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Monday, April 16, 2018

On Being Blind

Bonaparte's Gull

I got my first pair of glasses at age 11....hideous blue rhinestone things that I hated with strong passion. Of course I thought they made me look stupid, but they were also an awful handicap in playing football, baseball, war games, western ranch workers and Native Americans, and other neighborhood pastimes. They were usually taped together in several places until replaced with even uglier black ones.

Great Egret, just up the road from home

Those were followed by many others until I could no longer wear safety glass (protection from flailing cow tails) and had to accept plastic, because, you know, weighty coke bottles and all.

This is not terribly helpful for birding, although I get around it with good binoculars (thanks Alan) and a good idea of what a bird looks like so I can spot them fairly well.

Eastern Phoebe

However, with other things it is a downright difficulty not to be able to see well.

Take the bugs in the kitchen sink for example. (Preferably far, far away). I started out to do the dishes first thing today. Granted it was pretty dark and all. The sink was full of nasty little black things....so many little black things.

Ugh.

Local parking lot

I admit that this has been a bad year for Box Elder bugs and you can pretty much expect them everywhere, but these things were different. I sluiced and swashed, and generally used a lot of very hot water making them go away down the drain.

And then I realized that someone had not quite finished a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream last night....yeah, that's right, not bugs after all. 

Sometimes it's fun being blind.

7 comments:

joated said...

Yeah, those chocolate chip bugs can be nasty! LOL!

tryon1@frontiernet.net said...

I have a passel of lady bugs you are welcome to. They bring good luck. Mom

Unknown said...

Too funny😀

Unknown said...

" Western ranch workers and Native Americans..." coffee all over the keyboard.

Terry and Linda said...

One time Mom left the dishes in water while she went to work. Came back home in the evening ready to do the dishes and found a dead mouse in the water :)

Jacqueline Donnelly said...

Ha ha ha! Funny story! Except it's not so funny being hard-of-seeing. I got glasses in the second grade, and I too was a rowdy little tomboy who broke eyeglasses many times while playing rough games. I'm even blinder now, with retinal puckers that give me fun-house distortions, a different one in each eye. That's why I'm very glad when my eagle-eyed pal Sue comes with me on my outdoor adventures. She sees so much that I would miss.

threecollie said...

Joated, I felt like an idiot. lol

Mom, alas we do too. And no matter how much luck they bring, I hate the way they smell! Love you

Denny, thanks

James, oops! Sorry...

Linda, EEK!!!!!

Jacqueline, that must be terribly hard for you. I am so sorry to read it. I do the same thing with my various birding companions. I will point at a tree, and say, "I hear a bird in there. Can you see it?" And often he does!