My right eye is seeing better than my left at this point. I have been not using glasses for reading. But I do need them for distance and TV. This was the plan so I’m a happy guy.

I am roasting plantain. Eileen doesn’t like these but I do. I add some cinnamon, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and salt. I’m roasting at a lower temp and planning to go longer. I’m hoping I can get them a bit more crispy that way.

Today is Birky day. Curtis Birky is my therapist and I meet with him every two weeks. Ever since the pandemic we have been doing this on Zoom. It’s more convenient for me anyway. He has told me that he is resuming in person meetings with people who request them. But I like this better.

Speaking of looking from the right side, I have been doing a lot of processing about how people can be so wrong headed about things like using masks to protect the society and getting vaccinated.

So that was the topic for today’s therapy session. Jupe’s new lens in his right eye and his attempt to understand people he disagrees with.

I read carefully over the following links this morning.

warning…. links to articles I strongly disagree with

The January 6 Insurrection Hoax – Imprimis

This article is by Roger Kimball. He is educated but wow what a slew of slanted stuff he has to present. This was a lecture given at Hillsdale College on Sept 20th of this year. His basic point is that the Jan 6 events have been exaggerated and misrepresented.

If one spends a lot of time reading the propaganda of the side you disagree with it’s inevitable that you read things that are exaggerated and misrepresented. This is why I am reading the kind of article I am. Kimball is a product of upper education in the US including two Master degrees from Yale.

So it confuses me that he can publish a lecture with the following observations:

“…every honest person knows that the 2020 election was tainted.

“… a perfect storm of forces conspired to make 2020 the first oligarchic installation of a president.

“… there is little threat of domestic terror in this country

Plus he used the phrase “Chinese virus” twice.

Then there’s Restoring America by Hugo Gurdon. This is a Washington Times manifesto that manages to support Trump like understandings without even using his name (Something Kimball did not pull off). Gurdon in managing editor. In my aggregate news source, invariably articles linked from it are very anti-liberal.

I think I’m going to quit linking there. It’s obvious that public rhetoric in the US has become debased. I watch for statements of belief and understanding that do not rely strongly on describing those you disagree with in order primarily to challenge their arguments. This is called the “straw man” fallacy. Without it, the internet and the media would be considerably diminished.

Surgery went well yesterday. Fasting for three hours beforehand turned out to be more important than I had realized. I hadn’t read the instruction booklet closely enough to notice that I could have coffee and other clear liquids during my 12 hour fast, but that for the last three hours of the fast I should have nothing but water.

I hadn’t paid that much attention but Eileen and I figured out that my last little cup of coffee was around 10 AM. My arrival time was 12:30 so it was very close to three hours by the time they talked to me. This ended up satisfying the  anesthesiologist but just barely. The poor guy in the prep area next to me wasn’t so lucky. Separated only by a curtain Eileen and I could clearly hear the prep nurse discussing what he had had before coming.

The conversation was translated into Spanish but we could still hear the anglo nurse’s comments and also the sound of the guy’s wife and the translator who seemed to be related. It turned out that the guy had been fasting correctly but his wife was worried that he should have something before coming and gave him mango and strawberry juice. This did not pass muster and they had to reschedule his surgery. Yikes!

They put many drops in my eye to prep. I was wide awake for the surgery. The anesthesia was only to help me to not care what they were doing. I didn’t notice any effect from it. Maybe since I wasn’t that anxious it didn’t have that much effect or maybe I didn’t notice.

. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t tell exactly what the surgeon was doing during the procedure. I was hoping to witness more of it. All I could see were many colored lights in motion. The surgeon and the people in the room did not interrupt their conversation about things unrelated to surgery. As far as I could tell they talked constantly to each other about their land investments and building codes maybe only interrupting occasionally to say something about the surgery. The nurse talked to me at first to get me comfortable on the table. But after that I felt like I was in a locker room.

Beforehand the surgeon had talked to me about post op behavior. No lifting and no exercises that involved any strain to my stomach area. Apparently the lifting and the strain can affect the eyes. So this morning I curtailed much of my morning stretches and exercising. I will probably keep that up for the next three weeks at least.

I do not have to keep a bandage over my eye unless I am sleeping. After surgery my vision was very blurry. This morning less so. Despite this I was still able to read with my left eye. This morning my right eye is much less blurry but still not entirely focusing.

The most startling effect is that the light coming through my right eye is much brighter than the light in my left. I take this to mean that my old lens in my left eye is slightly discolored with age. Wow.

I have to call Eileen in a bit. I have my first follow up appointment this morning at 8:45. That’s about an hour away so I will finish up here and wake up Eileen.