Thankfuls, Part 4

Wrapping up this month:

27:  Museums! I cannot remember how old I was the first time I went*, but it was the days before children's museums, so I went to the regular ones on Best Behaviour and was introduced to science and art and history of all kinds. I am not shopping for #MuseumStoreSunday as I don't need things and don't know people who need anything this year (we already have all the "Museum Nerd" swag) but you should as they have really cool items.

* My mother told me that I was two years old: "You were two and I prepared you for a visit to the Art Institute by showing you pictures of some of what we'd see. We got to the top of the stairs and you looked at the painting in front of you and said in your two year old voice 'Oh, El Greco.' The several nuns standing there just about fainted."

The Assumption of the Virgin (1577–1579)

28:  Music!  Do I really need to explain it?  My first concert was also when I was two years old, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in residence at the Ravinia Festival.

29:  Books, and authors, and libraries.  The wonder of reading**.

30:  The ability to see.  I've never taken it for granted - you don't when you are so myopic that you began testing as legally blind (without corrective lenses) at around age six, plus I have astigmatism, plus cataracts, so I am very aware of vision.    A number of years ago (yes, earlier than many people expect to hear about it, but that's the way of my family, see Day #21, the memory from 2012) I had my cataracts removed, and they were able to correct 12 diopters of my vision, which means I am only about 2.50-2.75 diopters of correction which translates to around 20/225 vision.  I cannot tell you what it would have been before, as most of the conversion charts stop around -6.00 diopters.  I am also very thankful for a skilled doctor who performed the surgeries, and also the people who keep improving the process.  I still find wonder in the power and gift of sight.

** As of today I have finished fifteen books this year, most of which I started this year.  That is three more than the number to which I committed on GoodReads, where I guessed at doing a book a month.  Some months I didn't finish any; other months I finished two.  Given that two of the recent ones were from the "Historical Whodunits" series, and around 500 pages each, I think it's an acceptable accomplishment.