It's Sunday: M'Aidez

I'm losing the hearing in my left ear. This is not necessarily a tragedy, certainly not at this point in the process, but it's still worrisome. I started noticing it a few years ago when I realized I was being a pain in my husband's patootie about the television volume. He had it too loud, I couldn't concentrate; he had it too soft, I couldn't hear. In point of fact, the decibel level wasn't changing on the TV, just in my ears. Unfortunately this had gone on too long by the time I realized it for me to apologize properly, and it was just one more nail in the coffin. Just (another) one of those things leading to the disintegration of our bond.

To point out the obvious, lots of things disintegrate with age, and sometimes, when you're not watching, they do this in a big way. My left ear, for example, is not just losing its volume control. It's also losing its clarity filter (a body part I am making up, or possibly not, to illustrate a point). I can see the people on the TV talking. If I amp up the volume I can hear them OK, but after a while I realize that there's a strong possibility they are speaking a dialect of English which can only be described as "let's confuse the old lady with words fairly similar to the ones she's used to, then soften their corners so they make no sense at all."

Either this is natural and normal and other people experience it as well, or Hollywood has it in for me. Since I'm not yet a candidate for assisted living, I'm going with the former. But I have my eye on you, Hollywood, and it's not the right one with the short focus, so don't try anything funny.

And stay off my lawn.