Visiting the Queen City

Cincinnati

Recently I spent two weeks in Cincinnati staying with a cousin who was recovering from a total knee replacement. Normally when I visit the city of my birth, I feel like I eat my way through the town. This time was much different as I was preparing many meals in, which was much better for my Weight Watchers experience. In fact, I still lost weight on the trip, much to my delight.

Findlay Market

I did manage to get down to Findlay Market, the historic farmers' market located downtown, twice. It is like stepping back in time, and feels like I am visiting another country.

It also worked out for me to see my dad's remaining sister Gloria and two of her children. Gloria consented to take a DNA test, which I had brought along with me. It will be interesting to see how her results turn out.

During the second week of my visit Jim was on a motorcycle trip with three of his friends in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. However the rains of Hurricane Michael kept them housebound for several days, so he decided to ride to Cincinnati to spend the final weekend with me. That allowed him to see Findlay Market and the downtown riverfront development as it had been many years since he has been to the city. It was fun to have him there to explore with me and my cousin.

Cincinnati collage

My trip coincided with the Crusham family reunion as well. It was wonderful to see so many of my cousins, but especially my mom's two sisters Margie and Betty, ages 96 and 90, respectively. They are truly a treasure. Margie also took a DNA test for me, so I have now tested the two oldest living relatives on both sides of my family, which is really exciting.

Betty, me and Margie

Pickleball Festival

Hy-Vee Arena

Last weekend I traveled to Kansas City with some girlfriends to attend the second annual Third Shots a Charm Festival (TSAC2). Last year about 125 people came, but this year registration was capped at 400. The event was held at the newly (almost) renovated Kemper Center, which has just been named the Hy-Vee Arena. While construction is ongoing, TSAC2 was the first event to be held at the center. We had 24 pickleball courts that were striped on the multipurpose wooden floor, though 4 of the courts were almost always taken by group lessons. So 21 courts divided by 400 people = a LOT of wait time to get out to play.

We were invited to a free open play session on Thursday night from 7-9, and it was kind of a zoo. Registration opened at 8:00 on Friday morning, and I caught a ride to the center with some other friends as my carload was not wanting to go that early. We breezed through registration and onto the courts. By 9:00 the place was packed. They had three tables on which to place your paddle in a stack, with each table covering six courts. So the best plan was to look at each table when you came off a court to see which had the fewest stacks of paddles on it. I typically waited about 25 minutes to play, but some people told me that they waited an hour or an hour and a half!

inside the arena

I think enough people complained about the different levels of play (from beginner to pros) that on Saturday the three tables had labels on them - advanced, intermediate, and social. I started out on the intermediate court, which is where I belong, but as the day went on realized that social play had way fewer paddles waiting. So I spent the rest of the day there, and had a lot of fun. They kept the same arrangement on Sunday as well.

double decker bus tour

Friday and Saturday nights they had live music and food for us. The bands were great and so was the food, which I understood came from Hy-Vee. On Saturday you could also take a double decker bus tour of Kansas City, which was fun even though we had the same route and tour guide as last year.

Overall TSAC2 was another great experience in what pickleball is all about, which I refer to as the three Fs - fun, fitness, and friendships. I already have my room reservation for next year!

some of the St, Louis crew

Update on the Eye Issue

This morning I was to have the YAG procedure performed on my right eye. It was an inconvenient date and time as our daughter was visiting us from Los Angeles for a long weekend, and I was looking forward to spending her last day here doing fun things. Thinking the right eye was going to be taken care of on September 12th, I was not anticipating this conflict. See my previous post for more on that.

When I got to the office today for my 10:00 appointment, I explained that my left eye just is not right. So again they sent me upstairs to have an eye exam done, fitting me in around patients who were already scheduled for such activities. Obviously I was screwing up the schedule of not only the surgi-center but the regular office as well. Dr. Pepose said this time there is not any filament or stray cells on my lens. Instead it is my astigmatism in the left eye that is causing the problems.

My vision with both eyes together is 20/20, and I have tried to explain that I am happy with the outcome in terms of what I can read. However, it is the quality of what my left eye sees that is the problem. Everything is slightly blurry. My frustration comes from the fact that I paid (a lot!) for the enhanced intraoccqular lenses to be implanted during the cataract surgery, and also for my astigmatism to be corrected in the left eye. The lenses and correction were not covered by my insurance, so that was all out of pocket. So to be told now that the astigmatism still exists came as a shock to me.

Apparently my astigmatism was corrected to a certain point, which is obvious as I was reading 20/50 with that eye before surgery and it is now 20/30. However it was still not as good as my right eye, which is why I am seeing the difference between the two eyes. My choices are 1) live with it, or 2) have an additional procedure know as Limbal Relaxing Incisions (LRI) done to further correct the astigmatism. The downside is that I may lose a little near vision, but what I do see will be clear. What a choice!

While I have tentatively scheduled the procedure just to secure a spot on the calendar, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do at this point. One decision became clear to me, however. I am definitely not going to have the YAG done on the right eye at this point. I'll be leaving well enough alone on that one for the time being.