putting the knit in shizknitz

There are some things you take for granted until its gone. High-speed wireless internet access is definitely one of them. My parents have some crappy old PII machine with dial-up. You have no idea HOW SLOW this is… its so freakin slow that I have to wait for Google to load. WTF?! Anyhow, I just found one of my neighbors with wide-open wifi access, although it keeps going in and out. GET OFF YOUR CORDLESS PHONE SO I CAN HAVE SOME CONSISTENT ACCESS!!

My grandma is on a cross-country USA tour of her life. This has been a lot of firsts at the age of 85: airplane ride, using a passport, seeing Niagara Falls, knowing what a day-long drive is like, Vegas, Grand Canyon, Hollywood and whips. Wait, perhaps that last one doesn’t belong on that list

My baachan (grandma in Japanese) lives in Yokohama by herself, as my father lives here in the states and both my aunt and uncle have already passed away. My jiichan (grandpa) passed away a few years ago. I’ve spent time with my extended family only when I’ve had the opportunity to visit Japan, which doesn’t equate to very much time. Having my baachan here is a real treat, as it will be our first time having a holiday with another member of our family. My baachan is hilarious - she’s 85, uses a cane and walks reaaaaaly slow, but is a real spitfire. Her memory is much better than mine - and she won’t take shit from anyone Yesterday we drove through Rodeo Drive, then spent some time at Hollywood and Highland where she got to see the hand/foot prints of stars like Marilyn Monroe and Betty Davis. It was real crowded with tourists, families, kids, and people in costume. For a nominal tip, you can take a photo with Superman, Shrek, a Hobbit or other characters. My grandma (she’s shrunk so much she must be about 3 feet when she walks) slowly walks through the crowds and makes her way to this sultry Catwoman and insists on taking a photo with her. Catwoman loves this and asks grandma “would you like to hold the whip?” the crowd around us started laughing with us and taking photos as my grandma happily took ahold of the leather whip. My baachan was totally thrilled. I asked her later “why catwoman?” she responded “because she was pretty, with those long skinny legs and she looked good in her leather costume” RARRR!

Woo hoo! I finished my ring this week! I set the stones, bent and sawed prongs, and learned how to polish! The polishing (spinning) machine is amazing - you really have to get your piece in there, but its gorgeous when it comes out. I polished my first project, the spider web as well.

This is me in my cool-guy plastic eye covers

T finally has allowed me to touch my computer. Its been about 52 hours since the actual procedure. Let me backup and start from the beginning. The full-examination was similar to the consultation but a little more thorough. They put you through all the measurements but also to boot dilate your pupils. They allow you to drive home because they give you these anti-dilation drops but please, don’t do it! My pupils were so dilated that when I came out of my appointment about 11:30 AM, I could barely look at my white car. I somehow drove to Longs to drop off my prescription eye drops and by gods own grace drove to work. I couldn’t read emails or see small text, so unless it work was verbal, it was difficult to do. Driving home in the dark was scary as everything from headlights to lightpoles were fuzzy (similar to the halos I now see).

The Day I was going in to my appointment turned out to be one of the craziest mornings I’ve had in awhile. This was good, since it kept my mind away from the nervous thoughts I had been having all week. J took me to the op because she had it done almost 2 years ago. I arrived at 11 AM nervous as can be. Thankfully, they gave me a xanax to calm me down, but as I went to the bathroom, my hands were shaking so badly that I could barely pump the soap dispenser. Luckily the pill kicked in soon and life was good. They rechecked my vision again, put on a hospital cap, explained what would happen in the surgery and sat me in the wait room. Tom Arnold was there for his day-after checkup. The operation room is viewable from the wait area/lobby so you could see every detail on the computer screen inside. There were probably about 5 patients in front of me and as time wore on, the drug wore off and I was getting hungry. I sneaked a chessman cookie from the coffee counter. Then another - okay, I had about 5 from wait hunger and anxiety. My 11:30 AM scheduled time ended up being 1 PM. They finally called me in, Dr. Assil sat me down on another instrument, made some marks with a pen, and I went around the machine to sit down. Another Dr. that assisted me in the full-exam took one look at me and handed me BOTH stuffed animals (they have these soft stuffed animals you hold during surgery) and said “you look like you need both” I happily took them. They sat me down in the chair and said “do you see the clock?” Now, I assumed the clock was in some general direction in front of me, but I couldn’t see it, only some distant dark roundness features in the fuzz. They laid me back, and the rest took maybe 12 minutes. He talked me through each step with reassuring “yes”, “great”, “perfect” and the actual procedure was just like the explained - and absolitely painless. One of my greatest fears was that I would be unable to stare at the blinking light - but it was difficult NOT to be mesmerized by it. The most fascinating moment was when he closed the cornea on my first eye and the second he did so, I could actually see the laser instrument above me. They started on the other eye and someone actually held my hand through it - even though it was going smoothly it was obvious that the pill was wearing off. After, they sat me up and asked “can you tell me what time it is?” it was watery and blurry but I was able to answer “1:20″!! Like a stereotypical Lifetime special, I started crying - Dr. Assil came over and hugged me, as well as the other Dr from the other day - and then he pointed behind me and said “look, your friend” J had watched the entire procedure on the computer monitor (later, she said she felt like throwing up, haha) and she was waving madly at me. Afterwards, they put the plastic shields on my eyes and a bottle of gatorade and I was out. Their recommendation is “drink and blink” for the 4 hours after your procedure, you are supposed to drink and blink - J forced down 6 Gatorades in 4 hours as I spend most of the time in the bathroom. I watched lots of TV and ate delivered Persian food to celebrate. About 2 hours after surgery I got a call from the hand-holding Dr checking up on me, which was really nice. Right after the phone call, I went and put my glasses up to my face - wholy crap, was I really this blind?

What happened later that night was a true testament to my vision. J lives in an area with high-rise offices intermingled with apartment buildings in varying heights. It was dark and I looked outside to see how much detail could be seen in other apartments… nice kitchen, dark windows, someone watching TV, a couple making out - wow, I can see that? I was so perplexed by what I could see without anything, it was above and beyond what I was seeing - she took off her clothes, he took his pants off… and whoa. At that point, I was seeing way too much detail.

The next day I went in for my post-op appointment. They exclaimed that I was healing amazingly fast - I told them about the Gatorade and the Dr was cracking up. They tested my vision - 20/25 in my right eye (which was previously -4.5) and 20/35 in my left (which was previously -6.75 with astigmatism) current results are okay, but not perfect. They told me to expect fluctuations over the next few weeks. I guess we’ll see how it goes until my next appointment. I now know what they mean by “halos”. I’ve always seen the starburst from lights at night, but this creates an actual halo around the light in addition to the starburst. Most of the time this doesn’t bother me, but its annoying when random things look illuminated. For example, the light on the elevator buttons…. The best part though? Getting ready in the morning and being able to skip the contacts part of the list. Now if there was some way to be able to get out of “doing hair” and “makeup” I can shave an extra 30 minutes off my morning routine. My eyes feel nicely naked.

There are times when you are laughing but you really want to keep it quiet (cause you’re at work and all) but you start coughing and choking instead. Here’s an exerpt from Minuk’s blog, an old co-worker whose blog I just recently learned about.

A typical Wednesday morning I am greeted with the alarm clock snooze button a million times before dragging my ass to the gym. Today’s a bit different. But this week in fact, has been no typical week.

Some people prefer to take life at a slower pace, scheduling intervals in their fast-paced lives. I, on the other hand, tend to like things jammed-packed which forces me to stay on the ball. I haven’t had a week quite like this one in some time.

I’m wide awake now as I had two different dreams about having Lasik done - 1) a short asian man performed the operation on the upstairs level of a Ranch 99 supermarket, and I happened to move and although I could see after the surgery it felt like I had a little something in my eye (I think in reality I had a piece of lint or something in my left eye). 2) Hrmmmm now I can’t remember now…. Oh well, off to the shower!

So this week I took the tubing I made last class and made them into settings. I soldered each piece into 4 equidistant wires, then sawed them into the pieces you see here. I sawed my ring as well and overlapped some area where I inserted and soldered the settings. It still looks really funny because it hasn’t gone through the pickling (gets rid of the tarnished look) which is next, and will be followed by some polishing and then finally stone setting! Yay!

Here are some other scenes from a happy Sunday (Mia never stays still thus the blurry shot)!

Here’s my contribution to a Rice Bowl Journal’s November collaboration project.

10 things that make you extra special:

10. Your willingness - to get up to go to Titos Tacos for 9 AM breakfasts on Sundays to satisfy my mexican food urges.
9. Your thoughtfulness - you always lower the toilet seat and replenish the toilet paper supply.
8. Your gentleness - soft kisses goodnight, even when I’m dead asleep.
7. Your patience - you listen and observe when I am sad, happy, excited, crazy or in a funk.
6. Your eyes and duck lips - which tell all the things you’re now thinking without you actually saying them.
5. Your nerdiness - to know all the geeky things I don’t know.
4. Your courage - to get up and sing Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” and Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart”
3. Your never-ending humor - to know that “right now” means, *right now*.
2. Your warmth - to my dog and to my crazy family even when they are driving me bananas.
1. Your love - which makes me an overall better person. :*

Dress your own Orlando Bloom using this awesome paper doll site! What fun for a Monday morning…

Progress on my ring has been made! Last time, I had created the band and hand shaped it to a “V” shape. This week, I sanded the band down with fine sandpaper, and started with a new chunk of silver. This new chunk is to be the settings in which I place my stones. I milled it flat until it was .4 mm in size, then started to hand shape it into a circle. After a lot of banging and annealing and pulling through to make it a smaller diameter, I was rewarded with one big long silver pipe. I hand sawed 3-6 mm rods. Can’t wait to see what I do this week!

We miss you guys!!

This is what I love about LA. Thursday night you found me at Javan Restaurant eating Persian food (crunchy rice and eggplant!). Friday night we’re having Tapas at Cobra Lily (SANGRIAS!). Both nights followed up with some good ‘ole Karaoke. This morning you found me eating breakfast at Titos Tacos (mmm Tacos). Life is so good.

P.S. The song T’s singing is the William Hung version of She Bangs…

I’ve had horrible vision all of my life. As a child I was a voracious bookworm (before there was the internet…) and by 5th grade the school nurse had called me in to give me an eye exam and harsh words about getting glasses. I had never really been scolded at school and I remember being really scared and crying. Since then, I’ve been through it all - glasses, bifocals, eye exercises, hard lenses, soft lenses, disposable lenses, spending hundreds of dollars on “eye stuff” every year. Most currently I’ve been wearing my Acuvue Torics religiously (even at night although I’m not supposed to) because I have a hard time driving in LA traffic with my glasses. The one big problem I have is that disposable lenses are a “one size fits all” approach, and so if your prescription doesn’t fit a size, you just take the closest one. To relate it to shoes, its like wearing a 7 when you wear a 6.5, ouch! What bothers me the most is that even with my contacts/glasses, I’m still not seeing distance very clearly. Without any assistance, my vision is -6.75 in the left eye, and -4.75 in the right eye w/astigmatism in both.

I know a handful of people that have gone through with laser eye surgery and they love it. After some research and recommendations, I decided to visit Dr. Kerry Assil of Assil Sinskey Eye Institute in Santa Monica. He had the obligatory celebrity wall (Brad Pitt, Courtney Cox, Carole King, Ricki Lake…) but what was more impressive was his latest and greatest in research and training. He is the man that other doctors go to for laser eye surgery. Even more importantly, is that he really seems like a nice guy. When you meet him there’s something very soothing about the way he treats you and answers your questions (which I’m sure he’s heard a thousand times before) and his staff is just as comforting. My consultation and examination went great and an hour later, Dr. Assil informed me that I was a great candidate and that I should expect excellent results. In the next few weeks I have a full examination prior to the actual procedure, so I’ll post as things progress. In the meantime, here are some other good reads about experiences with laser eye surgery.
- echeng.com
- another Dr. Assil patient and her his touch-up and final results
- joeuser.com
- veshland