Now I Can See...No Wait

Up until I was about 40, I had nearly perfect vision. But my father's side of the family has this curse. When you turn 40 your eye sight goes to hell and your blood pressure soars. Of course the blood pressure could be related to my kids so who knows. Anyway, I've been wearing glasses for quite some time now. I almost can't remember a time when I didn't. I wore hard contact lenses for a while back in the day, but my eyes didn't tear enough to keep them moist and I would have to take them out after about four hours. I also tried soft contact lenses, but I couldn't see clearly enough with them. I have acute astigmatism, which makes fitting me with contacts difficult and laser eye surgery impossible, at least for now. During my last eye exam, my Doctor asked me again about trying contacts. I was interested because I find glasses annoying. You lose track of them, they get dirty, they slide down your nose when you sweat, etc. In general they're a pain. The Doctor wanted to try a new type of contact on me. I was agreeable and he popped them in my eyes. These were just dummy lenses, but when he gave me some lenses to put in front of them, the effect was amazing. I could see. I could see 20/20 again. Not only that, but the lenses felt comfortable in my eyes. The contacts themselves are hybrids. They have a gas permeable hard lens in the middle with a soft outer ring. I decided to give them a chance and ordered them. They are not cheap. This past Wednesday, I finally was able to go pick up my new contact lenses. I had to be able to put them in and take them out twice before they would let me take them home. I manged that with only a minor bit of struggling and off I went. My world was so much clearer and sharper then with my glasses. I loved them. I could actually read road signs again when I drove. Our tv looked like HD. This was great right up to the time I had to read something. With my glasses reading was never a problem even though seeing distance was. You can laugh at bifocals, but they work. With the new contacts I couldn't read squat. Everything was out of focus. The Doctor had told me I would need reading glasses, but I figured not me. Well yes me. So off to Target to get some. They're not too bad as reading glasses go, but really haven't I just exchanged one set of glasses for another? Its nice to see things over 2 feet away as they were meant to be seen, but I read a lot. My job requires a lot of reading and includes a lot of 10 pt font, which is tiny. I imagine I'll be wearing these reading glasses as much as I wore my other glasses, which is not what I wanted. Plus I'll be constantly taking the reading glasses on and off. This whole contact lens thing has turned in to very much the mixed bag.


This weekend was a Friday off weekend, which I love. Friday a got in an early row. The water was finally free of debris and I didn't have to spend half my time looking behind me for logs in the water. The water was flat and the temperature warm but not hot and muggy. I rowed up well past Ryan's Dam and got in a total of 11 miles. When I got back to the dock, my hip flexors were so sore and tight, I could barely walk. That has never happened to me before so I'm not sure what was going on. For the next few hours I walked around like an 90 year old man just shuffling along.


Saturday was the official start of my rowing club's season. The kids are finally done rowing for the spring so we have access to their equipment. We had 13 guys show for the first practice so we took out an 8+ plus a Quad. I was the bow seat in the Quad. Our set was back and forth, but despite that we managed decent boat speed for a first practice and managed to stay in front of the 8+ for most of the practice. After our practice, most of us hung around to help with the adult rowing camp we sponsor. It's a two week, six times out on the water camp for beginners. We send out 4 novices in an 8+ with 4 experienced rowers. Having experienced rowers along to help with setting the boat (keeping the boat level), allows them to learn much more quickly. I got to be the stroke one of the 8+s and off we went for our 2 hour lesson. That 2 hours plus the 2 hour regular practice right before the camp session plus the 11 mile row the day before left me one tired puppy. I would have loved to come home showered and taken a long nap, but nay. Thunder storms were coming and my gutters were so clogged I had seeds starting to sprout in them. It took me over and hour and a half to clean them out. It's a pain in the ass job, but I didn't mind it in the past, but this whole getting up on the roof is getting to me these days. I'm really getting worried about losing my footing and going over the edge. I need to find someone else to come do them. I'm too old for this crap any more. Saturday night we had a club party. A way for everyone to get reacquainted. It was also a chance for the Board to go over things for the coming season with the members. As the Treasurer, I had to go over how we did for last year (we finished in the black) and what went into developing the budget for 2008 and from that how we calculated membership fees. It went pretty well I thought. The party was a lot of fun and we had some good food (pot luck) and drink. The party was held at one of the rowers houses. It's fairly new, really gorgeous and on the water. Everyone was suitable impressed.

Sunday I went for a bike ride by myself. Ann was in a bit of a funky mood and decided she didn't want to go. I thought the trail was a lot less crowded than usual given how nice a day it was. I made it out to Leesburg in 47 minutes and back in 40 minutes. I probably can do better but my legs just felt tired after all the rowing the previous two days. I'm sure the partying didn't help matters either. As I was resting in Leesburg before heading back to the van, Ann called to tell me that the battery in our other car was dead. I hadn't been having any problems with it or any indication that the battery was about to go. I hope maybe I didn't shut the door all the way and the battery had just run down. I put it on our battery charger for about 6 hours and it started right up. I'm hoping that problem doesn't reoccur. I was also looking forward to watching the Nationals play this afternoon, but they fell behind 5-0 in the first few innings so I turned it off. Maybe they'll do better when they return home. Another weekend in the books. I'm so not looking forward to returning to work.