Online Glasses Not EZ

Nothing can throw life out of balance like finding a $63.80 store credit on Zenni, that online site where you can buy fashionable glasses for cheap. The good news is that the “progressive” lenses I returned actually made their way back. But now I have to order a replacement.

Everyone wearing artsy frames seems to have bought them online at someplace like Zenni.  I compliment them, and they hasten to respond:  “For only $20.” But when I go Zenni-shopping, nada.

The online frame-shopping experience is a big ask: picking out frames, fitting them via online camera, imagining how they’ll look in person, and finally entering the prescription – all things the optometrist used to do but at a cost:  $400+ instead of $20.  By the time they arrive (standard shipping), I don’t even remember what I chose, but I’m sure it was more fashionable than what I got.

Last time, I tried picking out something my jazzy friends would have liked:  a checkerboard of primary colors. After measuring and entering all the numbers, I got a warning.  “Your PD (aka pupillary distance) is smaller than minimum PD of the frame, but we can process with an extra charge.”  $10 more, it turned out, for some unspecified equipment adjustment.  Not much, I thought, and I went along with it, only to discover when the glasses arrived, that my nose felt the heft of two pairs, not one.

I did not send them back, though, which would have only added to my credit, so I keep them in my purse reserved for short trips to large box stores where I have to read small print across the room. I hope some admiring soul will say, “Wow! Those glasses.”

And I will say: “Only $30!”

Lifelong Planning Counts

The account was dizzying.  My dinner guest, now 90, was not sure that she had the energy to use all the airline points she’d accumulated for a free trip to Germany and back.

Travel can be exhausting, she explained, and related her most recent trip abroad – at 80 – when she’d figured out a way to see an opera in Missouri on the way to skiing in Colorado, and then pack in a few days’ European vacation while her car was enjoying free parking at a hotel near the slopes. She flew back to the car, then drove home.

It was the most efficient vacation-planning I’d ever heard of.  Inspiring!  And far more impressive than my latest personal best – having the dinner table set and flowers arranged ahead so I would not be rushed, returning from a downtown meeting that afternoon.

Yay for the 90-year-old planners!  They give me hope.  A lifetime of practice fitting in one more thing will certainly pay off.  (And I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to use those points.)

Blackout Worked – At Least On Me

Refraining from purchasing on February 28 should not have been that hard. And I’m not sure that the Economic Blackout had as big an effect as its creators, People’s Union USA, had hoped.

But the effect on me was huge.  I suddenly realized that purchasing “stuff” was ingrained in my everyday life.

Whether searching the Internet for the perfect gift or running into the store for a box of crackers, I’m hooked.  And I like to think of myself as a “minimizer.”  In fact, it’s part of my professional life.  I run Unpacking Your Stories workshops where I encourage people to “rightsize,” go through their stuff and find the stories in it rather than hanging on to the stuff.

Still…my friend’s comment that she was running to the store on February 27 to “stock up” put me in inventory mode.  Did I have eggs?  Milk? Bread?  Was my tank full of gas?

I live in the city and am in touch with stores every day. I pick up a few things at Target or Kroger on the way back to the gym. I buy a few things at a time, so I’m not wasting. I often meet a friend for lunch or dinner.

None of this is wrong. But it sure does loop me into a dependency cycle, where corporate America is my new best friend and retail therapy is only a step away.

I’m not sure what news reports will say about the Blackout and maybe I should not trust them since, as my daughter points out, they are also part of corporate America.  But I can say this.  The one-day Blackout was meaningful for me. And I’m totally in on the 40-day boycott of Target starting March 5 since it’s backed away from DEI initiatives. I don’t know if Target will notice. But I sure will.

Lessons from Traveling PJs

With so much distraction in the world these days, I’ve been looking for sanity-saving strategies. I had not expected my old travel pajamas to offer any, but there they were – beloved and pitiful.

I had given up on them.  Hopeless. Gone.   Even one more trip seemed unlikely as the faded navy covered buttons popped off and hid under one hotel bed and then another.  And of course, Vanity Fair no longer sold the perfectly packable, washable, dry-over-night-able three-piece sets.

But voila!  While the rest of the world is reeling from tariffs and the dismantling of federal agencies, it occurred to me that this was a problem I could fix. I set out to find new buttons.

Let’s not underestimate the challenge. A trip to JoAnn Fabrics revealed stripped shelves – a condition described by the woman in sewing machines as “no one wants to work anymore,” and the checkout clerk as “they don’t want to pay for stocking hours.” A few days later, my local store hit the list of nearly 500 stores to be closed nationwide. Unwittingly, I was being sucked into bigger problems.

But not to worry.  Googling, I found “vintage” buttons online and with one false start educated myself that it was not the four-hole mother of pearl button I was after but instead the less expensive 11.5 ml blue resin “shank” button. Despite the fact that reviewers complained about the shade of blue, the buttons, quickly in my mailbox, were a perfect match. Since I bought a set of 20 for $2.99, I had plenty of replacements when they popped off and scooted under the hotel bed.

I am happy to report that while listening to a short audiobook, I removed the old buttons and sewed on 12 new ones. I have eight spares, just in case. Problem solved!  I feel suddenly empowered.

Ironically, the book – Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These – offers its own strategies for surviving difficult times.  Among them, having a sense of purpose and showing kindness to others. Definitely worth the one hour, 57-minute listen.