Of Cochleas and Food

Japan

2008-03-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

So I'm hanging out here in Japan, having a blast. The food is great, and when I get back to the states, I'm going to post some photos of the WAY BETTER SUSHI THAN WE HAVE IN PORTLAND. If you get my drift. They don't have spicy tuna, but all that is is a matter of mayonnaise, so we'll be peachy.

Anypoo, I'm having some deep thoughts about stuff, which I feel not yet at liberty to divulge. But expect some pictures of bacon sushi and also my new favorite, which I think is called salad roll. I'm not sure, but it's not really salad. What it IS is delicious.

Even in Japan though, I do need my morning coffee. So, off I go.

my lemon tree

2008-03-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

I've been putting this off. But I got a new camera, and now you can see my lemon tree in all its glory.

And this one too:

It's easy to kill a citrus. I really hope I didn't kill the lime. We'll find out.

Meyer Lemon

2008-02-05T22:20:00.001-08:00

My tree has some little tiny baby blossoms on it. They haven't actually opened yet, but the thought of it thrills me.

However, I think my lime tree is angry at me. It is dropping leaves. I transplanted both trees today though, and hopefully it will all be ok. I hope the lemon isn't angry at me for transplanting it with buds on it. There were worms in the lemon pot. That thrilled me.

bad blogger

2008-01-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

I've been very lenient with myself over updating this thing. I know I should be better about it, but I need people to acknowledge they're reading it, you know?

In CI news, the thing works fabulously. I'm always listening to my iPod with it, and though I haven't yet mastered the art of talking on the phone, it is about a million times better than before, i.e. when I couldn't hear at all in my left ear.

In food/horticulture news, I ordered a meyer lemon tree and a kaffir lime tree. They should be on their way as of tomorrow, and I look forward to seeing just how they do in my sometimes chilly Oregon clime. They'll be like the puppies I'm in no position to buy. Nobody ever tells you that you can't have plants in your apartment.

La Vie en Rose

2007-11-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't say life is pink. It's really not, but it's OK.

I have my third mapping appointment tomorrow morning at 9; I'll finally get the music map, which is good, because I have to play around with the various programs I have already to find the right map for music. Music sounds weird on my processor.

I got into a mood ("mood" is the word I use to say I'm in a funk about something) tonight, so I took myself to the gym for the first time since right before my surgery, and I worked out super duper. It was great. I should do it again, because it totally improved my mood, and now I'm here, typing.

I started understanding speech about two weeks ago, and it's pretty cool. Mo sounded kind of like Judy Garland and Liza Minelli for awhile, but she is sounding more like herself. Men kind of sound like Sean Connery (depending on the voice), and if I am listening through the wrong program, male singers all sound gothy and death metally, which is bad when you're listening to Jack Johnson.

Next post will hopefully be about food!

Telephones

2007-11-07T23:21:00.001-08:00

I hate being able to hear things when I'm talking on the phone! It is very easy to talk on the phone if you have one deaf ear. It is a lot harder when suddenly, you can hear out of that ear.

I now understand why "hearing" people plug their ears when they're on the phone.

Aphrodisiac meal coming up. The meat is proving to be the biggest problem for planning. Maybe if I can find some rabbit.

I can tell by the way you walk

2007-10-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

I just had two moments of hearing that I've missed in the past several months. While I'm not yet used to the way my cochlear implant sounds, I'm starting to recognize some things.

I had it turned on this morning, my appointment set for 9:30. Dana, my audiologist, called me into her office and sat me down, where she promptly hooked my head up to the speech processor. First things first: getting my map set up. MAP doesn't stand for anything, they just call it a map for some reason. Thus the lower case. She tested out the electrodes and told me to count the amount of beeps I was hearing (i.e. one, three, two, four, etc) at different pitches starting with low. At first, I was afraid my implant wasn't working because I wasn't hearing anything, but then I started hearing beeps, only, how to describe, they weren't exactly beeps but feelings.

By "feelings" I mean physical sensations. Like the bass of a drum, but only in my brain.

After that, which was pretty tame, since I was hooked up to a computer and hearing silence except for quiet beeps, Dana turned the processor on so that I could hear real sounds like speech, and my mom started talking to me. I should be honest, it's not easy for me to understand speech through my processor yet, but I will eventually come to recognize exactly what the sounds are, because it sounded at first like a timpani. Yes, a timpani. A kettle drum. Or a whole bunch of them, and it still kind of does.

The first sound I was truly able to recognize was the clicking of my cell phone keys as I typed a message for my roommate. Then, the sound of feet walking on pavement. Right now, I can hear the keys on my computer as I'm typing. They click. A minute ago, I heard the kitchen alarm go off as I'm baking some cookies.

Hmm, being able to hear. Weird.

activation, scars, everything

2007-10-15T22:42:00.000-07:00

So that is what my head looked like when I took the turban off. A really nifty cut with internal stitches.

I stayed home for a few days, told a boy that he was lame, took a lot of vicodin, slept a lot, read a lot, watched movies. And then I went back to work and weaned myself off of the vicodin.

My incision is healing pretty cleanly. For some reason, it hurts tonight. I couldn't tell you why.

I got interviewed.

I set up a date for turning on my implant. I'll let you know how that goes.

After the Fact

2007-10-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

I got my surgery.

I got a little scared ahead of time (a few days ahead) and then when I realized it was about a half hour away, I saw that I had nothing to fear: I would not be awake, and therefore, to me, it would be done in a snap.

I was given an IV and various types of anesthesia- I have a bruise where that is, a bruise on my chest (mystery bruise), and one on my lip (also another mystery bruise). My head hurts, but only in a spot I wasn't really expecting, having probably something to do with the angle of my neck during surgery. I've got a prescription for vicodin, some of which I've taken because as the day goes on and the original anesthesia wears off, the less nice my head feels, though to say it feels bad is kind of untrue. Just the one spot hurts.

Here's a photo of my bandage- the quality is poor since I took it on my phone, but better than nothing, right?

I get to take that off tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will take a photo of the bald spot and stitches! I can't wait to get this baby activated.

Not long, now

2007-09-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday is coming up quickly. Surgery is very soon. I am wearing a headband for possibly the very last time in my life.

Shabbat dinner and surgery party

2007-09-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

If you make spaetzle, here are some hints:

-Your batter can't be runny, otherwise you will end up with a bizarre doughy goo floating around in your water.

-If the recipe says to boil the water, just simmer it. You don't want your spaetlze falling apart on you!

-The final step of sauteeing the spaetzle in butter might be a little easier with a nonstick pan.

But once you figure all that out, you're golden. My spaetlze, with help from Shauna and Jeff, was delicious after much trial and error. Two sauces: gruyere, leek and roasted chicken (sauce one) and bleu cheese and leek for the vegetarians (sauce two). I'm sure I'll be making this stuff again.

I also made a Quiche Lorraine for my friend Jeri. That one got gobbled up very, very quickly. I made an "easy" puff pastry (this involved grating frozen butter- thank God for food processors) and kneading the dough, plus refrigerating it multiple times and doing a rolling/folding into thirds procedure. That was the most difficult part of the quiche- and it was honestly quite easy. This, too, I shall make again.

Mariah made a delicious concoction of cod (i.e. not cod at all, since cod is endangered), orange slices, and olives. She baked the fish filets individually in foil packets- I really like that as a serving method. I hadn't gotten her enough oranges though, so I've got a little leftover fish in my fridge. The fish was gone in a snap.

Shannon and Matt arrived with cream puffs in tow- filled with whipped cream and raspberries. Delicious! They were wonderful. Once they arrived with the cream puffs, I remembered that I had crepe batter in the fridge, and so we (Jeff and I) began making crepes. We made nutella crepes with coconut, lemon juice with powdered sugar, and lime juice with powdered sugar and coconut. Yum.

I love that we had a gigantic dinner party last night and that every single thing was successful.

I'll post photos if I can find them.

P.S.- I can't find them.

Short and Sweet

2007-09-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

Pictures shall come later. For now, hello.

I shall write about this:

Thus my URL: I will, indeed, have a magnet in my head.

And this:

And by the second "this" I mean food in general, not Eggs Benedict.