New Glasses

So Harry and I headed out to Santa Clarita to our local LensCrafters to get new glasses. I haven't gotten new glasses in over four years and Harry hasn't gotten new ones in over three years.  I've also noticed that I was having a tough time reading small print in low light and recently have been getting headaches so it was long over due for new glasses.

So we got to LensCrafters around 3:30pm and they were packed and I also noticed that they Eye Exam place took their last appointment at 4:20 so I figured we'd have to make appointment for tomorrow but when I asked if there was any chance of getting two appointments today they said yes and booked us for 4pm and 4:20pm. So as we waited we walked around and looked at different frames. It's crazy how expensive frames can be, but we stayed in the $99 area, but were frames there for over $200. A few minutes later a Carlos came up to us and took us both into a back room to do the pre-exam. We answered questions, filled out a form and then he proceeded to do some eye test.. ie. read letters, take pictures of the back of our eye, blow puffs of air in our eyes... not sure how all that works but they are suppose to be able to tell how blind we are by all those tests.

Next was the doctor visit, he puts that thing over your eyes and says.. #1 or #2 over and over and you tell him what's best. That test only take a few minutes and then he tells you what's wrong. Mine eyesight or lack there of is nothing but age. My eyes look fine, nothing in the back of my eyes... everything looked great. So I have typical "old man" eyes and he said it was get progressively worse in the next 15 years (yay me).

Up to this point I have always used single layer glasses, but he said he wanted to change that to progressive glasses (and honestly I didn't have a clue what he meant) I said.. sure. So he wrote up the prescription and the visit was over. Harry came out a few minutes later and said that they wanted to take additional pictures of the back of his eyes as they saw something. They dilated his eyes and we went out to find some frames. After picking out a few we asked Sarah (another associate) which ones she liked on our face and she picked out the two that we liked for ourselves.

We paid the bill, I was expecting a $1000 but it was only $600, which isn't bad for two pairs of glasses and the exams. Harry went back in to get the second set of pictures, a few minutes later he came out and said that in one of his eyes is the very early stages of a cataract, which he'll have to get taken care of when he is back in Austria. We then had to wait an hour so we walked around the mall. Around 6pm we headed back and picked up our glasses. Here is when I found out what progressive lenses meant. Progressive lenses are tri-focal. So the top third is from distance, the middle third is for a few feet and the lower third is for reading.  And wow talk about getting use to this. I very much dislike it at the moment but I'm sure I'll get use to it and remember what third to look through at the appropriate time. But man what a difference it makes in reading small print..just have to get use to these tri-focal lenses.