Shir, I'm so sorry. My mom has been congenitally nearly deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other all her life--surgery a few years ago upgraded the deaf ear to merely hard of hearing, and she now has fancy hearing aids that bring her to near normal (hearing aids that cost an arm and a leg because her insurance deemed near normal ability to hear a cosmetic issue, so she paid for them entirely out of pocket). It was rough for her and for everyone who cared for her, but, as Calli said, there are definite coping strategies.

One simple thing you can do to help her is just to be aware of making an effort to talk to her face-to-face so she can see as well as hear, and, if she's got a better ear, to train yourself to just always be on that side. (My mom once fell in love with a man in large part because midway through their second date she realized that he'd not only remembered the first time she pointed at her bad ear, he'd been unfussily and unfailingly manuevering himself to her good side every minute since.)

So many hugs and good thoughts to your mom and you. There are a lot of coping strategies and a lot of things families can do to ease things, but it's still a harsh blow to deal with and it just plain sucks.

Deena, that umbrella is awesometastic genius. (Other than the general gagginess of the fact that we've got rampant underemployment and homelessness and desperation, and somebody's making long-handled umbrellas so golfers can continue their games uninterrupted by the inconvenience of rain damaging their mashie niblicks or whatever--but that really makes the umbrella even more ripe for co-option by a spooky golf-antithetical subculture.)

Many, many vibes to Bartleby and all his caretakers.

And vibes to Hil. That sounds not just painful, but perfectly placed to make every imaginable movement more difficult. I hope it eases off or sorts itself out right quick.

I'm off shortly for church, followed by a visit to my dad's (possibly for Chicken & Waffles, possibly just to his house for mac'n'cheese and gardening), followed by a trip to Rasputin Records for the first installment of the Great Perkins Culling.

From the coughing, Hil? (Are you still coughing?) That sucks, because there's not a lot you can do to physically keep your ribs from moving.

I think it's from the coughing. The coughing has calmed down a lot, but isn't totally gone. When I was coughing a lot, pretty much everything around my lungs hurt. Now that the coughing has calmed down, most of that pain has subsided, but this one spot is still hurting a lot.

That seems like a very high-school way to deal with it.

I'm not overly fond of this woman anyway, although I do feel bad for her because it sucks to discover one's partner has been unfaithful. But mostly my response is to cringe. These are 2 people who really should have broken up about 3 months into the relationship, but instead moved in together after 2 months. It's been an ugly, messy road, so I can't say I'm surprised that the relationship has hit this point, but I still think posting about it on FB is cringeworthy.

(This is the woman who, at a pool party, when she saw Tim alone in the pool, took off her bathing suit and jumped in and swam over to him. I am not inclined to be overly generous in my feelings toward her.)

Oh, that one. Sounds like her sense of judgement is...not.

Sounds like her sense of judgement is...not.

Their relationship has been train-wrecky since the beginning, with the biggest obstacle being that the cheated-upon woman is a cisgender woman, and the cheater is a MtF trans woman who was still living as a man when they met, but who started to transition shortly afterward. Cheated-upon has always said she isn't a lesbian and loves cock and needs a "real man" in her bed (and, AFAIK, has men who she sexes up, with her partner's approval).

There's long been a lot of weird shit going on there, so I can't say the demise of the relationship is totally surprising.

(Note: there's nothing wrong with wanting sex with a dude, but it just seems like being in a relationship with someone who is actively moving AWAY from being a dude might indicate that there will be problems down the road.)

(I'm also expecting her to start calling Tim for consolation.)

Shir, have they figured out what's causing the deafness?

No headache for Deena! Feel better.

except for how I have to find gifts for him to buy at Target. I may be making this too hard. I want it to appeal to him and to the giftee, and be inexpensive.

Target has the dollar section and some inexpensive jewelry. There's a variety of scarves, hats and mittens. They also have an assortment of things like lip gloss aimed at teens.

My dislocated rib twinges in sympathy, Hil. There's almost nothing I can do that doesn't hurt, except sitting or lying still.

I got most of my sexy reading from books, not from visuals. Some things just mystified me -- in the Clsn of the Cave Bear, all Auel said was that Ayla would kneel and "present." I simply could NOT figure out WTF that MEANT and how that could possibly work.

I knew what penises looked like, from diapering cousins and technical illustrations, but until we found that stash of porn in the woods at 10, I'd never really seen photograph of a real adult penis.

Again, my reaction was "WTF? REALLY? Um...weird. I'm glad I'm a girl." I suppose it didn't help that it was the early 80's and most of the guys looked like Tom Selleck knock-offs.

Erin, I think that (oddly enough) goes in Natter.

Need. More. Coffee.

Eh, time to go watch fencing anyway.

stash of porn in the woods

It amazes me the places people stash their porn.