Catchup post #1: Jazzfest 2012!

I've been a busy Zebra these last weeks so here come a bunch of "catch up posts!

Last weekend was the second week of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, or as we call it-- Jazzfest. Yes, I'm deaf and blind, and yes, I look forward to this festival every year. You can read about some of reasons Many PWD enjoy attending the fest, and you might see a familiar face in the article
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People always ask me, why a person who is both deaf and blind wants to go to a music festival? And it's really hard to explain.

First of all, I do get tactual ASL interpreters for the performances I attend. And even if I didn't, I'd probably still go. I love walking around the race track with my friends, scoping out all of the food options, visiting with other friends in the access tent and just taking it all in. Oh and watching my dog work it all! I mean, literally thousands of people-- traveling the pathways, standing in groups talking, standing in lines, or just dancing. She guides me around them all, and then takes a nap during the concerts or when I stop to eat. I am amazed by her flawless work at this festival every year.

This year was no exception. I started picking the acts I wanted to see in January and only came to a decision in early April. In the morning, I saw Big Sam's funky nation. It was a great deal of fun. They are a local band, but I try to see one local group every year since I never usually get to see them with an interpreter.

The second group I saw was the Eagles. Yes, those Eagles, and yes, they are old but still rocking their guitars, even Joe Walsh, who has no teeth, by now. When they came on stage, my interpreter told me how old they looked, but that they were sounding great. You can go to Youtube and see some of the songs they did, such as
<"Life In The Fast Lane">
<"Desperado">
<"Hotel California">

and

<"Peaceful Easy Feeling">

I sat right next to the stage, and Laveau *slept* or at least laid down and chilled in the wooden box which is set up for the platform interpreters who sign for the sighted deaf during the performance. One of the sides of this box is open and Laveau spent this performance-- as she has the past four years of performances-- chillin in the box. As one Jazz Fest worker put it: "Oh, there's the dog who sleeps through rock concerts!"

This was an amazing show, brought to life for me through the combined talents of the band and of my interpreters! The weather was beautiful, with enough sun to keep it from raining, enough wind to keep the air moving, and enough clouds, to keep from baking.

Now I have to wait a whole year until my next Jazzfest! I think my arms will be rested by then!

Silent Night, Holy Night.

So this is my first Christmas without Christmas music. Ok, I should actually qualify that because I can still hear *some* music with my iPod and a device that hooks it up to my bluetooth hearing aid. But the funny thing about Christmas music-- at least for me-- was that its all-pervasiveness during the season is what really made it feel like the holiday.
I mean, how many people complain about that music in the grocery store, or the bathroom in the gas station, on the radio and in line at the post office. For a month, everywhere we go we are accompanied by St. Nick, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snow Man. Not to mention the Hippopotamus someone wants under their tree. It's a very quiet Christmas for me, and I really have to learn to appreciate the holidays in a new way.

I can smell evergreens when we walk toward the store. That smell immediately brings me back to my childhood, gathered around the tree with my sisters telling stories of each ornament we hung.

I love the smell of baking cookies, and cinnamon. The funny moving stuffed animal decorations, and the feeling of ribbon, garland and the hard cold metal ball of a bell in my hand.

When people express amazement that I have a real tree in my house, I smile. The tree is one of the few parts of the season which I can experience. I love the prickly branches, the scent of pine, and the tasks of every-day maintenance. And always there are the ornaments.

When I was a kid, my mother started giving me ornaments for the tree every year. When I moved out, I took the ornaments and hung them on many of my own trees. In August of 2005 they were lost, like so many things were, in the destruction brought on by hurricane Katrina and the failure of the federal levees.

Mister Pawpower and I had gone to Memphis and we had no ornaments. We decided to make our own and so we took a trip to a craft store for pipe cleaners, bulbs, buttons, and puff-paint.

We sat around our little table and created another chapter of our history. That was also the last Christmas I was able to hear any holiday music without amplification.

When we moved back here, we started collecting more ornaments. We still use the ones we made, because they remind me to persevere during the trying times. We have dog-statue ornaments, and many home-made ones from wonderful artist friends. We have funny ones shaped like Bigger (because he's a lot like Mill'E-Max), We have ones with big hearts (for Bristol), We have ones for Rudy, Gracy, and all the other dogs we have had in our lives. This year I believe we will have a striped ornament for our very special striped dog. As we decorate the tree, we tell the stories of how this particular bit of history came to us. So that by the time the tree is decorated, it is a story in its own right.

I have really been making an effort to find new ways to appreciate this time of year. However I can't seem to get away from the music! This morning, I was in Walmart with my SSP. I was surprised I could hear some kind of high pitched noise. I didn't know what it was and more and more, it sounded like someone moaning in pain, or a wounded farm animal. I asked my SSP if she could hear that moaning noise and she replied that that was not moaning, but that song "Angels We Have Heard on High." They were on the "glooooooooooooria" part, I guess. Only it didn't sound very glorious to me. We instead had a good laugh about barn yard animals singing Christmas music, because it really did sound like that! I've ruined Christmas music for her forever now!