Firmly Implanted in Middle Age

Last week, I got something that reminded me that I'm now firmly implanted in "middle age."

I got my new glasses.
They're bifocals. The progressive kind.

Bifocals!

I didn't have to get glasses until I was 25 years old. I was a bit near-sighted, but just barely. My first pair of glasses let me notice details of leaves on trees.
Fine.

Then, in my thirties, the Department of Motor Vehicles documented the fact that I was required by law to wear corrective lenses in order to lawfully operate a motor car.
Okay.

Now, in my forties, I got bifocals. Well, "progressive lenses" as they're called.

My near-sightedness had not changed but it's become progressively cumbersome to read the fine print over the past five years. I've had to remove my glasses to read a book on the subway or plane and replace them when I disembarked. Cell phones were hard to read. I'd have to lift up my glasses to see that my I-pod was playing Enya instead Emerson Lake & Palmer. (See? Middle aged).

Contact lenses? I love 'em. But restaurant menus were impossible. I'd have to just take a stab at entrees.

I just finished my first few days with my new "progressive lenses" bifocal things and I'm pretty jazzed!

I bought two magoes and didn't need to lift up my glasses to read the little "4032" number on those annoying fruit-stickers at the self check-out.

I could read a spreadsheet at work without putting glasses off-and-on-and-off-and-on.

And this evening, I was in my usual Monday Night Mode, sprawled out on my chaise-lounge watching "UFO Encounters." The phone rang and I didn't even have to lift up my glasses to read the caller i.d. number to see that it was the Bad Dinner Date calling me from the other night.
I was able to instantly ignore the call.

. . . Bifocals Rule!