I am home briefly, between errands, having had an absolutely WONDERFUL time at the optometrist. They took me back to start tests a little after noon for my 11:00 appointment - for which I was not late. The staff was kind and seemed competent - no idea what the major delay(s) were about. I like my new doctor, who is an attractive early-40s lady named Dr. Cohen and doesn't scold as much as my previous doctor (a geez I loved but who retired a few years ago at the age of approximately 565).

After much ado, air puffs and letter reading, my updated contact lens prescription was issued. If you read my post yesterday, well *in a Gomer Pyle voice* SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE! - the new prescription was EXACTLY THE SAME as the old one, first issued in 1994. I knew my vision hadn't changed, but why listen to me? The eyes only BELONG to me, after all. [Side note: I started out with bad vision but it didn't change substantially until 1993, when a staph infection settled in my eyes. Because of my medicinal allergies, the best ways to eradicate the infection weren't viable so we had to work with half-measures and, well, do what we could. My vision deteriorated to the point that I had to surrender my drivers' license. After the infection was finally cleared, my vision got better (though not as good as it was pre-ordeal). Since then, since July 1994, my vision has not changed. No better, no worse. Which I could have told them, but they wanted a few bucks to tell ME, so that's what we did.]

I wanted a pair of glasses also, for bad-allergy days, for times when I just didn't feel like fooling with contacts, for emergencies, etc. Accordingly, after the appointment, I was loosed upon the store area to select frames. Again, it took for-frickin'-evah! I would kick up a fuss if employees were goofing off or talking to their friends, but these employees were nice, just occupied with other people. Other people who seemed to feel it was their purpose in life to try on EVERY SINGLE PAIR OF FRAMES in the entire store, retry most, dither about for hours, try on more, dither more, and finally make a selection. Which is patently absurd. Lots of the glasses are exactly the same color and shape, but one is by Versace, one by Ray Ban, one by Vittadini and one by someone you never heard of. Guess what? They are EXACTLY THE SAME (well, except the exactly the same ones by Chanel are $50 more). I watched one lady try on three pairs of eyeglasses over and over and over. She never made a decision; she went back for her exam. These were small, rounded rectangular frames, tortoise-shell in color. They were the same size, same earpiece width, everything; one was $119, one was $99 and one was $149. For fuck's sake, does it really make a difference?!? The only difference it could POSSIBLY make is if you can't afford the expensive ones (which aren't particularly expensive, relatively), and how long does it really take to realize that? Here's a hint: if you can't afford the expensive ones NOW, waiting thirty-eight minutes won't help. They aren't going to go on sale suddenly. Just get one of the other two, and if you STILL can't decide, I'll spot you the twenty-buck price difference, okay??? OKAY???

I wanted bad-fifties metal cats-eye glasses with rhinestones in the corner. They didn't have any (bastards!). There was one pair by Salvatore Ferragamo (one of my fave shoe designers, BTW) which were sort of the 21st-century version: cats'-eye shaped and metal, with the barest barest touch of pink to keep them from being totally silver, and a few rhinestones, though not so extremely pointy and all metal pieces much thinner than in the 50s. But the dude didn't want to do them for me. My eyes are so bad that my lenses were gonna be way, way thicker than the frames and he thought they'd look so odd I wouldn't like them. He was not unwilling to do it, if I insisted, but wanted to make sure I knew the lenses would be more than twice the thickness of the frames (sheesh!). So I got some plastic cats-eye shaped instead.

But I want bad-50s cats'-eye glasses! The store manager said he'd put my 'scrip lenses in some and that if I could find vintage, they probably wouldn't hang over as much and look so odd. SO - if any of you have an elderly aunt, or grandmother, or great-grandmother, or know one of those weird spinster cat ladies, steal her glasses! I'll pay you.

MONTOYA DELENDA EST!