Catch Up

Welcome to the middle of the year!

That’s right, we’re halfway through 2023 already. A few days more than halfway, to be honest. How it went by that quickly I really don’t know.

When I was a kid, I remember time moving so slowly. Everything took forever. That’s not a new observation of course, and I suspect nearly everyone felt (or feels) like that.

Later, when I was fencing, that feeling returned. Competitive fencing is divided into age groups. Those in the 40+ age group are called “veterans” and it’s nice to be a veteran because they’ve got a slightly different attitude. In the next lower age group, you’re competing with everyone from college kids on up, and experience levels range from newbies to Olympic level athletes. The competition can get a bit intense. Veterans, on the other hand, know how to have a good time, and as a rule they don’t take it quite as seriously.

As I fenced in my late 30’s I looked forward to turning 40, and finally being able to compete with the older group. Time passed slowly while waiting for that opportunity. But now, closing in on 59, time just flies. The difference between a minute, an hour, and a day is minuscule, and half a year can pass in the blink of an eye.

So let’s note that 2023 is already half gone. I’d like to say I will be more productive, or make more art, or do something different before the year ends, but if time continues to flow at this rate I will wind up wondering where it all went when 2024 arrives.

Anyway, what I need to do now is catch everyone up on a few things.

The Job

I was supposed to mention this last week, but that didn’t happen. Sorry.

As you may recall, I was working at the Langara Makerspace and it was possible I would be working this fall when classes start.

But things took an unexpected turn when the person I was covering for returned to work. Since that happened, all need for my time has apparently gone away and I am back to being mostly unemployed.

This is helpful as I have many things I need to get done, and a few other things I just want to do.

In a nutshell, I am happy about this.

The House

Next up, house projects. Here’s the list of biggies and their status:

• Roof fixes. Status: uncertain. I had a conversation with the contractor the other day and we’re not sure how to proceed. There are issues with how to improve our roof drainage, and he’s concerned that any fix we make could introduce new leak possibilities. We’re continuing our research. We’re even toying with taking off an entire parapet wall, adding a small eave, and installing a gutter. Should we come to any conclusions, I’ll report back here.
• Exterior painting. Despite the roof fixes being an unknown, we’ve booked the painters. I’d been expecting late July, but now we’re being told they will start on July 10th.
• Main bath redo. This is my job, and I have acquired most of what we need to make it happen: towel bars, paint, etc. And yesterday I primed some repaired drywall in the other upstairs bathroom so it is water tight while we are showering in there. I hope to get going on the main bath this weekend. It’s a big job, and may take a week or two. And that doesn’t count removing and replacing the sinks and faucets. If I do that, it will happen after everything else is done.
• Other interior work. Coming when I can get to it, and/or when I can get a contractor for bits of it. There’s lots of painting, along with some drywall fixes and a skylight replacement. A contractor could speed the work in the entryway (where the ceiling is stupidly high and where his drywall skills are better than my own) but everything else is mine, and I will keep working on it once the main bath is done.
• Long term. We still intend to redo the kitchen and downstairs baths at some point, but we’re waiting for Anne to retire first. She doesn’t want to work with all that noise going on.

The Ears

Last week I probably surprised many of you when I mentioned I was getting hearing aids. It seems my hearing is getting worse over time at a faster rate than normal. Or at least that’s what we think based on some charts we found on the internet. And my family has a history of poor hearing: mom, dad, and at least one grandfather all have (or had) hearing loss.

How are they working? So far, so good, but I’ve only had them for about four full days and am still getting used to them. They don’t seem to be amplifying too much junk noise, though this keyboard has some surprisingly loud sounds that I never knew it made, and my shoes interacting with various surfaces are also much louder than I expected. But wind isn’t a problem, and I can definitely hear things better with them. (The photo up top is from my wind test. I walked to a pier in North Vancouver where it was fairly windy and stood around for a while. No wind noise issues were heard.)

How they feel is a bit more of an issue. I am delicate, to put it mildly (the first thing I do with a new shirt is remove all the tags) and having things sitting on and inside my ears all day is a bit strange. I get itches in the ear canal and there can be a hot spot on the top of my left ear, but it comes and goes.

They’re pretty much invisible, but I don’t really care about that. Look around these days and note what people have in, on, or over their ears while wandering around in public. I suspect I could wear bright blue columns a full meter tall with strobe lights and no one would care. Society has come a long way from the days when hearing aids had to be discreet.

But what makes matters worse (or at least more entertaining) is that I also got new glasses the day after I started wearing the hearing aids. And the new glasses are a bit larger and heavier than past ones. Then I had the fun of wearing a mask while riding the bus. There is so much stuff behind and on my ears now. Ugh.

Anyway, it’s still early days but they do work, and it seems they sometimes help with my tinnitus. That implies sometimes they don’t help, and that’s an interesting thing. I’m only guessing, but I suspect they can’t help if the frequencies my brain is missing aren’t around to be amplified. And even if the missing frequencies are around, my brain has been creating those tones for a long time now, and it will be a while before any significant change can be made in how my brain works.

I still have just over three weeks of trial time before a final purchase decision has to be made, but at the moment I would keep them. Should my ears burst into flame or turn bright purple as a result of some hearing aid induced disease, I could change my mind. And I suppose I could still decide they aren’t doing enough compared with the cost and inconvenience, but for the moment they seem good.

And just because it makes sense, I will repeat myself from last week: if you think there is even a chance you might be suffering from hearing loss, at least go get tested. I never chased that down in the USA while we lived there, but up here most audiologists offer free testing as a hook to get you into their offices. So getting tested is simple to do and if your hearing is good, go on about your business. But if it’s not great — like mine — maybe consider doing something about it.

Interestingly, many modern hearing aids are Bluetooth devices that you can pair with your phone and/or computer. That turns out to be pretty handy in some cases.

And for the record, I tried to take a selfie to include here, showing off the new glasses and the inability to see the hearing aids, but each one was awful. You’ll just have to do without. Sorry.

I’ll have another update about this next week.

Tinkerbelle

And finally, there is dog news: Tinkerbelle is an idiot.

Well, that’s not new, but it pertains to the news.

The dumb dog injured her left rear leg — probably the knee, but no one is sure — doing two things. First, she had a meltdown while on a walk. In her efforts to convince a dog across the street that it was evil, she torqued her leg somehow. She limped a bit after that, but was more or less OK until later that afternoon when she saw or heard something across the back yard and took off after it at full speed, leaping over a low retaining wall in the process. Somewhere in there she injured that back leg more thoroughly.

But even then we didn’t notice it right away. She actually seemed fine, but that evening after laying down for two hours, we suddenly had a three legged dog. That back leg just hung there, and she wouldn’t put any weight on it.

This was Sunday night, and we hoped she would recover a bit overnight. Alas no. So on Monday morning we got her into the vet and they did an exam. When that wasn’t conclusive they knocked her out and took x-rays, but we still have no firm diagnosis. She does have pretty bad hip dysplasia and arthritis, but there were no breaks, and the exams didn’t find any obvious torn tendons.

So she’s on an anti-inflammatory and seems to be doing better. The worst part of this — from her perspective — is that we have to keep her calm for 14 days. No walks, no chasing anything in the back yard, and no climbing stairs. She is so bored. She can’t get to her commanding window to bark at the world, and she misses it.

But she’s on the mend and that’s good news.

There you have it. Another week gone.

I hope everything is good with you. Cheers!