I Spy
with my little stye-eye
On a recent Thursday I paid 60 US dollars for a 90-minute eye exam at a private clinical ophthalmology practice here in Scotland. It was a thorough chart-reading, eyeball picture-taking, a “one” or “two” lens-clarity quizzing, eye muscle-testing exam. While all that was going on, I learned a few things. Like why Napoleon Bonaparte is the reason we drive on the right side of the road in North America and much of Europe.
My tartan-vested eye doctor was full of stories and cute anecdotes like that during the eye exam. This is one of the many things I enjoy when living (wintering) in Scotland - humor and stories. And the exotic sentences like the one I just typed out to my friend Liz regarding an invitation to join me for high tea at the castle next week, “LMK so I can alert the castle.” Where else but in Scotland can you get a tartan-clad ophthalmologist and talk about lunching at the castle?
I left with a prescription for readers, along with no sales pressure to purchase a pair. However, I did.
Within two weekends and eleven business days later, I had my new prescription readers. (It’s an island.)
Being the auditory type, I have always chosen ears over eyes in importance to general life or as a prepared answer in case that survey-elf suddenly appeared with that all-important “if you had to choose” question, “would you rather be blind or deaf if you had to choose?” Blind, for sure.
But that was before getting older took over my eyes and body. And when I consider my lifelong wish to learn ASL (American Sign Language), I am now leaning heavily toward eyes over ears, if I had to choose…
Meanwhile, all faculties are intact, and I cherish the senses. I wrote about our sensory gift of smell and my appreciation of it a few weeks back:
and now with the commentary of sight and sound, I give you this week’s Titanic Trivia…
Titanic Trivia (from the London Inquiry, as reported by the Daily Mirror on May 21, 1912)
Second officer Lightoller remarked that on the night of the sinking, there was “No moon, no breeze. Absolutely calm sea.”
He gave interesting particulars about icebergs, in that they give off what is called “ice blink” which is a phosphorescent line around a berg, but only when there is a slight swell or breeze, which this particular night did not have. He said, “had there been the slightest degree of swell I have no doubt that they would have seen the iceberg in plenty of time to clear it.”
Lookout Fred Fleet told the inquiry that they would have seen the iceberg sooner with binoculars. When asked how much sooner, her replied, “Enough to get out of the way.” The locker containing the crow’s nest binoculars was locked, and the key to it was with an off-duty officer (second officer David Blair) that forgot to pass it on to his replacement before he left the ship. Blair left the key to his daughter, who gave it to a seaman’s charity in the 1980s. It sold at auction in 2007 for 90,000 pounds.
Anne Lamott’s latest Substack: Waves
Why do the Europeans (and North Americans) Drive on the Right Whilst the British Drive on the Left?
"It's not my fault no one can understand what you're saying."
Playlist: Scotland, 2026
Blessings & Love & smell the daffodils,
