Yesterday when Rory and I began our afternoon walk, the sun was shining bright and warmed the air. Ten minutes later, the sky was dark and threatening, and I was freezing.
Ah, spring.
The biggest problem this presented was in my choice of prescription sunglasses. Once the clouds gathered, it was really too dark to wear them. But if I took them off, I would be blind — literally — depending only on my trusty eighteen-pound guide dog to get us back home.
So I did…just to see what it would be like.
The city was definitely blurry. The colors more muted, too. And while I might have expected the sounds to be louder, instead I felt more isolated. But when people passed, I didn’t have to worry if they were making eye contact with me.
It is New York City, after all.
To give you an idea of what I saw, here is a representative view of a tulip garden I passed.

Posted in Dogs, Humor, Life, Photography, Walking, Weather
Tagged afternoon walk, blurry, Central Park, clouds, Dogs, eye contact, eye sight, guide dog, Humor, legal blindness, life, muted colors, myopic, New York City, photography, prescription sunglasses, spring, squint, tulips, Upper West Side, walking, weather
Stray thought
Isn’t it funny how our brains work?
But instead of making me hungry, they made me think of a book I read a hundred years ago — The Ivory Cane by Janet Dailey. It was one of my mom’s romance novels, but the story sticks with me to this day.
The heroine Sabrina was an artist, blinded in her 20’s in a car accident. When she frosted a cake, she had to run her fingers along the icing to see if it was completely covered. Her family called her creations “fingerprint cakes.”
Of course, she still got the guy. (It was a Harlequin romance.)
My brain conjured all that up from the sight of a wispy cloud. But I still don’t much like cake.
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Posted in Books, Commentary, Humor, Life
Tagged blindness, blue skies, books, brain, cake, car accident, clouds, fingerprint cake, frosting, Humor, iciing, Janet Dailey, life, memories, romance novels, The Ivory Cane book, weather