It has been cold here for the last two days. Love the cold but it was rainy for a couple of days. Today it was sunny and gorgeous -- high in the mid 40s, which I love, and not too windy. Too cold for Brian but it's going to warm up until the high this weekend will be 71. My idea of perfect weather.
It was fun wearing a sweater for a change and a jacket when I headed out to do a couple of errands.
Had leftover beef stroganoff for dinner tonight but since it was cold this afternoon, I baked some country style ribs in the oven with a light dusting of Mad Hunky rub. Will heat them up in the oven tomorrow and coat them with that Korean BBQ Sauce until sticky. The house smelled divine while they were cooking.
Left my cracker making and orange cranberry sauce until tomorrow. Heading to my new eye doctor tomorrow and am looking forward to getting new bifocal contacts with a new prescription. It will be so strange going to a new eye doctor (I selected a female this time, board certified).
My only other eye doctor retired a couple years ago and passed away last year; he was a doll and believe it or not, I'd been seeing him since 5th grade, the year JFK was shot. He gave me a professional discount for all the years I saw him as he used to work with my mom (an R.N.) for a couple of years when I was in grammar school! Even when he gave me a full eye exam (when they dilate your eyes), he STILL only charged me $50 and that was in 2015!!!! I outlasted three of the ladies who worked for him, and he only had three employees since I saw him. He must've been a dream to work for. The only reason he retired is Denise, who still worked for him on Saturdays in his N.O. office, finally told him she wanted to retire (she HAD retired but he asked her to come back and work every Saturday and she did). He was really ticked off at her, too, and when he sent a letter out, it said he didn't want to retire but was forced to! I laughed out loud when I read it and then cried when I realized our days together were finally over.
One year Brian and I found out a friend of ours hadn't been to the eye doctor in 20 years and was a lifelong eyeglass wearer. Said he couldn't afford it. We KNEW he desperately needed a new Rx so for an early Christmas present, I made an appointment for him with my eye doctor and told the woman who worked for him to bill me. She apologized and told me they would have to charge me $75 for his visit! I was astounded that they only charged a new patient $75 for a complete eye exam (he was an opthalmologist, too, not an optometrist).
I cried like a baby when he died. When Brian first started seeing him (he gave Brian the discount too since he was my husband!), he asked Brian where he was from and he said MA. Dr. Rumage had gone to school in NY and told Brian he used to visit a friend in summer when he was in college in MA. When Brian asked where, he said, "Oh, it was a little town on the Cape that no one has ever heard of." Brian said, "Try me," and he said it was Marion, MA. He just about died when Brian told him that was where he grew up.
Darling man. Still miss him. He hadn't performed eye surgery, of course, for years but he still saw patients. He told me he wouldn't know what to do with himself if he retired. During the week, he worked outside of N.O. where he went to work when Katrina devastated the city. Then worked on Saturday in Gretna (a suburb of N.O. very close to where I live) as he told me there was no way he could abandon his longtime patients even though he gave up his N.O. office when the building was sold and turned into condos. They don't make doctors like that anymore. They're all about the money and not so much about their patients. I know I'm going to laugh when I see how much an eye doctor charges today! I'll let you know...
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