The Following Two Things Happened To Me Last Night

1. I went to the trash room to dump some trash and recyclables. I guess that the sign on the one recycling bin that says "glass and plastics only" was too unclear for the person who stuffed the bin full of cardboard.

2. I heard a siren in the distance as I walked back up the driveway from the trash room to the house and it made me remember that when I was little, all of the sirens sounded different. I could differentiate between police, ambulance, and fire engine just by the sound. I haven't thought about that in years, but thinking about it last night made me realize that I can't do that anymore. I asked Josh when I came back inside whether he remembered the different sounds from childhood and he said that he did. He also told me that he still thinks that the different kinds of sirens make distinctive sounds and that he can usually tell the type of emergency vehicle without looking at it. This made me feel vaguely sad. Why can't I tell the difference anymore?

Maybe now I finally have a frame of reference for how he feels about being colorblind. Sometimes it really drives me nuts when he comes up to me holding out a pair of pants and asks, "What color are these?" I never know what to say because, I mean, what color is anything really? I can tell him that the pants are greenish grey, but as for what kind of picture those words make in his mind, I have no idea if it matches up with what I see when I look at the pants. I try to be patient with color inquiries, but even when I succeed, it's like water slowly eroding rock. I lose patience in the end. It just takes longer.