Eyes Wide Open
Natalie starts Kindergarten in a few weeks. I’m excited, she’s excited. But along with all of our giddy school girl excitement comes a bunch of paperwork. And a required visit to her rock star pediatrician.
He dropped the bombshell at her all important 5 year check up Miss Natalie succeeded at failing her vision test; he also recommended a follow up exam elsewhere. Lovely.
We went home, she celebrated with pizza and ice cream; I logged on to twitter (@nominivan) the fine news to everyone with good eyes. Minutes later I saw a Blogher ad announcing their event with LensCrafters where attendees would get an eye exam and pair of glasses for nada. And a child’s eye exam for double nada.
Kismet. Fate. Mommy’s credit card breathing a sigh of relief.
Emailed Superstar Jenny and I was added to the guest list. Yea!
The evening of the event there was a torrential downpour – aka The Day Mother Nature Used My Blue Dress To Dry Her Eyes, Soak Up Her Snot and a few other things to cause you to ball your eyes out (namely you step into a puddle while wearing Louboutin ballet slippers.)
But still I persevered. There were promised libations in glasses and mingling to be done. And prescription glasses!!
Upon arrival I was greeted and offered food and drink while I took a look around the store. I took pictures of the store and of the official event photographer – Hey, I have eyes remember?! (Il est tres beau, oui? Oui!)
Glasses, glasses, everywhere, glasses near and far.
Hundreds of glasses … some funky, some plain… definitely enough to choose from no matter your personality.
A few minutes later I was brought over to a LensCrafters fashion style expert named Natasha. She works at their 20th Street and Fifth Avenue location (don’t mind my shiny face) –
Natasha toured me around the LensCrafters store and patiently (ok, really patiently) listened to my quirky reasons why I wouldn’t consider each designer frame after designer frame she suggested. Natasha understood my weird reasoning and then inspired confidence in me to go against my usual comfort zone of silver frames. I decided to try something new. We managed to find six pairs.. even one that made me look like a sexy librarian.. but I put that one back .. until I get a job anchoring FOX NEWS.
My six pairs of frames then became three… And then it was time to play “mirror mirror on the wall, which pairs the fairest of them all?”
Look #1 is from Chanel .. also known as the first pair I was given to try and at first I told Natasha “no way”…
And then two others… one by Dolce & Gabanna
And one from Bulgari
And those fine readers are the winning pair… which I would have never chosen in a million years if it weren’t for Natasha gently pressing me to get a pair that weren’t my usual boring plain silver frames.
After finding my frames, it was time for a presentation on eye health by Dr. Eliot Grossman, the VP of Eye Care for LensCrafters who explained the importance of annual comprehensive eye exams for every member of the family. He impressed upon us the fact that basic screenings don’t show the possible health issues that can be seen during these eye exams.
Dr. Shirlie Dowd — who is at the 55th and Second location where Miss Natalie will be getting her eye exam – talked next about eye disease not being limited to problems with your sight and how she tries to educate people who haven’t had an eye exam in years about the need for pro-active care. She even told us a story about one of the Optometrists present at the event finding an undiagnosed brain tumor during an eye exam. Yea. Wow.
And the lovely Gina Garrubo of BlogHer was happy we were able to attend and receive valuable information on eye health for our families. I think she realized we genuinely appreciated the informative presentation.
After the presentations, out came my contacts and I took a test for glaucoma and then used the Optimap machine which shows detailed images of our eyes from behind the cornea.
During my eye exam Dr. Hilmer asked about my family’s health, figured out my prescription and also saw my scar from the corneal abrasion I got when was a teenager. Yes, the scar is still there. But according to Dr. Hilmer, the 4mm scar will never get bigger so that’s good news considering I’ve been told if it was 1mm to the left I would have lost my eyesight.
After my comprehensive eye exam but before I braved the rain to drink sangria with another blogger go home, I received a gift bag with a cute eyeglass case, lens cleaner and a gift certificate for a kid’s eye exam. My glasses would arrive in a week.
If my pictures look awful, blame the rain. Shortly after leaving the event, my HP Photosmart R827 was dropped, rained on and pretty much damaged. Time for a new camera… hmm… wonder if a digital camera brand is doing an event soon? 
This LensCrafters event recap is a compensated review of a BlogHer event
