A Post in which I Confess to Systemic Brain Malfunction

I think I have a bipolar brain although I am not using bipolar in its common sense. What I mean is that my head seems to function on two planes at once while, unfortunately, truly functioning on neither.

Permit me to try to describe what I am driving at.

A few years ago, I decided to try to learn how to play the fiddle. I made some progress but did not have much talent.

A lot of fiddlers play by ear, never reading music. In fact, some fiddlers like the highly acclaimed Natalie McMaster confess that they don't read music very well despite their virtuosity. There are other fiddlers (but usually not the good ones) who play mostly by note. I was somewhere between the two. I needed the music to sort of keep me on track but I played largely by ear at the same time. I found myself often playing the tune the way my brain wanted it to go instead of the way it was written. So, I would follow the notes in some vague way but also be in my own head space at the same time. My teacher more than once admonished me thusly: "No, that's the way that Beethoven would have composed it, but that's not the way this piece is written."

I experience the same sort of phenomenon when I read orally to Sue as I sometimes do at bedtime. (I know that orally is somewhat redundant because I could hardly read silently to her, even though she reads me pretty well after all of these years.) Frequently, when I begin a sentence, my brain somehow interprets where it is going and constructs its own version. I find myself interposing my own word order and saying it out loud that way before I realize that the author's order is different. I sometimes rearrange sentences completely, but they usually come out right for some reason.

It's somewhat the same when I type on the keyboard (where else would one type, he asks). I am most definitely not a touch typist although my brain somehow has an idea where most of the keys are generally located. I could not begin to describe the keyboard to you, but somehow, my fingers tend to reach in the right direction almost all of the time. However, because I am not a trained typist, I really have no ability to hone in precisely on the keys. So I sort of look at the keyboard. But I sort of also don't look at the keyboard. I guess it's usually in my field of view, but I am also not seeing it all that well, and I can barely type three words without making a mistake. Sometimes, it fair near drives me to distraction.

So ... I know this isn't bipolarity in the common sense, but I don't know what else to call it. Yes, I do. Weirdness. Yup, that's it. I'm just plain weird.

Frost in the Garden

Last week (oops, two weeks ago already — this one kind of got lost in the queue), we had the deepest frost of the year when it went down tp -6°C/21°F at night. Somewhat miraculously, I engaged both my brain and willpower long enough of take the camera out to the front yard. I had recalled that I left a single echinacea flower blooming when I cut down the garden on the previous week, and I thought it might deserve a photo or two.

It turns out that I don't adore either photo, but as is so often also the case, I do like some other photos that I took at the time. When I cut down the garden, I did leave a few plants standing. One was the penstemon or beardtongue. This plant produces divine little blossoms in spring, but is rather pleasing even afterward for its burnished leaves.

At the time, I also left the salvia or sage because the bees were still active, and there was little else for them to work on. Of course, a week later by the time of this frost, the bees had disappeared for the winter. You can barely see the frost in this photo, but it's there.

I took the two subsequent photos an hour or so afterward when the sun had come out in greater fullness. The changing light gave a whole different colour to the garden.

An attempt at artiness.

Before heading in, I snapped this one of a mailbox that Sue had painted many years ago. We hadn't put it up in this place until lately when the box that came with the house began to succumb to the elements and look a bit under the weather (so to speak). If you look carefully, you might espy a few bits of frost on this too.

I just took a look at the timestamp, which informs me that this set was taken on October 29 2013. Dad would have turned 101 that day had he remained with us. As it was, he lived to see his 86th birthday, which is not bad at all.

Concentration

Frequently, after school, the kids will sit around the table after snacking and do crafy/arty/writing things. JJ was so cute the other day, concentrating so fiercely on his project.

When family members observe his facial expressions and particularly his tongue-work, they snicker, nudge each other, and look at me knowingly because they say this is just like me. Of course, I resent resemble this remark.

When all is done, one can be very pleased with oneself.

A while ago, when I posted his hockey pics, I forgot to include this one, which has nothing to do with the rest of the post.

How the Lowly Bagel Ruined My Life or at Least My Breakfast

When was the last time you had a good toaster? Its been a long time for me.

The problem for me is that my toasters of recent times toast unevenly. My main complaint is that they all seem to overtoast one side but undertoast the other.

Notice how the right slice is toasted more than the left slice.
Also notice how that side is not toasted evenly — burnt at the top, barely toasted at the bottom.

As far as I can tell, we are not just talking about my toaster, for this predicament seems to be the same in other houses where I have visited.

I blame the bagel.

Nowadays, toasters are made with wide slots to accommodate bagels. This is fine and dandy if your are a bagel sort of person. But, while I have nothing too very personal against these round edibles, I prefer ordinary toast.

But you see, the slot to accommodate the bagel wider that it needs to be for the bread. So . . . the bread leans to one side or t'other and, consequently, toasts unevenly. The tendency is for one side gets toasted, but not the other. Not properly anyway.

I know that the internal grabby things are meant to keep the bread aligned and in check, but THEY DON'T WORK! In point of fact, toasters don't work as well as toasters did 60 years ago. About how many things can you say that?


This has pretty well ruined my life . . . or at least my breakfast. (Not seriously: I wish Blogger would get with the times and support favicons such as winkies. This is another thing that diminishes my enjoyment of life. Not really. Geez, I need a winky again!)

Star Gazing

Here is one more look at the tent, this time under the stars. I didn't see the meteor when I was taking the 30 second exposure because I was trying to light the tent with a flashlight. How neat to see it later.

I took two different turns (on different nights) wandering about trying my hand at star photos. It's pretty dark out there in the country, and the fact that we were having moonless nights, also helped.

I know very little about the stars, but I do know the Big Dipper. It stands out so clearly every time I visit. I always know exactly where to look for it.

You can see some of the lights from the cottage catching the edge of the trees. You can also see a bit of the Milky Way.

An absolute plethora of stars.

Here's another with a bit of light painting on the barn.

Shortly after taking that photo I began to wend my way to take a similar photo of the planer mill. It was then that I heard the wild yipping of a pack of coyotes coming from the direction in which I was walking. I could tell they were a little way away, but the image of a pack of coyotes hurtling my way caused me to do an about fact and head back to the safety of cottage. It was a good thing, not because any coyotes appeared but because I then took the first shot of this post and caught that meteor.

Note: you can see the photos a little bigger is you click on you and then advance thru the frames.

Silly Seniors Tenting in the Country

Didja notice a tent in the previous post? Didja, huh? Didja?

In case you missed it ...

I know it seems weird (mostly because it is) for two seniors to sleep in a tent in the wilds when they have a perfectly good cottage at their disposal. But they ... er ... we do.
 
Although there are more than 100 acres of forest, we pitch it in the yard not too far from the house. We can enjoy the great outdoors but also be near the safety of the cottage. This is pretty deep country after all, and on more than one night, we were awakened by the loud yipping of a pack of coyotes. I don't know how close they were to us, but they were very loud. I also heard the faraway howl of wolves a few times.

We gave away our previous tent a few years ago because it was rather confining, and our aging bodies were finding it difficult to get in and out. It was also a hassle to put up. But this summer, I found an easy-to-put-up tent on sale. I made sure that it was a decent size and trusted the advertising that it would go up easily and yet still be sturdy and waterproof. Thankfully it proved to be just that.

We had tried it out back in August and were getting pretty good at putting it up in our autumn visit. It did take us longer than the advertised minute, but not much longer.

The poles are already attached, so they just have to be clipped into place: easy peasy. ↑

Sue was soon inside making sure all was ready for the first night. ↓

However, we were not quite as prepared as we might have been. The first night in late September was pretty darn cold — going down to 5°C/40°F. We were a little unprepared for that degree of cold and spent a very uncomfortable night. However, we prepared better for the second night with hoodies and extra blankets, and we were fine for the next seven nights.

At night, I lay there all snuggled in my sleeping bag and gazed at the stars in the clear, moonless nights. Gradually, my eyes would succumb, but I would force them back open to gaze in wonder for as long as I could.

On two nights I took my camera to bed with me, so that I could snap some morning photos through the screens. Not a bad view, eh?

Altogether it was fun, and we slept very well on an air mattress, which was arguably more comfortable that the cottage beds.

On Hearing Crickets

The scene of my unwelcome epiphany.

It was a cold night in the tent when Sue bemoaned the absence of a cricket chorus. It had been cacophonous in our previous August visit, but now she heard nothing.

Said John: "What? I hear crickets. How come I hear crickets with my hearing aids out when you sharp ears can't hear them?"

I figured that my ears were simply playing tricks on me.

Early next morning I could hear a rumbling sort of motor.

"Wait a minute! We're way out in the country. There are no motors out here."

I realized in a rather in-tents (heh heh) and unwelcome epiphany that my miserable body had developed the symptoms of tinnitus to go along with all of my other problems — such as diminishing brain capacity, which is something, believe you me, that I cannot afford.

Ever since that night, I have been aware of a constant sort of roaring, mostly seeming to be in my left ear. The crickets prefer my right ear and are frequently, at least partially, drowned out by the motor-like rumble of the other, louder noise.

Great: two noises for the price of one.

Apparently, when I had previously rejoiced upon being able to hear crickets with my sadly depleted hearing back in August, I had been actually hearing the sound of my own head going a bit bonkers.

How long I have had this condition I know not. I think that for awhile I have assumed that I was simply hearing ambient noise, but that night in the tent in the country revealed that not to be the case.

Fortunately, I manage to put the intruding noise into the background much of the time.

But when I realize that it's there, like right freakin now, I hear it loud and clear.

And I am greatly irked.

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From the Mayo Clinic web site
(Kraft or Hellman's, I wonder? What mayo has to do with tinnitus, I know not.)

Tinnitus (TIN-ih-tus) is noise or ringing in the ears. A common problem, tinnitus affects about 1 in 5 people. Tinnitus isn't a condition itself — it's a symptom of an underlying condition, such as age-related hearing loss, ear injury or a circulatory system disorder.

Although bothersome, tinnitus usually isn't a sign of something serious. Although it can worsen with age, for many people, tinnitus can improve with treatment. Treating an identified underlying cause sometimes helps. Other treatments reduce or mask the noise, making tinnitus less noticeable.

A common cause of tinnitus is inner ear cell damage. Tiny, delicate hairs in your inner ear move in relation to the pressure of sound waves. This triggers ear cells to release an electrical signal through a nerve from your ear (auditory nerve) to your brain. Your brain interprets these signals as sound. If the hairs inside your inner ear are bent or broken, they can "leak" random electrical impulses to your brain, causing tinnitus.