Offically Old

I now am truly an Old Crone! I just came back from my hearing test and I flunked bigtime. I definitely have serious hearing loss. And I need hearing aids! Aaakkk!!! How ancient does that make me feel? However, luckily I’m in the midst of the Baby Boomers and guess what? They have kewl new hearing aids for us “active” types. You can even get different coloured “skins” to match your outfit! I’m starting with black though. But I really want orange, green, and purple ones too. I’ll have to find out how pricey they are first before I go whole hog. The aids themselves are $2,500 for the ones just below top-of-the-line, which are recommended for me. And that’s not to mention the weekly or bi-weekly batteries for the things forever. Wonder if T-Man’s extended medical will pay some of that?
Here’s what they look like (just about full size). They go over the ear with just a little bitty thing actually in your ear and not blocking the ear canal. You can hardly feel it and it doesn’t clash with my glasses. It’ll be wonderful for me to stop missing conversation or saying “What?” all the time. (T-Man will love that too!) The specialist was impressed that I actually showed up for the test. She says most people my age are too vain or concerned about looking old to get hearing aids when they really need them. Well, I’m going to do my bit to make hearing aids fashionable for us younger folks!

At first I was feeling not too concerned about the prospect of wearing hearing aids. Then I was a bit shocked. Am I that deaf? Really? She showed me the test results and I’m down considerably from normal in both ears, though the right one is worse. (I knew that — the tinnitus is worse in that ear too.) Part of me is a bit worried about learning to deal with these new devices that will become part of my every-day, like my glasses. And part of me is really happy that I’ll be able to hear better again. I have to wait for almost a month before I can get an appointment so she can fit the hearing aids though. Then I get a free 45 day trial to see if they work for me. I’m almost unhappy that I have to wait now.

In other news, the socks I’m making for T-Man are now knitted past the Sea Socks and the Pomatomus Socks. The largest sock is just past the pattern repeat mark which is quite long. I’m calling these ones the Africa Socks because of the colours. It reminds me of the veldt with lions and zebras and also the Malian bogolanfini (mud cloth). I’m beginning to like having official titles for my projects. Makes them sound more like Art! As if…

The INline sock yarn which I’ve never used before is very “dirty” with spots of black in the wrong places and not very neat printing. This pattern is kind of interesting/funky though and T-Man doesn’t mind if it’s not perfect. He’s actually been wearing his handknit socks a lot so he deserves more new pairs. These ones might not be quite as long as the last pair unfortunately. It was hard to match the pattern for both socks and get the 100g ball exactly in half at the same time. Or I might make the toes different if I run out before then. He really doesn’t mind since he wears his shoes most of the time.

It’s a lovely day today so I’m heading outside to work on Mu Ni for awhile. I need to do some watering in my garden too. The disadvantage of warm sunny weather — the plants grow and need watering and weeding! Nah, that’s ok. That’s what’s supposed to happen. See my tomatoes in the greenhouse? Some of them are taller than me now. And I picked the first couple of snow and snap peas. Finally.