Four Eyes!

Posted on by travelingmarla

Got my “annual” eye exam yesterday. (“Annual” = I go every three or four years, after I’ve been down to my last pair of contacts for about 6 months.) I ordered new glasses and finally gave in and got reading glasses. The nice (and young) Dr. Anderson said to me “Your eyes look really great and healthy. A little lattice degeneration, and some permanent pigment on the whites from the sun. And the brown pigment in your pupils fading to hazel is, you know, just normal wear and tear of aging.” :-/

Here’s what I think of aging: this body can creak and crack and wrinkle and sag all it wants (although it will now have to fight a little harder against the weights that are toning me up), but my mind will be exactly as old as, or as young as, I allow it to be.

And this is the age I think I am:

eye exam humor vision care contact lenses glasses aging lattice degeneration
Life is too short to take yourself seriously all the time. Kurt says these remind him of Star Wars Episode I and young Anikin’s sighting goggles for racing. :-/ But then, he totally quoted Episode IV, because he kept giggling and saying “Stay on target…Stay on target! Stay on target!” (And I’m the dork.)

eye exam humor vision care contact lenses glasses aging lattice degeneration
Fancy schmancy way of measuring your eye pupillary distance for making your lens. (These are my new reading glasses.)
eye exam humor vision care contact lenses glasses aging lattice degeneration
Karen, the nice worker who helped us, became very excited about my measurements, telling me my “pupillary distance” is very close to “perfect” which, she said, “almost never happens.” We also discussed my very small-bridged nose and why glasses are always slipping down. But she was also cooing over this and calling my nose “perfect.” (This is strangely not a new occurrence. I did get asked when we lived in L.A. who “did” my nose, to which I always wanted to reply “What exactly about my non-makeup-wearing, Walmart-clothes-buying, low-maintenance self seems to imply “nose job?”   But anyway, it was a strangely flattering visit to the eye doctor. Maybe the compliments were to offset the well-meaning “aging” comments by the doctor.
eye exam humor vision care contact lenses glasses aging lattice degeneration
These are my new distance glasses. I have really crappy vision. My glasses are -5.5’s. My contacts are -5.25 and -5
I’m surprised I wasn’t born with sonar. (Get it?)

Love, Marla

P.S. FITNESS BUDDIES!!! I had weights day again today, and do you remember how I told you that on Friday I did the bench press for 19 reps of 75 pounds? Well, today, I did 2 full sets (10 reps each) of 75 pounds, PLUS 8 out of 10 on the 3rd set before I needed an assist. I had a worker at the gym spot me, and after I finished the 3 sets at 75 pounds (28 out of 30 ain’t bad!), he helped me do drop sets at 95lbs, 85lbs, 75lbs, 65lbs and the bar (45lbs).

eye exam humor vision care contact lenses glasses aging lattice degeneration
Finally getting more reps of 75 pounds on the bench press. I did 19 reps on Friday with my trainer and 28 reps today with a staff spotter. Woot! Woot!

My arms are TORE UP! I am so deliciously sore right now.

I just realized that this increased my strength on the bench press by 10 pounds in one month. (I had just started hitting 65 pounds consistently when I joined the Center for Fitness and Health.)  I’m still fighting fatigue a few times a week and trying to adjust my cardio times so I don’t crash out as much, but it’s so exciting to have this progress. I’m still hoping to bench press 100 pounds before we leave for Africa in 4 months. I don’t know if another 25 pounds in 4 months is reasonable or not, but I plan on doing everything possible (but natural – I don’t do that enhancement crap) to get there!

14 thoughts on “Four Eyes!”

  2. How the hell do you get the pictures of yourself that are obviously not taken by you? I’ve been wondering that. Also, Kurt is a dork. =D

    1. Hahaha. Well, in this case I took the first one, and Kurt took the others. But I often just ask whoever is nearby to take my photo. I think they get a kick out of being involved in some kind of shenanigans, hahaha.
      Yaya, Kurt IS a dork.
      I can always tell when he reads my post. Today, for example, about 20 minutes after posting, I got a text that just read “Stay on target stay on target stay on target stay on target.” Hahaha.

      1. Hahahhahaa…well, it’s probably better than you would have gotten from me. At least he’s a dork in the classic sense, whereas I would have made some horror-movie-related crack that no one would have gotten. And then I’d have been sad. =( =D

  3. Cool eye photos! Always wondered what the tech person/eye doc actually sees. I guess I really ought to take my camera everywhere. I just never thought to document the op. Looks like oodles of fun – and yes, it is verrry interesting to read on your blog. Thanks!

    1. Thanks, Pierr. Yeah I wanted to also include a really cool photo that a machine took of my eyes – looks like art – but they haven’t emailed it yet like they said they would. 🙁
      I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

    1. I had 17 grams right after my workout. I need to restock the fridge with chicken and broccoli now that I can cook again!

      Haha. I pretty much take photos of everything if I think it will be funny or if I think people would find it interesting for the blog.
      Oh who am I kidding. I pretty much took photos of everything since I won my first camera at like 9 or 10 years old.
      It’s an obsession. Sometimes people get weirded out by it and sometimes I have to remember “Oh wait, I’m in a bathroom” or something like that, but it does make for good/funny posts (I hope)… 😉

        1. She didn’t mind at all and seemed to find it funny. I have a kind of stumbling, bumbling awkwardness that usually people find entertaining enough that they don’t mind my taking photos or amusing myself. I think because I have absolutely no public “cool” and not even an attempt at it, that most people are so comfortable around me that they don’t mind whatever antics I’m up to.
          Of course, when they do mind, they usually can’t stand me. Fortunately, I don’t run into that very often.

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