Cell ebration
Saturday March 09th 2013, 11:43 pm
Filed under: Life,Wildlife

Eric’s photos of the San Jose peregrines of late, here.  Four eggs are humming along in the nestbox just out of sight over that ledge.

While we were at my audiologist’s on Friday, the guy talked to the manufacturer of my hearing aids. I had bought wires for the things a goodly while ago, they had been a frustration, we tried it with a bluetooth unit, they still didn’t work, they were useless. They plugged into my Iphone at the other end and the idea of being able to listen to music etc on it like everybody else was so, so–if only!–and all they did was turn off all sounds to everything when I tried. So that I was suddenly wearing $6400 earplugs. Was there anything else we could try.

With right and left plugged into his setup, I saw him say, Oh, okay, and he hung up the phone. He turned to his screen and added a new program.

Richard ran an errand this morning and came home and said, “This is cute.”

“What is?”

“This,” and he held out the new bluetooth unit to go with those wires and I, to my surprise, answered, “Oh, that’s cute!”

And then we plugged the wires into my ears.

And then he walked to the far end of the house, dialing my cellphone. Which had always told those wires, You are dead to me.

Even in speakerphone mode, I have never been able to carry on a conversation with my Iphone. Ever.

His voice sounded higher pitched than in real life but it was clear as a bell. Every word. I about burst into tears. Wow!

Richard said I should call my folks. I reached for the more audible landline out of sheer habit mixed with a little disbelief.

“No, on your cellphone!”

I called them in celebration and had to work at hearing Mom–same old same old–only, since I wasn’t in speaker mode nobody else could fill me in on what she was saying. But I got about half of it. On a cellphone!

It felt like the moment I looked up at a chandelier in a quiet room in a grand old building here not long after we moved to California, and having been entranced in church by the glass of one dancing to its own neverending tunes it was creating in the air currents when I was a child, observing the lightplay in the now-silenced-to-me one all these years later, to my astonishment my brain filled in every sound. It still knew. I heard the chandelier of my childhood again, brilliant and beautiful and alive again.

Talking on a cellphone. It felt like that.


10 Comments so far
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Hooray!! I’m so happy you’ve found such a good solution. Technology is a wonderful thing.

Comment by Channon 03.10.13 @ 5:54 am

“Can you hear me now?” YAY!!!

Comment by Jody 03.10.13 @ 7:24 am

So happy for you!!I agree with Channon, technology is a wonderful thing.The mind does wonderous things

Comment by kris 03.10.13 @ 7:33 am

Grinning ear to ear for you!

Comment by twinsetellen 03.10.13 @ 8:07 am

Wonnaful, Wonnaful!

Comment by sherry in idaho 03.10.13 @ 8:39 am

your description of the “chandelier of hearing” brought tears to my eyes

how wonderful that you can enjoy something that I so take for granted!!

Comment by bev 03.10.13 @ 9:19 am

$6400 earplugs? Just what you didn’t need!
Congratulations on a system that WORKS!

Comment by Don Meyer 03.10.13 @ 10:31 am

Brilliant. And quite thrilling to read about something so wonderful that it makes a girl want to burst into tears.

Comment by RobinM 03.10.13 @ 4:27 pm

Wow! How wonderful & exciting! The miracles of modern technology, when it actually works.

Comment by DebbieR 03.11.13 @ 5:41 am

I have happy tears for you :-}
I love living in this time.

Comment by Diana Troldahl 03.11.13 @ 8:44 am



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