Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door, let's go

Today I was in my car driving to work, and listening to music, as I always do, and a song came on and I started singing along.   And I could.  I mean, sure, I always could, but it sounded really odd - listening to your own voice as it goes through the microphones outside your head is kind of strange at first, and it never sounded great before.  I can't say that it DOES sound great even now - I have no illusions about the quality of my singing.  But I could hear it, and I could hear well enough to sing in tune and have it sound, if not good, at least minimally bad. I mean, this is a commentary on my ability to sing - but it's really a milestone for my CI, the first time I could hear my own voice, have it sound right, and keep my singing in tune.  It was amazing. Expecting to actually sound good is kind of like those old jokes - guy goes to the doctor with a broken leg and asks "doc, will I be able to dance when it heals?"  "Sure!"  says the d...

Last weekend we were invited to Breckenridge, CO by my brother-in-law and his wife.  They were there at a resort and asked us to join them.  We drove to a town in Iowa where there's a train station that's a stop for the California Zephyr and rode the train from there to Denver and were picked up by my brother-in-law and we drove to Breckenridge. What we did there wasn't particularly notable; had dinner, walked around downtown Breckenridge and took the scenic road up Boreas Pass.  The aspens were glorious, golden and beautiful. But when we were leaving my brother-in-law told me how obvious it was that I could hear better, and how nice it was that I could keep up and contribute more to conversations.   A lot of people may have noticed that, but not many other than my husband and a coworker or two have said so.  It was kind of cool to hear it from B, who is someone that I don't even seen annually. And now I'm less than a month from my second surgery....

I work for a company that relies heavily on conference calls.  We're global, we have a matrix organization that requires us to work with our colleagues worldwide, and for most people, the phone is a good way to do that. Me, not so much. But I get invited to calls anyway.  My coping mechanism for most of the last twenty years has been to use the speaker on my office phone and have someone there with me who can let me know what I miss.  Usually there's someone else from my location involved too, but once or twice I've asked people to be there just to help me out, and if they can, they do.  I've mentioned before what a great group of people I work with. Today I got up at my normal (on the late end of office hours) time and was getting ready to get in the car at ten till eight when I happened to check my phone.  I had a notification for a meeting scheduled at 8:00.   Okay, so that's not going to work - it's about 25 minutes for me to get to the office....