Remember the moments...dance to the music...feel the memories...

I am on this weird soup kick. It must be the weather. I was in the kitchen making Leek soup and I was chopping potatoes with my back turned to my mom who was in the living room. She says to me "Does this look alright?" I turned around and I told her it looks fine but add a jacket. I went back to chopping potatoes and my mom goes, "Abbie! You just heard me!" Damn skippy I did!

While I am on the subject of the kitchen, I hear boiling water, pans heating up, frying, oil popping, food cooking in general. I never heard the little subtleties of onions and garlic being sautéed if that is the correct terminology for it. I usually burned them but now that I can hear the EVOO just beginning to heat up. I am proud to announce I have gotten it down to a culinary science of not burning food!

Now let us switch gears from the culinary station to my place of employment. Right behind my sunny little cubicle is another sunny little cubicle four feet behind me occupied by an Italian sweetie named Angie. Before I went bionic, Angie has devised all sorts of techniques to get my attention. They range from shouting, doing the wave, showering me with paper clips, and rubber band target practice. She made work fun for me :) She has perfected her aim to the point that I was going to badger her to join my softball team. Now all she has to do is say my name and I turn around. She is absolutely stoked that she doesn't have to resort to beaning me in the head anymore. Although, I am a little disappointed, I don't want her to lose that arm she got. She might be the "one" we need to win a softball game!

Now let us go from my sunny little cubicle to any random mercantile establishment. I was never aware of how many stores or malls play music until I went bionic. It is one of life's little nuances when you can hear something in the background. Those head bopping civilians you see shopping are not victims of the nervous twitch, they are actually listening to the music! It all makes sense now. I can hear the beeping on the cash register. I can hear those rare employees that have developed proper customer service skills say, "Have a nice day!" New Jersey is not known for its neighborly disposition. I can hear my friends call my name if I am ahead of them looking for something. I cannot lose them as easily as I use too anymore.

Now let us go from a random mercantile establishment to the comfort of my Laz-E-Boy. Besides the fact that I can sit here and hear my heater turn on which sounds like a spaceship powering up, this is where I do my auditory rehab. I have my direct connect cord plugged right into the laptop at one end and plugged right into my cochlear implant at the other end. It is called daisy chain in nerd talk. I listen to audio books (currently listening to the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickinson, Christmas came early for me :)), online stories, audio dictionaries, English language websites, and finally, MUSIC! If anyone knows me, they know I love Chris Daughtry. His voice is so captivating. He was the last singer I heard before what little hair cells I had left on my cochlea started dying one by one. I brought his CD to support him but knowing if I listened to his CD, it would have sounded awful. It was not just him because all music sounded horrible. Let me see if I can attempt to describe what music sounded like when I heard it. Oh! I know! Hook up any radio to a pair of blown out speakers, turn it on to the worst radio station, and throw the entire thing in a Rubbermaid trash can. That is what I heard, trash.

Now that I am bionically capable of hearing Daughtry, I have been listening and reading along with the lyrics. He sounds utterly and absolutely amazing now then when he was on American Idol! Total ear candy! Now the real kicker is that Chris Daughtry is going to be playing at the Poland Spring Arena on December 7th, which is right up the street from me, and it is all SOLD OUT! I did not hear the radio announcement that the tickets went on sale early. DOH! I felt like someone hit me right between the running lights. sigh... Maybe I will just hang out in the parking lot and hope that my bionic ear will pick up his sensational voice outside. Don't think I won't have a tail gate party at a Daughtry concert in 30 degree weather because I will.

Chris Daughtry totally rocks my thermal socks.