A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

♫... I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There's gotta be a little rain sometime... ♫
Lynn Anderson (1970)

Photos from the Rose Garden in the park in our city centre today; taken on my way back from having been to pick up my new glasses. The grey skies in the background brought Lynn Anderson's song to mind for me. The weather has been "back and forth" again a lot this week. Rain one day, 25C the next, and then again so stormy that one hesitates to go out just because of all the debris flying around. However, today the wind had once more subsided, the temperature was quite pleasant for walking - around 18C (64F) - and the rain actually kept away until I was safely back home again.

If you followed my July adventures, you may remember that I went to see my optician about a month ago; and after her examination decided to buy a pair new glasses, even if the results from the eye test only showed "minor" changes. (But it might have some impact on my ability to read small print.) You may also recall that I took a couple of frames home with me to ponder about over the weekend after the examination; but then ended up deciding on a third one in the shop instead, when I got back there. (Decicions, decisions...) 

What did not really strike me until today when I tried on the new ones again in the shop, now with glass fitted... was how very little the new frame that I finally decided on really differs from my old one! I almost had to laugh. The new ones are a bit more rounded in shape but that's about it...

 Old glasses: top/left, new ones: bottom/right.
I'm calling this collage: "Me and My Twin"...

There's a little bit more of a slight tinge towards green in the new frame compared to the old one (which is more just dark blue). But it's not really obvious...

Ah well. I guess I shall just have to claim that I've "found my style" and am sticking with it!

What I'm primarily hoping for is that the new glasses might make it a little bit easier to read small print on paper again. The main problem is macular degeneration in the left eye, though - diagnosed ~3 years ago. And that can neither be cured nor compensated with glasses. (But at least it does not really seem to have got any worse; which is good.) 

I did not bother to also get new separate glasses for computer work, though - my old "computer glasses" still work well enough.

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The sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem "Sacred Emily", which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and the shortened form "A rose is a rose is a rose" is among her most famous quotations, often interpreted as meaning "things are what they are", a statement of the law of identity, "A is A." (Wikipedia) 

 

Decisions, Decisions ...

 

Today - Monday - was another day of cooler temperatures here (even below 20'C), but no predicted risk of rain. So a good day for me to walk into town again - this time to revisit the optician's and make my final choice of frames for the new glasses. As some readers may remember, I had taken two frames home with me on loan over the weekend. However, while I did like one of those from the shape and colour of the rim, and how they fit over my nose etc, I felt sceptical about the temples (arms), which were very thin - while I feel more comfortable with having those a bit sturdier...

 

https://www.readingglasses.com/blogs/news/parts-of-eyeglasses

 So when I got to the shop I said I wanted to look at some more frames before I decided; and did so, partly on my own, and partly with help from the optician manning the desk. 

While she and I were just discussing another frame she had just found to suggest to me, someone else suddenly turned up beside me and said hello... It took me a second to take in who it was: My old friend Ewa from Karlstad, whom I've known for almost half a century. (Back in our youth we were both living in Karlstad). She is an optician, too - retired since a few years now, but in the summers she has continued to sometimes take on short term temporary jobs in other cities (for the same chain of shops she used to work for). She last filled in for someone in this shop in Borås last summer; and we met up then. But as she told me then that that was the last time that she would be doing that, I had not expected to see her again this year! But she certainly "came in handy" to continue the discussion of my choice of frames now (while her colleague helped another customer instead). As we've known each other for so long, I could hardly have had a more competent "third opinion" for my final choice. ;) ... To sum up, I ended up deciding on a different frame than the two I had been choosing between over the weekend.

As with all the chatting I forgot to take a photo of it, I won't be seeing it again myself until I finally get it back with glasses fitted - which probably won't be until the beginning of August, as the shop will close for summer holidays for a couple of weeks in between.

The photo at the top is a view across the river from the park that I took when I walked back home from town on Saturday. This one with the thistles is the only photo I snapped today. They grew in another (somewhat "wilder") spot along the river.

Booking Through Thursday – ‘Location’

In real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. But how about books? Does where a book is set affect your reading choices? Are you more or less likely to read books set in places you know or love?
Question from Deb on September 22, 2016

I would say yes on both points. Where (and also when!) a book is set does affect my choice whether to read it; probably more often than I’m conscious of. 

For example, I usually do feel a lot more “at home” reading British books compared to American. (I’ve never been to the US, but travelled nearly all over Britain on family holidays back in my teens.) And, thinking about it, with Swedish books too I suspect I’m probably often drawn to the kind of settings (landscapes) that I feel I can easily visualize in my head. (On the other hand I sometimes feel that too detailed descriptions, depending too much on the exact location of real streets and buildings in big cities, can be rather tiresome, whether I’ve been there or not.)

But of course, sometimes it’s the other way round too, and I get interested in reading a book set in a foreign country precisely because I realize I know very little about it, and hope to learn more.

A memory pops up while I’m thinking about all this - from a holiday to Germany back in the 1980’s, while I was studying German at the university. It was my first trip to Germany at all, and it was in late August or even beginning of September, which means I missed the first week or so of the term (but I had asked permission). To somewhat make up for that absence, I had brought one of the study course novels with me: Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers / The Sorrows of Young Werther. I remember it as a rather special experience to sit outdoors and read this particular book, and look up and find myself overlooking the very landscape where it was set - the valley of the river Lahn, which was where I happened to be staying. (Not the exact spot where Goethe sat, perhaps… But close enough!)

BTT: Only Five

This week’s question from Booking Through Thursday:

shelovestoread asks:

If you had to pick only 5 books to read ever again, what would they be and why?’

I sincerely hope I never have to make the choice, but if I did…

The Bible. Sneaky choice, because I get 66 books in 1.

I’d like to be sneaky with The Chronicles of Narnia as well because I have those in a box set, and they are each so thin, surely they must count as one? No? Well, I guess I’d pick The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe then.

Three Men in a Boat by J.K. Jerome. I’ve already re-read that at least thirty times or so and know for a fact I never get bored with it.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling. I realize there is no hope of getting away with all seven books in that series in one volume (it would need a suitcase of its own) so I just have to choose one. The Order is the thickest of them all ;) … But the reason it is my favourite is more to do with the fact that it was the one that made the deepest impression on me at first read.

Now I’m in serious trouble choosing the last one. I have a nagging feeling that I ought to take at least one to remind me of my own country, Sweden. Oh, all right. I’ll take Astrid Lindgren’s Seacrow Island. This is another children’s book but also with some memorable grown-up characters in it. Unusually, this was a TV-series before she also turned it into a book, and I’ve re-watched the TV-series more times than I’ve read the book. But I’m sort of assuming for the purpose of this exercise that only being allowed to take five books, I’m probably headed for some isolated place where I won’t be able to watch DVDs of my choice either! This book will help me recall images in my head.

I assure you I’m not happy to be leaving all other books behind, though. I can only hope I’ll never actually be put in the situation. Still, five books (or seventy) is better than none.