Thursday, May 27, 2004

Day One: Splorg, Salami and Tears

The best layed plans.... Leslie and I were going to play golf this morning, but the weather did not cooperate. It was pouring rain all morning so instead we went to check out the Splorg. It is actually a really nice library with a lot of cool features between the building and the way everything is layed out. I particularly like how the non-fiction section is built as a spiral which allows them to add many more books over the years to sections and keep them in the Dewey decimal system ordering without ever having to rearrange the whole library (which I guess happens a lot at traditional "flat" libraries). The meeting room floor is all red with lots of strange curvy walls. I'll definitely need to go back with my camera soon. It is a very interesting building.

Next, we went to Salumi for lunch. A little place in Pioneer Square that we had heard about from Hillel. It was fantastic! We got a meat and cheese plate with a little bit of bread and some garlic, salami and potato soup that was also really good. The gorgonzola cheese just stole the show, it was great. This place reminds me of some of the places we would visit in NYC. A small family place with just fantastic food.

Then we came back over to the east side for me to be fitted for my contact lenses. I figured I would try them out and I ordered RGP lenses since I heard they were much easier to get in and out of my eyes. I am a real wuss when it comes to my eyes so I didn't want to have to deal with "peeling a sticker off of a marble" as Leslie describes it. It turns out that RGP lenses are...uncomfortable. The doctor described it as having an eyelash in your eye all the time. My eyes were tearing up like I was in an Onion chopping contest. And since they are smaller than soft lenses and hey jump around in your eye when you blink, you can easily see the edges of them drop down each time you blink. I did get them in pretty easily (4th try for my right eye, 2nd try for my left)and they popped right out when I wanted to get them out. I did some eye chart tests while I had them in and then repeated when I took them out. The doctor admitted that these lenses would not be as sharp as my glasses and that was true. Interestingly, when I took them off and tried the same test, it was actually as easy to see without them as it was with them in. So... let's see.... discomfort from having pieces of plastic in my eye, odd blurring effects when I blink, and I see just as well as when they are not in. Sounds great! She did say that it would get better after a week or so, so I will stick with it for now.

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