(no subject)

[mamadeb]

I am getting old.

I've had the first hints of it lately - not the increased creakiness of my joints, or the occasional gray hair, or even the Type II Diabetes.

No, it's worse than that.

I've been doing some handsewing recently - I had to sew the blue stripes onto my grey belt and I had to move the buttons on my blue suit. That requires threading a needle.

Threading needles has never been a problem for me. I'm near-sighted, after all, so focusing on the little eye is simple.

Not any more. One of the reasons I put off moving those buttons was because it was getting very frustrating - I could not get the thread in the eye no matter what.

But it had to be done - the suit jacket swam on me and the seven year old in my pakua class wanted to see my new stripes on the belt.

I had to take off my glasses, close my good eye (my right eye is 20/150, my left is 20/300, and that hasn't changed in over twenty years - and that statement also makes me feel old.) and squint the bad one. Then it was easy as ever.

I'm losing flexiblity, I guess. Or something. I see bifocals in my near future.

I'm old.

(Oh, and someone on http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com just asked who David Cassidy was. *Sigh*)

Comments

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

Sweetie, bifocals don;t mean old. i started wearing them in 1992.

bifocals

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I had bifocals for a while in *grade school* 'cause I was supposed to have glasses for distance only but I wore them all the time. So they gave me bifocal glasses with plain lenses (no prescription) in the bottom parts.

Re: bifocals

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I've worn bifocals since I was 17. They were nice enough to offer me the ones - relatively new at the time - that are progressive (meaning no line; it's not obvious that I wear bifocals). And I'm thrilled with them.

Re: bifocals

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

My mother tried the progressive ones and found them too confusing.

My dad is far-sighted, so ever since I was little he had two pairs of glasses, one for music, which is generally at a specific distance from the head, and one for reading, which is closer. Now he has bifocals.
He's a former trumpet player (Chicago Symphony 1941-49, various other orchestras down to the late 1970s), still sings and plays recorder.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Needle threaders are 49c for 3.
I've always used them because neither my eyes nor my fine motor control is good.

Actually, it's what I keep 4 kids around to do. ;)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know about needlethreaders. My mother has used them since I can remember. Or I was the kid who did it.

I just never thought I'd need them myself.

And I still don't. I can just take off my glasses. So there.

(But I will get some anyway.)

Kids are a bit harder to acquire, unfortunately.

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I've been getting gray hairs since before I got married. My eyesight's probably going too, I don't sew though.

And if one more person says to me that "Behind Blue Eyes" is by Limp Bizkit (they messed with the lyrics ;_;) I will SO scream.

[iroshi.livejournal.com]

I remember (please forgive me; it *was* the 70s) having a pair of jeans with Shawn Cassidy's face on the bottom left pant leg. (And yes, I know who David was, too; I just liked Shawn better.) I might only remember it because there's a picture of me with it on - I don't actually remember *wearing* it. It was before my concussion. The picture of me is at Christmas - I was given that pair of jeans, and a baby blue satin jacket and matching purse. Gah, save me from 70s fashions. ::shudder::

[iroshi.livejournal.com]

Evil posts that tell you they didn't work, requiring you to remember what you said, only to find out that the first one actually *did* post, even though it told you it didn't, thereby making you look like a DORK for saying the same thing twice!!! Grrr Argh!

[cellio]

I've been wearing bifocals since some single-digit age (in years, not decades :-) ).

I have trouble with the needle-threaders too; not enough visual acuity or something. But there's hope! There's a special kind of needle where the top is actually two pieces of metal that are pressed close together (and rounded or something so you don't hurt yourself). You thread 'em by holding a piece of thread over the needle (imagine the needle is vertical, point down) and pulling down on both sides. You do have to be careful not to tug extremely hard or you might pop the needle off the thread, but in most cases re-installing it is easy.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I've used those needles, with mixed success. If you've got cranky thread, it sometimes gets caught on the needle-threading open-eye part and separates. And sometimes the open-eye part will catch on particularly fragile fabrics. But for the most part, I've been happy with them.

[gittygiggles.livejournal.com]

fear not....i know who david cassidy is... i'm not dumb

and you're not old. i cant even thread a needle at all and i can see fine. use a needle threader

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Heh. This must be a David Cassidy-type week. I was just talking to another friend about Partridges (in pear trees), and she asked if I wanted Danny or Keith. I took Keith because, after all, he thinks he loves me. :-)