Off/Beat

For now, everything almost looks groovy

By MICHELE MILLER
Published July 25, 2007

I'm cracking eggs and pushing home fries, diced garlic and onions around in a cast iron pan when I notice that the stove top is looking slanted and so is the black granite counter top.

It's west Pasco County, so maybe you're thinking we have a sinkhole and my house, with the refurbished kitchen I love so much, is going to be swallowed up by the Florida sand.

Thankfully, no.

It's me. I know this for sure even as I type this and see that the words on the bottom of the computer screen are sort of melting away.

A trek through the supermarket is a bit of an adventure these days, providing a blurred, whooshy view of the cereal aisle with the fiber-rich oatmeal I'm searching for. Kind of like those artsy feature photographs that appear from time to time on the front page of the Pasco Times.

The ground is moving, too, in a somewhat alarming way that's especially noticeable when I take my morning walks. It seems to surge or just fall away - ebbs and flows - a paved ocean of sorts that can seem difficult to maneuver.

The view worsens when climbing up or down a ladder - say when I'm trying to re-hook the kids' tetherball on the tall shiny pole in the backyard.

So maybe you're thinking this is all just a series of acid trip-induced flashbacks - the kind they warned us about way back when?

My recent perception problem would, incidentally, coincide with the 40th anniversaries of the Summer of Love, the rise of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, the Monterey Pop Festival, and the release of Sergeant Pepper's and Light My Fire.

Those were the days ... according to my older siblings and friends.

Being a tail-ender of the boomer generation, I don't remember the summer of 1967 as being all that remarkable. Just part of the wonder years for me. I was only 9 and spending my days at Y summer camp. Had to be in bed most nights by the time the street lights came on, except on those special evenings when we were let out to chase fireflies or search for night crawlers for the next morning's fishing venture.

So my present-day warped view can't be blamed on Timothy Leary. It's not chemically induced, just my eyes - more specifically my eyes trying to adjust to my new bifocals with the progressive lenses.

Who knew getting a new pair of glasses could be so much fun ... or such a perceived obstacle course?

It's just a matter of time and adjustment, the nice, young girl at the eyeglass store said. The brain and the eyes will eventually get it together. But it could take a few days or maybe even a week or so before I'll be able to see straight.

Then I'll be singing, I Can See Clearly Now.

Remember that one? Not the Jimmy Cliff version, but the original by Johnny Nash. Topped the Billboard charts in November 1972 and kept good company with George Harrison's Concert for Bangledesh, Alice Cooper's School's Out, Don McLean's American Pie, Curtis Mayfield's Soundtrack to Superfly, Stevie Wonder's Talking Book and Seals and Croft's Summer Breeze.

For some, those were the days.

And for me?

Pretty much anything pre-bifocals.

Michele Miller can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6251 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505. Her e-mail is miller@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 24, 2007, 22:02:10]