can't even remember the ones he has, much less change them and remember new ones.

By the time we were called back, i was ready to not overhear any more.  So of course there was another one in the back, telling the person he was talking to, "You can't drive, man!  No, don't take a left on that street!  What is wrong with you?  You won't get there if you take a left!  Man, you just can't drive!"

After both of us were checked out, got our new prescriptions and a clean eye bill of health, we went and picked frames.  Then we waited and waited and waited again, overhearing the lady who was in there with her adult daughter talk about her other daughter expecting twins and how much they loved to shop at MallMart.  "I'll spend two hours in there!  I start in hardware and work my way back to the food!" she was saying, as her daughter helped her decide whether she wanted the lenses that could darken in the sun or if she needed bifocals.

A lot of life goes on that we can hear around us, whether we want to or not.


Today is:

Assyrian Martyrs Day -- various Assyrian communities

Battle of Boyaca Day -- Colombia

Edmonton Folk Music Festival -- Gallagher Park, Edmonton, AB, Canada (folk music of all kinds and fun for the whole family; through Sunday)

Festival at Sandpoint -- Lake Pend Oreille, Sandpoint, ID, US (internationally renowned summer concert series in a casual and relaxed atmosphere; through the 11th)

Great River Tug Fest -- Port Byron, IL, and LeClaire, IA, US (the only tug-of-war across the Mighty Mississippi; festival through Saturday)

Harvest Holiday -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (reaping ceases for a few hours in honor of Volos' beard; bread is eaten and offerings given to Mother Earth and Volos for a bountiful harvest)

Hope Watermelon Festival -- Hope, AK, US (if you've never had Hope watermelons, you've missed the best!  Through Saturday)

Independence Day / National Day -- Cote d'Ivoire(1960)

Inter-State Fair and Rodeo -- Coffeyville, KS, US (rodeo, livestock shows, carnival, and more; through the 14th)

"Lil" Margaret's Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival -- Leonardtown, MD, US (bluegrass music, crafts, old time tractors and cars, and home-cooked meals; bring a lawn chair!  through Saturday)

National Hobo Convention -- Britt, IA (held each year since 1900, gathering for migrant workers who are proud to call themselves "hobos" and make a living through working where they choose and traveling where they want; through Sunday)

National Lighthouse Day -- US (American Lighthouse Foundation)

National Raspberries in Cream Day

Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day -- sponsored by Wellcat Holidays, and especially the kind no one can open without a machete, what's with that!

Professional Speaker's Day -- information about it is here

Purple Heart Day -- US (originally instituted this day in 1782 by George Washington)

Ribfest -- Kalamazoo, MI, US (live festival and cook off; through Saturday)

Say "Cheese" Day -- begun by ecard companies looking for something to celebrate; in my family, we do not say "Cheese", we say "Chicken Lips!" Try it some time when walking past tourists who are trying to get a good photo, and watch them smile genuine smiles and come up with a good picture.

Sea Serpent Day -- no one knows why today, just enjoy

Skowhegan State Fair -- Skowhegan, ME (since 1818, ten days of grand fun; through the 16th)

Smartest Leprechaun Eisteddfod -- Fairy Calendar

St. Albert of Trapani's Day (Patron of Carmelite schools; Messina, Italy; Trapani, Italy)

St. Cajetan's Day (Patron of job seekers and the unemployed)

Take Last Winter's Snowballs Out of the Freezer and Have a Fight Day -- in the northern hemisphere, it's certainly hot enough


Birthdays Today:

Charlize Theron, 1975
Harold Parrineau, 1963
DeLane Matthews, 1961
David Duchovny, 1960
Alberto Salazar, 1957
John Glover, 1944
Garrison Keillor, 1942
B.J. Thomas, 1942
Abebe Bikila, 1932
"The Amazing" James Randi, 1928
Carl "Alfalfa" Switser, 1927
Stan Freberg, 1926
Ralph Johnson Bunche, 1903
Rudolf C. Ising, 1903
William Boyd McKechnie, 1886
Billie Burke, 1884
Mata Hari, 1876
Nathanael Greene, 1742


Today in History:

Battle of Crannon between Athens and Macedon, following the death of Alexander the Great, BC322
Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence, 1420
Coup again the Tianshun Emperor by the Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin, 1461
Francis Drake's fleet returns to Plymouth, 1573
The first documented performance of Macbeth, at the Great Hall at Hampton Court, 1606
Sieur de La Salle's brigantine Le Griffon becomes the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes, 1679
Cherokee Indians take Ft. Loudon, Tennessee, 1760
George Washington creates the Order of the Purple Heart, 1782
Simon Bolivar triumphs over the Spanish at the Battle of Boyaca, 1819
The long simmering tension between the Hatfields and the McCoys on the Kentucky/West Virginia border erupts into full scale violence on election day, 1882
The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, 1927
IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I), 1944
Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America, 1947
Explorer 6 transmits the first TV photo of Earth from space, 1959
The "artistic crime of the century" occurs when Philippe Petit of France, after months of planning and smuggling in materials, makes an illegal tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, 1974
Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars, 1976
The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication, 1981
Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts, 1985
Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run, 2007