Do you ever watch the cooking show, Chopped? I like it and I learn something every time, for example:
asafoetida |ˌasəˈfiːtɪdə, -ˈfɛt-| (USasafetida)
noun
1 [ mass noun ] a fetid resinous gum obtained from the roots of a herbaceous plant, used in herbal medicine and Indian cooking.
2 a Eurasian plant of the parsley family, from which asafoetida gum is obtained.
They had to cook with it the other night. This is not about food or cooking.
Lately I have been bothered by the background music during the show; it’s so loud I can’t make out exactly what the cooks or critics are saying, or when I do, the music is annoying. I noticed when I watch the public channel (WNED where I live) that BBC productions have a lot of ambient noise that makes it difficult for me to understand a Yorkshire accent, for example. I had my annual medical checkup recently and I asked my doctor about it just as she was going to recommend a hearing test. I’m the right age for it. Well, my test revealed some hearing impairment, enough to warrant some aid.
Shock!
I have been trying to adjust to this new onslaught. I guess I had long since been reconciled to wearing glasses. I do remember when I started university, hiding my glasses in my binder every time I saw a boy . My father couldn’t understand why I kept breaking them. Nowadays it would not be a problem; everything is made of plastic. The witty and acerbic American poet, Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) wrote a devastating couplet that haunted me:
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
The poem was called News Item, published in 1927.
l was comforted by the rebuttal written by Ogden Nash (1902-1971), another American poet best known for his light verse. I’m going to write this without checking, not sure if I can find the whole poem online:
Yes, girls who are be-spectacled
Will never get their neck tickled.
But safety pins and bassinets
Await the girl who fascinets.
I found it!
I almost had it:
A girl who is bespectacled
She may not get her necktacled;
But safety pins and bassinets
Await the girl who fassinets.
His spelling is a little different. This is not about Parker or Nash.
It’s about my hearing impairment, I don’t want to call it loss. But it is. It is a loss, another slipping away of my faculties and strengths as I age.. That’s what I'm having trouble with. TSEliot again (I quoted him yesterday), this time from memory:
I grow old, I grow old,
I shall have my trousers rolled.
Do I dare to eat a peach?
Here’s the original:
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
Ai me.
I had better quit while I’m ahead while I still have most of my marbles.