1 February 2024
You know . . . if it’s not one thing . . .
Taking a page from my friend, Michelle, over at Boulderneigh, this morning. Here are some photos from my life in the past week or so.
We had a brutal cold snap just after I returned from my holiday trip to Connecticut. I got home on Wednesday, January 10th, and on Friday the 12th, we had the second of two snowstorms. Then, we dropped down into the deep freeze. And when I say deep freeze, I mean temps substantially below zero for 16 days in a row, and a number of days with windchills in the -35 (Fahrenheit) neighborhood. Last week it finally started to warm up, and last Friday enough of the snow and ice had melted that I was able to get out for a walk around the pond – something I hadn’t been able to do for quite awhile. I was stunned to see this house. I’m guessing that either it’s empty, or that the owners are snowbirds. I let the village know about it – the pipe(s) had to have burst during the cold snap to have built up that much of a waterfall of ice. Oh, and you can clearly see the giant hornet/wasp nest that’s still on the tree there to the right. I’m really surprised that no one alerted the village before I did. The McMansions in this newest subdivision in my village were being built in 2006. When the market crashed in 2007, the subdivision was never completed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the house is vacant. But man, whoever owns it is going to have one hell of an insurance claim. If it looked this bad outside, I cannot even imagine how bad the damage is inside.
I did a bit of playing with the demo 54 cylinder that I borrowed from the manufacturer of my sock machine. It didn’t really work for what I had hoped (leg warmers), but Isabell Kraemer had recently released a pattern called Fluffy and Snug, and the wrist warmers called for 54 stitches. So I adapted the pattern to crank them on my machine. The bottom is how they look finished. I will tell you that it took for fricking ever to Kitchener the ends. But they came out pretty nice – and I hid my Kitchener on the inside ;-D I got a little biasing on the first one that I finished, but none of the others have done that, so I think it’s more to do with my Kitchener than anything else.
I have not regretted the Air Fryer I got that has the rotisserie. My trussing pattern needs a little work, but it works well enough :-D
I took myself on an Artist’s Date over to Barnes & Noble in a neighboring town on Monday. I was just so thrilled to see her, and if I could have sneaked her out under my big coat somehow, I probably would have done so ;-D
Do you not recognize her? She’s Hilary Knight’s wonderful illustration of Kay Thompson’s Eloise.
And finally – further to the title of this post, I went into the city on Tuesday to have my hearing evaluated. In September, when I had my physical, I had mentioned to my doc that I found myself saying “What did you say?” more often and since I couldn’t remember the last time I had had a hearing test, he suggested I should get that set up. I made the call back in September, but the first available was the last Tuesday in January! I know I hear better out of my right ear, and I have found that I do better now with closed captions watching the British/Scottish/Irish shows that I love even though I’m very familiar with all those accents (family, friends, an ex-husband, you get the picture). And I’d been joking about getting my hearing checked. But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would receive a diagnosis of Normal to Moderately Severe hearing loss in both my ears with my left ear being worse than my right. About 2/3rds of my hearing over multiple frequencies is majorly diminished. This was extremely upsetting to me. I’ve been a musician in one form or another pretty much my entire life. I’ve already lost my singing voice, which was my major instrument. The thought that I could lose even more of my hearing was and is very distressing to me.
It’s nerve damage, which comes from environment, loud noise, and genetics. I know my mom needed hearing aids near the end of her life, and apparently my voice was in the frequency that she couldn’t hear well . . . . Anyway, I’ve had a discussion with my primary doc about this and he’s really glad I had the evaluation and that I’ve made the second appointment, which is where I have a consultation with the audiologist. I couldn’t get back in until the end of March, but that’s OK. The research I did – and he confirmed this – is that hearing loss can lead not only to isolation, but also to loss of cognitive function. I’m already isolated because I live alone, and I’m really not interested in any loss of cognitive function. So . . . hearing aids it is. I cannot even tell you how sad I am about this. It feels like a huge loss to me. I mean, I can still hear and I’m not going deaf, but it’s another sign of my aging body, and I just don’t like acknowledging that time marches on, I guess. I’m trying hard to process this latest piece of aging. I’ll be talking to my therapist about it this afternoon.
I had been thinking about getting my bagpipes going this year but now I’m not so sure. There are some special ear plugs – Etymotic – that they can fit for me that might allow me to keep playing. Part of me wants to explore that, but part says not to fool around with the hearing I still have. It’s on my list of questions for the audiologist when I see her again at the end of March.
In happier news, on my way home from the train on Tuesday, I saw these in my front yard. It feels like it’s early for them, but I guess we’ll see how they do.
Some Chicago-style R&B with the late Big Twist. Don’t we all wish we could turn back time every now and then?
Knit and Run 
Well, now you know and can get the hearing aids you need. I was thinking, “Well, at least bag pipes are loud,” thinking you could easily keep playing them, but after reading your remarks I understand your thinking about the pipes maybe being part of the problem. Aging is not for the faint of heart; nope, nope. Dealing with our own issues here; not fun.
Michelle, I hope all is well with you. I’m going to be talking about my pipes with the audiologist when I see her again. It’s on my list of questions, but I’m feeling like I don’t really want to fool around with what’s left of my hearing. I guess I’ll find out at my next appointment :-)
Pingback: I Had Absolutely No Clue . . . | Knit and Run