Archive for the 'Travel' Category

I was not expecting the odor

Published at October 16, 2009 in Aging gracefully or not, Health, Vanity, Travel and Uncategorized. 13 Comments

I just got back, as I said in the last post, from Montreal. The primary reason I went there was to get Lasik (Canada has more advanced technology than the US, and even when the FDA approves certain equipment, such as the particular laser I was treated with, the earlier approval means that Canadian eye surgeons have more experience with the equipment than their American counterparts. Plus, it’s cheaper. And it’s Montreal). I was tired of being extremely nearsighted, and what with the onset of reading glasses* and all, it was looking like I’d be in very expensive and unworkable progressive lenses before too long. Why not get the nearsightedness fixed, and then worry about the aging-related reading glasses as a single prescription?

So I biffed off up North, where the many public wi-fi networks refused to speak to my netbook. And after a few days of sightseeing and wonderful meals and lovely chocolat chaud, I went to the clinic for my surgery. The pre-op and post-op is being done locally, but I went to Montreal for the actual surgery.

I knew there would be Clockwork Orange eyelid clamps. I probably should have guessed that, yes, everyone makes the same Clockwork Orange joke when the clamps are put in. I knew there would be some “pressure,” though I hadn’t really been clear on what it was for (apparently, to make you go temporarily blind so you don’t see the blade that’s cutting the flap in your cornea) or how much it would hurt when my orbital bone was pushed on.

I did not, however, know that there was going to be an odor — specifically, the odor of burning hair. It was apparently just the laser burning some carbon in the air, not my eyeball getting vaporized. But disconcerting, nonetheless.

It was over in minutes. The first half-hour afterwards was just fine, if things were blurry and I had the world’s goofiest-looking eye shields on my face. Then the anaesthetic wore off, and the burning and itching and feeling of sand-in-the-eyes started. That lasted four hours or so, during which time I was instructed to rest but not sleep — as if I could fall asleep with my eyes burning like that — and to blink at least every five minutes to keep things lubricated. I got very familiar with the limitations of my hotel room, which featured not a separate bathroom, but a sink, shower stall and toilet closet right in the room. As a concept, not terribly objectionable — until you realize that the legroom in the toilet nook leaves a little something to be desired, and it’s not possible to both take the wide stance necessary to position yourself correctly AND pull your pants down. Others before me had similar issues, or at least that’s how I interpret the fact that the seat was forever popping out of place.

After four hours or so, things started feeling much better, but I had to leave the shields on nonetheless until the following morning. Whereupon I removed them and went back to the clinic for my first-day checkup. My vision was 20/15, which is right about where it should be, since they overcorrect due to the fact that as the eyes heal, they naturally settle out a little, so I should end up with 20/20. I had a little inflammation in one eye, so they had me use the antibiotic drops more frequently for the first two days; I also have dryness, which is normal, so I have drops for that as well.

I’m quite pleased.  Things are kind of foggy, I’ll need to use reading glasses for a few weeks until the overcorrection settles out, I have haloes at night, and my eyes are dry, but that’s all normal and should go away within a few days or weeks.   But for the first time since fourth grade, I can fucking SEE without glasses or contacts.  Yay!

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* About those expensive progressive lenses that optometrist tried to push on me:  turns out I NEVER ACTUALLY NEEDED THEM AT ALL.  The doctor who did my pre-op for surgery figured that my contacts were overcorrecting my vision, which made reading a little difficult.  So he put me into weaker contacts, and that solved the reading problem while still enabling me to see distances.  Boy, am I glad I pushed back on those instead of spending almost $500 to solve a problem I didn’t even have.

Opportunities

Published at March 31, 2009 in Library stuff and Travel. 0 Comments

This library thing could be very, very interesting.

There was a guest lecturer in my class last night who’s in the publishing industry and who started a library in Tanzania with his wife while they were there with Habitat for Humanity.  They need volunteers who can help with the library stuff, since a) they’re not librarians themselves; and b) Tanzania doesn’t really have a library culture.  In particular, they need someone who can talk to the women of the village about health issues, and maybe collect some women’s health materials in Swahili.

I’m seriously considering going for a week or so when they go in August.  I won’t have classes at that point, and I shouldn’t have a problem getting time off work.  And I can spend a few days in Europe on the way back as well.

Hmmmm….

Published at February 27, 2008 in Life with pets, Vanity and Travel. 17 Comments

It looks like I will be in contract on my apartment soon, with an offer comfortably over the asking price.  And it’s going to close in mid-to-late May.

Which got me thinking: my current assignment will probably have wrapped up, or will be wrapping up, by then.  And yet I don’t have the kind of cash (or, frankly, credit rating) that will allow me to jump right into a new rental without asking my aunt for a short-term loan (or, god forbid, ask her to co-sign a lease), and I really don’t want to do that.

But I’m gonna need a place to live, which is complicated by the fact that I also need a place to park my pets.

And it hit me: why not get a summer sublet somewhere like Halifax or Montreal?  Halifax is essentially a college town, which means there are plenty of sublets available, plus summer’s a great time of year to be there.  And Montreal is, well, it’s Montreal.  Both places have low housing costs, and Montreal has good public transit.  Each is a relatively reasonable drive from New York, and I could probably Shanghai a friend into making the trip with a bribe of furniture or electronics.

I could sure use some planned time off, versus “Oh, shit, now I’m out of work; what the hell am I gonna do?” time off.

Thoughts?

Sigh.

Published at July 16, 2007 in Travel. 10 Comments

So pretty.

Vancouver. So pretty.

(photo: Bonny Makarewicz for The New York Times)

Unfriendly Skies?

Published at July 14, 2007 in Travel, Dipshittery and Zuzu eats babies. 20 Comments

Carol Lloyd at Salon’s Broadsheet posted a story the other day about a woman who’s suing Continental Airlines for kicking her family off a flight after some kind of altercation with the flight attendant over the flight attendant’s alleged suggestion that the woman’s son, who was repeating, “Bye bye plane” before takeoff, needed to shut up, and, when the mother asked what she was supposed to do, that “It’s called baby Benadryl.”

Now, I don’t know what happened on the flight, because I wasn’t there. Not to mention, we’re only getting the mother’s side of the story (including her appearance on Good Morning America with her son, who was so restless and making so much noise he had to be taken away from the interview). We really can’t tell, from the mother’s account, just how she objected to the alleged suggestion of Benadryl (and from experience, I’m guessing that this is where things went all pear-shaped, since these kinds of accounts usually leave out crucial details like that. Which is why you usually hear about them when the complaint is filed and not after more details have come out during discovery and the case is settled).

What I want to talk about is Lloyd’s post at Broadsheet, because it irritates the fuck out of me. After recounting the Continental story (casting it as “mother kicked off flight for refusing to drug her child”), Lloyd continues:

Bring on the child haters, the airline critics, the lazy parenting theorists! If you think this story sounds like an urban legend designed to foment sippy-cup culture wars, I don’t blame you. I too would have found it difficult to swallow had I not experienced a similar treatment on an airline just last month. The details are tedious — they involve me tapping the flight attendant on the shoulder trying to pass along some trash, him informing me he didn’t appreciate “being touched,” and me asking why he was being so rude. He then snarled at me: “Your children are totally out of control! If you’d just discipline them, you’d be much better off.”

Right. Because anyone who gets irritated by screaming kids on airplanes must be a child-hater. It gets better, though: Continue reading ‘Unfriendly Skies?’