12 Low Vision Moments of Christmas, Part 1

Jennie:
This is Low Vision Moments, the podcast all about those sometimes frustrating, potentially embarrassing, but often pretty comical things that happen when you are just going about your day with blindness, visual impairment or albinism. I am your ho, ho, ho host. Get your minds out of the gutter, listeners. And this is the holiday season. It is upon us, so we are getting festive around here for this episode, number 25. In my house, we do Christmas this time of year, so this episode is going to be Part One of the 12 Low Vision Moments of Christmas. And as a special treat, we're going to drop two episodes in December. We're going to have Part Two of the 12 Low Vision Moments of Christmas dropping on Friday, December 23rd. You're not going to want to miss the second part. While I'm not a religious person, Christmas has always been the biggest holiday in my family, and I love a good get-together. I love the food, I love the drinks, the joyous atmosphere. Everyone's having fun, and the baking. And yeah, I'll admit it, I love getting presents. I like it. Who doesn't like getting presents?
And my guest this time is, I have to say, an early holiday gift. She is a spectacularly talented vocalist, cabaret artist, and advocate. This guest has been singing professionally with great success since the age of 12. They advocate for access and opportunities in the arts, and they encourage others of all ages through music. Marleena Barber, thank you so much for coming on Low Vision Moments.

Marleena Barber:
It's so fun to be here, Jennie. Thanks so much for asking me to join you. I love the holidays, so this is going to be fun.

Jennie:
I knew you were the right choice. I've been following you on Instagram for a couple of years now, and you seem to just... You do holidays. You do them justice, so I'm really excited too. What else do you want the people to know about you?

Marleena Barber:
Well, you're definitely right about loving the holidays. And I think part of that is I'm a mom of two girls. They're 11 and 8, and it's definitely fun to celebrate the holidays with them. I do all the fun things with them, the Elf on the Shelf visits our house, and all of that. I love to bake.

Jennie:
Oh no.

Marleena Barber:
Oh, I know. It's a lot. I love to bake. And yeah, as you mentioned, I am a vocalist, and singing during the holidays is a real big part of my experience. And I actually start the week before Thanksgiving. That's how early I'm starting all of the holiday music. I'm kind of celebrating for two full months.

Jennie:
That's a lot. I like Christmas. And we should clarify, you're referencing American Thanksgiving.

Marleena Barber:
Oh, that's correct. Yes. I live in California, in the United States, so I am talking about the November Thanksgiving that we celebrate here in the States.

Jennie:
Now, there'll be a little bit of singing perhaps here today. Not so much on my part, nobody wants that. But before we get going and into all of that, I wanted to take a second to describe what we've got going on with our wardrobes and our backgrounds-

Marleena Barber:
Oh yes.

Jennie:
... because you're all about it. Tell us what you have going on back there.

Marleena Barber:
Okay. Well, I put up some red and white stripes, sort of like a candy cane wrapping paper. And I have a... I love this. This is a one of those jumpers, and it's a little Santa-looking-

Jennie:
So cute.

Marleena Barber:
... red velvet with the white fur on the top. A little snowflake necklace. So yeah, I'm all... Oh, they are also bells on here, but I did mute them because I didn't want to be making noise during our conversation.

Jennie:
You look so official. You look like you're in uniform, ready to go work at the North Pole. It is awesome.

Marleena Barber:
Thank you.

Jennie:
And let me say, red is our colour. We have similar hair, and skin tone, and all that, so-

Marleena Barber:
I agree. I love wearing red.

Jennie:
Yeah, it is our colour. Thank you for dressing up and decorating for the occasion.

Marleena Barber:
Absolutely.

Jennie:
On my end, I am wearing a Santa hat. Let's not forget about that. It is chilly in here, so it's actually kind of practical. It's keeping me toasty. I got some red lipstick on, very red. Hopefully, there's not too much on my teeth to go with the very red Santa hat. And I have a little dress on. It's got-

Marleena Barber:
Aw.

Jennie:
... gingerbread people and candy canes on it, and-

Marleena Barber:
I love it.

Jennie:
Thank you. And some hearts, and I may or may not have purchased it from... It may or may not be a youth large that I have squeezed into. In my background, I've got a lot going on back there as usual, but I'll tell you some highlights. I've got a really cute star that's lit up. Let me see if we can get it on camera. There we go. I got a little star lit up in behind me there. I've got a wreath that I put together up top. It's got a couple of Star Wars ships. I've got a TIE fighter on there. Made that one myself. And we've got a Santa who's wearing an AMI baseball hat. Plenty more things I could point out, but that's a little bit to set the stage for our viewers and listeners here today. Let's get to it. The 12 Low Vision Moments of Christmas. I'm not going to sing, it's not going to go well.

Marleena Barber:
Just do it. You could do it. You could do it.

Jennie:
I'm nervous now that you're here.

Marleena Barber:
No judgment. No judgment.

Jennie:
On the first day of Christmas, my nephew gave to me, a giant deck of playing cards. And I'm going to elaborate. My nephew gave me a giant deck of playing cards. And when I say giant, I think they're actually called jumbo on the package. They are like a foot tall. They are not exactly practical. I have the joker appropriately-

Marleena Barber:
Oh my goodness.

Jennie:
... representing me. I have it in my hand. It's literally larger than my head. I swear they're like a foot tall. And what was so funny about this was... And I don't recall if it was before he gave me the gift or after I opened it, but he was really nervous that I was going to be offended. He was like, "My aunt's got a great sense of humor, but is this over the line? Is this too much?" And you know what? I could see maybe someone else, but not me. I had a blast with this gift. And as I said, they're really not practical. These cards are so big, you can barely hold one in your hand.

Marleena Barber:
I was just going to say, how are you going to hold a hand?

Jennie:
They're not designed for playing games. Maybe solitaire spread out on the floor or something, but you can bet your keister that the night I got these, we had a group of people over. It was a game night and we were exchanging gifts. I insisted that we played Texas hold 'em with these cards.

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh.

Jennie:
It was ridiculous. Everyone was dropping the cards all over the place. There was not enough room on the table for the spread when you play hold 'em. And I don't know if he, maybe after that regretted getting me this kind of gag gift, but these are the jumbo playing cards. And these are not the kind of playing cards that I would play with. I would prefer a large print set.

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh, Jennie. Look at that. That is-

Jennie:
They're enormous.

Marleena Barber:
... huge.

Jennie:
The first day of Christmas, my nephew gave to me, a giant deck of playing cards. And we all have awkward gift-giving moments. What's yours?

Marleena Barber:
Okay. Well, first, I think that that was very thoughtful of him. It was very cute. On the second day of Christmas, my parents gave to me, Kelly Clarkson tickets. Okay, Kelly Clarkson tickets. You're thinking, "Oh, this is great."

Jennie:
Way better.

Marleena Barber:
It's how I found out about these tickets. Usually, when I receive a greeting card, birthday card, they're hard to see. Usually, the print in the card is kind of small. When anyone writes a personal handwritten message, it's even more difficult sometimes to read handwriting. And it doesn't even-

Jennie:
Next to impossible.

Marleena Barber:
And it doesn't even matter if they try to write large. Sometimes just people's handwriting, it's just hard to see it. If I don't have my low vision aids around or my reading glasses, what I'll normally do is I'll just set it aside and I'll say, "Oh, thank you so much. I'll read your personal message later." Well, here it is, Christmas morning. This was actually a few years ago. And we do Christmas with my kids here at home, and then we would go over to my parents. We're having Christmas with them, and my parents still give me a stocking, which I love. I love all the little trinkets and things in the stocking. And there's a card in there. I open the card, and I skim over the writing in the card. And then I see that there's a written handwritten message, and I do what I normally do. I just kind of put it away, and plan to read it at another time.
And all of a sudden there's this awkward silence. And my mom says to me, "Well, did you read the card?" And I said, "Oh, well, I'll read the personal message later." And she's like, "No, the present's in the card. You need to read the card." Then I opened up the card, and I'm squinting and reading, oh, "You have tickets to Kelly Clarkson in Las Vegas." I was so excited because I personally love Kelly Clarkson. I was very excited to get those tickets, but I sort of killed the moment with that low vision moment. And I felt a little bad because it wasn't as exciting as I think my mom was hoping the moment would be. So yeah, that's the Kelly Clarkson moment.

Jennie:
Oh my goodness. I think so many of us do that with low vision, or if you're blind. You're going to set it aside for later.

Marleena Barber:
Yes.

Jennie:
We often come back to this on the podcast, and it's like, mom, dad, maybe should understand what's going on. But again, the thought is there, and the consideration is there, and it's such a lovely gift. But I can totally see that happening to me. I do the exact same thing. And in fact, I pretend to read the card. Get a glance at it for a minute, skim over it, and then I do genuinely take the time to come back and read it later, right?

Marleena Barber:
Yes, I definitely do too. Because usually those handwritten messages are very personal, and they're nice, and I definitely want to read them, but it's just you're kind of put on the spot.

Jennie:
Exactly.

Marleena Barber:
The pressure in the moment to try to read it. And what if you can't really read it?

Jennie:
But you were able to make it out, so-

Marleena Barber:
Yeah.

Jennie:
... that's a bonus in that moment. And I think you probably salvaged the moment, right? Because then you were pretty excited.

Marleena Barber:
Oh yes, absolutely.

Jennie:
Oh my God, that's great. And I bet the concert was really good.

Marleena Barber:
Oh, well, it actually ended up being cancelled due to COVID.

Jennie:
Oh, I didn't want hear that. Sorry about that.

Marleena Barber:
I'm sorry. We can cut that out.

Jennie:
Sorry I asked. Yeah, let's just cut that part out.

Marleena Barber:
Let's just cut that part.

Jennie:
The concert was great. Yeah, it was good.

Marleena Barber:
It was.

Jennie:
Oh my. Okay, the awkward gift-giving moments continue here. Okay, I'm going to continue with the third day of Christmas. On the third day of Christmas, my sister gave to me, an origami gift set. Okay, I can only speak for myself, but origami gift set turned out to be... Okay, let me backtrack a little bit. I'm a pretty crafty, creative person. I received this gift many years ago from my sister. Again, the thought, the good intention was there. She knows I'm crafty, I like to try new things. The paper was beautiful. The paper was unique patterns, and cool geometric shapes. Very colourful, very me, floral, all different kinds of beautiful paper. And with it came this guide of how to do really basic origami. And then there was a second guide that actually was a little bit more advanced. Once you did the first one, you moved on to the second one.
When I first got this gift, I actually thought it was really cool, and I was really excited to give it a try. But then once I did it, it was one of those things where as a low-vision person, I go into it gung ho, excited. And then I'm super disappointed because it turns out to be not accessible at all. And it really unfortunately ended up being one of the least low-vision friendly gifts I ever had. But I kept it for years because I kept trying to go back to it, Marleena.

Marleena Barber:
Yeah.

Jennie:
I wanted it to work so bad.

Marleena Barber:
It's so frustrating when you want to do it, and you're trying to read it.

Jennie:
I'm really just wanted to make a crane. And you would fold the paper, and I'd get a couple of folds in, and then it just became too visually busy, especially with the pattern paper. Maybe if it was more solid paper, it might be easier. But I don't know. I don't think it's for me. I kept it for years and years because I felt bad. You don't want to throw a gift out. And I don't think I've ever told her, but it was one of those awkward things where it wasn't awkward in the moment, but I was like, I'm going to this.

Marleena Barber:
She's like, "How's that origami going? Are you liking your origami set?" "Yeah, it's great. It's great."

Jennie:
"Yeah, I've given it a try a couple times. I've spent a couple minutes on it." Meanwhile, half of the time it ended in tears, just in frustration. Well, here's another fuckin' hobby I can't do.

Marleena Barber:
You know what you need to do? Is find a YouTube video, so you can make those cranes and then you can give her a crane.

Jennie:
Maybe. I don't know. I don't if there's a low-vision answer, but it did not turn out to be a low-vision friendly gift at all. But the giant playing cards, those live on my gaming shelf, so I might break those out again this year for Texas hold 'em.

Marleena Barber:
Love it. Love it.

Jennie:
Now, something else I love to do is bake. And at the holidays is a prime time to bake because then I have a great excuse to give it away to people. And I don't have to worry about it being in the house, and me eating it all, and taking in too much sugar. I think you mentioned that you like baking with your kiddos during the holidays.

Marleena Barber:
Yes, I love to bake. And you're right, the holidays are a great time to be able to give away a lot of the goodies so that they're not hanging around the house. And actually, my fourth day of low-vision Christmas moments or holiday moments is... Shall I try to sing this one? Let's see. On the fourth day of Christmas, my kitchen gave to me, disappearing cookie cutters.

Jennie:
I love it.

Marleena Barber:
All right, the disappearing cookie-cutter story. I have to preface this by saying that when we moved into our house, we completely gutted the kitchen because the kitchen was super old and run down, and we put our efforts towards redoing the kitchen. And I thought, "Well, this is an opportunity for me to have an accessible, high-contrast kitchen." We purposely had white cabinets and drawers put in, and a black granite countertop that has a little bit of a little silver speckling in it. I'm thinking, "All right, this black countertop is going to be great. I'll be able to see things on it." Well, it turns out that black countertop has caused a lot of problems more than helping me because one, all of our devices like our phones and tablets are black, so whenever I put them on the countertop, they disappear. And then, whenever I spill things, especially water, it's really hard to see spills, so I have this love-hate relationship with this countertop.
Well, last year I was making gingerbread cookies, and the old school way where you roll out the dough and you cut it out with the cookie cutters. And I put the flour all over the countertop. And then at some point you get flour on the cookie cutters too, because you have to flour them as well, and-

Jennie:
So they don't stick, right?

Marleena Barber:
Exactly, and any good baker would know. Then, at one point, I'm looking for the cookie cutters to do the second round of my batch, and I cannot find these cookie cutters. I'm literally having to pat my hands all over the countertop because I cannot find them because the flour tin cookie cutters just blended in with the flour.

Jennie:
They just camouflage on this counter.

Marleena Barber:
Completely. And I have a photo that we'll share for the YouTube viewers that will be able to see, and I think there are about five cookie cutters on that countertop. And I remember posting this photo in an albinism social media group, and I said, "Low vision, a holiday edition, try to find the cookie cutters." And even just in the photo, you can't even find them. It's pretty funny.

Jennie:
You sent me the photo, so let's put it up for a second. But you sent me this photo, and I legitimately could not see any cookie cutters whatsoever. You're totally right when you say that it is camouflage. It's a really good idea. I love the idea of a high-contrast kitchen. When I get to redo mine one day, I'll do a similar thing. And I don't know if a dark... I feel like a dark countertop, generally speaking, would be more accessible to find-

Marleena Barber:
That's what I thought.

Jennie:
... things. But yours, it's got the texture, marbling almost kind of thing going on.

Marleena Barber:
Yes.

Jennie:
And I lose stuff on my counter all the time. It's a completely different colour. It's like a brown speckly thing, and I'm losing stuff on that all the time. In terms of the feeling around find things, me, it's the little thing that you put on the bread bag to close it. Constant-

Marleena Barber:
Oh, yes. Yes, those little tabs or the little twisty. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Jennie:
And you can take a mental note of where you put it down. It doesn't matter. It still disappears.

Marleena Barber:
I know.

Jennie:
That's kind of mean that you put it up on the albinism group.

Marleena Barber:
I know. Well, I just thought people would get a kick out of it.

Jennie:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marleena Barber:
Just, can you find these? Because this is what's happening right now in my kitchen.

Jennie:
I had to zoom in and scan left to right, left to right, to find anything. So yeah, I feel for you. I feel for you.

Marleena Barber:
I actually ended up calling one of my girls in to help me out. I'm like, "Can you just take these cookie cutters, put them in one area?" What we ended up doing was I got a coloured plate, like a red plate, and I put it on the side. And then, after I was done with the cookie cutter, I put it over there. That way it was a different colour. They showed up better. We problem solved.

Jennie:
I know I didn't suggest that. I was like, she figured out a solution.

Marleena Barber:
We problem-solve, right?

Jennie:
Yeah.

Marleena Barber:
We do that every day.

Jennie:
Yeah, it's the name of the game.

Marleena Barber:
Yes.

Jennie:
Oh geez. All of our low-vision moments of Christmas so far have been... There have been other people involved. In the last one, you brought your girls in to give you a hand, so you had to tell someone. My next one, I didn't have to tell anyone about this. This one's one's pretty embarrassing-

Marleena Barber:
Oh boy.

Jennie:
... having shared it. I could have just kept it to myself. One of my favourite Christmas movies is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, along with Die Hard. I've got both of them up on display on my shelf here somewhere.

Marleena Barber:
Yes.

Jennie:
And in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, there's a joke that I'm not sure if it's a low vision joke, like a vision loss joke, or a joke about getting older. I watch it every year at Christmas time, and I used to think, that's the dumbest thing. As a visually impaired person, I was like, that's kind of offensive. That's a stupid frigging joke. Why would you keep that in there? And then it happened to me. Here we go. On the fifth day of Christmas, my neighbourhood gave to me, a house on fire. Don't worry, it wasn't really on fire. Let me explain. I believe I was actually going to do some Christmas shopping, dead of winter, December. I live really close to a lot of places where I can walk to get my errands and shopping done. I did that on purpose.

Marleena Barber:
Yes, me too. Very smart.

Jennie:
I'm walking to the mall, and in a great mood. La, da, da. Got some money in my pocket, going to go Christmas shopping. And then in the distance I see what I think is fire. And being low vision, I question myself all the time. I'm always like, am I really seeing what I'm seeing? And this house is all aglow. And it's not multicoloured holiday lights. It's not the classic tall plastic candles. Big red candle with the flame. It's nothing like that. It's just this big beautiful house that is all aglow from a distance. And I'm like, it looks like it's on fire. There's a fire down there, and it's at a distance.

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh.

Jennie:
I'm like, let me get closer to investigate because I don't smell anything. I don't smell any flames. But it really... First, second, third, fifth glance, I thought this house was on fire until I got closer. I got about, I don't know, three, four houses away. And I'm like, oh God. I just had an Aunt Bethany moment. In National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Aunt Bethany says something like, "Clark, is your house on fire?" I had an Aunt Bethany moment. And I didn't have to tell anybody that, but I had to tell my husband because we watch it together every single year.

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Jennie:
And now I'm like, I've totally changed my tune. I don't think it's a stupid joke at all. I'm like, whoever wrote that joke for Aunt Bethany, they knew what they were doing. They either know someone who's blind or visually impaired, or I don't know. Or maybe they have some personal experience, because it was pretty bang on once it happened to me.

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh. That is so funny. Yeah. And those-

Jennie:
I'm glad it wasn't on fire.

Marleena Barber:
Yeah. Oh no, for sure. For sure. But yeah, that's... Those moments where you think you see something, and you're not quite sure if it is or not, yeah, those happen often.

Jennie:
We have a whole episode about that.

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh, I'll have to listen to that.

Jennie:
Oh gosh. We're nearing the end of our days of Christmas. I don't know how we got here so quickly, but here we are. I think we're going to continue with the shopping aspect. And I could get into a whole thing about how much I hate shopping with low vision, but let's keep it positive. Let's keep it light.

Marleena Barber:
Okay, let's see. Okay, on the sixth day... Let me see if I'm going to sing this. On the sixth day of Christmas, the cashier gave to me, an awkward shopping checkout. All right, here's my awkward shopping checkout. During the holidays, it is very busy. As you know at the stores, if they're able to, they staff the store pretty well with lots of checkouts, lots of cashiers. There's a whole line of registers open, and a long line of customers waiting. And I have found that it's really difficult to know when a cashier is open in that long line of registers. My awkward moment was, I'm standing in line, and I'm just having that anxiety of when is the next register going to open? I'm the next in line. I'm like, okay.

Jennie:
And you don't want to be holding up the people behind you, right?

Marleena Barber:
Exactly. And I'm like, crossing my fingers, please let it be the one right in front of me. Please let it be just the ones that are really close to me because I cannot see clear down the line. Of course, this moment, it was the very last register, and I didn't see it. And the lady behind me, of course, she sounds all put out like I am really holding up everybody. She's like, "They're open at register one."

Jennie:
Oh my God, I'm so inconvenienced right now.

Marleena Barber:
I'm like, "Sorry."

Jennie:
Gosh.

Marleena Barber:
I'm like, "Oh, oh, oh, I'm, I'm so sorry." Or whatever. But then it kind of continues where you're walking down the longest line of-

Jennie:
Is it this one?

Marleena Barber:
Is it this one?

Jennie:
Is it that one?

Marleena Barber:
Exactly. This one was number one, so I'm thinking, oh, using my reasoning here, it's probably the very last one. But, other times when that's happened, you're like, okay, which one is it? And then sometimes they call you when the other person hasn't completely left. So you're like wondering, have they left? Is it this one? Oh my gosh. It's a lot of stressful panic in one moment.

Jennie:
It is. It can be.

Marleena Barber:
I have noticed that there are certain stores here in the U.S., I think it's like TJ Maxx, Burlington Coat Factory, they have started to have a big screen, and announce an automatic electronic announcer that will say the number like, "Register five's open." And they even have a nice big number lit up. I've noticed those stores are really visually impaired friendly for me, but it's those other times where you're just like, "Ugh." It's just awkward trying to figure out which register to go to, and then holding up everyone else. And

Jennie:
God, it shouldn't be so painful.

Marleena Barber:
I know.

Jennie:
I just want to spend my money. Take my money. But no, I think that's so relatable. And I will say that that helps. Having the announcement, and then having the big signage. That does help, provided the signage isn't up too high. Because sometimes then I'm looking up, and I'm pushing my cart full of stuff, and I'm already having a hard time banging into stuff with my cart. I'm looking up. Really, really looking up, and pushing my cart, and praying. I don't bump into anybody. But that happens to... And I don't know if I get... I don't really get the anxiety or the worry so much anymore, I think. And I think for me it's because-

Marleena Barber:
Good for you.

Jennie:
Well, let me elaborate. It's 'cause I go to the same places all the time. So I'm like, I don't care, I'm here all the time. And you get a little bit more comfortable. But I have one recently where it was kind of the opposite where I went to... Do you have a lot of the self-checkout stuff in the U.S.?

Marleena Barber:
Yes.

Jennie:
Where I go get my groceries, we have self-checkout. And I showed up one evening, and it was pretty quiet, so they had a bunch of them open, the self-served checkout. I get to the front of the line and the staff person's like, "Oh, you can just go to any of them." And I'm like, oh, perfect. This is easy for once. And don't I pull up to the one closed?

Marleena Barber:
Oh, I know. You can never tell... I know some of them have a little green light, or a red light if they're open or closed, but-

Jennie:
It had the light, but again, it was high up. So I was like, oh, they're all open. Zoom, zoom, zoom. I'm just going to go straight to the one that's right ahead of me. Didn't I pick the wrong one? And in that moment I was like, "Oh God, how embarrassing." But my personality is just like, I'm just going to laugh at myself, and I'm going to look at the clerk and be like, "Huh-huh, I went to the one that was closed, let's all have laugh." But, it depends on the day, and I say that a lot. It depends on the day. If there were people behind me being jerks, I might have got a little bit more flustered.

Marleena Barber:
Yeah, for sure.

Jennie:
It's all about the situation. We've come to the end of our installment of the first six low-vision moments of Christmas. I don't want to put anybody on the spot. Do we want to try to sing the song?

Marleena Barber:
Okay.

Jennie:
Do we want to try to sing them back?

Marleena Barber:
I think we can try to do this.

Jennie:
Should we? Or should you, the professional? 'Cause I'm a professional at nothing. Let's try.

Marleena Barber:
Okay.

Jennie:
You want to count us in?

Marleena Barber:
Okay, we're going to go backwards, right?

Jennie:
Yeah.

Marleena Barber:
We're going to start from six.

Jennie:
Let's try it.

Marleena Barber:
Okay. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4. On the sixth-

Jennie:
On the sixth... No, it's not going to work. You do it.

Marleena Barber:
Okay, I'll give it a try, and we'll see if it works or not. You might be cutting this.

Jennie:
We'll cut it depending on how it goes.

Marleena Barber:
Okay, here we go. On the sixth day of Christmas, low vision moments gave to me, cashier awkward moment. What was five? Shoot. Wait.

Jennie:
Five houses on fire.

Marleena Barber:
Okay. Wait, wait.

Jennie:
Okay. Here, I got it. Let's-

Marleena Barber:
I'm going to do it. I got it, I got it, I got it.

Jennie:
I can do mine and you can do yours. Do you want do it like that?

Marleena Barber:
Okay.

Jennie:
Okay, let's start again. Mark, make us look like we know what we're doing. We're going to start now. Not that other false start.

Marleena Barber:
Okay, here we go. On the sixth day of Christmas, low vision moments gave to me, awkward cashier checkout.

Jennie:
On the fifth day of Christmas, my neighbourhood gave to me, five houses on fire. Oh my God. That was awful.

Marleena Barber:
No, wait, wait, wait. When we normally do-

Jennie:
Oh, I forgot yours. Oh, geez.

Marleena Barber:
No, when you normally do the countdown, you don't need to sing the, on the, you just do like-

Jennie:
I know.

Marleena Barber:
Five da, da, da, da. Four da, da-

Jennie:
But I should have said yours. Okay, third time's the charm. Let's try again.

Marleena Barber:
Oh, no, no, no, no. You've got it. Okay. Do you want me to start a little lower?

Jennie:
No.

Marleena Barber:
On the... I'm trying to get in our range here.

Jennie:
I don't even know what that means. No, I'm just kidding.

Marleena Barber:
You're so funny. You know. You've got a good singing voice. You've got this. Okay. On the sixth day of Christmas, Low Vision Moments gave to me, awkward shopping checkout. Five houses on fire.

Jennie:
Thank you.

Marleena Barber:
Four disappearing cookie cutters, three origami sets, two Kelly Clarkson concert tickets, and a deck of huge cards.

Jennie:
Oh yes. Thank you so much. I think that was a lot less painful for everyone having the professional do it. My guest for the second part of this, they're totally on the hook to do the singing as well. I'm going to have to let them know that that's how that's going to shake out.

Marleena Barber:
That would be fun.

Jennie:
Oh, Marleena. I can't thank you enough for being a guest on the show. Sharing, giving us the gift of your presence. See what I did there?

Marleena Barber:
Oh, I see. Thank you so much, Jennie. This was fun. I really enjoy chatting with you. You're hilarious. I love listening to you. And yeah, this was fun, so I appreciate the invitation.

Jennie:
Now, I need to tell you before we go, I don't use the term role model often, but when I discovered you and your music, years and years ago, I think I stumbled upon a music video online. I was much more insecure in who I was at the time. And seeing you, this successful, radiant, lovely human being, I was like, "Holy cow, this person with albinism is so lovely. Maybe there's hope for me." And it really-

Marleena Barber:
Aw, Jennie.

Jennie:
I think that you do that for a lot of people, and I just-

Marleena Barber:
Thank you so much.

Jennie:
Thank you for sharing everything that you do. I just think you're an awesome human being-

Marleena Barber:
Oh my gosh.

Jennie:
And we need to tell other people. How can they find you? How can they hear your lovely music and connect with you?

Marleena Barber:
Oh, well, first of all, thank you so much. That really was very kind of you to say. I am a cabaret singer, as you mentioned before. I have a one-woman show that I do that's about my life growing up with albinism. And I talk about some of those low vision moments too, but also just having to deal with adversity on a daily basis, and in my pursuit to be a performer, and how albinism has played a role in that. And I am on Instagram. I post a lot about my kids, and my family, and my baking, and all of that in addition to music. And that's just marleenabarber on Instagram. And the same thing if you're on Facebook. I have a music page you can follow, Marleena Barber. And then, I also have a website which has a little bit more... You can listen to some of my music there. And that's marleenabarber.com. It's Marleena with two E's, M-A-R-L-E-E-N-A, and then Barber like the haircut. That's how I describe my thing.
But yes, I appreciate you so much, Jennie, and I think that what you're doing is so fun, and so great to just... You're educating people about low vision in such a fun way, and an opportunity for us to laugh at ourselves a little bit. And it is what it is, right? Sometimes.

Jennie:
You got to work with what you got. I find myself saying that on a daily basis.

Marleena Barber:
Yeah.

Jennie:
Well, happy holidays to you. I look forward to seeing all your baking and maybe even Elf on the Shelf. Sometimes those are a little bit entertaining if you post those online.

Marleena Barber:
Yes. You too, Jennie. Thanks so much.

Jennie:
All right. Well, if that didn't put you in the festive holiday spirit, I don't know what possibly could. Thank you so much again, Marleena, especially for taking on the singing duties. I don't know what we're going to do with the next episode because I know that I can't sing. Want to be a guest on the podcast or have you got an idea for an episode? I would love to hear from you. Send an email to podcast@ami.ca. Or, get in touch by leaving a voicemail at 1-866-509-4545. Once more, that phone number 1-866-509-4545. Just make sure to mention low vision moments in the message please and thanks. Come and follow me on Instagram. We can connect there. I'm under uberblonde4, that's U-B-E-R-B-L-O-N-D-E, and the number four. Marc Aflalo is our Technical Producer, and he is definitely on my nice list. Thanks to Manager at AMI-audio, Andy Frank, even though he is a self-proclaimed Grinch. Until next time, anybody want an origami set? 'Cause I've got one.