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It's time once again for a random and happy Tuesday, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked and Sandee at Comedy Plus.
Part of today’s post is also a writing challenge. This is how it works: one of the contributing bloggers picked a number between 12 and 74. The submitted number is a challenge to participating bloggers to write at least one piece using that exact number of words.
This month, the word count number is: 22
It was submitted by: Karen at Baking In A Tornado
At the end of this segment you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them out!
Mention has been made by a couple of people in the comments about Sweetie's visual field test and his retinopathy of prematurity.
Sweetie and Brother-in-Law are identical twins, born two months premature in 1953. Their mother smoked, back when nobody knew better.
Together they weighed about 5 pounds; they've been told they were each about the size of a half a loaf of bread.
Doctors then put babies in incubators with oxygen turned up all the way, not knowing it could create film on the retinas.
By the time they went home from the hospital, they were blind; no pupil response to light, no following lights at all.
Their adoptive parents prayed over them, begging The Lord for a miracle. When the boys were 6 months old, they got it.
The doctor was waving his penlight in front of their faces, telling their parents, I'm sorry, nothing we can do for them.
Suddenly, both of them responded, their eyes began following the light at the exact same moment. The doctor yelled, dropping his penlight.
During their growing up years, they wore "coke-bottle" thick glasses and sat three feet from the TV to see it better.
Sweetie suffered a retinal detachment in his right eye playing football in high school. He ran track, but no more contact sports.
Doctors in Nashville were doing a new experiment, a freeze cryogenic surgery, to reattach retinas. He spent two weeks in the hospital.
It didn't work, but doctors love making students look at his retina and try to guess what they are seeing. They can't!
Because of laser treatments to preserve their retinas over the years, they both had to have their cataracts removed in their 40s.
They've been blessed; most children with ROP as severe as theirs was never see at all, much less have near normal vision.
Before cataract surgery, they were both very nearsighted. The corrective implants mean they are a bit more farsighted now. Still clumsy, though!
The fact that they can drive, and Sweetie can enjoy target shooting (he's rated sharpshooter) is astounding. They've had relatively normal lives.
Being blind in one eye does cause Sweetie trouble on occasion. The blind eye can "float", pointing where he is not looking.
That happened once when he was in the choir loft. His good eye on the preacher, his other drifted toward the congregation.
A lady out there was convinced he was staring at her; her husband confronted him about "ogling my wife from the choir"!
Eventually they all had a laugh about it, but boy were they embarrassed when he first explained what was really going on.
Both of them see a retinal specialist regularly to make sure to catch any possible bucklings or tears early enough to correct.
Amazingly, Sweetie's one eye is 20/20 and his glasses prescription has not changed in 7 years. Brother-in-Law is 20/20 - 20/40.
And there you have it, 22 sentences of 22 words each, and now my brain has a cramp from counting!
Links to the other Word Counters posts:
Carl had another day off work yesterday. He had applied for vacation time for September at the beginning of the year when the whole extended family were still planning their usual California gatherings. When all of that got called off for Covid19, Ms. V told him to take the vacation time anyway and enjoy it, and he has.
He had agreed to get up by 8am so i could come work with him, but when i got there, he was still lounging in his recliner, muttering about needing more sleep. He dozed for half an hour while i gathered laundry, then i shooed him into the shower so he could eat after and i could clean the bathroom.
He fixed himself cereal for breakfast, then toast, then oatmeal, and then decided he wasn't going to stay to help me, he was going to Jazzercise. He really loves to bust a move.
He came back from Jazzercise with an order of pancakes from Cracker Barrel, and i asked him if he was a hobbit, having second breakfast. He looked at me like i'd lost my marbles.
He was still eating when i left the house, pouring a different flavor of syrup on each bite. As Ms. V says, it's a good thing he has a job and it's physical labor because he loves to eat so much he'd be as big as a house.
Now for a few things Grandma forwards to me:
Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!
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Today is:
Battle of Britain Day -- UK
Dia de Nuestra Senora de la Bien Aparecida -- Santander, Spain
Eleven Days of Global Unity -- Day 5, Health (sponsored by We, the World)
Engineer's Day -- India
Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (Mater Dolorosa) related observance
Grito de Dolores -- Mexico (Cry of Dolores,a/k/a Father Hidalgo's Cry for Freedom Day, the evening before Independence Day)
Virgin Mary of the Seven Sorrows Day -- Slovakia
Felt Hat Day (Traditional day upon which men started to wear their winter felt hats, similar to women beginning to wear white shoes on Memorial Day)
Get Ready Day -- US (help your community, workplace, or school to get ready for disasters or emergencies)
Independence Day -- Costa Rica; El Salvador; Guatemala; Honduras; Nicaragua (all in 1821)
International Day of Democracy -- UN
Make a Hat Day -- just for fun (and if you are a guy, make a felt hat)
National Creme de Menthe Day
National Hispanic Heritage Month -- US, through Oct. 15
National Linguine Day
Opening of Parliament -- Netherlands (holiday in The Hague)related observance
Prinsjesdag -- Netherlands (technically translates "Prince's Day;" the day Parliament opens and the reigning sovereign, now King William-Alexander, gives the Speech from the Throne and the Minister of Finance proposes next year's budget)
Really Bad Ideas Exhibition -- Fairy Calendar (Gremlins celebration)
Restoration of Primorska to the Motherland Day -- Slovenia
Silpa Bhirasri Day -- Thailand
St. Catherine of Genoa's Day (Patron of brides, childless people, people in difficult marriages, people ridiculed for their piety, victims of adultery and unfaithfulness, widows; against adultery and temptation)
Anniversaries Today:
Greenpeace is founded, 1971
Birthdays Today:
Heidi Montag, 1986
Prince Harry, 1984
Dave Annable, 1979
Josh Charles, 1971
Dan Marino, Jr., 1961
Tommy Lee Jones, 1946
Oliver Stone, 1946
Carmen Maura, 1945
Jessye Norman, 1945
Merlin Olsen, 1940
Gaylord Jackson Perry, 1938
Norm Crosby, 1927
Jackie Cooper, 1922
Fay Wray, 1907
Roy Acuff, 1903
Agatha Christie, 1890
Robert Benchley, 1889
William H. Taft, 1857
James Fenimore Cooper, 1789
François de La Rochefoucauld, 1613
Marco Polo, 1254
Debuting/Premiering Today:
USA Today(Newspaper first issue), 1982
"CHIPs"(TV), 1977
"Columbo"(TV), 1971
"I Spy"(TV), 1965
"Lost in Space"(TV), 1965
"Bachelor Father"(TV), 1957
"The Lone Ranger"(TV), 1949
Today in History:
The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy, 1616
The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow, 1812
The first Negro National Convention begins in Philadelphia, 1830
The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad, 1831*
HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands, 1835
Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell becomes the first woman in the US to be ordained a minister (Congregationalist), 1853
Timothy Alder patents the typesetting machine, 1857
RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube, 1947
United Nations gives Eritrea to Ethiopia, 1952
The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
*The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C., 1981
Vanuatu becomes a member of the United Nations, 1981
Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, 2008
In Australia, "Indeterminate" can now be listed on a passport as a gender, 2011
A previously unknown species of bottlenose dolphin is found by Australian researchers, and named Tursiops australis, 2011
Japan switches off its last working nuclear reactor, 2013
Archaeologists document their find of the oldest-known brewery and the remains of 13,000-year-old beer in a cave in Haifa Israel, belonging to the nomadic Natufian people, 2018