Glasses

Pulling up the dregs of posts today.

As you know by my profile, I am 52 years old. I'm aware of my age most often every time I sit down to sew and the reason is BECAUSE I NEED SEWING GLASSES! Actually I started needing sewing/reading glasses nearly 5 years ago, then only to sew but gradually I need them to sew, read, eat, apply make-up. (This is very tricky. I am reminded of an adult I knew when I was a child, who used to have make-up applied in the oddest places. I wondered if she used a mirror when she put on her make-up. Nowadays I sympathize with her!) To wound my pride even further, in Japan, reading/sewing glasses (such a nice innocuous word in English) are called "old eyes glasses".

I started off by just picking up a pair of drugstore reading glasses one year when I was in the States after my eye doctor suggested I might be needing them (I was already squinting and adjusting my arm length to sew.) I smiled and explained that I did very fine needlework (hah!) on a regular basis and that was why my eyes were going more quickly for my age. (I don't think I fooled him.) But I hated these glasses and hid them whenever I could. Tetsu would comment that I was looking like Granny Stella, a cookie brand character in Japan, whenever I had my glasses on to sew. You know, the peering over the tops of them to get the rest of the world in focus look. However, soon I was losing my glasses, so I started wearing them around my neck. No old lady chains for me. I've got a fashionable Chinese beaded eye-glass chain! Very chic!

Still, my glasses were the granny-ish wire rim type and somewhere along the line I decided if it was inevitable that I wear glasses, then at least I was going to look spiffy when I wore them! In Japan reading glasses fit the image of the "old-eyes" so back again in the States I found some great orange and red striped reading glasses at Wal Mart! I've been wearing these for a couple of years now and I must say, I get many people who comment on my modern sewing glasses. People are even envious! I picked up another pair this summer in pink and purple and then found another great pair in red, blue and black! What a fashion queen of reading glasses I'm going to become!

Unfortunately with so many pairs of glasses in my possession, I lose them all the more easily. When I had only one pair to keep track of, I kept track of them, but with 4 pairs I put them down somewhere and grab another pair in sight and then leave those in a different room until I'm running up and down stairs, checking all the rooms for any pair of glasses! Mad woman on the loose!

There are other times when I'm asking people (often the English kids) if anyone can find my glasses for me and they point out I've got one pair around my neck and another pair up on my head. Very sad... I guess I really am 52 years old and getting older by the minute...