This week’s Photo Hunt theme is birds. These sea birds enjoyed resting on a rocky beach  in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. Here are some more sea birds further north, in Long Beach, Washington state.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get close enough to get a good shot. They began to scatter and fly away.  I don’t have a telephoto lense.  Wish I did.

Below is one of my favorite bird enthusiasts.  His name is Dad.  I have many great pictures of people watching birds, but  few photos of any actual birds.  This was taken on an Audubon outing a couple summers ago.

For more bird photos go to photo hunters

Taken from Jelly, who wanted someone to ’steal’ it.  I hope someone will steal it from me, or pass it on or whatever.

Outside my window:  clouds, gray, pine needles everywhere.

I am thinking about: work, food, staying warm, a December wedding, my daughter coming home for the weekend (YAY).

I am thankful for:

• my family, their support, love, and the way they overlook my many faults
• heat
• seasons
• friends
• furry friends
• the smell of cinnamon
• that I have lived long enough to learn from past mistakes.

I am wearing: jeans, black turtleneck, polka-dot socks — all thrift store finds. I am feeling happy that my outfit was recycled, that my $10.00 didn’t go toward supporting slave labor, that it came preshrunk so I already knew how it would wash up when I bought it.  I got compliments on this outfit — mainly because of the $1.00 beads I used as a name tag holder which perfectly accessorized everything.

I am remembering:

• to practice mindful eating habits
• to drink liquids
• to eat green leaves.

I keep forgetting: to pick up another neti pot.

I am reading: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. Interesting stuff.

On my mind: Today is my day off. I have no plans, but I tend to be a planner, so I’m cementing plans while typing here. It’s stacking up like this 1) tidy up a little 2) eye appointment 3) jazzercize 4) do nails 5) meditate 6) eat popcorn/watch a chick flick with daughter

Pondering these words: Perfect is the enemy of good– a reminder to aim for good, rather than perfection, which isn’t attainable anyway.

From the kitchen: coffee brewed with cinnamon– a blend I picked up from my last trip to Mexico.

Around the house: books, blankets, candles; where is molly??

in other stuff:
Yesterday I got a crown. This was the first time of having dental work done by this particular dentist and I’m happy with her work. I was just thinking how all of my doctors and dentists are women now, except for the spine specialist– who I’ll keep because he has accidentally cured my migraine headaches.  I am way overdue for physicals and tests of every kind.  I vow to make that a priority in the new year.

I have had a sore throat and stuffy nose for almost three weeks. I know it’s just a cold, but I can’t help thinking that it might be H1N1.  I have been told that I am one of those rare people who carries strep but isn’t affected by it all that much.  I get a small sore throat while others can’t swallow or eat.  I feel just a little guilty that I might be passing strep around, but I haven’t had time to see a doctor– and I don’t know for sure that it is strep.

I am happy to have the day after New Years off, so I can attend a meditation retreat. Wednesday someone brought a special cushion to meditation that she got at a Buddhist temple and she let me try her bench and cushion together. It was way more comfortable than it looks. The day after Thanksgiving we’re having a mini day long retreat, and a Zen Buddhist priest will be working with us on meditation technique. I am tired of the same meditation practice and looking forward to some guidance.

I sometimes wonder how much I should post about my involvement with this Buddhist group in my blog here.  I do not consider myself a Buddhist spiritually.  Because Buddhism is both a religion and philosophy, I would say that I share Buddhist philosophy and practice Buddhist meditation. None of it has changed my concept of God.  Yet my spirit has changed.  This is why I hesitate to write about it.  I’m not sure how much I identify with Buddhism because I’m still learning.  I don’t want a label that isn’t mine.  But the change inside is big, to the point that I sometimes want to share what’s happening with that.  It is a part of my life and journey right now.

I am super late with my Photo Hunt post this week.   I have posted about what it’s like to love playing the piano and then losing your ability to hear the piano, and then picking up a new instrument that you can hear better.  In my case it was the djembe.  For awhile I adored my little djembe, and then. . . eh.

It’s fun to play when I can convince people to dance to it, but that hardly ever happens. 

She is  a nice size for my hands.  She was made in Indonesia and was hand painted.    As much as I’ve written about her, and my attempts to play, only today did I learn what the word djembe means, after looking it up in wikipedia.  It literally means gather together.  “Dje” means gather, and “be” means everyone.  The whole point of the djembe is that it’s meant to be shared.  It’s a social experience.  Hence, the popularity of drum circles I guess.

To see more Photo Hunt pictures with a musical theme, go here PhotoHunt

Like most families, many men in my family have served in the armed forces.  Most recently my cousin was a Navy Seal.  I never knew the rigorous training they went through until reading the Perfect Storm, in which an entire chapter details what they go through.  Richard doesn’t talk about it.    As a kid he was sassy and rebellious.  Who would have guessed he would grow up to be a hero?

Many of my family members and ancestors have fought in wars, been injured or died.  Some of them were spared by pure luck, while others perished by strange accident.  Even in peace time, a veteran is someone who gives up his/her life for a few years to make the world a better place.   Peace time can turn to war quickly.  When a young person joins the armed services, their futures are uncertain.  Though I consider myself a pacifist, I realize we always need to be ready to fight for the ideals we Americans believe in.  I guess I’m not a true pacifist after all.

I would like to list those known heroes in my family who have served–

• Richard, Navy Seal
• George, WWII.
• Bruce, WWII, died in action.
• Tom, WWII.
• Sam, WWI, lost a leg.
• Wesley, WWI.
• Glen, WWI.
• Tom, WWI.
• Eric, WWI.
• John, WWI, died in action.
• Joshua, Civil War, Union.
• Charles, Civil War. Union.  Died, age 16.

Every family has a hero.  Today is their day.

I want to say THANKS!

I was happy to see this article about ‘plus-sized’ models in Glamour magazine tonight.  I think these women are beautiful.  One reason I almost never read fashion magazines is because it’s depressing to see skinny young naked women on every page, knowing they eat kleenex since they can’t eat real food.  The fashion industry disgusts me.

These ‘plus-sized’ models look like real women.  In fact they ARE real women They look like they eat and enjoy eating.    They look like the kind of women bring brownies to the office, and eat pie.  You can go out to lunch with these women and share a cheesecake.  They won’t make you feel guilty.  The average dress size in the US is a fourteen.  These models wear between a ten and fourteen.  Why doesn’t the fashion industry design clothing for real women instead of fake women who starve themselves and wear a size zero?

The average woman hates her body.  Sixty percent of all women in the US are overweight.  Many of those who aren’t overweight suffer from anorexia– the third most chronic disease of teenaged girls.  You would think the fashion industry might be concerned that their constant parade of skeleton women encourages unhealthy eating habits of young girls and low self-esteem of all women.  Basically the fashion industry makes most of their customers feel bad about their bodies.  Strange, isn’t it?

Why do we put up with it?  Why do we hate our own bodies instead of boycotting fashion magazines and clothing manufacturers who use skinny, bulimic women to model their clothing?

Consider that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 10, and Renoir painted buxom beauties who looked like this.   Real women have always been curvy and soft.

Kudo’s to Glamour magazine and these models who were brave enough to show the world what REAL women look like.   Yay for fat!

I was in Puerto Vallarta just prior to the Day of the Dead  and it was fun as they have lots of festivities leading up to their holiday, which is much, much bigger than Halloween here.   The skeleton decorations seem morbid, but the Day of the Dead is not a time for evil spirits.  It’s  the day the spirits of your dead family and friends come back to participate in all their favorite earthly vices.   A Mexican friend recalls the entire neighborhood camping out in graveyards in a kind of party atmosphere when he was a kid.  Shrines are erected to the dead with flowers, candles, photos and favorite foods the departed once enjoyed.  Its roots are Aztecan, but the heavy influence of Catholicism has impacted the holiday so there is now a religious aspect involving prayer, as well.  I guess the best way to describe it would be a combination of Halloween, Memorial Day and a wake or something.  We have nothing like it here.

So anyway, the first night in Puerto Vallarta we had a tropical rainstorm.  Perry and I had to walk back to our hotel in pouring rain.  We got drenched, which wasn’t so bad as the rain was warm. As we rounded one corner, we saw a welcome sight up ahead.  A Woolworths!  There is nothing like the smell of Woolworths popcorn.  It drew us in with its tantalizing perfume –a combination of buttery bliss, new bicycle tires and Barbie hair.

As we entered I was mildly surprised to see racks and racks of Halloween costumes, just like the pre-Halloween displays of the Woolworths of my childhood long forgotten.  Little plastic jack-0-lanterns with black handles formed a pyramid next to a jumble of sugared skulls.  I did not realize that Mexican kids trick-or-treat.  Though I had seen a few paper jack-o-lanterns around town, October decorations  seemed over shadowed by colorful Aztec skeletons.

So what do Mexican kids like to dress up as?  There were a number of the usual princess and vampire costumes, and a few devil costumes– but one outift struck me as uniquely Mexican.  A Monk.   I don’t recall seeing  many trick-or-treating monks in my day, but it must be a popular get up, as there were two entire racks of them in all sizes.   I saw no Che costumes anywhere, though they were popular in the US this year.

Later a friend mentioned she had attended a Halloween party with a Mexican man who wore an overly large sombrero, carried around a large bottle of tequila and wore a wide leather strap with shot glasses across his chest the way a Mexican bandito might wear a holster of bullets.  Essentially he went as a stereotype of himself.

This made me wonder how a deaf person might dress in a way to humor people while at the same time pointing out the ridiculousness of d/Deaf stereotypes.  Some thoughts. . . Huge ears and ear muff type ‘hearing aids”, carrying around a bullhorn type thing for the ears, dressing in the shape of a big ILY hand, putting large plastic ears with heaing aids on other places of the body like the middle of the forehead, back of head, butt, belly, arms, legs, etc.  Or maybe dressing up as a ‘deaf hero’   A  person could really have fun with this.

I have gone away for a much needed vacation.  I’m not taking my lap top or phone.

Recently I was given an assignment to write a letter to myself– not a grocery list, or to-do list, but an actual letter.  It was supposed to be like the kind of letter you would write to a child you were proud of, only you were supposed to address it to yourself and list things you were proud of.  I didn’t know what to write.  I haven’t ever done much.  I certainly haven’t done anything I set out to do when I was young.

Hearing loss can do that to you.  Actually — ANY loss can do that to you.  I have had long conversations about this with a friend who suffers with MS.  The hard truth is a lifetime of plans can come crashing down in the time it takes to snap your fingers.  Not that it’s an excuse for doing nothing– no-no.  But losing something big– a sense or your health or someone close– does tend to set you on a different course than you ever imagined.  Instead of thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow, you think about enjoying today.  Maybe I have done too much of that.

Over the years I have spent hours playing the piano in preparation for the day I would no longer hear it.   There were times I sat by the ocean just listening in awe.  I have stopped what I was doing to hear rain on the roof knowing I might not hear it again.  I have opened windows to hear woodpeckers hammering for bugs.  I have walked in snow for no other reason than to hear the crunch against my boots.   I am glad I have done these things.  Because I was fully aware while soaking it all in, these sounds are engraved in my memory.

But I haven’t spent much time working toward any goals.  What am I proud of?  What have I accomplished?  Truth is, when I was nineteen I wanted to be a dental hygienist.  I had it all planned out.  I would clean people’s teeth, make good money and feel great about the services I provided.   But then I discovered people wore face masks in dental offices.

I couldn’t understand the guy I worked for.  His lips were covered all day.  I couldn’t understand the other assistants and hygienists.  I couldn’t understand the patients with their lips numbed, and cotton stuffed in their mouths.  I was going deaf at nineteen.

I can’t say the dental background was a complete waste of time.  I ended up  at a dental insurance company where I met my husband.  Because I was career-less and goal-less, we started a family.  Eventually I began working at the library so I wouldn’t be charged overdue fines anymore.  Basically I’ve spent my life just drifting from one experience to the next without contemplating the future much.

So.  I sat in this workshop racking my brain for something to say, something I’ve accomplished, something to be proud of.  The lady next to me wrote two pages before I could get one stupid sentence down.  Then the workshop leader asked if anyone wanted to read their letter out loud.  No one moved.  We all sat there petrified.

But up out of nowhere this beautiful young woman clumsily stepped forward pushing a walker.  It took a moment for her to get settled, then she started to speak.

“Dear Self,” she said, “I never thought I would be deaf and paralyzed at the age of 28.  You are brave and have a strong spirit. . .“

I folded my paper and tucked it in my purse.  For her, just living was an accomplishment.

Goals?  Who needs ‘em?

DP asked how we educate hearing people about d/Deaf people.  That’s the hard part.

I believe diversity education needs to start young, but with only 1 out of 1000 babies born deaf, hearing children do not get enough exposure to deaf children when young.  On top of that, many deaf children are removed from their communities to attend deaf programs elsewhere.  So hearing children grow up never meeting a deaf person, except possibly an elderly grandparent who suffers in denial and may have self-esteem issues– a sad picture.

Now that baby signs have become popular, hearing children are getting fun exposure to the concept of a visual language.  So there is that.  Also I think many teachers have begun using sign to supplement spelling lessons, which is fun for them.   Still–few children ever meet a Deaf person.

If we based an education program on what other groups have done to gain acceptance, then we need more media exposure of Deaf.  But I don’t just mean Deaf actors taking Deaf parts because there aren’t enough of those parts.  The exposure needs to be consistent.   The Deaf pepsi commercial was a great example.  We need more of those, but the commercials should not always be ads for other products.  The ad itself could be for recognition of Deaf culture and d/Deaf people.

Other Ideas–  A huge event with programs, ads, publicity, marches, parades, etc., etc.– but it should all be happy and positive, which means we need to leave the oral/ASL politics at home.  A fun educational event is not the place to protest audism.  Both deaf and Deaf have to overcome challenges.  We’re in this together.

There are ethnic parades all over the country.  Here in the Seattle area, we have Norwegian Independence Day and Chinese New Year.  Nevermind that most the participants are not really Norwegian or Chinese.  For one day they celebrate their roots by dressing in traditional costumes.  It is not unusual to see a black person wearing traditional Norwegian dress or Viking horns.  This is about unity, not authenticity.  The celebrations need to be inclusive, not exclusive.   If we were to have a d/Deaf event, for one day ALL participants should be accepted as Deaf.

My vision of this d/Deaf event– parades and a fair type atmostphere where the entire hh/deaf/Deaf community gathers to educate hearing people about hearing loss, deafness and Deaf culture.  We could have vendors with information about accommodations, interpreter and ASL programs.  Earplugs would be free to the public, as we would educate them about noise pollution.   This could be our one annual shot at exposing hearing people to the idea that normal Deaf and deaf live amongst them, so we need to present a united front and let them know we’re a large group of diverse people with many different abilities and talents.  We should appear positive, not angry.

I envision Deaf entertainment, lots of food, lots of humor, face painting, music with signers, motivational speakers with interpreters and CART, dancing with balloons, representatives from ALL deaf/Deaf organizations.  Deaf and deaf wearing costumes, ASL clowns, vendors of accommdated equipment, dogs for the Deaf.  EVERYTHING d/hh/Deaf should be represented, esp. ASL.

We need a traveling Deaf hero exhibit that can go from school to school and city to city– so hearing people will learn the contributions and accomplishments of our many Deaf and deaf heroes.  We need Deaf entertainment/speakers who go out to the public schools to educate about hearing loss and Deaf culture in a relevant way to hearing people.  In other words, the message should be “overcoming adversity’ kind of thing, so that hearing children will be inspired to succeed and also to take care of their ears.  Why?  Easier to sell to the public schools– but it would kill two birds with one stone, since the hearing children would also be exposed to a respected successful Deaf person speaking at their school.

What won’t work– anger, protests, complaints of audism.  For one thing, audism is often too subtle.  The reason anger and protesting worked for blacks was because racism was horrifically ugly.

If there should be anything to remind people of audism– possibly a silent candlelight vigil for Deaf victims of crimes perpetrated against them solely because they were Deaf, but only at the end of a very fun event.

None of these ideas are all that original but they are based on what I feel has worked to educate the public about other groups.

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.