eyeglasses

Bespeckled: The Eyes Have It

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is one of those day in the life posts as yesterday was devoted in large part to eyeglass repair and rejuvenation in the form of a trip downtown yesterday.

I have worn eyeglasses since about the time I started office work a few years after college, probably when I was about 24 or 25. Computers, or really the forerunners of office personal computers, were just slipping into the not-for-profit world where we were certainly a beat behind on such developments. (I remember attempting to use carbon paper as there were so few copy machines in the museum. Yikes! I made a mess of that!) Whether it was true or not, the common wisdom at the time was to blame this sort of need for glasses on computer use although how it differed from hours at a typewriter I am not entirely sure.

I come from a family where I was the only one of the kids who didn’t need specs when little. My older sister Loren got them in second grade after it became evident she couldn’t read the blackboard at all. Her eyes turned out to be very bad and plagued her a bit all her life with a need for thick glasses until she was old enough for contacts. Loren always said she couldn’t so much as get out of bed without glasses or her contacts. (She was very athletic and I can remember her saying when she was swimming she couldn’t really see a thing had no idea where the end of the pool was.)

Kim’s readers on his book earlier today.

I know my brother also got glasses in grade school, but I don’t remember at what age exactly. (Edward if you’re there, sorry for this omission. ) My father wore them and from photos I would say started wearing glasses as a young adult, he was nearsighted.

Mom and I did not wear glasses however, at least until I reached the point mentioned above. (She of course eventually fell prey to readers which she bought in the drugstore and kept strewn around the house. Kim does this as well although he was a prescription wearer for distance at some point, his eyes oddly evolved into readers only for the most part.) Whereas nascent computer work may not have caused my initial need for glasses, it did seem to mean that I had to move to progressive lenses after a decade or so of wearing them. I tried contact lenses (hard and soft) briefly but decided they weren’t for me.

My eye doc recommended being thoughtful about where I had the progressive lenses made and to talk to folks and find someone who would really work to find the best fit for how I use my glasses daily. After one or two other attempts I stumbled on Anthony Aiden Opticians in the East Village by accident fairly early on. Anthony himself was there the day I looked at frames and asked about progressive lenses and what he might recommend. It was clear that he knew what he was doing and I ordered up my first pair, the cost of which would take my breath away. However, he and his team are good and as a result I go all the way to the East Village ongoing for my eyeglass needs. (I have experimented with other less expensive places and for me the results were a hot mess.)

Old internet swipe of their facade.

Like many things there seemed to be a period in the early part of the pandemic when they were closed, but I visited by appointment in late ’20, mask and all. They were my inaugural trip down to the part of the city after being largely isolated uptown for months. Zoom wrecked havoc somewhat on my prescription. For some reason it can be hard for me to find the right focus on it and of course one needs to look at a variety of sizes of things on Zoom.

So visits to Eighth Street have become a routine part of our lives. Kim brings a book to read while I do my eyeglass business. It is followed, generally, by a bulk buy of coffee from the place next door (Puerto Rico Import) and maybe Blick for Kim to get art supplies. Lunch is usually pierogi at a Polish restaurant, although yesterday it was messy veggie burgers at H&M Dairy.

Running turned out to be hard on eyeglasses (I run in essentially distance only sunglasses which means I can’t read in them, a fair trade off.) and repairs to those for missing screws and other damage is not infrequent, no less than quarterly. In recent decades I have lost two pairs of sunglasses and one pair of regular ones with no idea in the least how I did it.

B&H Dairy at lunch yesterday.

I buy expensive frames and really have from the beginning figuring if I am going to wear it on my face every day I should like it a lot. Until recent years however I really only owned one pair at a time and then eventually a pair of sunglasses and regular ones. My prescription changes have slowed and having an extra pair has become a reality.

For some reason this summer in New Jersey I beat the heck out of all my glasses. About ten days ago I fell running while wearing my everyday glasses because it was overcast. (When I mentioned this at the store yesterday the two guys just looked at me in amazement and one guy said, You wore your progressives running? Lesson learned. I need to find some old frames and get distance glasses without dark lenses for running in low light.) Meanwhile, a little used pair that was disused due to discomfort was pressed into service and the whole shebang was brought in for a tune up of one kind or another yesterday which was a fiesta of screw tightening and replacement.

Sadly the favorite glasses, which smacked me in the face when I fell, didn’t just need tightening, there was a small break in the frames. Luckily the frames were still stocked and on sale and they popped the undamaged lenses out and into the new frames and they are on my face now as I type.

Meanwhile, I am very grateful for their attentive and always unfailingly cheerful help and service there. They will be seeing me again soon if I find a pair of glasses and have those distance runners made.

Specs

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This card is one of my recent purchases. When all is said and done about this time one of things that I think I will remember is how I started purchasing things on Instagram. I had never even thought about it before, let’s say, April or so. I have always loved Instagram – my feed devoted to seeing what a handful of folks I follow are doing and of course, many cats – rolling, playing, posing. I don’t have interest in famous folks and I don’t want to know much about the sad state of the world while I am on Instagram – it is largely escapism for me. I realize that other folks have been buying on it for ages, just never occurred to me that I would find interesting old stuff there.

However, in checking out a new follower of mine, I realized she sells old photos and antiques, from there I realized another follower sells vintage photos, a third sells jewelry and other bits (some clothing, pin trays and the like), from the early years of the 20th century from her home in the British Countryside. (@MissMollyAntiques, @spakeasachildvintage or aka WheretheWillowsGrow, and @Wassail_Antiques respectively.) Over time you chat a bit and now I realize that one is a musician (as is her husband), selling out a space in an antiques mall she used to have, another is photographer of musicians, that work largely gone – a theme here. (I received something from her the other day and it was wrapped so lovely – like a gift!) The new economy evolves.

I’m sure other office supplies will find their way into this box over time.

Anyway, this bit of cat advertising turned up recently and I snatched it, along with a cute little box that was made to sell spools of thread which now houses binder clips on my desk.

Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Today we boast this proper Victorian Mrs. Kitty who is both sporting and advertising eye glasses – fine steel specs according to the back of the card. These were available with Blue and Bronzed Colored Frames…Filled and Sterling Silver Filled Noses. Strangely the actual advertising on the back was printed and with only a rough approximation of the cat outline and therefore words are cut off in places. However, we can also make out that you could have beautiful styles of lorgnettes in shell and (probably?) celluloid.

Casually executed advertising copy on the back of the card.

She is wearing a locket in the fashion I opined on in a recent photo post, she models an out-sized hat in the style of the day, and of course she is bespectacled. (The photo locket post was the recent one which can be found here.)

As it happens, I was shopping for eyeglass frames yesterday so I pulled this card out of the pile from the recent haul. During quarantine the rimless frame glass I have worn for several years began to loosen, started sitting crooked on my face, and I began to fear that they would truly come a cropper while the world was closed down. I do have a spare pair, but they are behind one prescription – the lenses for my eyeglasses are very expensive and those frames aging, therefore right now these glasses and a pair of sunglasses are the only current ones I have. (Some of you might remember my sad tale of woe concerning losing these eyeglasses during a trip for work to California. It can be found here. You would think I would have learned my lesson!)

My specs – not so different from Kitty’s. Hard to see the smashed bit here, right side.

One of my very first forays into the post-quarantine world was to the East Village, to have these frames tightened. When they started this delicate manuever the guy on duty warned me about the possibility of the lenses breaking – tighten at your own risk. They managed to do it successfully but, alas, I noticed the other day that they are starting to shatter near where the screws are, so back downtown we went to begin the cycle of purchasing frames and updating prescriptions.

I purchase my eyeglasses from a shop in the East Village, Anthony Aiden Opticians, which came highly recommended by someone, cannot remember who now, on the basis of the execution of the lens measuring and fitting to be especially thoughtfully done. Having once, a long time ago, strayed and purchased a pair of glasses with my graduated prescription elsewhere I learned my lesson and never tried that again. Yes, you pay a premium for quality, but seeing is important and we are talking about something you wear on your face everyday. (Zoom presents its own challenges for the eye glass dependent. I have trouble finding a viewing range where I can both read notes and see participants. I could be wrong but it doesn’t seem worth adjusting my prescription for although I will ask the eye doc when I see him.)

Yesterday I discovered that Anthony Aiden Opticians had made it through the quarantine period by doing individual appointments, something to remember for the future although I think I would have been loathe to take the trip on the subway at the time.

Photo of their establishment pulled off Google.

It is a small store, just east of St. Mark’s Place. When we arrived they were too crowded and asked us to return in a bit. We complied by having lunch, somewhat precariously perched at a table outside of the B&H Dairy (where a stern but friendly woman with an Eastern European accent oversaw the delivery and consumption of our food), and wandered back after.

B&H from the inside, back in the days of indoor dining.

Trying on eyeglass frames with a mask on was interesting of course. Once I had a few finalists for Kim to help choose from, I unmasked. They also measured my eyes without a mask – their request. I believe the gentleman who waited on me was the owner – Mr. Aiden himself? I purchased gray plastic and metal frames. My long buying and prescription history was on file and I was able to order lenses for my sunglasses as well.

I have an appointment with my eye doc in about ten days and now am just babying my glasses along until I can have the prescription called in and lenses ordered. Hopefully I can be back in business, fully eyeglass-ed up within a month, all ready for whatever fall and winter brings.