My Own Episode of “I Love Lucy”

Was it my macular degeneration that caused me to waste some of my precious, newly purchased vanilla?

Splurging on the best ingredients

I recently splurged on a lovely bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract, made from 100% Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans. 8 whole ounces worth!  I felt that since I don’t do a lot of baking anymore, I should use the best ingredients in what I do bake. No imitation vanilla extract for me.

It did help make the greatest butter pecan cookies even better. When they were in the oven, I  started putting things away and tidying up. I imagine you can guess what happened next.

I moved more quickly than I thought

My small pantry cupboard where I keep my baking supplies is directly across from the stove. The needed shelf about eye level. When I reached up to put that beautiful bottle of vanilla away, it hit the edge of the shelf, and down it went. It landed right on the hard porcelain tile. I moved more quickly than I thought I could when all that fragrant brown liquid started pouring out. The plastic bottle remained intact, but the cap broke, with most of it flying under the stove.

Forget the mess, the cookies are done!

It was then that the timer beeped saying forget the mess, the cookies are done! Grab a towel to throw on the floor, find the oven mitts, don’t step in the puddle! It made me think of the old “I Love Lucy” shows, where she ropes Ethel Mertz into the situation. But I was lucky someone like  Ethel wasn’t there with a camera. I would have gone viral. At least the kitchen smelled wonderful.

After cleaning up, moving the stove, washing the floor, and transferring the rest of the vanilla to a different bottle, I wanted to understand why I missed the shelf when it was so close to my eyes. I know my macular degeneration causes a problem with depth perception, but this was only a few inches away. I would think being that close to my eyes wouldn’t bring it into the equation. But apparently, distance doesn’t make a difference. Depth perception can be off at any distance.

Blurred vision and depth perception

Depth perception is the ability to see things in three dimensions; length, width, and depth. As well as judging how far away an object is. Blurred vision from geographic atrophy or choroidal neovascularization in one eye can cause problems with our depth perception as we need both eyes for our brains to accurately process into a single image. But it’s said that if we have vision problems in one eye for a length of time, our brain helps adjust to the point where it can be less problematic.

Little grey smudge in the middle of my eye

I still find it difficult to understand how I missed the shelf when it was so close and at the perfect height. Maybe it was because I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Or perhaps because that little grey smudge in the middle of my right eye may be less translucent than it was.

Or was my mind on something else? Perhaps looking forward to the sit down with a coffee and the best butter pecan cookie ever!

Editor's Note: As of August 2023, 2 drugs known as complement inhibitors — Syfovre® and Izervay™ — have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat geographic atrophy (GA).