Reblogged from Grandma Says..:

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There I was, Kindle in hand, sitting on the commode; when I noticed a slight movement on my left.  Marching towards me was my biggest fear; my source of nightmares and my cause to panic...a slippery, slimy, scurrilous, succubus of a spider.

I froze, afraid to breathe and watched in horror as the arachnoid, that looked to me to be the size of a small dog, headed right for my leg.  

Read more… 269 more words

Reblogged from Life In Color With Closed Captions:

So the guy with the two hearing aids pulled away, looked me in the eye and said, “I’ve never been around anyone like you before.” (subtext – You really can’t hear, can you? Answer: Nope, this is as good as it gets, ever. Tomorrow it may be worse.)

Yup, I think I’ve slipped the line from HoH to the near-deaf. Technically, I have a moderate to severe loss in my hearing ear, but it is how this manifests in communication that matters most. If the moderate to severe loss isolates me from human communication, then that’s exactly what Hellen Keller meant when she said that blindness isolates people from things, but hearing loss isolates people from other people.

On the way home yesterday afternoon, as well as this morning I chewed on the differences between two HoH people. Certainly not all HoH are created equally.

We talked about working around noise – he takes out his aids and I’m functionally deaf – period. In loud echoing areas he needs hearing aids and I’m functionally deaf – 90% of the time. I have a hard time with phones, he’s fine with ‘em. I hear things wrong easily, especially if the person is not looking right at me when speaking – he does well. I am almost totally uninterested in TV and movies because I don’t understand them well without CCs.  Even with loud volume there is often music or laugh tracks to cover speech. He likes TV and movies because he grew up understanding them. Like most folks, he came to hearing loss later in life. That helps with understanding the hearing world. Yeah, I grew up in a hearing world, but that doesn’t mean I was actually a part of it.

Now, it may be the bilateral hearing thing. His hearing is limited on both sides, but he HAS both sides and I don’t. It may be that I’ve just crossed the line into the “Twilight Zone” where I’m still hearing  stuff, at least, but I’m not understanding what I hear.

This explains why I like ASL so much. I’m often bummed by the fact most people don’t want to learn it, even when it would mean they could communicate more effectively with me. I asked my kid what she’d do when I lost all my hearing and she said, “Text.”  Well, okay, but ASL is so much more meaningful.  Still, text is better than nothing.

Then I remembered seeing a ballet practice without the music and hearing the noise I associated with a thundering herd on TV westerns.  Hmmmm, so walking, dancing, feet on solid surface makes noise.  Uh, huh..  Then I remembered BitcoDavid telling me that earbuds make one unable to hear street noises or conversations.  Hmmm, really?

After I sent off a document to a firm, I walked up and down the stairs (granted, in my stocking feet) and yes, there is a very soft sound associated with walking.  I am not sure whether it is the friction of the foot against the stair or the swish of fabric. Almost subliminal to me. Which explains comments about “walking too loud” or “don’t clomp your feet.”

People sometimes assume the Deaf or Hard of Hearing are soundless creatures. No, quite the opposite. For those who voice (as I do) my voice is quite loud as I was taught to project to the back of a theatre.  Apparently, I have only an “outside voice.”  Well, not exactly, because I have a much louder voice acquired to be heard over long distances.  And since I can’t exactly tell how loudly I speak I don’t have a medium, but I do have a soft voice, which I was told by my late husband was “too soft.”

These hearies! – Picky, picky, picky!

I remember the first time I had the “aha!” revelation that newspapers make noise, explaining the hairy eyeball I’d sometimes get from others while reading a newspaper.  I don’t hear high sounds well, if at all, so things like piping songbirds are out of my range of hearing.  And I don’t understand how much noise is actually made by dishes rattling and the like. Yes, I hear those, but not that the same volume a fully hearing person does.

If you want a quiet home, go to people who can hear a bug fart at 5 miles, not someone who doesn’t understand that car engines don’t just jiggle when they run, they also make noise.  Although, I can hear a backfire.  The first time I heard car engine noise I thought the car was falling apart – I was in a total panic!

Now, I used to hear better than I do at present.  I’m not sure how much better, but I know it was better in that I heard mosquito whines and knew to get out of the way.  I probably missed a whole lot of stuff, but it was good enough to get by.

If we can teach dogs to recognize ASL can we teach mosquitos to spell out “Blood sucker attack!” with their bodies?  Probably not.

Where, oh where, did my hearing go – oh where oh where can it be?  (Sung to the tune of Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?)

Thanks to the Grat 1′s Media, Photobucket

Honestly, I have no idea how the person on the other side of the phone could hear anything said on this side of the phone, and I have no idea how the individual on this side of the phone could hear anything over the very loud noises from the TV.  It is one of those WTF moments I have from time to time  – when someone complains about my loud voice and then have conversations over the phone with a TV screaming in the room.  Nope, I just don’t get it.

Maybe BitcoDavid can clear this up.  Is this something like headphones plugging out extraneous sound?  Only, I know that the phone can amplify the sound of the room right back into the headset unless you put your hand over the mouthpiece.  Hearing people!  Who understand’s ‘em?

It is quiet in my room and my hearing aid is out and off.  Ahhh….. so nice.

So, we’re walking up the hill and Duke the dog is doing his “Oh, my, other dogs have been here – let me smell!” thing and I’m trying to be accommodating while still going UP the hill.  Then, in the splendid silence that is my world I realized the dog is freaking out.  As in – there is something in the leaves and pine needles.

Wiki media – brown common garter snake

It was a nice size tan garter snake, minding it’s own business.  Probably Duke scared the poor thing out of a year’s growth.  I wondered if I’d have heard rustling of leaves or something rather than just realizing the dog was about ready to levitate off the ground.  I’m not really worried about rattle snakes here, but then I got to wondering if they actually have them in New England.

Back to working our way up the hill, which is basically on paths that appear to have been developed by spring runoff and other walkers/hikers – pretty much the kind of path you need to pay attention to unless one wants a broken ankle.  And since my daughter broke her leg/ankle in four places (and dislocated it in about as many places) this time last year I was looking where I was going.  SURPRISE!  Fortunately the big wet dog was nice and happy to see us.  Big overgrown waterdog pup.  So was the second one.

I wonder how much noise these dogs and their owners make when you can hear?  Do hearing people know other people are coming? I suppose so.  

The last dog was a lovely Alaskan Malemute – one of my favorite dogs of all time.  Lovely bitch with impeccable manners.  I was trying to talk with her owner when suddenly he didn’t have any voice and I realized he was totally out of range (which is a few steps or just turning away).  Oh, well…

Got back to the car, fished the hearing aid out of the case, put it on and wondered what I missed by hiking half-deaf.  Tomorrow is another (better hearing) day.

What happened to soft music?  Even a juke box is less annoying than piping in satellite radio stations at full blast.  Do you have any idea how annoying FUN’s “Some Nights” is at 100db?  And I like that song, just not screaming through overhead speakers like bombers taking straffing runs.  Or Heart’s “What About Love“ crashing through the air like a bomb exploding rather than a song. The only one there who wasn’t bothered was the totally deaf/blind person.  I’m surprised she didn’t feel the throbbing of the speakers.

I wish there were a jamming device I could use on the incredible sound.  I really do.  I am going to load a DB meter on the iPhone and start becoming the Sound Harpy!

I’m assuming that in most major metro areas there is one store (or more) with the little hand scanner that technically allows you check out in nothing flat so you know what they are. These gadgets make a beeping noise when an item is logged in.  Or at least they do when I am wearing my hearing aid.  When I am not wearing my hearing aid I have to eagle-eye it to make sure the item rang in.

Tonight was a non-hearing aid night since the battery beeped out on me.  Everything went great – right up until checkout.  It was my opportunity to get randomly audited.  The clerk had to re-scan five items. He’s having problems scanning one of them.  And because I can’t hear the beep and I can’t see the machine I’m trying to figure out if it didn’t scan to begin with.  Because he’s having problems of his own he’s not answering me – or if he is I’m not hearing him because he’s mumbling (probably speaking normally) while looking down at the hand scanner.

And because time was of the essence (for me), his supervisor had to be called over to help him.  Since deleting the 5-item checksum didn’t work, then another supervisor was needed.  My eyes were sort of bugging out, trying to look around corners so I could figure out what was going on with the darned hand scanner.  Then, thankfully, some bit was twiddled and the order went through –  in silence.  They were elated.  I realized it would have taken less time to get all my stuff scanned and bagged at a register.

Next time, I swear, I am going to take the time to pop a new battery in the hearing aid and wear it into the store!  Not that it would have saved time, but at least I’d have understood what all the hoopla was about.

No, the dog never got his walk, but he did a treat of mashed sweet potatoes when we got home.  BTW, apparently sweet potatoes = noxious gas.  OMG…

And if you haven’t read the book, Walter the Farting Dog, please consider doing so.  It’s a riot.  :)

The conditions the mare and filly were kept in were deplorable.  The dam was an Arabian – a hot blooded horse – who was a broken wreck of a thing – skinny, cowed, terrified.  Her eyes rolled and there were healing slash marks on her sides from a whip.  The filly hadn’t been beaten but she was no less terrified and out of control.  Those were the days before animal rights organizations intervened and my Dad was not yet a judge.  I wanted to beat the living shit of out of the “owner” to see how he liked it.

The little bay stud was gentle, hand raised, would walk up and nuzzle you, expecting nothing but goodness.  The  filly shied away, bit, and kicked, her eyes rolling in fear.  It was a clear choice for Dad.  ”It’s the bay.”  I shook my head.  ”Can I get both of them?”  I pointed to the dam and the filly, “Both of THOSE?”  Dad looked at me like I was insane, and in a way, I suppose I was.  I’d never attempted to deal with an abused horse before.  It was way out of my league.  ”You don’t want that filly.  She’s ruined.”

Two weeks later the filly came to live with us.  Yes, I am stubborn.   I guess Dad figured it would teach me a lesson. What it taught me, was that patience, compassion, endurance and  kindness alone cannot fix all the problems created by early abuse.  I don’t know how that horrible man got her into the trailer, but when she got out in the pasture with my Welsh pony and Quarter Horse mare she was a wild and terrified thing.  Fortunately, my mare and pony were very calm and great role models.

The man would not sell the brood mare – I will give Dad this, he tried. I often wondered about who got the lovely bay Quarter Horse stallion.  He was a great horse.  The best horse for me.  But the filly needed me.  He didn’t. He would go to a great home.

It took a month of bouncing grain in a pan for the horses and having the other two greedily consume almost all of it  before I could lure the little one. I’d have to pour her portion on the ground, then move the others away so she could scavenge.

I kept bouncing grain in a pan and leaving offerings.  I offered apples and carrots. I waited without moving, fending off the other two horses with small motions as they almost trampled me in their eagerness to get her goodies.

I curried the mare and the pony, brushed out manes and tails, removed mosquitoes and biting flies from their ears and dabbed them with insect repellent.  No one got hurt.  Life was a lazy dream in the pasture with the little brook full of clean, cool water and thick with grass as well as one thickly canopied tree for shade.  The little filly got used to standing between the pony and the mare, tails swishing flies.

One day I walked up with the curry comb and finishing brush and started working on Patches, the ancient Welsh Pony who was round as an old oak barrel because he was so fat and lazy and well-loved. I scratched his ears and gave him a carrot out of my bag of goodies and started in brushing – and Zuleika (her registered Arab name) didn’t panic and take off.  She just stood next to him, her tail lazily swishing flies off his face as his did the same for her.

After a few minutes I discreetly offered a carrot around his tail… and she TOOK IT!  I just kept brushing Patches and handed Golden a carrot like nothing unusual was going on.  I wanted to run around waving my hands in the air and scream, “She’s accepted me!”

I’d like to say life with Pogo-stick was easy after that.  It wasn’t.  She was destroyed by a monster – a sub-human who should have been taken out and shot for how he treated horses.  If there is a hell, there is a special place for people like him.  I knew she’d never be “my horse.” I’d probably almost never ride her, if I ever could; but one thing I could do was keep her safe.

In time, she learned that I could use a mudder (mud removing rubber brush), curry comb, and finishing brush and she would not be injured.  Our farrier was a kind man who understood abused horses and Mr. Robertson helped me round her up and keep her quiet while he trimmed her feet to keep her healthy.  He always praised her even when she was so afraid that he had to hobble her front (or back) feet to keep her quiet.  I always had her head, holding her in place, touching her, speaking softly, keeping her attention on me instead of him. And sometimes she bit the snot out of me if I wasn’t careful.  Over time it became less traumatic for her, but never an easy thing.

Eventually, I could (carefully) pick up a hoof to check her for stones in the frog.  However, she had to be short tied or she’d remove part of my posterior with her teeth.  Fear biting was a huge problem with her.  She could have seriously injured me as she grew – or someone else.  I didn’t want to have to have her destroyed.

In the end I had to resort to aversive training to stop the biting.  It just about killed me, but I used the hot potato method since nothing else had worked.

Boiled potatoes were put on a towel on target areas and strapped down with gauze with a long sleeve shirt over that and then I gave her the opportunity to bite that area.  She thought I was careless and lazy so she took it.  She jerked back like she’d been stung – which she had, by something very HOT. I  cried inside to see her with a seared upper palate, but it grieved me less than putting her down would have done.  I was desperate.  I was all out of options.  There were no “Horse Whisperers.”   However, Pogo was a quick learner when it came to searing pain,  and rarely ever bit a human again.  When she did,  it was  a nip not a full-out savage bite from the fear and terror zone.  A burned palate heals. Death is not so easily overcome.

Over the years Pogo grew into a tall, lanky, half-Arab/half Thoroughbred mare. With that combination of bloodlines she was hot-blooded in spades.  By then she was not so crazy and dangerous that she was a danger to the general public. She rarely nipped unless she felt really threatened, and she’d stopped kicking much after some creative hobbling Mr. Robertson taught me that convinced her kicking people equalled almost tipping over.  I am glad our farrier was willing to help me with her since Dad figured she was a waste of horse skin and pretty much ignored her.

I was unable to hand gentle her to ride.  Everything that worked with other horses made her crazy.  She was overcome with terror and it converted to rage. I read every book, used every trick, asked for hints and tips from every good horseman I knew.  Finally I got a guy who did horse breaking to come over and let her crow hop around a corral with him doing the rodeo cowboy thing.  No spurs.  He was just a nice cocklebur, since he knew her history.  Eventually, she gave up crow hopping and let him ride her.  Not long after, I could ride her, but never entirely safely.

Pogo got her name from the fact she had such a horrible gait.  She was like riding a Pogo-stick if you got past a gentle walk.  Her trot was abysmal.  Her canter only slightly better.  She had trouble changing leads and teaching her was out of the question – I was lucky to just be astride.  She had an awesome gallop.  Since I did mostly trotting and cantering I was pondering an English saddle and posting with her, but she just never got ridden that much.  She broke a snaffle bit and ran off (with me on her)  finally stopping when she was too exhausted to go further.  I’m lucky she didn’t kill us both — and I never told my folks about my harrowing, out of control ride.  It would have been the end of her.  It was at that point I put away all the bridles, put hackamores on all my horses, and never looked back. I still think hackamores are more humane than bridles and a horse can’t spit out a bit that is not there.

In the end there was a guy in the Canyon County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse who heard about Pogo.  He was a big guy, well over 6 feet and he was strong enough to deal with her.  He had  experience with horses who were headstrong and skittish, and he could ride her.  After I was pretty much grown and gone off to college, Pogo went to live in her “forever home” and learned to do precision riding.  Whenever I saw her she looked great. Plus she LOOKED happy and content, which counts for a lot!

What does this have to do with being Hard of Hearing or Deaf?  I don’t know that it does.  But I do know that being a HoH kid I knew what it was like to feel not understand what was going on, what people wanted from me, and feeling alone.

I knew that I’d rather have a horse I could never ride than see her suffer any more.  I knew that I was the right human for her, even if she wasn’t the right horse for me, because I would give her the time and attention and care she needed rather than making demands.  Maybe I wished someone other than my mother and older brother had done for me what I did for her.

Lest you think she was totally dysfunctional, she was a great herd member.  She respected Golden as the leader.  She was a great auntie when Gemini came along.  She was pals with Patches, even though she was twice his size by the time she was grown.  She just didn’t have a lot of use for humans.  I can understand why.

Maybe being on the outside looking in as a HoH kid made me willing to try an enormous, overwhelming task like this.  Or maybe I am just soft in the head, like Dad said.  Either could be right.  Maybe both are.  I just know that even though Dad considered her a waste of hay and grain, that she was one of my greatest teachers in so many ways.

She’s long since gone, of course.  They all are.  Only I remain to remember it all.  The dogs. the horses, the chickens, gleaning grain from the local fields to feed my horses, gathering sugar beets for them, feeding them the sweet white bull rush bottoms, dandelion blossoms, just the whole nine yards of life in rural Idaho.   

I only wish I’d found her earlier; other than that, I would not change a moment.  Yes, I’d have had more fun with the bay, but I’d have never learned life’s lessons about what happens when animals are abused.  And I had my beloved Golden Butterfly as my main horse to ride and bond with.

Golden was sweet and easy and loving – having been raised by the awesome Laurie Tipton.  Patches had raised dozens of children and was about as knowledgeable and headstrong a horse as there ever was – also good natured.  Gemi was my sweet, sweet boy who was spoiled rotten and eventually became a barrel racer.

Only Pogo absolutely NEEDED someone to understand her and help her transform from an angry, terrified horse to a content, if not quite happy,  horse.

Are there horses in “heaven?” If not, I want to go to where the critters are – the dogs, the horses, the barn cats, the toads and frogs and all the other creatures I grew up with.