Optometrist found of all things, the reason for one eye being constantly irritated in the inner corner: two microscopic eyelashes growing inversely curved toward the eye. He nipped them with tweezers–instant relief. The opthamologist missed those—different area of concern, I suppose.
Healing nicely. Optometrist’s recommendation for dry eyes? Apparently there are microscopic oil glands inside the lid, at the base of the eyelashes. Moist heat indicated to increase natural oil flow. Went to Wallyworld—I know, I know, not my favorite, but they do have a broad selection of eye stuff. And they had, beside the Systane gel for dry eyes, this moist heat compress by Bruder, exactly made for such an application. 20 seconds in the microwave, 3 minutes on the eyes. Not too inconvenient and it feels good. As a cure for dry eyes, let’s see, but I’m willing to give it a run.
We never get out of there cheap—Jane got some pants for shoveling snow (brilliant red snow suit pants) which beats camo, when you have to work at the edge of the street: screaming orange would have been the choice if we could. And Nutrisystem is now selling a Jumpstart packet of diet stuff. Hey, it’s two weeks worth of food for 44.00 and if it actually makes us lose weight, good.
And we found some house slippers for our new floor: we’re instituting the Japanese custom of house slippers, street shoes not welcome. So finding some cheap, soft, washable house slippers for guests, at 2.50 apiece, we pounced on them. We have a problem with shiny-finish laminate and tennies picking up basalt chunks from our garden. Men are a separate problem: these are small with a flashy little jewel and a top strap. We’re going to need to find some tatami slippers guys won’t feel silly in. Jane found some stretchy patterned jogging pants that are great for working on the floor.
So a day’s foray into the dens of commerce nets us an odd assortment of stuff, but kind of useful. We’ll start the Nutrisystem stuff when I’ve run out of hamburger. Right now I’ve dropped five of my holiday pounds simply using Atkins shakes for breakfast and lunch and any snacks I feel I must, must, must have or die—while having whatever we want within reason for supper. We’ll continue that until I run out of salad, chicken, and thawed hamburger and bread. Then we’ll open up the Nutrisystem packets.
Did I mention we both got called for jury duty? Lovely. It’s not that I mind it in principle—in fact I support it, but I am a critic of the American legal system as it has grown up from the Revolution—I think that we should have founded it on the system of ‘equity’ and gone by that, and that judges’ instructions are flatly unconstitutional, since they interfere with the ‘common knowledge and local knowledge’ aspect of a citizen jury: no way to impart a law degree in a judicial instruction, nor should they even try. And I don’t know how I’ll sit through a trial. I can’t go to a movie or concert without extreme pain by the end of the session. Either they have better chairs than that or I’m in trouble. Jane’s a little better, but not much.
The marijuana laws are under attack. Pot is legal in Washington and, I think, Colorado, and we have ‘pot bars,’ where smoking is the thing. Dunno if they serve food, which our pub type bars do—it’s illegal to smoke tobacco in a restaurant in WA, which a bar is if it serves food. Now—does a pot bar come under that ban? 😉 I have no idea. I get a migraine from so much as a whiff of pot smoke—I mean just opening a door on a party…so you won’t catch me near one; but I will say, despite an extreme allergy, since we legalized, the only place I’ve even caught a whiff of it on clothing was, ironically, in a stairwell at the county courthouse.
Over here, the pot bars are called ‘coffee shops’ (the English words), because they can serve coffee, tea or soft drinks to go with your toke or space cookie but no alcohol; and cookies or maybe a piece of pie with your coffee, but not real dinner-type food. There are strict licensing laws, including no smoking in bars and pubs (called cafés, using the French word, to make things more confusing for the tourists…) and restaurants, which helps keep the divide between coffee shops and cafés clear.
They generally cause less trouble than bars do, except in the towns along the border where all the potheads from neighboring countries where it’s still forbidden came in to enjoy their legal smoking. The sheer volume of traffic that created caused some trouble at the start. By now in those towns town ordinances and zoning rules have generally resolved those problems, mostly by declaring that pot can only be sold by coffeeshops to people showing a pass, and that pass can only be obtained by showing documentation that you’re a Dutch citizen. The locals with a pass by now tend to regard it a bit like the supermarket pass most everyone uses to save up bonus points for something like a free piece of pie with your coffee, though when tge mayors started this registration scheme there was a lot of distrust of why it was done. After a few years, seeing the effect on the traffic troubles, people seem to have accepted that that was the real reason, as stated, and having a coffee-shop pass doesn’t influence your chances at a job or anything like that.
As all street vendors already need a local license, it’s easy to amend the rules to say that all intoxicants and habitforming substances can’t be given a street vendor’s license, as was already the case for alcohol and cigarettes etc.; this doesn’t stop some enterprizing young men in the border towns from selling to tourists, but it makes it possible to apprehend them and greatly reduce the traffic trouble the drugs tourists caused.
It’s interesting to see some American states trying out new ways of handling these things.