I’ll start with the Five Things You Didn’t Know About Me:

I Hate to Clean

My Mom and Flylady are twins separated at birth.  When my Mom gave birth to me, somehow the DNA in my genes failed to get the cleaning gene passed on.  But I can fake clean pretty well.  When my friend Beth stopped by at the end of summer we somehow got to talking about keeping houses clean.  I mentioned that I hadn’t mopped my floor since, oh, early May.   She gazed at the wooden floors in disbelief.  “But how come they look clean?”  I shared my little trick of vacuuming now and then and wiping up spills when they happen.  Now you all know my dirty little secret. Now you see why I want Flylady to move in with me?

I Have a Terrible Addiction

I have a new boyfriend.  His name is Twitter.  Joe knows all about him but he thinks he’s just some guy passing through the night.  I love Twitter because I can participate in every conversation and never feel left out.  He tells me the latest news, gives me compliments and once in a while we get into arguments– but we always move on to the next exciting thing.  

I Am Not Organized and Neither Are My Kids

That’s another gene that stopped with my Mom.  As of today we are searching for:  one lost paycheck, two library books, one school book, one phone (again!!), one homework assignment and my makeup bag.  Oh, and the dog lost her chew toy, too.

I Enjoy Helping Others

Nothing gives me more pleasure than to connect with others and help them in some small way.  Monetary gifts are often long forgotten, but kindness lives on for years.  My email box is filled daily with people asking questions about being deaf/hard of hearing or raising deaf/hard of hearing kids.  I have been mentoring for several years and provide online/phone mentoring as well. 

I Can Cook Pretty Well

For many years, I had the reputation of not being able to cook all too well.  It started when Joe mentioned to his brother that I burned a meatloaf in college.  So for years, no one ever asked me to bring appetizers or cook anything.  That was fine with me.  Over the years, I’ve gotten better and better at whipping things together and I’ve even taught my Mom a trick or two (usually she’s the one teaching me!).  This summer, I did a lot of cooking up at Christie Lake and I found I actually enjoy it.  Of course, there are some days I still make some mistakes and I’m sure my brother Kenny remembers the salty frittata that I served him at the lake.

Now on to Todd’s meme, Five Reasons to be Happy About Social Media:

1.  I am meeting people that I would have never had an opportunity to meet/chat with outside of the cyber world.

2.  Social Media is a virtual watercooler that I can access (most of the time).

3.  I work from home and social media gives me the opportunity to connect with people throughout the day. 

4.  I’m meeting people around the world, like Joanna Young over in Scotland, Glenda Watson Hyatt in Canada, and Alex Fayle in Spain.

5.  Social Media introduces me to current topics and trends, something that I can’t often access around me via conversations and parties.

I’m leaving these memes open to anyone who would like to join in.

Have an amazing weekend!

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A picture of Christie Lake appears on the GiiNii Digital Picture Frame that is sitting on my desk. I sigh as I look outside at the cold wind rustling through the dried stems of the tall grass and then back at the warm sun gleaming on the lake.  Another photo appears–Lauren and her friend are jumping out of the pontoon.  The photo fades away and the three beautiful purple Columbine flowers show up on the screen.  Instantly, I’m transported back into Colorado and I remember the path along where the Columbine peeked out from a flower bed.

Yes, that’s right, I’m gazing at my brand new toy, a seven-inch digital picture frame that holds up to 568 photos (at 2 megapixels each) thanks to 512 MB of memory.  The frame has a wedge design with a matte-silver finish and it sits right on top of my desk.   I can plug in this baby to my hard drive and download my photos directly to the frame or play my photos directly from a memory card.

Every now and then, I’m asked to review a book or a product.  For many years, I wrote at Epinions and recently at Viewpoints, so I do enjoy product reviews.  Whenever I’m excited about a product, I like to share it with my readers.  The GiiNii Digital Picture Frame is one of them.

The frame is simple enough at first– simply plug it in, turn it on and you’ll immediately see three pre-loaded pictures rotate.  There are four buttons on the side that control the different features.  The digital frame can play pictures, music and videos.  It also has a clock and alarm built in. 

As soon as I opened the User Guide, however, I knew I was in for some trouble.  The guide has pictures but it isn’t very user friendly.  For example, one of the pictures shows a power button, but the button is referred to as the “G” button in the rest of the guide.  I have found that the best way to navigate through the features is by actually playing with the buttons and following the selection prompts on the screen.  The GiiNii website has videos that explain the features, but the video is not captioned.  I emailed the company to see if they could provide captions for the instructional videos and I’m waiting to hear back from them. 

The resolution is a crisp 800 x 480 and the memory reader supports SD, MMC, MMC+, MS and XD.  The slide shows can be shown in the order that the pictures are loaded or randomly and the transitions between each slide can be customized.  The GiiNii frame has speakers for MP3, WAV, WMA, AVI, or MOV playback. 

Needless to say, I really like this digital frame.  When the snow starts falling in Chicago and the temperature plummets, I’m simply going to close my window blinds and watch my digital pictures transform me to warm places.

If you want to do the same, the GiiNii frame can be found on Amazon or at Target.  MSRP is $120 but is available at a bargain price of $79.95 on the Amazon link.

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I stared at my teammate.  We had played volleyball together for many years and she had interpreted for me and another deaf teammate during our huddles.  This was the first time she had ever asked me questions about being deaf.

Yes, I said, nodding my head. 

“But you’re not as deaf as David, right?”

“Actually, our audiograms show that he has better hearing than me,” I explained.  She looked at me with a puzzled look.

“But you have such good speech!” 

So I explained more.  How I couldn’t use the phone nor understand anything on the radio.  I explained my speech discrimination scores– the scores that show how well someone can understand speech by auditory means alone.  I score a zero in my left ear and a six percent in my right ear, a score obtained by a lucky guess.   The squiggly lines on the audiogram start at 90 and hover around 110 decibels.  This is the level that I begin to detect sound without my hearing aids.  The hearing aids help me to hear when someone starts speaking but without lipreading, captioning or sign language, the information coming in auditorily makes no sense.

She paused and looked at me in silence.  “You have some great lipreading skills,” she said.  I could see that she was digesting all this information in a new light.

This isn’t the first time that this has happened–it is something that happens frequently.  That’s why hearing loss is often referred to as the “invisible disability.”   Often people are unaware at the incredible amount of work it takes to gather information and understand communication that goes on around us on a daily basis.   And others are often unaware of how much just slides by, because it’s physically impossible to get 100% access to all that goes on around us when the sense of hearing isn’t all there.

At a social gathering in Chicago, I chatted with fellow writers, most who knew me as Deaf Mom but were meeting me for the first time.  I think few realized that I was lipreading entire conversations and there were chunks of the evening that I missed.  For example, when the hosts got up in front and started talking, there really was no polite way to interrupt the middle of their speech and say, “Hey, can you say that again, I missed what you said?”  So that kind of stuff slides right by.  And to the casual onlooker, it probably seems like I’m getting access to the communication– there’s nothing to indicate that it’s sliding right over my head.

At a friend’s wedding, I was meeting an older woman for the first time and I missed something that she said.  “Oh the music is so loud!” she said, and then proceeded to explain again what she said.  I still didn’t understand what she said and I explained that I was deaf.  She cocked her head to the side a bit, looked at me and said…

“Oh!  But you seem so normal!”

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For those of you who are not familiar with Randy Pausch, you can view the The Last Lecture, a speech that he shared at Carnigie Hall after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  The video is over an hour in length and is open captioned:

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Sadly, Randy passed away in July, but not without leaving many life lessons in his lecture.  What was intended as a gift to his children turned into a gift that many of us can take away from his lecture.

When I first heard of Randy’s book, I noticed that it was written with Jeffrey Zaslow.  The name seemed so familiar to me but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Then I remembered:  Jeff had a regular column in the Chicago Sun Times and he wrote a column on the Depcik family, a deaf family from Lyons, Illinois.   Caroline Depcik and I had played volleyball together for many years–and Joe and I shared our honeymoon with Kay (Caroline’s sister) and her husband Paul.

I emailed Caroline to see if she could find a copy of the column but she said it was buried somewhere in the house.  So I emailed Jeff Zaslow to see if he could pull up a copy that I could share.  He kindly responded with a copy of the column and permission to share it:

Hi Karen,

Thanks for writing. You brought up a long-ago memory of my column on the Depciks, so I pulled it out of the WSJ library. (I’ve been at the WSJ now for 7 years). I enjoyed my time at their house…20 years ago!!  

 Anyway, I hope you enjoy The Last Lecture and please thank everyone at the book club for reading it.

All the best,

Jeff Zaslow

Deaf family of 7 shows silence can be golden

Jeffrey Zaslow

672 words

8 February 1988

Chicago Sun-Times

FIVE STAR SPORTS FINAL

35

English

© 1988 Chicago Sun Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.

Caroline Depcik begins her letter bluntly: “Unless you’re a coward, what could be more fun and interesting than visiting a family of seven deaf people who live normal lives?”

As an advice columnist who makes house calls, I’ve asked readers to invite me for dinner. Caroline’s letter is so challenging, I have to visit her house first.

So I head out to Lyons and am welcomed by the Depciks with big smiles and cold beer. Robert and Rita Depcik are deaf. Their children - Michael, Valerie, Paul, Caroline and Kay - range in age from 18 to 25. All are deaf.

I quickly learn that in their world, I’m handicapped. As they converse effortlessly with their hands, my ears are useless. Luckily, the Depciks have also invited deaf friends who can hear to some degree or read lips well enough to translate for me. (The quotes that follow are translated from sign language.)

The Depciks are attractive, well-adjusted and love a good laugh. Responding to sign language commands, their dog does tricks for me - rolling over, playing dead.

Except for touches like flashing-light alarm clocks, their suburban home looks like any other. It is the dinner-table conversation that is so different.

Michael, 18, has just returned from Australia. Though Australians speak English, “their sign language was like French to me,” he says. He felt self-conscious, signing with an American accent.

Caroline tells of how a man approached her in a loud, crowded bar. She motioned to him that she couldn’t hear. He thought the loud music was the problem. He kept shouting, then gave up, confused.

Scott Morrison, a family friend, explains how he went deaf: “I was 11 years old and watching `The Twilight Zone’ on TV. The sound kept getting lower. The next morning, I couldn’t hear. My hearing went into the Twilight Zone.”

Scott’s wife, Deeadra, is deaf, but their son, Daylon, 2, is not. Deeadra and Daylon were recently on a playground, signing to one another. “Parents looked at us like we were freaks,” she says. “Daylon wasn’t embarrassed. But I know he’ll go through a stage where he’ll be ashamed of me.”

I ask for complaints about hearing people. A half-dozen hands start signing at once. Scott hates people who gawk: “In a restaurant, I ask to sit facing the wall, so I won’t see people staring when I sign.”

Some people are ignorant about the deaf. “They ask if we read Braille, or if we can pray, or how we communicate when we make love,” says Iris Martinez, a family friend. “I say, `Date a deaf person and find out!’ ”

The old phrase “deaf and dumb” still stings. “There’s a lack of confidence in us,” says Valerie.

Another complaint is that local TV news is not captioned for the deaf. “When Mayor Washington died, we were desperate to know what was going on,” says Iris’s husband, Fidel.

Their advice to the hearing: Don’t bother screaming; even a bullhorn won’t help. If your children are deaf, learn how to sign. (A poem from a deaf child to his family begins: “What I want most is to hear your loving hand. . . .”)

“We don’t want sympathy,” says Iris, who has been sent free drinks by people who see her signing in restaurants. “All we ask is patience, understanding and if you can’t communicate by speaking, write it down. People can hear with their eyes. They can talk with their hands.”

While the Depcik women watch “Dynasty” (with captions), I have another beer and some laughs with the men. By then, it’s late. I thank Rita for a great meal and we say our goodbyes.

Once in my car, I listen to the radio self-consciously. Then I turn it off and drive home in silence.

 

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I had these four plaques scattered in various spots around the house–one was in a nightstand drawer, two were in boxes and one was in an office drawer.   One day last year, I gathered them all together and hung them above the key holder in my office.   The small one on the upper left was a gift from my Mom during my first year of college.  It says, “Hang on, Friday’s coming!”  My Mom sent it after one particularly hard week when I was really homesick and having a difficult time understanding the teachers in class.

The one on the upper right was given to me by my Aunt Gertie. It says, “Lovely flowers are smiles from God.” Aunt Gertie, my Mom’s sister, was profoundly deaf and she was battling cancer.  She didn’t have much time left.  I was ten at the time, sitting on the edge of her bed and I remember her smiling.  There’s a picture of Aunt Gertie somewhere in one of my Mom’s albums; my sister Jeanie is holding a huge toy comb over her bald head and everyone is laughing.  So when I see flowers, I think of Aunt Gertie.  

The large one on the lower left was simply one that I found at either a garage sale or a store.  It says, “The nicest days are full of love.”  I had that one and Aunt Gertie’s plaque hanging on my bedroom wall for many years.

The last one on the lower right was given to me by my first itinerant teacher, Mrs. Rellis.  Mrs. Rellis was a special teacher–she was the first teacher to sit me down and challenge me not to let my hearing loss hold me back.  It says:

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are

something to do,

something to love, and

something to hope for.

Those four plaques are my source of inspiration every time I hang up a key.  Do you have a source of inspiration that is special to you?  Tell me about yours in the comments below.

This photo is a part of Wordless Wednesday, even though I used a bunch of words to describe it.

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[caption id="attachment_697" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Jennifer, Karen and Abbie"][/caption]

Then a short time later, I recognized another blogger who came up to the booth, LaRonda from The Ear of My Heart.

[caption id="attachment_699" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Karen and LaRonda"][/caption]

It was wonderful to meet all three of them and get to spend a little time together.  Jennifer, Abbie and I went out to dinner but I couldn’t find LaRonda to join us and I didn’t have her pager addy.  (Note to self, next time, gather that contact info before any conferences!).  I would love to sit down and have lunch with LaRonda someday– I guess a trip out west is in order!

Tina Childress joined us at dinner and we went to a Japanese restaurant and filled up on sushi.  Two other guys joined us, (I’ve forgotten their names already!) and I was the only one there without a cochlear implant.  Not a problem, as I relied on good ‘ole lipreading and Tina jumped in to interpret whenever I got lost in the train of the conversation.

[caption id="attachment_700" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Abbie and Tina"][/caption]

Jennifer cracked me up when she turned to me and said, “You know, I’ve just got to tell you this.  You’re so much prettier than in your pictures on the blog!”

That does it, I’ve gotta learn how to use those airbrushing tools in Photoshop.

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News flash:

Dennis O’Brien, past-president of West Suburban Association of the Deaf and a long-time Republican, has announced that he will be voting for Barak Obama on Tuesday. *

*This public service announcement has been an outright lie, but it sure was fun to watch him walk around the Halloween party with that announcement taped to his back.

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At the CSDVRS booth, we are showcasing the two new videophones:  Z150 and Z340.   Both of the videophones can be used with Voice Carry Over.  This allows a person to use their own voice to talk to the person they are conversing with, and at the same time, have an interpreter on the videophone translating what is said.  The user can choose between American Sign Language, English-based Sign Language, or lipreading. 

There were several people who tried VCO on the CSDVRS videophones for the first time and were simply stunned at the ease of using the phone.  There were others who called their friends directly and chatted face to face.  That’s what I love about my work with videophones– just seeing a face light up when they connect with someone in a way that they’ve never done before–priceless.

Customer Julie Chavez makes a VCO call:

[caption id="attachment_686" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Phil Bravin and Sherri Collins"]

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I started wondering how I could get some new love songs to try out.  Then it hit me:

Twitter!

I was tired of hearing my son’s rock and rap music blasting in the house, so I knew I wanted to go for something mellow and meaningful.  So I put out this tweet:

And guess what?  I have a whole bunch of love songs to try out before I buy them on iTunes:

ZenMonkey @deafmom, “The Story” by Brandi Carlile.

Only one song was repeated twice as a favorite, Elton John’s Your Song.  I also received several via direct message, but since they came in privately, I’m guessing they didn’t want their choices to be shared.   I’m so excited that I have a list of songs to pull up lyrics to and to start learning some new music.  

Thanks, Twitterville!

My favorite love song is Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel.  This was the song played at our wedding. 

What’s your favorite love song?

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Before I met Patrick, I knew about Equip for Equality from my friend, Howard Rosenblum, a deaf attorney who has been with the organization since 2001.  When Steak ‘n Shake denied me service in the drive-thru back in January, I asked Howard to work with me to try and change the way deaf and hard of hearing people are served in the drive-thru.  We’re still working together to make changes in the drive-thrus at Steak ‘n Shake.

There’s another reason I attended the Equip for Equality fundraiser.  Several years ago, when I first started up Illinois Hands & Voices, I received information about a family from Naperville who was struggling to obtain appropriate support services for their son.  I met with the Abou Ezzi family and met their son Tony, who is hard of hearing.  Tony was attending a local high school and had a difficult time accessing all of the communication that was going on in the classroom.  Believe it or not, one of the accommodations suggested by the school was a swivel chair, so that Tony could swivel around and read his classmates lips.

I met with the family and suggested using CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation).  Tony was a bit hesitant to try it.  “Can you just try it for two weeks and if you don’t like it, we won’t bring it up again,” I asked him.  He agreed.

I joined the family at the IEP meeting and after a lengthy discussion, the school agreed to try CART in the classroom.  The very first day, Tony came home and told his mom that he had no idea he was missing so much discussion going on around him in the classes.  Tony continuted to utilize CART services throughout high school and graduated with honors.

Tony became a huge advocate of CART, but found himself encountering resistance from the college he choose to attend after high school.  That’s where Equip for Equality came in; they stepped up to bat and helped to make CART a reality for Tony’s college classes.  Tony is now about to graduate and plans to attend law school to become an attorney.

This is why I continue to refer families to Equip for Equality.

Left to right:

Michael Abou Ezzi, Tony Abou Ezzi, Howard Rosenblum, Karen Putz and Betsy Abou Ezzi

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