A New Pair of Glasses...Sort Of

Yesterday I got new contact lenses. I've worn contacts since 9th grade, and they were very different then. Kind of like rocks. They hurt and my eyes ached if I had my eyes closed for even a couple of minutes. No way could I even take a nap with them in. My eyes were sore a lot. Contacts were "hard," not "rigid" as they are now.

When I would get new lenses back then, my eyes would hurt after a few hours and I'd have to take them out. Since I can't even see the big E on the eye chart, being without them was challenging. Forget driving, watching tv or nearly anything when the room I was in was fuzzy, let alone doing anything that required focus. Those were difficult times.

People would say you had to really want contacts to wear them back then. For me, it wasn't so much a vanity thing as a practical thing. Contacts didn't fog up like glasses did. I lived in Colorado then and they fogged up a lot in the winter. But the main reason I preferred contacts was...I could SEE in a way that I couldn't with glasses. Clearly, even with my peripheral vision.

Over the years, contacts have evolved, thank God! I still wear "rigid," gas-permeable lenses, the modern-day version of hard contacts. I have so much astigmatism that soft lenses didn't work for me, not to mention that I had a helluva time getting them in and out of my eyes. I assume soft lenses have gotten better, too, over the years, but my eye doctors tell me that while they're getting better able to correct astigmatism, they still wouldn't be enough for me. But the ones I wear now are comfortable, rarely hurt, my eyes almost never ache (though they do get tired after wearing them for 20 hours), and I can comfortably take lengthy naps with them in.

So I now have to adjust to new lenses that fit differently. Something about a "bulging cornea" that has a long name I don't remember. For years they treated it with rigid contact lenses that in essence pushed against the cornea. Now my new eye doctor in Arizona says I'm starting to get some scarring and says the new way of treating it is to not push against the cornea with contacts. Losing my sight would be unimaginable, frankly (and I admire the people who can handle it well), so I'll do whatever they say will be good for my sight. So here I am with new, differently fitting contacts.

As I write this, I don't have them in. My eyes didn't exactly hurt last night after wearing them for less than seven hours, but they were on the verge of hurting, if that makes sense. So I don't want to wear them for my usual all-day time today. I have to squint to see the writing on my laptop computer screen (or hold it up to five inches in front of my face), I have to squint to read my nearby desk clock, TV is a colorful blur, and I wouldn't dream of stepping outside my front door. It's extremely annoying and after awhile I usually get a headache from the strain.

...which brings me to...gratitude.

I am so grateful when I take the time to reflect on everything I've got that I assume will be there every day, everything I take for granted will be there. I can breathe on my own. I can walk. I can talk. My fingers work. I can see (usually well, thanks to my contacts). The power is on. My house is standing and dry and secure. My car and possessions are safe. My phone works. I have food in the refrigerator. I am blessed.

Many times I have said that if we all threw our problems in a big pile, I'd knock anyone over to get to my own. I'm used to them, for one thing. And, I've got nothing to worry about compared to so many people.

So as I sit here with my fuzzy vision, I am thanking my lucky stars -- and God -- for my blessings. For one day, I vow not to lust after anything I don't already have. Except maybe for the courage to change the things I can.

Electronic Privacy? No Such Thing!

Recent investigations by media outlets have brought forth convincing evidence that advancing electronic technology has resulted in a disturbing consequence: virtually no electronic privacy.

Federal and local agencies are gathering all kinds of information on millions of innocent people without their knowledge, or even the knowledge of the courts to which they apply for warrants, investigations have revealed. The popular "Person of Interest" TV show doesn't seem so far-fetched after all.

The FBI has had its own team of hackers for some time, but lately has reportedly advertised its hacking services on LinkedIn, signifying that people really should no longer expect privacy. The bureau has had keystroke-level surveillance capabilities for many years and recently used malware designed to be automatically downloaded when one suspected terrorist logged on to his Yahoo account. (Due to several technical and nontechnical glitches, the malware never did what it was designed to do in this particular case. Yahoo said it was not aware of the malware and did nothing to enable it.)

Through the efforts of its Remote Operations Unit, the FBI can hack into computers and smartphones, turning on microphones and webcams for surveillance purposes without the user being aware of it. Chris Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, investigated the issue for six months (mainly through Google and LinkedIn) and found several references to the FBI's hacking abilities. His research led to a Wall Street Journal expose in August.

"Tower Dump"

Federal and local agencies also have been using advanced technology to gather information on people's location through their cell phones even when they are idle. Using a tactic called "tower dump," the agencies get phone companies to dump thousands of records of cell phone serial numbers from towers near certain crime scenes. Cell phones transmit their serial numbers to the towers as they use them, allowing agencies to track routes and locations of people via their phones. Phone companies charge thousands of dollars to tower dump, so it is costly to employ that, regardless of privacy concerns.

A lengthy investigation by USA Today and Gannett newspapers and TV stations has revealed that about one-quarter of 125 local law enforcement agencies surveyed have an International Mobile Subscriber Identity tracking device with the brand name of StingRay (or its equivalent) that mimics a cell phone tower and tricks cell phones into transmitting their serial numbers. The devices are mobile and generally travel in vehicles parked near a crime scene. They provide only locations of the cell phones and cannot intercept data or phone conversations. The issue is that no warrant is involved.

Legal Snag

Unlike land lines, cell phone conversations are not protected by law; legally speaking, there is no expectation of privacy when using cell phones. Therefore, agencies are not obligated to report that they are listening in or locating people through their cell phones. And, they don't. "We have no ability to really know what the government is doing, and that's very problematic," Denise Maes, of the ACLU in Colorado, told KUSA-TV's Jeremy Jojola in a recent story on the subject.

Federal government agencies remain mum on their hacking and tracking devices, and local agencies -- the few that will talk openly about them -- defend the practice by saying only "the bad guys" are at risk.

Yeah. Don't count on it.

Temper Temper!!

I am going to have a temper tantrum...right here, right now. The difference between the one I'm going to have here and the ones I used to have when I was two years old (okay, and 10 and 13 and 31 and 42) is that I'm just going to vent in writing instead of throwing something that wouldn't break but would definitely make noise and possibly scar whatever it hit.

Don't you ever just get fed up with everything, including things that either don't bother you significantly any other time or things that you just put up with and accept as part of that huge segment of life called, "I can't control that"? Well, that's the way I am tonight.

First of all, speed bumps are the soourge of the earth, so incredibly annoying! All of that frickin' bumping can't be good for the car or the tires and they certainly aggravate the people inside the car.

Okay, that's out of my system.

This temper tantrum precipiting event was a late-night trip to the grocery store to buy hair color for my "natural" red hair. I mix two colors and I was out of one. So I went to a Fry's in the neighborhood, about two miles away from my mom's house in Phoenix where I am for a few weeks. It was about 10:20 p.m. Yes, they were open but help was sparse. No big deal...until I went to check out and not even one checkout lane was open. I asked someone who was stocking something or other at one checkout if any lanes were open and she said no, that the only person there had gone on break and may or may not be back.

Great!

So I disgustedly pushed my cart over to the self-checkout. I'd never gone that route before, or at least not for more than a handful of items, and, of course, I ended up with a relatively full cart.

The ambient noise was so high that I couldn't hear what the mechanical female voice was cooing to me in the way of instructions. Some of the items would scan, others wouldn't. It took me 10 times as long to check myself out as it would have a store employee, even a neophyte employee, and I was getting more and more frustrated! The voice, which by this time was getting quite annoying, kept saying that someone had been alerted and would be over to help me. I looked around -- nobody!

Finally, a young (20s) guy with a slump and an introverted nature came into the area and I called him over. He acted like I was stupid for not knowing that you had to move your items about 3 feet away from the scanner and the shelf to the right of it or it would block the scan. Well, pardon me, but there are no instructions there, and I've not used it before, and I never wanted to scan my own items in the first place!

I got more irritated with his attitude than I had been with the moody machine!

Finally I finished and paid and then I had to bag my own groceries! Their plastic bags -- no choice of plastic or paper -- peeled off of their hanging perches just fine but just try to get one of them open to put anything into it! They are welded shut, I swear! Eventually, I got each of them open and by then was quite open about my disgust and frustration with the whole experience, rather roughly tossing anything that wasn't breakable into the cart once I got the damn things into bags.

The topper, as far as I was concerned, was when I got no receipt when I'd pushed "receipt, yes." I called the slouching, introverted kid over and asked with rather clenched teeth if there was a way to actually get a receipt. Being a bright boy, he sensed that I was about to become an ex-Fry's customer. That and the fact that I said I was tempted never to return and to start going to Safeway. He offered to get a manager to talk to me. Yes, I said, please do.

A nice lady came over to me, a bit warily, I noticed. I told her testily of my experience and exclaimed, "I never WANTED to scan my own groceries and bag them!" She said I could have asked for someone and they would have come. Gee, the point, lady, was that no one was THERE!

Finally I said to her, "This has been such a frustrating experience. What can you do for me to get me to come back, which I'm not really interested in doing after this?" She looked at me like, say whaaaa? She asked, "Like what?" "I don't know, just something, anything," I said.

She went over to the young kid and talked to him and 5 minutes later (yes, it took 5 minutes!) he handed me a Fry's gift card for...all of $5. Geez. Well, it was better than nothing and I said to her, "Thank you. I wanted the acknowledgement more than anything."

I was mollified, realizing that this wasn't a big deal in the scheme of things. I was just tired and cranky and put out that my little trip to the store didn't go quickly and smoothly. I got out to the car, put my stuff in the trunk, and as I slowly and sanely (really!) drove out of the parking lot, I realized that the one thing I hadn't picked up was hair color!

Well, no way was I going back into the store after creating such a scene, and the drug stores were closed, so I drove another 3 miles to Safeway.

On my way there, I remembered a time in my late 20s when I was equally frustrated and upset over who-remembers-what. Only this time I was drunk and it was raining. I drove from the city (Denver, it was, then) to my place in Lakewood and had to exit 6th Avenue onto Wadsworth around a sharp cloverleaf. I just basically said, "F*ck it" and drove around that curvy exit without braking much at all. It's amazing I didn't kill myself. That's one of the reasons I don't drink these days -- flawed thinking when I do.

On to Safeway for my hair color. The people in front of me in line had a big cart full of stuff, saw that I had just one item and generously said, "You go ahead." The nice guy at the checkout was cheery and exhibited a sense of humor, which I matched, and it was a delightful experience. They would probably not believe that I had been so bitchy just a few minutes before.

Okay, I feel better now that I've vented. Thank you, all two of you who have read this whole rant.