Great news! I am so happy to finally announce that the Year-End Celebration will be on Tuesday December 14th from 6:30-9:00pm at the well-known Tabaq Bistro on U Street. You are welcome to join me many of the 365 recipients for a night of celebration. Your ticket in is a donation that you deem appropriate. All funds collected will help pay for the event and go toward some awesome charities! If we get a sponsor for the event, EVERYTHING goes to charity!
If you use Facebook and want to RSVP, click on the Facebook Event Page.
Embassy Opticians, 1330 Connecticut Ave., NW, Wash. DC
I have spent a lot of time in front of a computer over the last 333 days and I am sure it hasn’t helped my eyes at all. The other day I went to Embassy Opticians to get a new set of glasses and ended up giving $10 away.
This entire experience sometimes can get mind numbing. First of all the whole idea of putting frames on to see how you look when you don’t have your glasses on to help you see is a bit of challenge. But in the end I managed to find a pair of glasses that I liked for a reasonable price.
Armando has worked there for the past two years although he has been with the company at a different location for four more years. He is very helpful and seems to have a good eye for what type of frame works well with your facial structure. What I personally liked about him is that I didn’t feel rushed or pressured in any way.
Armando cleaning some lenses.
He’s a very out going individual, or at least it seems that way. “I’m very extraverted at work, but introverted at home,” Armando told me. “I’m out of control sometimes when I’m here and then I go home and I am really chill.” Chill except for the time that he ended up in jail on his 26th birthday! Yeah, don’t let the soft voice and innocent face fool you…this guy has done some hard time in the slammer. Ok, I’m exaggerating. He had a little too much to drink and passed out in the back of a taxi on his way home. “I woke up to an officer pulling me out of the cab!” It reminds me a little of the story that Tekele told me on Day 310 – maybe Armando passed out in Tekele’s cab!
Armando darts around the store looking for the perfect frames for me. U2’s Beautiful Day is playing in the background as the drizzle moistens the pavement out front. “I once melted a pair of my Mom’s glasses trying to bend them by heating them up with the stove,” he tells me placing a pair of glasses on my face. I think it’s best they keep Armando out front with customers and not in the back adjusting frames!
I’ve tried to follow up with Armando to find out what he ended up doing with the $10 but haven’t gotten a response. He’s either hard at work fitting people with new glasses or passed out in a cab some place in the city.
Here I am yesterday wearing my new glasses. I'm organizing my notes about the day's $10 recipient in my Moleskine journal.
If you need new glasses, I highly recommend you check with Armando. Not only did he fit me with a great new set of glasses, he worked with me to make it affordable as well. What more can you ask for?
Oh, I almost forgot, today is Pay it Forward Day…it’s got almost 500,000 people committed to paying it forward in some way today! That’s awesome.
Embassy Opticians are located at 1330 Connecticut Ave. ½ block south of Dupont Circle.
Year of Giving 