The Most Wonderful Children in the World

[copied from dland]

... are mine. Because ...

K made the decision herself not to go to DC because of the weather. This meant that I did not need to leave work at noon and drive down the Parkway to the train station in this horribly disgusting snow/sleet/slush storm to catch her 2.30 train. She's pretty bummed that she couldn't go, and has good reason to be, but she knows she made the right choice.

R decided as well not to drive to Atlantic City tonight. No car should be on the road that doesn't need to be, and she's got the stomach bug anyway, so she's staying home. What a good kid.

(And just as I was about to bitch about the Hubs and where the hell was he, he walked in. And to my amazement, did not drop his briefcase and go right out again to shovel. He's having dinner like a normal person. Better go check the basement for pods.)

As you might surmise, it is a horribly yucky day of weather out there. And as K has pointed out more than once, yesterday she went out wearing flip-flops. And it creeps me out when it snows after the clocks have changed; I can only remember that happening once or twice before. (Of course, we always changed the clocks weeks later, but you know what I mean.)

In other news, here's a weird turn of events. Stop me if I've mentioned this before, but I don't think I have; it's mostly a today revelation. Even after the adjustment the other night, I was still having trouble with the hearing aid and the telephone. It's very hard to get a phone to fit over an in-the-ear aid without causing all kinds of static and feedback. But this morning I realized that if the aids are set to the right volume, I can always use any phone on my right ear. This is the ear that is 100% cold stone deaf, folks, but the microphone I'm wearing there now is soooooo good that it's actually preferable to use the phone that way. But it's such a disorienting change of a 15 year old habit! I have not held a telephone to my right ear -- or more to the point, with my right hand -- in 15 years. And now that I have to, if I need to write something down while I'm on the phone .... well, I'll figure it out. I just love that I can do it.

You know, and I think I have said this before, a hearing loss becomes very ingrained in you; you lose the sense of what it was like to hear 20/20, as it were. In my dreams, when I'm involved in a conversation with someone, I am always positioned to the right of all the other people so that I can hear them with my left ear. In my dreams! So it's very much a part of me, and getting used to what I hear now is the part of the adjustment that I have to make myself. I don't know if every other hearing aid I've had has been crap or if my hearing has gotten worse, but I seem to be hearing more "new" sounds now than I did with any other new hearing aid. The water rushing in the stainless steel sink is so loud! The sleet on the windows! There was an annoying background noise that I couldn't get rid of, so I kept working on what it might be, and I finally got it a few hours ago: it's my computer. Computers make noise when they're on! Did you all know that? I didn't. Either I didn't have a computer 15 years ago -- okay, I did; I'd already had a Commodore 64 and was on my first PC -- but if they made noise then, I had no memory of it. I didn't need to, until now. That's today's installment of Adventures of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

So now I'm in for the duration, which is supposed to be sometime tomorrow morning. I do need to get to the supermarket (since it's a day that ends in y) since I forgot to get bananas yesterday, and now that, surprise! the kids will both be home for dinner on Sunday, it looks like I get to make the corned beef and cabbage after all, presuming I can still find one to buy tomorrow. And yes, tomorrow is the birthday of my firstborn, which has already led to the annual questions, which begin at any random point on the evening of the 15th: What were you doing 26 (this year) years ago right this minute? My answer to K this last time was: I was in fucking labor. Because you know, even after 26 years, you don't forget 36 hours of labor. (Maybe after 36 years, I'll stop bitching about it.)

My other big plan for the weekend consists of trying some new eyeshadow to see if it looks good or makes me look like an escapee from the set of The Addams Family. Maybe if the weather clears up tomorrow afternoon, K will go hang out with R and I'll have some TV time to myself, and I'll watch Stranger Than Fiction, which I got from Blockbuster online about three weeks ago. This no late fee thing is great, but they sure are making their money on me, since it takes me forever to watch one movie.

My feet are cold. Time to burrow.

WATCHING THE SIMPSONS :: ENTRY #1403