Life, the universe, and lunch

Three days

That's how long Tammy's new glasses lasted -- when I picked her up yesterday they handed me the pieces.

She was in the dining room being fed and knocked them onto the floor somehow, and nobody noticed until somebody stepped on them and popped out a lens. I tightened it with my jacknife, thinking that would be enough for us to get home to the jewelers screwdrivers, but I was wrong. The lens and screw fell out again when I put them onto to Tam, and damned if the screw didn't just disappear. At home I tried a screw from one of her broken glasses, but even though it was an exact match to the remaining screw it wouldn't do the trick. It turns out that the glasses bent when they were stepped on, and the screw hole itself had stretched out. $395.56 spent for three whole days of vision -- great.

This morning I took them to Lenscrafters, hoping they could be drilled and tapped out to the next sized screw, and that's exactly what they did -- no charge. When I dropped them by the home Tam was sleeping, so I left them on her bedside table and just told the nurse, I hope she enjoyed the surprise. I also put on one of the many straps we've bought to hold them in the last year or two. There's a wide stretchy one that fits this new pair particularly well (it's even the right colour), and although I'd put it on the glasses when I delivered them last week, it obviously wasn't with them on sunday. Yesterday the nurse manager made a point of telling me she was going to write up the incident to the director of care, so I made a point of telling her that the glasses holder straps were bought to be used! (I got the distinct impression from the nurse manager's apologetic mood that it was the nurse who was feeding Tam that didn't notice the missing glasses until she'd stepped on them.)

Tammy had a great visit at home by the way, I'm glad I picked her up after I went to the gym. I'd debated a bunch about it because by 3:00 in the afternoon all I'd had was a cup of Tim's and a donut, but I figured if I went back home for dinner I'd never get around to picking her up, and didn't want that to happen either. I was dreading the pickup and sure enough there was the grief over the glasses when I got there, but once we were home things went well. I planned to take her back to the nursing home at 8:00 but we coasted right through until 9:00. Of course then she asked to stay until 10:00 which is really pushing it when I've got work the next day. I was so beat that it actually felt good to put it off for another hour though, and I only made a little bit of fuss before caving in. Who knows how many more good visits I'll have with Tam -- they've been few of late -- so what the hell?

As of this morning dad was still in hospital, no better or worse off than yesterday.

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posted by ...K @ 3:30 PM