The Sound of Silence

My daughter is taking "American Sign Language" this year. She has DVDs that she is assigned to watch at home. When she goes in to do her lesson on the DVD I still am surprised that she's in there in complete silence. There is no talking on the DVD.
Duh!

She has been sharing new vocabulary with me. We practice together. It is EXHAUSTING! By the time we finish a fairly simple conversation I am amazed at how much it takes out of you. I truly appreciate the wonderful gift of speech and hearing that I have. We take for granted the fact that we can talk and don't even have to be in the same room with a person or that we don't have to watch their every hand movement and "read" words that are spelled letter by letter.
Wow!

On another note, I have a new cell phone and a new wireless plan that includes texting. I am trying to catch up to all you people who have been texting for ions. If you do text me, realize that it will take awhile for you to hear back from me. And I will be the one writing in complete sentences (like a dork). I still don't recognize that it's MY phone that is ringing (or singing or whatever it is doing). I was at the pharmacy the other day and I heard this music start playing. It continued playing (I realized it was a phone and NO ONE was answering it !!) I glanced over at the man standing next to me only to discover him looking at me.

"Oh! Is that my phone?!" I said. It was! Of course by the time I discovered that and fumbled to get it out of my pocket, turn it over and look at it, it stopped ringing.

At home, I hear various phone sounds and I'm always asking if it's my phone (if it rings/sounds for longer than 2 seconds -- the usual time it takes one of my kids to answer their phones) but no, it's not mine. My son is living at home again. His phone does something (beep, play, ring, etc) constantly. "It's mine," he replies.

I think I'm getting a ringing in my ears. Don't know if I'm getting a brain tumor from talking on a cell phone or if it's from hearing all those "unnatural" sounds constantly. Maybe it's because people are TALKING (or texting) about me ... no, wait, that makes your nose itch, right?