Is it just me or are glasses a nuisance? Spectacles I mean. I’ve been wearing them since I was seven and I still find them very annoying. Like when I’m getting dressed and pull something on over my head: The neck, no matter how loose always seems to catch my glasses and pull them painfully down on my face. In all those years have I learnt to remove my glasses as I dress – no, I haven’t. Then there’s the change of temperature thing. I get all misted up and spend my time not being able to see clearly or meet and greet new people who are only ever a blur to me. Take the example of me in winter when I lived in Alaska. We’d have a great time skiing in the early afternoon on bright sunny winter days. Then we’d go into a cabin which always seemed to be very dark and gloomy (probably due to the fact that I was verging on snow blindness having been out in the strong light). Then my glasses would steam up and take at least ten minutes to clear during which time everyone was a dim shadowy figure.
Often when I’m about to wash my face in the bathroom I go through the motions of taking my glasses off, even when I’m not wearing them. You’d think I’d be aware of how well I could or couldn’t see. That I’d notice if things were not in focus.
Why is it that people frequently remark that when they remove their glasses they experience loss of hearing – i.e. become hearing impaired? That’s one thing I’ve not been aware of, yet.
The size of things also varies. I’m short sighted. When I look at the precious stones in my ring without my glasses they appear much larger. Is that their true size – I hope so!
I’ve reached that time in life when many people find that their arms are not long enough for reading. Thankfully I don’t have that problem. To read the small print I simply remove my glasses. Likewise when looking at small things e.g. threading a needle or reading the numbers printed on plastic materials to see if they are recyclable I also remove my glasses.
My final comment about glasses is that they get dirty and need constant cleaning. Oily fingerprint smudges are the worst. You think you’ve cleaned your glasses and have just finished polishing the lenses when you catch the light and a streaky sheen is revealed, possibly rainbow tinted!
del.ico.us | 
Digg It | 
Technorati | 
StumbleUpon | 
Furl | 
reddit
Several weeks ago I made the decision to say farewell to our 11 year old cat, Lawrence. Although he was not old, (we felt he was in his prime), he became unwell and I did not want to see him suffer.
My 6 year old son had some useful and very unique suggestions to help Lawrence get better as I tried gently to introduce the idea that he would probably die. He was keen to bring a pet to school and chose Lawrence with the argument that if everyone stroked him and petted him that would make him better. George would put the basket that Lawrence slept in on the settee next to him, putting an extra cover over the basket to help Lawrence rest and reading him a story which included showing him the pictures.
When the inevitable happened and I returned from the vets with Lawrence in a casket, George became very involved in the funeral arrangements. He got my guitar and sang a special ‘My Dead Pet Song’. He made a plaque out of a piece of hardboard and wrote ‘To Lawrence, I really loved you. Love from George. (He drew a picture of a star – because Lawrence was a star!) And on the bottom added: Lawrence is dead.
Children cannot grasp the permanence of death. To them, death is not irreversible. Death is not the end. George is always keen to bury a supply of food for the various deceased animals we’ve encountered and had to bury.
I remember years ago when my daughter first became aware that people died. She did not want to lose me and told me her cunning plan. If I died, she would hide me in her wardrobe upstairs, so no one would come and take me away and she would bring me food to eat and something to drink. She would also give me blankets and a pillow so I would be comfortable.
Reading around on the subject of pet loss I would recommend Coping with Pet Loss by Robin Grey and The Rainbow Bridge: Pet Loss is Heaven’s Gain by Niki Behrikis Shanahan.
The words in a bereavement card that I received read ‘A special life leaves us memories and memories live forever.’
del.ico.us | Digg It | Technorati | StumbleUpon | Furl | reddit
Is time a reality? Why is it that a watched pot never boils or that time passes more quickly when you’re having fun?
I keep running out of time. Perhaps because the objectives I set don’t have realistic time scales: I try to accomplish too many things within too short a time. This leads me to think that time is not a reality but a concept or a measure.
As Woody Allen once said, “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.” Time is what separates cause and effect. (*)
Our concept of time varies. Sometimes it seems to drag and at others it seems to fly. Time it would seem also appears to pass more quickly as one gets older. Stephen Hawking suggests that the perception of time is a ratio: Unit of Time : Time Lived. For example, one hour to a six-month-old baby would be approximately "1:4032", while one hour to a 40-year-old would be "1:349,440". Therefore an hour appears much longer to a young child than to an adult, even though the measure of time is the same. (*)
Time is a component of a measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects. (*)
Among prominent philosophers, there are two distinct viewpoints on time. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable. (*)
All I know is that day follows night and the seasons come and go. No sooner have we celebrated New Year than we seem to be counting the shopping days to Christmas!
(*) Information gleaned from Wikipedia.
del.ico.us | Digg It | Technorati | StumbleUpon | Furl | reddit