What's Going On Here?
Fri., April 20, 12:29 PM
What is going on? I am startled to discover that it is about four weeks since I last created an entry for my page. It's not that I haven't tried; I have begun several but, like when I start to read a book, I get tired and frustrated long before I am done.
The problem is the same old one — my vision. There are several issues at work here — the worn-out muscles, the beginning of cataracts, and possibly some diabetes difficulty, although that doesn't show up in an ophthalmologic exam. The cause doesn't really matter, since there is nothing I can do about any of them. I just have trouble seeing.
Thanks to the latest version of iexplorer, I can enlarge web pages that are too small for me to read, and I usually move them downward, closer to my line of sight. (I enlarged the proofs from my son's wedding by 400 percent.) It doesn't always work, of course, but the U.D. found me an excellent large print utility. I can copy and paste tiny text into this page and then display it at about 16-points. It does not do graphics, but it is wonderful for text, especially since it disregards line endings and doesn' keep running off the page.
But I feel as if I shall never catch up. I read the internet faster than a newspaper, but I am tired long before I have seen everything I want to see. On a given day, I may open one person's blog and read a week's worth of entries. This will probably get worse, and it is depressing.
I can see well enough for “walking around” purposes, but it is amazing how many things around the house need to be read: cooking directions, laundry instructions, items received in the mail… I put extra magnifiers and glasses all over the house. It gets worse.
It's almost five years since we had Husband's driving license revoked. Even though we had good reason to do so, it was sad. He was seventy-four at the time. I am sixty-six, and it seems to be my turn. I think I can continue driving familiar streets until the summer is over, but then I am giving up the car. I have been driving that Civic for more than fifteen years, and it's like losing a close friend. (Some marriages don't last that long!)
Maybe, if I can just get past my feelings about this problem, I can stop whining and get back to more serious writing, because my mind is still working. At least springtime is shining all around us today.
