First World Problem

Why is it so easy to do a google search for 'cheap area rugs'  and so hard to do one for 'good quality price is not a major consideration area rugs'? 

I'm not saying oh we want something knitted from the  belly fur of sheep fed only the grapes that grow on Mount Olympus, packed only by cello-playing virgins  - price does matter -- but quality is important, too.  Why does no one (that google shows me) emphasize that?

French Daughters

I have two people whom I refer to as my French daughters.

One is a woman that I have known for several years, and with whom I've communicated repeatedly, particularly when  she has been going through a stressful period, usually related to either interaction with her father or interaction with her -- I'm not sure what to call him, as he's married, and not really a 'boyfriend'.  She has used the term amoureux, and I suppose that's as good as any.  She gets a lot of pain and no satisfaction from the first, and a combination of pain and satisfaction from the second.  She wants to leave the first (but can't, due to financial and familial issues), and knows she should leave, or at least turn down the intensity, on the second -- but she finds that very hard to do.  Very hard to do.

The other daughter is a French exchange student who has been with us just about a month, and who will be with us, barring problems, until the end of May.  That started out as oh, that's nine months, its a long time, and to my surprise its already eight months left, and that doesn't feel like a very long time at all.  We get along very well with this person, and when she leaves, it will feel as if part of our family is leaving. Not looking forward to that.

I like both of them.

No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!

Today I had a laser pointed at one of my eyes.  It was a medical laser, being used in a function known as SLT, to reduce levels of pressure inside my right eye.  (Don't pout, Left Eye; your time is coming).  I learned a couple of things:

First, its really not extraordinarily helpful to have spent the prior evening leafing through the results of a Google Search on "SLT Complications laser), even if the results were that a) the process is about 40% effective,  b) complications are very few, and c) in almost every case, the complications either went away on their own or could be caused to do so.  I could not stop thinking about the one case where the doctor's office mis-set the laser, delivering more power than needed, or the case where a man had adverse results despite looking like a good candidate.  Its one thing to know there are no guarantees, its another to be face-to-glowing-green-dot with it.

Though I think my casual mentions of tri-lasers and foveal burns did get the opthamologist's attention, which, given that this is MY eye, is a good thing.

Second, I learned that just because they say the process takes about ten to twenty minutes doesn't mean you'll be out of there in 30 minutes.  Try more like 90 minutes, what with getting these eye drops, those drops, scheduling, and just sitting and waiting.  There's a reason we're called 'patients', and its not particularly thrilling.  I told him that it would have been nice to know how long the process could be expected to take, and he said that for most of his patients, they would be scared off by knowing how long they'd be there.

Third, it really does not hurt (maybe just a tiny, tiny bit),  but the apprehension can deliver a throbbing headache, which is not what you want after Mr. Goldfinger's just done a job on you.