Morning all. I am sitting here on a Friday evening working on the Scholastic book order for the school. I already have over a 3000 dollar – Australian, and I am not done yet.
tjhanx Peter.
I usually turn the computer on first thing. But my desktop is in the shop and this laptop takes a full three minutes to boot up and get on line. I won’t be around much.
I leave my desktop on, but I can’t leave this on. Not even plugged in because it shuts off if unused for a while.
And I really hate this keyboard. It’s hard to keep on the home keys. I can do almost as well by hunt and peck method..
Good Morning Everyone. I love that Michelle calls her grandchildren the Adorables. I may have to adopt that name for the two I claim. Speaking of which, DIL post a photo of Miss Emmy this week. She will not turn a year old until the end of November (I think the 23rd), but she had climbed up on a stair and was standing without holding on. She has been walking for a while. Mr. P and I are going up in January to keep her and the big brother. I asked him if he thought we could keep up with her!
Evening all. I am still not done with the last bit of the book order. It is coming out to over 3700 dollars, Australian. I think it may be time for some sleep as it is almost midnight here. If I do any more, I am bound to make mistakes. I don’t think the family that was going to put it on their creditcard will want to do this amount!
You see the problem is, everyone pays you for their books and that money is put into your account here, but the credit card bill is paid from your home country bank account. it can get complex.
Out here the Post Office put the word out that they’re looking for holiday workers, if that might help as a lead for anyone looking for work. Only temporary, but might be some pretty decent income for a few months (and maybe lead to something more permanent afterward?).
Karen maybe Lee should look into it. At least in this area they’re looking for rural route drivers. You pack your vehicle and go do the route. Sounds like that could be right up his alley. They pay a good wage plus mileage and it can lead to full-time. Something to consider.
UPS will be hiring temp help for the Holidays. Oldest Step Son did that last year and it has turned into a full time position for him.
It’s good money too.
This duck kind of blends with Kim’s house (from yesterday) — love the brick on the facade and steps, by the way, it’s a very good-looking (and homey) home 🙂
6 Arrows, in reply from yesterday, my friend not only has chromesthesia, she also sees colours with letters and numbers, which is colour-grapheme synesthesia, the most common form of synesthesia. I have ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia, where I unconsciously attach – to the point that I was surprised that not everyone did the same thing – personality and gender to numbers and letters. I’m not sure how exactly I do it, but I think it has something to do with each letter’s shape and line. Because I learned music with the letter names, the notes share the same gender and personality as their respective letters.
I have realized that my form of synesthesia is probably both the reason that I have a photographic memory for the written word (I remember the letter personalities which I saw on the page), but also the reason why I find it difficult to memorize written music and play better from the page than from memory. When I look at a page of music, I can interpret the personalities which I read, but when I play from memory, unless I visualize each note on the staff – which is difficult to do while playing something as complex, say, as a Mozart piano sonata – I lose some of the sense of personality that I have when I’m reading the music. I can visualize the words I say from memory if I’m quoting a poem, but I’m only speaking one word, and thus one letter, at a time; while I’m playing many different notes simultaneously in the music.
Karen, I echo the suggestion about taking a seasonal delivery job. Temporary jobs can give a much needed monetary boost, without requiring long-term commitment. It can give you time to think about your options while providing immediate needs.
Roscuro, that’s fascinating — I’d never heard of ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia. (I had to scroll back up the page a couple times while typing that to make sure I got it correct! Would have been easier for me to copy and paste.) 🙂
It’s interesting, your photographic memory for words on a page, while at the same time you struggle with memorizing music. Your explanation of why that is makes sense, though.
As I believe I’ve mentioned here, I prefer playing from memory in solo performances, and memorization comes fairly easily to me. When I don’t have the music in front of me, I tend to “see” where I am on the page, and sort of visualize the melodic and harmonic patterns, if not the specific notes and their placement on the grand staff.
I think the main reason I can memorize easily, though, is that I have good muscle memory. After becoming fairly familiar with a piece through music reading, I can close my eyes and feel where my hands should move and (usually) remember which fingers I’ve used in various passages as I proceed through the piece.
Where I get in trouble is if I get a little bit off for one reason or another — I misjudge a leap, or I accidentally substitute a different finger in a fast passage, and suddenly I’m off my pattern and muscle memory doesn’t help because I’m moving from a different place than I should be. If I had a good memory for chord progressions, I could easily get back on, but that type of memory doesn’t come as easily to me, so I might end up winging it briefly until a specific part of the music comes back to me, and I can proceed from there.
Of course, the good thing about having memory slips is you get good at covering them up, so that no one who doesn’t know the music inside and out would even know anything was amiss. 🙂
Works for me, as a soloist, but I would not want to play a piano concerto from memory, because if I had a memory slip, I wouldn’t be able to just do my own thing until I get back on track while an orchestra is playing what they’re supposed to be playing! 🙂
It was weird backing out of my parking stall at the grocery store today, just after I’d gotten my new glasses. It looked like the car parked to the right of me was gently bouncing up and down a little. Very interesting.
I’m not having any trouble with motion sickness, though, fortunately.
6 Arrows, in the past, I’ve depended on muscle memory for the pieces I’ve played in exams – the Royal Conservatory of Music exams here require pieces to be memorized, or marks will be docked. I used to create memory hooks – places where I could go back and start again if my muscle memory failed me. My last few exams however, I had to use the music – the pieces were just too complex. In studying music history, I’ve realized that performing music from memory in the classical genre was not always done. I think it was Franz Liszt and Niccolo Paganini who started the phenomenon of the charismatic soloist playing enormous showpieces entirely from memory, which wasn’t really fair since they were playing their own music. My friend once played a Mozart concerto in a performance I attended, and she used the music – and it wasn’t because she can’t memorize long pieces, as I’ve heard her play extremely complex twentieth century music from memory. After all, the members of an orchestra are not expected to memorize their music.
Roscuro, I did the same (created memory hooks) with the music I performed last spring, Roumanian Folk Dances. Turns out I didn’t need them (in my April performance), but it is reassuring to know you have some sort of guidepost other than going all the way back to the beginning and starting again.
However, a couple weeks after the performance, I got asked to perform the piece again, after I had not played it in a couple weeks. While I hadn’t forgotten how to play it, I had already reached my peak on the piece, and my mind wasn’t as sharp on the day of the second performance (three weeks after the first) as it had been on the first.
And then (in the second show) I had a memory slip in the third of the six dances, only about 8 measures from the end, and I hadn’t established a good place to return to in that movement in the event of forgetting where I was. So it kind of threw me for a loop, having trouble in a place that had never caused problems before, even after many months of playing.
I could still remember the RH part exactly, but the LH I just had to improvise, and end the piece when the RH got to the end.
Fortunately, that was Bartok, so a little dissonance as you’re trying to find the correct harmony goes largely unnoticed. 😉
What I love about memorizing is that I can hear my expression better. I get too tied to the visual aspects of the music when the copy is in front of me, and my expression is just better — I can better focus on using the appropriate touch to achieve a pleasing sound if the visual element isn’t added into the mix.
After 45 years of playing piano, I still haven’t learned to multitask (think about sights, sounds and touch all at once) like I wish I could. 🙂
Seems to me I saw a performance on YouTube in the recent past where someone was using music in a piano concerto performance. Can’t remember who that was, but I believe it was a pianist I’d heard of, so someone at least relatively famous.
Roscuro, I was following someone at the grocery store for a little bit, and she was wearing a sweatshirt that had the name of a camp on the back. It was in Ontario, and if I had a photographic memory like you, I would remember the name of it!
It had 3 letters — something like K. R. P. camp?? It mentioned the city in Ontario where it was located, too, a 6-letter name with some of the same letters as the camp initials.
Korona, or something like that?
Gah, I was going to try to remember that!
Does that ring any bells? I’ll see what I can find for city names in Ontario…
No, no, Phos. You know everybody in Ontario, maybe not all of Canada though. Just like I know the folks in Des Moines. But that is definitely a question I would ask. Because we like to connect the folk we know with places and things we run across.
I just did a blog post on faulty signage if anyone is interested. I invested in a domain name so you should be able to get to the blog directly at http://www.janicegareyblog.com
The header photo is another good one by AJ, I assume. I love seeing all the outdoor pictures since I am indoors so much these days.
When we got home from the doc’s office this a.m. we noticed a lot of racket nearby by a loud cawing crow, a mockingbird, and a squirrel. My husband said maybe a cat was around, and I said I hoped it wasn’t an escapee, the abandoned Miss Bosley. She was safe indoors, but when I went to the mailbox a cat came up the driveway so it had been the culprit. I petted it a little, and it walked around me, scrubbed up against my legs, and then did a little nip like Miss Bosley. It went with me to the door which I cracked a tiny bit to see if Miss Bosley happened to be just inside so she could glimpse the other cat. When I opened the door the other cat shot in, and then hissing and growling commenced for a few moments until I grabbed Miss Bosley and took her upstairs. Art had to get our visitor out of the house. Poor Miss Bosley. She had a Fraidy Cat Friday experience. I told her that if she does not stop scratching the TV that we have a replacement cat waiting 😉
I had to look up Kenora on a map to see where it is — had never heard of it until today. I see it’s not all that far from Thunder Bay, the only city in Canada I’ve ever been.
Kathaleena, could be. 🙂
So…the glasses… (Scroll past if you’re sick of hearing about my glasses. 😉 I’m writing this for Kevin B, if he’s around, as he said not too long ago he was curious to hear about how that whole deal works out for me.)
My vision is great for reading material I hold in my hands. It’s also great for reading music on the piano rack and words on the computer, if I hold my head just right. Unfortunately, the just-right position for the piano and computer is with my chin a little farther down than is comfortable.
I was just playing through Christmas music in my library that is suitable for one of my students whose dad requested suggestions for a student/adult duet that he and his daughter could do for a Christmas pageant at their church.
After playing all the student parts and all the adult duet parts in eight different books close to the girl’s level, holding my head down to see properly, my neck is terribly stiff.
I don’t have to hold my head down as much if I bring the glasses down my nose a little, but that was a big reason I wanted to switch from single-vision lenses — so my glasses wouldn’t have to be down my nose, restricting the airflow. (I have a very small nose.) 😦
My distance vision area is even worse. There’s such a small area in the top part of the glasses to look through and see clearly. My whole house is blurry when I walk around or look out the window unless I bring my head way down or bring the glasses down to about the lowest part of the bony area of my nose.
That was the whole reason I sent them back the first time — last week — and while the top (distance) area seemed a little bigger today, it still doesn’t seem big enough. I had to lower the seat in my car for driving home, bring the glasses down my nose, and lower my chin toward my chest a little ways, too, to see the road clearly.
I’m beginning to wonder if they even sent the glasses back to get the proportions right. (The second person said the first measurement recorded was in error, and the third person, the one I saw today, said the second person left no notes. So he grilled me with all sorts of questions, and almost made it sound like it was my fault, and I didn’t do the right things.)
The second person told me that when the redone lenses were put in (the ones I apparently received today), they would keep the first pair in case I decided I wanted those instead.
I might just call tomorrow and see if indeed there is that first pair of lenses. I wouldn’t be too surprised if these are the same lenses I first had, and they only tweaked them a little, and just told me they did new ones to fit the second (correct?) measurements.
Maybe I’m too impatient in getting adjusted to them, but it sure doesn’t feel right to either not be able to see more than two feet in front of me or put up with a stiff neck having to look way down all the time. 😦
I wish, too, that I had spoken up when I was having my eye exam. The doctor didn’t quite have the equipment I looked through in the right place. It was just a shade too low for my height as I was seated in the examining chair, and I had to have my head just slightly lower than it’s usually been. I started to get a sore neck in that position partway through the exam, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think there was much left of the examination.
Maybe my posture not being correct for that part brought about some of the problems I’m having now with bad vision through those glasses when I’m standing or sitting up straight?
If that’s part of the problem, though — wrong posture with the patient — isn’t that something they should have noticed and corrected beforehand?
So my husband just called and asked how the new glasses are working out. I told him all about the distance vision problems and neck problems, and he said something like, “Yeah, I was thinking those wouldn’t work very well for you.”
I guess I need to hone my mind-reading skills, LOL. 😀
I’ll probably end up doing what he does — have several different pairs of glasses for different purposes. So I’ll likely need a pair for ordinary, around-the-house meandering; a pair for playing the piano; a pair for teaching piano (maybe? — different distance and angle from the music copy than if I were on the bench); a pair for driving or looking into the distance outside.
A pair for up close, book-in-hand reading?
Yikes. $$$
A friend of mine, a musician in her 70s, has never needed any eye correction at all. Which is kind of funny, as her husband is a retired ophthalmologist. 🙂
Not all that far from Thunder Bay to Kenora? Just a little over 5hrs drive, almost the same amount of time it takes to get from Pittsburgh to New York 😆 Sorry, couldn’t resist the tease.
I’ve never been to Thunder Bay either. I’ve wanted to visit the city since I was a child, when I read the Ojibway legend of the Sleeping Giant in an old school reader. I thought it would be easy to go, since it was in the same province. I had a poorer understanding of distance back then. I’ve been out east several times because of my grandmother who lives out there, but there haven’t been family reasons to travel west (I have uncles, aunt, and cousins out there but they usually come east to visit).
Mumsee, when you are in the centre, east and west are both out there. Though, the term most commonly used around here is “down east”.
Jo, mission orders are one of the biggest headaches that one has to deal with. Ordering medical supplies was always a hassel for my teammates – I remember helping do inventory..
Husband is watching Once Upon a Time in the West. I am enjoying listening to it. All those frames that focus so much on faces and eyes are a bit overwhelming to me. It seems unnatural. But the soundtrack is wonderful.
We have been listening to the audiobook Magdalene by Angela Hunt on our commutes. It is spectacular if anyone is looking for biblical fiction. The recording adds a lot to it and makes it seem a lot like a play with the talented reader using various character voices.
I’ve heard of Kenora, Ontario. There used to be an evangelist that would visit down here named Keith McLeod from Kenora. His brother is Bill McLeod who is in Winnipeg, I think. Both are/were Godly men who have seen true revival. Keith died some 20 years ago, Bill is in his 90s now.
Wandering Views 
First? It’s a good day for us to see the doctor. We will soon have our own ruts formed on the road between here and there. This is a follow up visit.
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I hope everyone has a pleasant day, evening, and all hours between.♡
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Morning all. I am sitting here on a Friday evening working on the Scholastic book order for the school. I already have over a 3000 dollar – Australian, and I am not done yet.
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Sitting at my son’s house waiting for the adorables to wake up and then the fun will begin . . .
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I trust you got lots of sleep, oh, no, it is only 5am in California. You need to take a nap before they wake up!!!
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It’s Friday! And Chas can tell you what that means. Did I really get here before he did? Wake up, sleepy head!
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tjhanx Peter.
I usually turn the computer on first thing. But my desktop is in the shop and this laptop takes a full three minutes to boot up and get on line. I won’t be around much.
I leave my desktop on, but I can’t leave this on. Not even plugged in because it shuts off if unused for a while.
And I really hate this keyboard. It’s hard to keep on the home keys. I can do almost as well by hunt and peck method..
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Qood
How does a person get to sign on as “deleted”, “anonymous”,” guess who” etc?’
When I’m on another computer, my name is “g2 4e7ed1591283i
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And on this computer, My moment gets posted before I’m ready. 😦
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Good Morning Everyone. I love that Michelle calls her grandchildren the Adorables. I may have to adopt that name for the two I claim. Speaking of which, DIL post a photo of Miss Emmy this week. She will not turn a year old until the end of November (I think the 23rd), but she had climbed up on a stair and was standing without holding on. She has been walking for a while. Mr. P and I are going up in January to keep her and the big brother. I asked him if he thought we could keep up with her!
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Ah, the challenges of life.
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Evening all. I am still not done with the last bit of the book order. It is coming out to over 3700 dollars, Australian. I think it may be time for some sleep as it is almost midnight here. If I do any more, I am bound to make mistakes. I don’t think the family that was going to put it on their creditcard will want to do this amount!
You see the problem is, everyone pays you for their books and that money is put into your account here, but the credit card bill is paid from your home country bank account. it can get complex.
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Chas- if you’re not logged on to WordPress, you can put any name you want in the Name box. That is how Michelle gets her different names.
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Oh, Chas- You forgot to pick a winner in one of the Pigskin Picks, so tell me which team in the Texas Tech-Oklahoma game.
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Lee is feeling better today. Last evening, though, the shock of the low amount he got back for the route was really hurting.
We are both trusting God to lead us on to the next stage of our lives. I’ll admit I am a bit scared. (Okay, probably more than just “a bit”.)
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Out here the Post Office put the word out that they’re looking for holiday workers, if that might help as a lead for anyone looking for work. Only temporary, but might be some pretty decent income for a few months (and maybe lead to something more permanent afterward?).
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AJ here,
I saw the same type of add here Donna.
Karen maybe Lee should look into it. At least in this area they’re looking for rural route drivers. You pack your vehicle and go do the route. Sounds like that could be right up his alley. They pay a good wage plus mileage and it can lead to full-time. Something to consider.
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Website:
http://about.usps.com/careers/welcome.htm
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UPS will be hiring temp help for the Holidays. Oldest Step Son did that last year and it has turned into a full time position for him.
It’s good money too.
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This duck kind of blends with Kim’s house (from yesterday) — love the brick on the facade and steps, by the way, it’s a very good-looking (and homey) home 🙂
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6 Arrows, in reply from yesterday, my friend not only has chromesthesia, she also sees colours with letters and numbers, which is colour-grapheme synesthesia, the most common form of synesthesia. I have ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia, where I unconsciously attach – to the point that I was surprised that not everyone did the same thing – personality and gender to numbers and letters. I’m not sure how exactly I do it, but I think it has something to do with each letter’s shape and line. Because I learned music with the letter names, the notes share the same gender and personality as their respective letters.
I have realized that my form of synesthesia is probably both the reason that I have a photographic memory for the written word (I remember the letter personalities which I saw on the page), but also the reason why I find it difficult to memorize written music and play better from the page than from memory. When I look at a page of music, I can interpret the personalities which I read, but when I play from memory, unless I visualize each note on the staff – which is difficult to do while playing something as complex, say, as a Mozart piano sonata – I lose some of the sense of personality that I have when I’m reading the music. I can visualize the words I say from memory if I’m quoting a poem, but I’m only speaking one word, and thus one letter, at a time; while I’m playing many different notes simultaneously in the music.
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Karen, I echo the suggestion about taking a seasonal delivery job. Temporary jobs can give a much needed monetary boost, without requiring long-term commitment. It can give you time to think about your options while providing immediate needs.
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Didn’t Lee work for UPS in the past?
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Okies, Peter
Oklahoma
It’s on the pencil copy I made up. I don’t know how I overlooked it.
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Roscuro, that’s fascinating — I’d never heard of ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia. (I had to scroll back up the page a couple times while typing that to make sure I got it correct! Would have been easier for me to copy and paste.) 🙂
It’s interesting, your photographic memory for words on a page, while at the same time you struggle with memorizing music. Your explanation of why that is makes sense, though.
As I believe I’ve mentioned here, I prefer playing from memory in solo performances, and memorization comes fairly easily to me. When I don’t have the music in front of me, I tend to “see” where I am on the page, and sort of visualize the melodic and harmonic patterns, if not the specific notes and their placement on the grand staff.
I think the main reason I can memorize easily, though, is that I have good muscle memory. After becoming fairly familiar with a piece through music reading, I can close my eyes and feel where my hands should move and (usually) remember which fingers I’ve used in various passages as I proceed through the piece.
Where I get in trouble is if I get a little bit off for one reason or another — I misjudge a leap, or I accidentally substitute a different finger in a fast passage, and suddenly I’m off my pattern and muscle memory doesn’t help because I’m moving from a different place than I should be. If I had a good memory for chord progressions, I could easily get back on, but that type of memory doesn’t come as easily to me, so I might end up winging it briefly until a specific part of the music comes back to me, and I can proceed from there.
Of course, the good thing about having memory slips is you get good at covering them up, so that no one who doesn’t know the music inside and out would even know anything was amiss. 🙂
Works for me, as a soloist, but I would not want to play a piano concerto from memory, because if I had a memory slip, I wouldn’t be able to just do my own thing until I get back on track while an orchestra is playing what they’re supposed to be playing! 🙂
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Typed that wearing my new progressive lenses. 🙂
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And I can play the piano, with music on the rack, and be able to see it without sliding my glasses down my nose now. I LOVE it!!
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It was weird backing out of my parking stall at the grocery store today, just after I’d gotten my new glasses. It looked like the car parked to the right of me was gently bouncing up and down a little. Very interesting.
I’m not having any trouble with motion sickness, though, fortunately.
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6 Arrows, in the past, I’ve depended on muscle memory for the pieces I’ve played in exams – the Royal Conservatory of Music exams here require pieces to be memorized, or marks will be docked. I used to create memory hooks – places where I could go back and start again if my muscle memory failed me. My last few exams however, I had to use the music – the pieces were just too complex. In studying music history, I’ve realized that performing music from memory in the classical genre was not always done. I think it was Franz Liszt and Niccolo Paganini who started the phenomenon of the charismatic soloist playing enormous showpieces entirely from memory, which wasn’t really fair since they were playing their own music. My friend once played a Mozart concerto in a performance I attended, and she used the music – and it wasn’t because she can’t memorize long pieces, as I’ve heard her play extremely complex twentieth century music from memory. After all, the members of an orchestra are not expected to memorize their music.
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Roscuro, I did the same (created memory hooks) with the music I performed last spring, Roumanian Folk Dances. Turns out I didn’t need them (in my April performance), but it is reassuring to know you have some sort of guidepost other than going all the way back to the beginning and starting again.
However, a couple weeks after the performance, I got asked to perform the piece again, after I had not played it in a couple weeks. While I hadn’t forgotten how to play it, I had already reached my peak on the piece, and my mind wasn’t as sharp on the day of the second performance (three weeks after the first) as it had been on the first.
And then (in the second show) I had a memory slip in the third of the six dances, only about 8 measures from the end, and I hadn’t established a good place to return to in that movement in the event of forgetting where I was. So it kind of threw me for a loop, having trouble in a place that had never caused problems before, even after many months of playing.
I could still remember the RH part exactly, but the LH I just had to improvise, and end the piece when the RH got to the end.
Fortunately, that was Bartok, so a little dissonance as you’re trying to find the correct harmony goes largely unnoticed. 😉
What I love about memorizing is that I can hear my expression better. I get too tied to the visual aspects of the music when the copy is in front of me, and my expression is just better — I can better focus on using the appropriate touch to achieve a pleasing sound if the visual element isn’t added into the mix.
After 45 years of playing piano, I still haven’t learned to multitask (think about sights, sounds and touch all at once) like I wish I could. 🙂
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Seems to me I saw a performance on YouTube in the recent past where someone was using music in a piano concerto performance. Can’t remember who that was, but I believe it was a pianist I’d heard of, so someone at least relatively famous.
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Clarification to my 4:11 — when the copy is in front of me, my expression suffers, not gets better! Bad wording, sorry.
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Roscuro, I was following someone at the grocery store for a little bit, and she was wearing a sweatshirt that had the name of a camp on the back. It was in Ontario, and if I had a photographic memory like you, I would remember the name of it!
It had 3 letters — something like K. R. P. camp?? It mentioned the city in Ontario where it was located, too, a 6-letter name with some of the same letters as the camp initials.
Korona, or something like that?
Gah, I was going to try to remember that!
Does that ring any bells? I’ll see what I can find for city names in Ontario…
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Kenora!
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Kenora is a long ways away, nearly a two day drive. I’ve never been that far west in Ontario.
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No, no, Phos. You know everybody in Ontario, maybe not all of Canada though. Just like I know the folks in Des Moines. But that is definitely a question I would ask. Because we like to connect the folk we know with places and things we run across.
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Thanks for the suggestions. We have talked about UPS, & I’ll mention to him about post offices hiring for the holidays.
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We hear of many who fly up to Kenora for fishing purposes. We may be closer than roscuro. 🙂
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I just did a blog post on faulty signage if anyone is interested. I invested in a domain name so you should be able to get to the blog directly at http://www.janicegareyblog.com
The header photo is another good one by AJ, I assume. I love seeing all the outdoor pictures since I am indoors so much these days.
When we got home from the doc’s office this a.m. we noticed a lot of racket nearby by a loud cawing crow, a mockingbird, and a squirrel. My husband said maybe a cat was around, and I said I hoped it wasn’t an escapee, the abandoned Miss Bosley. She was safe indoors, but when I went to the mailbox a cat came up the driveway so it had been the culprit. I petted it a little, and it walked around me, scrubbed up against my legs, and then did a little nip like Miss Bosley. It went with me to the door which I cracked a tiny bit to see if Miss Bosley happened to be just inside so she could glimpse the other cat. When I opened the door the other cat shot in, and then hissing and growling commenced for a few moments until I grabbed Miss Bosley and took her upstairs. Art had to get our visitor out of the house. Poor Miss Bosley. She had a Fraidy Cat Friday experience. I told her that if she does not stop scratching the TV that we have a replacement cat waiting 😉
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🙂
Poor Bosley’s probably petrified thinking “What was that thing?”
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Mumsee, you know people in Des Moines?!
I had to look up Kenora on a map to see where it is — had never heard of it until today. I see it’s not all that far from Thunder Bay, the only city in Canada I’ve ever been.
Kathaleena, could be. 🙂
So…the glasses… (Scroll past if you’re sick of hearing about my glasses. 😉 I’m writing this for Kevin B, if he’s around, as he said not too long ago he was curious to hear about how that whole deal works out for me.)
My vision is great for reading material I hold in my hands. It’s also great for reading music on the piano rack and words on the computer, if I hold my head just right. Unfortunately, the just-right position for the piano and computer is with my chin a little farther down than is comfortable.
I was just playing through Christmas music in my library that is suitable for one of my students whose dad requested suggestions for a student/adult duet that he and his daughter could do for a Christmas pageant at their church.
After playing all the student parts and all the adult duet parts in eight different books close to the girl’s level, holding my head down to see properly, my neck is terribly stiff.
I don’t have to hold my head down as much if I bring the glasses down my nose a little, but that was a big reason I wanted to switch from single-vision lenses — so my glasses wouldn’t have to be down my nose, restricting the airflow. (I have a very small nose.) 😦
My distance vision area is even worse. There’s such a small area in the top part of the glasses to look through and see clearly. My whole house is blurry when I walk around or look out the window unless I bring my head way down or bring the glasses down to about the lowest part of the bony area of my nose.
That was the whole reason I sent them back the first time — last week — and while the top (distance) area seemed a little bigger today, it still doesn’t seem big enough. I had to lower the seat in my car for driving home, bring the glasses down my nose, and lower my chin toward my chest a little ways, too, to see the road clearly.
I’m beginning to wonder if they even sent the glasses back to get the proportions right. (The second person said the first measurement recorded was in error, and the third person, the one I saw today, said the second person left no notes. So he grilled me with all sorts of questions, and almost made it sound like it was my fault, and I didn’t do the right things.)
The second person told me that when the redone lenses were put in (the ones I apparently received today), they would keep the first pair in case I decided I wanted those instead.
I might just call tomorrow and see if indeed there is that first pair of lenses. I wouldn’t be too surprised if these are the same lenses I first had, and they only tweaked them a little, and just told me they did new ones to fit the second (correct?) measurements.
Maybe I’m too impatient in getting adjusted to them, but it sure doesn’t feel right to either not be able to see more than two feet in front of me or put up with a stiff neck having to look way down all the time. 😦
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I wish, too, that I had spoken up when I was having my eye exam. The doctor didn’t quite have the equipment I looked through in the right place. It was just a shade too low for my height as I was seated in the examining chair, and I had to have my head just slightly lower than it’s usually been. I started to get a sore neck in that position partway through the exam, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think there was much left of the examination.
Maybe my posture not being correct for that part brought about some of the problems I’m having now with bad vision through those glasses when I’m standing or sitting up straight?
If that’s part of the problem, though — wrong posture with the patient — isn’t that something they should have noticed and corrected beforehand?
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So my husband just called and asked how the new glasses are working out. I told him all about the distance vision problems and neck problems, and he said something like, “Yeah, I was thinking those wouldn’t work very well for you.”
I guess I need to hone my mind-reading skills, LOL. 😀
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I’ll probably end up doing what he does — have several different pairs of glasses for different purposes. So I’ll likely need a pair for ordinary, around-the-house meandering; a pair for playing the piano; a pair for teaching piano (maybe? — different distance and angle from the music copy than if I were on the bench); a pair for driving or looking into the distance outside.
A pair for up close, book-in-hand reading?
Yikes. $$$
A friend of mine, a musician in her 70s, has never needed any eye correction at all. Which is kind of funny, as her husband is a retired ophthalmologist. 🙂
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Alright, done with the glasses comments. Done with the music comments. Carry on, people. 🙂
Have a great weekend!
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Not all that far from Thunder Bay to Kenora? Just a little over 5hrs drive, almost the same amount of time it takes to get from Pittsburgh to New York 😆 Sorry, couldn’t resist the tease.
I’ve never been to Thunder Bay either. I’ve wanted to visit the city since I was a child, when I read the Ojibway legend of the Sleeping Giant in an old school reader. I thought it would be easy to go, since it was in the same province. I had a poorer understanding of distance back then. I’ve been out east several times because of my grandmother who lives out there, but there haven’t been family reasons to travel west (I have uncles, aunt, and cousins out there but they usually come east to visit).
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Sorry, Phos, it is out west, back east.
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I knew some Canadian would come along and correct me on my distances, LOL. 😉
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So nice of you to save 49 for me.
Of course it helps that none of you were born that year.
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Found what is hopefully the last mistake in the book order. Took me an hour and a half.
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Mumsee, when you are in the centre, east and west are both out there. Though, the term most commonly used around here is “down east”.
Jo, mission orders are one of the biggest headaches that one has to deal with. Ordering medical supplies was always a hassel for my teammates – I remember helping do inventory..
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Husband is watching Once Upon a Time in the West. I am enjoying listening to it. All those frames that focus so much on faces and eyes are a bit overwhelming to me. It seems unnatural. But the soundtrack is wonderful.
We have been listening to the audiobook Magdalene by Angela Hunt on our commutes. It is spectacular if anyone is looking for biblical fiction. The recording adds a lot to it and makes it seem a lot like a play with the talented reader using various character voices.
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I’ve heard of Kenora, Ontario. There used to be an evangelist that would visit down here named Keith McLeod from Kenora. His brother is Bill McLeod who is in Winnipeg, I think. Both are/were Godly men who have seen true revival. Keith died some 20 years ago, Bill is in his 90s now.
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I did not get to see War Room so that will be our next audiobook. 🙂
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Mumsee and Roscuro, speaking of east and west, this is for you: excerpts of music played by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.
(Roscuro, notice the music up on the racks of the two pianos when Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim play a duet.) 🙂
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Peter, my 1st Arrow is in your neck of the woods — just traveled to Missouri today to spend a few days with family from my husband’s side.
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Good night from way out west
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Good night, Donna, from even further out west. 🙂
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That would be “down South”
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