Day: August 13, 2022

Put the Baby in the Crib

Fandango12 Comments

When I was a kid, I had a condition commonly called lazy eye. It’s medical name is either strabismus or amblyopia, which are similar maladies. Strabismus is a problem with the alignment of the eyes and is informally called “crossed eyes.” But in my case, I wasn’t crossed eyed. So it was a subcategory of amblyopia called exotropia, where one eye is straight and other is skewed to the left, as in the image below.

My parents took me to a pediatric ophthalmologist, who explained that with this condition, the brain forgets to use the affected (aka lazy) eye. This causes it to become extremely weak, with all visual signals ignored. Essentially, the condition is when the brain suppresses information from one or both eyes.

The good news was that fixing my lazy eye didn’t require surgery. Instead, vision therapy involving different levels of eye focusing exercises could be done at home. It was made up of completing sets of exercises involving different levels of eye focusing in order to strengthen the weaker eye. If successful, it would eventually result in both eyes working together.

First I had to teach my brain to see what my left eye was seeing. Then I used a device similar in nature to a ViewMaster. Remember those?* One exercise involved taking a drawing of a baby that I could see through the left lens of the device and to move it into a crib that I could see through the right lens. Another was putting a hammer visible through the left lens into a toolbox visible through the right lens.

The exercises worked great, and after about a year, I learned to use both eyes equally and they were always looking in the same direction. My visual exercises were so successful, in fact, that I think one of the reasons my wife agreed to marry me was my proficiency at putting the baby in the crib!

* Today, for people who have lazy eye, virtual reality headsets are often used for vision therapy.

Written for my daily word prompt: lazy

Weekend Writing Prompt — Judgement Day

Fandango24 Comments

“Look at the moon, Dad,” Randy said. “I’ve never seen it look so big before.”

“It is dazzling, son,” George said.

“Honey, I’m frightened,” George’s wife said. “It’s huge and it seems to be getting bigger by the minute.”

“You’re right!” George screamed. “It’s on a collision course toward Earth. It’s Judgement Day!”

(Exactly 53 words)

Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the word is “dazzling” in exactly 53 words.

Get It In Gear

Fandango2 Comments

Aren’t you ready, yet?” Josh called out to his wife, who was in the bedroom.

“Oh my God, Josh,” Emily said, “do think I’m in here languishing around? I swear, you men can’t possibly appreciate what we have to go through to look sexy for you,” Emily said. “We have to put on our make-up, get our hair perfectly coiffed, don flimsy, frilly outfits that show off our assets in a peekaboo way, enough to generate interest without making us look like prostitutes. And on top of all that, we have squeeze our feet into fashionable high heeled, pointy shoes. What meager efforts do you make to look good for me?”

“I have to trim my beard and mustache, comb my hair, pick out and coordinate a shirt, suit, and tie, polish my shoes,” Josh said. “That’s not trivial.”

“Oh come on, Josh,” Emily said. “There’s no comparison. Oh wait, I forgot how much time you need to spend plucking your nose and ear hairs.”

Josh laughed. “Yes, but I do it with zeal. Now get your gorgeous ass in gear or we’ll be late for dinner.”

Written for these daily prompts from yesterday: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (languish), The Daily Spur (appreciate), My Vivid Blog (flimsy), Ragtag Daily Prompt (pointy shoes), Your Daily Word Prompt (meager), and Word of the Day Challenge (zeal).

SoCS — Ukulele

Fandango16 Comments

For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill, we are asked to “find a word that starts with the letter ‘u’ and use it however you’d like.”

“I understand that you are teaching yourself to play the ukulele,” Jack’s dad, Michael, said to him.

“Uh huh,” Jack responded.

“That’s a rather unusual choice, isn’t it?” Michael asked his son.

“Unorthodox, maybe,” Jack said, “but not unheard of. It’s actually a very underappreciated instrument.”

“I see you already bought a ukulele,” Michael said.

“A used one,” Jack responded. “I bought it off of Dan, who had an old uke he got when he was in undergraduate school at the state university that he had languishing in a storage unit on campus.”

“Well, son, I have to admit that your learning to play the ukulele is a bit unpredictable,” Michael said, “but far be it from me to underestimate your tendency to avoid the usual path. You’ve always seemed, like a salmon, to need to swim upstream. Anyway, good luck with your new undertaking, son.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Jack said. “Your understanding is neither unnoticed nor unappreciated.”

“Great,” Michael said. “Now I’ve got to head out and pick up some stuff your mother needs.”

“Okay, Dad,” Jack said, “but grab your umbrella. It’s suppose to rain this afternoon.”

“Ugh, that’s unfortunate,” Michael said. “That makes me unhappy, as I was hoping to get in a round of golf later.”

FOWC with Fandango — Lazy

Fandango31 Comments
FOWC

It’s August 13, 2022. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “lazy.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.