A big, busy day

The Jim Clark exhibit at Trinity Terrace

Last fall the audiologist I saw and I agreed—it was time for new hearing aids. And not the ones newly available over the counter. But life interfered—and her duties in the speech and hearing clinic at TCU. This spring I began to inquire again, and she assured me she had them, would schedule me as soon as she could. Then volunteer clinical work to her to—wait for it!—Kathmandu. Today, we f finally connected in her office, and tonight I have new hearing aids.

Getting new aids at TCU’s Miller Speech and Hearing Clinic is not just a matter of walking in and picking them up. First, Tracy Burger tested my hearing. I dread these tests almost but not quite as much as I do vision tests: I have to repeat two-syllable words after her (she is off in another room reading them into a speaker which alternately gets higher and then lower) and then she plays a series of beeps, different pitches and levels of sound, and I have to raise my hand whenever I hear a beep. I admit my mind wanders, and I may have missed a beep or two. But the verdict was I have lost a bit of hearing in my right ear but gained some in my left. I hope it all balances out.

Tracy told me to keep my old aids as back-up which meant she had to upgrade them and then configure the new ones to match my hearing needs. All this took time, and I was afraid my chauffeur—one Jacob Burton—would get impatient, but he didn’t. And he turned out to be a great iPhone consultant. Tracy hs a android phone, and I am just not smart about iPhones, despite the fact that I’ve had one for several years, so once the new aids were paired to the phone, he was most helpful in settings, disabling the old ones, etc.

I think I’m hearing better, though I had a hard time hearing my brother on the phone tonight, and he had a hard time hearing me. The acid test will come when I next see friend Phil who is soft spoken and loses patience with me when I can’t hear him. Lately every time I see him, he demands, “Have you got  your new hearing aids yet?” So now, the answer is yes, I do.

Jacob and I went from there to the grocery store. He asked if he couldn’t just run in and I said no, because I did not want to be left sitting in the car in that parking lot. I know of two women who were mugged there! The other reason—and I was fairly open about this—is that I don’t think he knows enough about grocery shopping to choose the right brands. Turned out it was an cooperative venture for both of us—he reached items for me that I couldn’t, and I think I taught him about about brands and packaging and prices. Bonus was that I whizzed around the store on one of their handicap carts and never hit a thing! Last time the two of us went together I took down three dumps—I blamed it on the store for crowding their aisles. This time the aisles were mostly clear. I think I figured out why Jacob wanted to leave me in the car.

It's an unusual day for me to be out of the cottage and away from my desk—and my dog—for four hours as I was this morning. But the day wasn’t over: tonight Jordan, Christian, and I had dinner at Trinity Terrace with Jean. We went to see the display of some of the work of her late husband, Jim Clark, a folk artist of enormous talent. His work, ranging from wood to silver to clay, is on display in showcases in the lobby. Looking at it again, I was impressed by the variety of media—and by his unlimited imagination. Someone asked me the other day if he was a free spirit, and I had to say, “Ah…no.” He was a Air Force pilot and an engineer, with an engineer’s mind for precision and order. Yet there was this tremendously whimsical side of him that created everything from articulated wooden pull toys to weather vanes and a wonderful bench that seems to have people already seated on it.

After viewing the exhibit, we had dinner in the Blue Spire on the thirteenth floor. As always, the four of us had lots to talk about, from taxes and real estate to churches. And dinner was delicious—who can go wrong with lamb lollipops, a Caesar salad, and an enormous baked potato. And the view is so lovely. A thoroughly pleasant evening. And I’m exhausted.