Kaitlyn Mae’s Lazy Eyes
Here’s hoping that someday when Kaitlyn is reading this Blog she knows straightaway that Grandmother loves her despite her lazy eye.
Although, ahem, it’s a good thing that Grandmother was there the day she had an examination by an eye doctor. Because her Mom failed completely to mention to the doctor the little factoid that her FATHER also has a lazy eye.
As I understand it, lazy eyes come in a variety of severity, shape and size. Standard treatment is to place a patch over the so-called “good” eye to strengthen the muscle in the “lazy eye”.
Why we’d have to sew the patch directly to Kaitlyn Mae’s face as the one and a half year old would, go with me on this, pull it off continuously.
So I drove up to Baltimore to assist Kaitlyn’s Mom in administering the eye drops that would allow Kaitlyn’s eyes to dilate. Then we all went to the doctors.
“What can you do about a condition like this that is genetic?” I asked my daughter, assuming, of course, that she KNEW Kaitlyn’s eye was inherited from her father.
“I’m not sure it’s genetic,” daughter responded.
Now consider. Father has lazy eye. Daughter has lazy eye. One and one, two and two, like that.
Actually I’ve always found lazy eyes intriguing and not at all ugly. Long before Kaitlyn Mae was a gleam in my son-in-law’s eye I noticed how it tended to float all over his head when he was tired.
The day that Kaitlyn was born, hand to God, I noticed the infant’s eye also tended to float around her eyeball socket. I just shrugged. For all the miracles of modern medicine, we simply cannot overcome the command of our genes. More than lifestyle, I’d argue, our genes determine our length of life and ailments within.
Then my daughter emails or phones me with the frenzy to figure out what’s wrong with Kaitlyn’s eye.
I’m thinking, ‘she’s kidding, right?’
She wasn’t kidding.
“The doctor said that Kaitlyn has an off eyelid fold that makes her left eye sometimes look off-centered,” daughter explained.
All the while, understand, this Grandmother had shrugged off Kaitlyn’s eye as one that will tend to wander and she inherited it from her father. Common sense here.
And the poor thing, when she is tired that eye does tend to look left while the other one looks straight ahead. I think it’s adorable, a bit of individuality that will always be part of Kaitlyn. When I see that eye rambling all about I want to kiss it and nudge it back into position. Also I know the baby is very tired.
“They think maybe they can fix it,” daughter continues.
Why? They were never able to “fix” her father’s. Some things just ARE.
I push and shove my way into the eye doctor’s office where I was put into service holding dangling toys as the doctor peered into young Kaitlyn’s eyeballs.
“Did you tell the doctor about her father?” I asked daughter as doctor shines a light and looks into Kaitlyn’s eyes.
“What about her father?” doctor asks and right then I wonder that my daughter never mentioned such an important fact.
So I explain about Kaitlyn’s father and his lazy eye. The eye examination continued, Kaitlyn was scheduled for a much later appointment and possible remedies discussed.
Maybe when they figure out how to “cure” Kaitlyn her father can also be cured.
The Age Guage
Just key in your birthdate. A screen full of information will tell you things that will shock you. After the shock wears off you'll realize just how damn old you are.
Another bit of genius from an American on the Internet.
Things You Should Know About Your Age
The Worst Office Product Ever
The assigned task this past week, Thursday 4/21/05 in this year of our Lord, was to design and build an office product for Staples, a giant office supply superstore.
Bren and Alex were one team, Craig, Kendra and Tanna the other. Bren, he of the cute bowtie, was fired. The way his termination came to be was astounding.
First, the products as designed by the teams.
Kendra's team came up with a desktop lazy-susan type of affair that sits atop a desk as a handy holder of those things we all need to efficiently operate our desks. It was a bit on the bulky side and had a rather large footprint that might not work on the smaller desks of the cubicle bound. Although it would certainly be something I'd consider for my desk as things scattered across a desktop drive me nuts.
Alex and Bren must not work at a desk is all I can think of.
For that foreign object they designed was not practical in any form or fashion.
It was, essentially, a small desk. We'll delve into their lame-brained in and out box notion shortly. The very first thought I had when I saw the thing was how it was impractical in almost any office situation.
It was a small desk mounted on wheels with an artfully shaped glass top. First problem, when one seeks desk and office efficiency, the problem is more often to corral what is already in the office into some sort of order. There is seldom enough room to lump in yet another piece of furniture for the sole purpose of organizing daily paperwork. Such organization should be done on our desktops because what good is clearing off our desks and plop all of its contents on another desk?
Alex and Bren thought it so clever to affix the in and out box under the glass top. "So you can always see the work below" as they both hyped.
The very first comment of a focus group member was the awkward method required to access the paperwork trays below the glass in full sight but difficult to get to. For the item was designed with a piano top hinge, requiring the lifting of the glass from the top. Which means nothing can be on top of the glass should one wish to access the paperwork below the glass.
Thus nothing can sit atop this affair and must be moved back to the desk. Then we have a cluttered desk and a bulky piece of furniture to the side with a glass top and in and out boxes below the glass top. Not a person alive would bother with such a thing.
This invention might well serve some other useful purpose in life. But Staples wanted, well something to control office supplies. Bren and Alex didn't even use their noodle when they came up with whatever that thing was. When all they had to do was sit down and for a half an hour pretend to be working in an office. Soon enough they'd see their design flaws. Instead they glad-handed each other endlessly and remained steadfast that theirs was a most adorable product. This even after the folks at Staples told them it was a total no-go.
The boys stood by their product STILL.
It was going to be either Alex or Bren. The board room dialogue was interesting but it was Bren who did a really stupid thing. The discussions raged over who did what and who didn't do what, whose the dummy the did the design, that sort of thing. All of a sudden Bren mentions that he fears taking risks.
The green flags went down and the tone was set. There was much discussion about Bren's fear of risk taking. The Donald lamented that he needed someone willing to take risks. Bren whined that he was getting better at it. The whole time, mind you, it was Bren's willingness to risk that silly design that got him and Alex into hot water. It seems to me that it was the other team's desktop lazy susan that was more mundane. Though yes, it was a much smarter design.
The discussions about Bren's fear of taking risks came out of nowhere is what I'm saying here. It grew with a life of its own and boom, Bren was fired.
Well one of them had to go and under the circumstances, either Bren or Alex was equally stupid.
Current Prediction:
2-Tanna
1-Kendra
No comments:
Post a Comment