One More Different, Smaller, and a Very Electronic Christmas 2022

This year we decided to stay in Southern California, for Christmas, in our trailer/cottage in Palm Springs. There were lots of factors in making the decision. Most of Doug's kids had other plans, or just didn't have time to travel the 8 hours down here from the Bay Area, and we thought Doug was going to have a second cataract operation on the 21st, but then he changed his mind. My kids are both back east, and we just planned to communicate a lot by FaceTime  especially when my new grand baby would be born. Doug's two sons and 2 of the grandkids promised to drive down on the day after Christmas, but that left us alone, together for Christmas, opening up a couple of gifts wrapped in Amazon packaging. 

It's a good thing that we put up our solar Christmas lights, because before Christmas, Covid raised its ugly head once again. First, Doug tested positive and I tried to not get it by insisting I isolate myself by masking around him and sleeping in the tiny bedroom at the end of the trailer part of our home, as instructed by the doctor. He confessed later, however, that it was a relief to him that I finally tested positive! I guess that's okay, since we both had mild cases. Besides, it was difficult to be so strict when we were in such a small space. My symptoms were mostly exhaustion, everything tasted like garlic, and I had heartburn and nausea. He had a little fever for a couple of days, a headache, and general malaise. We just self-isolated and were brought gifts of homemade sour dough bread, cookies, and even a huge package of toilet paper, (which we had gotten dangerously low on), from friends and neighbors.

I kept trying to force myself to finish up the annual family calendar I put together, and then when they came, I set up my Mom's old card table in the kitchen to gradually wrap them and any other gifts that I had to send out in the mail. When I finally tested negative, I went to the post office to get some priority mail boxes to pack up all the families' gifts and treats so I could come back to stand, masked, in a surprisingly short line to send them off.

We had bought each other gifts that we both wanted, even before Christmas. Doug did a thorough study of mobility scooters to buy, since he enjoyed the one we rented in DC a few months before, and he suggested I get an Apple Watch, so I would get credit for any steps I do.

The scooter came with a caveat that it would have to be stored in our parlour, in front of the wall where I usually compose my "wall tree". I was still tired from Covid, so it didn't take too much convincing for me to let that go. We went to the Angel View Thrift Shop and came home with a little 3 foot fake tree, and covered it heavily with solar lights, and ornaments, and put it in our bedroom. Thank goodness the solar lights are almost worn out. They only work for a few hours and then have a faint twinkle for the rest of the night, not keeping us up. It sits next to our little table with a minimalist creche on it. We added a couple of cute sheep to it this year. They're very cute. The bigger one looks over at the manger, and the baby one looks at us, as if to say, "Are you paying attention?"

Doug loves his little red "scooter", he bought it with the idea that it would encourage him to walk more, rather than less. When we start out, I ride in the scooter, while he walks with his cane, and after about a block and a half, we switch so I can get some steps in. We're in the habit now of doing our walk/ride a few blocks over to the market, or CVS, or to eat lunch at our favorite restaurant, Mario's. I've learned to switch my watch over to the workout mode to get credit for my exercise. It's getting ridiculous, how I'm trying to "close up all my rings" now. Before Christmas, when we both had Covid, my watch seemed very disappointed in me, sitting in my chair and reading or taking a nap, since it urges you to get up for a minute every hour during the day. It's training me pretty well, and I keep on increasing my daily goals. One night before bed, I confess that I went outside to walk a few more steps to close up the move ring!

On Christmas Eve morning, I baked a double batch of Toll House chocolate chip cookies with added pecans and tart dried Montmorency cherries to hand out to friends and neighbors in our mobile park. I put 3 or 4 cookies each in ZipLoc bags and placed them in a beautiful red bag that a friend made for me, and we looked very festive as we did our walk/ride routine all around the neighborhood and visited with all the happy recipients of the cookies. I told them, "If you're lucky, you might get a tart dried cherry in a bite", since the cherries were in short supply. The next day, some folks came up and excitedly said, "And I got a cherry in mine!" 

On Christmas Eve, we went to a beautiful mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe, and I got teary eyed as  a little girl in a pretty red dress reverently walked down the aisle with Father Robert, holding the baby Jesus on a cushion, so  she could lay him in his manger. Between all the sparkly lights, and the beautiful singing of our favorite cantor, who we have dubbed, "Sings Like An Angel" singing Ave Maria, our Christmas was just about complete. 

When we got out to the car though, Doug said, "I don't want to go home to left over Chinese food tonight. Not on Christmas Eve!" He wanted to go someplace special, and his first choice was closed. I suggested a local "dive" bar, a Palm Springs classic, Pete's Hideaway. When we first got there, it was almost empty, except for an older woman all dressed up in her holiday garb at the end of the bar. "She said, "Oh! You're finally here!",  to which I curtsied, and then she said, "Oh, I thought you were someone else." We sat at the bar and had a cocktail, and toasted to each other, and then all the people who had reservations started arriving, and a singer came to start singing his holiday songs with his guitar. We decided to stay and share a plate of their Italian stuffed pasta dinner. A lovely time after all. 

Our Advent wreath.

Earlier in the day, we had decided that we would join in with our neighbors for a Christmas morning potluck, so I had to come up with a dish to bring. I just had to buy another dozen eggs, and I revised a Christmas sausage and egg and cheese casserole that I found online, similar to one that is usually served at my sister Lorraine's house on Christmas morning.

We also were invited to Doug's second cousin Greg's and his wife Julie's home in Desert Hot Springs at two on Christmas Day, so we had to leave the brunch early, having tried to not stuff ourselves. We were happy to actually have family to visit with on this special holiday. The desert is becoming pretty popular for retirees. A couple of members of my own family have moved down here recently too. Maybe we'll get together with them next year.

The story goes on.... Doug's sons John and Matt and our granddaughters Ava and Resie drove down to visit on December 26th in time for a dinner of what has been dubbed "Harboghetti". Then we all opened gifts to each other, so that seemed even more like a complete Christmas. 

John's better at electronic things than us, so he helped us to hook up an upgraded version of Roku that is voice activated for our TV. I had also surprised Doug with an Alexa, another toy that is voice activated, which he was delighted with. (He actually looked like a little boy on Christmas morning with a new train set.) He didn't think I would get one, since I had pooh-poohed the idea. John had to help install Alexa too, and then she, (if there really IS an Alexa), was probably tearing her hair out at all the ridiculous questions she was being asked, but she still happily answered. 

The weather cleared up for them one day for a nice day at the pool, since it's been unusually cloudy and rainy here. 

Doug went out to ride in a golfcart with them while Matt and Ava golfed, and I stayed home with Resie. We took a little walk, and then worked together on constructing a Disney Lego project out on the patio, and we accomplished it! 

The next day, we put together a nice ham dinner, and we've all done a good job of working on the great supply of holiday cookies, candies and treats that everyone brought. We're thinking of not looking at the scale for a few days.

Everything's quiet now. Our company is on their way home and we're feeling rather drowsy. Tomorrow night is New Year's Eve. Here's to a wonderful, and especially Peaceful 2023. 

New grand baby Thea and Petie

Mrs Magoo, post-op

It was time for cataract surgery....I had been mistaking things for other objects, or my vision was so fuzzy I couldn't make them out. My husband accused me of being like Mr. Magoo, only a feminine version, we called "Mrs. Magoo", who saw life through such cloudy vision, it caused me to endanger my and others' situations.

Fireworks, as seen through a cataract

I had one more Magoo-ish incident before the surgery. When Doug was driving us down from Tahoe so I could have surgery the next day in Oakland Kaiser, my vision was worse than ever. I confessed to him that I couldn't see the big green highway signs until they came up in my passenger side window. "Another reason that I'm driving and you're having the surgery, right?", he said. So true.

When I had the measurements done on my eyes, it was said that I would benefit from going with a "Toric" lens in my eye, one that could be turned on an axis and cancel out the "steepness" of my cornea, which caused an astigmatism. I had to pay extra for this lens, but it still wasn't the most costly one. It was the one I needed, letting me see more crisply at distance and maybe for the computer. My rapidly progressing cataract was so bothersome to me because it had only been 8 or so months since I had seen clearly, so I went for it. The nurses in the OR praised me for paying extra for the "Gucci" lens.

Before the surgery, I was reading a book...."All the Things We Cannot See", by Anthony Doerr, which seems appropriate, right? I loved it so much that I read it with a magnifying glass, with good light, while tilting my head to see if I could go around my cloudy lens. Sometimes it seemed to work. The book was due before I finished it, so I returned it to the South Lake Tahoe library before we traveled to the Bay Area for the surgery. When I got back, my vision was so bright, that I could read the print without glasses or contacts....and I thought this surgery was mostly for distance vision! The Toric lens, (which isn't for everyone's eye), has me seeing the computer and not so fine print (as long as I hold it pretty far), without glasses!

The only downside, that is downright depressing, is that I can see more wrinkles. It seems as if I have aged 10 years over night....of course that's only my opinion, since everyone else has been looking at me like this all along! No wonder I had been receiving more comments, like "Well, if you were my mother, I would suggest that you make this decision....after all...at YOUR age...." Gosh. It's time to start testing wrinkle creams. My doctor laughed and told me that most people just discover that their homes aren't as tidy. They see dust bunnies that they didn't realize were there. Well there's that too.....

I've been testing my vision All The Time. In the shower, I can now tell the difference between the shampoo and conditioner bottles, which most folks have a hard time with after they turn about 42, which is normal, but annoying. Have you ever applied lotion to your hair in an hotel? Not easy to get out.

"Now I can read that sign over there!" "Look over there at the robin flying with it's straw for it's nest in it's mouth!"
But, when covering my "new eye", the cloudiness of the right eye is more pronounced; I was told that that might be the case.

As if on cue, I received a notice from the DMV to renew my driver's license. I worried and stewed about the vision test I'd have to perform. Testing my vision on each eye on street signs didn't give me much confidence. I decided to go for it and walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles for my test. I figured that if I failed, I could get an extension till I had surgery on the other eye.
I sat in the waiting area, which faced the eye charts, trying not to look like I was attempting to memorize the lines.
In an abnormally short amount of time, my number was called, and I smiled and purposefully didn't offer any information about my level of confidence of my vision.
First, the man pointed and said, "Now, with both eyes read the 3rd line on chart C". I aced that of course.  "Now cover your left eye and tell me the 2nd line on chart A". I took a breath and murmured, "Hmm, not quite as clear", ....as I tried to focus. I said, "CFDBE". "Good!", he said, to my surprise!
I breezed through the left eye, of course, and was delighted to be granted my driver's license renewal.
It turns out that I may have been testing my vision on smaller letters at the DMV by sitting farther away from the chart and I'm embarrassed to say that I wasted the minutes I tried to memorize the chart.

A few weeks later, I'm still testing the parameters of my vision. I can see the newspaper crossword as long as it's a little far away from my usual reading distance, and I'm so glad to see the swallows flying in the distance...and that's with my right eye still seeing a little cloudy. One day....another day, I'll sign up for a new adventure with cataract surgery on my right eye. No worries.

Lily Lake after surgery

Mrs. Magoo

When coming through the gate of the community pool at our mobile park in Palm Springs, I leaned my head to my husband and whispered, "Who are those people on the other side? Anyone we know? "
He looked incredulously at me and said, "Oh my gosh! You're becoming like Mrs Magoo!"
He was right, but I said, "Well I don't want to offend someone by not speaking to them, and I can't quite make them out."

Many younger readers may not recognize the reference to a bald, myopic cartoon character called Mr Magoo, played with the voice of Jim Backus (who may or may not be remembered more as Thurston Howell III, the millionaire on Gilligan's Island). Mr Magoo mistakes everything for something else, and often puts himself in dangerous situations.

Another day, when we proceeded to the far side of the pool, I said to a friend lounging there, "Hi Lisa, Where's Cathy today?" As soon as I had those words out of my mouth, I saw Cathy's belongings on the lounge next to Lisa's. With the sun shining in my eyes, I followed a voice that was about 10 feet away in the pool. Cathy was bobbing around on a noodle, calling out "Here I am Patty! Not going blind, are you?"  I mumbled something about the glare of the sun....

One of the worst things that has happened is when I picked up my son at the airport, I almost ran through a stop sign. I really didn't see it, but I accredited it to being excited to see him. I decided to let him drive me around. I notoriously find it hard to be a passenger, but he drove very nicely.

While driving recently on the freeway toward Yuma, Arizona, Doug was driving, since I banned myself from being behind the wheel. He steered valiantly, I might say, through a sand storm, white knuckles and all.

I said, "This is amazing! I'm going to take a picture of this so I can show the doctor how I really see." So, I took the photo with my iPhone, and when done, I saw Doug look toward me to see what I was doing. When he turned his head away from the road, I instantly worried that I had distracted him from driving. I whipped around to look at the road, and saw us rapidly gaining on a black car that seemed to have stopped ahead of us! I braced myself, pointed, and said "Car!!", as my life did the proverbial passing before my eyes.  .....We came upon the said stopped car, and to my amazement, ran over it, as I realized that all it was was a rectangular patch of tar in the road! Doug said, "You're really going to have to trust my vision over yours!" Still my heart was racing and my arms were tingling as I realized we were still alive.

Only yesterday, my husband was driving us around town, and I saw a young child's electric wheelchair strapped to the back of a truck. I thought, "Oh, that poor child. We should pray for the family. It must be really hard for them." When we pulled up alongside, I saw that it was a gardening truck with a fancy lawnmower strapped to the back of it! Once again the subject of Mrs. Magoo was brought up.

Having worked in an eye clinic for 17 years, I heard many complaints from patients about not being able to drive at night because of the glare of car lights with halos around them. Then there is the story of the sun causing another type of glare, or haze, that I can also attest to.....not to mention not being able to read the crossword puzzle clues without squinting, or with extra light. That is a real pain to me.....since I always look forward to doing a crossword after breakfast. Right now it's not so relaxing. So all of this adds up to cataracts. I'm scheduled to have the worst eye operated on this month, and I have confidence that I'll have my good distance vision back afterward.

All of this is normal, you know, "At your age", I've been told too many times recently. Cataracts happen to almost everyone if they live long enough. That's what I used to tell the patients, and now, here I am, one myself.