Glasses and bicycles foster insurance foibles and Jacaranda trees
“Dan!” Nazy interrupts. “The flowers are always blooming in Santa Barbara.”
“Now Jacaranda Trees are in blossom.”
Raised in a sheltered environment, I spent most of my life unaware of the Jacaranda — until Nazy and I visited South Africa where the trees were blooming in Pretoria. Our tour guide told us that they had been brought in from Australia where they were native.
Note: The tour guide was wrong. The Jacaranda comes from Central and South America. However, the South African tour guide was not as wrong as the Egyptian one who claimed that their Coptic community has been Christian since the reign of Ramses in 1300 BC.
Some people take a very negative view of immigrants crowding out natives. Aside: In this instance, I’m not talking about supporters of the current (block) head at the executive branch. Rather, some people object to the sticky sidewalks under the jacaranda, while others decry the ‘oily’ but prevalent, Eucalyptus Trees that explode during forest fires.(The Eucalyptus actually are from Australia.)There is no resistance to our Palm Trees, almost all of which are non-native.
I personally am not outraged by invasive species — unless they are kudzu, the zebra mollusk or fire ants. I can also confidently assert that no leopards (see photo) have been spotted in California.
This weekend, Nazy and I took care of Tiger and Arrow while Melika and Tom were in Palm Springs at a birthday party. Glasses are the latest challenge with 2 year old Tiger. He doesn’t want to wear them.
Glasses issues are clearly genetically determined. Living in The Netherlands, we bought glasses for Melika when she was in third grade. They were, quoting Nazy, ‘beautiful Oilily glasses’. Unfortunately they were not Melika’s choice. Within weeks, and under suspicious circumstances, the Oilily spectacles “fell off” while we were rowing a boat on a Dutch canal.
Disclaimer: Although I threatened to help Melika ‘fall off’ the row boat too, I eventually demurred. Melika, however, claimed (and continues to claim) that the loss was, in fact, an accident. Investigation earlier this week provided some support for her position. (We asked Darius.) In summary: people may conclude that the glasses loss was merely happenstance and not collusion. (Similarly, some people may conclude that there was no collusion between the Russian government and the incoming administration. In both cases, some people would be wrong.)
Melika and her glasses
Florence, Italy 1990's
The glasses disappearance was followed by a most extraordinary development. We had purchased optional “glasses insurance” from Optiek van der Viede in The Hague. Although the insurance purportedly covered ‘loss’, other experience with local insurance companies made me skeptical. For example, our bicycle theft insurance didn’t pay because the lock on our bike shed was uncertified. After we replaced the bike, while Darius and I were enjoying a meal at Petros Grεεk Restaurant, we saw a thief cut off the lock and abscond with the bike. We later discovered that the bike was worth less than the insurance deductible. Accordingly, I fully expected to be told something about a “no glasses in a canal” clause. Instead..
“You will need to make a report to the police,” the clerk said.
“The police? The glasses, eh, ‘fell off of her face’ into a canal. That’s not a police issue.”
“If you return with a police report, we will give you a replacement…”
“Replacement?” Melika thought. “I want different ones.”
“ But, most unfortunately, we don’t have those particular Oilily frames any more. You’ll have to choose an alternative.”
“Yeah!” Melika said.
Unbelievably, the police created a formal report detailing the canal miscue and we got the replacement. It was the only time that insurance in The Netherlands actually paid for anything.
As an aside, bicycles, a big thing in The Netherlands, didn’t work out so well for us. In addition to the two thefts, I also broke my wrist (twice) riding bicycles. Travel tip: The thin tires on American racing bikes smoothly fit into Dutch tram tracks.
The ophthalmologist has strongly asserted that Tiger wear his glasses. Unfortunately, strong assertions have a negative impact on strong willed two year olds. Accordingly, here in Santa Barbara, we’ve replaced the ‘you must wear glasses’ approach with a “you can do ‘x’ when you wear glasses”. If ‘x’ is attractive enough, this approach works. Hence the first grand(est)son photo of the letter:
“Yes, Tiger, you can take a selfie — when you wear your glasses.” I said.
Luckily, there is no shortage of things that Tiger likes to do. For example, over the weekend:
“I want to see the vegetables.” Tiger said as we were leaving. We walk through the grocery store and I point out each fruit and vegetable. He holds each one and we weigh them — noting that one Honeydew can move the scale to 7 pounds while all of the (nearly weightless) passion fruit barely move the needle.
“We’re going to feed Monster first,” I replied. “Then..”
“I just want to see the vegetables,” Tiger repeated with emphasis.
“Ten vegetables?” I asked — fully aware that this would be an inadequate subset.
“Infinite vegetables, Dan!” he exclaimed — using his favorite counting word.
We compromised on 27. In addition to grocery store tours, walks to the Mission and visits to the Children’s Museum also qualify as glasses-enabled. Tiger likes his swimming lessons, but I can’t figure out a way to add glasses to that routine.
While Tiger was visiting this weekend, he was downstairs while I got my shoes for our grocery excursion.
“Let him finish his eggs,” Nazy said as I started down the stairs. When I got to the dining room, I saw that he was coloring the egg white with magic markers.
“Stop that!” I shouted. “We’re leaving. Now! Where are your glasses, Tiger?”
“Let him eat, Dan!” Nazy shouted. “You are too abrupt.”
“Why are you taking the side of the two year old?” I thought.
“Whoppee!” Thought Tiger.
“Why are you taking the side of the two year old?” I said. Dangerously.
For last week's letter, click here
Dan and Arrow