Ed wakes up this morning and mumbles through his half sleep -- I really need to be in a (Zoom) meeting in 15 minutes.
Well that wont do. It takes me all of an hour to tidy myself up, tidy the house, feed the animals and prepare breakfast.
Okay, but you're on your own for breakfast. There's no point in rushing the day for a quick crunch of fruit together.
You know I told you about this.
You did not.
I did too! Last night!
All we talked about before I went to bed was why there should be a strange cat outside on the porch.
Well that too...
It is not unusual for us to have this kind of back and forth. Ed intends to say something and then, in his mind, he thinks he said it out loud. Of course, you could say that I'm just not remembering things -- a fault of older years after all! But I tend not to be that forgetful about trivial details of our lives.
Which brings me to the other marker of older years (in addition to from forgetfulness, leaving aside for the moment whether it is his or mine) -- hearing. When we watch our movie or show in the evening, I decide the volume, because whatever his choice would be, it is too quiet for me. Last night, as he handed me the remote, he said -- you know, there is this excellent hearing test on the internet that you can run for yourself. It tells you the degree of attrition in one or both ears. I took it to see the effect of being around a loud machine.
Ed always wears ear muffs when he rides the tractor-mower or operated heavy machinery. I do not. I get off the tractor with my head buzzing and I'm full of regrets about having passed on the ear guards, but somehow when the time comes around for me to ride that thing again, I neglect the guards and hop on once again. So maybe I should check my hearing?
All this is why in the morning -- a very lovely November morning at that! -- I feed the animals...
Eat breakfast not alone...
(Wait, how did that happen? Well, he was on a break from his meeting and ran over to join me. Both silly and sweet all at the same time.)
... And at his meeting lunch break, we go out for a walk in the neighborhood (where I take no photos, so I'll just show off the farmette crab yet again!)
And then I sit down and run the hearing test. (You can do it here, but it has to be at a time when it's very quiet in your house!)
And the results? Probably much the same as Ed's -- some mild hearing loss that comes with our demographic. So why do I always ask him to turn up the TV? Because, I like it louder, and he likes it quieter. Is there a test for personality differences? Because I'm sure we'd score wildly differently on that one!
