Back in 2019, I threw a dog birthday party for my wheaten Sophie's 10th birthday. She's the one in the pink collar.
Sophie was my soul dog who passed away a little over a year ago. Her birthday is coming up, and this video popped up in my memories, so I wanted to share. No lie, feeding dog cake to a bunch of wheaten terriers and their friends was truly a dream come true.
Does anyone else think this is a reference to the voice actress sounding so much like Lisa Kudrow? I thought Marsha from I Bob Your Pardon was voiced by Lisa Kudrow until I heard this line enough times to make me curious, and I looked it up.
She is actually voiced by Lennon Parham.
I was born with/have had no hearing in my right ear since I was a baby. As an adult, I've taken more proactive steps to try to make my daily life easier, ask for accommodations, change my social habits to minimize the effect of my deafness, etc., which btw has worked out really well for me and I highly recommend it.
In the last few years, I've noticed one very stubborn and difficult to change social situation where everyone hugs with their heads to the left of each other. Have you noticed this?
Every time someone goes in for a hug, they lean their head to their left (my right). And if I want to be able to hear what they say when they hug me, I have to veer my head right to "force" the hug to be on the correct side for me. Even people who've known of my deafness for as long as they've known me do this, and I don't think it's deliberate or malicious or anything. I think for some reason, when going in for hugs, across many cultures I've encountered, people habitually hug with their head to the left, and the other person's head on their right shoulder. It's similar to shaking hands... basically, everyone shakes with their right hand. It's just what people do.
As a result, I feel like this is specifically a right-sided SSHL issue. If my deaf ear was the left side, it would not be a problem. Kind of like driving in countries where the steering wheel is on the left side of the car, which is where I've lived my whole life. If I'm driving, it's going to be difficult hearing the passenger no matter what I do. I specifically prioritized cars where the driving experience is quiet when buying my last car, but it's still an issue.
The hugging thing is genuinely a very difficult point of social conflict for my disability, and for years I've struggled to find a "fix" for it. I've always gone for the approach of being direct and open, so for a while I thought maybe I could post something on social media like, "Hey, when you hug me, please be mindful of this." But I also don't really use social media anymore and I don't know how many people in my life would actually see it. So I never ended up doing it.
Am I just doomed to do the awkward head veer for the rest of my life? Because people almost always say stuff when hugging and it's basically impossible for me to hear them and it's so annoying to ask them to repeat it every single time. 😭