Peg & Ma Conversations

Most of you know all about Microsoft's Instant Message programme, MSN. Both MSN and AOL's Instant Message have really helped me and my mom. Through no fault of her own, my mother is profoundly deaf. She wasn't always that way, she started losing her hearing at about the age of 26. She's going off for a cochlear implant at the end of next week. Please go to her blog to read all about it.

In the meantime, in these days before the thing is inserted into her head and before they tune it in, we use e-mail and instant messages to communicate. It could very well be that we communicate more now than we ever have.

It happens that when I get home from work, Ma is in her office in Washington D.C. and has just booted up the computer in her office. As she is at work, she often has to drop out and go "earn a crust". I feel bad sometimes for interrupting her working day, but when else can I catch her on line? She is often very busy and not at home during the weekends.

With a slight nod to Tink and her daily Hoop conversations, here is the transcript of today's conversation:

Peggy says: Hi Ma, TGIF! What's the mood in the office today?
M. E. says:
hahah....the mood in the office? sinking fast....
Peggy says:
George is leaving tomorrow morning for Italy
Peggy says:
lucky git
M. E. says:
buncha folks out sick. it is colder than hell this morning. the wind sucks the breath right out of you. ihad to go back home and put on my longies and fleece hoodie after i got to dupont circle today.
M. E. says:
wow! i forgot about that. just in the nick of time! it's what...55 degrees down there now? thought i saw t'other day.
Peggy says:
It is pretty mild here today
Peggy says:
no rain either
Peggy says:
How are you feeling? Less than a week to go!! BTW what luck that you can get your shot from student health
M. E. says:
well, wish him buono viaggio for me
Peggy says:
will do - we have to pack him up tonight
M. E. says:
hope he has a swell time.\
Peggy says:
He'll be fine. I don't envy him the journey. They're going by coach to the Alps. Driving across France will take almost a whole day
M. E. says:
yabbut.....wudn't u like 2 b drivin' cross france in a bus tmw? I WOULD!!!
Peggy says:
I bought a buncha goodies for his trip. Id love to be going along. I tried to volunteer, but oddly, they don't need any parents along for this particular trip
Peggy says:
I can ski and say thank you in Italian
M. E. says:
gee...i wonder why not?
Peggy says:
I'm sure that when they take a trip to the sorting centre of the post office, they'll need us parents again.
M. E. says:
how about "where's the bar?" and "i think his hat looks funny, too."
Peggy says:
I can also say More Grappa!
Peggy says:
and "one litre of house wine please"
Peggy says:
important stuff
M. E. says:
if you say "more grappa," your life is in danger. that stuff is WICKED
Peggy says:
that's an after dinner sentence
M. E. says:
i know...even after dinner the stuff smells and tastes like jet fuel
Peggy says:
I got travel battleship and a deck of cards for his trip. I also got him a paperback that looked interesting. I always hope that some book will light the reading touch paper for that kid.
M. E. says:
well, here's to that! btw, did you see maureen's "why i love wisconsin" poem this ayem?
Peggy says:
I did - I wrote back and said that I hope that she wasn't casting aspersions on the state of my birth.
M. E. says:
M. E. says:
i wouldn't brag too loudly about your birthplace...i'm thinking specifically of the hospital in antigo. as uncle jim used to say, "the lady comes in and mops the floor, then half an hour later she comes back wearing a hat and gives you a shot.
Peggy says:
chuckle
M. E. says:
the food was divine, though. everything was homemade. EVERYTHING, including the bread for the sandwiches and the toast,
M. E. says:
if you were a nursing mother, they'd come by in the evening with a nice leftover roast beef sandwich on homemade bread.
Peggy says:
It always confuses me that none of my boys were ever big readers.
I remember you raving about the food in Antigo. You sure didn't like the food in Bismarck though. "Everything tastes of chemicals, except the coffee which tasted of tin."
M. E. says:
haha....too true. the first time i had a drink of water at our log house, i thought i'd been poisoned! it burned all the way down, and i could taste it for hours after. pure alkali with a heavy dose of iron.
Peggy says:
Gosh, I don't remember having bad tasting water.
Peggy says:
I do remember you buying bottled water for Tom when he was an infant.
M. E. says:
you probably got used to it.
M. E. says:
it was just at the log house that the water was so horble.
M. E. says:
our own well.....eck
Peggy says:
I wonder if they ever connected to the city main. They must have done as the place is no longer on the edge of town.
M. E. says:
most people with their own wells down there had an iron filter and whatever else made it halfway palatable
M. E. says:
gotta bounce....
Peggy says:
Poor guys from Sears having to come out to fix the pump and fainting because of the snakes.
Peggy says:
OK - TTYL - XX


Instant Message conversations are sometimes double conversations. While you are typing the response to one sentence, a new subject pops up. I'm very well known for changing the subject of a conversation mid-stream.

So, that's what's going on for me. George is off tomorrow for a week in the Italian Alps and Ma is getting a wire stuck in her head. Best of luck to the both of them.

I'd dearly love to be there at about April time when they fire up the cochlear implant and Mom will be able to hear again. I'll see what I can do about that. We could go try listening to music, birdsong, full conversations where I'm not struggling to remember what the ASL sign is for the letter "R". I know that there is a number of sessions that the implantee has to go through until they've reached the final tune in and hearing new sounds will be a gradual thing but I can hardly wait to phone her!

More immediately, The Man of the Place and I are going to be childless for a whole week. It will give us a window into what life will be like in five years time when this last child bolts off to university to drink beer and lose his virginity.

One last thing . . . . Why are all the sons of somebody who dearly loves to read completely uninterested in books?