Someone once said, the only thing constant in life is change. I mean life can change at a drop of a hat. Look at what the last two plus years have brought with this pandemic. So many things are different now. Are they better? Probably not for most unless you are a mask, plexiglass or hand sanitizing manufacturer. I would add the exercise gear company Peloton too, but apparently, things have turned dramatically for them as of late. Bottom line, it seems businesses as a whole have greatly suffered.
Supply chain issues abound, new variants of Covid-19 are mutating, and repercussions are being felt across every industry. Staffing issues are horrendous and the list goes on and on. We have been waiting for a week now to get a propane delivery. It was totally our fault we let the tank get so low, but it took me 5 attempts to actually get a person to answer the call and figure out scheduling. We have a heat pump for the main heating, but propane is my cooking fuel, so I am making our Valentine’s dinner in an electric skillet and a toaster oven. No worries. I can make do.
We all need to be more patient these days. Things are taking longer, are costing more money and I am pleasantly surprised when I get a friendly, enthusiastic person to help me in any kind of retail experience. I am also trying to be SUPER nice to everyone working anywhere these days. I appreciate their working in the store and honestly can’t believe I could get a job at Burger King today for $15 an hour and get paid TOMORROW. What is going on???
A few months ago, a friend who I don’t see often who works at Meadowcroft Village and is an amazing Historian asked me to meet her for coffee at Poor Johnny’s in West Middletown. I asked, where is there a coffee shop in West Middletown? Google maps took me 4.4 miles down the road and is changing my life.
I had driven through this tiny town that you blink, and you miss it, DOZENS of times and always was enamored and disappointed. The town had obviously been amazing. In less than a mile and a half, there are about a dozen 200 + year old structures lined RIGHT up to the road and there are some BEAUTIFUL houses, but most of the buildings have been crumbling for a century or more. Mitch and I would drive through and think, this place must have been so cool. Someone should do something here.
When I got to the really funky antique and unique store, I was met with an amazing aroma of freshly ground coffee and a charming and beautiful woman named Andrea. She and her beau John are the proprietors. These “kids” dove into the deep end here and have taken on multiple projects to bring West Middletown back. They were looking for helpers.
After being incredibly impressed with their plans and attitude, I went home and got Mitch.
I am going to be 54 years old by month end, an age where most people, certainly women were not so long ago considered completely over the hill and less than desirable to hire, but I do think today’s 50s are the new 30s. If that is the case, I am still DECADES away from actually retiring, right?
So, for the past several months, I have been quietly shopping for and buying up used restaurant equipment and organizing my GIGANTIC collection of recipes and cataloging them in categories to open Marsha Cassel’s Kitchen on Main. It will be called The Kitchen for short, and I could not be more excited. A large part of what I need and am purchasing will come from my synagogue as they are selling the building. I am filled with great pride that their dishware and flatware and linens and such will have a new home with me. My grandparents would be so proud.
I am researching all kinds of things like home equity loans, liability insurance, POS equipment, and preparing menus, talking with my friends who have opened many restaurants and collecting tea pots from every thrift store around. I am going to have an amazing selection of healing herbs to make individual pots of tea blends made especially for YOU. Got a headache? I can make you a soothing tea to help.
My dad has shined up all those teapots and is working on some of the decor pieces that I have picked up at thrift stores and making them display ready.
Finances are certainly not what I had hoped they would be in 2022 and many of you know exactly what that means, but who cares? No one I know has a bankroll of dough in the bank just waiting for a new opportunity. Besides a lottery win, there would never be a comfortable financial time and place to do such a thing without risk of complete and epic failure. And I am ok with that. Mitch is being 100% supportive. I love him SO much!
Andrea’s father, Rick, who is an amazing craftsman and lives in Minnesota, is right now over there reconstructing a small restaurant from an 1820’s little 2 story house. He can do an incredible amount of work in a short amount of time and spends a few days here and there and sometimes a week or two getting this place together. The daily progress in simply mind blowing.
Yes, there will be a bathtub in the restroom! See previous blog to understand that one.
The plan is for the place to be ready for me to move in and start decorating during June, schedule inspections, hire help and be open for business July 1st. Of course, 1000 things need to go right to make this happen, but I am an optimistic person. I will still be marshawillcookforyou but now you are going to have to come to ME. I am excited and equally panicked. I always have a hard time sleeping and now with the thoughts of the added amount of work that needs done and the accompanying stress, I am really exhausted and the old dreams of being in college and not prepared for exams or taking enough credits to graduate have reared their ugly heads. I am atrociously worried and fretting but also positively imagining EVERYTHING. In my mind I can picture it all. It is going to be really neat.
Personally, I am worried the dogs, cats and Mitch will miss me and the house will get really messy. I worry I am going to overdo completely and end up in traction. I have been major injury-free a few months now and really trying to be careful.
I am going to have to change the dogs’ daily hike time and rearrange a large part of the efforts I put in at the house, farm and cabin to the restaurant and hire some HELP. There is a new concept. HELP. YES, I have a neighbor who I have posted about who is going to help me with the watering, harvesting, chicken work and such so I can do this. I can find more assistance. I plan on getting up earlier to I can get my exercise in, and Mitch and I will still play pickleball early mornings with a cool group of people who are so excited for me. They promise to come and eat and bring friends!! Every person who has been through this town has recognized the possibilities and seem giddy that we are going to be involved in the resurrection of West Middletown.
Jaya will be helping of course, and Mitch will do some meat smoking for me and playing acoustic music on the deck. I am planning on having cooking classes, book club meetings, there will be a reading and old-fashioned game corner…. the ideas to make this a destination are numbering into the dozens and the food is going to be fabulous!!!! Farm to table WILL be a reality.
Mitch will come to the restaurant which really is only an 8-minute drive from our farm and eat dinner with me instead of me cooking when I get home. I will take two days off a week to not lose my sanity and resupply the ingredients. I plan to be open for lunch and dinner and probably closed for an hour or two in between to ready. We will see. I have owned a brick-and-mortar store before, but it was a completely different animal. I THINK I know what I am getting into. We shall see. We may never take another vacation or have another party at the farm. I really have no idea!
The town is having its bicentennial in 2023 and I am chairing the committee for this year long event. There is so much to do!!!! So, maybe I’m crazy!
I have been thinking about how to announce this. Blogging seemed right. I got to outline some hopes and fears here. Heck, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right???? At the very least, writing this blog was a good therapy session so THANK YOU for your time and attention.
Will you come and see what fun I create? Stay tuned!!! #liveyourdreams #gocrazyandopenarestaurantduringapandemic #eatrealfood #pittsburghfoodie #allhomemade #farmtotable
I have been thinking about writing this blog for YEARS, even before I blogged.
And I realize that anyone reading this who was born after 1980 or so is going to think that I am a curmudgeon, and it is entirely possible. I am a proud Gen X-er who is approaching fifty-four, grew up in the 70s and 80s and have been adulting for several decades.
When I was in grade school, shoppers could lay away five items of clothing at Hills Department Store for $5 for back-to-school shopping. When you paid off the balance after however many payments it took, you THEN took the clothing home. My parents and honestly no one I knew had a credit card. I am not sure there even were credit cards back then. People paid with cash or by check.
I remember being 5 years old and my gramma Feinstein taking me to the beauty parlor. The beautician had me sit on about five giant Yellow Page books so I could fit under the hairdryer with gramma next to me leafing through a magazine. This nice woman washed, curled and teased my hair and gave me an amazing coif! Because it was raining when we left, gramma put one of those plastic babushkas on my head that you unrolled and tied under your chin so my hair would not wilt. I believe we went to the Maple Restaurant for lunch afterwards.
Gramma also applied bright red lipstick to my lips and taught me how to rub my lips together, kiss a tissue to blot and she painted my tiny fingernails bright red too. Va va va voom!!! To this day, that is one of the best memories of my entire life! I still remember the gold metal container that she twirled in front of me to reveal inches of red loveliness. The smell and taste of the thick waxy paste made me feel grown up. I LOVED it.
Sadly, my gramma died shortly after that. She was only 74 years old. In my twenties, I bought a bottle of Jergen’s lotion and as soon as I opened it, I smelled GRAMMA. That cherry almond scent is like getting a warm hug. I keep a bottle in my purse.
I never got my nails done again till after I graduated from college and had a real job. No one was going to pay for me to have that kind of extravagance.
As soon as I turned sixteen, I worked after school, weekends and all summer and holiday breaks. I paid for anything that I needed beyond necessities, and I bought groceries and paid rent. I walked to school and work and did not get a car till I could buy a used 1981 Buick Skylark for $1900 in 1991. I was 23 years old. Until then, the bus and my 10-speed bike and I were terrific friends.
AS SOON AS I DROVE IT AWAY from the previous owner, the rack and pinion steering went. I had a heck of a time driving it to the mechanic. Larry worked for cash and helped us poor folks. God bless Larry! He was truly a Godsend.
I understand this is a new generation and we are living in a much different world than the one that I grew up experiencing. Each generation presumably wants better for their progeny than they had, and I get that. I do not have children, but if you read in my blogs about Jaya, trust me, I am understanding about giving to youth. I enjoy giving new experiences, items of mine and shopping for Jaya. It brings me great joy.
Jaya really APPRECIATES each and every thing I do for or give to her. She does not expect things from me. Jaya works hard for what she has and goes without if she cannot afford it. She practically asked as a birthday gift for help buying tires for her car rather than wanting an extravagant gift. She LOVES going thrifting with me and we have pulled things off the side of the road to paint and repurpose and use. That “headboard” behind her in the photograph above is one of our terrific finds. Jaya appreciates the value of a dollar and the hard work it takes to make those dollars. I will never have to worry about Jaya living beyond her means.
When Mitch was a boy like many kids, he would set his alarm for EARLY, get up without his parents telling him to or making him breakfast, deliver papers, ring the doorbells of his customers yelling “collecting”, figure out the money and took care of the whole job by himself. He tells stories of those 4 am wakeups for Sunday paper delivery and he and his buddy helping each other.
He also mowed lawns around the neighborhood and at age 11 started working on a tobacco farm doing HARD work. As a child he learned to save up for purchases and learned responsibility. There was also a little money-making scheme that got him into trouble by selling M80s to his classmates. He and one of his buddies, who is a twice retired corporate executive living in Vail Colorado, cooked up this endeavor and have many colorful stories about their youthful exploits to regale. Those boys now all in their early sixties get together annually at their Boy Scout camp (Mitch and several of his pals are Eagle Scouts), pitch tents, do some community service and then relive their childhoods, talk about their lives, share the news of their families, build and tend to a big fire, consume beer and possibly a bit of whiskey. How blessed they are to still have each other and this annual pilgrimage back home.
Anyway, Mitch’s mother being a travelling school nurse in the district would hear about her son’s misdeeds within minutes and disciplined appropriately at home and let the school handle things as they needed. These days, that kind of discipline is illegal, but I dare say, when the boys at my school were sent to the principal’s office to get paddled, they got the message.
Am I to understand that today a child can threaten a parent with calling in authorities if they are spanked? My generation of kids were respectful and followed rules or there WERE consequences. Building character is important and learning to follow rules and behave was part of that.
We opened doors for others, respected our elders, was quiet and let adults speak, could entertain ourselves, shared the one telephone and television with the family, ate what mom cooked and we did not earn participation trophies.
We also paid for our college loans. I took ten years to pay mine off of which is an accomplishment that I am still proud.
I was born a Jew but I didn’t know growing up if I was REALLY Jewish or if it was something my parents exposed me to. My paternal grandparents were Jewish and they adopted my father. There was a culture of not talking about that apparently and my father never knew anything about his birth parents nor found any records. There was a lot of rumor and innuendo about my grandfather’s businesses. He was a well-respected pharmacist in the little town of Ambridge, PA. He was involved in the Rotary, President of the Lion’s Club and probably others. Apparently, my grandma was a member of Eastern Star. My dad tells me he heard my grandfather carried illegal alcohol in his pharmacy wagon during prohibition, ran “numbers” and may have helped unwed Jewish women find homes for their babies in the 1940s and 50s. My dad could have been one of those babies. Apparently, my grandparents were unable to conceive children. Whether or not my grandpa paid a Jewish woman $10,000 for my dad will never be known, but it is an interesting thought.
My dad was raised Jewish and he married my mother who was also raised somewhat Jewish but was not officially in the faith so she went through the conversion process which is pretty intense. My parents married in a civil ceremony but when my mother’s conversion took place, a Jewish wedding was held at the synagogue and I was cooking in my mother’s belly at that time so….. according to Jewish law, born of a Jewish woman, I’m a Jew.
My first 6 years were spent in Ambridge, PA, a little town along the Ohio River. My mother and I moved to Squirrel hill in 1974 when my parents divorced. I spent half of first grade through 5th grade with lots of Jews. At that time, Squirrel Hill was definitely “Jew Town,”, MY words and I honestly seem to remember that Mineo’s pizza was actually closed during Passover when Jews are to abstain from flour.
Before 6th grade started for me, we moved back to Ambridge and I began school in a 99.8% Christian filled school system. In fact, there was only one other Jew in town. As there once was a thriving Jewish community in Ambridge, when the economy started to tank in Beaver County, I think all the Jews moved to Pittsburgh or Florida. It wasn’t I don’t believe, anything about discrimination or anything, but I honestly have no idea what led that mass exodus. So, Jews were very scarce around me and I felt very much ill at ease as I grew, admitting to the fact that I was Jewish. I think being any kind of minority, if you are perceived as “different” expect some bumps in the road. Not, that I could do much hiding as my name was Feinstein, but being very insecure, I definitely kept my nose down and was not even the hint of the woman that I am now full on OUT and proud.
Did I get bullied in school? Yes. Did I keep a low profile so as not to stand out? YES. But my name screamed JEW so there it was. I pretty much lived my youth as quietly as possible impatiently waiting to make a break for it in 1986 and head back to Pittsburgh and attend Pitt. In college, I ran into lots of fellow Jews from my elementary school days at John Minadeo and there was a very diverse community of people, religions, cultures and more.
Everywhere I moved during my 20s, 30s,40s and now in my 50s, I carefully looked around for other Jews near me. When I co-owned the hardware store with my ex-husband in Sarver PA, I was told there is a KKK group there so to lay low and don’t wear my Star of David. I would NEVER want to jeopardize our business or alienate our customer base, so I was quiet. One day I was helping a customer with something in the lawn and garden department and this man said something to me about “Jewing him down.” I literally walked away and asked one of my employees to help him. I wonder what he thought. I am betting he didn’t even realize what he said.
Years later, Mitch and I bought our cabin up hear Pymatuning and I met a neighbor who introduced himself as Gene Benkovitz (not his real name) . I immediately filled with excitement and said, I’m a Jew too to which he replied, I’m not a Jew. My stomach dropped and my first thought was WOW, you look like a Jew and second, I blew my WASP cover as a Cassel and we hadn’t even moved in yet. I was a bit worried. Seriously, there are hate crimes everywhere against all sorts of people. I felt embarrassed. I can tell you in my heart after reading countless books on the Holocaust and seeing so many documentaries, if we checked his DNA, that man was a Jew but a hidden one for generations back. After Hitler came to power in Germany, being a Jew was dangerous and caused many people to change names, religions…… Jews went into hiding and many never came out.
So, speaking of DNA, when 23 and Me came about, I asked my dad if he wanted to do it so we can maybe find some blood relatives and learn about family medical history etc. He was up for it so we sent in both our saliva samples and guess what we found? Despite us both being blond haired and blue eyes (the ARYAN DREAM combo) it came to be that dad was 50% ASHKENAZI Jew. I told him, dad, you are OLD school Jew like related to Noah and stuff. We had a good laugh at that.
We did find out who either his mother or father were. We were lucky to find a really close relative who did a ton of genealogy work. We figured either his great aunt or uncle were my dad’s mother or father. Neither one ever married or had any children that anyone knew of and they were alienated from the family so there wasn’t much there except pictures and names. They are all long gone now but we have about 1100 cousins running around the world. Some I have connected with on FB and it is great fun to see their families all over the planet, speaking many languages and all Jews! I finally have some paternal family!
I am an avid listener to the Howard Stern Show on Sirius/XM radio. He’s a Jew and I just love his interviewing style and his profuse use of the F word. I enjoy swearing too. I apologize to those readers who get offended by curse words, but I do like to cuss and when I am around my friends, I let it fly!!!! Check out the Netflix series on the History of Curse Words with Nicolas Cage. It is hilarious and educational!!!!!
Anyway, recently Howard was interviewing Sarah Silverman, one of my favorite comediennes who is Jewish and also likes to swear. She talked about being typecast as an actress and only getting roles as the annoying literary agent or the (really bad word) girlfriend, or sassy friend of the main character and other stereotypical roles. She also said roles about Jews are mostly played by non-Jews, RBG and Mrs. Maisel. Winona Rider in her 50s is actually playing a Jewess on a really interesting HBO series now. The plot is set in WWII and Charles Lindbergh is a powerful politician and a big time Anti-Semite which apparently has factual basis. Sarah remarked with a well-placed F-bomb that Winona would never have gotten the role in Age of Innocence and other great roles in her youth if she had she been Winona Horowitz. I kind of agree.
This blog isn’t about discrimination though. It is more about ignorance or lack of interest in anything non-Christian. I will end with a funny story that illustrates that point from the event that actually inspired this blog.
I am having a Passover Seder this Saturday night. Traditionally, Jews have this meal and ceremonial retelling of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt on the first two nights of this long holiday.
I was shopping at Giant Eagle for some Jew supplies, Kosher for Passover Matzo and Matzo meal, and saw this big display of Maxwell House coffee with Passover Haggadah’s. If you bought a Maxwell House product you could get one FREE Haggadah. Maxwell House started doing this almost 80 years ago but I hadn’t seen this in action for decades.
I thought, I needed new Haggadah’s and wanted one for each of my guests so I asked at customer service if I could have 12 copies. I showed her the booklet and she asked what it was. I explained. Blink blink was the response. So, I asked if she had ever seen the Ten Commandments. “Let me get a manager,” she said. GOOD. Now we are getting somewhere.
The manager comes out and I start again with my request and this time I explain that there are probably 5 Jews in Washington including me and they will most likely toss those out in less than 2 weeks so giving me a dozen, won’t even be noticeable. She asked me to show her the display. There were a plethora of copies and she said, take what you want. So, I bought one Maxwell House product and took a dozen Haggadah’s and now each of my guests will have their very own without having to share.
I am 100% sure neither one of these ladies know what Passover is, what one might do on Passover, eat or talk about yet I and probably every other American Jew knows about Easter and not just about Easter bunnies and chocolates. The world population of Jews is now only .2%. That is staggeringly low so no wonder there isn’t a lot of general world knowledge about Jewish holidays and customs. Jews know about the core beliefs of Christians and WHY they celebrate. I am not complaining, but merely bringing up a point that if we take an interest in our differences, maybe we can all learn to appreciate what makes us similar too. There is much more that brings us together than divides us.
Looking forward to my Passover Seder and introducing my “daughter,” Jaya to all things Matzo and her first Jewish holiday.
Happy Spring peeps and wishing you all the joys, delicious foods, new growth and holidays coming to your world. #passover2021 #covidseder #weareallhuman
I have been thinking a lot about how we lived pre-internet, pre-wireless connections and have decided that despite the massive time saving aspects the technology seemingly continues to bring us, I really wish the kids today were growing up more simply.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s and remember carrying change so I could make long distance calls on a payphone. Remember you could actually make collect calls too and reverse the charges? That was way before nationwide calling on a cell phone. This was in a little private booth or a bank of phones on a wall where you would make your calls in front of God and everyone. You would be talking and an operator would interrupt and tell you to put more money in to continue the call and when you ran out of change, that would be the end of your call. I’m pretty sure you could make a local call for a dime when I was a child and then a quarter. Toby Keith has a song, that goes something like, here’s a quarter, call someone who cares. The kids these days might not even understand that.
The phone was usually dirty, possibly sticky and intensely gross but it was the way we could keep in contact if you weren’t at home. They had a little bench to sit on usually and a GIANT phone book cabled so you wouldn’t steal it (really?) where you could look up phone numbers yourself. You could also call INFORMATION by dialing 0, talk to a live person (usually a woman) and ask them to help you connect with people, find addresses and phone numbers. As long as some hoodlum hadn’t taken the phone apart, it was a very dependable mode of communication.
Today, if you want to talk to a real, live person and are trying to contact a utility or mortgage company or pretty much anyone for anything, you have to go through menus of prompts and quite often you get disconnected. It is a very frustrating thing and wastes so much time just TRYING to get something accomplished using the phone. I usually go the “not a customer yet” route which can shave off a little time and get a real human, then apologize and ask to be redirected. I think the world is trying to discourage us from actually connecting to humans and prefer us to use online services to do anything. I like to shout repeatedly into the phone REPRESENTATIVE till someone comes along. This is for another blog but WHY are all the call centers seemingly in India?
I remember the summer between 5th and 6th grade living with my aunt and grandma and cousins and walking to the municipal pool several days a week. For a dollar a person we could pay admission of fifty cents and then buy greasy fries with tons of ketchup and an ice cream, frozen candy bar or a drink. We each had a towel with us and maybe some sunscreen and that was all that was required. Four quarters made for an entire day of entertainment and sustainment. There were water fountains. We stayed hydrated! Those were the days.
When I was a child, I read a LOT. This was pre-cable and we only had an old TV with a few channels. PBS was there though and I watched a burgeoning show called Sesame Street, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, Electric Company and Zoom, but I mostly read or played with toys. I am sure it happened, but I never remember being bored without anything to do. I also played my mom’s records endlessly. Being an only child, I was by myself a lot and I guess learned to be independent. I WISH while I had that time, I learned to play guitar or something. Looking back now on all that TIME, I wouldn’t say I regret the lounging around watching clouds move across the sky, finishing reading a book and immediately starting it over again, but at almost 53, I am conscious I have less time on earth than I did. Time is getting short. Every time I start scrolling on FB, I feel a bit of guilt. I spend WAY too much time on there and for the past couple of months have made a conscious effort to NOT. I want to be more productive doing, learning, writing, cooking, hiking my dogs, planning my garden, spending quality time with my husband and “daughter” Jaya…… lots of things to do.
I want to take my husband and Jaya to the library in my hometown, the Laughlin Memorial Free library. I remember the excitement of getting my first library card and exploring all parts of this massive library. The children’s section is downstairs and when I graduated to Young Adult upstairs, I was so happy. I can sit here writing this and know exactly how that amazing building smells, how it looks, hear the echo my footsteps made as I walked.
I want to show them my old house a few blocks away where I learned to ride a bike and would ride around the block 1000 times because I couldn’t go onto the street nor cross any streets.
I remember being in my bedroom when I was five or so and there was a big box fan in the window. My mom had a harmonica and I was standing in front of the fan blowing through that harmonica and it made the most entertaining sounds. I did that for hours. It was simple fun. Those were the days.
I worry that today’s life has so many bells and whistles and shiny things that take our attention that we don’t have the ability to just sit and do one thing or nothing for long periods of time. I hear lots about ADHD and conditions where people can’t focus. I honestly don’t remember these sorts of things when I was young. We had some slow learners in special classes who needed a bit more attention and help, and a few hyper kids who may have misbehaved here and there, but those kids were definitely in the minority. Life was less complicated and different when I was a child.
For almost a year now, COVID-19 has forced people to be inside and not socialize and connect like we used to. The whole world has changed and things are definitely in upheaval. People who can are working from home and probably all that expensive office space will be open soon as companies realize employees CAN be productive from home. The face of business is and will change. Commercial real estate is going to be CHEAP soon. Or maybe, the population will get vaccinated and people will be free to roam about the world unmasked and working in towns, meeting in parks for lunches, going to bars for drinks and live music and sitting in restaurants for long, leisurely meals. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? That has now become the Good Old Days and it was only a year ago. WOW!
How are you filling all your time these days? Are you loving working from home or feeling like a caged animal? I would love to hear from you and learn about your experiences. Write me!! I am currently recovering from COVID-19 and looking forward to starting my seeds! Spring is coming!!!! #timewellspent #thesimplelife #livelife
When I met my husband, it didn’t take me long to realize that he had some challenges with hearing. I would say he didn’t notice, but he has one ear that is better than the other and when he was trying to listen closely, he definitely would turn that ear nearer.
I don’t know how long he had been missing a lot of dialogue and sounds, but considering he had been playing loud music in different rock bands since he was a teen and attended countless loud rock concerts, had served in the military, piloted planes and never in any of these endeavors worn ear protection, it was inevitable that he would suffer hearing loss by his late 40s.
When I came into the picture, I yelled a lot and repeated things to him when we were at parties or in conversation with friends and during TV time. I became his default ears, but I started to worry. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t missing any important information for work and other situations so I gingerly brought up the idea of maybe getting him a hearing aid.
He eventually agreed and we went to this hearing aid center in the North Hills of Pittsburgh. The audiologist talked to us both and then brought out this machine that looked like it was from the 1960’s. I am not kidding you, this machine was as large as a suitcase, had buttons and knobs and was completely analog. As he checked Mitch’s hearing, it reminded me of someone trying to open a safe using touch and intuition. I think we both had doubts. Mitch told me after the appointment that his mom, who was a school nurse, had the EXACT same machine with those giant head phones. When she would bring it home, he and his sister played with it. So, that didn’t exactly give us confidence considering it was 2013.
So, we learned you have to wear two hearing aids to balance the sound and he would have to have one in each ear. The man took some kind of measurement of his ears by inserting cold, wet wax in his ear to get a mold from which to make a custom hearing aid. And in about a week, Mitch had new REALLY EXPENSIVE ears. And I do mean expensive. My first two cars did not total the cost of these new ears.
I can’t imagine what it is like to have foreign objects in your ears which run on batteries and send out high pitch squeals when dying, but he did seem to be hearing better, so I was happy.
He wore those for a while, but you could tell, he really didn’t like them and he started wearing them less and less. I started yelling more and more and would say PUT YOUR EARS IN.
At some point he looked into something more 21st century and found the hearing aid center at Costco. Now THIS was a modern fix for a common problem and they had some smaller and really cool hearing aids that he could adjust with his smartphone and these worked MUCH better. There is an APP for EVERYTHING.
Mitch was definitely hearing better; I was less frustrated and things were good. The only real concern was battery life. His ears sound an alarm really loudly then stop working when the batteries need replaced and after the first one dies, the second usually goes within an hour of the other and it is ALWAYS at the most inopportune moments of course. I carry batteries in my purse for quick changes.
Then COVID-19 hit and we had to wear masks all the time.
A few months into lockdown, one of our dogs had to go to the emergency vet. We were not allowed to go inside so had to wait in the parking lot. It was taking a long time so I left and picked up some Burger King and we ate in the grass sitting on a dog blanket.
When Bandit finally came out and we saw he was going to live, we were so relieved and took him home.
Sometime later Mitch noticed his hearing aids were gone. Oh no. We took the masks off and on during the vet visit with the doctor and nurses coming out for consultations and when he whipped off the mask during one of those times, they must have caught on the mask and went flying away. Mitch jumped in his truck and went back to look. It was getting dark by now.
An hour later he came home without those hearing aids.
Those little guys cost thousands of dollars. I was going to find them. I took the flashlight, got in my JEEP and drove back to the vet office.
Since I have met Mitch, he also needed new eyes. He has these gas permeable hard contact lenses to correct a cornea issue that Lasik surgery decades ago caused. It is AMAZING what technology has done for artificial devices to help us humans be whole or at least better as we age and our parts wear out. He has this “claw” type of device to insert them and remove them and that is a whole other story about what happened when he left the claw back home while we were travelling.
I have a bionic husband. Besides the eyes and ears, all his parts are original but trust me, if he needs a new knee or hip or whatever, I will chirp in those bionic ears to make it happen. I want him in good condition to run with me, see me, hear me and love me!
In the meantime, if any of your loved ones are having a hard time hearing you, if it is a male, first off speak in DEEP tones as the high-pitched sounds have been documented as passing right on by men’s ears. This is the TRUTH. Google it! If speaking in a lower register doesn’t get through, take him to Costco! It worked for us anyway. #canyouhearmenow #hearingaidswork #bionichusband
Yes, there will be a bathtub in the restroom! See previous blog to understand that one.
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