I Can’t See You
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We left Hiroshima this morning, and are heading to Okinawa, also known in Japan as part of the Ryukyu Islands.
I Can’t See You
I’m blind as a bat—always have been. But middle-age has desiccated my eyes. If I wear my beloved contacts more than a couple of hours (just long enough to get through a workout), I start to feel like someone is sanding my eyeballs every time I blink.
Slowly, unenthusiastically, with much whining and resistance, I’ve had no choice but to join the legions of spectacle-wearers all over the world.
And because Lee and I are never in the US long enough for me to have the ophthalmology appointment, get the updated prescription, order the glasses, and tweak the fit before we leave, I’ve spent the last couple of years buying (and rebuying) glasses in other countries, usually across a significant language barrier.
In the last 30 months, I’ve bought frames and/or lenses in Mexico, Spain, Dubai, Thailand (2 pairs), and Japan (3 pairs). That’s an embarrassing average. I had recently begun to conclude that I’m not very good at this (maybe because I still hate wearing glasses).
But this year, we had a few extra days in North Carolina in September. Lee (who has always worn glasses) managed to wedge in an order for a new pair of sunglasses. He picked them up the day before we left, and then spent all of October trying to adjust to the minor change in his prescription.
Last week he finally gave up and went to an eyeglass store here in Hiroshima. With a lot of Google Translate assistance, the optometrist was able to tell him that the reason he couldn’t see properly in those American sunglasses was that the lens were switched—the left lens had been put on the right side, and vice versa.
He’s perfectly happy with his new Japanese ones.
Apparently buying glasses is more challenging than it looks, even without a language barrier.
Take care,
Lisa
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