The Eye, Local News People, And Starbucks Olive Oil

31 December 2023

1099

R. Linda:

It's been a while since I wrote, I know, I know. I have not been back across the pond to take a hike across England through forest and fauna just to eat seaweed in some craggy seaside town, as seems to be the trend when it isn't 48C, and everyone is thinking they have been transported to the tropics and are at a loss to what to do, but complain.

For this Irishman, living in New England was not unlike living in Ireland (before the sub-Sahara weather set in over there), because the weather wasn't that much different except maybe it rains more on the old sod than here. However, that has all changed, it has. I live in the land of rainy, humid, jungly heat now, just like back home, waiting for palm trees to sprout. If it isn't raining it's cloudy with a 20-minute sunshine ratio that is in no way comfortable, because of the sauna-like air. All this has made me very uncreative and uncommunicative. What's to talk about here but the weather (such as it has become), and little else. 

I had not weeded Tonya's garden this summer, I had not lain out in me comfy hammy, I, instead, had been lazing around inside that is, when I am not working at my real job.

However, last month I went for another MRI on me eyeball and the legion behind my eye has not grown or changed so I am ok for now. I usually get results on My Chart but didn't look because I didn't want to know. Ignorance was bliss in my case, and no news was good news. I had an appointment with my eye specialist, and she told me that nothing had changed. But before I even knew that I was put through a battery of eye tests to see how both eyes were faring. 

I have trouble on sunny days driving (and believe it or not appointment day was one of those rare occasions) because the glare makes it hard for me to see where I am going, I had me sainted, grey-haired, apple-cheeked little Mam drive me to the appointment.

We were ushered into a read-the-chart exam. The lights went off and I was given the plastic eye cover for one eye while I was to read what was on the screen through a hole in the other. Well, maybe it was because of the stress of not knowing the MRI results at the time, and not being able to eat before the appointment (because of the stress of it all), that my vision was blurry in me operated-on eye. Blurrier than usual I should say. I couldn't read anything with that eye. 

When we were back in the waiting room, Mam told me she wondered how I drove a car at all because I was blind as a bat in that one eye.

"Yer 20/60 did ya noo dat?" She elbowed me as we were taken to another room for a peripheral vision test.

"Last time I was 20/30," I said in wonderment. 

The peripheral vision test wasn't much better in that same eye. I had lost 40% more on the lower left of that eye's vision whereas before it was 17%. Uh oh.

Well, the news on the MRI was good at least. To celebrate that since it was a big deal, we went to our favourite expensive pastry and coffee shop on the way home. The shop wasn't expensive until the pandemic, but like everything, prices are sky-high now. I was enjoying a chocolate mousse cupcake and maple latte when Mam decided to give me a blow-by-blow of my exam.

In giggles, she said, "When ye poot dat eye thingie to yer eye and said, "I can't see a ting," I was tinking yer were foolin' wit da, young techie. Den when he poot the letter line up a notch and ye still couldn't see it, I was tinkin' yer might be hafin' sum trooble." She shook her head in sorrow.

"Da best wuz when ye asked em' if dare were numbers mixed in wit da letters." She sighed and gave me a sad smile.

"Then da utter test results were jus as trooblesum, dat be a big vision loss it be dare, Gabriel."

"I be hoping it's from the past month's stress with all this going on," I said hardly able to eat me cupcake or sip the latte. I thought rightly I was also dehydrated which would also not help. I was out of sorts over this eye problem and hadn't bothered to hydrate at all.

Then Mam looked at me, put her hand gently on my arm and said, "Repeat dis tree tymes, A big brown bug bit a big black bear." Can ye do it dare, Gabe?"

"Are ye serious?" I asked her feeling perplexed. Here I was feeling like she was being sympathetic about me loss of sight (well, sort of sympathetic) and instead, she was asking me to prove I was functional brain-wise. Who does that? I'll tell ya who, me apple-cheeked, grey-haired, little Mam!

Well, it's been another month and guess what? Everything has improved. I think because I forced meself to eat before I left, and took a bottle of water that I sipped on the way, to forget I wasn't stressed this time.

Now we are into winter, and time change. So far we have had a mild winter, no snow to report but the rain is still with us, along with gloomy cloudy days. I forgot what sunshine is for the most part. It is like I live in Tolkien's Mordor with lots of flooding water rushing over banks in rivers and streams. It is soggy going, it be. I should be in the goloshes and umbrella business, I'd make a small fortune. 

Everyone seems to have a sense of not caring about anything which seems weather-related, it does. Seems the gloom has cast an overwhelming pale of doom and zombie-like behaviour where we all walk around not acknowledging each other and bored to the back teeth because it's too wet out or too cloudy to want to go out and do anything. Even Mam's baking frenzies have eased off. I tell ya it's getting scary R. Linda. Everyone looks disshelved and kind of scary like robots. Maybe because I am reading Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 the material has a subconscious play on me mind. I even put the Roomba up because it now bothers me it works on its own. That robot seems to suddenly kick into life as soon as it sees me. I know, I be letting me mind run away with the idea that the Roomba is out to trip me and kill me. It seems to delight (if I may use that word) in chasing the cat around the lower floor. Mam was thinking of getting another for the second floor. I was horrified I was. No, I told her, no, no, no. She informed me it would save her from breaking her back with the vacuum cleaner. The vac even has a name, it's a SHARK. I tell ya, I be thinking these electrified instruments are really torture and killing devices. Have enough of them and they'll get you sooner than later. I just know it! Yes, I be paranoid, because every time I turn around there is something plugged into the wall that hums to life be it computers, charging stations, vacuums, lights, foot massagers, etc., You name it and in my house they all have names, and they all have their own agenda. You see, this is what happens when you have gloomy rainy weather constantly, your mind does crazy things. And, it isn't just me, I was watching the news the other night and had to look at this:

Scary right?

Yes, she stood there giving a news story looking rather strange. I was so taken with her appearance that I can't for the life of me tell you what she was reporting. She's new I will give you that, but that's the other thing, what's happened to the local news? There has been an influx of new news people, presenters. And they all need a makeover. I look at Boston stations at the slick news people dressed to the nines and looking all coiffed and polished and then I turn on me local news and get, well you see what I get. And the wind wasn't even blowing, so I don't know why. She isn't the only one, there are a few others who need a brush and a comb, some clothes that flatter instead of enhance tyre rolls or heavy legs. I may sound ridiculous, but what happened to professional appearance? It's got so casual, that it's like me next door farmer could do the pig reports and no one would bat an eye.

Lastly, in me gloomy complaints, I went to Starbucks for a coffee and found they were selling olive oil. Look here:

Yeah, a little oil with me latte

Give me a white mocha venti with a side jug of oil. Yum!

I will take me grouchy self off the computer and go try to enjoy the gloom with a large cup of joe. Hopefully, things will be better in the new year. Maybe the rain will go away and the sun will actually stay out and make things look beautiful again. Or, maybe not.

Gabe

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