Shadowlight's Lighthouse

Have been wearing the big goggle-like Backup Eyeglasses since my normal ones broke (see last post). With my mostly grey beard shaved back to a goatee, can't help but think my reflection looks like it should be ruling a tribe of savages awed by his Mad Scientist / Alien Warlord technology. (Dictor in Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps", specifically) I had eye exam today, got a clean bill of health (once I managed to give consistent answers to the rapid fluctuation of dozens of slightly different lenses, and figured out the lens seemed all blurry because I'd fogged it up), took new prescription to Vision Center at the store where I worked, ordered a pair of progressive glare resistant polycarbonate lenses. (All the technology helps take the sting off the price tag.) I hope the frames I picked worked out. Square is in, but I went for small but not too small, square but not very square but not in a ladies' style... probably not too different from the old ones. They won't be ready until around the 29th, so I'll be opposing Time Lords and Pulp Heroes for another week. (Maybe I should give up on the goatee and do Blue Beetle jokes instead.)
Lunch with my sister and her beagle, then they went on to their next stop. Turns out I didn't need to clean my apartment after all. *shrugs* well, every little bit helps.
Phone tag with Thymewind. (still haven't caught him)
Did laundry at the laundromat, but didn't have enough quarters for the dryer, so I went to adjacent stores, buying something just to get cash back on my debit card. Goodwill sold me a Rainbow Plaid button-up shirt...but didn't do cash back. (Even so, how could I almost buy a Rainbow Plaid shirt and then not do it? When is that going to happen again?) So, Kmart sold me a dvd. Still wound up filling most of my laundry drying rack with socks that were still moist after 24 minutes on high temp. Would've run the dryers longer, but the laundromat closed at 9pm.

"Dear Rosa, we passed through a village today at the foot of a mountain, and the women there looked like you. I thought, if your parents had never come to America, you'd probably be in a village just like this, now. Italy is beautiful, especially in the springtime, and the children in the village were playing, as if there had never been a battle in these mountains, or at least, as if there never would be again. I don't think the people here are any happier than we are that some lying bastard has given their country to the Nazis. When this war is over, when the world is safe again, I'll come home and we can have beautiful children of our own, I promise. If kids can play in wartime, there's nothing we can do that'd hurt them. Love always, Red."