misty gray morning
shadows through glass and darkly
glasses need cleaning
I have been wearing glasses since about 1969.
I do not expect my glasses to provide perfect vision.
Though I am always shocked and a little sad when I look at things like my hand or read without my glass (with a kindle 3 inches from my nose) at how CLEAR everything is.
Today I have what is known as ‘progressive’ bifocal glasses.
What that means is when I put my glasses on, I have to change the angle of my head to my reading surface until I have a level of focus that allows me to recognize text at a point that I can read it.
I find that this angle changes through out the day if not by the hour or even by the minute.
It is like my vision is in a constant state of flux to reach optimum angle and distance for reading comfort.
This has been going on so long that I no longer even notice that I am doing this.
It is all by second nature.
Then there are those mornings.
Gray mornings.
Misty gray mornings.
The world is a dark, murky place of shadows.
And I take my glasses off and look at them to find that both inside and outside surfaces of the lenses are coated with crud.
Sure this has been going on forever as well but moving to the Atlantic Coast has raised the level of the crud.
I have no hard data to back this up but it seems to me that the salt air or the salt in the air adds a layer of sticky, slimy greasiness to the crud.
Not only is this salty slime part of the problem but it is also a dust magnet that makes it all that much worse.
Diabolically this salty slime is also ‘wiping resistant’.
The traditional ‘breathing on the glass’ and wiping with a cotton shirt tail only manages to smear the crud around leaving gucky finger prints and rainbows of prismatic crud.
Using sprays and fancy wipes don’t seem to help much.
The tried and true soaping under running water and then drying with a clean cloth is about the best but it is a lot of work.
Once clean, I am still along the coast and the salt air goes right back to work.
It isn’t long until once again, it is a gray misty morning and I am seeing shadows through a glass and darkly.
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