Brrrrrr, its cold!

It’s mind-boggling how cold December in New York City can be. This year winter has come early and the temperature is running 12 to 15 degrees below normal in early December. That means a temperature of 32 to 35 degrees. Add to that a 35 mile per hour gusty wind out of the North and we have a wind chill factor in the teens. I refuse to allow the weather conditions to deter me from my 4 to 5 mile daily walk. I bundle up and wait until the heat of the day, 35 degrees and the wind-chill is up to 22.

So I’m walking down Church Avenue past ground zero as fast as I can, dodging the multitude of tourists, shoppers and financiers. The biting wind makes my eyes water like leaking faucets. The sun, low in the south blinds me. Wait, something’s wrong. I take my trifocal, transition glasses off to wipe tears out of my eyes and place them back on my nose. My vision becomes distorted. Everything is blurry and looks weird. I reach up with my gloved finger to touch the left lens of my glasses and jam my finger directly into my eye. There is no glass. The lens has disappeared. It must have fallen out. I turn and retrace my steps for a couple blocks. Nothing. It’s gone.

An hour later I find myself at an optical office in the Financial District that my wife has guided me to. “I need a new lens for my glasses.” I say. He calls the optometrist in Washington State to secure the prescription. The voice mail says he’s gone hunting for the next ten days. I make an appointment to see the doctor here. He’ll be in on Friday, four days away. My old pair of prescription glasses will have to do until then but they’re already making me sick to my stomach and nauseas. Oh well, nothing I can do except wait until Friday and then 3-5 days more days for the prescription lens to arrive.

Standing at the counter chatting with the clerk we talk of the cold weather. He relates “this is a new kind of weather for New York City. The climate has changed. Nobody wears sweaters anymore. There’s no sweater weather but only hot and then cold.” Mind-boggling I think. I’m standing in front of him sweating inside my turtle neck sweater, vest sweater, my bulky ski sweater and an Eddie Bauer Fleece sweater- jacket on top of that. I’ll be glad I have all these layers of sweaters on when I venture back outside. On the street everyone is dressed like my wife in Bulky, long, heavy, black coats. Perhaps I need to change my style of dress or maybe I’ll just go to Miami for the winter as soon as I take delivery on my new left tri-focal, transition lens.