One of the news internet sites I frequent is news.yahoo.com, which is read by millions of web surfers daily. Actually, I skip the main page, and click on my bookmark which takes me directly to the Most Popular page which lists the Most Emailed, Most Viewed, and Most Recommended News because I like to read what people’s already screened for me, for what limited time I have for reading news on the internet.

So you can imagine my excitement when I first glanced at the very first news story being featured at #1 ranking under Most Emailed News, and it had the word “Deaf” in its headline.

Never mind virtually all of the deaf community knows of Laurent, South Dakota, the deaf village Marvin Miller is planning. Such an ambitious project, we all say. And yes, ambition as a good quality being showcased for the entire world to see is just enthralling.

Article: Man Wants to Create Town for the Deaf

T. Alan Hurwitz, CEO/dean of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and vice president of Rochester Institute of Technology wrote a Editorial/Opinion in USA Today.

Hurwitz discusses his childhood of struggles as a deaf person of deaf parents, and how the Americans with Disabilities Act has brought change. He writes, “…while it has taken longer than hoped, this law has been successful in enlightening many of those who misunderstand disabilities or whose actions are clouded by prejudice and ignorance.”

Article: Disabilities Act helps, but everyone has a role, too.

According to this press release from WMATA’s site, the Metro Board of Directors has now approved Segways for use on Metro trains, but not Metrobuses. They will have a similar policy to bicycles - don’t bring them on the train during peak hours.

Notice that WMATA has carefully cautioned you to step off them when going up or down, writing “They must be walked, not ridden…on escalators. ” I’m glad they pointed that out. I’m not too keen on the idea of a 100-pound scooter crashing down the extra-long Bethesda escalators, mowing down a full column of hapless passengers. It would give new meaning to the “stand on right, walk on left” rule.

With a nod to people who must use Segways due to mobility disabilities, it’s comforting to know that “abled” walkers can now dispense with their laborious two-legged locomotive system and ride on a glorified gyroscopic Muggle broom from their front doors down to the Metro platform, hop onto the train and off, and then ride to their destination. D.C. is known as a walking city - but you can chuck that label and do it your own way. Just ride a Segway and expend absolutely zero calories!

Still, I’d want to ride it ON the train, and see if the Segway’s stabilizers can fend off the lurching motions. They can spin around, too, so it’s a perfect get-away if you’re standing face-to-face with an unpleasant-looking bloke on a crowded car.

I’m signing up for a Zipcar account right now, but I think a Zipsegway scheme would also be an excellent idea.

Homemakers deserve all the props in the world.  You know it and I know it.  So do working parents.

A lot can be said for both sides of the debate: homemakers don’t get enough credit for being basically a CEO, maid, chef, chauffeur, and nanny all rolled up into one; working parents sacrifice so much in order to be able to provide for their family - time with kids, being the best parents they can be, cutting corners when it comes to domestic upkeep.

Even though homemakers don’t receive anough credit (and, for that matter, neither do working parents — heck, let’s just all lay off parents once in a while), they’re certainly blessed.

Enter Alli.

Crap.

Okay, so I’m not exactly a working parent, since I’m a college student and “work,” for me, consists of freelance graphic design and a part-time on-campus job in between classes.  During the summer breaks, I relapse back into homemaker mode, a role I enjoyed exclusively for the first eighteen months of Leah’s life.  But I still get the idea. 

And the idea is that we need to keep Alli as far away from being a homemaker as possible.

Proof lies in the hour before CK came home from his business trip last week.  I’d been paging him and paging him and paging him all day, trying to find out when he was supposed to be home.  Finally I send myself a test message and realize tmobile is down again.  Figures  Fine, I text him instead and he says he’s already on 270 and on his way home.

All together now:  Crap.

It’s 9:30 at night and Leah isn’t even in her jammies (bedtime was an hour ago).  Dishes are piled up along the kitchen counter, and the dishwasher is still full of clean dishes from when we ran it the day CK left.  Laundry hasn’t been folded, toys are everywhere.  Desk is full of slips of paper from a mid-morning checkbook crisis and notes from a design project I’d been procrastinating on.  Our swim bag full of wet suits and towels from a trip to the pool a couple hours ago hasn’t been unpacked or aired out.  And me?  I’m sitting on the couch reading Harry Potter.

He texts me again, says he’ll be home in half an hour.

Again: Crap.

I switch into supermom mode.   Okay, okay… more like desperate hag mode.

Compromises with my inner supermom/hag are made and I pick up 3/4ths of the toys.  The rest are thrown into Leah’s room and concealed behind closed doors. 

I do all the dishes except the pots and pans and I drown those in water and soap.  I can say I left them “to soak.” 

Leah gets in her jammies and I tell her to get in bed NOW.  Fine, read books, take your cars in bed, have a frickin’ tea party in there, I don’t care.  Just get in bed NOW (add silently so she doesn’t get all riled up again: before daddy gets home).

Send CK some mooshy message about how I’m just sitting at home in sweet wifely devotion waiting for him.  Throw pager back on desk and run to clean  bathroom’s feared Female Toiletry Sprawl.

Okay, so now the house is still a mess, but it’s manageable.  Smooth down my hair, apply lipstick, pour a mug of tea, sit back on the couch at 9:55, do quick survey of immediate area, make sure there’s nothing too bad, and open up Harry Potter and put my feet up.  I see the cats’ ears flick toward the door, and CK’s head peeks into the room.

“Darling!” I say, grinning brightly to cover my panting breath.  “You’re home!  I’ve missed you!”  He even gives me a hug as I say, “What, me?  Oh, been doing nothing, really.”

…Behind my back he grimaces at the fresh juice stain on carpet.  Then he hugs me again without saying anything.  Now, that’s a good boy.

It’s been 28 months since I found out my daughter is deaf. And everyday I still am in shock. But it’s starting to wear off. We figured Leah would be hearing. Boy, wrong-o.

Leah was born 4 weeks early. Although her weight was on the low side of “normal” and her height was normal, she had jaundice. After she spent 6 days in the hospital recovering, we brought her home and gave her all the love she needed. We spoke and signed with her through her first months. I even turned on the musical mobile and watched her gaze at it in amazement. We played musical toys for her, and watched her look at them.

At 15 months old, our pediatrician suggested we get Leah’s hearing retested. Of course, I was like, “no, what for?” It was to check if she did have hearing loss because she had language delay. “No! She signs ASL, she’s perfectly fine,” I retorted. But, we went ahead, and got the biggest shock of our lives. Leah was deaf. D E A F. Stone-deaf.

Ok…keep cool. Now, what to do? Schooling. Language. Peers. Residence location. All important factors that changed when we found out about Leah.

The DC metro area is probably the best location in the United States, if not the world, to raise a deaf child. Within a 50-mile radius are educational programs that immerse bi-bi philosophy, cued speech, total communication, or oral method – all varied ways of teaching deaf children. There is Kendall School, Montgomery County, Fairfax County, and Maryland School for the Deaf. Plus many programs and services. What more could we ask for?

Plus, we had originally planned to have Leah in day care programs close to home (or our workplace) where she’d be with other hearing children – now she goes to nursery and CDC at Gallaudet. There, she’s with deaf and hearing children.

It seems like we have everything we need for Leah. In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing her experience the same – only better – things Alli and I experienced growing up. She can go to a deaf residential school like we did. She can go to Gallaudet. She can join a sorority. She can do many other things. It does seem as if we’ve been blessed.

I was scouring the blogosphere when I came across this delicious piece of news regarding our new Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts Jr. DCist reports that he was the justice on the Court of Appeals that upheld the conviction of Ansche Hedgepeth, 12. What did she do? She ate a french fry while riding the Metro and was subsequently searched, handcuffed, and sent to juvie for three hours.

Justice Roberts, to his credit, said it was “foolish” for WMATA police to handcuff Miss Hedgepeth, but ruled that the transit system’s rules did not violate her constitutional rights.

I don’t really have any opinion one way or another about whether it’s okay to eat on the Metro; the rules say I can’t, so I’m going to obey them. It’s the law for a good reason; it keeps our trains clean. Have you seen how many people just leave the Express lying around?

It does suck when you can’t drink coffee in the morning, but Metro makes it even more difficult NOT to bring food and drink on the train when they don’t even provide trash cans on the station platforms. Putting them back on the platforms would help keep the trains cleaner, allow people to munch away on the platforms, AND generate less negative publicity than arresting people for eating on the train.

It’s amazing how hysteria can deprive us of something as simple as a garbage can. When are those bomb-proof cans that Metro keeps promising us coming?

Proof one: I busted her walking around with our copy of Harry Potter.

Proof two: She was cradling it and comforting it like it was a baby (and yes, we have plenty of baby dolls for her to mother around).

Proof three: When I told her I was afraid of her hurting the book and took it away, she burst into tears and asked for the book for an hour afterwards.

*heart bursting with pride* That’s my girl!

So, you want to pick a location for the next DPHH? Excellent. You might be curious how I picked Kelley’s Irish Times for August’s DPHH. No, it wasn’t done by lot, darts, or the Electoral College.

When the time comes to pick the next DPHH location, I must consider a few important factors. The first, is, of course, the Metro. One ironclad rule is that we always, always pick a location that is Metro-accessible, with the exception of Georgetown (because people are always willing to walk there). That pretty much excludes Glover Park/Upper Georgetown, most of Arlington, and College Park. We also don’t want to make people ride too far away, so the far-away stations like Shady Grove, Greenbelt, Vienna, or Franconia-Springfield are out.

Second is the MD-DC-VA rule. When I took over in April, I had a few e-mails from one guy who was loudly complaining that we hadn’t held a DPHH near Prince George’s County in, like, forever. Galaxy Billiards was my answer. I try and stick to a rule of MD, then DC, then VA, then back to DC, then MD, then DC, then VA. A DPHH in DC will happen every other month. Of course, enforcement of this rule is not under penalty of forced exile; I’m certainly free to consider a break in the tri-state pattern.

Case in point: September. It’s traditionally the largest DPHH (although last April and May were record-breakers, too) because everyone’s back in town. It’s also Virginia’s turn to host this. So I need to find a big, big place. But, because this is one big-ass DPHH comin’ up, maybe DC would be a better location - more accessible to both VA and MD. So that’s one issue I’m going to need to solve; suggestions are much appreciated!

And the third factor ties in with September, too. DC’s DPHH is huge. Gargantuan. Gigantic. Colossal. Elephantine. Brobdingnagian. That presents an interesting challenge. I need to find places to accomodate up to 250 people, and NOT pay for it via a reservation or per-guest fee. Many sports bars fall in this category, but I’m sure everyone here would appreciate a DPHH that wasn’t always at a sports bar. Nightclubs also fall in this supersize category, but they charge admission and are usually dark (they aren’t called dayclubs, after all), so it doesn’t make for a friendly DPHH location.

Most “cool” bars or lounges are, unfortunately, the size of a thimble. I remember the nightmare that was December’s DPHH. Cafe Citron on a Friday night - hah. The guest line snaked a half-block up Connecticut, with half the people signing away in the cold. That’s not what I picture DPHH to be; we waste enough time waiting in lines at other places anyway. So small places are out, no matter how cool they may be.

So, do-do? Just do the best I can, and call around. Here’s the saga that became August’s DPHH.

First, I decided on a neighborhood. August is DC’s turn, and I arbitrarily picked Capitol Hill. Just personal preference (well, that and the fact that I’m moving there August 1st). I immediately turned to the Washington Post and BarDC.com for clues. They led me to two places: Lounge 201 and The Ugly Mug. Both looked like good locations, with Lounge 201 leading. But I thought Lounge 201 might be too small and pretentious, and The Ugly Mug too similar to The Pour House. So I went back to the search.

I came across Zanzibar. Hot damn, I thought. Afro-Caribbean jammin’. And sure, it’s close enough to Capitol Hill. I called them up to inquire. I was blown away by their admission fees: $10 before 11 PM, and $20 after. Screw that.

So I went to call Lounge 201. The guy, Matt, was very nice and willing to hear me out. However, he preferred to rent out the private room for our event, saying that Lounge 201 could really only “accomodate a walk-in crowd of 30-50.” He didn’t want to push out the regulars with our wild signing and gesticulating, so that was out. DPHH doesn’t usually pay for the privilege of hosting the event at a specific location.

Dejected, I figured The Ugly Mug was my last choice. I went there last night to check it out with my sister plus a friend. Okay - it was way too small. Finn Mac’s next door was more than twice the size. We’d have people being squished right through the woodwork. *slish squish smiish*

So my sister suggested Kelley’s Irish Times. I had briefly considered that during my original online search, but was turned off by the Washington Post’s review mentioning it being mostly frequented by college students; not what DPHH’s crowd in the summer usually is. But duh - it’s summertime. School’s out. If there’s ever a good time to host it at The Irish Times, this is it.

So, I picked that this morning and posted it up on DeafDC.com. And there’s that. May God have mercy on the brave souls of Kelley’s Irish Times.

Now, would anyone like to offer any haphazard suggestions for September? October?

A story I heard recently: a party of people dining out put together their amounts to pay the bill, and, to their shock, $100 was missing. Some people already had left the table. The result: someone had to pay that extra $100 to make the bill. Ouch. Not nice.

After posting the blog entry on tipping (Hot Lunch: Tipping; July 12), I’ve thought about experiences where people didn’t pay their part of the bill. This isn’t another rant on deaf-restuarant-patron’s-supposedly-poor-tipping-habit. Have you had to pay more than your share, because way more than the tip owed was missing? Ever has it happened where the person in charge of the bill stood up to say, “So, hey, everybody, I’m sorry I don’t know what’s happened, there’s dollars missing,” pointing to the dollar bills in her or his hand. Sounds eerily familiar.

This is stealing, nothing less. You have been robbed, sir. This is one time when you’re dealing with two things that don’t mix well: friends and money. And so, there’s very little room for “innocent mistakes”. Think of it in this way: dining out with your friends is a good test of trustworthiness.

The bright side is that as I get older and more friends hold jobs, the likeihood of this happening grows smaller.

Like my comrade blogger, Adam…I, too, was in Texas last weekend.

No, I did not converge on head lice, per se, but I was at the AP National Conference in Houston. Added bonuses? My workplace paid for it, and I got to meet a longtime blogger-friend for the first time and it was a CHAMP time.

Being in Houston made me appreciate — and not appreciate a few things about DC. I loved how open things looked, but also remembered how cozy things can feel in DC. I loved not having to worry about massive traffic problems in Houston, and cringed at our nationally ranked (4th) traffic nightmare.

I did not have a chance to visit the famed museum and theatre districts in Houston. *mental note to self: get a car rental next time* I’ve heard they equal what’s here in DC.

I had a total of 5 different interpreters the whole time I was there. Maybe it was the RID conference to the west, but I had 60% ineffective interpreting. Yes, that says a lot…that only two of the interpreters I enjoyed — and understood. That made me appreciate DC interpreters more.

On the plane back home last night, I was thinking about DC — and it hit me. This year is the 10th year I’ve lived in DC (my years in high school at MSSD, as a college student, and now as a federal employee). Then I figured out…I’m 26, that means in only 5 more years, I will have lived in DC as long as I did in my birthplace, Woodstock, NY.

*shrieks*

I don’t know if that’s a good thing…but I knew I had to appreciate what DC has offered. Heck, being here offered me the opportunity to meet my wonderfully blessed and incredibly talented (she kicks my butt at Trivial Pursuit, as much as I hate to admit it) wife and my adorable lil’ Red.

And…thank God for MARC. I don’t know what I’d do without public transportation. Maybe in my next life, I’ll be a hermit in Montana. Yeah…that’ll do!