Five String Guitar

Of Paper And Pens

2011-09-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

August is over, and the annual "back to school" frenzy that attacks those of us that have "bairn's. bambino's and/or brats" is well under way.

♬♪♩The autumn wind, ♪♬♫ came rolling in...♪♬♫.

But I digress.

The back to school Flyer's confuse me with "Notepads, Ipads, PC, Mac books, Ibooks, laptops, mainframes, calcubooks, Smart phones, IPhone, skypehones, Kobo readers, eyereaders, electronic notebooks....."

Note pads I always thought were a smaller version of a legal pad, and I am not so sure that I can find anyone in the "back to school" crowd that can define a "legal pad". How many of those under 15 out there can give me the measurements of a legal sheet of paper, or the localised North American standard sheet?

I still carry a "notebook" but not a $400 one that is WiFi, or has a key board. It is paper.
Made from a tree I suspect, but who knows. I like the whiteness of a note pad as well as the regal feel of a legal pad when I need to take important notes.
I love a good pen as well. The feel is just as important as the grace in which it skates across a page. I will spend as much time shopping a good pen every 3 or 4 years, as I do when I shop a household appliance.

I like the feel of a book as well. I struggle with an electronic reader. I understand the need and the functionality of having 300 books in one small hand held electronic device, but I love the book. I walk into our living/family room and feel secure (and smarter) just seeing the shelves and rows of books. We may not have read them all, but we do love the art of the browse, when desire strikes us.

I am no Luddite, and am not about to go on a crusade and picket Staples demanding that we all go back and learn how to use a pen and paper.
Spell check has saved my bacon on many a quick email, and I am grateful for it and all the other wonders that Mr Gates, and Mr Google hath wrought to make us better.
There are days when I yearn to see the student sitting in the back of a lecture hall, writing notes with a grand pen, and a glorious official looking yellow legal pad, in all of it's 8 1/2 x 14" glory.

I must be turning into the curmudgeon that I one day feared I would be.

So be it, just make sure spell check doesn't miss a beat on this post.

Warmest,

David

Love Is Better Than Anger

2011-08-24T08:17:00.000-07:00

Jack Layton served Canadians!

Jack Layton died this past week. In his memory I want to post his last words that he left to world.

" My friends, Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic, and we'll change the world"

Today I got angry at one of those typical "little things" in life. A speed bump the size of an anthill to be sure. I went immediately and re-read Jack's gift of words to us this week, and decided that "Love is better than anger".

We were not sent here to live in a vacuum.
I think perhaps that on September 7, 2007 when I was on life support and put in coma, there was a reason I did not slip away.
While I have yet to figure out exactly why it was not my time, I do have some ideas.
The doctors who parked me in a coma to figure out why I was not responding to anything, and was indeed in a state of total arrest, were so convinced that "This is it", had all my family contacted and advised that I had less than 24 hours.
I kinda figure I was spared to tackle some issues on this planet. Issues with people and pets I think.
While we can't take the whole world's problems upon our shoulders, we can try to do what we can within our sphere of influence, and remain open to finding opportunities to serve.

Jack Layton beat cancer the first time he had it a few years ago.
He used that time to do good, fight a good fight and found so many opportunities to serve.

I beat death 4 years ago.
I am still finding ways and opportunities to serve, and to fight a good fight for the hearing impaired where I can, champion the underprivileged where I can, and step up to battle when I think it is the right thing to do.

But I have to remind myself, thanks to Jack, that Love is better than anger.
I also have to remind myself, when the world is against me, that Optimism is better than despair.

Let's change the world today.
OK?

Marriage and Parenthood

2011-08-24T05:44:00.000-07:00

Some days are diamonds, some are stone. Yesterday was mix. The day ended in a rock avalanche.
I try to do the best I can, and I've made mistakes along this particular road in life.

I never asked to be a Dad, but it is part of my reason for being a lot of days more than I'd like to admit.

I did ask, in marriage, to be a Husband; and yes I have made mistakes along that road to be sure.

Mary has taught me a lot about parenting, and I am grateful for it, I was left as single Dad, the sole parent of a 14 year old, in the winter of 2009. I thought it would be pretty easy as the 14 year old boy at the time was good.
Decent.

I was not the best Father by any means at first, but I always tried to be there for him as after his Dad lost his health and his hearing
He then lost his Mom to cancer.
Tuff stuff for a young man!

Where I fall down is letting go. He is not 14, he is 17. I still carry that baggage of being the protective worry wart of a parent.

Some days it does more damage than good.
I need to do this not only as a caring parent, but as a caring person. There are so many times when I reach out to help others, that I neglect the immediate needs of some.And yes, this includes my loved ones.

When I strive to go good, to help, I do, on occasion, step on toes and hearts of people that mean the world to me. For me, it is not a case of if I lived the simple existence "Help no-one, just live life and do not give yourself to others."
I have to give.
I have to help others.
It is part of DNA!
For my son, I want to be there for him, to hear him, to cheer for him, to laugh or cry with him, to protect him with my life!

Where I fall down again and again, is needing to tell him things he does not want to hear.

I need to be a much better husband to Mary, in recognizing that life is about partnerships.
She is my life partner and will always be there for me. My son will move on in his life soon. Hopefully move on soon to explore the world of higher education; girlfriends; first apartment; first full time job; marriage etc.

But Mary will be with me in a rocking chair one day long after the boys have left.

I need to remember that!

Waxing Nostalgic

2011-08-22T12:59:00.001-07:00

Lately there has been a rash of sitings on Face book profile posts that wax nostalgically for the "better times" when the CD had not been invented, Nintendo not heard of, a 500 television Chanel universe was only a dream, and we all played hide and seek until dark.

While it is indeed wonderful to wax nostalgically abut the "simpler times", my 53 year old deaf self is very grateful for where we are in this year of our Lord 2011.

Growing up, family picnics were fun and my sister and I were always very excited about those summer days when they came. I miss that.
I don't miss the fact that after we left the site at the park, it was the norm to leave all the trash, or throw it out the car window. Those of you who picnicked in the 1960's will confirm this. We dumped on the side of the road and off we roared.

Parents smoked with young children in the car, dumping the ashtrays at a stop light was acceptable.

We drove big cars that took leaded gas with no regard for Mother Earth and her siblings.
We cut trees with abandon and with no regard for the future in order to satisfy the moment. Ah yes the old days!

When we heard of a domestic dispute, we felt for the family, but dismissed it.
Child abuse was rarely reported. If it was, no one talked about it, and we went back to playing Hide and seek until dark.

Simpler times for sure, and much of it is missed.
The bookmobile came on Tuesday nights from 4 until 8 and we lined up outside the tractor trailer to see if there were any copies of Cat in the Hat to be had. The internet, let alone the giant book stores, were but twinkles in someone eyes.

Our parents bought big Vinyl records to listen to 8 songs.

We watched one of the 9 channels that our antenna took in, and of course in black and white.

No one wore seat belts,as we went to the Drive In movie, because we loved our cars! Pollution was not part of our lexicon until the late 60's, when we realized we were poisoning our lungs with factory emissions. and our fish were going the way of the Dinosaur

Ah yes, the good old days.

My cochlear Implant gives me some sense of "Thank God we live in these times". Even more so when I see a small child that was born deaf, wearing the tell-tale magnet of the CI processor that gives sound to whence before, silence lived.

I do miss the look and feel of the big Vinyl LP records. I also miss hearing music the way it used to sound before deafness and a cochlear implant.

I am very grateful for the technology that gives me sound.

Meterorites and Fur Balls

2011-08-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

I am blessed!

There are little doubts about that. I have decent health, a very nice life, amazing wife and family.I work hard and play with love and enthusiasm with my bride of just over a year.
We live as a family unit in a home that we love, in a neighborhood that we enjoy.

Our life as a family unit is not without the tests and speed bumps that most families have, and I would be naive to ever think that we are immune to "life-at-the-speed-of-life" meteorites.

When you have a 17 year old and a 24 year old that hail from different sets of sperm and eggs as one and other, living within a wall of each other; a degree in the "Psychology of parenting" would be of little use.

Throw in a 27 year old that lives on the other end of the country and the frustrations of not being "there" to help out and/or watch the Grandchildren grow and learn....The picture of us as the "Cleaver family" is muddied somewhat.

I never give up my goal of harmony as a family unit. I know perfection in unity will never exist, but I want to make two families come as close to being a family unit as possible. I get frustrated and emotional in my quest to be the "Best Dad " and "Best Husband".
"As best as I can be" is what I now strive for, but some days find myself saying under my breath "I wish I could make it better"

I think a few of things that get under my skin is a lack of gratitude for what we have. I know how blessed and fortunate we are, but trying to get those under the age of 30 in my life to accept that attitude is painful and frustrating at best.

I remember as a child of around 8 or 9 years old hearing another boy who was a classmate, answer a question the teacher asked us one day before our Christmas break.
"What are you looking forward to this Christmas, and what makes it extra special in your house?"
I will never forger James answer and believe it shaped the way I looked at life from that moment on.
"I know I will get a new sweater from my Grandmother which I need, and all of us kids are excited that our Mommy will make us waffles. We get them on Christmas and we love them. I hope that our Dad will visit us or even phone us this year."

This boy James had very little. We all knew that by his dress. We knew his Father lived elsewhere, which was odd for us living in 1965. Families were a unit of Mother, Father and kids. James family was certainty the exception to this.
He and his family were from a different social-economic background to be sure. For us kids at the age of 8, he may as well have come from a different planet. He had no bike, no ball glove, no hockey sticks at recess. No hockey cards, no treats from the candy store after school.

But the amazing thing was the impression he had on me one day and how it shaped me a little different from that moment. His views did not conform to my Paradigm of Christmas. How could you find enjoyment and happiness from a sweater and a waffle?
I had waffles with syrup every Saturday, and could get a sweater if I needed one, I was sure.

Christmas was boxes and boxes of toys. Candies and grapes and oranges. Turkey and chocolate puddings for goodness sake. It was defined by volume and numbers.

But what he said changed for me that day.
There were people who had less than I, yet had happiness.
There were people who accepted what life had to offer them, and were grateful for that. It mattered not to them that they did not have the shiniest or fastest of the newest bikes. It was not about the fattest turkey, or the biggest stocking. It was about gratitude for a warm sweater.

Now we have a society that "needs" and Ipad for their four year old child to "learn" at a better rate than the other four year old's.Sixteen year olds that need to have a Lexus for their first car bought for them. Nine year old's that will only wear J Crew.

There is no point on going on a rant that starts with "when we were kid's..." The point is this:
I wish we all had a bit more gratitude for what God has given us, no matter what it is. My good God ladies and Gents, take a look around and see how amazing this planet can be if we really look at it.
Give thanks!

I may be deaf.
I may have many issues and curve balls coming at me daily.
Mary and I have disagreements on many things, a lot of days, but we still love each other more than I have ever loved.

I am blessed.

Namaste

David

Autum Wind

2011-08-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

The hard part is starting back. Finding the discipline, let alone the creative thinking to write at least one piece in this space. I figured that if I just starting typing, it will flow.
"Open a vein, and let it run" sort of thing. Man was I wrong.

This is quite possibly my twenty fifth attempt at starting back at writing in my space. My creative outlet that I love so dearly got shelved.
Summer came.
Gardens, BBQ's, pools, cold drinks, friends over....
A trip to BC with family.
Stratford Festival.

But hey..."the autumn wind, came rolling in..."

I am back baby!

I hope.

Namaste!

Raymond Renwick Slater - 1928 - 2011

2011-04-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I last put fingers to the QWERTY. It was around Christmas time, and I wrote of putting on good cheer hats, and going out and spreading that cheer.
Nothing made me happier than putting smiles on faces that day.

It is now in Mid April, and while the buds of Mother Nature's offerings are showing promise, the snow decided to make an encore curtain call yesterday and gave us reason to don coats and scarves again. We still try to put smiles on faces, and do what we can to put positive energy into the universe. Some days it is tougher than others, but we never give up trying.
We live in a marriage that I feel is made in heaven. There are no accidents in the universe, and I feel it is no accident that I found and married my best friend!
I love our life together

Much has moved forward in my life, as it should. Babies are born, people die, snow retreated, and buds came out. New year arrived, election looms in the horizon, my son got his beginner license, Marys daughter is planning a July wedding.

Life at the speed of life.

I took the passing of a wonderful friend that prompted me to take my lunch hour, and write a word or two.

I lost my stepfather this past week. Ray was in life for the past 35 years, and was more of a friend than father. He was a joy to be around and a force of fun right up until his stroke 6 years ago.
In my twenties, Ray and I decided we would once a year, drive to every baseball park we could and watch a game. We choose what was reasonable driving distance at made a pact that we would pick a weekend in each summer and hit the road to take in the baseball, stadium architecture, hot dogs and beer of the local park. Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit were the first and only sadly. But what memories!

We called him "Arnie's caddy" for good reason; he was the caddy for Arnold Palmer when Arnie won his first professional golf tournament of his storied gold career. The Canadian Open at Weston Golf and Country saw Palmer as a young man have his bags totted by an even younger Ray Slater. He would and will always be remembered for that.

I will miss Ray, and have ever since he lost his edge after a stroke.
Years ago we would sit out back at their house in to the wee hours of the morning, and drink beer out a shot glass for goodness sake.
Ray called it a "short beer". So we would drink many, many, many "shorts", until we called it a night.

He loved food as much as I do. We shared a love for Montreal Smoked meat and even recently shared a plater with nice rye, and Kosher Strubs on his 83rd birthday in the home where he was confined.

Rest In Peace my friend!
Save me a slice or two of medium lean Ray, and some half sours!

Oh and don't forget the Vernors to go with the meat. I'm not sure if we can get short beers in heaven!

Best,

David

Spreading Joy and Having Fun!

2010-12-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

The silly season is upon us!
Traffic in the stores is abysmal; crowds are pushy and rude; marketing to play on our greed for the next best thing is everywhere!

I enjoy a bit of the hustle and bustle I suspect, as long as the"reason for the season" is remembered, my joy can been seen in my smile. I love the look on the little one's this time of year. a magical time in their lives and fondly remembered by yours truly as a time when Santa Claus came to town on Christmas eve, and hopefully spoiled us with all the toys we asked for.

So Mary and I went out last Saturday two weeks before the big day. Now there were two ways of attacking this venture out into the wilds of retail with 14 days before Christmas: We could be like most of the denizens out there and go wild and grumpy, stealing parking spaces, cutting off drivers in a mad rush to get in and out of stores, knock people over in line ups at the mall...or......the opposite.

We donned Santa hats and red sweat shirts and off we went with good cheer as our intent. What a difference it made in the lives of the people we crossed.

Frowns in long line ups turned to smiles as David and his beautiful wife in long red hats with floppy white pom poms bounced in and out of places.

"You made my day" said one lady.
"How wonderful of you two to do this today" said another

Cashiers frowns turned to big smiles as we paid for our take out coffee. "You guys look great" was heard often.

Now the processor on my cochlear implant does not like hats! The mic gets buried in order to keep the hat on.
So my comprehension, which is bad at best in noise and with strangers, fell to about 10%.

Everything I heard, Mary had to tell me after what was said in the car when I removed Santa's head gear.

Mattered not! Total strangers came up to me/us and starting talking with big grins on their faces pointing at our hats.
I knew what they were saying without hearing!
Happiness and Joy have no communication issues.

The Kids grinned and pointed us out to their hurried and stressed out parents, which in turn brought adult smiles. That in itself was a great gift.
A smile on any child is worth all the effort in the world.

Little things mean a lot?
No!
Little things mean everything.

Remember that Joy spread is 100 times more wonderful than Joy kept small.

I hope you can bring a smile to someone today.

Best,

David

Flying with an Implant

2010-12-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

Flying is a giant pain for me. I suspect becoming a curmudgeon has much to do with it, but being deaf plays a huge fun stopping role in flying for me.

From the questions in the security line up by the "rent-a-cops" in their nice crisp Transport Canada uniforms to the mumbling overhead speakers that may or may not be announcing a gate change for my flight; I am not liking the ride as a cochlear implanted passenger!

I don't do a whole lot of it these days, and that is fine by me. The Toronto Airport is nice for about the first 3 visits and then you realize that traveling is A) not fun, and B) expensive and C) scary for the hearing impaired.

Parking is a silly ritual where you drive for up and down and back and forth in search of a spot until you realize that you have to drive to the end of the lot then go up the ramp until the air is thin and the roof disappears. Once you come to grips that you will have snow on your car when you return from your trip, you head out on the incredible journey to find the elevator.

About an hour or so into the discovery mission and realizing that you have backtracked and passed your own car about a dozen times, I consider canceling my flight for the third or forth time that day, as I have left the cozy confines of my our lovely home and my beautiful wife only to sit in Toronto traffic that starts and midnight and lasts about 23 hours. The trick would be I assume is to, is to try and guess the hour of non chocked up blocked roads. I always guess wrong.

Once parked and terminal found, the security anxiety kicks in. Will I get away with a carry on of the tiniest tube of toothpaste known to man, or will Helga the SS security person toss it out as it it can be squeezed into an unsuspecting pilots eyes (do they not lock the doors to the flight deck?)

They speak in low voices with accents and look away when the ask "oeuo iueopu jo duieu?"
" Pardon?" I say "
I have a hearing impairment can you look at me when you speak?"
Suspicion looms as they now think I am indeed a terrorist with an explosive magnet on my head.

I slowly reach for my wallet and pull out my "Advanced Bionics " card that states "This person has an implanted medical device; Cochlear Implant model # ci-144-02h

I get past checkpoint Charlie and head to departure area.
Overhead speakers say something or other. I never had figured out how any CI person can hear them. Not even sure if any of us do. So I go to nice airline employee and explain my deal.
"Cant hear, need help with announcements"

Get on plane, happy I got the bulkhead seat with all the extra space because it is an emergency exit. I love that seat as I get to stretch a bit.

Airline attendant comes by to explain the rules of what to do if a big old nasty flame happens in flight etc. I know the drill, have heard it many times.
She notices the magnet on my head and asks me to remove my "Bluetooth headset"
I explain about the blessings of a cochlear implant and how science and technology have given the deaf a hearing life.

"If your deaf you cant sit here" Helga's sister tells me.

I get bumped to a middle seat somewhere south of Mexico. So far in the back that it takes me half an hour to exit upon landing.

So at 10,000 feet in the air, the in-flight video/ GPS in front of me reads we are between Sault St Marie and Sioux Look Out.
I ask our flight attendant, Sue, how many more ways are there to spell Sue/Sioux/Sault? "Sue me" she says. " I don't know" she says.
"Why do you have a bluetooth headset on during flight" she snarls.

So I explain the wonders of ...........

I not that the outside temp at 10,495 ft is - (minus) 63 degrees Fahrenheit. I think at that point F and Celsius meet and greet! I wonder if snot crystallizes at this temp. I don't want to know.

Flying is fun going to Cancun for a week in the sun.
Flying to a cold clime in Canada in November is not fun!

Landing is nice, as I feel safe and sound....until I risk the perils of the Rent-a-Car people and the 101 questions about how can the deaf drive.

Warmest,

David

My First Silent Halloween

2010-10-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

It was around this time three years ago when I "woke up".

October 2007 was an eventful month as I look back on it. In early September of that year, I went into hospital via an ambulance in the wee hours of September 7, 2007.
I have no memory or recollection of that fateful night. For years I have tried to piece together the lost "episode of those two months.

My next memory is a few days before Halloween in the hospital. The void still exists to this day.
I remember sitting looking out a window in a room with other people. There was a nurse or a technician that wheeled me to a table and wrote down some questions. I knew I was deaf, and knew I could talk. It was as if I had been deaf all my life and this was a natural way to communicate.

She wrote questions on a white board, and I responded in voice.

"Do you know where you are"? she asked
"Yes of course, I am in St. Mike's hospital"
"No you are in Oshawa hospital"

I had a dream, and it was a long dream. It may have lasted an hour a day; or it may have lasted the 40 some days that I have no memory of.
Or it may even have been dreamed during the 11 days I was on life support and put in an artificially induced coma to save my life.

Or was it a dream at all?

Matters not, but the images in the "dream" are so real and so vivid that they stay with me to this day.

In my dream (if it was a dream) I was in a hospital and was so thirsty. I looked out the window in my hospital room (in my dream) and saw a store.
In my dream I can see Princess Margaret Hospital down the street from as I walk the streets in a hospital gown.
I walk into the store and ask the man if I was in Princess Margaret hospital. He replies in the dream that I am in St Mikes hospital in downtown Toronto.

I buy many tins of mandarin oranges in my dream and take them to my room and devour them.

So when I "woke up" (I use that term because it is the first date that I have memory of post hospital stay) I assumed I was in St Mikes.

"Do you know what day it is"? writes the therapist in Oshawa hospital.
"September something" I answer
"It is Halloween in 4 days" she writes.

The missing pieces are not so much a bother, the deafness was even accepted then. I was deaf and in a wheel chair. No sound, no balance, and lots of pain.

My medical 9/11 implosion was "David's" personal perfect storm.
Meningitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, Ischlemic stroke....a few more things I am sure.

Early symptoms of all ignored as I ran hard to train for my 3rd 1/2 marathon; ran hard to run a business and bring in the bacon; ran hard for the previous 3 years on nightly Princess Margaret visits where my wife lay in-house getting chemo for the blood cancer that would have her in PMH (Princess Margaret) more often than she was home with her family; ran hard to be a father of a then 12 year old boy.

And then the running stopped.
I fell
Metaphorically of course, I fell into a coma.

Then I "woke up"
It was almost Halloween.

Life is different know beyond words, written or spoken.
My wife of then passed away in early 2009
I am still deaf, yet I hear thru the amazing technology of a Cochlear Implant.
I still have no balance and never will, yet I walk pretty good most of the time by tricking the brain that we don't need the inner ear for balance. The eyes have it!

Got it covered pretty good.

New house, wonderful new wife who I love deeply!

So this Halloween I will enjoy the sounds, stop and take in every sight, and love life beyond words!
Written or spoken.
I live in a new place where I care deeply, speak kindly, live simply and love generously.

I let the rest go!

Enjoy the day, stop running and take in life in all it's wonderful glory!

David

Fall

2010-10-13T11:45:00.001-07:00

Fall is here and I have the bug to write again!
I just need time and discipline!!!
Stay tuned

Wally World Revisited

2010-08-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote this on April 17th 2008. One month before my cochlear activation and sound re entering my life after 230 days in my deafness.

I am reprinting it because Mary did not read it, and I happened to have it saved.

I also liked it, and reminisced fondly of my first trip to a Wal-Mart superstore.

Deaf as a stump, no balance, wandering through my first Superstore.

I hope you enjoy it.

I needed to buy batteries today. I tried to change channels last night and the remote was not in a very cooperative mood. Seems it needed AA's. "Didn't I just buy a bulk pack of those"? I naively asked my wife. "Talk to the 13 year old that lives in the first room on your right" she replies.

I went into to see where all my batteries were, and I discovered the source of the supply drain The "X-Box remote controllers" , it was explained to me. "Eat them like candy" Dan complained.

Regardless, I needed some or else I would be stuck watching "The Price Is Right" marathon for the next 3 nights.
So this morning I had to make a decision on where the purchase would be made. I knew that Costco would be the cheapest, but one item in a line for 3 days is just silly. The other end of the spectrum is the corner store, but I was not paying $37.89 for 4 AA batteries even if I was the only person shopping.
I went for the middle ground and picked Walmart.
So Janet and I head out this morning and she is traveling in a direction of which I am not familiar with.
"Where are you going" I asked.
"There is a new Walmart that opened in the South Oshawa area" she tells me.
Two things here: I was surprised that any retail opening would miss my consumer radar, and…..
2) I don't like South Oshawa!

I guess while I was "sleeping" for 90 some days in a hospital ward, Wally World slipped one in on me.
Not only did he build a store unbeknown to me, but he built the "Super Wally World Store" concept.
It was the size of O'Hare and I swear I saw an air traffic control tower and a few DC 10's in the lot.
Now I'm no country bumpkin, nor have I just fallen off the rutabaga mobile, but I have never been in one of these behemoth of store.
We park, and in we go.
"You get the batteries and I will grab some fabric softener". announces Janet.
So off goes deaf as an Acorn Squash guy into the wilds of Wally's Frontier.
I leave the cozy confines of the 73 year old store greeter, and venture past the fruit and vegetables. After around 3 or 4 Kilometers I am still in some sort of produce section. Yes it is different from where I started out with the familiar Oranges and Ruby Grapefruit, but I am still in an area of "foods that grow in the warmer climes".
I cross into a deli section that takes in about 14 Acres where a nice lady in blue jacket stamps my passport and smiles at me. I am cruising now.
As I cross the Prairies, I note the vastness of the ryes and flax breads. The flatland's seem to go for miles, and one looses perspective of distance once the sourdoughs are stumbled upon.
The whole wheat flutter on skids as far as the eye can see.
I catch of glimpse of what I suspect is a Prairie dog, but quickly discount it as scurries back into the Pet aisle.
A stray gerbil I suspect.
I have always had a soft spot for the prairies. I admire the hardiness of the workers who toil amongst the dangers of falling prices. The amber waves of grain and the ski high stacks of Wonder Bread are a joy for the eye to behold.
"Oh beautiful for spacious skies.." I sing proudly, as grab a dozen Frosted Ho Ho's.

I sense a sudden chill now as I enter into the land of milk and cheese. I must some how have wandered off course and ended up in Wisconsin. I look for the” Go Packers" signs amongst the Cheddar wheels. I want to be a cheese head!
I hurry back to the pet food isle, and grab Speeder some Bickies, and a fresh kong to go with the wheel of Cheddar I just picked up in the dairy regions.
I pass a mountain of cola neatly staked beside the biggest pile of denim jeans I have ever seen. The blue jeans scream a $10 price tag.
I wonder how much the seamstress makes on this.

About 2 or 3 hours into my venture I ask a bird watcher that I pass, if I could borrow his binoculars to see if there is sign to point me in the right direction. He obliges, and I spot "Electronics" just east of the first watering hole. (The pools are now out on display even though the snow continues to fall today) I thank him and get back on my journey.

Around noon I get hungry and follow my nose to one of many local McDonald's that services weary travelers like myself. I see the natives in blue smocks dine here as well. Although I have always found it safe to eat where the indigenous dine, I take a pass on this spot and decide that I can't eat this today, I need to stay healthy.
I ask for directions from another blue jacketed lady. I hope I can speech read her.
I can't.
I ask her again to point me in the direction of batteries.
She starts into some long winded question, pointing at my feet. My God I think, are the natives interested in trading footwear?
I think she is trying to ask me why I have price tags dangling from the runners I have on.
I explain to her that the soles of my own shoes gave out about 7 kilometers away, back in house wares, so I borrowed the Wally beige shoes to get me a little further into the store.

About hour 5 or 6 hours into my journey, I make note of some falling prices that I could conceivably injure myself on. Lucky for me, I happen to be the bicycle helmet section. I put one on to secure my melon from any further falling prices.
I stop at the camping section and notice a family is resting by a fake campfire and eating giant packages of Mike and Ike's. I ask if I could join them until my throbbing stops in my legs.
They of course notice my limp and my cane, and motion me to sit a spell and rest up.
"Where ya headed" asks the woman.
I read her lips nicely.
"Batteries. In Electronics I presume" I tell them
"Ohhhh, you got a long way to go my friend" advises the man in the group.
"Better head out before you get locked in the store like us. We've been here since just after Valentines day clear out" he warns
I spring up and carry on.
By the time I reach Consumer Electronics, I notice my shopping cart is full.
I suspect while on my journey I have been subconsciously shopping up a storm.
If, and only if, I proceed to the cash at this moment, I might get out under a hundred bucks.
But I still have no batteries.

I do, however have one roast turkey, some stuffing in a box,a 15 pack of tube socks, gum that explodes when you chew it, a 12 pack of peanut butter chocolate cups, some Disney DVD with girl called Hanna something in it, a ginger ale/ ice tea combination and several empty cans of energy drinks that I have consumed since my journey began.
I asks a clerk if there is bus stop or a taxi stand to take me back. Even a rope tow would do me fine.
I am spent, done, fatigued.
I need to cash out before I have to sell my collectible footballs.
I can see the 45 cash registers just east of the horizon and very close to a mountain of Easter Bunnies that scare the hell out of me the way they teeter on a skid. With all the "watch for falling prices" warnings, one would think a "watch for falling chocolate bunnies" sign would be posted in the interest in public safety.
I follow a caravan of buggies back to the cash and meet Janet.

The batteries are neatly sold on racks on every cash.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm!

I make a note that no treadmill workout will be needed, and we go out into the wilds of the parking lot.

I hope it is not too dark to find our car.

I Scream, You Scream....

2010-08-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

I had been noticing the "Like" signs posted on friends Facebook pages. The "Like" was for an ice cream shop that opened not far from our little humble abode. The "Like's" were posted by friends across US and Canada, so clearly this was a franchise that was known.

More and more the "so and so is a fan of" were popping up like cherry chips on facebook pages for this new ice cream place so I thought I would treat Mary and take her to try.

Thus, our first, and last (although we did not know it yet) visit to the Marble Slab Creamery, took place.

At first glance it seemed kinda cool. It looked from the parking lot like an old fashioned country looking store. Not realizing that this is a huge franchise, and has literally hundreds of locations across Canada, United States, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, Bahrain, Singapore, and many many other locations. This is a serious business.

The line up was out the door and pouring onto the parking lot. Kids were everywhere in soccer uniforms, baseball caps with parents in tow. I should of known right away by the Porche Cayenne's and BMW X5's in the lot, that this was not your Grandmothers ice cream store.

Confusion started once we eventually got into the store. There were a few different lines to get in. Once we realized that one of the three lines was for those who required financing, we settled into the "We think we can afford a baby size" version of this new marble slab concoction.

I jumped the line so I could preview what was ahead. I thought if I saw the flavours it would help speed things up. My confusion got pushed into deep confusion when I saw only a few options: Vanilla, Chocolate, and a darker chocolate.
"Wonder what the big deal is" I asked to no one in particular, but directed at the staff of 20 or so 16 year old working furiously away on the famous marble slab.
They were working with vigour, violence and determination and pounding and prodding "stuff: into the customers ice cream.

One of the "order takers" asked us for our decision, as if we were one of the regulars.
"How does this work" I asked.
A menu was given to us to look over.
Still more confusion.

There were lists and more lists of "stuff" to get thrown at our ice cream, which we read was made fresh daily.

"What is made fresh daily, the ice cream or the sprinkles, bobbles and sparkles that you add?" I ask the young girl with tongue in cheek.
"All our ice cream is made fresh daily" she answers.
"Right here, in this tiny overcrowded room?"
"No, we get it shipped here every second Tuesday."
"Oh, so made fresh daily, then stored for a few weeks, then shipped from India to here"

Kinda like the stores that say open 24 hours......but not in a row....over a three day period.

More confusion when Mary and I see a poster on the wall for what looks like a decent ice cream treat: "peanut crunch bobblicious sucker delight"
"Can we try a small one of those" we ask
"They are only on approved credit. You have to go to the OAC line and meet with the finance people." we are told.

We decide on a less expensive option and order a "Chocolate peanut butter" treat. The plain and unassuming (and quite non-flavorful" vanilla ice cream is scooped from the frozen bottom of freezer wasteland, where it no doubt was made fresh on this morning by Keebler elves in a magical forest. The marshmallows that can be added for a fee might also hail in the same box with the "Pink moons, and yellow stars" that for $3 for 2 of each are yours!

So our "ice cream technician" (is this like the sandwich makers at Subway that are sandwich technicians?) puts a tiny scoop on a technical looking weigh scale. She frowns at us because all we could afford was the "Baby size" and she has difficulty in measuring a "nano-scoop" onto the scale and needs several attempts to remove the excess and deposit the "made fresh" stuff back into the frozen hinterlands.
5 minutes later the procedure moves to the infamous "Marble slab" area, where she places three or four tiny bits of brown crayon into the middle of our ice cream.
I thought at first that they must be chocolate chips, but realized after tasting that they indeed were crayons.
Very old crayons.
Possibly from MY childhood.
Next she pours an amount of Kraft bottled sauce of some type that would not cover the fine print in their posters that tell us that they actual treats are "not exactly as illustrated"
No shit.

Our techie then goes to work on our baby sized treat with tools that would make a blacksmith jealous.
She pounds and pulls the "fresh" experiment in all directions. I of course make a remark that it must be "fresh" since so many sharp tools were required to chop it up.

After 11 minutes our technician goes into the line up for "staff requiring braces for carpal tunnel issues", and is quickly replaced by a fresh faced technician who wants to show of their brute strength and finish our production.

Finally done we wait to pay. There is a bog down in the line up ahead at the check out, as a family scrambles to get out 4 or 5 different cards (Visa, Amex, MC, Dinners Club, and a Suzy Sheer card) to spread out the payments. They mistakenly brought 3 kids, and one insisted on the "Smurfs topping". Once you go with licenced merchandise you pay for it!
So now they are attempting to pay for it!

Once we pool our credit cards and cash on hand we watch the adding go on at the cash.
"Baby sized" is indeed punched in correctly, and I marvel at the nerves of steel as they add the dollars and cents for the each and every bit of brown crayon.

I am in the wrong business, but decide that a franchise would be more expensive than the Porches parked in the lot.
They are clearly in the business of selling franchises and not ice cream.

So out the door we go with a spoon in each hand, shell shocked from paying the price, but still open minded about tasting what our weeks wages have purchased.

Two bites into it (one bite each) I broke a tooth on the crayon, and Mary thought the sauce that was added was a petrolium based derivitive used to assist in mixing the compounds.
I decide that there is more "marble" than "creamery" in my overpriced baby sized bowl, and toss it out.
I get no argument from my lovely partner.

We drive home and reminice about the Pralines and Cream for $3 at Baskin and Bo Bo's.
We consider going thru Mickey Dee drive through and sharing a McFlury that has real Oreo cookies in a soft fresh made ice cream.
We wax nostalgically about Kawartha Dairy cherry chip that was a favorite for the kids on many a camping or cottage trip.
We discuss Reids Dairy and their 99 cent fresh swirl!

Ah, the dollar cone.

We both sigh, then take one last look at our bill from the Marble place.

WE scream.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Warmest,

David

Wedding Day

2010-06-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

On Saturday July 3rd I married my best friend.

The journey that brought Mary I to this day has been a marvelous one filled with love , laughter, joy and much discovery for both of us.

When I met Mary for the first time in late spring last year, I saw in her a beautiful warm sole filled with warmth and compassion. I saw this beautiful girl that was smart, pretty, full of grace and attentive to all around her.
Mary on the other hand found me “Interesting”.

We saw and enjoyed each other daily without fail during our first few months together, never missing an evening or a weekend together. We shared much in common and explored our differences with open minds and hearts.

I was curious in what she saw in me. Here was me; this deaf grumpy old guy, with no balance, no hair, and had a magnet stuck to his melon.
I walked funny and said pardon a lot.
It was only late last year when she told me that she has eyesight issues and is actually legally blind. Perfect I thought; David profoundly deaf and Mary legally blind. I proposed immediately!
This would be the marriage made in heaven.

I suggested a simple solution to a wedding for the two of us: We both love travel, and in our time together we have vacationed in the Caribbean twice. So I offered the idea of our wedding in a similar locale. Mary thought about it and we decided that since our friends and family mean the world to us, having a wedding local would mean they could all share our day with us.
I agreed of course, but my thrifty conditions were laid out: A simple ceremony at home. A casual affair where a small group of family friends would join in our celebration. A casual BBQ with cold beer and grilled meat on a stick, or bucket of chicken would be offered up.

Enter Gail. Our wonderful friend who took on this project as “The Wedding Planner”!

Most of what was seen in our backyard on Saturday was a result of her planning and efforts.Beautiful table cloths were all sewn by Gail. Napkins, place settings, center pieces, floral arrangements all Gail’s work.
So my thrifty idea of box of beer and bucket of chicken was, I was told, briefly considered, and then tossed.
“Relax and enjoy” I told myself, and so I sat in awe as Mary, Gail and many other friends worked away searching for material, sewing curtains for the barn, booking a chef to cook and grill for us, choosing music hanging plants and lights and decorating Shamus.

My job now was to go out and search for a bigger box of beer as the guest list grew and grew. The wedding planners took over, and I moved aside.

Things sailed along through the spring and I worked on staying out of the way, keeping the backyard in relatively good form, and praying for sun balls in the July forecast.
I found myself with a bit of time on my hands since my task of clipping KFC coupons for this day, was long tossed. The odd suggestion I had for today’s celebration was brought before the committee, laughed at, and dually tossed with the KFC coupons.

Every wedding day has their share of speed bumps and ours was to be no different. We just seemed to hit them as often as rain was falling.

Guests had all firmed up, wedding planners were sewing, and hitting the stores, the rains of April continued into May and then into June with little signs of a break. I prayed to the Gods of sun balls with more passion, and started my “It will not rain” mantra whenever anyone said “what will you do with 50 people if it rains”?

Late this spring my sister Michelle phoned with not great news. My fit, athletic and active mother had suffered a heart attack and was in hospital. Suddenly, weddings and celebrations became unimportant, and our concerns were of course with Mom and her recovery.
And recover she did. Not wanting to miss too much of her golf season, she was up and at them as fast as the rain fell in our yard.
Assuming that Moms issue was our one speed bump, we got back on track and I continued my mantra of “It will not rain” as we primped and worked on the grounds out back.
The pond in our yard involved a lot of work, a lot of deep digging, and lot of planning, a lot of rocks, and again, a lot of work. Thankfully, Jason, Mary’s son dug the requisite six feet last summer so the fish could survive the winter, then we all worked hard the rest of the summer and fall, and much of this spring, making the pond look like it was always here. We finally got comfortable with the look, and were adjusting to the huge surge in the fish population (fish multiply. Who knew), and the neighborhood raccoons were delighted with the 24 hour all you can eat sushi that we provide, when the endless rains of May turned to days of torrential downpours in June. I stuck to my mantra “NO RAIN”.
The wedding committee had now ruled me insane and ignored my mantra. They were now making preparations for a couple of huge canopies from scouts Canada. I silently prayed to the Gods of sun balls, bloody sun balls please!!

15 days ago it rained as hard as I pleaded with the sun ball folks. The next day Mary arrived home from work and went out to feed the ever growing fish population to keep the sushi bar going, and do her 10 day before the wedding check of the grounds.

Well the rains had taken their toll and collapsed the sides of the pond! Speed bump number two had arrived with 10 days to go!

Rocks hung over the edge balancing precariously above the water.
My original Caribbean wedding idea hovered in my head as I now envisioned the labour required to restore, rebuild and repair the pond. Jason came to the rescue and I quickly stopped my internet searches for last minute deals for a wedding in Aruba.
Dry Aruba!
The Aruba of no rain!

Back on track with a week to go we were, doing last minute errands when we return late last Saturday to a phone message. It was the Baker of the cake.
Yes THE cake.
The same baker we had chosen, discussed at lengths our needs and wants, even emailed suggested photographs showing placement of whipped cream, which fruits we wanted etc. The message was short and to the point: “Just wanted to let you know that we will not be doing your cake for next Saturday. Realized that we are closing for a vacation day due to the placement of Canada day this year”
Speed bump number three arrived as quick as the rain down poured yet again!
Mary of course was distraught. I smelled a savings opportunity, but could not convince Mary to go to “Almost Perfect” and grab one of those leftover cakes that no one picks up for their date. “So what if it says “Happy Bar Mitzvah Billy” I pleaded. There cheap and almost perfect.
Like most of my wedding ideas, that one ended up in the recycling bin with all my coupons for two for one chicken meals.
Mary quickly went to work with ideas to save the day, and despite my attempts to convince “Buck or two” to make a cake for us, we managed a lovely save.

The speed bumps were talking their tool on Mary it seemed. By Monday of this week her back now had gone out, and the pain was so bad she struggled to do minor things. I suggested some rather unorthodox stretching techniques that like my many other ideas just got me slapped.
I then suggested that if her back did not get better, I would happily provide one of many my many medical tools that I kept around from my old days. I searched in the attic for my old walker or a cane or two that I still keep. This did not win any points, so my focus went back to sun balls!

Everything in life changes constantly. My life/our life is no different. Babies are born, love ones pass away, grand children bless our lives, wealth and health rise and fall as the sun rises and sets.
Everything in life constantly changes.
All we know for sure is that the sun will rise. Either behind a mask of clouds or in its splendid glory, but it will rise.
Having a partner, a soul mate, to life and love together as life changes is important to both of us. Facing life and its challenges together as it constantly changes seems like the right path.
Sharing the joys and laughter with your friend, your life mate just multiplies the smiles.
Sharing the sorrows, the down times seem like the right path as well. If you don’t share them, you don’t give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.
We all have 83 problems in life, and Mary and I are no different. There will always be speed bumps but when you hit them together, oh how much fun we can make them!
And yes, we had sun balls on our wedding day!

Glorious sun balls!

warmest,

David

When Protons Colide

2010-05-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

Today I try to find the good of my many physical ailments.
I am indeed profoundly deaf, have no balance due to loss of that inner balance thing that most of us still have, and the many other little nagging "issues" that Mary begs me to get checked.
Many of these can be written off as what a guy in his 50's gets. Some may be due to the stroke damage that occurred on that fateful night of September 9, 2007. Many good people believe that stress caused the 9/11 type medical blow up that night. If I accept this theory, and I do, then it behooves me to make some use of this hypothesis.

Physicists learn about the subatomic world by smashing things together and then looking at the debris. Imagine a midair collision between two watermelons; it would make quite a mess, but nothing very interesting would result.

Suppose though, you get two protons to collide head-on. If they are moving fast enough, the energy of their collision, converted into mass a la Einstein's E=mc2, would produce a shower of new particles. It would be as if 2 colliding watermelons splattered into a shower of pineapples, blueberries, mangoes and other exotic fruits.

Forgive me if I take on the role of "interesting" here. I prefer the term "interesting" as opposed to "enigma".
Mary often comments that she finds me "interesting", and I swear you can hear the quotations as she says it!

Anyway, I like to think of my 100 day hospital stay along with the assorted other medical maladies as a way of learning about my body, my mind, and my soul if you will. All of my "protons" smashed it seems on that night almost 3 years ago now, and since then I have been examining the "debris".

I would like to think that a new "David" was created. I feel much different physically. Some reasons are obvious, for I am deaf and a true Cyborg with my cochlear implant; I walk different with no balance; and I sound different. In my mind anyway.

Deafness for sure had the biggest impact on me. I became much more observant, inquisitive. The whole medical experience somehow made me less selfish, and more willing to help and give.

The stroke made me feel vulnerable.
Scared me.
Made me slow down, think about life. Love more. Enjoy the concerto that life offers every second of every day!

I want to get a bumper sticker that says: "Slow down, enjoy life, love more". But actions speak louder than words so I will try to set an example every day and do just that. Besides, bumper stickers are hard to read for us over 50 folks.

Try small changes in your life before science tries an experiment to examine you!

Do what you can to make a difference in what you believe in.
Live a little more, and love a lot more.
The concerto is wonderful!

Namaste,

David

Seek To Understand

2010-05-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

The deaf world of David has taught me many things.

Since that fateful day in September 2007, when a cone of silence was dropped over my being. I quickly changed gears and adapted as best I could to being profoundly deaf.
The first survival instinct is of course lip reading, or more specifically speech reading.

One watches the lips and position of tongue of course to observe the animation of a word. But so many words are similar, so more clues are needed. Hand gesture, shoulder slumping or hunching, chin position, head tilt, right or left matters much, leg bending...they all play into the reading.

The eyes are keys to finish what, or where the other party is attempting to communicate.
I had a good teacher in my rehabilitation in the hospital. Laura, my "speech reading" coach, had patience, good skills and great teaching aids. Her constant "look at me", taught me that observation was the number one rule to understanding.
It helped me learn a new way of life that would get through many days ahead.

I still employ my speech reading skills, even though I have a cochlear implant that gives me an interpretation of sound to help me "hear" the words, speech reading is still very important to me. In many ways it more important than ever as it assists me in learning a new way of hearing.

My relatively new acquired skill of speech reading, will serve me well regardless of the situation. I find that looking into the eyes tells us so much more than words can ever say.
Without sound, I could tell so much about the emotion of the participant. If they were having a bad day or great day, it was as apparent as a neon sign flashing in their eyes.

I asked people to look at me when they talked to me. I explained that I was deaf, and needed to read them. And the only way I could understand them was if they looked at me.
A few were awkward with my request, but most accepted this and actually exaggerated their syntax and enunciation for my benefit.

It makes such human good sense in retrospect, and shows so much interest when two people look at one and other when conversing. I watch other people, and note with disdain how quickly people say something then look away or start multi-tasking by reading or writing.

Are we not interested?
Do we really understand "it" wholly?

We can learn so much from the deaf (me although deaf can learn as well) by watching ASL and speech reading. It is so "polite" if you will, and it shows so much more interest when visually involved. One cannot have multiple conversations going on.
I can only listen to one person right now with my cochlear implant. If two or more are talking, it just becomes difficult. It is as if many layers of words are vying for the number one spot, forcing themselves into a tiny opening in a small wire that sends electrical impulses, firing at neurons in my brain.
In my non-sound days, I could only have a "conversation" with one person as I had to speech read them. People found it flattering it seemed that I paid so much attention to only one person at a time.
Regardless if there were 7 or 10 people in a room, I would focus on the "speaker" to read them. This struck me as odd at first, as I like to multi-task and multi converse.
But after all this time in a cone of silence, I came to the conclusion that old way is just rude.
How wonderful to focus on one person and enjoy their words.

I have taught Dan my skills, and he emulates them masterfully, making sure he gives attention to only the primary speaker, and waiting until it is clear they are finished. Then and only then will he offer his argument or comment. He also focuses on their eyes as I taught him. "you will learn so much more and gain so much more respect if you look at your conversation partner Dan. Engage them and watch them become alive as they notice your interest".

My deafness has served his mannerism well, and I suspect he will take these tidbits of advice when he goes and grows forward in his hearing life.I am quite proud of him, and I know Mary is as well. That in itself gives me joy!

By asking people to repeat themselves a few times now, I find they oblige with a smile. I feel bad by having them do it for my cochlear edification.
But good God, you know what I found? It shows so much interest when someone says, "could you repeat that please. I did not get it all and it is important to me".
Watch the smiles as it is received as an instant accolade.

Being profoundly deaf I had to focus so hard to "get it" all of the time. As tiring as this was/is, I watched my concentration transform the speaker. The harder I looked at their lips/tongue, eyes hands and other body language, the more more the speaker lifted up, looked at me, and brightened into an emancipated look of "my God I must be saying something interesting". I find people always are.
If people distracted me or tried to interrupt while I was "speech reading another person" I had to cut them politely off.
"I'm sorry, I'm trying to speech read Joe here, but please don't loose your thought, I will focus on you as soon as Joe's finished"

This was just common sense to me trying to survive, but to others it was as if an alien from the planet Polite had landed and invaded my body. At the end of my efforts it was just David trying hard to understand.
It is important to me, to understand.

It just makes good sense, plus I heard more at times in my deaf concentration than I did in my hearing, multi-tasking, reading, writing multi conversing days.
Slowing down, watching. I mean really watching. And studying the converser, made me a better communicator.

The eyes are the window to the soul, it's believed, but for deaf guy, it told me 1/2 of the story that needed to be told. Watching the eyes, the movement, the openness, the uninhibited mannerism spoke volumes in my "speech reading" world.

I will always conduct my relationships in this manner going forth. Business, personal or just passing you on the street, I make contact first with the eyes.
It just seems right, and makes a difference in how we the message is conveyed and if it is understood.
Seek first to understand........

“O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek... to be understood, as to understand...”.
The prayer of St. Francis, written in the 12th century.

Happy Victoria Day Canadians!

Life at "God's Speed".

2010-05-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

Today felt aggressive out in the world.

It is Monday, and the weekend offered spectacular weather, sun balls every day. We even were graced with a much needed drop or two of rain that helped quench our parched newly sewn seeds.

Lazy outdoor book and newspaper reading, chased with early evening movies. Enjoyable dinners with family, and nice afternoon coolers with Mary on the deck.

What contrast the Monday morning commute offered up!
Black SUV (why do the aggressive people always pick black as their vehicle colour, and of course a big stinkin', honkin' gas guzzlin' SUV)?) sat on my ass and was as close to being in my back seat as one could get.
Drivers, impatient at best, weaved in and out to get two car lengths ahead of me, only to sit at same stop light that we all will arrive at in seconds.

Me?
Not so much in a hurry.

I do enjoy the craft I have chosen in life, and it has served me well in sickness and in health.
But am also very aware of the fact that we are candles that can get plunged into darkness without notice.

Work is the tool that provides my means of the weekend enjoyment. The roof over our heads, the nice cheese to nibble on, the BBQ to smoke some ribs on. My life/our life, really starts at 5:30 on Friday nights.

The big newspapers, the extra coffee that weekend mornings can afford in time. The lunches that are created by inspiration and time that is offered.
We grilled cheese with grated fine old cheddar and added tomatoes that reminded me of home made pizza.

Time, glorious time!

Life, at the speed of life, is scary fast from Monday to Friday. We like to slow it down, breathe it in. Take in the wildlife in our backyard, garden, water, sit, read, talk, enjoy, love, live, learn.....as slow as we can.
Watched a baby raccoon sleep for a good 3 hours yesterday. High in a tree in our neighbors yard, we marveled at the fact that the little guy did not fall out.

Fed the fish in our pond that have just woken up from their long cold water sleep. Marveled at all the new babies that were spawned in the winter, and tried to imagine how they live under the ice, and multiply by spring.

Leisurely sipped a fine late afternoon ale, ate some snacks, then back to book. Closed eyes for a moment or two and gave thanks in my quiet way.
Fired up the BBQ to smoke some nice pork, grill some veggies, and "Q" some spiced up taters!

Ahhhhh life at the God's speed.

No pressures on weekends. Concerns are getting groceries for the week, washing some socks and underwear to keep us smelling fresh, and if our heart desires so, we pick up fresh live muscles to steam with Garlic and white wine in pot one, and a nice marinara in pot 2.

And oh yes, we will enjoy with our Chateau Neuf de Pape that we bottled two weeks ago.

New world for me.

I only wish the Black SUV drivers would realize what a wonderful world we have!

Warmest,

David

Let's Cure Cancer In Our Lifetime!

2010-04-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope 30 years ago today.

On April 12, 1980 Terry dipped his artificial leg into the harbor at St. John's, Newfoundland, and headed westward across this huge country. It was his intent to run from coast to coast to raise money and awareness for Cancer.
The very same disease that was spreading by the day through his body and had already claimed one of his legs.

He ended his run 143 days later near Thunder Bay when cancer had spread to his lungs. He died at age 22 in June of 1981.

People remember Terry during the many community walks and runs each September. I remember my son Dan, running in his first "Terry Fox" run at the age of nine. His class was asked to write out "who they were running for". Most of the kids wrote that they were running for Terry Fox,because he was a brave Canadian who still raises money in through his memory and foundation.
Dan wrote, "I am running for my Mom who has Cancer, and I hope this helps get her better.
Janet, his Mom, of course passed away, at the age of 49, five years after her sons first Terry Fox run.

Occasions like the recent Olympics also inspire memories, as do the 32 streets, 14 schools, numerous statues, research centers and 1 mountain named after him.

But take a moment today to remember Terry at the beginning, the first day many of us knew him.

The headline in one of our newspapers proclaimed this:

"Fox's Legacy: $451,737,662....and change"

That indeed is a lot of money but not enough.

Let's keep giving until we CURE CANCER IN OUR LIFETIME!

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It

2010-04-03T09:39:00.001-07:00

Easter Sunday "is an occasion to celebrate redemption, restoration and renewal.
Redemption is an act of redeeming or the state of being redeemed. Deliverance from sin if you will; salvation.
I like the idea of restoration, whether it be of the personal nature, or to do with restoration of things in our lives. Fixing up of the old and perhaps broken.

On that Sunday I reflected on all of the above and moved silently and lovingly into the ever changing renewal that life offers us daily.

I did and will examine as I often do, what is broken and what I can fix, or more aptly, what the big guy can work on with me to fix.

A day after Easter Sunday, I went to one of my favorite spots to "breathe". We have a Jesuit retreat not far from our home. I have been going there for over 15 years to walk the grounds, look at the trees and sky, and watch the squirrels, chipmunks and birds "at play in the fields of the Lord".

I took Mary there on Monday. It was only her second visit since I introduced "my place of personal meditation" to her. She enjoys and gets as much benefit as I do/have.
Manresa is a Jesuit Spiritual renewal center, and lies on beautiful acreage minutes from the hustle and bustle of the city. It a jewel. An oasis that I love to spend time in. My wish is that every one of my friends that grace these pages, have one of these places that they can go to when the world seems like it is spinning out of control.

Reflection is good, but I am always careful not to beat myself up too much. I constantly question my abilities as a parent. I want the best for my son, yet I need to let go and let God.
Dan will be fine I tell myself, I just need to remember that fact.

I worry about how he views his life and the changes in the past 3 years.
Dad goes deaf, and his Mom passes away before she is 50.

Life changes as we breathe. This I learned well in the past 5 years. Life moves at the speed of life, and acceptance of change has kept me sane.

I have much to be grateful for, and sometimes a walk in Manresa just reaffirms how blessed I am.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, (attributed)

Warmest,

David

If You Could Hear What I hear!

2010-03-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

I was sure a lion was loose in my neighborhood. While walking the dog the other morning, I heard a roar that made me jump and nervously look around for an unlikely escaped jungle beast.
There are no Lions in my town, and the zoo is 3 towns away. The “roar” I heard was a car horn.
I am deaf, yet I hear sound. I am in this unusual liminal space. I exist in this space as a result of the amazing technology of a cochlear implant.
A cochlear implant or CI is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf.
I am a “late deafened adult” by definition. I lost my hearing very suddenly, and tragically after 49 years of near perfect hearing. A major infection that saw me go from a healthy half marathon running male, to being on life support two days after a 15K run; then in a coma for 10 days.
The end result was “waking up” deaf.
It was in my recovery, and the 9 months of deafness that I researched and discovered the world of cochlear implants.
There are approximately 200,000 people worldwide that have received cochlear implants. The majority is in developed countries due to the high cost of the device, surgery and post-implantation therapy, or “mappings” as the audiologists refer to this as.
So after 9 months in my “cone of silence” or utter and profound deafness, I was “activated”, or turned on, as the magnet that sticks to the implanted device inside my skull, was “stuck” in place. It was then that I heard sound for the first time in 9 months.
Sound glorious sound!
Wonderful yes, but sound is just sound. You see this “device” or mini computer inside my head, takes the sound that is picked up through my external mic, and changes the analog sound it receives, to digital. So when some one says “Good morning David”, my mini on-board computer, changes that analog sound into a string of zeros and ones or digital code It then sends that code down an implanted wire to where there now resides 16 microscopic sized, surgically implanted electrodes. These electrodes then fire this digital code at my auditory nerve.

This of course happens so quickly that I probably receive the information at the same time it takes a “hearing” person to have the sound fired from the cochlea hairs to the auditory nerve. My new hearing method of course is all “man made”.
Not an “aid” but a hearing replacement if you will.

The surgery is complicated to be sure. They drill a hole in your skull, cut a huge incision down to the cochlea area; then through an incision behind the ear, the surgeon drills a hole into the mastoid bone. Once all the electronics are implanted, they staple you back up.
A month latter is the big “activation” day, when the anticipation is over the moon after not hearing a pin drop or an engine roar in my deafness. Once implanted, and then activated is when the real challenges begin.
The challenge is in learning what I like to call “digital sounds”, the new language that is fired at my auditory nerves once I put my magnet on.

Birds sound like an electrical buzz; phones don’t “ring” they “brang”. Car horns sound like lions to me; my dog “bracks” instead of barks; words all sound different to me than my past hearing life.
When I was “activated” 18 months ago, I had to figure out how words “sound” in my new world. I bought talking books so I could read what the word is as I heard it in my digital new language.
“Hop on Pop”, and “Is your Momma a Lama” were my first talking books, and I felt like a pre-schooler learning language for the first time.
In fact I was.
I have been learning a new language, and every day is a new adventure, a struggle most days as new voices force the brain to work harder.
I still read lips and look for clues as I struggle for comprehension of sound. New voices are like foreign languages, that need time to ramp up comprehension with.

So many people assume it is a hearing aid that amplifies sound. Not at all, it changes analog sound to digital. I hear the world different than I did when I was part of the “hearing world”
Music is simplified, and lost mostly, as my 16 implanted electrodes replaced the 180,000 odd hairs that used to fire sound from my cochlea to my auditory nerve. So I get a very simple version or facsimile of what it used to sound like.

Music is what I miss the most from my old world.
I can “hear” the sound or noise, and if I know the song from past hearing days, my brain magically backfills a lot of it, but it is not the same.
I still get life’s everyday concerto, and I am grateful for the technology that restored sound into my life, but when my son strums his guitar to a wonderful new set of chords he just learned, I smile and say “fantastic Dan”, but in fact I dearly miss the sounds he used to fill the room with.
So I still search for a box that I fit in. It is if I need a label to give people like me.
I am “deaf” once my magnet is removed at night when I sleep or step into the shower, but I do “hear” when I wake up and strap it back on and hear the sounds being fired at my brain.
I am in that liminal space of “not deaf” because I have sound, but am “deaf” because I do not hear a thing without this processor strapped on.”
So where do I fit now that I am bionic?
Perhaps I am CI-Borg.

Oh, if you could only hear what I hear.

Warmest,

David

Invisible?

2010-03-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

So I am on a bit of tirade these days. Getting pissed off at the lack of compassion and understanding for us Deaf/deaf/hearing impaired/late deafened ...whatever pigeon hole we decide to deposit us in.

I get little response on email when I launch into my canned approach of "why do you not have the ability for us hearing challenged to express our complaint ...etc" The world is built for hearing and we sadly have an invisible handicap. As much as I dread that word, I have to face up to the fact that I am challenged and I use "coping" strategies to get through the day. I am different than when I was on top of my game. I was in hearing world, master of David's universe and carried on like there was no end to the sound of life's concerto.

Well as you know, it ended like like a piano getting dropped out of the proverbial window and landed on my auditory nerves.

Now I live in new place that requires new living strategies to get the message.
I changed, but the world did not.
If you want to complain, one has to pretty much dial a 800 number in business hours of course and state your beef. Phones are a challenge for me, and if they recipient's phone is a VOIP phone (usually in some South Asian locale) I struggle.
So I ask if they can provide an email for me to send my issue.
Nine times out of ten, there are no way of sending an email to get issue resolved.

I was on a long flight recently with Air Canada from Toronto to Las Vegas. The 4 1/2 hours is killer, but it is especially long if one cannot use the many features of the in seat entertainment device to watch shows/movies/documentaries etc.
NO CLOSED CAPTION!
Why?
Do deaf/Deaf not fly?

So try and express ones disbelief at the lack of sincerity in offering closed caption for the 35 million hearing challenged in North America
We are not a small number, yet we get treated like "who cares about this group"
If I was in a wheel chair, I might get attention if the airline did nothing to help me get into my seat, or off the plane.
But because I "seem" normal, and I do hear sound through my cochlear implant, there is a prevailing attitude of "but he hears, so why is he bitching"

I hear sound, and up front and personal I can read lips and get the idea of the conversation.
Television, loud speakers, public address, radios etc etc etc, are a different story.

Closed caption is easy to do, even on a tiny airplane screen.

It seems that whatever is easy to do, is easy not to do.

Sad is it not?

David

2010-03-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

Why is the world designed for the hearing? I spent last night, and good knows countless others in the past 2 1/2 years, trying to understand why closed captioning sucks. Why it is hit and miss. Why

Just Breathe!

2010-03-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

I wrote this almost one year ago to the day, and posted it the first of April in 2009. This week I had many of "those" days that we all have.
My 83 problems are still 83, always will be, but I was hitting the proverbial wall with "self" issues.
I went back and read this post from one year ago, and decided to re post it because I can.You don't have to read it, but it felt good for me to read it and post it.

Since I posted this a year ago, I have discovered new love in my life with Mary, and am excited about our future.
I still need to remind myself to "Just breathe David" every now and then. Today was one of those.
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Just Breathe: April 2009:
There is no "normal" for me. Acceptance of that statement/fact is huge for me, and it puts me in a new space that requires constant review and challenges. I struggle to develop a better mental toughness most days, that is required to bring me out of a place and space where I often drift to in my hearing and balanced challenged world.

In the past eighteen months I have lost much: Hearing, balance, a beloved family pet, and my spouse of 19 years. But I have gained much in that time. Managing my expectations of a new life, is the challenge and the new reality of my this new space that I occupy in the universe.

I recently read a quote by Michael J. Fox, the Canadian actor who lives daily with the quirks and jerks of Parkinson's disease.
"I may be different from other people, but someone told me that the growth of happiness is in direct proportion to your acceptance, and in inverse proportion to our expectation"

This was an epiphany of sorts to be sure. I read it, and re read it until it struck me as why there are days that I get mired or stuck in the "why can't I just be normal".
I have what I have, and my cochlear challenged world is what it is.

I will never get hearing back as it existed pre-1997. So once I grip that fact, I can move forward to deal with life as it exists now. Which more often than not is hearing at a 80% level of comprehension in quiet situations, filling in the rest with good guesses; and hearing at a sub 50% level in noisy environments, and playing a huge, but oft-times hilarious guessing game.
"Are they not bastards? " I heard from a friend last night with my processor and mic on the opposite side of the speaker.
"Huh? No, no, they are good people" I responded, "not bastards"
"No, no, Baptists, not bastards" they corrected.

I can and do laugh at the daily frustrations of what I "get", but what I "miss" is the source of frustrations. Phones are still a nightmare, for me and for the callers I suspect. Some calls that should be around a minute or two in length are five minutes in qualifying the caller.
"I'm sorry who are you asking for"
"Who are you again"?
"Are you with a company"?
"I'm sorry I am hearing challenged, can you tell me the subject of your call"?
"One more time, is it David or Dan you are looking for?"
"Oh hi Mom, sorry"

Confidence at times slips out of my persona like warm air through a open door. I go through the "this sucks, and I am alone now to deal with it" daily. Yet there are times, where I give thanks to this technology and marvel at the implants and what they provide in sound for this deaf as box of cereal boy.

Michael J. Fox hit a spot in his challenges and said "This sucks, this is what it is and this sucks, and then you move on from there"
While I am in that spot or space, I still ask myself if the universe decided to play a cosmic joke, or a God of my understanding decided that life was too easy, and needed to put me through a cosmic test, and took away some powerful things, and people in my life, to see how I deal with life without the love and understanding of some people, and the necessities of normal hearing and balance.

If I accept this as my new spot here, and accept that even that is ever changing, then I can start to deal with life from a better vantage point. I have what I have. End of story. Move forward now.

Yoga and meditation keeps me grounded and provides a "jumping off" point for the day. Deep and slow double breaths remind me that I have life. The slow process of air entering my lungs and slowly filling into the belly, gives me hope and is a reminder that 18 months ago I fought survival in a coma on life support. Written off and family gathered around, I somehow was given a chance at a comeback. But hearing would be the cost of this battle.

In my silence I changed of course, and saw the world through vision and touch.
Eyes became my ears, and a new vision of life emerged.
A gentler kinder vision as I needed compassion and understanding to survive in the dog eat dog environment, so I best learn how to give compassion and understanding if I was to receive it.

So the metamorphosis of David began in a hospital bed, but continues daily.
I lower my expectations of what I can and cannot do now in life, and I learn acceptance of my new life without important things and people in my life. So much I shared with people that no longer grace my world, go unshared. So be it. It changes not the fact that they exist with or without what or who I have or do not have at this point in my life.

Michael J. Fox has a small square painting hanging on his office wall. Just black text on a white background that immortalizes an expression Fox, a former heavy drinker, used as he was trying to quit and accept Parkinson's disease.
It reads: "fuck it and breathe."

This morning as a beautiful sun rose, and I stood in full Tree Pose attempting ujjayi breaths, I drifted to that spot that dogs me. The confidence escaping me as I dreaded the Monday morning dealings with the phone at work and the frustration that comes with it.

Life became calm and clear when I removed any and all expectations and stopped reacting. As radical and unfamiliar as this was, it calmed me, and my attention shifted inwards.
I have what I have.
I am what I am.

Now fuck it and just breathe David.

Las Vegas In New Light

2010-03-16T13:02:00.001-07:00

Another cochlear implant first for this boy: I went to a business conference in Las Vegas!
I have been many times on business, and towards the end of trips as a hearing person, quite frankly I was tired of Vegas. The allure and shine seemed to have gone out of it, and Vegas started to get to me. My last trip was 2005.I lost my hearing in 2007.

Fast forward 5 years to "Magnet boy" on his voyage back to the shiny city that stays up all night and pumps oxygen to ensure this is indeed the case.

I saw new buildings (they build bigger and shinier every year), the old and one time favorites (I loved the Belagio and Paris) and all of the noise and traffic through a cochlear implant.

I had a bit of an Epiphany of sorts this trip. I saw so much excess, so much waste, so much decadence. Funny how deafness caused this paradigm shift. A city that at one time I looked up and stared in awe and wonder was now a city that made me react with dismay and dismissal.

Some people look at chair, and don't see a chair. They see see some wood which could be teak or mahogany, which quite possible comes from Malaysia, and then they wonder if people got kicked out of their homes where these trees once grew by the corporations who came and stripped the land of it's natural growth.

Some people look at an Ikea store and fail to see a shiny coloured store filled with bobbles, knick knacks and brick-a-brack. What they perhaps see a big corporation that strips the rain forests to get material, and then adds brominated flame retardants and PVC chemicals to the at one time natural materials and contaminate us in our homes.The score is always Ikea 1, Rain Forest 0.

So this trip I saw Vegas as this big behemoth of a rich mans playground. I saw more Hummers (H3's of course) then any other vehicles. I stared in awe at the noise of people in restaurants dining on more seafood than I am sure there exists off the coast of Newfoundland, then picking at it whilst drinking copious amounts of expensive wines. I saw power grids jumping off the map as lights buzzed, flashed, beckoned and blinked. I saw money being tossed on tables like leaf lettuce at an all you can eat buffet.
An oh yes, I saw buffets that in a one hour sitting would go through enough food to feed an African nation for years!

I watched at one of our business dinners as a group of eight men spent $2500 on the event.
Drinks flowed and laughter ensued as more exotic cocktails were ordered.
Appetizers arrived and Stone crabs were eaten like crackers by children.I saw the Stone crab population in Mexico tremor in fear.
More drinks flowed and wine was poured by waiters who licked their proverbial chops imagining the tip that this inebriated group of business people would drop with their Gold and Platinum cards.
I cringed as $200 and $300 bottles of wines were brought to tables and poured like water from a tap.

Entrees arrived and by this point most of these folks had long forgotten how to speak or use utensils, but the laughter ensued, as did the wines and drinks with three olives adorning them.

At the end of this eating exhibition the "service" staff arrives to clear the tables. The white jacketed waiters were busy processing the house of cards and calculating their tips while the service staff arrived .
These Mexican and South American staff dressed in their service smocks, ventured out of "somewhere" to take plates away and clean up the "crime scene".

All I could read with my eyes was look of awe as they took away each plate. Many still had 90% of a "Bone in" Rib Eye or Porterhouse half cow. There was more meat left to be scraped in 8 plates than I myself had seen in years! The pieces of Beef were the size of the small turkey that graces our family table at holiday to feed many. The size, in my opinion, still did not justify the $75 price considering the "side" dishes were extra!

I was wide eyed as I saw most of the ordered dinner being scrapped off into bins of composte.
Not mine! NO sir, I ate every bean and pea on my plate and thanked God for it.

What struck me the most was the wonder of what this group of service staff must of thought. Were they thinking about the waste of these 8 and the fact it would feed their families for a month?
I was.

Did they consider the gas consumed by the limos, Hummers and Cadilacs that would ferry this group to hotels be the amount of gas that they would use in a year?
I did.

Did it go through their minds that these business people would sleep in rooms costing for one night what it would cost them to perhaps build a home and live for a year?
The thought was on my mind.

Or did they just give thanks for the opportunity of being employed and go home to their families and kiss them goodnight.

It will be hard to go back to Vegas. I saw waste, excess, greed. I saw fossil fuels being burned like the earth had unlimited supply. I watched lights that never go out, saw screens always on. I saw money being tossed like it fell from trees.

I went home after 5 days and thanked God for what I have and kissed my family.

Warmest,

David

Love Of ASL

2010-03-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

Last night was week 5 in our American Sign Language course (ASL). It is week 15 if I count the 10 weeks we took back in the fall, then signed up again for a second go in the "Introduction to ASL" course at the Durham Deaf Centre.
It is as tough as any course I have taken, and I do have a few years of college, University, and assorted other endeavors that I have taken on in my academic and "general interest" courses. But I gotta tell ya I have nothing but respect for those who are fluent in ASL!

French, one of this countries official languages was always a bit of a struggle for me, and through out high school I passed by the skin of my teeth. I gave a respectable shot again in my thirties in a College on Saturdays, and seemed to enjoy it more. Fifteen years after the course I am sadly about as bilingual as I was in high school.
I can order a hot dog and get a beer in Montreal, but it pretty much ends there. At least I wont go hungry or thirsty.

ASL is an endeavor of love for me for many reasons.
I do adore the "language" and culture that IS ASL.
There are those,( and count me as one) who love listening to French being spoken. To those of us who love listening to it it matters not if we are lost in translation. It just sounds so beautiful.

Ditto ASL. I love to watch two people having a most animated conversation. There is a sense of awe and about ASL as one watches fingers flying, fists tapping, wrists bending, elbows twisting. But the joy is in the face; watch the deaf community "speak" and you will see what I mean.

In my brief nine months of total and profound deafness, I wandered to the Deaf center to get information. It was a chilly February day as I remember, and I stood in awe and admiration as I watched two older gents on the rickety porch of the Deaf center. By my guessing, one was telling the other a funny story, or perhaps even a joke. I stood mesmerized as hands flew, eyes widened, fists pounded and palms slapped. Laugh? Oh my good God, these two were peeing their pants in American sign language if there was indeed such a thing.
I never forgot that scene.
Never will.

Without the emotional telltale aspect of ASL, the recipient gets confused. This is what I love about ASL. The emotions. Life is emotion. Life is full of them.

Yet in the hearing world, we hide our emotions for the most part. It's as if it's not right for people to see us cry or something like that.We dare not show the world how we feel for they might sense us as weak and pray on us. So we put head down, don't look up or smile. When we have to we put on our game or clown face to take on the world, but most days we just give a little nod to those who pass us by on our journey through the world. But for God's sake don't show emotions!

Ah but in ASL it is life on life's terms. Cries, laughs, smiles, frowns, stomp feet, slap chest, pound fists. Get excited and show it. Live for life.
Life at the speed of visual glorious sight!
If your happy and you know sign it with a smile!
Smiles and frowns; excited and bored looks; they all are part and parcel of the wonderful art and science of ASL.

I use it more and more, and that drives me to learn more and more. I am deaf, but have sound in my life when my magnet is stuck to my melon. If I go for shower, I am deaf as a bar of Irish Spring sop on a rope, and when I step out of shower it seems someone wants an answer on something.
When I go to sleep my processor is off and I hear nothing. No alarms (yes I have slept in), no smoke alarms should they go off (this scares me) and I wake up deaf until I "strap on" the magnet.
It seems that Mary always has a question about something as soon as I am toweling down after my complete silence in my deafness shower, and she tries her best to squeak out a simple ASL sign that is related to her question of the moment.
"You want Lunch" is one that she has worked on, and I get it as soon as she starts. Eating signs in ASL are easy as eating pie, and I never want to miss a meal!

I hope to carry on and get a diploma of some sort in ASL. I love it to be sure, but it is a dream of mine to use it working with the Deaf/deaf one day. Another reason for my diligence in learning ASL is the fear that my Cochlear will go down for good one day. I have "lost" the use of 3 electrodes which leaves me with just 12 I think. I guess they can always go back in and re-implant the tiny little things, but what IF????

I was going to be bilateral, and was implanted on my right side in September 2008. Activation day produced no sound, so they went back in and did the whole nasty surgery again.
Activation day gave no sound.
The thought is that the auditory nerves on my right side are dead as door nail. My fear is that one day my left side might go as well.
I may be paranoid here, but the cochlear implant has restored me a life that is as close to the real concerto that I had in my hearing days. Nine months in a cone of silence was spooky. I like my CI and want to keep it.

But I also want the back up of knowing ASL. Love to learn it and love to use it as a novice student, but I know it is indispensable when my magnet is off.

My boy Dan signs I love you every night before bed.

My favorite sign indeed.

Warmest,

David

Dear God: Give Us Our Daily "Glove From Above"

2010-02-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

February is toast!

March apparently will make it's annual appearance dressed as a lamb but with a lion mane. At least by all local weather reports.

The Olympics will end and the hangovers in Vancouver will start as quick as the deficits are tallied and the homeless move back to their boxes in the east side.

As I type this, it is time to get ready for the Gold medal hockey game. Canada vs USA. I will put on my patriotic "Canada" official Olympic hoodie, and will get Mary to do the same. The two of us will then head over to friends with my car adorned with a "GO Canada" flag attached and flapping in blaze of patriotic glory. We will watch the game and pray to the hockey Gods to give us the "Glove from above" if those Gods feel us worthy, and snatch pucks that seemed surely bound for the mesh. The crowds will roar and you will hear a collective "did you see that save?" from a sea of some thirty million Canadians that have in our DNA, the "hockey gene".

Our game.

We all remember for some reason where we were when Canada beat the USA to win the gold medal in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Funny lot we are. American friends will tell us in detail where they were when they heard Kennedy was assassinated; or regale in historical detail their location, and with whom they were with' on 9/11.

Canadians on the other sporting hand, will give you coordinates to the exact degree, along with temperature, time and weather outlook when "Our team" won something or other.
It is hockey man. This is Canada.
This is our game, to be sure, but boy do we have an inferiority complex about it. There is no swagger or no given. The outcome is not always a win; a medal; a world championship.
No sir, last winter Olympics we finished so far back, the country drank all the beer in our borders for a week straight! The arm chair hockey coaches and the political pundits flapped gums about what went wrong for a year! We analyzed and second guessed every move made by coaches on the games that we lost. Governments fell I am sure over the catastrophe.

The tide is changing. Russia and Canada were always the two hockey supremacy's in the world. Outside of the "Miracle on ice"30 years ago, the USA was not a hotbed of hockey talent. That is changing.
NCAA is working on drafting talent and building a program of young talented players.
The annual "Boxing day" fixture in our collective consciousness is the World Junior Hockey championships, where traditionally we mop up the world and then apologize in our true Canadian nature for having so Damn much young hockey talent.
This year, we lost!
Lost to the United States of America!
That country to the south of us that we thought just raised Nascar drivers, suddenly came out of the south and beat our young boys at our game!

So in just over one hour from now as I type this, Canada will break a record that quite possibly never be broken again. More people will watch this game in than any other game in our history.
When we beat Russia in the quarter finals just last Wednesday to advance to the Fridays semi-finals, over 10 million of us northern denizens tuned in to watch.
The estimates tell us that the number will be a lot more today.

I pray to the "Gloves from above" as most of my northern neighbours are doing right now.

It is our game, to be sure, but in true Canadian manner, I want to apologize to my friends in the US, for winning soundly!

Go Canada

David

Coping With A New World.

2010-02-20T10:46:00.000-08:00

It was two years ago almost to the day when I posted my first blog. I remember clearly the excitement of it. Reading MY words when they were magically transformed onto a template that I created.
The Super Bowl was just in the books , and American Idol was once again in full swing.
And I was deaf as a stump!
No hearing, no balance, and no idea that in 4 months time I would be implanted with a tiny computer inside my head that would give me semblance of sound.
Digital speak as I called it,

Since that first post in my first blog (life in a cone of silence), I figured out how to cope with what I have, make due with technology that attempts to recreate the world that once graced my cochlea, and I learned that my lives concerto is what I make of it.

Today in church while listening to the band, my mind rambled over many thoughts. I caught glimpses of the music and figured out more coping strategies. I watched the people around me and lip read to figure out where we were in the song. Just another strategy in my world of coping.

We do what we can, which is never the best, but its the best we got.
Every day is about coping. I am deaf, I have no balance, yet I can figure out ways of getting through the day and it's challenges.
My cochlear implant gives me sound, it is the comprehension of that sound that needs the work.
I/we (all CI folks) employ strategies to "get it". We read lips, use closed caption, fill in blanks and guess a hell of a lot.
No balance is just damned determination.
"I will not fall, I will not fall"!
Head up, focus and use all the muscles to walk from A to B.
Tenacity!

Two years ago I needed canes and could not hear a jet roar.

On Friday I did a 2 1/2 Kilometer power walk at the indoor track, and enjoyed Mary's conversation the whole time.

Damn my life is blessed!

Warmest,

David

Missing Cuba!

2010-02-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

I think I may have gone to the warm sun too soon in the long winter of our Canadian discontent.

Mary and I just got back from a week in Cuba, but after a scant 6 days back it hit me that it is still February!
Funny how the seasonal disorders; the blues and the blahs ramp up big in the shortest month of the year.
Perhaps because the month that is shortest in days, is also shortest in our true source of vitamin D: Sun glorious sun.

Regardless, Cuba chased the blues right out of my horn for 7 wonderful days.

Temps in the 30's every day with the exception of Superbowl Sunday. On the day of hype and American glory it dropped down to the mid teens (Celsius my American friends!)Great balls of orange sun every day, as we laid on the sand and watched the surf turf the land.

This was my second visit to the island of Cuba.
My last visit was during Christmas 25 years ago.
My father had just passed away and I had an opportunity to use sun, sand and Cerveza to reflect on what I thought was a sad "part of life" event. He died a young man, not quite 60 yet, and it was a surprise to me.

I have since come to a new acceptance that people die, babies are born, spring follows winter....life is change. Accept and enjoy.
And I have. My chapter 2 is a glorious wonderful story with a wonderful lady that showed me how to live and love again!

Cuba, as I discovered, offered a different look at the world. A view that life is a gift, and what we have in our world, we take for granted until we see another world.

I loved Cuba then, and love it now. The people are warm and so thankful and grateful for the dollar store trinkets that we brought to give to them as our tips or our way of thanking the maid/servers/hostess etc. It was a million dollars to a lady who lovingly custom made our eggs each day when Mary gave her colouring books for her children.

25 years ago, on my first visit to Cuba, I smoked too many Coheba's, drank too many Mojito and cerveza (por favor)!, and got montezuma's revenge! Cuba had just celebrated 25 years of Castro in power.

25 years later, last week, I smoked no cigars, and drank the odd beer on the beech and took advantage of nice wines at dinners. Spanish coffee ended most evenings and early nights were the norm.
Ahh yes 52 year old male versus a 27 year old boy!

Castro is still alive, and technically still in power. His brother though has the control of the remote on the island right now.

Regardless of the great time, we are back in "groundhog" month, where every day is the same: sun rises late, sets early, same cold and damp temp every day. No sun, just grey with shades of Gray!

I feel like a snarly old manopausal (new word) male who needs more sun, more sand, and vino blanco por favor!

I spent some time looking at Blogs by Cubans the past few days, and if you get some time I suggest you do the same. The simple fact that you and I can do this (Blog) we take for granted. Different story in Cuba, and one day I will do a post on it.

Oh the sun is making a comeback here in the land of "own the podium". I best open the blinds and suck it up.

Warmest,

David

Pull Down Your Pants And Slide On The Ice!

2010-02-17T11:39:00.000-08:00

So I watched a bit of the Olympics, as I felt it was my patriotic duty and really, what else is on for the next 17 days as this country comes to a standstill, both in terms of productivity and media.
Anyway, I guess I am bit of curmudgeon and perhaps need to lighten up a bit, but my God man...what happened to the "Good sport".."Good Game"..."Happy to be here"....lucky to be competing with the worlds best."..."Blessed to be amongst these athletes"?

Gone!

We apparently must "own the podium" as it were. Not my words, but a conscious and expensive effort for the past 4 years to not show how good and classy athletes we are, and pick up the odd medal here and there; no we have to own it!

Me thinks it smacks of arrogance, and flies in the face of what I figured was the worlds perception of us good Canadians.

Apologizing for things that are not our fault; opening doors for every and all; health care to all the good folks in our land of lakes and trees. But that is as gone as Saars. Dead as courteous drivers on the Highway of Heroes.

Overnight we became the people that want to take over the world of shooting whilst skiing; dancing on ice; tobogganing way too fast in spandex, and of course Hockey.
Ahhhh yes. Our game!

The poor Canadian that finished 5Th in our first Gold Medal affair will go home and never be heard from again! This young lad (Eric Guay) is the fifth best in the world at this sport, and yet not a peep was heard about him, not a glimpse of his parents (who I am sure are undoubtedly proud) sitting in the stands. And sadly, we will probably never hear from him again.

No, you see we have to "own" the podium. All colours of it. Fifth is kissing your sister with tongue damn it!

Why can't we celebrate excellence?
Why do we have to "WIN", "OWN", "Decimate", "Destroy" ???

"Ladies and Gentlemen take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice"...All the way to the bottom of hill and have the joy of your life.

Nice to be back

David

Blessings At Holiday Time

2009-12-08T06:17:00.000-08:00

Once again the end of another year is upon us. The many celebrations of faith and new beginnings have already begun and will continue well after the New Year’s ball has dropped in Times Square and the , and the last drop of bubbly has been slurped from the proverbial cup of celebration.

I know too well that reflection can be painful as in the past year I have witnessed Janet, my wife of 19 years, passing. I have also struggled with a new way of hearing in my deaf world, and battled to go back to the working world. I have taken on many challenges that would seem as normalcy to most and not as a challenge. Walking without a cane only happened in February of 2009. I have no inner balance but that is a minor setback and a challenge. Hearing, with a cochlear implant is a huge challenge and requires the work and concentration beyond belief, just to be part of a conversation.Yet every day, in small ways, it gets better. I went to my first movie in a Cinema in over 2 1/2 years just last week. What a wonderful life I have!

Reflection can also be a time that will let you count your many blessings, and renew our faith.

In 2009 I met Mary. In a relatively short period of time we have merged our families as one, and put our love and faith towards building a beautiful relationship. This will be our first Christmas together, and that in itself is cause for great joy on our part, and indeed our families.

Dan, my 15 year old continues to amaze me. His love of life and zeal for the human spirit is magnificent when one considers what the lad has been through in the past 5 years. He watched his mother suffer and pass from blood cancer, his father go suffer medical trauma and loose his hearing, and then he lost his first and only dog to cancer in January of 2009. He is part of my team that keeps me going. Between Mary and Dan I have faith in this place, and have discovered a love that may have always been there, but perhaps got misplaced temporarily when I traveled at the speed of life, and did not take time to slow down and enjoy the concerto right before me.

So my blessings are there before me and I count them on a regular basis. Wonderful new love in my life with Mary and her family, continued love from the amazing Guitar Boy, and a network of old friends, and many new that inspire me to grow and go. Deafness has introduced me to so many amazing denizens that exemplify spirit and the dauntlessness that makes us look at life with a wonderful new and open way.

My cochlear implant provides me with sound. Glorious sound. I am grateful for the technology and the people that gave me back life's soundtrack.

As my family prepares to celebrate Christmas and the coming New Year I would like to extend from my family to yours wishes for a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and Happy Chanukah.
Each and every celebration brings us the opportunity to renew our faith in each other and in the world.From around the world I extend these wishes to you….

Warmest,

David

Becoming a Curmudgeon

2009-11-20T12:05:00.001-08:00

November can be a cruel month.
It teases and flirts with it's summer like days to remind us of the summer past, but it also blows rain and premature December winds to remind us of what is yet to come.

I sat in a coffee shop on a rather nice November day, and I had this profound sense of not belonging as I watched dozens of people actively on cell phones. Talking, texting, twittering, GPSing, googling, downloading, playing, watching video, playing games, blogging.....

It brought me to this post: I seem to fondly remember a time not so long ago, when we could go to a movie, make an egg sandwich, read a book...whatever....and not have to post about it.

I remember the social network scene that involved real face time with real friends. It was a time not long ago when we could make a flan, BBQ a steak, walk a dog, go to church, lock our keys in the car.....and not have to jump on our devices to tell the world.

It is not there is anything wrong with this new world per say, it is just that I sat in the "FourBucks" and enjoyed my paper and my over priced hot foam, I looked up and at that moment saw a dozen or more people on cell phones doing all of the above I am sure.
It hit me.
Why did these devices, these "Smart phones" seem like the embodiment of everything I want to escape?
They are indeed the inevitable technological development and I thought, give us freedom to be better, to do more, to connect better, and yet in their abundance, I saw the measure of how far I had fallen away from the community of contemporary souls. The distance I have moved from the world I used to inhabit. How quick I became the curmudgeon I dreaded becoming.
I read updates from "friends" on Facebook and get angry at the simplicity of the messages. Not on purpose, but postings seem like a competition to get their downloads out there.

I don't belong here anymore.
My membership has lapsed.
Go. I thought

Jonesin For Clear Sound In A Noisy World

2009-11-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

Thursday, I will grace the wonderful confines of Sunnybrook Hospital. I will visit the building and the people who restored sound to my life in May of 2008 after nine months in a cone of silence. It is a "working visit" as I have an appointment with the world reknowned audiology department for a schedule maintenance.

Sort of like a 25,000 KM tune up and oil change.

My audiologist will ask me how my hearing is, and I will respond as always: "Have none, still deaf as a stump".
But I will also fill her in on how my new digital sound is keeping me in the game sort to speak.

I hear most conversation in quiet, quite possibly in the 90% range when tested in the word comprehension game.
We play the "Repeat what you hear" game in a closed booth where I face the wall and listen nervously to a mechanica man made loud speakerl speaker in the room.

"What time does this train depart for Bologna?"
Me: "What lime does this pain fart in My Sherrona?"

They may or may test me to confirm this. I hope so, I so enjoy messin with the audiologist.

In noise, I, like most fellow CI-Borgs, suffer in comprehension. Put us in our McDonald's at lunch tim, e near a high school where the shrieks and noise make it hard on the hearing to get conversation, and us CIers just sit and nod when asked anything.
"Pass the salt"
I just nod and smile.
Fake it to make it.

I am, however, miles from where I was when I was first activated, and even in noise, I can get the meat of the conversation if I know the topic, and struggle to stay in the game.
Concentration is required, but it works. Follow the lips, know the topic, don't drift off. Stay FOCUSED to stay part of the planet built for hearing.

I just read about a new hearing strategy that my Cochlear Implant manufacturer is launching. It is called ClearVoice, and the reviews have me excited. It is designed for those noisy environments that we suck at hearing. One user described it the difference as "going from hearing a conversation in a jeep with the top down, to hearing the conversation in a high end Mercedes with windows rolled up. Quiet and nice"

I am intrigued, and will pursue with the good medical people at my clinic.

Phones still are the worst part of my "integration" back into the normal civilized world that favors the hearing, and punishes those of us with the "hidden handicap" - D/deafness. But I try and try to talk on the phone.

Some days are diamond and some are stone. Some phone calls are golden and "I get it" I really get it. Some suck as bad as the closed captioning horror and comedy show that networks give us to follow along. CC is worse than muddled hearing in most cases, and I have posted about this, and will continue to push where I can to get proper Closed Captioning for the hearing impaired in this country.

I still wake up every day and ensure I am indeed with pulse and on the right side of the grass. I check the Irish "Sports pages" (the obituaries) to ensure that I am indeed not is some elaborate dream that has awake and having coffee, and in my dream I read about my untimely (or timed!) demise.
After confirmation that I am still amongst the living, I quietly give thanks for what I have. I am one lucky deaf dog to be here, and will never let a day pass without giving thanks for all the love I have in my life, the people, the planet and all it's glory.

And my wonderful cochlear implant that gives me sound.

Glorious sound!

I still want to try "ClearVoice"

Warmest,

David

The Autumns In My Life

2009-10-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Autumn is a favorite time of year for me. I love the colours, love the not-so- sweltering heat, and enjoy the crispness and frangrent scents that the earth offers up for the senses, before Mother Nature sheds her annual skins of summer and bares down for a long and white winter nap.

There is something in the visuals of falls cascade of colours, that can be both magnificent in it's glory, and sad in it's reminder of what is about to come.

I never was a true summer person as I don't do so good in the heat, and as welcome as spring is after the long and arduous winters, I don't do so good in the wet either. So autumn be the main and fave time of the year.

I lost my hearing in the fall, and during my 100 day hospital stay, I watched from my 5th story institutional style window, the leaves turn and winter arrive.
Funny how it was comforting for me, in my newly and profound deafness, to view natures annual show.

It was a reminder I guess, that I was still alive, and that the miracles in nature (the cascades of colours, the change in season, the beauty of it all) were perhaps there to reinforce the miracle that had me still around to watch it all.
Deaf, no balance, in a hospital gown mind you, but only weeks earlier I was on life support with little to no prospects for seeing the 8th of September, let alone the first day of autumn.

So I took in the view in my cone of silence. Thought deeply and introspectively about a God of my understanding, and why I was still around.
I gave thanks in my own way, and looked at the world through new eyes, and no working ears.

That was two years ago last month. Seems like an eternity.
Today, as I type, I watch a rain gentle at first, then a torrent and mighty and times. The leaves, or what remains of them on the trees, are long past the vibrant and vivid colours that had spectators in awe weeks ago. They are reduced to unimpressive tones of yellows and browns.
Yet my awe and admiration for nature is more spectacular now than ever.
My gratitude grows still, after all I have been through. I have so much in my life, after having lost so much, but gained more.

I have new love in my new life.
I have a new way of hearing sound, and I never take any sound for granted. I never complain about the "noise".
Ever!

I just wanted to write today as I watch life's concerto play out in front of me, and tell any and all that grace these simple pages, that life is wonderful!

I hope I never loose my sense of wonder at the world. A grace or gift that came to me after loosing my hearing and watching the world in that cone of silence.

Enjoy the day!

Warmest,

David

Money To Play With.

2009-10-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with this picture?

New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillie's are in the world series of baseball.

Together these two teams spent an indecent - no an obscene amount of money, to pay a bunch of grown men to play a game.
Combined they spent over $300 million just on salaries!
Yes, they are indeed professional athletes And and yes, they are the arguably, the best at what they do.
But the fact is this: Twenty five or thirty some men get $300 million to PLAY a game.
For this season that runs from March to end of October. (OK this year November)

They get the rest of the time to play with their money!

Did you know that just last week, the World Bank loaned India $320 million to improve and repair more than six thousand kilometers of roads in the country? Roads that are sadly and badly needed to help the impoverished live a fraction better than before by giving medical supply, food supply and the Red cross access to the millions that live out of reach.

Or how about the fact that just last month Uganda took on a $320 million loan for much-needed health, water and sanitation initiatives? Clean water and plumbing that might, yes might, stop the spread of disease that kills thousands a day.

Closer to home and just two months ago, Colorado officials announced 267 government jobs would be cut because of a $320 million shortfall in the state budget. In the face of safe roads, clean drinking water and hundreds of families affected by unemployment, $320 million for a pair of baseball teams seems excessive, no?

In this country our First Nations people struggle with poverty and depend on handouts from the Government in many cases. Not that they are the only poor by any means, but rare is the day that goes by where I read in our National paper about another death on a reserve in the northern climes due to the links of poverty.

As the H1N1 flu makes news and noise, the vaccine to stop the spread, and God willing the deaths hits roadblocks because of lack of funds.

No roadblocks with the Yankees and Phillie's!

Spend like the world needs more rich athletes.

Spend like the poor will feed on watching these men.

Spend like roads and water are just silly and baseball will cure any disease, or build any road, or find clean water for those in need.

When does it end?

What would you spend $300 million on?

Warmest,

David

Be Careful What You Tell!

2009-10-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Despite all of my life's grand scale of adversities and a few afflictions that saw me on pinned on God's mat in 2007, I have always maintained an overly at times, optimistic outlook.

Last week I had close to $500 fraudulently taken out of my bank account by a sophisticated scam. I noticed it hours just after it happened and called the bank to get answers. After no explanations, I drove to the branch and signed some papers to declare that it was not me or anyone I knew that removed funds. The money had been taken out via a telephone bank transfer, and I was told days latter that this is not new, nor is it uncommon.
It seems that many of us that embrace the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Linkedin, and in some cases those of us who share stories of the personal nature on blogs, are giving out enough clues for sophisticated cyber criminals to figure out important pieces of information to claim to be "us".

We leave trails every day, and I always thought that those "things" only happen in movies and to those "other" people that don't practice safe banking habits etc.
Not so.
I do bank on-line and purchase the odd ticket on line. This is not how my fraud was perpetrated. I had criminals that somehow got enough information to go on to the automated telephone banking service and transfer just under $500 to someplace that I have yet to figure out or be told.

Think about it: How many times do we drop information about us in our day to day stuff?
To get passwords at times, many organizations ask us the secret question that only we would know: "What is your Mothers maiden name?"
Now think about how easy that is to find out in one of the many places where we chat/frequent/visit/leave messages etc.

Anyway, the bank is making good, and I am a little more careful things I write in the places I go.
The first question that the security folks from the bank asked me is if I post on facebook.

Makes ya think what you write about, and who is reading it. I naively believed that unless you were my "friend" there was nothing you could see about me. Man is that wrong I am told.
Anyway, a new experience that gives me yet another look at a changing world.

I heard a story about a couple that were excited about a weekend away in celebration of an anniversary. Like we all do they posted their "status" on Facebook to let the world know their excitement.
"Bob and I are excited to be leaving this morning for Niagara on the lake for the weekend"
They came home on the Sunday night to find their house emptied of all the electronics.

A business colleague of mine was going away on a week long get a way with his wife a few years ago. They ordered some furniture from a national chain.
The trucking company that delivers for the chain phoned to advise them that their sofa was to be delivered in a few days.
My colleague's wife pipes up, "But we are going to Barbados for two weeks and will not be back until..."
Arrived home to an empty house.
Neighbours thought they were moving!

For every security option their is a better scam.
For every mousetrap there is smarter mouse.

As I started to write in this post, I am still optimistic that the world is OK.
I like this place and find a lot more good people than not so good.
I am not naieve, I just hold out hope that the human spirit is wonderful, and I know that there will always be that element of evil and bad that takes from us. Robs us of our possessions for the sake of a lazy way of getting ahead or just surviving.

I just have to be more careful.

Warmest,

David

Closed Captioning Still In The Dark Ages!

2009-10-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

Why is Closed Captioning so difficult to do on television.
Or is it?

Watch any show on any night and the "CC" goes from the ridiculous to the hilarious. Spelling is atrocious and following the actors timing of speech is never even close.
When you think about it, they know the script on any tapped show, so how hard can it be for the networks to just type the copy in and time it to the scene?
Good God man, we can do so much in animation, special effects, sound effects, but give the networks the task of attaching copy to the visual, it just blows the mind what they do with it.

There are conservatively 30 million D/deaf or Hard of hearing in the United States, and 3 Million of us in Canada that fall into that category. I, like many of my cochlear wearing implanted mates, struggle with sound out of a man made speaker. My brain seems to translate better from lips to processor.

To many of you reading this, you may have never had occasion to care about the world of "CC". Perhaps you saw it once at the doctors office or in the gym where they use closed captioning so the sound need not be put on, and you possible never gave it a thought.
But in my world, and my fellow d/Deaf friends, implanted with a CI or not, the closed captioning is how we get the rest of the story.

There is no rhyme or reason to the madness of how the "cc' consistently fails. Re runs on the Fox network seem to be the worst for some bizarre reason. If I watch the new episode of the same show latter that night, they get it close to bang on. The script follows the lips more or less. Occasionally the speech is too fast, and the script falls behind, but for the most part it seems to work in "new" episodes.
The same station, latter or earlier, broadcasting a 4 or 5 year old rerun of the same comedy show, is so far off the mark, I have to turn off and walk away.
What is the reason for this?

I have emailed at least one broadcaster asking them if they have any idea of how "off" the mark they are on "CC".
No response.
Don't care, don't matter to hearing executives. Besides, how big a market can the deaf world be?

We are a friggin huge market good network and television executives.

Sit up, take note, and pay attention.

Warmest,

David

Getting Out Of My Car, And Getting More Than I Paid For!

2009-10-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

I hate the drive thru!
No, hate is a word I hate.
I dislike and question the drive thru.

I love my occasional "Four Bucks" and the odd "Double/double" at the local "Timmy's" But why on God's Brown and grey (used to be green but the drive thru is changing the colour) earth, do we have to line up like lemmings in our automobiles, whilst spewing out the toxic fumes like we were doing the world a favor by not getting out of our cars and walking in to spend our hard earned four bucks on a cup of hot foam?

I am challenged in the respect that speakers in these systems sound foreign in language to this cochlear challenged guy, and on occasion when the wind and rain team up with the "no parking" in the lot, I have done the deed, and driven to the oh so friendly speaker and heard:
"Mey si make your odour plans?"
"Yes, triple grande latte, one raw sugar"
"wood you lake anybing self wid dat?"
"No that's all
"that bums do spew dolls hairs and iffy spine lents. Please live to the sepent widow"

I know what the drill is, and I also know that they probably asked me a few other things to keep their shift supervisor happy. Perhaps wondering if I wanted to spend a few more shekels on a lovely biscotti. But I know what biscotti means: "Twice baked" So twice the price.
Look it up!
So we are lazy at best, because if we were in a "hurry" we would park and run in and grab and go. This of course all falls apart because the owners of these establishments put the "A" team, and plenty of them on drive thru detail, and then challenge them with timers and the history of each hour.
Honestly!

A photocopy that I saw in a "Red Robbin" in Thunder Bay last week
"October 3rd 2006 was our best shift ever! 284 vehicles served in the 7 to 9 am time, with an average serve time of 29 seconds per transaction. Can we beat that today gang?"

Now I park (farthest away) and wander in to the shop for many reasons:

I like to walk. I spent 100 days in a hospital bed, another 30 with a walker and/or wheel chair, then the next 90 with a cane. This from a guy who ran two half marathons in 2004 and 2006, then had a medical 9/11 in 2007.
Fresh air in me lungs feels good, and I take it whenever I can.
The sound quality on a speaker is built for the 90% percent of the population who hear quite fine thank you very much. The 3 million Canadians, and thirty odd million Americans who are deaf or Deaf have no use for drive thru's! I am deaf.
I am also cheap. Burning fuel at $1 a liter of Alberta tea, sucks quite frankly. While one sits in a line to spend $4 on a "FourBucks" I know, I know why the contradiction. Well I treat myself and indulge in an overpriced but lovely foamy frothy drink.
I like people: I am in a space at this point in my life where I like to see face, see a smile, make a smile, tell the person to enjoy the day, eat it up, live it to it's fullest. I like to effect the day!
Exercise is good! I park as far away as I can to get the tiny extra benefit that a brisk walk offers.
For almost 10 months before being implanted with my Cochlear Implant, I lived in complete and profound silence. What I missed the most was one-on-one human conversation. In my hearing days prior to deafness, I took sound and conversation for granted. I traveled life at the speed of life. I never want to take the wonderful world of one-on-one human interaction for granted again!

My beef is that I stand in a small line while ONE nice lady tends to us, while a team of nine young fast bucks try to smash the old drive thru record of 18 seconds per vehicle. God forbid if I order a toasted bagel, the young brash 17 year old will break my servers elderly bones if she attempts to put a bagel in ahead of the 287 cars that NEED to get in and get out!

So what happened?

Why did life get so busy and so important that we can't leave our cars and enjoy the day, say hello to a live face, interact with others in line and live a life that is in real time?
We claim to be good denizens and caretakers of the planet. Just see how much we recycle.
But we can't leave our cars to do us good, other good, and leave a little smaller footprint?
Interact and leave a smile or get a smile?

Hmmmm.

I can.

There is the odd but occasional gloomy start to the day that began with life's usual fast and furious morning rituals, but has chaos and mayhem thrown at us.
Can't find wallet, realize shirt has stain on it, running ten minutes late due to looking for Guitar Boys permission slip to sign for school, no stamps in house to mail overdue payments...you get the picture.
It is no mistake that on these occasions that I feel the need for two things: More caffeine and a warm human smile that is genuine, sincere, and from the heart.
I get this fix from a few places where kind warm souls offer both, and I get the odd wonderful conversation in the line with other good souls who think a bit like me.

You can't get the second part of my equation from a speaker, and a face at the window that is more concerned with speed and serving the person they are talking to through their mic system, then paying heed to my concerns or the day I may or may not have.
The smile and "have a wonderful day" I get live and in person from a "counter" person (and yes they are human and have life"s, and I ask them about their life's if I get the chance. The response to my sincere inquiry is amazingly wonderful) seems to be indeed sincere and well intended, lift my gloom for hours and hours. Where as a drive thru can dampen and frustrate and do more harm to all creatures great and small that no amount of caffeine can ever repair.

I am not naive to believe that the drive thru's will ever be gone, but I am hopeful enough that there are many of us that might do the park and walk thing once a month, and graduate to once a week.
After changing (I love that word change!) some habits a bit and realizing that the smiles and human interactions make a difference. And the planet and our physical selves can get better, step by baby step; perhaps one day many of us may do what I do: Park and walk most days, and occasionally (sheets of freezing rain coming down on my Fourbucks parking lot) do the drive through.

Can we move the world a millimeter to the good by picking one day a month, and get out of our cars?

Warmest,

David

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love". - Mother Teresa

2009-10-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

Here we are again! Back at the place that was warm and cozy for a year, but got neglected when life roared back at the speed of life.

The place that gave me solace and comfort in creating words; the blogs that I read in my deafness, wrote in my recovery, and laughed at when I needed to smile and make the world smile.

My history at the blog writing began in January of 2008 and in my utter and profound complete deafness, I wrote "Life in a cone of silence" diligently and daily for the better part of a year. If I missed a day, I got anxious and bothered.
When sound, or semblance of sound returned in May of 2008, I no longer resided in that funny, funny place called the "Cone", but in a digital funny, funny sounding world that gave me music sans one string on the guitar. Thus, "Five String" started a journey of self discovery and healing as I climbed out of my medical soup as it were.

In 2009 life "changed" more radically and quickly than I ever imagined it, so acceptance of change was key in keeping on my path that was filled with new love, new enlightenment and as always;,more change.

Looking back is difficult as it is "in the books", but I do recall having a dream and a desire to enact change with my writing.
I started "Five String" with a hope and a dream that I could maybe change peoples perception just a millimeter. Just enough to make a difference.
One year ago the world was going to hell in a stock brokers hand basket and the world was getting ugly. If the news were a weather report, every day read the same: "Black clouds, heavy wind and rain, Tornado warning"

As the the world hunkered down and battened down the hatches, a new President in the United States was sworn in, and the word "change" was used in sentences with the word "hope". It made me feel good indeed.

My world was changing daily as it always has and always will, but by accepting the change in my new outlook and philosophy, I had a relaxed almost confident outlook on the future.
I got away from putting fingers to qwerty and I miss that. I used to write for me at first. I wrote to keep my deaf melon in the game.

Then I wrote because I was angry that we live in a world where thirty million people live in slavery, a world where children in abject poverty make toys for rich children, where according to netaid, over one billion people, or one in six, live in poverty while two-thirds of Americans fight obesity. 180,000,000 Americans are over weight, and one billion other denizens of this good planet can't string together more than one decent meal a week!
but hey, distance negates responsibility right?

So I got busy, and life at the speed of light saw wonderful love enter this CI-Borgs life, and give me a wonderful euphoria that can only be experienced, not described.
Love at the right time heals and works magic.

Still does.

Every day.

But I still need to write, need to move the few dozen readers here another millimeter if I can. Need to reach out and help the deaf that look to us writers on various places like "Deaf Village", "Hearing Journey" "Deaf Read" and other wonderful forums that so graciously published my deaf ramblings and funny stories that saw a then 49 year old loose the world of sound, but think he could still survive a Wal Mart superstore by himself. It was funny to read, and hilariously therapeutically healing to write.

I wander my small piece of the planet with a skip in my unbalanced step, and love in my life, smiling at any and all who look at my magnet adorning head. I say hello to any that will listen, and I listen intently and earnestly, as sound, although in a new digital format, is the music of my soul.
I challenge myself daily to step out of my comfort zone and attack with zeal and vigor the challenges of doing what it takes to effect the quality of the day in a positive way.
I take ASL classes with Mary, the love of my life, every week, in the hope that I can use it one day to help where I can.

I love this place.
I love the people.

I miss writing.

I want to leave a tiny piece of this old dogs mind on whoever graces my pages one day.
So I am back!

"I feel the vacuum, the loneliness, the silence, the dehydration of the soul as people who want desperately to save our constitution, country and planet still wander the streets without knowing how to say hi to one another" - Sam Smith

Warmest,

David

Touching and Hearing Home

2009-08-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

I have to keep in check my overwhelming desire to right the wrongs. I have grown miles in my deafness and illness that of September 2007, and I changed, the problem I have is that the world around me kept basically the same ideas, and ideals.

It is coming up on my two year anniversary of my medical nightmare that cost me my hearing, my balance, and my old carefree world that knew no boundaries. All of that changed on September 9th 2007, when I ended up on life support, and parked in a coma until they could figure out what was going on.

The above two paragraphs are connected by the simple fact that I had a reprieve of sorts that led me on a path or journey if you will, to discover how amazing life can be. It also opened my eyes to the fallacious and misguided place this planet can be, when people put their deceptive and deceiving minds to it.

I saw in my total and complete deafness a different world than I saw in my old world.

Old David ran hard and fast, lived carefree and at times carelessly.
But by doing so I missed the concerto that life played out for me.
To be sure, it was playing in all of its glory, but I had blinders on eyes and ears, and dug cleats into the playing field so I would not miss any balls that came my way.
Problem was, I missed a whole lot of life and ended up 90 days in a hospital bed. Deaf as a stump, and walking only with aids of walkers and canes. Tough stuff for a guy who had yet to turn 50!

In my gratitude for not dying, I wanted to give back to the world "something".
Not sure what, but I felt like the world was new, and my gratitude overwhelmed me.

That feeling started to slide away and did not last, as after a year of "hearing" through the technological wonder of a cochlear implant, I felt myself slipping at times back into my old ways. Going back to the person that ignored life's concerto and ran full steam ahead into the wake that I wanted to, and managed to avoid in my new world.

I have to be conscious of the fact that I was given a reprieve two years ago.
For the first twenty five years in my professional career, I missed so much of life trying to make money for the company, attempting to fatten my personal inventory of "stuff" and make me better by doing what I know now is all the wrong things; trying to make things "perfect" for the family by purchasing stuff that I thought would make life better, trying to make an impression for the good opinion of "others", who I now know did not give a rodents rectum about me, and there I was trying to give the illusion of a "perfect" life.

Sad.

So today as I go back to my new feeling of gratitude and my overwhelming desire to right the wrongs, I realize that the world is full of speed bumps that I can never rid, and I need to be grateful for this place. Warts and all!
Perhaps by just being here and taking note of the bumps and warts and being a friend when I can, a mentor when asked, a Dad when needed, and a good denizen of the planet always, is all that is required.

As I read once, it is sad and perverse in the fact that we only notice we are alive, when we are reminded of the fact that we are dying. Or in my case, I was literally dying. On life support and give the proverbial "24 hours".

The Grace I was given was a gift that I cherish to be sure, but I have to remind myself when I see the little and silly crap around me and in life, that the bigger context is what's important.

It is an amazing place, and I want to enjoy it. I have a new life now and very different from my old life.
I have new love that is exciting and generous in it's gift.
I have a new way of hearing that is a grace I sometimes take for granted and get depressed at the fact that it is not the same.
I should be so grateful for the technology that gives me sound.

Two days ago I was at a company baseball game and was asked to play. It is the first time in over two years that I put on the mit and swung the bat.
The first 100 minutes of the 120 minute game sucked big!
I have no balance and walking is a confidence game that I struggle with. Playing center field scared the crap out of this wobbly walker, and every ball (sadly many are hit there) that came my way, I closed my eyes and cursed the date of September 9, 2007 when I lost it all.
The two hour game seemed to drag on in my misery and pity party.

Then I had the Epiphany in the field that brought me back to my old euphoric state that my reprieve brought me almost two years ago.
I was alive, and playing baseball!
I was alive and playing baseball!
I was on my feet alive, and playing baseball!
I was alive on my feet playing baseball and hearing all the sounds!
I was alive on my feet playing baseball and hearing all of the glorious sounds, squeals, laughter, claps, cheers.
I was hearing life's beautiful concerto in all of it's glory.

I took my last at bat at got a single. My teammates hit me along to third base.
I scampered home on my co-workers RBI single.

As I touched home plate I looked up and gave a big smile to the big guy!
I heard the cheers and heard and felt the rubber of touching home.

Heard and Felt!

Who would of thunked that I would have heard and felt anything ever again? Especially if you saw me deaf and in a wheel chair 700 days ago!

What a great place to hang around for a while!

Warmest,

David

Tweeting Is Not Writing.

2009-08-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

The world of Blogging, and the art of posting is going the way of the diary and the personal journal.
Micro blogging and "tweets" are now part and parcel of the art of the personal story.
The blog is a place where we write to share, get feedback where possible, and tell a story to the world.
And it literally is the world, as the internet has connected us to lands once foreign and not visited by us in person, but now the good people of Spain, Cuba, China, New Zealand among just a few, daily drop in to read our ramblings.

Twitter took the art of the story, and told us it was too long! There were many who did not want the 1000 word story. Just a simple "tweet" updating us on what television show we were watching, and what fruit we ate from the market.
Dumb it down and tweet it out.

"Brenda is out of bed and making lunches"
or "Ken feels 100 years old today"
or "Bucky had a steaming triple latte from "Fourbucks" a few minutes ago".
Was this what we wanted, or were we told that this is what the world wanted from us?

Are we lazy at reading or writing?
Just asking.

And I ask not to be a smart ass in the pejorative sense. I ask because I honestly want to know, from you dear readers: Is this is what we really only want to know?

I want to be connected to friends or even people that I have known through their writings, but never had the amazing good fortune of sitting down and breaking bread in person with.
After reading your posts for the past 2 years I feel like I know you. Should I feel silly reading a eight word experience with a egg sandwich?

("Craig just had the best egg sandwich ever!")

Actual tweet, I just changed the name to protect the name of the sandwich!

I dunno, I guess I am disappointed at the brevity of life and the recording of thoughts. Facebook started a whole journey of life "tweets" if you will, that took us into the lives of our social network.
Just today I read some "posts" on Facebook from my friends. I like these people and accepted their invitation to be their "friend" on Facebook, (this task in itself always makes me smile. "Will you be my friend"? I want to send message back: "I am your friend, or I thought I was") but I really don't care if they are "tired and going to bed" nightly. Well that is not entirely correct as I do care. I just always assumed that we get tired and we go to bed nightly. Posting it for their friends edification seem silly in my books.

Blogs are different in some respects, and can be challenging, enlightening, spiritually uplifting, and a damn good read!
Twitter took the blog and made it into the Readers Digest condensed version. Funny, because Readers Digest just filed for bankruptcy.

Now IBM has patented a device for our television remotes that will allow us to tweet a message out while we watch TV. Not only will is it a dedicated "Twitter" device, but it will have "canned" messages on the remote that will tweet a standard message.
"I am watching....(name of program will appear)" Too lazy to tweet or tap out a text? Just hit the #7 key and a pre-existing tag will tweet out your micro blog and tell your network of just as lazy friends that you are watching the latest episode of house, and you are luvin it!

I write for me.
I write because I love the art of words; the language.
I know that social networking is here and big, and I won't change that, nor do I wish to. I am on Facebook, and love to be kept in the loops of my friends lives.

I just don't need to know the minute and mundane details of their television lives.

I love the art of the story, and hope it never dies! I will always read your full account of lives journey with all the warts and speed bumps. I will laugh with you and cry with you, and savor the scents of the day with you as you describe in wonderful wordy detail the beauty of life!

Warmest,

David

And In The End The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love You Make

2009-08-22T03:51:00.000-07:00

Forty years ago this week, the Beatles released their final album. With little argument they were the worlds greatest band at the time, and arguably still are. They never recorded after the final album was released.

The song "The end" was the last song on their last album.

The last line of the last song is one that stayed with me for forty years, and became a philosophy of sorts; almost a creed to live by.

"And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make".

Simple philosophy, really, but for many of this planets denizens, we live by greed and take. The world full of Ponzi schemes, selfish motives to look after only ourselves at times, and a philosophy of who ever takes the most, will have the most; gives our wonderful world pot holes!

I first heard the song which is appropriately called "The End", when I was 12, and thought that it made sense then. Even as a young boy the idea of giving to get things was part and parcel of my life. If I loved my dog, then he loved me back. if I helped my friend carry groceries, he would help me down the road. If I respected and loved my Parents, it made for a happy day.
Always.
Pretty simple.
Quid pro quo.
You get what you give.

I lived my live always giving selflessly. Rarely were there or are there motives to my selflessness. I have always lived with the ideal that love is right.
It takes work to hate, and it accomplishes nothing other than dredge up a pile of vile to sit in our bellies and fester. Loving is easy, or it should be. Not exactly an Ivory tower philosophy, but a simple one.

If a relationship requires constant work, and self help books, then I believe it needs to be re thought.
Love is simple. Or in my world it is.

If we go through life only caring about "US", this would be a pretty nasty world. Thankfully there are good and charitable people that go through life helping others. Giving a leg up to those who need, and a drink of water in the desert of greed. For every rogue trader that scams the good people out of their hard earned dollars, there are ten people that donate time to help. Give to those who need. Donate excess of goods or money to the charities that use the clothing, bedding, dishes, food, or money; to assist those down on their luck.

There are churches and missionaries that spend hours and dollars travelling the globe loving in all the corners.
God Bless them!

I like simple, and I believe that life and love can be simple.
If you give love, you get love.
Because in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make,

Along the way

Warmest,

David

Deaf Swimming

2009-08-09T03:49:00.000-07:00

Our last day at the Catalonia Bavaro Beach begins the same as the previous days:
I wake at 6 and fear a day of rain as it appears dark. But as I have now learned from the past week here; the sun rises much later than it does at home.The sun seems shy and perhaps a bit bashful at first. It fools us tourists with it's early morning feeble and almost anemic like power, that in hours will heat the sand of the beach and render it too hot to walk on.

By 7, coffee is made and drank in our resort condo. Mary and I have, for the past week, have enjoyed the eye opening brew our balcony. Our condo number is 19. 19 of 22 on our road or path. we are 3 away from the ocean and a brief 1 minute walk to the beach that we do daily first thing to secure prime real estate for the six or seven hours that we will spend each day.

The ideal location/location/location is a spot that offers a palm tree. Not too tall as to not offer shade, and not too short as to whack ones melon on each hammock exit! (Done that!) The prime spot must be close enough to waters edge so view is relatively unobstructed, but should also offer a short walk to offer refreshments that provide us with fresh squeezed cold juices in the early day, and scrumptious cold coconut slush iced/laced with dark rum, for afternoon mellowing out.

Once real estate is secured, a short walk for breakfast is next. Ingredients for omelette's are selected today.
In previous mornings, eggs, sunny side side up with sides of fried salami, bacon, or ham were chosen.
Alternate days fresh fruit and French toast is chosen for the break in nights fast. Today, being the last day here, Mary and I opt for the "Full-on/mega loaded" omelet. I add to little remaining space on my plate, a sugar coated donut that moments earlier was plucked out of a hot fryer by one of the many chefs that toil to treat us daily. Still hot to touch and taste, the "oh so bad" donut will be be a wonderful desert to end our last breakfast here on Bavaro Beach.

We will board a bus at 5 this day, to take us to Punta Cana airport. It is 15 minutes away.
I am not sad to be leaving, as sadness is an emotion that I have not felt in some time.
Yes, I would love to stay longer. I so love it here!
I love the ocean, and the peace it seems to bring me.
I love the "Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather", if I may borrow from Disney's "Sleeping Beauty". But my yearning for more time here is based on my current peaceful and contented mind set. All of the writings that you have read from our Dominican stay (assuming you have read the past 4 instalments), has been written in pen, in a journal, on the beach.
Each stroke of pen has been made as I face out on the gentle ripple of a spectacular blue and green Caribbean ocean.

Much of the time, in the past 7 days, my mind has been void of any and all thoughts except the view in front of me. It is at that moment. That sweet spot. or that Buddhist/Zen space of "NOW", that I pick up a pen pen at write.
And that moment is analogous, to opening a vein if you will.
Word and thoughts spill like blood once that mindset is achieved.

To really get into "ones head", one really has to get into "ones head".
So you see, today (last day here), my premature melancholy is not for the the sun, rum and sand, although they all will be missed. My despondent state is based on the mindset that I have recently achieved, and the worry that it will go away.
That place where I wanted to get to and succeeded!
My goal will be to maintain this place as best I can. To stay in this zone, or as close to it, upon return to the rodent race.

I have thought much about, but concerned little for little for Dan (Guitar Boy) while here.
He is in week 2 of "School of Rock" This has been his annual Summer day excursion, every July, for the past 4 years. He will be in his rock n' roll element, as well as looked after before and after "school" by Mary's adult son, who has moved in for the week to be Dan's "roommate".
I am anxious to see how the boy is, and for him to regale stories about making music. He is the love of my life, and I miss him. I can't wait to hug him!

This trip was many firsts in my deaf life that now approaches 23 months in length, and fourteen months in the digital sounding world of my implanted cochlear device.
Deaf swimming was a first that is most memorable.

On day one (July 26th) I sat on oceans beach with shirt off, but magnet of cochlear processor clearly strapped on. I took in all the sounds of laughter which despite the diversity of nations here in this resort, is the same wonderful sound in any language. After three or four hours of unrelenting sun, I tucked away my processor (those very expensive suckers cannot get wet!) and walked down the beach that moments earlier were filled with noise, but without my CI on falls into an eerie silence.

I can see the same children running and laughing, and I watch the same adults chatting and playing beach volleyball, but my soundtrack is gone! I am once again Deaf as the coconut shells that lie on the beach.
Deaf as the wheel of cheese that I see nightly at the buffet.
I instantly go back to the ever popular brain created auditory hallucinations of "Dave FM"

When I walk into the ocean, I notice that my balance (which has no inner workings) becomes more challenged. With no inner balance I have trained my brain to accept vision and the touch and feel of my body, its only GPS.
So when ocean floor enters the equation, David's brain gets pissed off, and makes me fall many times. For the most part it goes unnoticed, but some afternoons the barkeep looks a worrisome that his "Coco Loco's" have made this patron "Poco Loco"!

When I dive underwater I expect the same sounds from memory of underwater play over my life. The sounds that I heard when I was a child, exploring the underwater . That eerie underwater noise or sound. (Or is it a lack of sound?).
But in my deafness the underwater world does not differ an iota from the world above oceans surface.

The ocean is clear, and the schools of fish are constantly visible and plentiful. For the most part, the bottom is sand, but there are areas of rocks that can be seen and noted.
Mary and I walk out one day a good 1/2 a kilometer, exchanging soft sand for underwater plant growth under foot, but it is an amazing walk out into the ocean!

In the water I am a carefree nine year old again, when the days seemed to last forever at the beach, and summers lasted for eternity.
So today feels like labour day. That feeling that a young boys stomach gets, on the last day of summer vacation.
It will hit me again when I board the airplane tonight; and again when we land; and no doubt when I wake up tomorrow at home.

It will really hit home when I realize that the only man who will fix me an omelet....

Is MOI!

Warmest,

David

Hitting The "Sweet Spot"

2009-08-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

It is jut after 8 am on the Friday of our Dominican vacation, and the white pristine beach and it's Coconut palm tree citizens is waking up.
The sun is low, but rises so quick that I imagine it on a string that is pulled like a window shade or a curtain, rising to give us yet another magnificent day.
The ocean seems so calm this morning. Even the never ending and never changing wave breaks that happen about 1/2 a kilometer out from shore, seem tiny today, and I strain to recognize the spot that has been so familiar to me the past 5 days.

I think that perhaps the ocean is an extension of me this week. Choppy on day one, and a bit rough, but becoming increasingly calmer as the week progresses.
Today is the calmest.
As am I.
Mary, my soul mate is also in a Zen like state, and I have never seen her so at peace.

Yesterday I hit hit the proverbial vacation "sweet spot". That zone that many of us set out to achieve during our vacations in life. That place where relaxation pours over us, and paints our bodies with a glow of calm. The pinks and browns from the suns rays are just part of the special effects. It is the aura of calm that is the real magic.
There is a calmness in that "sweet spot" that whispers "mañana" in an oh so quiet voice whenever I attempt anything that resembles labour or stressful activity. Nothing seems to matter except the air that I now feel traveling all the way to my belly as I breathe the calm ocean air.

In typical annoyance (although I truly can't see myself ever being annoyed again in life) it takes Thursday of my vacation to shed the mental images of excel spread sheets, unpaid electrical bills at home, emails that I envision racking up on my Blackberry and waiting in a cyber space cue for my downloading pleasure.

In this vacation and mental "sweet spot" that has arrived, I have stopped the anguish and feelings of guilt and remorse that were part of past life. I stopped the lying in bed and going over the "could of" and "should of" that I have been doing for the better part of my 51 years on this earth.
I did it!

I stopped the shit that I have been trying to put an end to! In the past two years I have come close to reaching that spot. That place. And my Buddhist readings and teachings have brought me oh so close. Teaching me that change happens is another way of saying "shit happens", and it brought me to a place where I "hit" this week, that subtly said to me that I should never have any regrets, no more remorse, no bitterness, no hard feelings, no guilt.....over anything in my life.

By midday Thursday, the gentle and ever present ocean breeze had kept and swept all the remaining crap away. Those old feelings were blown away by a proverbial and literal wind. I can't imagine a therapist couch that would provide me with that "sweet spot" that came over me on an island in the Caribbean ocean.

My mind was mind is now where I wanted it to be when I started this journey; this wonderful vacation: At peace with the past, content with the present, and uncertain but not worried or fraught with doubt about the future.

The sun will rise tomorrow, that I know for sure.
But if it is behind a mask of dark clouds, or an orange naked ball of magnificent glory it matters not.
That we know for sure!
It will still rise.
Warmest,

David

Deaf Aerobics And Other Firsts!

2009-08-06T04:12:00.000-07:00

The continuing journal of my seven day holiday and journey.

It is now day five in our vacation. For me it has become what I had hoped: A seven day discovery of David. The thought patterns and process of self diagnosis are neither planned nor thought out in advance. They occur at random.
For seven days I will be out of the home and work environment. I am four and a half hours by plane removed from my home and native land. This in itself helps me look down at where I am at this point in my life.

I can't imagine a time from from memory where I have been more content or at peace with me. To be sure, the Caribbean ocean that lulls me and the waves that dance before me daily have been a catalyst in the gratification I feel. But the peace that resides inside me today, has been manifesting for months. It is good.

In the past 23 months I have weathered great storms, and if I am honest with myself, the last five years have had hurricane and tsunami days. 2004 was the diagnosis of Janet's blood cancer that would take her life 4 1/2 later.

If I am really honest I suppose, I could find great gusts and micro bursts in my 40 odd years of memory, and 51 years in life; but I dealt differently with life in the past. Often I would view change as a tragedy. It took me 51 years to realize that change is part of life.
In previous versions of thought, I viewed "lack of things" as reasons for depression or unhappiness.
"If only I could make $10K more a year, I would be happy and out of this funk" I thought constantly years ago.
Years later when earning a much more substantial income I was now saying "If I could only make another $40K a year more, I would be happy and out of this funk" !!!!!!
We all know the life lesson about money and happiness. I only wish I heeded the advice back then.

So is it then fair that I lost so much (loved ones, hearing) yet found a wonderful peace within?
Not sure.
This I now know: Life changed. Always did and always will.
There were huge changes in my life, many of them physical, and many of them emotional in nature.
Always will be as well.
Babies were born and people in my life died. My father died seven years before my son was born.

I lost hearing and ability to walk for a time, but I gained a love of life and a new found patience that at one time was as foreign to me as natural hearing is to me now.
All storms subside. First into a gust and then into a clam and perhaps without the hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, micro bursts and clouds of impending doom, we might not have any calm, or perhaps we would not recognize the calm for what it is.

The peace I feel here on the last Thursday of July, in the last year of this decade, could only be a result of storms that have subsided in my life. I have new hearing and new love. I walk and fake balance (but my God is the beech here ever throwing my walking for a loop).

I am sitting under a palm tree that thanks to a vigilant resort staff armed with machetes to trim, would drop coconuts on us unsuspecting tourists. If heaven were a traveling summer theater group, it is indeed playing here: on this beech.
Four shows a day!
Evening performances as well!

Life lessons are often learned as if by osmosis, but the lesson never sinks in until we use the absorbed skills in one of our life storms.
I know this now.
Two years ago I would rage against any darkness in my life, choosing to fight or flee a storm that I know now cannot be defeated or retreated from.
I now choose to light candles in the darkness of the storms to guide me through. It is a better place to be.
Perhaps deafness taught me more than my hearing life did.

The sun shows me that it is now noon. It is directly overhead now and without the ever present gentle Caribbean breeze, I would fry like the proverbial egg on the sidewalk in July.
It is the dogs days of summer I suspect, and this morning we saw our first dog in the Dominican Republic. A cute and playful puppy frolicking at oceans edge. It is a reminder of the wonderful pets that have been part of life, and the change that saw them move out of my life.

After lunch I lull into my unplanned but not surprising afternoon siesta. In my REM stage my dreams today are of food. Again, not surprising based on my buffet prowess thus far at the resort. I am startled into an early awaking by Mary. She has jostled me awake because the puppy from this morning has returned and is paying the two of us a visit that breaks both of our siestas into a shortened nap. Dog days!

I made reference to the "many firsts" that this journey would serveup. By day one in my holiday I had my first cochlear implant through the airport security; first flight with my C.I.; first time in the Dominican Republic.
I have been to the Caribbean before. Twenty one years ago I ventured to Cuba. It was in December of 1987.

Single then, and going through through one of those life questioning moments, I spent a week on the island. It was over Christmas, and I remember most vividly pushing a broken down rented Lada automobile through the hillsides outside of Havana, trying to get the car back to the resort where I rented it from. This was how I spent Christmas eve in 1987.

One month prior to that trip, I had been at the funeral of my Father. A man who I had not seen or spoken to in 15 years. So this was Caribbean Island visit and round one. It was one of many "rage against and run from the darkness and storms". It was how I did the "why me" in life's earlier journey.

This trip, Caribbean round 2, is a candle lighting mission of sorts wwhere I dare to ask my self the questions, learn answers through thought provoking and introspective meditation, and discover more love and life again from Mary; my beautiful traveling companion and soul mate.

It is now after 4 in the afternoon here , and we have traded the breeze and blues of the white sand stage named "Bavaro Beach", to kick up the action pool side. The beach lays back and the swaying of the palms lulls it's remaining denizens to sleep after 2 pm. The wave breaks never vary in their location. The playground of the morning is now a nursery for overfed, over sunned adults.

The pool, just meters inland from the ocean and a break of coconut palms is a daytime frat party and aerobics club. Music pumps and thumps from high strung speakers, as Dominican's in hotel attired t shirts and shorts, walk the pool deck, attempting to cajole us lazy folks into joining in the fun. There is now Salsa lessons, and they don't take "NO" for an answer. I eventually get brave and join Mary in the shallow end of the pool for an aerobics workout. I tuck my magnet and processor into a case and head for the water.
Deaf as a coconut shell I wonder how I will keep beat to music I can't and will never hear without the aid of my "gear".
Matters not!
I am here for seven days of life, love laughs and many many firsts.
Deaf aerobics just adds to my list!

Warmest,

David

Cochlear On The Beach

2009-08-04T05:16:00.000-07:00

The hues and shades of blues and greens of the Caribbean ocean defy written and even spoken description. If one was to give their best detailed first hand eye witness of the ocean to a police artist, the resulting painting would at best capture the "water" aspect, but would miss the beauty and spirit of a patchwork array of turquoise, indigo, pale and light blues, dark greens, and even a "Paul Newman eyes" shad of blue that only when when witnessed first hand does one "let go and take in".

To describe in words the ocean in this part of the world is akin to describing love making. Words can convey the idea, but to experience first hand almost defy words. I am in awe yet strangely at peace when I visit the beach and visit the ocean on our first morning. At time of writing this in my journal it is dust after dawn and Mary and I note that the pristine clean sand has been freshly raked, possibly hours earlier. It appears that the resort guests have staked their cabana claims much earlier than our 7 am arrival! Still we manage to snare one of the many umbrella structures crafted out of local hardwoods for base and table and topped with dried palm leafs that will provide a relief from a Caribbean July sun that will show little mercy when high.

It is hard to tell where the sky ends and the ocean begins when I gaze out at the horizon. There is perhaps one or two wisps of white in the Bavaro Beach sky that remind me of a chefs drizzling of melted icing sugar on a startling blue china plate. "This can't be real!" I say to myself It looks like man created the perfect sky. If one was to invent the perfect ocean scene, it would be the one that my my eyes drink in this morning. Breath taking!

By 7:30 am we are seated in the roofed but open air beach side buffet restaurant. Is one of seven dining options that the resort offers. There are also five bars that offer every cocktail and concoction under this sun. I do a quick and simple math and decide that we will not eat or drink at the same establishment twice. (This will prove to not be the case as we settled into creatures of habit and discover or favorite nosh spots)
The coffee is strong, dark and heavy. The brew is served in a 50/50 mix with hot milk making up the second half of the mix. It is the Dominican version of a "Four Bucks" latte I suspect.

As creatures of habit Mary and I find "our" beach real estate, that at the time of this writing has been under the same coconut tree shaded beach spot that has offered this white "Mungie Cake" some protection from the sun that will make my skin a "Canadian Lobster red" after day one. Our real estate will give give Mary some lightly filtered rays to make her already Berry Brown skin even darker.

As I lay here in our 4 x 4 golden sand carpeted environment, the unobstructed ocean view plays out a variety of peaceful scenes. The soundtrack is the ever pleasant breeze that is welcome as it offers relief of noon heat, but also a cochlear nuisance for my t mic on the processor. The "wind concerto" will play for the seven days that I spend here ocean side, but the beauty of the view and sun will bar outweigh the obstructed hearing.

Waves break at what appears to be half a kilometer from shore. Kayak's paddle day long and the occasional power boat filled to capacity with wanna be and perhaps some veteran divers chug by. I assume that the newbie divers all took the obligatory twenty minute course, then loaded tanks and masks on aluminium 20 foot floating dive school, and head off Bavaro Beach in search of exotic chorals, colourful fish, and dreams of a buried Caribbean Pirate treasure.
Ahhh ! There might be a Disney movie in the works!.
Catamarans and two man sail boats tack with same breeze that blows our palm tree ever so gently and wonderfully!

The ocean and Caribbean sky make one wonder why the word "Blue" is used in describing a lost love, or a melancholy moment. As I write this it is now mid week, and is somewhere between noon and five. I wear no watch so I guess. We keep a small clock in our beach back pack, but at this point that would require effort!
for some odd, yet fascinating to be sure reason, the moon is visible on this afternoon. A soft lovely white half moon is out in the mid afternoon sky, as the sun retreats into the west as I lay in my ocean facing fancy beach hammock. I guess at 2 pm by the suns position, as the still hot and lazy afternoon drifts almost sleep like. It is as if the day is having a late afternoon siesta.

My cochlear still gets the breeze concerto at steady and non interrupted volume, but the roar and din that morning featured and starred packs of families and couples frolicking in the ocean, has been lulled to the sound of a quiet and softly rustling of the ocean palm trees.
Big buffet lunches accompanied by wines, ales, and rum laced frozen special beach drinks are cause for a quiet exodus of the crowds to their air conditioned rooms. It is now the daily siesta retreat of the resorts denizens.
Mary and I partake in the ritual, but we prefer the snooze on our beach chairs. It is not so much a scheduled event, it just happens. Daily. Just after 2.
We both eat lovely and well at around 12:30. Over the lunch hour we pursue and graze the buffet, some days filling up on salads laden with marinated squid and octopus, other days a meat lovers delight with veal grilled to our order, beef off the hip, or pig ribs that were done in a wonderful BBQ sauce today.
There are days of full desert consumptions that bring a temporary quilt, that goes away after first bite. Vacations are not so much about moderation as they are about a passion for life.
The food and wine consumed go to work. We make our way back to our reserved beach spot and read our vacation books. I get through about four or five paragraphs, and am in REM zone sixty seconds after that.
I wake briefly to remove the magnet from head, and store the processor in safe harbour. I look over at Mary and she is GONE to sleep land.

More tomorrow or whenever I get motivated to type the rest!

warmest,

David

hola! saludo

2009-08-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

Back from a week in the sun and sand. I ate too much, had too much fun, and had more than my share of sun.
I also wrote.
And wrote.
And wrote.
So you good reader, get to share my seven day excursion by way of journal.
I will not do the ungrateful blog faux pas of posting all of my ramblings in one heap of a post. I would much rather spread it out over a week or so, and hope that you get a sense of our journey that lasted seven days.

I hope you take a partial peace and piece of the experience I had, and I hope you enjoy,

The plane lands in Punta Cana International airport, and the first anomaly that strikes is the grass and palm thatched roof on what appears to be a tiny and primitive international terminal. I half expect to see Nick Nolte and Chuck Norris type characters come flying out on the tarmac in military decked out jeeps and duke it out with us with semi-automatic weapons, It is a visual deju vu almost from Hollywood. A movie like "Nicaragua" comes to mind.

It is just past 7:30 on Saturday evening when Mary and I land for my first true vacation in well over 15 years. I am both excited and open minded. Excited about visiting the Dominican Republic for the first time, and open minded about "letting go" and discovering a Zen like inner peace and tranquility that I hope comes from seven days of blue Caribbean ocean that is outlined with near perfect white sand, and boasted with ever ever present coconut palm trees.

As we exit the airplane right out doors to the steamy asphalt tarmac, the tar seems to melt and evaporate in a hot hallucination brought on by the 33 degree Celsius temperatures. The moist hot humid air fills my lungs immediately as if I just took a huge swallow of hot black African Rooibus tea.
The runway is lined with many planes that all sport foreign countries.I am in awe of the multitude of countries that are landed at this port. Holland, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, Japan, Germany, Finland...to name a few. In my naivete I pictured only us sun and beach deprived Canadians such as Mary and I that would come to this Caribbean Island in the heat of July. We would discover that we are just a tiny fraction of the tourist population here.

I am nervous to be sure, when I not two large men that work the "Immigration" checkpoint that I am in line to go through. There are no smiles on their faces and I hear no "Hola!" traditional welcome given to my fellow travellers ahead of me in line as they make their way past the imposing military attired Dominican civil servants. I quickly glance at my paperwork that I hurriedly filled out in the dimly lit terminal. The mostly Spanish required paper work has guessed at for the most part by me. As I approach the checkpoint I wonder if I will be detained for questioning as a result of my laziness and ineptitude.
The uniformed Dominican looks at my passport (although I truly doubt he read any of it or looked at picture for comparison), then took my guessed at answers on my paperwork and placed them in a box where I note thousands of others are lying in disarray. Perhaps destined for a fireplace in the hills.

Welcome to the Island!

This vacation will be a "first" on many levels. For starters in my life before deafness, Janet and I always opted to stay home on vacation and do house projects. In my world of business I travelled Canada extensively and constantly. Living in hotels,waiting for the inevitable flight delays and passing valuable family time in airport terminals that all have the same shops and sterile die cuts It has been two years since I have graced the the at one time very familiar airport security, and today as I flew out of Toronto, I am aware of my deafness more so today than in previous days in the past two years, as I struggle with boarding announcements and general airport information. In my cochlear Implant world the comprehension of electronically and artificially enhanced speech, is less than 10% comprehended.
It's noise!
Going through security I await with trepidation the "beep" of the metal detector that should pick up my surgically implanted tiny computer that lies millimetres just inside my melon. I have my Advanced Bionics card that will explain that I harbour no weapons or small metal projectiles that I might have evil designs or intent.
But no "beep".
I smile relieved, but wonder now about the reliability of our airport security.

Now arrived in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, the bus ride to our resort is a wonderfully short one. Bavaro Beach is a quick 15 minutes in the darkness that surprises me. It is barely past 8 pm, but the sun has been extinguished for almost 15 minutes, It is as if God has wet his thumb and snuffed out the ball of orange flame swiftly and with ease. The darkness snuck on us quickly, and will continue to surprise for the next few days. The darkness that engulfs us on this bus ride is in striking contrast to the sun that I marvelled at forty five minutes earlier.

On the way to Bavaro Beach the road seems narrow, but here are no lights for me to judge. The driver must know the quirks and quarks of the journey well. The large tour bus that takes about 40 or 50 of us to our destination seems so ill fitted for the narrow roads, yet the driver guides it well over the twists and turns. The narrow jungle growth lined paths appear to be almost rainforest like in setting. The driver stops and with patience it seems, waits as native workers on two-wheeled bikes take away the much need room to navigate his big bus through a particularly tight area. He waits for as long as he can, knowing that he has a schedule, but he respects their schedule to get home to their families as well.
He flashes his lights in the darkness to explain that his waiting is done, and the workers dismount and allow the big bus to pass throught the path that might be called a road, in this jungle like landscape.

We arrive at the resort and Mary and I are in awe of the sheer size as well as the majestic architecure. The huge white colums and glistening marble tiles in the entrance lobby are but a small indicator of the elegance and oppulance that will delight our senses over the next seven days.

More to come, and thanks for letting us share!

David

Act 2: A Love Story

2009-07-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

If "Act 1" of my life were to be labeled or defined, some would call parts of the act both tragedy and comedy.

Tragedy in the sense that towards the end of my "Act 1", or in the last two years, I suffered a medical meltdown, on life support, in a coma for ten days, then a period after that night that saw me hospitalized for 100 days, and rehabilitating at home for 15 months.

During that time, and shortly after my medical 9/11, I became totally and profoundly deaf, lost all inner balance that put me in a wheel chair to start, then months and months (still on going) of physical therapy to teach me how to walk with NO BALANCE.

The above would be part comedy, and I saw the humor in life as I stumbled around deaf and awkwardly.

I crawled out of my medical soup and started down a road of recovery. During that part of my "Act 1" I lost my wife of 19 years to a dogged and determined blood cancer called Leukemia.
And oh yea, I lost my dog as well to cancer.

So my life in 2009 was started different, as my son Dan and I set out in the world as best we could. My mindset was good, and as I wrote often here, I was in discovery mode to see the world through a new and fresh perspective.

Then I met Mary!

I have posted about her and described how my new friend Mary graced and changed my life quickly. I first posted back in April this:

"So when someone graced my life a few weeks ago, I did the usual observing, listening, contemplating, deliberating, meditating, and reflective thought. After reasonable time and conversation it became clear that this new soul was a kindred one indeed.

I am pensive and rational by nature, so I was intrigued by my "full speed ahead" quest to spend more time with this wonderful soul as she was so engrossing.

My deafness along with my obvious magnet on my melon, has made me more shy and guarded than the previous analog version of myself. It was with great delight that this lady disarmed my silly perspective of myself, and made me feel "normal". In so much as I hate the word normal, and at times believe I am no different than before, I am also aware that my challenges with cochlear aided hearing do indeed make me different.

I had also forgotten how wonderful it is to share conversation one on one, as I posted a while ago. I get caught up in the wonderful world of sharing, and find myself "hogging" the conversation, as I have been for starved of that for quite some time.

Acceptance of new friendship can be hard. When one is "not looking", "not interviewing" or "not accepting resumes" for the friend position; one is caught of guard a little bit when the universe offers up a wonderful kindred soul to share and laugh with.

To allot and apportion my time with is a treat now as I look forward to the experience and the daily give and take of the conversation that is offered up when two people share common interests and goals.

The give and take of life is worthy of sharing with others. So my enchantment moved quickly to contentment.

Yes it has been a relatively short period of time in our friendship, but we are not 17 any more, and there is no sadness in that simple fact.

Life moves on at the speed of life. Change happens faster than we like, but it changes.

The glee and gratification of sharing the day to day trials and tribulations are lighter from the mirth and pleasure of having someone to chew the words with.

Another wonderful soul to relish the day with.

A kindred spirit to share the hilarity and jollity of life and it's joy.

There are no accidents in the Universe"
End of post.

Since meeting we have spent 134 days in each others company. We have only been apart for 7 days, and that was when Mary and her sister took a vacation together. It was during that week apart that I knew that I had something special in my life. A kindred spirit. A wonderful soul that was quickly becoming my best friend in the universe and the love of my life.

The relationship was amazing from the start, and it was as if we knew each other all our life's.
She made me comfortable in my "magnet on melon" appearance, and found it "silly" that I considered myself "handicapped", when I had hearing and other than a magnet on my head, I was just like anyone else.

We share life together as if we have been together for 134 years, not days. Our experiences, strengths and hopes from and for life are common indeed. I often question why such an amazing lady would want anything to do with a deaf old 51 year old.
Mary is a self proclaimed "Pain in the ass", but she is anything but!

Mary has two adult children so has been more than a tremendous resource in dealing with my 15 year old. Trust me on this, as good as Dan is, he is still a 15 year old boy discovering high school and all of the temptations and peer pressure that go with it.
Mary has "been there, seen that" and is amused most of the time at my naivety in the world of parenting.
I have learned much and continue to do so. Not just about parenting, but life. I have a wonderful teacher in my life now, that shows me not by telling or stating the obvious, but by watching her, and listening to her. I have learned mountains of good life lessons, and daily it astonishes me at how far I have come.

But it is the love that makes "Act 2" so wonderful.
It is indeed an second act in my life, and I am grateful for it. I will never loose nor forget the first act and how it shaped my life.
The wonderful things it brought me.
The beautiful boy that is also a love of my life is a major part of my first act, as is a marriage of 19 years, and a medical firestorm that changed the way I see the world.

But it is a love I have with and for Mary that is new territory and amazingly wonderful. I have never felt this way.

It is not a "puppy dog" love, nor is it the love/lust of two 17 year old's. God knows we are both not 17 anymore, and are clear on how short life is, and where we are in God's calendar.

So for the past 134 days I have felt the love of an amazing woman.
Shared stories, meals, laughs, friends, hurts, cries, hugs, cleaning duties, laundry, bed making, shopping, sunrises and sunsets.
I have met and spent time with her wonderful family, and her with mine.

We are in love!

So we will ride off in a plane to spend 7 days in the Dominican Republic on Saturday, and I am in bliss about having my new best friend by my side 24/7. No interruptions for work!

Life is amazingly wonderful and when I look back on the last two years I do a big "huh?"
How can I be so happy so happy after everything I have been through?

Answer is simple, and she goes by the name Mary.

Life in a Cone of Silence was my first attempt at writing a blog describing the world of deafness and how the world was viewed in silence.
Five String Guitar was a life in a liminal space that wrote about my new way of hearing the world through a cochlear implant, but offered up the limitations of sound. Five out of six strings if you will.

I found my missing string!

Warmest,

David

Back In Blog Land

2009-07-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

I am indeed back!

Not that I went anywhere, but I have been MIA from this cozy place that I used to spend hours putting fingers to "qwerty".

Since I last graced this page in attempt to update in a creative manner, summer came. Well sorta. The days flew from June to July, and now I scratch my head trying to recount where July went, and what I did or forgot to do.

Ah! Life at the speed of glorious life!

I still am, and will be forever, as deaf as a stump/stick/wheel of cheese.

My balance is a misnomer as I will never have "true balance" but I do a wonderful "fake" walk that would fool the best Cirque de Soleil folks. Daily I do a regime to trick the brain into thinking that walking like an Egyptian is really a cake walk.

Inner balance is so overrated dear brain.

The eyes have it.

Relax you worry wart of a grey matter!

Just relax!

Work keeps me from penning my first novel, and pretty much keeps me from attacking the dust dust bunnies that attack the house that Guitar Boy and I share in our little town.

Work seems to take over a life that enjoyed at one time spending 3 hours researching and creating the perfect French Toast.

Work, be it of the house nature or of the 40 hour per week nature, is also overrated. Yes, it pays a bill or two, but man does it take away from the discovery mode that I was in at one time. I seem to have my head down and buried in a LCD screen more than days gone by.

I will not grumble about being a million miles from a place that saw me deaf, and in a wheel chair for a time. And by the way, that does feel like a million miles ago on this journey.

Despite what some famous author declared that "there are no second acts in an American life", this Canadian boy has reinvented himself and, as a matter of fact, is on his second act.

Yes my friends, life does change, move forward, and move at the speed of life. People die, babies are born, illness strikes, senses are changed, zits appear on young boys faces overnight.

Change, change and then change.

Embrace, accept and get on the hamster wheel I suppose. I love this life, and I love to learn.

So I will depart on Saturday for a week in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. There I will spend 7 days with my head buried on one of several novels. I hope to read at least two or three of the trash nature, two or three of the classic's and perhaps one or two that teach me something.

Leaving the "summer" here, that has been in the blistering 20's ( high 60's F for my American friends that chuckle at the rest of the world in Celsius) and going to the high 30's.

Sun, sand and a break from the Blackberries, LCD screens, and excel spread sheets that oh so tire me out.

I will be back.

thanks for your patience and kind words always.

Warmest,

david

Perfection.

2009-06-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

I seem to have gone away from here for a jag.
Life got busy, and as always, travels at the speed of life, which tends to speed up exponentially as per the number of "things" one has on the many burners.

Spring sprung of course, ions ago, and now we sit in springs purgatory awaiting the dogs days that the summer seems to promise and deliver.

I am still "here" of course, still in a liminal state that offers up semblance of sound in a digital format by day, and utter and profound silence at night, sans the magnet that connects my cochlear implant to the PC embedded in my skull. Comprehension waxes and wanes, but thankfully more waxing than waning.

Work is the necessary function that keeps me away from the blogosphere, sadly. I have to make money to buy food and put a roof over the heads of me and Guitar Boy. I can live in a dumpster, no problem, and quite frankly there are those days when the tax, utility, heat, phone, cable, internet, and water bills all come in at once, that I yearn for the simplicity of the homeless.
Ahhh! To live in a tent!
The thought passes once I lay my head down on my down pillow and pull up my duvet. In the silence of night, the world seems fine again. It is the times when the bedlam and pandemonium of my concerto overwhelms, when I want to run away and join Toby Tyler in the circus.

I am considering a half marathon this fall. Ambitious, yes, but I need a "BHAG" (big harry audacious goal) to get some spark back into the Saucony shoes.
And what do I know about "me"?
A 10K event is a noble goal, but why run for an hour when you can run for two?
A Marathon of course is far too much out of the realm of possibility. It has been three years since I ran the Toronto half marathon, so baby steps would dictate a what? 5K?
10K?
A ten mile?
No sir, sadly, I have the personality that says run big or run home. Besides, I have almost 16 weeks to get there.

I have not been totally absent from the world of Blogger, as I check in nightly and read my favorite people and catch up on your lives like a voyeur lurking in the hedges. I know, I know, ......"why don't you leave a comment David?"
Well I suspect sheepishly that if I did, you would pounce on me for leaving you all with a post over three weeks ago, the poof!
Nothing!
Departed, dissolved and AWOL all at the same time.

So I am writing to keep the stream going. I put down words, as I have always said, for me. I write because the road I embarked on some 16 months ago, is many roads or paths if you will. On one particular path to Enlightenment, I discovered that when I put fingers to "QWERTY" a stream came forth.
Sure, a trickle at first, but the more I touched the keys, and looked out the window of my world, the trickle became stronger.
The path/road/stream changed as much as my life did.

It took me this long, and over many books, blogs, journals and personal meditations to discover what Buddhist teach and preach: The teachings and writings tell us that Buddha, of course is symbolic, and our idealized image of perfection equates to our concept of Enlightenment, and if we believe we have the correct image of what it means to be Enlightened, then we need to throw out that image and keep meditating.

In my case "keep writing", keep the stream going.
In my last post I told you good readers that I had reached a place where I was "happy, content, and serene. Most importantly I am at peace with myself"

I expressed my inner thoughts at the time and told you that "I like me!"

And I do.

But to be clear, to be content is different than to reach Enlightenment.
I liked me on that Friday of a long weekend. The garden was amazing and the offerings de jour were enough to fill me up for a while. I took it all in, and gave some back.
I needed to realize that my path goes on and needs to be analyzed and scrutinized. The road or journey I am on is not over.
Far from it.
My inner peace that I found that day was a lookout point on my journey, where I stopped, rested, refreshed, took in the glorious view, and carried on.

And from the nano second that I posted that last post, the view changed. As did yours and everyone else.
Our 83 problems changed, by the minute in many cases, but we still all have 83. I struggle with sound and balance, but am getting better at both.
Traffic used to bother me, now I put it to good use and meditate if I can. Bills pile up as do dirty dishes, so I deal with them as best I can, and try to get back on the "right path."
I am a single parent of a wonderful but challenging 15 year old, and being "content" with myself is not enough to do that job. I have to constantly change with the wind and the world. I have to do more, know more, and "listen" more or better in my liminal space here.

The path or road that I travel I hope never gives me the feeling of "perfection". I want to keep striving, keep working, keep meditating, keep swimming.
And keep writing.
I have been through a lot, but I have oh so much further to travel.

I am enjoying the journey, but I am not stopping to rest for long.I have to get back to the simple concepts that I have learned learned in the past 16 months in my journey:

"Don't worry about "enlightenment" or about "felt need." When you're hungry, eat. When someone else is hungry, give them food. It's not about understanding: Just do it.

Perceive the situation of this moment, without making I/my/me. Then reflect the correct action. If your nose itches, you scratch it, that's all. "

Life is pretty simple, and beautiful always. We just need to stop the need for perfection.
I hope I never have an image of perfection in my life.

I don't want to miss any lessons because of an idealized image

Namaste!

David

Walk In Silence

2009-05-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am complicated and I will be the first to admit it.

I share my day with you as it started with rain (much needed and much appreciated due to the grass seed planted a few weeks ago that requires constant water), but the day leapt quietly into sunshine and warm summer like breeze.

My complications are internal as I sat in the glory of the backyard, an took in the solitude and wonder of nature. The tree's, grass, shrubs and plants that grace my daily view.

As I sit at keyboard and type these words, i am reminded of the simplicity of life's concerto. The offerings that at one time I took granted.

No longer in a place where I felt "sad and sorry" for myself, I look at life in a whole new perspective. I see the birds different. I take in nature in a different light.

I type words in a place that I have not been too in ages!

I like where I am.

I have been dealt some blows and curve balls that sent me reeling for cover. There were times when I wanted to pull the sheets over my head and wait out the storm.

I pulled the sheets off.

I went into discovery mode.

I met, I saw, and I opened my mind to a world that I have never known before, I like this place.

I like it because in past life I believe I was in survival mode. A spot that saw me going through motions to take care of people. A place where I was at best second or third fiddle to the universe before me. David was not important! The world before took precedent to my feelings, my concerto!

So on this Thursday before a long weekend to honour a Queen's birthday, I am happy, content, and serene. Most importantly I am at peace with myself.

I like me!

That my friends is a long time coming!

My deafness seems almost non existent in an odd sort of way. I am indeed aware of my limitations in the world of cochlear implants and the digital 2.1 sound that miraculously graces my auditory nerves.

I am aware that I walk funny due to having no inner balance.

But the amazing thing is this: I don't really give a rodents rectum to how the world sees me at this point. I have come miles, and will go miles more and enjoy the journey, the road, the concerto that whatever life serves up has to offer.

Funny how it took 9 months of utter and profound deafness to get to this point.

Odd that it took the loss of a 20 year soul mate to make me realize that my selflessness should of been tempered a tad!

The odd straggle of readers have walked through my journey of silence to sound. A few have shared in my loss of love one's. The point is simple to me, and I hope to you dear reader:

I journeyed an incredible journey to get to a point/place in my life where I had to deal and accept with the changes that life served up!

The concerto changed key signature without my say so. The view changed so many times, that I questioned a God of my understanding. I became disillusioned along with many of you, and looked up to the clouds and mussed "OK I have had enough! What else ya got?"

The sun is out and it will rise tomorrow, either behind a mask of clouds or in it's naked magnificent glory. The blue Jay is back the squirrels are romping in the garden.

I am in awe of it all!!

And I have found a serenity that I looked for all my life.

Part of me wishes that the world could go deaf for a short period of time, in order to take in the visual wonders of the universe. I would want many of you to come to an understand through the world of silence of how simple life can be, and how complicated we make it. I want many to see how the eyes compensate for us. The visual wonder lings that are offered up for us to SEE, and not to miss as we Twitter, text. type, and talk away our live.

Step out of your hearing world and look around! Watch and observe the new growth, the changes, the weeds, shrubs. plants, trees and growth that abounds us. Shut off the phones and ipods and walk where the world changes without our aid.

It is an amazing place!

I hope

warmest,

David

Words.

2009-05-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

Word are powerful. Written and spoken alike. Through a media like movies or music, words can make, move and improve us. They can also shred, bruise and batter us.
A word can be read in a manner that transforms and shifts the paradigm from one end of emotion spectrum to the other.

The written word is powerful to be sure. But when spoken, a weak word can become powerful. A harmless word can cut like a knife. A nice or kind word can be transformed into a bouquet of love , just by the way it is used.

I toss this thought out after a weekend enjoying live theater in the form of "Glengarry Glen Ross", the David Mamet Pulitzer prize and Tony winning play, that was made into a motion picture back in the early 90's.
Dialogue that makes our stomachs churn and turn as we listen to cutting words and heart/gut wrenching colloquies, that invoke all our emotions.

I listened as best I could in my cochlear world, and took in much, filled in the rest when the analog sound did not seem to have a digital counterpart for my processor to fire at me. As I took in the play, it occurred to me that the power of live words, versus the written word, can be as stark in contrast as darkness and light.
I was reminded of my 9 months in a cone of silence, where I lived by the written word only.
I missed the inflictions in voice, the feelings and emotions behind the word, that make it a world for the hearing in so many ways.

As visual as I became, and as "Zen and Buddhist" my world was converted to by default in my new world of enhanced observation, I still missed the sound of voices.

I also gave thought to the power of voice and, more importantly, the words one chooses, in a contemplation and Mother's Day mussing.
I was thinking about how wonderful Mothers use the power of words to communicate encouragingly to their children.
I have heard many mothers, over the years, use the power of words to achieve a result, that only that particular choice of words would work. I compared my mental notes to how I hear the "same question" but worded differently, used in the nasty world of business.

Compare if you will, real life examples that I have been witness to, or a part of in my life. The mother may have been mine, a friend who is also a mother, or the mother of my son at one time in her life.
The question is, or was, the result of an action by a child that caused a not so great reaction by a mother; and a business action viewed latter by a superior who is not so happy with the result as well:

Boss: "What were you thinking? How could you make such a mess of this? There were a hundred ways of doing this project without getting the result you did, and pick the one that Fu**s it up!"

Mother: "My, my. that is an interesting way of doing that. It is creative, and I am so glad you found a way that you like to do it. Maybe there is another way that we can do it next time, so we don't make such a big mess".

Boss: "What's wrong with you!!!!"

Mother: "What's troubling you? "

Wow! How you would rather be asked the reason behind your concerned look? "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!"....or Whats troubling you?

You get the picture and know the dialogue well I am sure.
I think a pre-requisite for the job of CEO of any company should be "Mother" at one time. Amazing multi-takers, best negotiators, and bar none, the tops at communication. They use words with thought behind them. They accomplish more with the way they say the words, and their choice of words.

As we make our way in this journey, it only seems right that we enjoy it. Our concerto should be one that we embrace as we make it. We only have one.

The changes that come every second in our lives need to be celebrated. We have to embrace and be be passionate about what we do. We need to have fun with the changes. We need to celebrate the wins, and shrug off the losses. Loss is part of life, one of the changes that happen every second.

How can we thirst for more and dream our dreams if we hear words that discourage? How can one enjoy their concerto if all they see are road blocks at every fork that only give us one path?

If we want to chart our course for growth, no matter if we are six or sixty, we need a map that lets us be intellectually curious. A guide that lets us ask questions. A mentor that allows for mistakes and uses words to encourage the journey, rather than discourage.
We need to hear words that have passion, love, and encourage curiosity and exploration.

Words can enact change!
When we read some awe inspiring piece, we feel the change in our bellies. we want to test the new theory right away. We embrace a change that needs to happen, no, a change that must happen in order for us to grow.

I try to be aware constantly of words I choose, and words I use when to speak to ANYONE.
I believe of course in being as respectful as I can. I like to have and show integrity in my speech and words. Of course being honest and living in truth with my words is huge.

I try to use only a few words if I can. I put myself on a word budget.

I hate to spend words, but love to buy them from everyone I meet and greet.
I spend a fortune listening to people.

I also strive to be humble. I am far from perfect, and have more imperfections than the average bear.
I, like you and the rest of the world, have 83 problems.
Every day.
Every day they may or not be the same.

Words are tools, and no matter if we conference, chat, discuss, type, twitter or text, we need to be mindful that tools can be used as hammers to beat down; hacksaws to cut with, loppers to shear with, or pick axes to cleave, dice and hash with.
Or words can be tools that create, hand devices that initiate the start of wonderful life changing projects.
Tools that help lead, and spark the creative fire that lies in all of us.
An implement that strives to make us better.
All of us!

So in a rather interesting way, I went to a play where words invoked some raw emotions, which led to a thought of how a Mother would never use the words that David Mamet wrote for the characters in his play, to how I missed the spoken word in my cone of silence, to how we all need to use words better to leave a legacy of good thought with everyone we touch.
That led to a posting on a little thing called words.

Little things mean a lot?
No.
They mean EVERYTHING!

Searching The Engines For Acceptance.

2009-05-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

"Sitemeter" amuses me.
You know of the widget of which I speak, yes?
The green widget icon thingy on some if not most blogs, that allows us to see track our visitors.

As much as I like the data it provides on towns, counties and countries of my now over 14,000 visitors that grace my silly space here, I like drilling down a bit further to see how they found me, or what link in cyberspace sent them to read my chords or discords.

More often than not the simple detective work reviles that a reader comes via a Google search on some scientific project, or silly quest or question. They end up on "Five string guitar".

Before Speeder met his untimely demise, his antics would grace this blog on a regular basis. Speeder was given his name after a six year old "Guitar Boy in training" informed me that the new puppy in the house was indeed the "worlds fastest dog, so I'm naming him Speeder"
This was about an hour after arrival from Puppy's R' Us or wherever it is little dogs come from.

So when little Billy gets a project in school to find out what the world's fastest dog is, Speeder ends up getting google hit galore.
I can usually tell when a class is given the "find the worlds fastest dog assignment" and I can tell by the number or Google hits and all of them coming from the same community. I had 17 hits and blog visits in one afternoon all from a town in Idaho. All using the same search parameter "What is the worlds fastest dog"
Poor Greyhounds and whippets!
Speeder's picture no doubt graced the halls of a rural school in Idaho that day, and perhaps even upped the requests from kids to "Mom, can we get a Schnoodle?"

Everybody wants the worlds fastest dog.

This space gets a lot of frustrated musicians stumbling here after a search for "how to play a five string guitar".
I wonder if it's a result of a broken string on their Yamaha or Gibson one day; and they can't be bothered replacing it, or can't afford it, or just too lazy to go out and get one.
So might as well get by on 5 out of six strings.
Learn to live with less perhaps?

Hey, that would be my philosophy!
Sorta.

I broke a lot of strings in my life. I lost a "string or two" in my life as well. But I had to learn how to make music without one or two of them at any given moment in my "spit in the ocean" life.

Lost balance and hearing among 81 other things, so just Google how to live a live without them. Life goes on, forward and travels at the speed of life. Might as well figure out how to drive with a flat tire if the race is not going to allow for pit stops.

Loss is part of life. Part of the changes that we embrace and accept.

Figure it out silly! get back in the game. Play on with five of six strings.
Make the music that you want.
Not what others want to hear.
Make your concerto, and become independent of the good opinion of others.

Always with kindness and compassion!

I lived by search engines in my deafness; damned and determined to get hearing back somehow, some way. Silly, as I think back on how I searched sites in desperate attempt to find a magic traditional Chinese herb to restore sound to my world; a root or raw vegetable gruel to give me balance and make me walk straight. The proper needle placement for an acupuncturist to restore my cochlea to it's per-firestorm days.

You can always find the "miracle cure web site"

When sound returned to my auditory nerves via a cochlear implant, I would search the engines of technology in hopes of fine tuning it; getting it better; fixing the mix if you will. I had 5 strings, now I wanted to get them to sound like six! I had to learn to accept the wonderful technology, and what it had restored.
I went from my cone of silence to digital "bracks, and beeps", and I wanted better!
Faster!
Clearer!

Then I got grateful for what I had.
Then,and only then did I accept my new world of amazing technology, and learn to embrace it in a new light.
A grateful light.

I grew a mile.

The world of blogs and on-line forums, connected me with a wealth of wonderful people who, like me, have broken the odd string along the way. Many of these people taught me patience when I grew impatient, and perseverance when I wanted to rip the magnet off my head and crawl back into my cone of silence.

Acceptance and serenity came with time.
Time I had, and time I got.

So, as you see my friends, I have sound back in my life.

It just is a little different than what it was.

Warmest,

David

The Dream

2009-05-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

Back in September of 2007 I almost made the Irish Sport Pages (obituaries) after a series of medical firestorms raged in my cage and took me down.

Emergency medical staff, unsure of what was going on, opted to put me in on "pause" and went with "option C": a drug induced coma, to slow or stop the respiratory arrest that my body was giving me. I was slipping away and the life support they had in place was failing rapidly. So I was "parked".

For the next 10 days I slept, or whatever one does in a coma. Not sure because I have no memory, no recollection and no first hand idea of what happened between September 9th 2007 and October 28th of the same year.

I have memory of the 28th of October, because it was the first day that a semi-fog lifted, and I wrote in a journal.

I wrote about "the dream" that I had that seemed so real, yet so surreal. "The dream" is still one of the most vivid memories I have. Crystal clear, even 18 months latter, it was a movie in extraordinary 3D that not only did I star in, but featured many of the people in my life.

Now the fact that the dream was about me, and the cast of characters were people from and in my life is not so extraordinary, considering it was a dream. What is exceptional and at times bizarre is the fact that every single one of the details in this dream are so clear, and so full of detail, even to this day; that I believed for a time that it was not a dream at all.

In my "coming out fog", I told some people what I had been "up to", or doing, and none of it was true. What I told them existed only in my dream! But I believed for a short period that it actually happened.
I believed I took this trip!
For real!

Not sure if the drugs they used to put me in a coma were the cause of the "David Dream". Probably paid a part no doubt. I know this, my medical condition was part of the dream, and some of the medical staff were in my dream. It is interesting how these people got in my dream if I was in a coma and did not see their faces until I regained consciousness 10 days latter.
Maybe I had the dream after the coma.
Not sure?

All I have is about 200 and some odd pages of medical reports, MRI reports, CT scan documents, and a journal of "My Dream".

In "The Dream" there was a "boat" or "ship" of some sort that I was boarding at the start of the dream. There was a concern from the staff that looked at my boarding pass, that my medical condition was not good enough to board this boat or ship.
They had a medical officer at the point of entry who drew blood from me for analysis. This medical officer on the boat appeared latter in my life as a nurse in the hospital where I spent the next 100 days.

The boat was interesting indeed. I did manage to get on board, but only because the boat had left dock before they could analyze and appraise my medical condition. Once the journey began pandemonium ensued, as my medical issues became known and the other passengers (all people from my life and some unknowns) panicked. For the rest of the dream the "medical officer" watched me like a hawk and wanted to keep me in a cage. (Interesting because for the first 30 days or so of my stay "in house" I had to be "restrained" because I had no balance and was constantly trying to get up. To this day I think I did a bit of cranium and sacrum damage from some serious falls)

The boat or ship or cruiser or space ship or...? traveled from Toronto to Vancouver. I knew this was odd, even in my dream (those who know Canada, will understand of course, my questioning of this method from A to B, even in a dream) and questioned the captain ( a lady who had a beard!!!) who took me upstairs to the bridge and showed me a very detailed GPS LCD screen that showed our progress in both animation and real video. When water was not an option for travel, the craft became a large terrain highway vehicle. I can describe in detail to this day of how the traffic appeared on the screen as we drove down the highway, just outside of Vancouver.

I can also recall in vivid detail all of the pictures on the GPSdetailin g the weather and the waves we encountered on the journey; all of the seating on the boat or craft; and I can tell you what I purchased from the vending machines on the boat, and what it cost.
Faces are/were so extraordinarily vivid, that I saw scars, pimples, dimples, crevices in lips, and pock marks on faces that stay with me today.

Every detail of the dream, that I swear lasted 30 days in duration, is still with me.
Time was non sensible,and so hard to get a read on if my dream was one minute of lighting fast action or 30 days in real time. But if I recount the script with the words and action and all that took place; it takes days just to go through the highlights.
The dream lasted for what seemed like two or three weeks!

I actually drew the boat interior in a diagram in my hospital journal, which I came across the other day. I had notations of seating (even to the extent of where the medical officer sat and watched me in scorn and disgust as I was not to be on board you see!) diagrams of table settings, notes on what the steering looked like, and where the food was kept. I have a diary of what I purchased for consumption out of the vending machines, and notes in great detail about the discussions and dialogue with the other passengers about anything and everything.

The boat shape was irregular as far as boats go, and unlike any other I have been on. It was round in the interior and one could travel the 360 degrees in a walkabout (which I did many times in my dream) and end up back at the point of origin.

I suspect I was overly thirsty at one point in my medical nightmare of that year, as a common theme in the dream is drinking gallons of Root beer, Red Bull, and eating copious amounts of canned Mandarins.

I know (or was told latter) that I was fed (in my real life) through a trach while I was in the coma, yet in my dream I ate bags and bags of "Miss Vickie's" Sea Salt and vinegar chips.

When I "woke up" sometime in October ( I was in a coma for only 10 days, but have no recollection of coming out of that coma, nor do I recall the discovery that I had lost hearing. My first memory, or what I call "waking up" was the last week in October when I was sitting in the OT room in the hospital and I asked the therapist if I was in Vancouver) I believed that the dream did in fact take place. I even told a hospital visitor that I lost my hearing somehow when I was on a boat trip the past month.

Not sure why this is all coming out again at this point. Perhaps my thoughts this morning on how I never seem to remember my dreams for more than a nano second in the morning. I wake up and recount the nights cinema then it is gone forever.

Not the big one.

"The Dream", it seems, is always ready for reply on my DVR .

David's video review.

If, no when, I write my book about my journey from sound to silence and then to digital sound,; it will begin on the boat.

An interesting turning point in my life.

The metaphor is wonderful, is it not?

Warmest,

David

Bring On Change

2009-05-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

May brings change, as do all months, weeks and days. May offers more hope as the trees and vegitation of these semi northern climes, spring to life. Pun intended of course.

Today was a day of mixed bagged, licorice allsort variety. Domestic chores, followed by brief breaks in the mix of wonderful sunshine and spits of rain.
The late afternoon offered up yet another first in my cochlear challanged world. : A wedding!
My friend Mary and I sort of crashed a wedding. I use the term crashed loosely as she was the mother of the daughter that was part of the wedding party. We went uninvited to shoot some pictures of her daughter and beautiful granddaughter that was also part and parcel of the wedding party.

I struggled at first as I was informed that it was a Catholic ceromony. It has been a while since I darkened the doorstep of the Catholic church. Perhaps over 35 years!

But the mass was shorter than those that I remembered from my past. Different in fact.
No latin, nice words, no waffer and red water offered, and a priest that did not conjure up memories of the old men with leering looks from my past church days.

I misssed a great deal of the service, as in typical cochlear implant fashion, I got every 6th word from the second to last pew in the church,
Mattered not, I enjoyed being in a spiritual building with a young couple full of steam and hope in their eyes, sealing a deal that one hopes beats the odds.
No cynicism on my part today, which made me happy with myself.

Fourty five minutes after entering the holy confines, the deal was done, and the couple were announced as an official couple.
Change is wonderful, even with pomp and ceremony!

My friend Mary took me quickly after to meet some wonderful friends of hers, where I was greeted with warmth and acceptance. I love being part of the world again, and revel in the little things that make life so spectacular.
A discussion on the auto industry moved quickly into a discussion on goods produced in China.
I stay out of a lot of economic discussions these days. Not because of lack of passion, but the simple fact that economics requires good comprehension.
Tricky stuff.
No wrong answers in my book, but one needs to listen to the tone, words, and figures, closely.
Us CI folks can miss a rule or fact at the drop of a ling sound. So we try to stay general if we can.
Weather, sports, and taxes are good to stay with when one is handicapped in the hearing department.

None the less, I rose to the proverbial jousting challenge and offered up my simple view of protectionism, and the state of Chinese factories, Dollar stores and cheap goods from Wal Mart swirled in the conversation that I was part of, and in fact leading with some of the time.

Good God man, what a difference a year makes, and a good friend makes! Just to be brought into these places and discussions. The chance to meet, greet, object, swirl, toss, and listen to these wonderful people, has turned me into a social butterfly again!

This from a boy who hid in the cozy confines of home court, and would never go out to take on the world of other people, places, things!

Ahh what pleasures May brings. What changes the earth offers up. What challenges can be made minced meat out of when the attitude of gratitude prevails!

FaceBoook and Twitter be damned! The blogs will always be a place where one can update our community in as many characters as it takes. The universe needs us to write for us! It needs our words to soothe the souls, mend the tears, and break the molds. We write for us, yes, but we write the blogs to make the world better if we can.

May is in in it's infancy yet promises so much hope.
And for that reason, I am grateful for the month.

It has been a long time since I smiled a smile that only a late spring snow could wipe off my face. I am excited about the future for the first time in years!

Bring on more change!

We can take it baby!

Warmest,

David

A Year Of Digital Sound.

2009-04-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

Time is the equalizer it seems, when one is trying to gain back some of the lost art of comprehension.
For every bad day where the roar of the tinnitus, or the poor quality of the conversation due to background noise, there are golden days where I stumble at first; then adjust; then roll with the topics de jour.

I had the good fortune of being invited out last Wednesday night, to a group gathering of the co-workers where my friend Mary works.
Always nervous at first at being judged as different, I slink into seat and listen as best I can.
The venue was a restaurant, so I was handicapped right out of the gate. Lots of noise from bar area, other tables filled with families and little ones screaming around the tables.

I sit.
I listen.
I watch.
I guess.

I grabbed enough of the conversations that I jumped in when I was positive I had it nailed.
When unsure, I would listen hard and fill in the blanks.

I am fortunate that my friend Mary helps out. She watches my look to see if I pose a quizzical frown, or a nod of "ah ha, I got it" acknowledgment. She is kind and good to me to ensure that I am part of the world at large. Ever careful to keep me at least in the loop of conversation.

What a nice feeling to be back in the world! I so enjoy the art of conversation. The banter and playing with issues. The tossing and lobbing out of opinions, to see who will volley them back over the net.
It has been a long time since I sat and took part in social gatherings of any sort.
I was a giddy as a school boy at Christmas.

Today I went for my one year Cochlear Implant sound test. In a few days I will celebrate the anniversary of my activation on May 1st last year. The test in the booth is simple: Words are heard by me from a speaker that sits in the sound proof booth, at various levels of volume.
I just repeat them. The audiologist records my mark.

"Duck" comes through the speaker
"Duck" I say back
So far so good. If only the world worked in simple one word conversations.

The next part of the test is listening to sentences.
Five or six word sentences using all of the "Ling" sounds are heard by me, in the booth. I just have to repeat the sentence.
"The boys drank the water" is played through the accoustically perfect sound system, in the perfectly sound proofed and quiet room.
"The boys drank the water" I repeat back.
Perfect.

Next is the "HINT" test or "hearing in noise test", where sentences are played through the speakers as in the last test, but there is the roar of background noise. Very much like real life.
Very much like last Wednesday where the roar of a restaurant frustrates us.
I guess a lot.
If I can get one or two words, I can string together a pretty good guess.
"But dime cause da train repeat" is what I hear.
"What time does the train leave" is what I repeat.
Perfect
Just like real life.
Fake it to make it.
Fill in blanks, read lips, nod your head, laugh when others laugh. Never let them see your puzzled look if you can help it.

My scores were high, and I was pleased. It has been quite a year since my activation.
My world changed more dramatically and drastically then I would have ever imagined.
One year ago today, I was deaf as a stump, but implanted with a on-board PC that would have a processor linked to it in a few more days, via a magnet.
The first sounds I heard after 230 days in utter and profound silence, were the beeps of my audiologist program to set volume levels to be fired at my auditory nerve. The setting of the sound levels had me grinning from ear to deaf ear.

The first voice I heard in 230 days was my audiologist.
I almost wet myself with laughter because she sounded like Minny Mouse after a mouthful of helium was sucked into the cartoon character.
Everyone sounded like that for weeks. Men and women alike all sounded like the mouse on helium.

Patience and work prevailed, and I grew in leaps and bounds to where I sit and listen today.
Comprehension is in the 90% in both quiet and noise in the cozy confines of the audiologist booth.
Not so high in the real world.

Much has happened in the year that saw me go from deafness, to digital sound.
Many losses, but many gains.
Back to work, gain of balance, new friends, new life really!

I like where I am, but more importantly like where I am headed. I figured out the world of change and the way to deal with it is acceptance.
My number of problems is no different from yours. We all have 83 problems, every day.

I stopped trying to pair that number down a long time ago. I need to respect the 83, and move forward.
The snow melted after a long winter.
The world of work greeted me after a 15 month medical recovery.
New wonderful and amazing friends came into my life.

And sound returned to my life after a long hiatus.

So as easy as it is be reflective as I celebrate my one year in new sound, I am more apt to acknowledge and accept the changes that happened.
I have a new way of hearing.
I have a new and very different life.
I have new and wonderful people in my life.

I still have 83 problems.

They are just different then they were 365 days ago.

Warmest,

David

The Roar In My Head.

2009-04-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

The buzz and hum that dogs my inner auditory nerves, is at times unnerving. Rumble and roar from tinnitus is so much a part of my life, that at times acceptance is the only way to deal with it.

It drowns out conversation at times, and that is not what I need.

I need some quiet up there to hear the conversation that I so miss and crave.

I had a wonderful Sunday, except for the noise that crept up all day. Louder and louder it progressed until all I could hear was the automotive assembly plant that lives in my head.

The day started great: A run in the early morning was as splendid as it gets. Not the run itself, as I hate the act but the love the results; the endorphins and the high that I get around 10 minutes after completion.

I went to a great BBQ that my friend had for her daughter and family. It was special to be invited and meet any and all of her family and friends.
As the day wore on, the gears and motors of tinnitus increased until it became an embarrassment of:
"sorry"
"pardon"
"again"
"did you say...?

The guests were patient and kind and understanding as I expected, but man does it make for a difficult time trying to fit in to the conversation. I miss so much as I struggle with the comprehension. I take guesses as to the subject like always, but today I was off the mark all day.

One discussion about American Idol was the only one I guessed right at, but sadly could offer no insight into the show, as music and TV are so foreign to me in my cochlear challenged world. So the lovely day and wonderful people that were part of my afternoon got my attention visually,
I read lips, watched eyes, studied faces, just as I did in my deaf days.

I took breaks and retreated into the quiet kitchen to see if I could simmer the sound down, but it just amplified when I concentrated on quiet conversation.
It is a nuisance indeed.

I'm not going to give it any energy. I am home enjoying the memory of a lovely Sunday in my new world.
My new chapter.
My new friend.
And the joy that all that brings me.

Warmest,

David

There Are No Accidents In The Universe

2009-04-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

There are no accidents in the universe, in my beliefs of life and in my experience.

We ramble about the planet doing what we do, living our lives, and change is happening.

I spent a great deal of my life in search of happiness, and discovered that searching and seeking usually brings about more of the same searching a seeking.

I was, and am, content in my new life for the most part. Other than missing a soul to share the day to day concerto with, I could be be content live busy with my activities.

So I am cautious yet curious when new people grace my life.

Still, I have open mind and open heart to new ideas, people, places and things. I am also aware of what the human spirit has to offer, so I forge ahead observing and taking in the new people who grace my life daily.

So when someone graced my life a few weeks ago, I did the usual observing, listening, contemplating, deliberating, meditating, and reflective thought. After reasonable time and conversation it became clear that this new soul was a kindred one indeed.

I am pensive and rational by nature, so I was intrigued by my "full speed ahead" quest to spend more time with this wonderful soul as she was so engrossing.

The give and take of life is worthy of sharing with others. So my enchantment moved quickly to contentment.

Yes it has been a relatively short period of time in our friendship, but we are not 17 any more, and there is no sadness in that simple fact.

Life moves on at the speed of life. Change happens faster than we like, but it changes.

The glee and gratification of sharing the day to day trials and tribulations are lighter from the mirth and pleasure of having someone to chew the words with.

Another wonderful soul to relish the day with.

A kindred spirit to share the hilarity and jollity of life and it's joy.

There are no accidents in the Universe

Warmest,

David

Just Breathe

2009-04-05T04:28:00.000-07:00

There is no "normal" for me. Acceptance of that statement/fact is huge for me, and it puts me in a new space that requires constant review and challenges. I struggle to develop a better mental toughness most days, that is required to bring me out of a place and space where I often drift to in my hearing and balanced challenged world.

In the past eighteen months I have lost much: Hearing, balance, a beloved family pet, and my spouse of 19 years. But I have gained much in that time. Managing my expectations of a new life, is the challenge and the new reality of my this new space that I occupy in the universe.

I recently read a quote by Michael J. Fox, the Canadian actor who lives daily with the quirks and jerks of Parkinson's disease.
"I may be different from other people, but someone told me that the growth of happiness is in direct proportion to your acceptance, and in inverse proportion to our expectation"

This was an epiphany of sorts to be sure. I read it, and re read it until it struck me as why there are days that I get mired or stuck in the "why can't I just be normal".
I have what I have, and my cochlear challenged world is what it is.

I will never get hearing back as it existed pre-1997. So once I grip that fact, I can move forward to deal with life as it exists now. Which more often than not is hearing at a 80% level of comprehension in quiet situations, filling in the rest with good guesses; and hearing at a sub 50% level in noisy environments, and playing a huge, but oft-times hilarious guessing game.
"Are they not bastards? " I heard from a friend last night with my processor and mic on the opposite side of the speaker.
"Huh? No, no, they are good people" I responded, "not bastards"
"No, no, Baptists, not bastards" they corrected.

I can and do laugh at the daily frustrations of what I "get", but what I "miss" is the source of frustrations. Phones are still a nightmare, for me and for the callers I suspect. Some calls that should be around a minute or two in length are five minutes in qualifying the caller.
"I'm sorry who are you asking for"
"Who are you again"?
"Are you with a company"?
"I'm sorry I am hearing challenged, can you tell me the subject of your call"?
"One more time, is it David or Dan you are looking for?"
"Oh hi Mom, sorry"

Confidence at times slips out of my persona like warm air through a open door. I go through the "this sucks, and I am alone now to deal with it" daily. Yet there are times, where I give thanks to this technology and marvel at the implants and what they provide in sound for this deaf as box of cereal boy.

Michael J. Fox hit a spot in his challenges and said "This sucks, this is what it is and this sucks, and then you move on from there"
While I am in that spot or space, I still ask myself if the universe decided to play a cosmic joke, or a God of my understanding decided that life was too easy, and needed to put me through a cosmic test, and took away some powerful things, and people in my life, to see how I deal with life without the love and understanding of some people, and the necessities of normal hearing and balance.

If I accept this as my new spot here, and accept that even that is ever changing, then I can start to deal with life from a better vantage point. I have what I have. End of story. Move forward now.

Yoga and meditation keeps me grounded and provides a "jumping off" point for the day. Deep and slow double breaths remind me that I have life. The slow process of air entering my lungs and slowly filling into the belly, gives me hope and is a reminder that 18 months ago I fought survival in a coma on life support. Written off and family gathered around, I somehow was given a chance at a comeback. But hearing would be the cost of this battle.

In my silence I changed of course, and saw the world through vision and touch.
Eyes became my ears, and a new vision of life emerged.
A gentler kinder vision as I needed compassion and understanding to survive in the dog eat dog environment, so I best learn how to give compassion and understanding if I was to receive it.

So the metamorphosis of David began in a hospital bed, but continues daily.
I lower my expectations of what I can and cannot do now in life, and I learn acceptance of my new life without important things and people in my life. So much I shared with people that no longer grace my world, go unshared. So be it. It changes not the fact that they exist with or without what or who I have or do not have at this point in my life.

Michael J. Fox has a small square painting hanging on his office wall. Just black text on a white background that immortalizes an expression Fox, a former heavy drinker, used as he was trying to quit and accept Parkinson's disease.
It reads: "fuck it and breathe."

This morning as a beautiful sun rose, and I stood in full Tree Pose attempting ujjayi breaths, I drifted to that spot that dogs me. The confidence escaping me as I dreaded the Monday morning dealings with the phone at work and the frustration that comes with it.

Life became calm and clear when I removed any and all expectations and stopped reacting. As radical and unfamiliar as this was, it calmed me, and my attention shifted inwards.
I have what I have.
I am what I am.

Now fuck it and just breathe David.

"Me" Time

2009-04-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

I don't get here much. Which is a shame. I miss it.
It's a shame because I love it here, writing, reading, sharing, laughing, and running the gambit of emotions with the other writers in the blogosphere.

Life got busy for a moment or two, and while I enjoyed the change in the parade, I missed doing some of the things that kept me grounded during stronger winds.
Writing was one of those things.

What sticks out as a time consumer is being a Dad.
I have of course been a Dad for 15 years. And for a great deal of time in the last five of those years, I have been the primary "go to parent" in Janet's long illness.
A fifteen month hiatus as that principal was a result of my medical 9/11 and my subsequent deafness.

I did find myself thrust back into the role of "Chief cook and bottle washer" of the house after my recovery, and Janet's fall back into the darkness of leukemia.

Now that I am without Janet, I find it a little unnerving at times as I search for the right answers in the care taking and parental advice needed with a now 15 year old boy.

Some things Mom just always knew the answer to, or the right thing to do.

I enjoy figuring these things out I suspect, but find myself at times looking up towards the clouds and asking for a little help. I'm not the first nor am I the only single Dad on the planet. So I take comfort in the fact that it can and will be done.

There will not always be the right answer or the right thing to say or do, so I give myself some latitude and the odd "mulligan" on issues that stump me.
It keeps me busy.

As life is ever changing, so are my answers to questions. There really is no right answer to many of life's questions, because what may have been the right answer or action 10 years ago, may have little relevance today.
So I try to lead by example and give Dan some room to discover and grow on his own, offering guidance and assistance when asked or needed.
I will never attempt to duplicate his Mom's efforts and actions, as they were hers. I think he knows that and respects that.

Janet and I had 2 very different styles of parenting, as I suspect many couples with children do. I think my style as the Dad worked for the most part, but miss her wisdom in answers that only Mom's seem to have.

Dan was never shy about talking about people in his life with his Mom, and I have to admit a little jealousy on my part over the years. His openness about people in his life was a subject of many late night chat between the two of them, and something I thought would come to us with time.

Perhaps it will.

If not, I am there with open mind and cochlear challenged hearing.

So I forge ahead with the day to day duties of laundry, shopping, dinner, dishes, homework check. And still find time to put in a 9 or 10 hour day at the office. Like most parental "stuff", there are little rewards seen at the end of long days. But we don't do life for the rewards really, do we?
We help them to live, to love, and to learn, and then we hope that the legacy we leave them will show itself one day. Perhaps as we watch them as parents struggling with the same questions, and coming up with the same answers that we instilled in them.

Certainly as life moves at the speed of life, we think that we do not spend the time or give the wisdom we should. But then we watch an action or hear a word or two one day, that comes from the heart. An action that could only have been learned from this environment. Bred in the bone if you will.

I see many of Janet's traits in Dan, and that makes me happy. There was never a more "common sense" Mother to be seen like her. No nonsense, careful, diligent, and forever making sure that the right thing was done for the right time. But always with love and kindness.

Dan has that to be sure. But he also has my ridiculous sense of humour, and my love of life.

He will do fine. I just need to accept that and chill a bit I guess I need to spend time on me. It has been years since I did anything for me, and I miss that. This writing was my one token "me" time, and I miss it when I break for too long.

I think as life changes, and Dan moves along into a fine young man; I just might do some things I always wanted to do.
No idea what that will be, but I am sure I will find my pocket of interest in something or someone along the road.

The journey is great, and enjoyable. I just have to live in the "now" and not worry about 4 or 8 or 12 years down the road. All we know for sure is that it will be different. Always. And life will have curve balls, fast balls, and the odd one to hit out of the park.

I just want to enjoy all the pitches it has to offer every day.

Or just sit in the grass and enjoy the changes at the "ball park".

Warmest,

David

Conversations With Myself.

2009-04-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

I need to spend more time here.

I catch myself drifting aimlessly at times, searching for something to occupy my new found "free time".

I like having the time now, it's just that I need to spend it more focused.

I drift.

After the mundane chores of dinner, dishes, laundry, homework checks, and bill paying are complete; I still go to old auto pilot and think about driving to hospital, or preparing solutions to clean the trach that needed to be done nightly in days of old.

In my new chapter, I need not check in on patient at hospital, nor do I need to do the home maintenance that was once required in home care of said patient.

I pick up mornings newspaper and re read it. I go through the many books laying about that are marked with spot of last exit. I fuss with furniture. Surf aimlessly the Internet catching up on blogs and forums.

Then I watch clock to see if sleep draws near.

Hmmmm seven thirty.

Still time to kill before bed.

I made some stabs at hobbies. I even spent nights researching cameras after a thought of spending some money and getting serious about photography.

I got as far as eliminating many choices and narrowing my purchasing decision down to three or four options. I even went to store and picked up the ones I thought might bring me some activity with joy.
Then I left the store and went home to look a web sites offering how to speak and learn Portuguese or Spanish.

I am interesting!

With spring now making longer attempts at brightening up the day, I consider the garden. It is a job that will take considerable labour and planning, yet it is too early to think about planting. So I just drift visually and take in what needs to be done once May is closing and June approaching. So I go through books and magazines and write and draw ideas out. I do som preliminary tossing of the old growth in bags, and prepping the area in anticipation of first plantings.
I research Hosta of the year, and see if I have room for it.

I guess I am still evolving into my "new space" in the universe. Discovering, if you will, more about me and my needs and wants.

I miss conversation at times, even the most simple and mundane.
Always one to share whatever came to mind, I find myself sharing with the sky, the silly things that occupy my brain at times. The many days and nights that Janet was in hospital, I would tell Speeder the wonder dog, how my day was, or what concerto was the most current of my worm songs that play on loop.

Dan, of course, is happy and content in his fifteen year old world of music and on line "stuff", and when Dad wanders down to his space, I get the "look". The "look" at times is one of almost sympathy: "Hi Dad, is everything going ok?"
"Yes, just wondering what you're up to, and if you wanted to catch the hockey game with me"
"Maybe after I finish learning this song" he compromises.
Evening turns to night, and drift off in thought as hockey game is "on" in background, books are stacked up in the ready for review, and thoughts turn to next days business activities.
Dan gets involved in his world and forgets his semi commitment.
The day draws to a close, and we wish each other a good nights sleep.

Maybe activity is not so much the thing I crave I miss. Perhaps conversation, or lack of, is what dogs me at night.

Days are busy of course, as I attempt the activity of business and commerce, and pretend that I can salvage and save this economic situation we find ourselves in.
God knows the challenges of comprehension in my tinnitus/cochlear challenged world are enough to keep me on my toes and active on a minute by minute basis. It requires a lot more thinking and reviewing than I ever imagined. I need to fill in blanks; guess at the "subject de moment"; and give intelligent answers or comments based on comprehending around 75% of what my auditory nerve has attempted to translate for my brain.

So days are fine, and most go quickly. It is the nights that drag, and I am convinced that being one who shared everything all of the time, I might need to get a bird or a hamster (can fish hear?) to bore into submission with every detail of what comes into my pea sized melon.
I am comfortable in the "alone" thing for the most part, as I do enjoy the solitude at times. It offers time for reflection that I never thought existed. I am careful to keep my Buddhist teachings in mind as life changes. I accept living in the now more than ever.

It's not that I view something as "broken" per say, it really is a matter of missing the sharing of my passions, my joys, my sorrows, and my hopes and dreams. I was never one to clam up when something excited me or disappointed me.

The crocuses are up, and I love that simple fact. I do however crave the pointing it out and sharing it.
There are many people in my life at present, and I am grateful for that,
I just need to get my head in a spot where I am better around "change", and get better at acceptance that we are different on so many levels.

I started this post just after 5 am this morning. I wrote a bit, read a few blogs, read some newspaper, did Yoga, made a smoothie for mornings consumption, checked email, put away dishes from dishwasher, walked out in the backyard, then came back to try another stab at finishing this post. It just never got finished, as I always found some little task to do.
I then showered and readied for work, got Dan up and drove him to school, and made way into office.

Five hours after awakening, I sit at qwerty attempting to finish this rambling of thought.

So, I guess the point is this: I have activity and am not looking to join an amateur radio club, or a local theater group that has requirements for hearing challenged, balanced challenged, frustrated comedians/actors.
No, I am good with things to do.
I guess I just need to yap about the things I do.

Julie wrote a post today that I started my day with. In a nut shell is was about the fact that men don't communicate. It caught my attention because I was in a head space at the time about how I wish there were more people in my concerto to communicate with.
I am never at a loss for words, just at a loss for people to hurl and swirl them at. Perhaps for that reason, I blog. It allows me a chance to vent, rant, mope, exude happiness, cry, laugh, share, and care with you.

Julie in her wonderfully funny and thought provoking post suggests to men that conversation is like a tennis game. One party hits a question over to the other, and one hopes it gets hit back.
The analogy is good, and I'm not sure it just pertains to men as being the ones to offer one word answers and then clam up.

I have been in many one way conversations where I seem to do all the questioning and answering for both parties. It bothers me not, but I see the danger in a relationship if one is the clam and the other is open and forthcoming in all regards.

Still no idea where I wanted to go with this post, and at the point now where I am busy at work, and taking stabs at a conclusion.
But this is what is interesting: There are no answers or conclusions in this ever changing universe.
Our concertos go up and down in tempo and volume. The melody is ever changing, as are the musicians.
We all have 83 problems.
Some have partners to share them with, some have pets to hear the 83, others have a spiritual place to speak of their 83. I have acceptance of that fact.

There are those of us who are happy sharing their hopes, dreams, joys and accomplishments right here; in the blogosphere world.
I accept that.

I just miss a good gab fest I guess.

And I accept that, move on, and live on.

Things will change.

Always do.

Warmest,

David

The Way My Brain Works On Special Occasions Mystefies Me.

2009-03-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

So it is the big "Happy Birthday Guitar Boy day" and I may or may not have messed up already!
So aware of the day, and making it special especially in light of recent events, it was first and foremost in my mind all last week, and took precidence over all other sceduled events.
It dominated my thoughts and grocery planning.

My cleaning and laundry was based on the day arriving Monday, and I wanted to ensure I gave his day my undivided attention.

I planned the dinner.
Made sure I had all the ingredients for the menu.
I did all the pre-work on the Cherry Chip cake, including one trial run that was good enough to donate to a neighbour. (I don't need to eat cake two nights in row. Trust me. My 176 Lbs of ideal weight for my frame and height has crept up and is dangerously approaching the 180 mark.)

Cards and gift of course was done ages ago, and set in ready position for the day.

I booked his Nan to share in cake and tea after dinner.

So rise and shine time arrives this morning, and I head to his room to give him the ever so gentle "Morning little buddy. How was your sleep" routine that gets him up and in shower.
After his shower was done, I went to his bathroom to remind him of a couple of "housekeeping" items for the day.

"Dan, don't forget you have a dentist appointment today at 4, after school. I will meet you at home at 3:45 and drive you there"

"I know Dad, I remember" he scowls at me.

"And after Diner I invited Nan for cake and tea."

"Ok Dad, that works" he responds with a smile, knowing full well that it will be only a few painful minutes for a fifteen year old boy with his 85 year old Nan, but the reward will be a bunch of cash in a card.

"Oh, and Thursday this week, do not make plans. We have dinner at friends" I advise

"OK Dad. Anything else?"

"No, that's pretty much today, and the rest of the week is business as usual. I might go for a run on Wednesday night, but only for a 5 K slow one. No plans for weekend, so go ahead and book what you have to" I continue.

He is blow drying his hair at this point, and trying to be polite and not say "OK can I go now Mr. Schedule Man?" although that is the look I am getting at this point.

"Is that it?"he snorts and try's to blow me away, (literally using his blow drier) so he can get ready for school sans interruptions.

"Yea, that's it. Have a great one Buddy, and try not to do what I did in school" I say grinning.

"Bye Dad" and he flashes me his traditional ASL sign for I love you.

In the car I get, briefcase loaded, mug of "Morning Thunder" nicely tucked in cup holder, and off I go.

I replay the morning in my head.

"Holy Shit! I know today is his birthday, because that is all that I thought about/planned about/obsessed about....for the last three weeks" I scream to myself at the 12 K mark away from house.

"I forgot to tell him Happy Birthday! Give him card! Give him gift!" at this point I am screaming at myself in traffic. Fortunately I have my cochlear in and on of course, and the stares I am getting from fellow motorists just assume I am talking on Bluetooth.

Yelling actually at this point.

I grab phone and break my rule about using a cell when driving.
This is a case for rule breaking.

No answer. He has left for school

I try his cell.
Turned off!
He is diligent about turning off his phone in school.
"Dam his diligence!" I scream at the drivers staring at me.

So here I type trying to figure out if his "...anything else Dad" questions, were a kick at my scatter brained "aware it is your birthday. Planned this day for weeks actually. But at this moment the words Happy Birthday have failed me" space that I found myself in this morning.

So here I sit in my office.

My 15 year old sits in Computer tech class right about now, and I wonder if he is wondering about the way my brain works. How can you talk about something daily and the day of; not talk about it?

So I am right now texting apologies every 10 minutes or so, hoping that if and when he fires up his Motorola Rockr, they will come flying it and save my ass on this one.

I will not fail at the cake!

I will remember Christmas morning to say "Merry Christmas"

Warmest,

David

Interpreters For The Challanged.

2009-03-27T03:30:00.000-07:00

Tinnitus has seemed to raise it's ugly rubber extrusion factory sounding head lately.

No stranger to this am I. But now it is getting rather annoying. Especially now that I need better comprehension , all the time, in my cochlear challenged world.

Being back in the world of business and commerce, reinforced my view that passion or compassion for "hearing challenged" lasts but a few seconds. After my third "Again?" or "excuse me?", I get the look that we all know too well. "Oh man, this is going to be interesting explaining something to Mr. Deaf as a wheel of cheese" look.

Out and about away from the insensitive world of spread sheets and marketing plans, life is a little kinder. Gentler.

Shop keepers, eager to have some of the doe rae me that you are willing to part with, will give you all the compassion and understanding one needs, when you explain that the magnet on your melon is not for decoration. So I am given a few more graces than a coworker would.

In old times, Janet was my "interpreter" . She would give me time to try and get the bulk and meat of the conversation or question. But as soon as I would fire her "the look" of puzzlement and "please help me", she would jump in and repeat the words for me in lips and eyes that I was familiar with.

Dan is too quick on the draw and his patience is like mine was in past.

When the clerk at Blockbuster/EB Games/Best Buy, asks a question at the cash that may or may not have something to do with an extended warranty/credit card issue/mailing address; and I miss a chunk of it, I start into my "sorry I am hearing challenged can you repeat..." but before I get my first "Again?" in, Dan is grabbing my arm to turn my face to view his beautiful youthful eyes and lips and gives me the repeat/interpretation far too early.

"Dad, he said...."

"Yes Dan I would have got that eventually, but you have to give me time"

Not sure why the tinnitus has ramped up. There are as many theories as there are traditional Chinese Herbs that promise a drop in volume of the nasty noise the brain manufacturers in the absence of analog sound I suspect. Perhaps recent life altering events have contributed to a bit of stress that kicks the air force in my head into action.

I read recently that caffeine can contribute to Tinnitus, but I am a 2 cup O'Java guy. Only on occasion will I treat myself to a "Fourbucks" to add stimulus to my day.

I am good about the amount of caffeine that enters me daily. In fact I just tried and went through a box of "Morning Thunder" by Celestial Seasons.

I read about this amazing brew in the paper a few weeks ago. It has half the caffeine of Java, but the herbs or whatever natural stuff is in it, has an amazing effect.

It kicks serious ass!

I was buzzing and flying around like I had slept for days, after just one cup. I am now a regular "Morning Thunder" guy, and encourage others to try it, to confirm my suspicions that this stuff is the cats ass of "pick me ups"

So my Number 1 interpreter is gone, and Number 2 is quick lip McGraw. Speeder the wonder dog was no help, so I can't put him in the "really miss his help" category.

Driving is a challenge with passengers. My cochlear implant is on my left side, so I get the sound of the road on the left. The conversation of passengers on my right, not so much. I have to speech read, and in traffic that causes some problems.

Turning head constantly doing 120 Kilometers and hour can scare the bravest of souls. And as the saying goes "friends don't let friends, lip read and drive"

So whatever the reason for the upswing in auditory factory noises is, I am getting a little frustrated, as I am sure many of my conversing peoples.

Matters not I guess. Life moves on, and sound comes in, although drowned out at times by the second shift at the Goodyear plant.

I have sound.

I have people in my life to give me sound.

I have an interpreter (albeit an impatient one) that turns 15 in 3 days.

And we will celebrate in song and Cherry Chip cake.

Warmest,

David

Discovery Mode

2009-03-25T03:12:00.000-07:00

The wonderful souls and denizens of this earth, at times seem so set in their ways. I suspect I was no different at times.

We have routine, ideas, ideologies, philosophies, opinions, and "shades and blinders" we put on to keep things the way they are.

What a great loss that can be, if one travels the roads of life, never changing direction because "that's the way we always did it".

I catch my self these days doing things the way they always were done. Cups always in the same cupboard; same old places to grab a pita; drive the same road every day even though there are several routes.

I read the same paper the same way with the same mug of the same coffee in the same cup. Yet life, at the speed of life, is changing every nano second.

After 19 years of living with the same partner, we develop habits and nuances that "just make sense" But if we change it up, it feels odd at first; but kinda cool and good.

I have my opinions about things, but always keep an open mind to new ideas, thoughts, and ways of living. I just need to turn that on more I suspect. Routine is fine really, but life should never be about routine. We are just a spit in the ocean, and our time here is but a blip on the cosmic clock. So why do we not take in life's concerto at different venues?

The adventurous of us claim that "we love to travel and experience new things". But we still need to know that every Tuesday night "House" comes on. We shut down our discovery modus for these events, because there is comfort in conformity I guess. God forbid that someone drop in or the phone ring at the end of an American Idol show!

At a certain age or time in our life's we have our "set" of friends and family. If someone really interesting (how would we know?) were to walk by our house, or grace us in line at "Fourbucks", we put up a sign in our eyes that says: "Not looking for friends, set in that way. Not interviewing or accepting applications for the positions of friends".

Shame.

Bluetooth was a Danish Pirate. Bluetooth technology is named after the pirate. When you want to "pair" devices (laptop, cell phones etc) you have to put your Bluetooth device into "discovery mode".

Devices have to be in close proximity, so when in "discovery mode" they find each other and "pair".

I guess we reach a certain age, or complacency or maybe even a general laziness in life, and stop putting our minds, hearts and souls in "discovery mode".

I wonder why?

The universe is filled with amazing things, but people are the most unique things we can spend time with. Watching, sharing, conversing, eating, or just hanging out with. It is nice to travel and see the sites that man made, and the geography that time created. But really it is people that we talk about after a trip.

"Went to the Grand Canyon/Disney/Paris/the Nile.... and we met this amazing couple who....."

We have all heard it. It's the souls we interact with along the road that make the concerto really.

But you have to be in "discovery mode" all the time to make the mundane trip to the A & P part of life's wonderful experience.

Head down, Bluetooth off, we miss so much.

I have spent the last several years in medical land. Taking care of someone, and getting David back to David was work and time.

I missed a lot.

Nine months in a cone of silence my "discovery mode" in my internal Bluetooth system kicked in and on.

I watched people.

I read lips.

I read eyes.

I looked inquisitively at life and enjoyed it with open mind and no sound.

Somewhere in my recovery and in taking care of my wife's well being, my Bluetooth got turned off, and I took myself out of discovery mode.

How wonderful recently to discover this tragic error, and flip back into discovery mode. If you give it time, and don't obsess over the details too much, life is fascinating again. Wonderful experiences happen every second, in every place, all the time. But you have to be in discovery mode to appreciate it, drink it in, wallow in it, play in it, and replay in your mind over and over.

One has to adapt to change really to take in the "new".

We have to empty our "cups" to put us in touch with the newness and constant changing about us daily. To experience what life has to show and teach us, we have to be in discovery mode, and make room for new "movements" in our concerto.

They are out there to be sure.

NAN-IN, a Japanese master received a university professor who cam to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup" Nan-in said, "your are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Warmest,

David

Ever Changing Life.

2009-03-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Just as I suspected, life at the speed of life carried on. The snow retreated and there were shades of brownish/green grass rearing their darling spiked and shriveled heads, as spring made a subdued entrance last week.

It had been my hope, to be back at full QWERTY by springs birth, but life got busy, and I am back at five strings, with full intention of doing something a little different soon.
Well, as soon as I can figure out what that is.

I suspect that the curve balls got fast and furious in the past little while, and then the carnival left town.
It got quiet.
I sat alone.

Guitar boy was busy with his March school break, doing what 14 year old's do best. X-Boxing until thumbs are red. Downloading until heard drives are bulging at the seams. You tubing until the last cow comes home.
Ahhhhhhh youth!
But then he upped and went to a buddies for an extended sleep over.
Wham!
I was alone, and it felt odd.

As I eluded too earlier, I wanted to move on and find new ground.
A new begging if you will.

In the end, I am back here, and perhaps for a while. I like it here.
Five strings is still my life, and my concerto. It best defines the musings of this boy at this time. MY liminal world and how it sounds.
It still sounds like 5 strings.

So on I go. Ahead I forge. Me and Guitar boy making our way in the world. Trying to stay away from the glowing temptation of cheap and easy fast food; and hoping to get healthier as our new focus is just us boys.

Still challenging the world of analog sound daily. Wishing I had the ability to deal with analog sound instead of a hugely expensive on-board PC that changes every "tick and tack" and "This and that" to ginormous strings of zero's and one's.
But it is my lot in life to live in the CI world. So I just need to "suck it up".

Some days are diamonds, and some are stone. Some are downright granite God Damn it!
But as you know; We all have 83 problems, and I am not about to attempt to lessen that load for the simple reason that as I do; another pops up.

Thanks for hanging around my friends, I missed you!
Missed you a lot, more than you know.

I miss a lot of things, but I find it easier if I just keep busy and not think too much about what I miss.
I open cupboards, and boxes, or find a photograph from healthier happier times, and I crumble for a bit.
Head down, I fight temptation to look up and curse the heavens.
"Why am I alone"? I want to scream.

Even Speeder checked out on me, and I really needed him for the longest time.

But life is funny. And forgiving, challenging, and passionate in many ways.

But it is also ever changing.

Warmest,

David

News

2009-03-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking of a new blog. I am in a place right now, where I want to move forward. Life in a cone of silence was the beginning of a new journey in my deafness.
Five string was the next step as I rehabilitated.
I will be shutting this down, and going with some new writing in a new spot, with a new them.
I will advise y'all of my new place soon.

David

Missing Joe's Clothes

2009-02-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

I, like you, want the economy to get back on track.
I, perhaps unlike you dear reader, have a disparate basis to wish some reasonable good fortunes in these troubled times:
I want my stores back!

I say this after just returning from my supermarket.
No, grocery store is probably a far better term, as there never has been anything "super" about my "No Frills" store.
Basic stuff. Not a huge choice or variety. You pay a nickel a bag if you really need one, or, like me, you bring your own. You fork out a quarter to borrow a cart.

There is no Kobe or Wagyu beef. There is not a sight or smell of sashimi or sushi. You won't find any fresh croissants. There also is no olive bar, fresh pasta bar, or Gelato bar to spend your hard earned bucks on.
It's no frills silly.
Basic stuff, good prices.
I figure on a big shop, my cart of goods cost $30 less than the national fancy chains that offer up steamed cups of lattes while you shuk and suck back their PEI Malpeque oysters that were just flown in for the weekly flyer.

No sir, this is no frills! But today it was NO carts, NO parking, No bananas left at $.59/lb. The line ups to cash out snaked all the way to the skids of no name coffee.

Here is my beef: I used to have a free run at the aisles. Pre- sub prime crash, I had at most, 2 people in line ups ahead of me.
Boom! It hit, and the good people got nervous.
They all started to come to my store!

Now I'm no financial guru. Nor did I have a crystal ball to foresee the times we are in. In fact I have been a frugal shopper for many years.
It just happens to be in vogue now!

I certainly don't mind sharing my neighborhood store, in fact I used to talk ad nauseam about it to fellow workers.
"Dave" they'd say
"They sell cheap food"
"It's not cheap" I would reply
"It's inexpensive"

I like nice clothes, nice labels and quality. I cringe at the prices, but believe in paying for quality.
Years ago I discovered an upscale mens second hand store. Nothing but top notch, high end stuff. But worn, at one time by someone with a much bigger line of credit than me, and taken to store to be sold at a fraction of the cost.
Boss, Prada, Gucci, Canali. All the wonderful labels that are lovely to look, lovely to hold........but never made it home because paying $600 for a sports jacket is just silly.

I discovered the store by chance, and fell in love with the $1,000 wardrobe I could own, for a couple of hundred bucks. I was even more delighted when I discovered that the local sports anchor at a big Toronto affiliate, was the same size as me.

It was an arrangement made in heaven.
One that would put me in Canali, Boss, Prada and the likes for next to nothing, for the next fifteen years!
Top quality 100% cotton men's dress shirts, some even monogrammed with cool initials not even close to mine, for $18 a pop! Designer jeans that boy toys played in whilst yauching I suspect, could be snagged for under $25.

You see, being on television nightly in the biggest market in Canada, Joe and the likes of his ilk were given top labels in exchange for promotional consideration.
"Joe_______'s wardrobe provided by Harry_____. clothier to gentlemen".
It should of continued with...
"and eventually given a good home and worn by David P"

Joe got new duds every month.
Joe was smart.
Joe did not make a million bucks.
Sure, Joe was the 11 o'clock sports guy on a big station.
Still, it's not New York. Toronto affiliates do not pay much.

Joe would take his nice stuff in to "my second hand store" at the end of each month. The owner of the store knew that Joe and I were both a size 42. So Steve, the owner would phone me.
I would race down to pick up my new $750 jacket and pants for about $170.
Joe, the sports guy, got 50% of the consignment deal, and nicely augmented his income.
It made all three parties happy!

Anyway, so I go deaf and go on long term disability. I spend the next five hundred days dressed in old Nike and New Balance pants, that I would nicely coordinate with shirts given away at the Half marathons I ran in.
The economy tanks while I was napping and the world discovered my secret store.
And Joes clothes.

I go back to work four weeks ago, but prior to my revival in the work place, I figure my clothes need a restoration that might go by the name of Canali or Prada.
I drive in to the tiny plaza that houses the clothing replay store.
Steve, the owner who I have been seeing for over fifteen teen years, looks a little shocked to see me.

"Dave, great to see you, but I don't have anything in your size" Steve exclaims.
"What about Joe's clothes?" I inquire with a little pissiness in my voice.
"Got a waiting list a mile long" he informs.

My second hand furniture store has line ups now.
My clothing guy can't get me in Joe's old/new clothes any more.
No Frills has gone viral, and I can't even park.
The cheese guy who sold wonderful cheeses out of a warehouse in an industrial park now has a waiting list.
The baker that sold hot lovely bread from a stall in a parking garage, has more business than bread.

So you see my dilemma. The economy tanks and the world discovers my world of inexpensive luxury, and good value that I have been a patron of for twenty years in many cases.

I want things to get better so I can get back to being cheap again.

I want Joe's clothes again!

Warmly,

David

Easy To Do.

2009-02-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

In this new chapter of my life, post September 2007, and living deaf for all intents and purposes, I do many things now, that I had little patience for pre-medical implosion.
Activities that I always wanted to do, had the noblest of intentions, but never followed through.

So what changed?

Most of my activities and disciplines that are part of my routine, are, for the most part, easy to do. Yet as I realized many years ago, what's easy to do, is even easier not to do.

Yoga, I do daily. I will skip one day a week to change it up for something new to try, but yoga is something that gets at least 6 out of 7 days in my mornings. Previous to my slow recovery, I always wanted to do yoga. I bought mats, DVD's, cool pants, and music to go with the theme.

As most things at the time, it got shelved, I always got busy, and then it got forgotten. I can remember quite clearly about five years ago, watching a Yoga work out video on television. I said to myself "That looks easy to do, I want to start that"
Easy to do I thought, but I found out quickly that it was easier not to do.

I started simple yoga when I got out of the hospital after a 90 day stay, back in December 2007. My body ached from lying in a coma at first, then recovering in a bed for months. The simple stretches took forever to come together, but man they felt good.

My diet was crazy in the "old hearing world". Busy, on the run, and living in airport lounges, airplane seats, hotels, and cars five or six days a week, dictated a grab and woof eating lifestyle. Oh sure, I always had the good intentions. "Starting Monday I will pack an apple and some tuna on a crackers for my lunch." I announced faithfully, with full intentions, every Friday night.

Easy to do, right?
Easier not to do.

Today I eat on average 4 to 6 fruit servings a day. Most of it through a morning smoothie. Vegetables get the same treatment. If I can't get fresh veggies from my crisper, I do a "Greens" drink mid morning or afternoon.

Exercise I was always pretty good on. Having run in a couple of half marathons in my past, and countless five and ten kilometer events, running kept me in good shape. Daily running, for the most part, was part of my life.
When I lost all balance due to Labyrinthis in 2007, I was afraid running would exit stage left.

Imagine my lovely surprise when I discovered that it was easier to run then walk, when one has no balance.
Picture a ten month old baby, who can only crawl. One day they stand up and pitch forward as they attempt movement. We, and they, anticipate the crash, but they just "give er" and run on a forty five degree angle, defying gravity it seems.
That is my running technique at present.
I am slower, but funny as hell to watch.

I found discipline that I never had before. Possibly out of necessity to survive, I structured activities, gave them time frames and goals. I became obsessed with getting as close as I could to "normal".
Being deaf, and having no balance were and are two things that I cannot change. So I pushed myself to a healthier body to compensate if you will. I have enough challenges with those two beauties, so having a stroke or heart attack, or other ailments that can be prevented, became my healthy preoccupation.

Being deaf, and out of work, I had time to read, work the mind, and learn more. Television quickly lost it's appeal with closed captioning, so I read.

I read topics that in past I always wanted to read.
In fact I had bought the books years ago.
I can even remember saying repeatedly years ago; "Next week I want to get a book and study 'Buddhism, zen, traditional Chinese Medicine, eastern philosophy, Mac computers, routers, chess, international finance, orchids, vegetarian recipes.......insert your pet curiosity here________"

Easy to do.
Easier not to do.

But time and change of attitude gave me cause to read these books. Re discover old novels, favorite authors and great literature.
Time and discipline allowed me to follow stories in the newspaper, and magazines that in past, would of been clipped and put into my "To be read" file.
We all have one of those right?
I had the thickest one I bet.

I read everything I could get my hands on, and developed new tastes as a result.
I bought books on ASL (American sign language) and DVD's to learn a new way to communicate. I worked tirelessly with speech therapists on speech reading (lip reading but more involved), and learning voice volume control, in my new world of not hearing one self speak. (Man at first I was soooooooo loud I was told!)

After my cochlear implant, I worked like a dog to hear again. This new world of sound was now "sound 2.1"!
A digital version of my old analog life, that required me to buy Dr. Seuss books with CD accompaniment, to learn the new digital way of words. That was, and is my toughest battle, and I have a whole new appreciation for "Hop On Pop"!

Today, my routine might scare away many. My discipline scares me, and I am first to call me "anal" about scheduling my reading times, my eating times, my menu, my exercise, and yes, my even more important family time.

Old David always said, "Dan, when Dad has time, you and I will play that Chess rematch"

Easy to do, I suspect.
Easier not to do. At least in my old world.

Easier to get so busy and lost in this world of "stuff" that it got put off. Living the "Cat's Cradle" song was something I never thought would happen.
Now, my little amazing Guitar boy is so busy, that I hear all my old excuses from him.
"Dad, I promise we will have that rematch on the weekend".
Then his buddies come over.
I pick up my chess book and study famous opening moves.

Perhaps I have a little more motivation then old David, and maybe even a little more motivation than most denizens some days.

Matters not.

My mindset now is to keep doing what I have been doing for the past fifteen months. Never to falll back into the "easier not to do" routine!

Today I my "day off" as I do a gradual return to the work world.

Today I kept the same routine as every day.

And you know what?
It is getting easy to do!

Warmest,

David

Figuring Out Why Sounds, Sound That Way.

2008-11-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

In the world of Cochlear Implants, and in many cases of new technology hearing aids, the science of it all is baffling to me.

Although a cochlear implant and a "hearing aid" are as different as night and day, the way the sound is processed, is similar. At one time hearing aids were analog. Now new technology presents the sound in a digital format. I have never worn hearing aids, my world of hearing went from the ears and working cochlea that God gave me, to a surgically implanted array of electrodes and a tiny computer the size of my finger nail embedded millimeters inside my head. The show and tell of the system is the mic and the BTE (behind the ear) gizmo, that attaches to a magnet, that sticks to the tiny computer, that is implanted in my head, that takes the sound, that sends it to the man made electrodes, that fires it at my brain...........
and this is the sound that Jack built!!!
Whew!

Digital aids (both hearing aids and cochlear implants) work in a different way than the everyday world of analog sound that most of world hears by in our Horton Hears a Who ear.
Digital devices, take the signal from the microphone, and convert it into "bits" of data - ("0s" and "1's") - numbers that can be manipulated by a tiny computer in the processing part of the system. This makes it possible to tailor and process sounds very precisely, in ways that are impossible with analog aids. The bits representing the sound are analyzed and manipulated by algorithms (a set of instructions) to perform precise, complex actions, and are then converted back into electricity, which is finally changed back into sound that gets fired at my auditory nerve, or in the case of a digital hearing aid, goes into the ear.

This process happens very rapidly: there are several million calculations occurring in the processor per second. The numbers can be manipulated in almost any way imaginable, and this is what gives the digital hearing processor its big advantage. The binary numbers can perform numerous complex calculations that create very precise sound in theory.
The process is how I understand it and really a compilation of many discussions with audiologists, medical people and some users.
Best way to illustrate is to walk through my world:

You say "Hello David" and my sound processor picks up speech and environmental sounds It then codes the information and send it to implanted part in my head, through the use of radio waves and a magnet. The implanted part of the system transmits signals to the auditory nerve, which carries them to the brain.

A cochlear implant does not correct hearing loss. In fact, it bypasses the normal hearing pathway, in which sounds travel through the outer, middle, and inner ear to reach the auditory nerve. (You see, my inner stuff got broken in a "medical firestorm" 14 months ago, So we need to bypass all the broken parts). A cochlear implant stimulates the auditory nerve directly. The brain then learns to take this electrical code and "interpret" it as speech. All of this happens as fast as your gums flap.

So what I "hear" is a really a mile long string of zero's and one's or digital code.

Someone had to write that "code" or turn the "sound" into a string of zeros and ones, so I could interpret it.

What got me pondering this way too complicated issue, was listening to the new President elect speech last night. I have never heard Obama's voice in my hearing days, so as I listened to him talk, my version of his voice is through a long string of digital code. "Binary speak" as I call it. I have no idea if it is how you hear him. I have not a single memory of his voice to draw on, since I was "introduced to him, long after I lost my hearing. No memory to use. So it is purely a mechanical algorithms.

My question, or where I really am going with this post, is this: Is what I "hear" (as all this process happens), just an interpretation of a software writers interpretation of the sound?

Perhaps what also got me thinking of this, is a more general thought on music and sound.

Is what we hear, and how we feel about what we hear in life, our own interpretation of it. Or is it how everyone hears it. Do all sounds, sound the same to everyone? Does Bob Dylan sound the same to me as he does to you?

If not, then that would explain likes and dislikes. I like a certain sound or feel in my old music listening days. Lets say that I liked Jazz. Is it because of my upbringing, my hard wiring, a product of my genetic code, or because of how I "heard" it or how my brain interpreted it?

I like a certain actors voice. Some people don't. Is it how I or we interpret it, or is there more to it?

If all sound, is our own personal interpretation of it. Then what I hear now, is really how that sounds, sound like to a software writer. The person who wrote the code, that fires the string of zero's and one's at my auditory nerves, writes them as he hears them. Calls them how he sees them really eh? What if this person and I don't hear ear to ear?

Phone rings and I now hear "braaaaaaaaaaaacccccccccccccccckkk". It never sounded like that before I got a CI. It used to "brrrrrrinnnnnnnggg". Is it because my writer interpreted it like a "brack" sound in his world, so he wrote the code based on that.

Many things sound different. Speeder's bark is quite different. I often wonder if it is because the writer never knew his sound, or his personality, so how could he even be close? I know my brain plays a huge part in this digital system. My memory is accessed in nano seconds when I get sound. This is huge in voice recognition. If I had no memory everyone would sound the same.
Memory access is key as it places the nuances of speech that my memory serves me with, of that person. Bad side to that is, when my son talks, I hear him in his "old' voice, before it changed. So this 14 year old boy sounds like a little kid. It changed when I had no hearing for 9 months.

I don't know, just got me wondering about the person that wrote my software, and if he or she was a jazz fan, or if he heard a doorbell differently than I did in my old hearing life.

Probably more important things to do than think about this, but it does indeed provoke thought.

What if the writer was Celine Dion fan?

Yikes!

Warmly,

David

Why I Love Telemarketers!

2008-09-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

At this time last week, we were at the end of our rope of pain for Janet. She took morphine like they were chocolate Macaroons. . She took them in three's every 3 hours. The pain stayed.
Yes, she felt "somewhat" relaxed, but the pain was a dog that laid at the doorstep. This journey from a minor pain in legs over the summer grew and grew and grew.
It manifested in her shoulders, knees, and throat.
Were it not for a discovery that her Luekemia had indeed come back, and manifested itself as huge breast lumps, we would not have got her hospitalized and attended to so magnificently.

Yes, magnificent is an interesting word to describe Cancer treatment, but after 5 days in care, chemo, and steroid drips, she is a new lady!

I will pick her up Monday morning, and we will re group as a team, and tackle the things that married folks and parents tackle.
It has been a while since she has been part of the team. She laid in pain for the better part of August and September, and slept most of the time. Today when I visited, I saw a light in her that I have not seen since June. A fiery girl that wants to get back to the huge neighborhood walks, the fall gardening, and some big house projects that have been on hold for a long time.
We talked today and caught up on all the wonderful things that guitar boy has been up to.
Dan is our favorite subject!

We are back!

I have a physio therapy that is on going. It is a therapy that when I master it, will give the illusion that I have balance.
I have no balance since the firestorm that took out my ears and the accompanying gear that directs one to walk upright and normal.
Labyrinthitis is the technical term. It is one of the last remaining (other than my profound deafness) ailments that makes me walk like I just left the frat house after a few Friday night keggers. Except I have nary a sip of the brew that causes the tilt in some.

So I go to a lady that provides me with vestibular and ocular therapy. It tricks my brain into thinking that all is good and it is ok to walk straight. It is pretty cool stuff, mostly homework, but I see her once every two or three weeks to get my next level of stuff to help me one day join the circus.

On the 30th of the month, I will go to Audiologist that is part of the cochlear team.
We will try some more strategies to make "sound out of pulses" in my latest cochlear on board computer that refuses to play with me.
I want it to work, and will not be happy to just let it sit. Even if it means re implanting the sucker, I am ready to go into surgery at the drop of scapel.

My left side CI ramps up better and better every day. I am a hearing machine!
I am on to the phone use big time. I love telemarketers because I get to practice.
"Hello"?
"Would Mr of Mrs....... be in"?
"Speaking"
"We will be on your street this week doing windows, can we offer a ....."?
""Can you tell me more about it" I inquire.
They think they have a hot prospect, but in reality I am just a CI Guy who needs to hear voices on the phone. Lots of them.
Men and women.
The more the merrier, and long conversation and lots of it is best.

So they ramble excitingly as I interject with "again" or "repeat please", and hone my telephone skills.

Men are tough, women not so bad.
Practice is paying off, and I know feel safe on our land line.
I conquered my Blackberry about a month ago, and love the quality that it treats my cochlear implant processor with. The speaker and the digital sound works well with my Mr. T mic.

So I will continue to work on mastering some Cirque du Soleil moves, and perfect my telemarketing skills.
I am over the moon that my lover and best friend, that I have been married to for 19 years next week, will be home to see my progress.
Maybe I'll get out the balance beam and impress her! :)

Dan and Speeder are as giddy as school boys as well.

Our life is good!

Warmest,

David

Helping Change Lives.

2008-08-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Giving back is so rewarding.

Take Dave here: a 40 year old silicon valley high tech professional, working in Corporate Development / Mergers & Acquisitions, and running/building technology startups. He took 10 months off from work to pursue his dream of changing lives by giving back to the world community. His goal is to build 35 permanent houses in Colombia for victims of the violence in order to take as many as 200 displaced people off the street for the rest of their lives and keep an untold number of kids out of a life of prostitution and sexual exploitation.

He considered himself to be pretty lucky (his words) to be born in a part of the world where opportunity and prosperity abounds. He did pretty good in life so far, so he felt it would be the right thing to do, to give back something.
His goal to raise $150,000 to build the houses has long been passed. Last check in he has raised close to $200,000.
A simple twenty dollar donation hires a plumber or electrician for the day to help him in his quest to build these 35 homes.

Pretty simple.

Easy to do.

Do what you can, then do the best you can to make us better.

David