Peace and quiet

I'm currently at home cat-sitting while my parents are visiting friends in Germany. It's lovely. I'm not wearing my hearing aids - what's the point, it's just me and my cat Snoopy - and I'm thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet.

It's nice sometimes to just not wear them. They can occasionally make my ears all hot etc. So it's nice to not have to wear them this weekend.

Although, I'm not sure my neighbours would agree - they can probably hear the TV through the wall.

Okay, so I don't hear the doorbell, fire alarm or phone ring - but that's what my deaf alerter is for. So I'm wearing that little pager thing. Tell you what - it scares the hell out of Snoopy. The doorbell rang, and my pager - which I had put on the seat next to me, started vibrating (it's not like a phone vibrating - it's much stronger than that) and my poor cat who was sitting a couple of seats along, jumped out of her skin.

One minute she was all curled up on the sofa, dreaming about chasing mice or something, and the next she was on all fours on the floor staring at my pager. It was quite funny to watch.

It's nice not to hear sometimes and to just switch off.

Although I did put my hearing aids in for a bit today - had to go to the shops to get some stuff. Tell you what - I really had to use my lip-reading skills then. I have never seen the shops so busy, there was not a single parking space left in the car park - I had to wait about 5 minutes for a space to free up.

So of course, the shop was absolutely packed. And noisy. Especially after having a day and a half of silence. Very noisy. I needed to talk to someone behind the counter so that I could buy some Euros. I could not hear a thing she said. It probably didn't help that she was sitting behind some very thick glass. After asking her to repeat something a couple of times, I gave up using my hearing and instead focused on her lips to lip-read. It worked.

I might not get it first time, but I am getting better at lip-reading. I managed to buy the Euros with no problem, and even managed some polite conversation about Las Vegas.

And it's not just in the hearing world where lip-reading is useful - it's very useful in sign language class as well.

My sign language teacher is deaf with no speech. But she can lip-read and often when teaching us new signs she says what the sign is. Of course, she doesn't speak, but her lips form the word. A lot of the time the others can't understand her, as hearing people generally don't have the need to lip-read. I'm finding that it's getting easier and easier to read her lips (as she's a lip reader herself, she really forms each syllable so it's easier to read).

So - lip-reading isn't just helping me along in the hearing world, it's also helping me along in learning BSL.

Very useful indeed!

Deaf Girl