I never do this, but this time I did. Not sure why.

I like my eye doctor. It’s too bad I only see him once a year. Of course, seeing him is not easy. His office is in the Barlow Building in Friendship Heights, and you locals know what that means. It means having nine cars backed up on the street waiting to get into the garage with its “valet only” parking system, an ordeal equivalent to a cardiologist’s stress test. And then, when you get to his suite, a branch of a hydra-like ophthamology group, you have to go through their robotic check in system, which asks you many questions (checking your cognitive abilities) and to scan a bevy of documents (checking your coordination). I was called back pretty quickly by a new tech, who introduced himself as “Kelvin, just like the temperature scale”. He then asked me if I was familiar with the Kelvin scale. I lied, “Yes”. Now, that would not have been a lie if he had asked if I ever heard of it. But familiar? I made its acquaintance after my exam, and I think I may use it from now on. It is about 275 degrees outside now. That makes it much more comfortable than if it were either Centigrade or Fahrenheit for sure.

I passed the exam by following all the instructions. Sit straight. Lean back. Blink. Look right. Look down. Open wide. Put your chin here.

You know the drill. I followed each of those instructions without blinking. Except “Blink”. I didn’t get a certificate of merit, but I got another appointment. On December 22, 2026. Luckily my schedule that day still had a few openings.

I drove home with sun glasses on. Luckily, I didn’t hit anybody or anything. That included the trash truck that blocked Livingston Street and made me drive through alleys, and included the workman holding a sign telling me that I couldn’t cross Nebraska on Nevada, and had to drive around and about just to get home.

I don’t normally talk about our used book business on this blog, but I will today because we sold two books I liked to have on our overburdened shelves- a signed copy of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock and a signed copy of M. Gessen’s The Future is History. I took them to the Post Office on Northhampton, forgetting the Christmas is acoming, I faced a line oof about a dozen people, each probably mailing a hundred gifts. So I turned around, went back to the car, and went to the small Chevy Chase MD post office, with only three in front of me.

On the way home, I stopped at CVS to pick up a subscription. The pharmacy clerk (who, by the way, is the world’s beat) said to me when he looked at the price of my medicine “Did you drop your insurance?” Huh? It turns out that the cost was more than ever before. Okay, that can happen. But he told me that the cost charged through mu insurance was $12 more than if I bought it without insurance. So I bought it without insurance and will worry about it again in 90 days.

I came home and decided to get on the stationary bike. I drove a little over 8 miles in about 40 minutes, while I watched a documentary on YouTube about current conditions in Kabul under the Taliban. I was surprised the British journalists could film and release as much as they did. Life in Kabul seems just awful and I was thankful I don’t live there. But then I thought about it and realized that for many these days, life in the United States bears some  similarities: people who are afraid to go outside, peoplevwho may be detained because of how they look, uniformed and armed individuals walking the streets and socforth. Obviously, not the same, but….

I also saw a video reel someone put on Facebook where a number (6, 7, 8?) Brits were aaked if they would want to live in Europe or in the U.S. Obviously, the clips were selected to give a message, so all answered “Europe:” and gave their reasons. The thing is that they were all correct. Today, there is no reason to pick the U.S. over Europe aa a place to live and raise a family. Too bad, for sure, but true.

The evening was devoted to more reading about the fate or Gorbachev and the USSR, and watching MSNOW about the extraordinary Susie Wiles interview in Vanity Fair, the looming Venezuelan War, and the tributes that (almost) everyone gave to Rob and Michele Reiner. Trump is speaking to the nation tonight, I understand. Maybe he will charm us all, right? I give him about a 2 percent chance to do that. Yes, I know, I am a generous guy.