Thanks to All

Fiorella is very fortunate to have good friends, like Jason, who is restoring her baby car for her.  And like Lisa, who told her about two tax deductions she needed to take advantage of.  Like Janece, who regularly gives her sympathy and wise council.  Like Suzy and Ellen, who support her across the miles.  Like Pat, whom she's never met in person.  Like Paula and Sharon, who've stood by her through the years.  Like Jamie and Patricia and Claire, who've helped her with electronics.  Like Jane and Jan, who make her laugh.

And if this reads like an acknowledgment page, it is.

Playdates

When Fiorella was a child in Akron, she went across the street to play with Diane Woodhall or down the street to play with Barbara Tromer, or up the street to play with Bobby Duncan or further up to play with a motley gang of kids in Patty Castile's big, jungle-like yard.  In Waco, she ran across the street to play with Ellen or went next-door to visit Elaine.

When Fiorella's children were born, she assumed they also would roam freely around the neighborhood. WRONG-O!  There was a new kid on the block--playdates.  Where did these things come from? Probably from the fact that, in the meantime, mothers had entered the workforce and were not at home anymore so they had to set up appointments for their children to play together.

How sad.

 

SOS

Sorry to have been so self-revelatory lately, but Fio is nothing if not introspective, maybe because her outward vision is so screwed up.  The macula of Fiorella's left eye has been scarred since her late twenties.  Whatever she looks directly at with that eye, she cannot see.  It's a blank, like a TV screen,  and the remaining peripheral vision just messes up what she sees with her right eye.  She's a little wall-eyed now and, because the defective eye tries to compete with the right eye, fuzzing her visual field, she  often closes her left eye when she draws, drives, reads, or plays the piano.

Yeah, Fiorella is, for all intents and purposes, monocular, which leaves her with no depth vision.  She has trouble seeing curbs and estimating distances, which has led to a couple of alignment problems for her darling baby car.

Fio tells you this because she doubts she's alone.  In fact, she knows it: Friend Ellen's sister-in-law also has a vision hole in one of her maculae.  How many others  like us are out there?

We need a cure.  The operation Friend Ellen's sister-in-law had didn't work, but maybe there's another solution to the problem, like, say, a special contact lens that would optically contract the blank area.  Opticians of the world, unite, put your thinking caps on, and fix Fiorella's vision! 

HB Postdate

To Friend Ellen: 

Your card will be late
Too much on my plate
But I still celebrate
Your natal date

Happy birthday to you
My good friend and true