Lost My Hearing, Found A Family

ALDA’s slogan.

WOW!  So true!  So what do late-deafened/oral-deaf/HH people do at these Conventions?  About the same thing you do at any deaf/HH convention. . .

Lots of hugging, signing,  laughing, and checking of PDA’s for messages. . .

Since ALDACON 2009 was held in my hometown of Seattle I didn’t spend the money to stay at the hotel.  It would have been more fun had I stayed, but more than twice the expense. Plus I had to work two of the days four days.

Our plenary speaker was Sue Thomas of FBEye fame.  Her speech detailed her life story, then praised those who had made a difference in her life by dedicating themselves to the education of a deaf child.  She ended with a plea for the Deaf/deaf/HH communities to overcome their differences and unite.

The rest of the day was taken up with workshops about deaf rights, traveling when deaf, advocating for deaf access, communication tools, deaf self-esteem, how to deal with police and lawyers when deaf, and a three-part ASL workshop for those of us who needed help in that area.  This list is incomplete.

The second day was much like the first.  I.King Jordan spoke after the luncheon.  After telling his story he ended with a homework assignment.  He wanted each of us to go back to our rooms, look into our mirrors, then repeat the words, “I am deaf.”  His point was that you can’t deal with your limitations until you face them.  This seems odd coming from someone who says, “The Deaf can do everything, except hear.”  Limitations???  But he is right.  You have to face the fact you are deaf before you can effectively navigate the deaf landscape.

He wasted five years in denial, he said.  Personally, I wasted  twenty years in denial.  Late-deafened people waste too much time in denial, especially when the medical community makes every effort to support your fantasy of a miraculous cure.   To this day, none of my doctors or audiologists have ever uttered the words, ‘You’re deaf,” to my face.   I thank God for a deaf women who bluntly pointed out the obvious a decade ago.  She said, “Kim, when you have to read lips while wearing hearing aids, it means you’re DEAF!”  I hated her for saying that– for about ten minutes.  Then I realized she was right.

I missed day three almost entirely except for the karaoke party– and am I ever glad I did NOT miss that!  Partying with deaf people is never like partying with hearing people.  The music was so loud you could feel it traveling up through your legs, then exploding out the top of your head.  But just in case you couldn’t feel it, balloons were available for the vibrationally challenged.

Because the music was that loud it was impossible to hear anyone sing.  Half of them signed anyway– and maybe mouthed words for effect.  I am not sure.  I could see some mouths moving, but it was impossible to tell if sound was coming out, which was probably good.  Many of us danced in large, wild groups in front of the stage.  Some wore costumes.  Balloons floated about and popped occasionally.

Towards the end of the evening I saw hotel staff looking on with mixed expressions of shock, horror and envy.  It’s good to be deaf.

 

Can Someone on Disability Be Self-Actualized?

AnneMarie asked, “Kim, that is what I have been wondering too. How can one can consolidate her/himself to being actualized while acknowledging her/himself being a disabled? Acceptance of disability as a condition that brings out the gift of language/culture? It’s befuddling yet I have seen more professionals on the medical side have start to seeing us to be a cultural linguistic group through use of ASL language. I will be interested to see how this all somehow balances out. I believe it has to happen if that way Deaf and HoH people can have their own positive image and ability to self actualize to their own fullest.”

I’m answering here as it seems off-subject and overly long to post in DP’s blog. On a personal level it wasn’t until I began seeing my hearing loss as a ‘challenge’ rather than a disability that I felt  actualized.  I’m not sure I am fully self-actualized as I think it’s a lifelong process.

I’m looking at this purely from a late-deafened point of view.  When a person loses hearing later in life, they lose their ability to communicate adequately in their FIRST language.  Because fluency in a second language (ASL) seems unattainable to some, the late-deafened often  see themselves as ‘disabled, while recognizing that the Deaf who speak ASL fluently may not feel disabled at all– especially those who have gained social fluency and success in a career with other Deaf.

Hearing loss later in life is often accompanied by some other disability.  For example, chemotherapy is known to cause profound hearing loss.   Intravenous antibiotics given in a hospital for serious life-threatening infections, and sometimes an infection itself can lead to loss of hearing.  Serious head injury may cause someone to lose hearing and simultaneously affect thinking or cause paralysis.  Stroke victims experience hearing loss.  MS, Menieres, NF2, Arthritis, AIDS, Cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes and a number of other less common conditions can all cause hearing loss.  For many, the hearing loss is part of a bundle of disabilities.

When someone who has been hearing a long time loses hearing they can experience depression, panic attack, GERD, and other stress related symptoms until they learn to cope.  Depression and panic attack can be disabling.

So it is perfectly understandable that a late-deafened person may see his or her hearing loss as ‘disabling’ while acknowledging that others may be Deaf and not feel at all disabled.

Whether or not you see yourself as disabled is personal, but I can say that I think “challenged” is a far better word choice.  When a person is ‘challenged’ it means he or she has hurdles to overcome.  The possibility of achievement is within reach, and the achievement greater because of the hurdles.  Disability carries a negative meaning.

I have nothing against anyone receiving a monthly disability check.  I trust that the government has it all figured out.  However if a person is disabled enough that he or she can’t work, then it seems reasonable to admit that their condition is ‘disabling’ .

As for self-actualization and getting a disability check, I think it’s a question of productivity and using one’s potential to the best of his or her ability.   I personally know a very talented person who can’t work a 9-5 job, but she is artistically gifted.  I would say she is both disabled and self-actualized.  Self-actualization can mean many things besides financial or career success.

 

Self-Actualization in the Real World–A deaf View

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about “deafhood” and self-actualization.  See Deaf Pundit’s blog.

Below is a chart of age at onset of biological hearing loss taken from the Gallaudet website.  You can find the raw statistics here.

Three-quarters of all deaf people lose their hearing after age 19.  I’m not sure if I fit in that spot or in “unknown” or ages 3-18.  My hearing loss was diagnosed at 19, but it began much earlier.  No matter.  My first language was spoken English and I am biologically deaf.

Presumably any North American who became deaf after age 19 would be fluent in English and would have a hard time picking up ASL, or changing their entire lifestyle in order to fit into the Deaf community.  Yes– I realize it can be done– but the bigger question is why would someone want to?

The older one is at age of onset, the more hearing friends one has.  Unless you’re trying to escape your real life, the best plan of action is to accept the medical model of deafness, get good hearing aids or a cochlear implant, join a deaf advocacy group for empowerment and support– then move on.  You may or may not decide to learn ASL, depending on your interests, relationships, and what you do for a living.

As for self-actualization, all that means is to develop or achieve one’s full potential.  That’s all.  Whether biologically deaf or not, all people seek to make the most of their assets in order to self-actualize.  For some of us, that may mean speaking.  Others may decide to work with Deaf people or for a Deaf-centered company.   I could be wrong, but collecting SSDI seems to be the opposite of self-actualization, and Paddy Ladd’s vision of Deafhood.

I realize it’s tough out there.  I know a lot of hearing people won’t give Deaf people jobs.   You have to eat.   There is nothing wrong with collecting those checks.  But please do not tell me I haven’t embraced ‘deafhood” simply because I speak and have a job working with hearing people, or because I have developed friendships with co-workers who hear.  Realize that because I speak I do not qualify for ‘disability’  Yet, because accommodations are needed, hearing people are often reluctant to hire oral deaf people like me too.

Am I an deaf audist?  No.  I’m a deaf realist.   A self-actualized deaf realist.

 

Thirty-some Years of Hearing Loss Progression

I’m way behind on reading what my blogging buddies have been up to. With family relatives visiting for the summer and all the projects we tried to squeeze in before the rains hit, we’ve had our hands full. It’s been a glorious summer here in the Pacific Northwest– a real summer with hot weather that makes you sweat. Most people in the Seattle area (I read 80%) do not have air conditioned homes because we normally only get about three days above 90 degrees a year. This year was different. It was enough to make people run out and buy fans.  TV ads recommended families to head for public air-conditioned spaces, which meant we had the busiest summer ever at the library.  Something like 45,000 kiddos pariticipated in our summer reading program– a record year.

Anyway, just recently I ran across Mog’s post on her hearing loss progression and it inspired me to do my own.  I encourage you to pop on over there because she does a great job in explaining the different stages of hearing loss.  First, I have to thank MOG because I learned some things about Excel 2007 while doing this project.  Secondly I have to apologize for the look of my efforts here.  I’ve never been good at using Paint.  I almost thought about re-doing it, but don’t have the patience.  Or time.

MOG’s hearing loss happened more quickly than mine.  She had a mild loss in 1994, and by 2009 she was ready for a cochlear implant.  My hearing loss was discovered when I was nineteen.  It was mild to moderate then.  Hearing loss doesn’t run in my family, so at first doctors suggested that maybe I had been listening to music too loudly.  Maybe I had gone to one too many rock concerts?

By 1984 I had a child, and had not been to a single rock concert.   At the time I was heavily into baroque music.  I played the piano several hours a day.  Though I was frustrated with the quality of sound I got from my hearing aids, I could still hear the high notes on a piano.  By then it was clear my hearing loss was not due to noise pollution.  I had medical testing done to rule out common causes of hearing loss.  It didn’t seem to be genetic.

An in-depth medical history turned up a couple red flags.  I had had measles;  (Didn’t everyone before they developed a vaccine?)  and I had been given streptomycin.  Both are known to cause sudden hearing loss.  My hearing loss is obviously not sudden, but doctors can’t rule out the possibility that either the measles or streptomycin damaged my cochleas, since both are known to cause hearing loss.

I was concerned and thought I should prepare for the future.  I brought up the idea of ASL, which was totally nixed.  Your hearing is too good.  The deaf will never accept you.  It’s a very difficult language to learn.   No one teaches it where you live. . . I got a book and started exploring it on my own, but they were right.  I had no one to use it with.

By 1993, my hearing was slipping into the severe ranges.  I was in my mid-thirties.  I learned the word ‘idiopathic’ after seeing it written on my chart in a doctor’s office.   It meant there was no known cause for my hearing loss.  Once again, I explored the possibility of learning ASL, but I really didn’t have a lot of time to devote to myself while raising young children.  Besides, doctors kept reassuring me that the hearing loss progression could stop at any time.  They had seen it happen before.  I took a couple ASL classes with my kids.  We learned to fingerspell and a few food signs, but not enough to be able to communicate well.  My third pair of hearing aids were not ‘digital’ but they were digitally programmed analogs and I thought they were pretty cool.

Some time around 2004 I had genetic testing done on my DNA to rule out genetics once and for all.   Two of my children had reached the age I was when the hearing loss was first diagnosed, and I wanted to be sure they didn’t spend years struggling in denial like I had.  Two of my grandmothers were adopted.  Even though both lived to old age with no known hearing loss, we never really knew much about their family medical histories.  I hoped the Connexin 26 testing would rule a genetic cause, and it did!  But of course nothing is ever certain.  Even though most known genetic conditions that cause hearing loss run through that marker, there is the possibility that some other genetic conditions have not yet been identified.  Those could run through some other marker.

My audiologist broached the subject of cochlear implants and recommended that I be tested around this time.  Though my speech discrimination was still good with hearing aids, he felt I should begin thinking about my future.  It wasclear the hearing loss would not arrest itself.  It wasn’t a matter of IF it would get worse, but WHEN.  It was getting to the point my audie may no longer be able to help me with hearing aids, he said.   My digital power aids were awesome and I had unbelievable speech discrimination despite the  low scores on my audiogram.  Speech tones were dipping into the profound ranges.    I began using the term ‘deaf’ to describe my hearing loss.  Neither my audi or I thought I would qualify for the implant, and I was quite relieved when I didn’t.

Five years and four CI tests later, I still haven’t qualified, other than for the hybrid which my insurance company considers ‘experimental’.  This past year my hearing had not gotten worse, but my speech discrimination took a huge nose dive.  It happens as we get older, my doctor explained.  Your ability to make sense of jibberish diminishes.

By now, I’ve learned more ASL, but my family has grown up with someone who speaks.  They’re busy.  My husband feels he’s too old to pick up a new language.  He could be right.  He’s nearly 60 and going deaf himself.  While I recognize ASL as a beautiful language, for me it is just a tool since I doubt I’ll ever be fluent.  Fluency requires practice with others who are fluent.  I speak.  Everyone around me speaks.

Even yesterday someone said she would never have guessed I struggled with my hearing because I spoke ‘like a normal hearing person’.  I cringed when she said it even though she meant no harm.  We’re ALL normal.

Many times I have thought about what might have happened if circumstances had been different.   If my hearing loss had begun nineteen years earlier, or if it had progressed as quickly as MOG’s, I might be using ASL more than my voice now.  I would still be the same ‘normal’ person, but would others see me in the same light?  It’s disturbing to think someone would judge how normal I am by how I speak.

And yet, many Deaf also judge me by how I speak.  The fact that I “choose” to speak rather than sign smacks of rejection of their culture.   But it wasn’t a choice.  I never chose any of this.  I’m merely trying to live my life to the best of my ability with the tools at hand.  That’s all any of us can do.

 

d/Deaf Symbols and their Meanings

Someone made a comment that my header art was appropriate since lips are a symbol for all d/Deaf people.    It’s hard to find a body part more glorified by both hearing and deaf than lips.   If you spent as much time studying lips as I have, you could develop a love/hate thing with lips.  They’re always the most important feature on anyone’s body if they don’t sign.

The Nat'l Foundation of the Deaf-- a lip reading game

Still, I hate relying on lip reading, and I’m not alone feeling that way judging by the many D/deaf anti-oralists there are out there.  The irony is we’re better at lip reading than anyone.  But it sucks all the same.

Another body part we all identify with would be hands.  The Deaf probably love hands more than the deaf, but enough deaf use sign that hands are seen as the epitome of Deaf symbols, especially the ILY sign.  This is probably the first sign every hearing person  learns.  You see it everywhere.  The funny thing is I’ve read blog discussions by some Deaf who hate the ILY sign because it’s so over used.  It’s not uncommon for hearing people to flash the ILY sign at a Deaf person out of a sense of friendship or whatever.  Sometimes it borders on inappropriateness.  To some, it’s like the equivalent of a white person shouting, “Black Power!”  I don’t personally share this view of the ILY sign.  I think it’s sweet watching hearing people flash it all over.  But I understand how Deaf people can come to be bothered by it.  Never the less I own a few ILY objects myself– a hat with ILY on it and some refrigerator magnets.

Then there’s the Kokopelli ‘healing hand‘  which is not widely known among d/Deaf people.   The first time I saw it was when I visited Sedona, AZ several years back.  The healing hand was everywhere.  Instantly I identified with it, and bought a pair of turquoise healing hand earrings.  I wear them to most deaf events I attend, and always get compliments.  I also have a hearing hand house ornament.   I’ve given healing hand mugs to deaf friends who signed.

The healing hand is so deeply symbolic and spiritual for  me personally with several overlapping meanings. People with acquired deafness sometimes come to see the hand as healing or mending communication lines that have been broken.  The ‘healing hand’ can symbolize Deaf hands supporting and guiding the deaf to a peaceful place where communication is easier and more visual.  The healing hand heals the broken spirit of the deaf.   The love I feel towards deaf and Deaf who have gone out of their way to support and help me learn ASL is expressed by the Kokopelli  hand.

Eyes.  People of the Eye.  I had never heard that expression until I joined DeafRead.  Deaf people use their eyes to hear.   It’s strange.  In the past few years as my hearing loss became profound I sensed a shift in visual perception.  I’ve always been more observant than a lot of hearing people, but suddenly color and movement took on different meaning.  I’m not sure if this is because the final dive into profound deafness coincided with learning ASL, or if it was because I had been deaf so long, my mind finally made a visual shift.  But it’s been an indescribable change, something I’m sure no hearing person could understand.  There are no words for it.  Possibly there’s a sign?

Countess Grotesque/DeviantArt

I don’t particularly like pictures of eyes without their bodies.    While I identify with eyes as a d/Deaf symbol, eyes can give me the creeps.

Ears.  A deaf friend gave me a small cheap portrait of ‘Van Gogh’s ear’ once, while we were rooming together at a deaf convention.  The rubber ear was so much bigger than the rest of his body, I laughed at it over and over.  The unsaid joke between us was that we’d both lost our ‘ears’ but here’s one you could use.  It would not have been a funny gift from anyone who could hear.  To me, it was like saying, “We’re in this together.”   I kept it in my kitchen for a long time as a reminder  to keep perspective on the hearing loss.  They’re just ears.  My hearing family never got the joke, even after I explained.  To them, it was a gross reminder of VanGogh cutting off his ear.

Then there is ear art. Newly deaf often try to hide their hearing aids as much

Coolest Hearing Aids Ever!

as possible.  But the longer you’ve been deaf, the more you may wish to accentuate them.  This can be partly attitude and partly practical.  Other people forget you wear hearing aids unless they’re clearly visible, so showing the aided ear off is a small reminder, “Hey–I’m deaf!”  Decorating them is a way of saying, “My hearing aids are cool!”  Deaf Attitude.  I love it.

The last symbol I can think of that many d/Deaf identify with is a surprise.  It’s the butterfly.  People with acquired deafness view the butterfly on two levels.  You go through a transformation when you become deaf.  Initially many of us stop socializing and shut ourselves up into almost a cocoon like state while grieving over a hearing loss.  When we’re done, we emerge a different person.  We may feel free from societal constraints of communicating one specific way, and free to be our deaf selves.  We know we’re different from others, and we’re OK with that.  A kind of psychological metamorphosis has taken place.

I identified with butterflies long before I learned they were deaf, which is the second way d/Deaf identify with the butterly.  They’re DEAF!  Imagine that!

Here’s is a cool butterfly pin you can buy out of the Harris Catalog for the d/Deaf.  I love this pin because of the way it depicts both a butterfly and the ASL sign of butterfly.

Butterfly Pin from Harris Catalog

 

CI, Deafness and God — Is it ‘a test’?

Recently this blog post called ‘CI, Deafness and God’ upset me. Basically this guy, Jim, thinks deafness and all disabilities are a ‘test’ from God and I guess if you ‘pass’ the test by accepting your challenges, then he feels you will be rewarded in heaven or something. I will only post his concluding words here–

Every disability a child is born with is a test from God to see if the child can accept who he is. I have accept my disability and I know God is testing me. I know that technology is out there to make me be a better person but I choose not to touch those new technology because I would rather accept myself as I am before I die. That will show to God that I love him unconditionally even with what I have.

Years ago when I was a little girl, I attended a Christian church called Good Hope Lutheran. Why was it called “Good Hope”? Because many Christians found hope in the Christian word there. In my church we celebrated messages of love, tolerance and forgiveness taught from the Bible. The stories of Job and Abraham were taught in the context that God no longer needed to “test” us because we had already been forgiven. (For those of you who don’t remember– Job was the guy who God sent a plague upon, killed his family, caused him to lose all his money, then made his body covered in sores so he was ugly and everyone in town scorned him– all of this as a test of his faith. Later, God blessed him even more because of his great faith. Abraham was the guy who God asked to sacrifice his only son, then just as Abraham was about to kill him, God sent a lamb for sacrifice instead.)

The past few decades it seems like many Christians and Christian churches have lost that message of love and hope and a new message of hate has taken root. Many, like Jim above, continue to believe God ‘tests’ us with terrible ordeals so that we may be redeemed in heaven.  Of  course if we fail we could end up– where?  In hell? Some Christians have also taken to protesting in the streets proclaiming God hates certain kinds of people. 

I found a study called “Politcal Tolerance and God’s Wrath in the United States” published by the Organization of Sociology for Religion that suggested a correlation between church attendance and lack of tolerance. The initial hypothesis was that when people viewed God as someone who judged and punished, they themselves were less tolerant of others. After allowing for controls, numerous studies have proven this hypothesis true.

Could this be why Christian religions are losing ground?

While atheists and agnostics are gaining ground?

Awhile ago I wrote about how I have changed spiritually since losing my hearing. I mentioned that I had embraced Buddhism, which can be either a philosophy or a religion. From a Buddhist perspective it’s fine to practice Buddhist meditation while believing in Christ, but from a Christian perspective, I’ve probably fallen off the wagon. I believe I am still worshipping the same old God of Good Hope Lutheran, but I’m finding His loving messages of hope in a different place.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. – The Dalai Lama

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been inspired by some incredibly happy Christians who lived purposefully and compassionately. I don’t believe joy and compassion are limited to Buddhism. The notion of compassion is fundamental to both both religions– but emphasized so much more in Buddhism. It’s not that I believe Jim (above blog) is wrong. He could be absolutely right about his own deafness and disability. Maybe HE is being tested. That could be HIS truth. But my truth is different.

At the risk of sounding flakey I will admit that I knew I was going to lose my hearing as a preschooler. I have had a few weird premonitions in my life and that was one of the more memorable ones–especially when it came true fifteen years later. I’ve always found it a comfort knowing my deafness was meant to be. So I don’t necessarily disagree with Jim that some of us are supposed to be d/Deaf. But is it a ‘test’? Why would God need to test a baby? Isn’t God more compassionate than me? If so, then why would God in His infinite compassion cause so much suffering? Is God such an egomaniac that  he’ll punish people who don’t  worship him even after he cripples, blinds and deafens them?  If so, he sounds more like a terrorist. 

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions and no Christian has ever adequately supplied them. Buddhists don’t have the answers either. But instead of telling what they think, they shrug and tell you to meditate on it. Only God knows. . . if there is a God.

Is deafness a punishment? I doubt it–I have lived a good life. It might be a punishment for those who have led harder lives. But my deafness doesn’t feel like a punishment. Is deafness caused by bad karma? Maybe? Sometimes? I don’t know, but bad karma doesn’t fit with the message of forgiveness, grace and compassion that I believe.

Is there a purpose to deafness? Only if I choose to make a difference.

I like the Dalai Lama’s words because there is little talk of what God thinks or what God wants from us. Instead, Buddhists meditate and follow the Eightfold path to enlightenment.

Buddhists don’t know what God thinks of the cochlear implant. Buddhists don’t even know if there is a God, or if we’re all Gods, or what.  When bad things happen, is it fate or luck? That’s such an old question.  Buddhists don’t know the answer.  What happens happens. 

We do know being Deaf can be difficult when living with a hearing family, within a hearing community. We know that it can be hard to find a job when hearing people will not hire a Deaf person who needs accommodations. We know that alleviating those difficulties through the use of modern technology may seem an act of compassion to some, and horrifying to others. Learning sign language in order to communicate with a Deaf person may also seem compassionate, but difficult for others. There are many ways of living compassionately. We must all find our own ways.

Loving kindness to all, including Jim.

 

Philly Day Two at the Zoo!

Day Two in Philadelphia there was nothing planned until the Welcome Party at 7pm. Lorne would be flying in around 4-ish and Robyn wanted to see the zoo. She had never seen American animals in real life, she said. Which ones, I asked? She wanted to see a raccoon, which made me smile. I’ve got a family of raccoons living right in my yard. I actually don’t like them very much because they aren’t nice to cats. She also wanted to see squirrels, snakes and bears. I have ALL these in my yard. Bears do not come into my yard often, but I have had one. She had to say ‘bears’ three times then spell it because I couldn’t understand what she meant with her accent. It looked like she was saying bees when I read her lips. The New Zealand ‘r’ is very soft. I couldn’t believe they didn’t have bees in NZ. HAHA! They DO! Of course!

We got up early, then went to breakfast in the hotel. It turned out Michael, Paul and RuthAnn also wanted to come with us to the zoo, which was fine with us– the more, the merrier!

Robyn planned on bringing her marmite to breakfast so us Americans could try it, but she forgot. I was SO relieved. It stunk! OH! Before I forget. We became extremely upset with the breakfast service. They had a buffet but several of the board members didn’t want that much to eat, so ordered a light breakfast instead– Robyn included. After an hour and a half, they started throwing down their napkins and getting really pissed off. Nothing came. I got down to breakfast late. I was not hungry because I was still full from Robyn’s pineapple lumps the night before. They’re SOOOOOOOO good. So anyway, I went up to the desk, and complained about the slowness of their service. My breakfast order was taken and served within minutes. The rest got theirs too. We had tons of problems with the hotel staff throughout. More about that later. None of us ate breakfast at the hotel again until the final breakfast buffet where they went all out to please us, but our silver and plates were not well cleaned. Two people at my table sent their service back. Mine was OK.

Back to the zoo–those of you who know Robyn know she’s into photography in a big way, and she takes beautiful pictures. I urge you to go to her blog if you haven’t. Photography was the whole point of hitting the zoo. I should mention here, it was the oldest zoo in the country. It opened in 1874. It’s a very, very small zoo– but I sorta liked it because the animals were close and the buildings were old and beautiful. In the Seattle zoo, all the animals have much more space which means they often wander far away from the viewing area. This is better for the animals I know, but I kinda liked being able to see them up close in Philadelphia.

Anyway– it was hot out and they had confiscated my sunscreen at the airport– so Paul and I bought some there. It was really cool cuz the bottle has a little metal ring you can attach to a belt loop or your tote so you won’t lose it. I LOVED this idea! So did Paul! Now we have matching sunscreens!

We got separated several times at the zoo, so we all exchanged phone numbers and texted each other all the time. Somehow the first time I texted Paul to see where he was, he sent back the word, “just.” ARGGHH! Later, when Paul and I couldn’t find Robyn, she sent back the word “just” too. This has become a joke — or maybe it’s a secret code I’ve never figured out.

I should add here Philly is very easy to get around without a car. They have these tourist buses that will drive you to all the fun places tourists like to go. You don’t have to worry about navigating a strange city by bus because it goes in a constant circle. If you miss your stop you’ll end up there again in no time. Our zoo driver became upset and stressed out when he ended up driving behind a horse drawn carriage traveling on the wrong street. Then he became upset again when another tour bus parked in his spot. I was happy to be riding in the bus instead of driving.

It didn’t take long to go thru the zoo. Robyn and Michael decided to do some more exploring. I went back to the hotel with RuthAnn and Paul. On our way back, we ran into some more SWC members going out for lunch, so we tagged along, ending up at a little coffee shop/deli. There I had the worst lunch ever– though it initially sounded good. A sandwich with roasted eggplant, spinach and white cheese that had no flavor at all. The spinach wasn’t sauteed or anything, so it was also tasteless,but it would have been fine if the cheese had some flavor. It was AWFUL! But I ate it up anyway.

Then it was time to go back. Several people by now knew about my stupid mistake with the flight arrangements, and they let me know Lorne got in OK– ALONE. I hoped he wasn’t upset with me. It was time to shower and get ready for the Welcome Party.

I had a blast meeting up with several people I had not seen in over a year. Some of them spoke ASL and I was happy I understood. I let one woman try out my pocket talker cuz she had never seen one. Robyn had brought some wine from New Zealand and was handing out samples. I talked to several others there– One of the BOD members had some special fortune cookies made up with fortunes that said things like, “If you talk to my back, expect to pay.” HAHA! Lorne showed up and assured me he was not mad. I felt better after that. We all had to move downstairs into the bar after 10 so the other hotel patrons could get some sleep. I should not post pics of people without their permissions, so I disguised them all with Photbucket tools. I LOVE Photobucket tools! I took the picture of the flamingoes above too, then turned them into a painting!

I miss Robyn. She’s still texting me from CA, telling me where all she’s going. Today while at my Weight Watchers meeting she let me know she was eating ice cream on the beach. . .PFFFT.

 

Say What??

So today I showed up for my djembe lesson, and my instructor greeted me with, “Hi! You can go ahead and use the bathroom first before we start– if you don’t mind.”

I didn’t need to go to the bathroom. I am fifty years old. I think I know when I need to use the bathroom! My drum lesson is only a half-hour long! This was strange for him to insist I use the bathroom! Firmly, but politely I responded, “No thank-you, I already went before I came.” (not that it’s any of your damned business I thought to myself)

His eyebrows furrowed and there was a looong pause before he said, “. . .NO. . .I need to use the bathroom. . .IF you don’t mind?”

 

“Oh.” I said sheepishly, then started laughing like a crazy woman when it hit me how funny the whole misunderstanding was. I was still laughing when he came back from the bathroom. I’m quite sure he thinks I’m a nut.

 

Did You Know. . . ???

Thomas Edison was nearly deaf? Some sources say he inherited a progressive hearing loss from his father, while others say it was possibly caused by scarlet fever when he was 14. He himself often claimed he had been “boxed” in the ears while riding a train. He heard a pop and lost his hearing after that. It’s hard to say what caused his hearing loss, but he was totally deaf in one ear and 80% deaf in the other.

Sept. 24- 30 is Deaf Awareness Week. This came out of the The World Federation of the Deaf Congress, which met in July of this year. The idea is to educate the public about hh/deafness, its causes, the culture of deafness and the fact that the deaf/hh are highly capable, productive people who have contributed much to the world.