Hearing Things

Verizon called me today, wanted to know what I thought of their phone support. Guy asked me a question and then read off a list of possible responses: great, okay, so so, barely adequate, not worth a poop, or words to that effect. I cannot remember the exact words he used. Matter of fact, the words barely registered. I surmised that it was a list of graduated responses and I replied "fine". Well, that was not acceptable, he needed one of the words from his list, so he repeated it. I think "satisfactory" was in the middle, so that was the one I used. I think.

I'm driving the kids downtown yesterday evening to see the Cirque Du Soleil. They are set up just South of the Markham bridge. You can see it every time you drive over the bridge. Matter of fact, you can't miss it. Compound of big, bright blue and yellow tent like structures. But there is no obvious way to get to it. You need to take some side street and go wandering off down towards the waterfront, down underneath the approaches to the bridge. So Mom has printed off a set of directions on how to get there. Kathryn reads it off, but it mostly goes right by me. I have her read it again, slowly, one item at a time, and pause until I have absorbed the information.

The directions used two kinds of directions: compass directions like North & South, and relative directions like left & right. I would repeat a step back to her, and I would often get the direction wrong, substituting left for North or vice versa. Turns out it was not difficult to get to, basically just drive straight thru downtown and follow your nose to the traffic jam.

I was sitting in the parking lot next door to the show reading a magazine, waiting for the show to let out. I could hear the music and the crowd. At one point there was some tremendous applause. I really felt left out. It was a bummer, and very surprising. Well, nothing to be done about it now. Show will be over soon. Roll the window up and go back to reading.

I cannot watch talking heads (like you see on TV news shows). They say so much and convey so little. Documentaries will often sprinkle their story with interviews with people who have something to say about the subject. They are often painfully boring. Some people seem to thrive on this sort of thing. Curious, that.

Read a story in the paper today (they want your zip code, year of birth & sex) that tinnitus (ringing in the ears) may be more in the brain than in the ear. Interesting because I have a bit of it, probably from shooting guns without my ear muffs on. Doesn't bother me much. Matter of fact, most of the time I am not even aware of it. Even when I notice it, it's not too bad, kind of like a quiet high pitched hum. (Background microwave radiation. Need to put my tinfoil hat back on.) Lots of people have it, some have it really bad.

Update November 2016 replaced missing pictures.