Presbyopic Ex-Party Girl

Today I had to BUY Mardi Gras-type beads for a little tactile stimulation activity with Erik. That's right. This former party-hearty girl had to PURCHASE party beads. There were no beads to be found in the entire house. It's official -- I'm old. I vaguely remember attending a Marti Gras party with Brian and Erik in the last couple of years, but in the last decade there have been no beads draped over my lampshades or my rear view mirror as a reward for any sort of illicit flashing of my pectoral region or for drinking as many or more shots of cheap booze as a 250-pound male fellow partygoer. I believe that my name is on a plaque somewhere in Mexico for the world record consumption of upside-down margaritas in one sitting. I just wish I could remember where.

Anyway, at the physical therapist the other day, Erik seemed to enjoy manipulating colorful strands of plastic beads and placing them in stackable toy cans. These shiny strands were difficult to roll or spin, and I made a mental note to go home and locate some in my party repertoire.

This brings me to another seemingly unrelated part of the story. I have been at war with my new ophthalmologist lately. I am pathologically nearsighted. I don't need glasses for reading but am unable to successfully travel from room to room in this house or perform tasks as simple as pouring a cup of coffee without some sort of visual correction. So far, I have been to this particular ophthalmologist twice. Since my cornea is apparently suddenly quite curvaceous in my left eye (astigmatism), I was informed that my contact lenses need to be tweaked accordingly. The first time I went, I came home with trial contacts that were not quite strong enough for me, but I became accustomed to the feel of the specialized snugness of the left lens quite nicely and anticipated having perfect vision when my new lenses arrived. When I was given the next trial pair of contacts made specifically for me, I was told to wear them for five days to see how I tolerated them. Not only did I see a ghost image of everything, I developed a horrible migraine headache that was resistant to every drug I could get my hands on. Today I went in and was told I needed a substantial jump in correction for my left eye and that I had to wait an additional one to two weeks for my new and improved contacts to come in. In order to come to this conclusion, she paraded me around the waiting room with the dorky cup-on-a-stick over my good eye for all to see. On top of everything, the glasses frames I initially tried on in the office that made me look model-chic, like a deliciously slutty librarian (for the record, that was what I was going for) with the thin, fake plastic lenses in them, now only made me look like Mister Magoo with my Coke bottle lenses in them. This is NOT the effect I was going for. At this rate, I'm thinking of surgery to correct all of this nonsense. The guillotine has never looked so damned attractive.

After my appointment, I braved the local grocery/department store next door wearing my crappy lenses to pick up some sundries, hoping my double vision wouldn't cause me to buy two or more of everything. I went to the little girls' section in the toy department and found a pair of glittery strands of beads for Erik, one purple and one gold. I picked the most regal, non-drag queen colors available (not that there is anything wrong with that). At the checkout counter, the woman remarked, "Oh, I just love this girlie stuff. Before you know it, she will have grown out of the dress-up stage." My brain surged, dangerously threatening to spew one of a series of snappy comebacks, including ones regarding grooming my son to be a successful Celine Dion impersonator in Las Vegas, but I bit my tongue. Instead, I nodded my head and said, "Yes, they do." After all, I didn't have a clue about tactile stimulation and sensory integration disorder before I had Erik, and I shouldn't expect a stranger to know all about it. Hell, I didn't even know how to change a diaper at the beginning of all of this. Sometimes it's best to just nod one's head and smile. I did just that and made it home, reminding myself that two of the four lanes of the highway were an optical illusion, and I survived to tell the tale of my adventures out and about.

Sadly, failing vision and my child's disability aside, what horrified me the most of all of this was that I had to BUY party beads.

Sigh.

Now if only I could remember where I put the dang things.