Author: Steve

Perched in the shadows.

Stretching.

And flashing his iridescence.

This amaryllis has a story.  Judy found amaryllis bulbs in a catalog that were dipped in some kind of rubber/plastic.  They were sold as indoor plant decorations; flat bottomed, they could be stood on a table and would grow and flower with no further care.  They contained all the food and water they needed, and when they were done, they could just be thrown away.  Disposable.

Judy bought three of them and shared with Becky and Christie.  They all three all grew their bulbs and compared notes and photos.  They were cute.  They bloomed modestly, just like the catalog promised.

(Catalog photo.)

But when the flowers were done and it was time to throw the plants away, nobody wanted to.  They each peeled off the protective rubber/plastic holder layer, put the bulb in dirt, let them grow and develop foliage all summer, and cut them back in the fall to overwinter.  For Becky and Christy, they were indoor plants.  Ours lived outside.

Well, the bulb that was supposed to be thrown away came roaring back this spring.

They started blooming, and they’re just going on and on!

What a great surprise!

Who knew there was such a thing as Musical Ear Syndrome?

MES is a form of auditory hallucination, but one that doesn’t require an underlying psychosis.  (It’s not voices.)  We all know about tinnitus, that steady background noise that seems to increase with age.  People with hearing loss are more prone to tinnitus and it can get louder and more distracting as the hearing loss gets more profound.  A special few, go beyond tinnitus to musical ear syndrome.  MES is not an earworm.  It’s not a memory of a catchy tune or limerick that keeps going round and round.  Sometimes with hearing loss, as the world goes quieter, the brain starts to fill in the blanks.  It makes its own music.  Judy is one of those special few.  For her, it started out as stringed instruments, like classical music.  It wasn’t a particular song.  She doesn’t have a great repertoire of classical music in her head to draw from.  It was just random stringed instruments.

It’s not too bad during the day, while there are other distractions.  As the world gets quieter at night however, the music gets louder and louder to the point of distraction.  It interferes with sleep.  Sleep deprivation and incessant sound.  Isn’t that how prisoners of war are tortured?  Or maybe that’s how to get rid of pigeons at the shopping mall.

Whatever, there are coping mechanisms to get through the night.  We have a headband with little bluetooth speakers in it that Judy can wear and listen to counter programming while she falls asleep.  Meditation music or massage music.  Something with patterns to it.  We read that for most people the MES phenomenon eventually just goes away, and now, several weeks into the experience, it seems to be getting better for Judy.

A few months ago, we switched me to gluten-free and overall, it has been a positive experience.  One of the early compromises though was to give up real bread for the fakey gluten free stuff.  I don’t need a lot of bread for sandwiches and such, so no big deal.  Working at home I can just have dinner leftovers for lunch every day.  I do need toast to dunk in my coffee in the morning though.  That’s a critical part of the start of every day.

So there is the compromise.  Gluten free bread for toast.  We found some that didn’t taste terrible, so we went with “good enough” and the breakfast tradition continued.  Now, here comes the amazing but true part.  We were getting low on gluten-free so I decided to treat myself one day last week.  I made my own toast and coffee with the real Nature’s Own whole grain bread that Judy still eats.  I dunked it.  I ate it.  Yech!  After this much time eating the gluten free stuff, I preferred the flavor and texture of coffee-dunked toast made with my Canyon Bakehouse gluten free!

My current responsibility at the CPA firm is to talk with potential clients and work up fees and proposals for new jobs.  We don’t spend any time describing specific titles or job descriptions, but if we did, mine would probably be “Pricer”, or “Practice Promoter”. 

We’ve done okay with client retention and getting new jobs; enough so that as it stands right now, our calendar is completely filled for December year-end jobs.  The best I can do for the remainder of the year, for December year-end jobs, is turn business away, tactfully.  Getting paid for not getting work.  That feels different.  Who gets paid for not doing something?  I know.  New job title.  “Mob Boss”!