WINTER WEARY?

Even we hardy souls who live on the shore of Lake Ontario think this has been an exceedingly rough winter.  We’re used to heavy deep snows and a few sub zero temperatures but these arctic blasts keep coming at us and we and the rest of the country, too, are ready for any signs of spring!  

Short of drinking yourself into oblivion or becoming morbid and immersing yourself in Icelandic poetry there are a few other ways to ward off depression and the blahs

Put your hiking boots on and go for a walk.  If possible take a dog with you.  Dogs seem to take an innate joy in snow.  The deeper the better.

Buy a gardening catalog and pick out your spring planting scheme.  Visualize all those marvelous colors.

Hot tea or hot cocoa are great mood lifters.  Don’t forget the marshmallow with the cocoa.

Take some  time to look over your warm weather clothes.  Try a few things on and don’t look out the window-that snow will be gone soon.  Spring merchandise is in the stores right now and it’s not too soon to invest in a few new things.  Try to hold off wearing them just yet.  No point in freezing!

Whatever kind of music makes you happy-listen to it!  

When I’m really bored I rearrange furniture in my house.  I always think it looks better and that makes me happy!

On dark and depressing days you can curl up with a friend and a good book or in the inimitable words of a great and learned lady “curl up under the covers with a friend who’s read a good book.”

Hang in there! This winter of 2013-14 has been one for the record books and you can say you lived through it!

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Joan

GLASSES-SOME FACTS

The very earliest idea of magnification dates way back to the 1st century AD when it was noted that “letters are seen enlarged and more clearly through a globe or glass filled with water.”  The first actual eyeglasses came along about 1,200 years later.

They consisted of thin pieces of glass placed directly on the eye ball. Earlier version of contact lenses? 

Eyeglasses today besides being a necessity for most of us are also a fashion statement for women.  Here are some interesting facts to consider.

To avoid eyeglasses in most cases there’s always Lasik surgery, contacts or cataract surgery.  Cataract surgery worked for me. It was quick and easy and Medicare took care of it.

Things to think about when choosing glasses are eye color, hair color, face shape, what color you wear most, how the glasses fit and your budget.

As for color, tortoiseshell frames work out well.  The tones and undertones are similar to those found in hair color.

Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals but try to avoid them. They tend to make your eyes look really big as through the viewer were looking at your eyes through a magnifying glass.  Progressive lenses solve this problem.

Rimless or cat’s eye glasses are not particularly flattering for women.

Every spring and fall eyeglass manufacturers launch new styles, technology, shapes and colors.  Think about changing your glasses if they’re more than five years old or something as simple if you change your hair color.

Don’t hang your glasses from a necklace.  “Half glasses” for a woman made you look older than you really are.

Dark glasses are really worthwhile!  Besides blocking out the sun’s UV rays they ward off macular degeneration and you can get away with no eye makeup. They can make you feel anonymous, too. You can see people but they can’t see your eyes.  Just those cool dark glasses!  The darker the lens the better but stay away from yellow or pink lenses.  They can make the sun look brighter.  Sunglasses can even be made with prescription lenses!

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Joan

WEATHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Each state here in the U.S. has its advantages and definite disadvantages weather-wise.  Folks from the north want to live in nice, warm Florida but will settle for North Carolina- better jobs to be had.  Ohio, where I was born was a good place to leave 60 years ago.  No nostalgia there: nasty winter weather.  Upstate New York where I have lived for almost 30 years is famous for its heavy snows.  No hurricanes,  floods, forest fires or drought. We try to remember that while shoveling 3 feet of the white stuff. It could be worse!

In Ohio  the Thanksgiving weekend of 1950 was remarkable for its 4 feet of snow.  We had company in for Thanksgiving dinner and they couldn’t leave for home in Pittsburgh for a whole week.  My father and uncle put away several cases of beer and chess helped to pass the time. In addition to loud political arguments.  Photo credit: Andrea Costa Creative / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND  

We pulled up stakes and left for Ft. Myers, Florida in February of 1955.  Like a lot of northerners Florida to my father was the promised land.  The weather had to be better and it was a lot better.  Too much for my father. He couldn’t stand the heat. Air conditioners weren’t everywhere back then.  If the heat was too much there were always movie theaters that were air conditioned.   Ft. Myers itself is 14 miles from the beach and the summers were unbearably hot.

After one year in the deep south we made the trek back to Ohio in a four car plus one truck caravan.  Seven kids, one set of parents, miscellaneous cats and dogs and one large black spider tucked away in the tool chest in the truck.  My father was intrigued by the enormous size of the spiders in Florida and wanted to take one back north to see if it could adapt to the cold weather in Ohio.  The spider didn’t make it.

 After one more winter in Ohio, Sarasota, Florida seemed like a better bet.  Less humidity and the beach was right there. Hurricanes were not as frequent as they are now but we did have to hunker down for two of them.  After a few years the family dispersed.  My mother died,  I got married and my father bought an old bus  and he and 5 of the kids left for Denver, Colorado. One of my brothers owned a thriving junkyard out there and he would wrote back extolling the virtues of life in Colorado. And so the bus headed west and I stayed in Sarasota.

In 1965 my husband’s new job on the Winston-Salem “Journal-Sentinel “took us to North Carolina.  A reasonable state, weather-wise.  Hardly any snow so of course the occasional drought.  Summers can be very sticky.  Air conditioners essential.  Spring time is beautiful with dogwood and azaleas.  Winters can be cold and rainy and in 1985 when I left N.C. for N.Y  the temperature reached a new low of 10 degrees below zero.  Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often.

In Upstate NY the weather is fine.  People say “it builds character”.  Summers are splendid and fall is spectacular with its brilliant colors.  But winter always shows up.  We’re right on the shore of Lake Ontario and the area is subject to “lake effect “ snows.

There’s a pristine beauty about it all but driving can be a little dicey.  In my early days here folks would ask me -knowing I came here from N.C.  “Well, how do you like our winters?”  I would reply “they’re not as bad as I thought they would be”.  And the answer was “Well, you should have been here in ’66 or ’77.”  It seems in those years there was 12 feet of snow in this area  and getting around was a real challenge. I missed that.  Darn it!  

This winter will be remembered for the extreme cold.  Florida does not beckon.

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Joan

PHONES, THEN & NOW

Once upon a time there was a black telephone with a round base and a rotary dial.  This was 70 years ago and the round black stationary phone morphed into what we now call a cell phone.

The telephones of the 1940s and our cell phones today had and have their advantages and disadvantages.

Phones in the 1940s weren’t portable. You definitely couldn’t carry them around.  Cell phone users today are “attached” to their phones.

The phones 70 years ago had “party lines”.  Two or more families used the same phone line.  As a kid it was fun to pick up the receiver and realize a conversation was in progress. 

If it was interesting you quietly listened in but if it was a long winded conversation and you really wanted to use the phone you would announce right in the middle of their conversation “excuse me, but we have an emergency and really need to use this phone.”  Hopefully there were no parents in the vicinity.

It was quicker to dial phone numbers back then. No area codes and there were only 5 digits in your phone number.

Maybe folks didn’t have that many friends to call 70 years ago.  Today people seem to be on their cell phones all the time.

Big old, black rotary phones weren’t dangerous unless you picked one up and threw it at someone.  Modern cell phones can be dangerous at times.  It’s too easy to fall into a fountain or walk into the side of a moving car while being engrossed in your phone conversation.

If you had to make a phone call back then and you were driving you just waited til you got home.  You can make a phone call now while driving but it’s dangerous and illegal. Texting while driving is even worse.  One eye on the road and one eye on your phone doesn’t sound logical.   People aren’t constructed that way.

My cell phone has a life of its own.  We seldom are in the same place at the same time.  I think we prefer it that way.

I’m downstairs and it’s upstairs or I have no idea where it is.  I hate to admit it but I could probably do without it.

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Joan