"I need a martini, a Chagall, and a rabies shot!"

I discovered at yesterday's knit meeting at the new Starbucks in Armory Square that my knitbud Diana (my very first knitbud!) has a blog! I had no idea! So I added her to my list of knitbuds over there on the left (which, it should be noted, is in the order I found the links in my bookmarks folder, not in something proper like alphabetical order - I probably oughta change that, eh?). I'm wondering if I should also add a link to our group's MSN site... but admission is by admin approval only, and I'm not one of the admins. I'd hate to be a tease like that.

Liz B. and I are always the last ones to leave the knit meetings (of course, we're always the last ones to get there, too - hooray for the late girls!). Yesterday we were there for an hour and a half after everyone else had left, bitching about how evil George Bush is. Hee.

And then I spent the entire rest of the afternoon shopping for new glasses frames, craft supplies, and more craft supplies (I had coupons I had to use, okay?). I checked out that new glasses place Sherry told me about, America's Best. It's actually in the Marshall's plaza, conveniently located between the Village Yarn Shop and A.C. Moore (hee - but on a disappointing note, I learned when I arrived there at 3:15 that the Village Yarn Shop's summer hours are 10-3. Argh!).

Their selection of frames didn't seem that much more extensive than any other place, but they were cheap (as long as you stick with the cheapie lenses, I think). I found a lot of frames I sorta liked - but see, here's the thing with me and glasses: I need glasses with nosepads. I can't do those big plastic frames that have the nosepads built right into the frame shape, because they either sit so far down on my nose that I'm looking over the lenses instead of through them, or so close to my eyes that my eyelashes brush the lenses and I have to take the glasses off and clean them eighty times a day.

But those are the frame shapes that I love! I want a pair of glasses that look like these ones from this site:

The Dragonfly

The Bebe Cholita

Or these ones from this place:

The Glitz

The Soho 22

Cat-eye, baby! I could so totally work that. But, no, I can't, because of the nosepad thing.

My old frames, which I love, are by Brooks Brothers, and they actually had the retro chunky plasticky look, but with nosepads. But a) I've discovered it's pretty much just as expensive everywhere to get a whole new pair of glasses as it is to have new lenses put into old frames, so I figure why not just get new ones; and b) my trusty old Brooks Bros are not really so cat-eye in shape - and I really want the cat-eyes. It's just impossible to find those with nosepads. Really, I've looked.

If I wanted to spend an exorbitant amount of money on glasses, I could go with vintage frames from somewhere like vintageiwear.com or Four Your Eyes - I mean, look, faboo:

from vintageiwear

from Four Your Eyes

But, hello, I'm a poor student. I'm not made of money - I can't afford to pay more for the frames alone than I would for a whole new pair of glasses at LensCrafters. Plus, still no nosepads! In a perfect world, all the glasses on this page from Debby Burk Optical would be available as prescription frames, with nosepads. Alas for me, I do not live in that world.

What I did find yesterday at America's Best were these frames by Converse, of all companies (makers of my favorite shoes!):

The Converse Freak Out

Ok, so they're very rectangular. But they actually looked okay on me, I thought. And look closely - those little dots on the front of the hinge parts? They're star-shaped. How freakin' neat is that?? And they come in this color called "Rootbeer" which is this weird layered purple-blue-brown, which is just the coolest. And, most importantly: nosepads. Yes!!! So if I can't get the cat-eyes I want, at least I could have these bitchin' things.

But the drawback was that the service at America's Best seemed really... iffy. I mean, the guy saw I was standing at his counter with a question I wanted to ask (he looked right at me, then looked away before I could say anything), and there were other people forming a line behind me, and he cleaned and refilled the printer and emptied the wastebasket before he even acknowledged my presence. No "I'll be right with you," no "Hang on just a sec," nothing. When he finally did say something to me, he just asked if I was the next person on his little appointments list. It's like they don't want to help you unless you've already paid them. Which, I mean, okay, whatever. I'm thinking that maybe I should just head elsewhere. I can get the frames online (because they're widely available, for slightly less than America's Best's price). And really, I should have a proper eye doctor anyway, not an office-in-a-glasses-store kind of doc (I say that in the sense of, really, I shouldn't switch docs every time I switch glasses stores, not in the sense of disrespecting docs who set up their practices in affiliation with optical shops).

Whoo, okay, I was going to mention some stuff in here about how Jo-Ann Fabrics was a zoo yesterday because of the fabulous sale they were having, and how, by the time I made it home, I was ready to quote the immortal Nathan Lane line: "I need a martini, a Chagall, and a rabies shot!" (from, as far as I can tell, his quickly-cancelled sitcom Encore! Encore! - let me know if I'm wrong about that. I only saw the line in an ad on Bravo! in like, 2001, and I totally forgot to note what show the ad was promoting). But I think this post has gone on plenty long enough now.

Now playing: "Karma Police" from some Radiohead live show John has on disc.

**Edit** Here are the comments I got on this post before I switched comment systems: clicky