This is more of a placeholder post, a lot’s been going on. I may flesh out (or flush out) some more of this later.
Looking at my list from last time, some things I didn’t really expand on.
No Kings – yes, on the No Kings day, I did go to a march and rally. I didn’t go into ‘the city’, Manhattan, I went to a local one in Queens. It started in Forest Hills and worked its way up Queens Boulevard to Kew Gardens, exactly where I started the year doing jury duty, and a neighborhood I’m never in otherwise.
It was a lovely day and an excellent experience. I don’t normally go to rallies and such, but it was nice to at least be doing something to counteract the current political situation.
Skating – I’ve gone several times over the last few weeks, mostly to adults-only sessions, which require me to rearrange my work schedule. I have lost a lot of ground, but I have a good plan to pick that back up. I had a good discussion with a friend who’s an excellent skater. One thing I like about taking coachings and lessons and so on is that the American Learn to Skate program is highly structured. In Adult 1, you learn these skills, then in Adult 2, you learn these and so on – and the Adult 1 skills quite clearly lead to (and are necessary to master for) Adult 2.
I can mostly do the Adult 1 stuff (there are 6 adult levels, before you get to the fancy stuff) just fine, but there is a hole in my education. I’ve never mastered the specific skill of getting up from the ice if you fall (or sit). It involves putting one foot up on the ice (you’re on your knee on the other side) and sort of levitating up on that one foot until you can get the other foot planted. And the concept of that is really scary. Part of the problem is that if you are an overweight middle-aged man and practice it, the young kids who are rink guards get very nervous. But it’s something you can actually practice off the ice – first practicing the move at home in your stocking feet or whatever, then at the rink in your skates, but off the ice. That way, when you try it on the ice, you’ll have already acclimated your body to what it’s trying to do. The missing piece – making sure that the one crucial foot doesn’t fly out from under you – is just (according to my friend) using your toe pick so it doesn’t do that. Anyway, I have to work on that. But I am mentally prepared to do so, instead of avoiding it as I have done for years.
It’s a moot point, I shouldn’t skate until about a month after the eye surgeries have healed.
Yes! I had my first cataract surgery last Monday and it went really well. You start the day not allowed to eat or drink, of course, but your appointment is early, so it’s not that long, and the actual process doesn’t take long either. You don’t even have to disrobe, although they put a gown on you and booties to cover your nasty off-the-street shoes. You wash your hands and face, they give you a bunch of drops to numb you up. Then there are two parts:
- They led me to a table next to a machine, and basically strapped my head down. Told me to concentrate on the large orange spot on the ceiling, and the whole thing would take two minutes, and they’d narrate the whole thing as it happened. Basically, a computer looked at my eye, mapped it out, and then went in and shattered my lens. Like, my real lens, the one with the cataracts. This did not hurt, and oddly enough, I could see out of that eye afterward, although it was very blurry.
- Then, after a break, we did the lens implantation, which involves more head-strapping-down, and anesthesia to relax you, although I will say I was pretty tense through the thing and I wonder if they should have given me more. But I don’t think it took more than 10 minutes.
The frustrating thing was that, for the weeks up to the surgery, they had asked me to get approvals from both my GP and my cardiologist. I knew that the GP had come through, and thought the cardio did, but got a panicked call from the doctor’s office on Friday (surgery being Monday) asking about it. I told them I’d submitted the forms to the patient portal. I also gave them my cardiologist’s personal number. Heard nothing else on Friday.
But on Monday, while they are prepping me, they asked me endless questions about the cardiology referral and I told them everything I knew, and they were still asking me questions about it even after the initial lens-shattering. I was like, ‘if they pull the plug on this halfway through the surgery, I will burn this place down‘. If I could see it. But I guess they got what they needed.
I got done earlier than I thought, and waited for Susan to show up. I wasn’t particularly loopy, and wasn’t in pain. Had a (clear) shield taped over my eye, and seemed to be able to see OK. Susan showed up, we took the 7 train from Hudson Yards back to Jackson Heights and I took her to lunch at Jahn’s. Then to my place to hang out (she was staying with me overnight). After I popped a contact lens in my other eye, we chatted and ate Chips Ahoy and watched the first two episodes of Starfleet Academy, which is great. I took her to dinner at Mama Rosa’s (I only had a glass of sangria, not my usual brain-blitzing margaritas) and then we watched Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish, which was also pretty good.
Tuesday, I fed her oatmeal and sent her on her way, then lazed around. I had started my eyedrop routine and wasn’t in any pain. Sight getting better and better. Glasses now completely useless, but I have plenty of left-eye contacts for the unfixed eye.
I’d been told to stop in the doctor’s office on Tuesday or Wednesday, no appointment necessary, so they could check out the results and see if I was OK. I had theater tickets for Wed night, so decided to go in Wed morning and then go get matinee tickets as well, since there wasn’t a lot I could do from home. (‘no screens for three days’ meant I was off from work) So went to the doctor’s, they said it looked great and like I’d been healing for a month.
I’d been worried about scheduling the second surgery, because things get busy for me around mid-May, but it turned out we could do the 2nd one two weeks after the first one! So that’s what we’re doing.
(and then I went to TKTS and wanted to get Death of a Salesman, figuring a matinee was a good way to see a long show, but it was sold out and I saw Operation Mincemeat instead. And opening night of Blue Hill Troupe’s Ruddigore. And I’ll be reviewing those soonish.)
So I’d mentioned maybe earlier that there was stuff going on with my dad, good stuff. He’d decided that it was time to move from living alone to still living alone, but in a retirement community that offered various services. And he did some research with the help of a broker, and it all happened very quickly and he moved two days after my surgery. He’s settling into the new place now, and the plan is to finish emptying, clean up and sell the condo, which will give him resources to deal with some other stuff.
It’s a great move and removes some anxiety from us kids – he will always have eyes on him if he falls or whatever, and he can add services as he needs them – help bathing, help with his medications and so on. Right now he’s doing great by himself, but he’s in his 90’s, so… best to be prepared.
And now that I know when my second eye surgery is, that freed me up to book a trip down to visit him, second week in May, so I can see what all this looks like and help with any specific projects. So that’s booked and I’ll get home just in time to start opera rehearsals.
That’s enough for now, but I did watch some movies and finish some TV shows, and I did see Operation Mincemeat and two performances of the same production of Ruddigore with two sets of leads, and a new production of Utopia, Ltd. – about which I have opinions. So … hang in there!
The Toast Point Page 