Thursday, August 25, 2016

Help! I Can't Hear Anymore

The other day I had a chance to experience deafness. This isn't the first time of course.
How many times have people mumbled so I couldn't hear them? I thought they said
something completely different then I replied with a totally irrelevant answer and felt
knee high to an ant afterwards. Countless times!

But getting back to the other day - Krysta asked me to listen to a song on YouTube -
"Give Me Your Eyes" written by Jason Ingram. We listened to the song and watched
the video that went with it. I noticed immediately that I could not understand all the words.
Krysta said she would print off the lyrics for me when were done listening.
(There is just something about holding paper in my hands and reading the words while
people sing that helps my hearing a great deal.)

So I am listening to the song. The video is filmed in an airport. There is a picture of a man
dressed in a black suit and a red tie. I heard these words, "Lassoed with a bright red tie."
I started to giggle. It struck my funny bone. Krysta looked puzzled but I didn't explain right
away because we wanted to get the message of the song.

At last the song was over. Krysta showed me the words. My eyes scanned down the page
searching for the words about the red tie. Here they are:
"There is a man just to her right  Black suit and a bright red tie"
I pointed to this line and commented to Krysta,
"These words aren't the same as they sang on the video/"

"I think they are," she said. "What do you see that's different?"

"I didn't hear them say black suit."

"What did you hear them say then?" Krysta asked.

"They said, 'Lassoed with a bright red tie,' I said, emphatically.

We will here draw a curtain over the next scene that involves Krysta laughing hysterically
at her elderly, deaf mother. 

This episode reminded me of a huge eye ball we saw in a park in Chicago one year.
I think we were told that a high pitched sound was being played near this area to keep
young people from loitering. A sound that older people can no longer hear, but is very
annoying for young ears. Don't quote me on this. I am still checking with others who were
there to find out if my memory is failing me and this is just a figment of my imagination.

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And now I am losing things as well. We needed passports for our trip to Canada.
I called Jorgan to make sure he has his passport because it wasn't in the safe with ours.
"And by the way - do you have your birth certificate?" I asked.

He had his passport but after looking through his stuff he called to say he can't find the
birth certificate. He remembers that I was carrying it in my purse for awhile when he got
his license updated when he turned 21 or something like that . . .

I looked and looked. Then I thought I might as well just go to the court house and get him
another one. The price has doubled  since 20 years ago when we got his official birth cert so
we could get his passport so we could go to Haiti to visit my sister in 1997. I filled out
some paper work then the nice gal said it would be just a minute or two. She came back
and said, "The father's name is not on this birth certificate."

I didn't understand what she was talking about and must have looked dumb. She repeated
herself and said it will cost $40.00 to have his name added. I said, "It was on the one we lost."
"Are you sure?" she asked. Then - "Were you married when Jorgan was born?"

"Yes, I was married. Jorgan is our fourth child. His dad's name is on the decorative birth certificate that the hospital gives." I pulled that out to show her. She gave me a phone number to call. I decided not to get the birth certificate yet. I am hoping I can find the first one. I never throw anything away. How can it be lost?

The worn out cliché is still true. Growing old is not for sissies.