Red Carpet Snaps and Learning to Spell Ophthalmologist

Taking the day off today because I’m a lazy, shiftless cow.  It’s 1:11 p.m. and I’m still dressed in my gray long-sleeved yoga t-shirt, the gray & white striped flannel pajama bottoms my brother Drago gave me for Christmas three years ago before a winter trip to NYC, extremely comfortable black Minnie Tonka slippers my sister-in-law Rae gave me because the last (do you know what that is, I mean off –the-top-of-your-head?) was wrong for her feet, and a cool, urbanite, black jersey robe that I bought myself, just because I wanted it-and it was on sale.  Oh, and my hair is hanging long and straggly which Drago can’t stand.  


I’m giving you the picture because I just spent about two hours clicking on photo after photo of red carpet bests and worsts from various award shows, and honestly, I like my outfit better than a lot of the thousands of dollarsish designer get-ups memorialized, forever maybe, on the Internet.  Mostly women, but men too, who are, apparently, famous, have shown up for the world in gorgeous or boring or astounding ugly/tacky/bewildering clothes.  Lady Gaga came down the Grammy’s red carpet in an egg-shaped litter carried by slaves in gold boxer briefs.  I learned, by clicking on a Jay Leno snippet, that it wasn’t supposed to be an egg, though.  It was a vessel, and she was an embryo.  See?  I wouldn’t have known the vessel-rather-than-egg distinction if I hadn’t spent the morning meandering around the Internet.  Cultural literacy-that’s what I call it. I did suffer, then celebrate, with the Egyptians, there’s that in my favor…but I’m still a cow.

Hell, I do deserve some down-time. Yesterday was a Doctor’s Office day.  I had to go to the ophthalmologist’s for cataract surgery evaluation.  Jeez louise! Like eight machines to look through. No, not machines. Devices, maybe.  Instruments!  That’s what they were.  There were several fairly familiar things where you tried to read letters (I always feel badly when I don’t do well) or those impossible “is this better-or that?” contraptions where one gives sincere, but completely random answers, and then a bunch of weird holes to look through that I’ve never encountered before (that I remember, anyway.) Skinny blue rectangles, red sprays, blinding, no, really, blinding lights, green flashes that dart out at you from the sides, black circles with red lights waaay down there.  Had no idea what any of them were supposed to do.  The tech was very young and neither explained what we were doing nor laughed at my jokes.  I did spend a few minutes with an ophthalmologist, but he spoke Eyedoctor and only to his nurse.  After two and a half hours I was released, eyes wide open, into the shock of daylight.  Drago was there in his Jeep. His afternoon had been blown, too. Don’t you hate that? When someone has to wait at the doctor’s/hospital/courthouse for you? They always say they didn’t mind, of course, but you know they must’ve, at least some, because when you have to wait for someone, even if you love them, edginess attacks you sooner or later. 


So tomorrow I’ll cook him something new from my excellent-even-for-heart-sickos-like-me- Mediterranean Diet cookbook (little product placement there.)  Tonight will be tunafish.