Mike's death; Betty's life...

Friday, September 4, 2026

Thursday, October 31, 2024

In my last session with Shelly, I worked some on the lingering damage from my relationship with my dad. Mostly, I work on the damage from my mom. I did not have terrible parents. They were caring, and we were well taken care of physically. My mom was clearly damaged goods. No one missed that. My dad's problems were more subtle. My issues around my dad come up every once in a while. Therapists think I ignore them. When I do work on them, I come right back to Mom. Whatever damage I suffered, it always comes back to 1/5 dad and 4/5 mom. She had some serious screws loose. I feel I have to explain she suffered a torturous medical procedure to save her life in her first six months. That she came out with any sanity is a tribute to her life force.

I suffer from terror, as did Mike. It probably bonded over that. The causes were somewhat different, but just a little. We both had hysterical mothers. I think his was actually worse than mine. Mine was capable of love. I don't know that his was. Her children were there to boost her ego. My mom's injuries were younger. I had one therapist describe her as pre-narcissistic.

Aside from all the psychological boundary violations inflicted by someone who considers it a put-down if you don't agree with them on everything, and I do mean everything, she was always in a state of urgency. Like most people with PSTD, she was good in a crisis; that's the state she lived in.

I've had therapists say I adopted her viewpoint on the world. That never sounded right. I didn't agree with her point of view, and that's what saved me. She hated my outgoing, trusting nature. I always assumed the best.

In most cases, I was rewarded for my trust. Last week, I thought it wasn't her point of view I adopted; it was her energy. I was bathed in it along with the amniotic fluid. I am constantly vibrating at a point of outright terror, the terror she must have felt as an infant. It's knitted into every cell of my body. I am trying to deal with it now.

At least I'm trying to deal with it directly. I'm trying to feel the indiscriminate terror instead of attributing it to some life circumstance. When I silence my racing mind and deal with feeling, my body feels like it's vibrating. When I lie in bed, it feels a little like an earthquake. We have plenty of them here, hundreds a day. Most are small and so subtle as to be unnoticeable- unless you're paying close attention. Then, you may catch one. It's much like the feeling when all thirteen pounds of Elsa shifts on the bed. I wouldn't feel it if I was not focused on my body. Or maybe I should say I wouldn't register in my awareness.

I suspect we all have this feeling when a conflict arises with another person. We're reassured and quickly calm if we feel confident in their commitment to us. If it's someone irrelevant to us, we can dismiss it.

We all experience different people as irrelevant. If we tense up and feel fear or if we put the other person down, dismissing them as worthless, we've reacted. If we've reacted, we consider them relevant. The response to an irrelevant person is immediate calming, reacting as we would with someone we trust deeply. Any conscious response or behavior means we're triggered. We are triggered because the person has value or because they commented about a trait in ourselves we feel makes us worthless. They've triggered shame. Again, we know they have if our minds go into overdrive with self-protective messages. "He's just some drunken homeless bum." "She's that nasty lady who lives down the street." "I didn't do anything that bad. I don't know why they were angry at me." The underlying feeling is fear. The cure: sit and observe the sensations on your body with equanimity.

Brilliant Buddha developed the idea of sitting with a feeling of equanimity. That means staying calm and not judging our actions, their actions, or our feelings as either positive or negative. Just observe the sensations on the body with mild interest. Does it itch? Is it warm or cool? Does it feel tight or loose? Preferably, observe only a small patch of skin at a time. Wait till the sensation changes and move on to the adjacent patch. Do not invest in liking or not liking the sensation. Stick to describing it. That's tough.

I can feel the vibration in some areas of my body with complete neutrality. It isn't connected to an emotion. It's a little like observing the pressure on my back as I rest against the back of the chair. The sensation is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Whatever it is, it doesn't intrude on my consciousness. It occupies no mental space. Resolving old issues requires a neutral mental state. I've done it enough to know it works, even on physical pain with a purely physical cause. It's easier to apply this process to physical pain than psychological. It is a truly remarkable process. Only it's difficult to attain, especially when dealing with strong emotions.

Since I feel some vibration in areas of my body that don't feel like distress or terror, I'm starting to think that's the natural state of our bodies. That would make sense. Our bodies are chemical and electrical factories, humming away. There is always something going on. Stand close enough to a high-power electric wire; you can hear it buzz. All sound produces vibrations. If that sound is inside our bodies, we should feel the vibration. Also, blood is constantly moving through our bodies. Swoosh! Swoosh! Is that what I'm feeling? I can't tell the difference between those spots where the vibration feels neutral or like fear, but I can feel how I react to the two sensations. The best I can say is that the fear vibrations feel at a higher pitch. It's torture.

Buddha says it's not pain that bothers us but something our minds bring to the pain, such as craving or aversion. He says we feel less pain if we can neutralize craving and aversion. Maybe it would be better to say we can avoid agony and only feel pain.

I left for Ulu Wini shortly after doing some major weeding. While I was heading down the road, I thought, "Wait! It's Halloween! No one is going to be interested in tutoring." I called Shauntel to check. She wasn't going to work today because of a backache. She thinks it's from activities she's done with the kids. I think it's from the changes in her posture and gait due to the brace on her ankle forcing her to limp. She couldn't take it off. There was no point in warning her. Maybe I'll tell her when I see her again. She needs to get that brace off and get physical therapy. She thought the kids would just be coloring today. When I got there, none of the tables had been set up. the program had been canceled for the day. i

Didn't even get out of the car. I turned around and went home.

I called Provision Solar for an explanation for the additional ten notifications from the building permit department on my solar panels. There was a glitch in their computer system, and they were sending out multiple copies of the same permit. By multiple copies, I mean something in the order of fifteen and counting. I spoke to Jamie today to make an appointment to install the new system. I texted Yvette, Josh, and Brian that we would be without solar energy for at least a week starting on November 6, to use electricity during the off-peak hours as much as possible, and to not run air conditioners or fans when not at home. It takes at least a week for the permit department to complete their inspection of the system. Once that's finished, the solar system can be turned back on.

Mama K texted me to say she found a friend living in Kona who would be traveling to Hilo on Saturday. She sent me her name and number. I called Jennifer. She said she would be by around 3 after she picked her son up from school. She was heading further north to Waikoloa to do face painting for a Halloween event. She could pick up the package on her way north. I told her I would leave the package by my front door with a large piece of red cardstock with her name on it. it should be safe there.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

I slept very well. I got up briefly during the night to pee. If I go through the night without peeing, I know I didn’t drink enough water during the day. I don’t think I have to fear insomnia now. I know fearing it will make it worse.

Yesterday, I made an unsuccessful trip to town to deal with the bank and my Target purchase; both were a bust. The bank was closed, and the online purchase I arranged to be picked up in Hilo by a friend didn’t go through. It reverted to the Kona location.

I stopped at the bank first. I didn’t see the sign-up sheet for the waitlist to speak to one of the managers. I approached one of the desks. “Where’s the sign-up sheet?” “We don’t do that anymore. Everything’s by appointment.” “How do you sign up?” I asked with concern. Anytime I’ve called the bank, it has been impossible to get through. “you make the appointment online.” Good to know for future reference.

Pat, who sits at one of the front desks, asked what I wanted. She was willing to help me. When I got an account balance statement from the teller the other day, I was shocked at how low it was. I was hoping the bank could help me figure it out. Pat found the answer. I sent two large checks to Provision Solar for the solar installation instead of one, checks 1043 and 1044. In my register, check number 1044 was marked as void. Apparently, I had sent both to the solar company. Well, no harm done. I had paid off two of the three installments.

I headed to Target. The customer service clerk said I had to go back to the Target app, delete the order, and place a new one. Fortunately, he helped me do it. When he tried to enter the Hilo pick-up location, it said there were no more of those sale items available at that store. I just took the item with me.

When I called Kea and told her what happened, she said the Hilo store hadn’t been out. The clerk there told her there were sixteen of the items left. The online app didn’t agree. Fighting with the app is worse than fighting with City Hall. (Some of my update readers have never heard that reference but can probably infer the correct meaning.) Now, we had to figure out how to get it over to the other side of the island.

Hilo is only an hour and a half away, crossing between two volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, on Saddle Rd, a well-maintained highway. It’s not a terrible drive except for what the pressure changes do to your ears. I understand people do the trip daily as they commute to work. However, it is not a trip that most of us take lightly. Kea posted a request on her Facebook page to see if anyone was planning to travel from Kona to Hilo. She was born on the island. She has a ton of friends all over this island.

When I got home, I discovered an email from the Building Department, releasing the permit for the solar systems. It had been over a month since the Provision Engineering department submitted the plans. Spencer, the customer service rep for the company, told me that the turnaround on permits on Maui is 48 hours. Here, on the Big Island, it can take over a month. First comes a statement of approval, next comes the bill, and finally, they release the permit. There are weeks between each step. Today, they released the permit for pick up.

I called to make sure Provision got the notification of the release. Spencer said he had received seventy emails from the permit department. He was sorting through them. I had received seven. When I checked them, they all looked identical.

I met with fourth-grade LG in the late afternoon. I was looking forward to the next step in our math work. He could successfully fill in the equation for both addition and multiplication for the same array. Yay! That took three half-hour sessions. Today, I introduced the commutative property of addition in contrast to subtraction. I wrote 2+8=10 and 8+2=10. Are the two problems the same? Yes. Okay, so far. Then I wrote 8-2=

And 2-8=. Are the two problems the same? Yes. This boy is in fourth grade. I would never have started this way if I thought he didn’t recognize the undoability of the second subtraction problem.

Some of the problem may have been because he was unusually uncomfortable. It was a hot day. The issue here is humidity combined with still air. We usually have lovely breezes to offset the heat and humidity. This is the most uncomfortable time of the year. Yvette always told me it broke about mid-October. Others say it lasts through to November. Either way, he was complaining nonstop. His focus wasn’t the best. Still . . . 2-8= should stand out for him. Okay, maybe not. The schools always teach what is correct. They don’t teach what is not correct at the same time except when you get the wrong answer. Then, they expect the student to figure out why it’s wrong. Okay, back to the drawing board.

His mother got on and read the results of his report card and his iReady reports. It’s not good. She planned to send them to me so I could work on what he was missing.

I met with sixth-grade RH at 6 o’clock. She was supposed to meet with me on Thursday afternoon, but school was canceled on Friday, and she was leaving on a Girl Scout camping trip for the weekend. She was unusually disengaged. I found out later that she had been going nonstop since the morning and was exhausted. I hope she gets to the point where she can share that information with me.

She did say she thought she was doing better at discerning the difference between b and d. When I started to work on her u/n confusion, she said she never had problems with them. Her mother told me she had issues with u/n and w/m. When I asked about the w/m confusion, she said it hadn’t bothered her in a long time. Mom wasn’t quite up-to-date.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

After being up most of the night, I spent the day sleeping or listening to my book on Audible. It’s scary when that happens.

The story in Magic Hour was healing. I identified with the wild child and absorbed the loving attention the therapist/ caretaker poured into her. As the author wrote about the therapist, I also identified with her thought process. She didn’t have a formula for dealing with the child, a list of objectives for her to conform to, or a list of strategies to achieve those objectives; she listened carefully to the child and looked for openings. She gave her all the room she needed to feel heard and safe. It is what I try to give to my students. I try to give it to everyone I encounter. That’s my goal. I’m much more successful at it in the context of my students.

In a professional role, I have more power. They come to me with their deficiencies; I come to that relationship with my strengths. It is an unequal relationship. They are more dependent on me than I am on them. I don’t expect them to be as attentive to me as I am to them. I don’t expect them to appreciate what I do for them. In my sixty years of doing this work, fewer than a dozen children have said thank you or verbally acknowledged that I helped them. Most don’t want anything to do with me after the sessions end. I represent their bad ole selves, the ones who couldn’t read or do math, the person they don’t want to remember.

While I would like to be more of that person in my peer relations, I have a more significant investment in these people. I want them to like me and care about me. They all do that in one way or another; otherwise, they wouldn’t be my friends in the first place. There has to be some joy in the relationship. It can’t all be hard work and pain. If it becomes that, the relationship has to end.

I’m generally willing to work things out with people. Sometimes, that becomes impossible. Either they have cut too deep to make relationship repair possible without hard work, which they are unwilling or unable to do. I’m okay with hard work, but not from me alone. Just forgetting about a bad moment is possible if the injury isn’t too deep.

My dad raised me to ‘work out’ each and every issue. I had to talk about everything with someone. My sister rescued me from that cul du sac. She said if there’s been a bad moment, the other person wants to forget about it as much as you do. Just go on as if it didn’t happen. That piece of advice has saved me from a lot of social drama. But there’s the opposite extreme with people who never want to hear what I have to say and never want to discuss situations that are not easily resolved by ignoring them.

I agree with my critics that I have over-emphasized awareness and attention to unresolved situations. There is much to be said for compartmentalization and denial. They are not just rivers in Egypt or otherwise. Compartmentalization and denial are valuable tools in our coping tool kit. Ones I’ve had to deliberately incorporate. It’s done wonders for my complexion.

Monday, October 28, 2024

I was exhausted by 8:30 and in bed by nine. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by midnight. It would be a difficult night. I did some belly breathing and fell asleep again. The next time I awoke, it was 2:30. I dozed or meditated for the rest of the night. I feared insomnia. That was my life after my dad died until my first night in my freshman dorm room. I was alone with my mother, without any protection or assurance that I was okay in someone’s eyes. That was three years without a single good night’s sleep. I wouldn’t wish insomnia on my worst enemy.

I have been wrestling with my tendency to obsess about difficulties in relationships. Some of that, I was sure, was just the natural reaction to not being embedded into a social unit; in other words, I’m lonely. I’m welcome in many groups but am not an embedded member of any social unit. I believe that’s difficult for all human beings. Evolutionary psychology assumes that the evolution of our brains influences our social and cognitive behaviors as well as physical form. Our brains developed 11,000 to 21/2 million years ago. Social behaviors are embedded in our brains. While all this is theoretical, applying the theory has borne significant fruit.

One of the theories is we are social animals. Being alone, unembedded in a social unit, means our very lives are in danger. When our brains were developed, that was true. If we were alone, no one had our backs. We couldn’t rest for a moment. We were fair prey for any animal seeking its next meal. I believe fear and terror underlie loneliness.

Since aloneness is more a psychological state in our modern world than a physical one, it took me three years to feel that Mike was really gone and I was alone. There have been incidents that brought home how unprotected I am. If Mike had died before my mom, I dread to think what would have happened.

I have been wrestling with my tendency to obsess and ruminate, whatever you want to call it. What can I do to interrupt that pattern? I’ve been listening to books on tape. It commands my mind and overrides the pattern of my default brain. I’ve also been trying to sit with the fear which underlies the rumination.

I started by welcoming Christ’s love into my heart. I watch people who have this deep belief in Christ successfully take refuge in Christ. I wasn’t raised with that notion. Quite to the contrary, I was taught that religious beliefs were nonsense. I’m not fussy. I don’t have to be right. I’m good with it if it works and does no harm. The Buddhist meditation hasn’t quite worked for me when dealing with fear. I did find bringing in Christ’s love helpful.

This morning, I started just saying “I love you” to myself. This mantra is incorporated into EFT: “I love and comfort myself.” I have tried deep self-love before. It didn’t work because I couldn’t forgive my young self for having irritated my mother. I knew intellectually that irritation was more on her than on her infant child, but that didn’t cut it. Now, I could accept that self-love.

Note: this is not a self-love based on something I am or can do. It’s not because I’m wonderful. It’s simply because I am. It doesn’t make me better than anyone else. It’s the love all human beings are entitled to, regardless of what they are or what they’ve done. It’s the self-acceptance the salvific religions teach. Even a few moments of it are lovely. It’s the substitute for or the supplement to imperfect human connection. It allows us to stand alone as individuals without terror.

That meditation calmed me. I slept. When I woke, it occurred to me that my mother didn’t just pass on that fear through her behavior, her reactions to the world at large, and to me specifically. Her terror was a result of the draconian medical treatment she received in the first six months of her life. Terror was set as her normal frequency then. I was bathed in it along with the amniotic fluid. How do you undo that order of fear learned at that early age? Here, the Buddhist practice of Vipassana comes in. You watch the sensations on your body, patching them at a time. You don’t go into the feeling deep in your viscera. You focus on the surface of the body and the skin, and you observe the sensation on a small patch at a time. That way, you’re never overwhelmed.

When I got up at 3:30, I listened to a book on Audible, Magic Hour by Kristen Hannah, while I did my morning yoga. That blocked my mental machinations. I also worked on the updates.

It was raining heavily where I lived 800 feet up the mountain, and I wondered if it was raining at the shoreline. The weather is usually different at different altitudes. The temperature up here is often five to seven degrees cooler than between here and Queen K, which is three miles lower.

I decided to go to the beach for my Monday morning Chi Gigong session. It was just Clyde and me, as it had been all summer. He spoke to Roger, who leads it during the winter season. Roger said he was practicing a new sequence with 100 moves. Right! The one we’re doing now has four. He’s dreaming if he thinks our motley crew will be interested in going through 100 moves.

After we finished, Clyde talked briefly about the political situation. He is a card-carrying member of the Unity Church. I thought the people of this church were all open-minded liberals, so I assumed he would be Democratic. Not only is he voting for Trump, but he believes his progressive wife is naïve. He described her as simple-minded. His reasoning was interesting.

I asked Clyde if he wanted a dictatorship. He said it was time for a change. Democracy wasn’t working anymore. Wow! This was a new one. I don’t disagree with him that all the existing political systems aren’t working, but I don’t think Fascism is the cure. The global world requires a global solution. How does that work?

I dropped off some plastic cushioning material at UPS and went to the bank to get cash to pay Dan when he trims the trees. Then, I was home for the rest of the day. I slept and listened to Magic Hour on Audible, a book recommended by my friend Jean. It was profoundly appropriate. It’s about a wild child found in a small town in the state of Washington, cared for by a psychiatrist willing to give her life for the job. I think it helped me adopt an attitude of self-love.

Besides that, I slept for most of the day and finally did some gardening at the end. I sprayed the weeds against the fence I shared with Mei and Peter with vinegar. They let their patch be a mess. I spray over the fence, hoping to get some of their weeds as well as the ones on my side.

I had a session with fourth-grade LG. He is experiencing a big difference in math. He had three sessions to connect the abstract math algorithms with concrete examples. His mother texted me his homework for the night. It had to do with solving for partial products. For those of you who don’t know what that means: Given 456 x 2=, you solve the problems by multiplying 400 x2=, 50 x2=, and then 2 x2, and then add up all the partial products. He had no difficulty with the exercise. He was brimming with confidence.

I spoke to his mother briefly. I told her about the progress he had made in math and handwriting. Had she seen his handwriting? She said she knew about his handwriting. Had she seen him write since I worked with him? No. I asked LG to write his name in front of her. She was duly impressed. LG said he wanted to do more work on handwriting. We worked on writing the names of all his family members. Once we had worked on the names of his mother, father, sister, and him, we had covered thirteen of the letters in the alphabet.

I have developed the most effective method of teaching stroke patterns using the computer screen. Using a broad stroke, I form the letter slowly while the student follows using the index finger of his writing hand to start. LG started with that but preferred to use a pencil in subsequent lessons.

When I went to the bank, the teller gave me a statement for the balance in the account. I was surprised. It was much lower than I expected. I had deposited all the money from the warranty for my faulty solar system into that account. I checked my checkbook to see if I could find an explanation. I could find no payment that would explain it. I decided I had to check it with the bank. I drove down there with two objectives in mind. First, speak to a bank clerk to find an explanation. The second objective was to stop at Target to buy an iPad for a friend who didn’t have ready cash. She lived in Hilo. I would try to arrange for her to pick it up there. When I arrived, the bank was already closed, and I went directly to Target.

The clerks in the electronic department didn’t know who to arrange for a pick up in Hilo when the store was in Kona. I was told to go to customer service for help. I was there for an hour, holding up the line. I called my friend to tell her it had been arranged. When she went to the Hilo Target to pick it up, they said there was no order. When I checked the order I got in my email, it did say the pickup was in Kona, not Hilo. Back to the drawing board.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Mike would have turned 8 today. I woke up feeling fear about the outcome of the coming election. I'm not just scared about who's going to win. I think things will be bad regardless. I've been speaking about the end of civilization as we know it, if not the end of the human race, as we destroy everything around us in the name of preserving ourselves. I suppose it's possible there won't be violence after the election.

I heard what I thought was thunder as I woke up. We rarely get thunderstorms. But sure enough, that's what it was. Around 6 am, all my appliances made a squawking noise. I went out for my morning walk shortly before 7. When I returned, the electricity was off. This is the first time we have lost electricity since the solar system was installed. Even now, while the electricity was off for two hours, we were without for only one. We had enough power in the battery left to cover it.

I saw two friends at the 9 am mass, sitting on the lanai where I always sit rather than inside the church where they usually do. They hugged me and commented that today was Mike's birthday. The mass was said for him today. They probably attended this mass because of that. I was overcome. I started sobbing. Sadly, I don't cry easily. When it comes, I try to give in to it. My mother couldn't tolerate us crying. It upset her, and we were encouraged to stop, sometimes kindly, sometimes not so kindly.

I got up from my seat and stood behind a pillar to avoid disturbing everyone. A woman who does a lot for the church saw me and came over to offer comfort. I told her I was Mike's wife. She was great; she just stood with me. She went off to get a box of tissues for me and directed another woman who is also highly involved with the church to stand with me. She was not as sympathetic. She patted me in that stressed way that signals discomfort and a need for me to stop crying. She proposed telling me a funny story. At that point, I backed out of her grasp and asked her to stop. What she was doing wasn't helpful. I don't grieve easily. I needed the opportunity to do it. The grief builds up in me, and I deal with it by obsessing about all the things that are wrong. When Mike was alive, he was my comfort place. I felt safe with him even if he couldn't protect me from negative outside voices. What he protected me from was my inner voice, that helpless feeling that comes when you're alone in the world.

All the fears I lived with as a child were overwhelming me. When I was young, before I left my mother's home, I didn't realize how scared I was; it was part of me. The fear was partially because of the way my mother treated me. It was also because she lived in a constant state of terror and passed that on. If your mother is afraid of dogs, you will be too. Even if you never have a bad experience with one. My mother was triggered by everything. I don't think she ever got to the point where she was aware she was afraid. She just thought the world was a dangerous place. She may have been better off than me with my awareness that something is amiss with me.

I remember a dream when I realized I accepted Mike as my life partner. I dreamt I was lying on a bed that was twenty years big. Funny, that may have been accurate. Our marriage went through a ten-year rough spot at the twenty-year mark. I think it was because Mike lived in D.C. while he studied for his second Ph.D. at Catholic University. I think he realized he wasn't as dependent on me as he thought. We weren't inconsiderate of each other during that period. We just laughed less. When it finally broke, we were better than ever.

If Trump wins, his first order of business will be revenge against all those who opposed him. He will punish states that didn't elect him. He will punish registered democrats. I think this man is as close to evil as one can come. He is prepared to launch a full-throttle attack if he doesn't get what he wants.

My friend Melissa called; she is an OB/GYN who works as a substitute doctor in low-income hospitals. She doesn't think she will be called to cover for vacationing doctors as much in the future. She anticipates a surplus of doctors in the hospitals she is willing to serve. While she will never perform an abortion because of her religious beliefs, she is not opposed to it for others. She won't work in a state that prohibits it because the restrictions are draconian and put mothers at risk. Doctors are fleeing anti-abortion states. They are seeking employment in the hospitals where she has been working.

Melissa is opposed to Trump, as I am. Our concern is beyond his politics. We think the man is mentally unstable. He vows revenge on everyone who opposes him. He admires 'strong' leaders. He is scary.

I shared a theory Lutz told me. He said the super-wealthy are supporting him because they plan to have him killed once he is elected. They feel they can completely control Vance. This is what the industrialists thought when they put Hitler in power. Vance is no Hitler; Trump has that personality. Melissa, who travels abroad, said people from other countries believe that.

Saturday, October 26, 2024

I mowed the lawn today. It takes about half an hour. I can’t do the edges because the chickens have dug holes where the lawnmower gets stuck and shuts off. Because it’s an electric mower, it easily starts up again. This machine is a treat to work with. In the end, the mower was covered with dusty soil. I thought it could be safe to hose it down rather than dust it off. As long as I removed the battery and gave the machine enough time to dry before I used it again, all would be well.

Dan came over to give me an estimate for trimming my trees. We do it here to preserve our views. Dan was upset. Two of his dogs had killed his favorite cat. They had all been together for three years. They played together and slept together. Then, two of his dogs, siblings, ripped that poor cat apart. Dan was beside himself. The cat was his favorite. Dan takes in rescue animals from the humane society; they have his number of speed dial. He didn’t know what to do about those dogs. He would have to get rid of them before he killed his other cats. He wanted to beat them for what they had done. He said his dad used to beat the animals. My guess is he beat Dan, too. I knew if he did beat them, he would see his dad in himself; it would not be good for him.

Dean and Nina came over to continue with our Saturday Sorry game. I won handily today. I was the only one who ate ice cream. Usually, it’s Nina who eats it and wins. There is a correlation between eating ice cream and winning. I always enjoy their company.

I napped a lot, resisting doing anything uncertain, like writing or trimming large branches off the shrubs. I got some writing down. At the end of the day, I forced myself to go out and cut off large branches of several shrubs with a chainsaw.

Darby came over to walk. I had to wait until sunset to go out because I needed to light the yahrzeit candle for Mike at sunset. Tomorrow would be Mike’s 84th birthday. I miss him more with every passing year.

Thursday, September 3, 2026

Friday, October 25, 2024

It was Hula day. I was up and out of bed before 4:30. I wrote instead of doing my morning exercises. My arms would get enough of a workout while dancing. Before I left for the class, I carefully checked the schedule. I managed to read the class would be at the community center across from the church.

The church parking lot was jammed at 10 am on a Friday. What was that about? I noticed a large group in the cemetery. All the participants wore something white. I didn’t know any of the people. I guessed it was an interment. I parked at the back of the church. As I walked to the entrance to go to the community center, I saw two vested priests, walking back to the church, more evidence that it was an interment..

Across the street from the church, I spotted the Ironman village, a temporary tent city serving the Ironman participants. I wondered how we would hear Sweetie’s dance instructions over the noise. Naturally, the community center was closed. I walked back to the car and drove over to Old A. Sure enough that’s where the class was, and I was half an hour late. Sadly, I missed my favorite part of the class, the review of some traditional dance steps. I don’t care as much for the part of the class where we learn choreographed dances. They all require me to hold my arms up high. My left arm, the one I shattered a year and a half ago with the reverse shoulder replacement, hurts when I hold it up. Also, I am usually too tired to do the whole class.

I stopped at Target on my way home to pick up the frozen sale items I noticed the other day. Haagen Das was still on sale. I picked up a pint of Vanilla Bean and one of Chocolate, and three frozen meals.

When I spoke to Judy, she told me Paulette’s profound pain was diagnosed as a pinched nerve. Judy and Paulette thought it was a kidney stone. She went to the Emergency Room and Kona Community Hospital. They told her it wasn’t her kidneys but didn’t give her medication for her pain. She went to her personal doctor who confirmed the original diagnosis. Then, she went back to the ER at Kona Community. They prescribed heavy doses of Advil, Aleve and Ibuprofen. Paulette got relief from the extreme pain and got some sleep. I remembered I had a TENS machine. I bought it after my elbow and shoulder surgery. I didn’t use it much. I charged it and drove it up to Paulette. It was up to her to figure out how to use it. I knew you place the pads on two parts of your body, but I didn’t know where Paulette should place them for her problem.

My next stop was at the community center to vote before I went to Ulu Wini. There was no line. I chose to vote in person because there was some confusion about my signature. When I registered to vote in Hawaii, I signed my name as Elizabeth S. David-Ross, my full legal name. My mother taught me the importance of signing the same name as was on the form. Who wants to write out Elizabeth S. David-Ross? One of the election workers made sure the signature was now Betty David-Ross, with the last name illegible, not because I wanted to obscure it but because my handwriting has degenerated.

When I showed my driver’s license as proof of identity, I asked what would prevent me from using Mike’s driver’s license, which I saved, to vote in his name. She checked the voting roll. Mike’s name was there as deceased, and he did not receive an absentee ballot. Not thinking clearly, I asked what would happen if I were to use his driver’s license to vote in person. She pointed out they would suspect I wasn’t Mike when I handed her his driver’s license because I was a woman. Also, they would check his name against their list.

I drove up the hill to Ulu Wini. Shauntel had a craft activity planned. She buys craft kits from Amazon. She is perfect for this job. She is organized, completely focused on her objective and calm. She is such a gift to the program.

I asked second grade NV to work with me for a moment before she participated in the planned activity. I wanted to check her sight words. When I worked with her the first time, the only word she could recognize was the word THE. She read all words as THE, with the exception of CAT. When I checked the sight word list, she recognized a number of other words. When I asked her if she could use the screen at her forehead. She said yes. She could not hold it steady when I worked with her last week and was very uncomfortable doing a spin release. There was nothing I could do but admit my helplessness and pray. She made this change independently. This isn’t the first time a student has made a change on their own. Once I’ve introduced the idea that they have choice how they use their brain, they resolve it on their own. I just worked with her for a few minutes.

I spent time working on the updates. A boy I had never worked with before wander over to my table. Did he want to work with me? Yes. On math. Counting by twos. First-grade KP demonstrated his knowledge. He needed a bit of assistance as he left numbers out. He had the same problem when it came to counting by hundreds. then he wrote the numbers up to 33, not missing any. When he was done, I continued writing, waiting for the middle school bus arrived.

Three middle school students came over and sat down. Two asked, “Where is RM?,” and walked away. I worked with sixth-grade ML on Under the Mesquite, a story told in blank verse. She recognized it from last year. I had a great time working with her on following the action, the vocabulary, and the imagery. ML is a wonderful student. I also asked her if she wanted to improve her reading speed. She said no; she was good.

Darby was exhausted from a busy day at work and passed on a walk.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

I was up by 4:30 a.m. Before I wash myself and brush my teeth in the morning, my first chore is checking Elsa's skin. It looks good. I spend my time brushing her instead. She only tolerates one side at a time. She looks like she enjoys it, and then she's done.

Elsa's improvement is fantastic. It's all due to the recommendations of the groomer at Petco. The vet gave me a prescription soap to use every other day, leaving the soap on for ten minutes each time. The groomer said, "Good God, no. Only bathe her once a week." Also, don't rinse off all the conditioner. Her skin was already much better after the bath before the one I gave her this Monday. Most of her body was free of lesions except in the groin. On Monday, I slathered the conditioner in the groin area and did a light rinsing. Bingo! I saw an immediate improvement in those lesions. We're done with the steroids and antibiotics. Maybe we'll be done with the prescription soap bathes and the prescription food that not only costs me a fortune but I have to ship to my sister on the mainland so she can mail it to me for a mere $30. If I had it shipped directly from the company, it would cost me $80.

I was tired after my walk after getting up and 4:30 and working on my document showing how my methods are evidence-based. My methods are more evidence-based than the programs developed and researched by the publishing houses. They aim to develop a product the schools can buy for another 100,000 dollars plus. While these new programs provide more phonics instruction than the old whole language approach, they are still insufficient for many children. The most researched and highly regarded program for teaching phonics, the Orton-Gillingham program, is impractical to use in a classroom. It's a lesson a day for each school day for three years. If a student is absent, they miss the lesson. The program is not adaptable to different levels within the classroom. Everyone in a group gets the same lesson, whether they need it or not.

My program requires no new materials; any printed matter can be used. In my first lesson with Adolescent D, I offered him third-grade material, fifth-grade material, or an adult book on philosophy. Guess what he chose! So, I pulled a sentence out of this book on Spinoza. It was an ordinary sentence, well within his reach, and I didn't bruise his adolescent ego.

If I teach a group, I select a sentence with words that address the needs of the most advanced student. Every complete sentence contains words at a low level.

I made it to Ulu Wini. No one approached me. I nailed second-grade NV. The last time I worked with her, I discovered she had memory problems. Efforts made to correct her brain pattern failed. She was uncomfortable with a spin release, which would allow her to use her visual working memory in the area of the forehead instead of having it slip to the top on the left. She said there had been no change since I had worked with her last. My notes say she couldn't even recognize the word OF. She said it was THE. Today, she decoded GOT and recognized WAS. I guided her through a phonemic analysis of Sassy the Cat. She was attentive and responsive. She worked hard. I released her after one paragraph.

Next, I nailed third-grade PL. She was going to the bathroom when I persuaded her to work with me. She said she saw improvement in her reading. I went over the Fry #1-25 Sight Word list. She named the letters before she said the word. She still had problems reading AT as THAT. She didn't read the words as rapidly as I would like. She was done after reading the first twenty-five words. She is the one true ADD student I have. She can't stay on task for a minute.

None of the other elementary school children wanted to work with me. I sat and wrote, waiting for the middle school bus to arrive. Sixth-grade ML came over immediately. Sixth-grade RM joined, as did a new girl, ninth-grade AY, an Americanized version of her Marshallese name. I worked on line-by-line comprehension in Esperanza Rising. ML worked hard. AY was new to the group. She did pretty well. RM was her usual distracted self. She doesn't even respond when I call her name. It's as if she's asleep. There's something wrong. AY and RM got up and walked away, and I continued working with ML. She finds the work fun. She's a delight.

I had a session with fourth-grade LG today. I worked on handwriting. I noticed he formed all his numbers and letters from the bottom up instead of the top down. I had him copy my actions with his index finger on a textured surface. After a few minutes of instruction, he could make that change and formed the letters beautifully. The change was spectacular.

In our math work, I presented him with a challenge today. I asked him to write the equations for a four-by-three array, first as three groups and then as four. He did a perfect job. He got it. We'll see how much carry-over there is to other situations. I checked his understanding of expanded notation. He had that.

Darby called to say her friend, who had been lingering in hospice for a month, finally died. She wanted to walk with me and talk.

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

I looked for Elsa and dragged her to bed before I went to sleep shortly after nine. I woke up at 11:30. I believe napping causes some sleeping problems. It's not that I'm so rested I don't need the sleep, but I'm training my body to wake up after an hour or two. My body thinks that's a good idea and does it at night, too. I fell back asleep and slept through to 2:30. I can't remember if I slept or dozed after that. I had some funny sensations in the back of my left leg. Was it the beginning of sciatica? Here, I had just bragged to Judy how I was in less pain now than I had been when I was younger, even as a child. Were all the exercises I was doing causing harm instead of making things better? It is possible that my movement is limited because of the hip replacement. I did some in-bed stretches. I find wiggling my ankle until something cracks relieves discomfort. My PT had no idea what cracked. She said the end of the sciatic nerve is down there.

I got up shortly after 4:30 and did my yoga exercises. I was out of the house before Joseph left.

I texted RH's mom to call me. She got back to me immediately. The woman scares me. I was actually hyperventilating while on the phone with her. Of course, the terror was triggered by something my therapist said the other day. Terror is the underlying feeling I'm left to deal with. It's totally out of proportion to what my life was actually about. It is the terror my mom dutifully passed on to me, not having dealt with her own PTSD, which was severe. I don't think anyone can think hers wasn't well-earned. Lord what that woman went through in her lifetime!

I mowed the grassy strip at the front of the house this morning. Patrick and I consider it mowing therapy. Focusing on those blades of grass being mowed down, particularly on my lawn with its seed spikes, is relaxing. The grass is too short to see where you have mowed last. You have to look for those tall, hard-to-see seed spikes. Mowing requires focus. Wonderful!

When wrestling with a conflict of interest there are two criteria: want and judgment. If the focus is on judgment, people see themselves as entitled based on right or wrong. What I want is better than you want. My judgment is better than yours. Who's right and who's wrong becomes the issue.

The other option is conflicting wants and desires. That can be a working gauge in all circumstances. Here's an extreme example: Ted Bundy needed to rape, torture, and kill young women. If I were one of those women, I would not want to be raped, tortured and murdered. Whether I'm right or wrong is pretty irrelevant. I would do my level best to escape that situation, and Ted Bundy would have had to do without.

I do need to say Bundy was in the wrong, an evil person out to do no good. But I was entitled to say I didn't want what he had to offer without judging him. Now, that is an extreme example. I think people make judgments to justify their right to want what they want, to defend their right to want and their right to have.

Ah, the right to have. Having a right to want does not guarantee getting what we want. All we get with the right to want is the right to be ultimately ourselves and for ourselves. The right to ask for what we want and say no to what we don't want. It doesn't say we have the right to get what we want just because we want it. That's a different matter.

How two parties negotiate separates the men from the boys. Some cultures teach never to ask for what hasn't been offered. If we're asked directly, we might have to say no. That's scary if we're not around someone we can trust to respect our needs as well as their own.

That behavior works if there are strict rules of entitlement that everyone understands. It can't be a multicultural situation where groups have different rules of social decorum. That's no longer possible in our modern world. We're not living in isolated groups unless we join a cult that forbids any contact with the outside world. We have to honor our wants as well as the wants of others. Tricky. I know.

Judging others works. You can imprison, torture, and even kill people who disagree with you. I just heard a talk by a Uijhur woman, a member of the minority Muslim group in China. The Chinese government sees anyone who disagrees with the cultural norm as an existential threat. It is a problem of opposing wants. The Uighurs want to live one way; the Chinese government sees their way of living as a threat to their lifestyle. Is it? probably. Does preserving their lifestyle benefit the Chinese? It certainly doesn't benefit the Uighurs. Is the vision of a single dominant cultural pattern doable in a day when anyone has immediate access to every other person on the planet. Even remote Amazon tribes have Internet access. We're in a jam.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Elsa didn't come to bed right away when I went to sleep. She wasn't in bed when I woke in the middle of the night. I was too tired to look for her and bring her to bed. She wasn't there when I woke up in the morning. That was a surprise. I have no idea why she behaved that way. Was she mad because I bathed her yesterday? I used to bathe her every other day until the groomer at Petco said," Don't do that. You strip away all her natural protection." I had followed the vet's advice. Things have improved 80% since I started following the groomer's advice.

I got up well before 5 a.m. and sat down to write how my work is evidence-based. My therapist's comment that she couldn't recommend me because my work wasn't evidence-based was a shock. Of course, I tell her how I'm different from others. But that doesn't mean my work isn't evidence-based. My work may be more rooted in scientific evidence than the methods the schools use.

The methods used by the schools are developed, researched, and promoted by the publishing companies. They get to sell another package, which costs $1000 per year per student. The method I use requires NO new material. Try and sell that. Evidence-based research done by independent researchers proves that phonemic awareness, not phonics per se, predicts reading ability. More evidence supports my method than the ones promoted by the publishing houses.

I wrote for about an hour before my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m.

I ran into Dean and Nina this morning. They had a dozen tiny eggs for me. I needed three to equal one. They're being laid by their new batch of hens, just reaching maturity. Dean said their older chickens are laying no more. They go through menopause, too.

I spent most of the day writing and pouring boiling water on weeds. Yesterday, I pruned some of the shrubs with my handing electric hedge trimmer. I also called Eli and told him I wanted to work on planting shrubs in the mulched area. I have to figure out how many I will need and plot where they will be planted. I will also need to buy sprinkler hoses and set them up to water the plants daily when it doesn't rain.

We have been having more rain than usual. Climate change is affecting us in a positive way so far.

I met with sixth-grade RH. She used a cover screen, like Adolescent D used to, so I couldn't see her face. If that makes her comfortable, I'm good with it.

Her mother sent me a copy of her evaluation. She did very poorly on orthographic fluency and decoding pseudo words. As I understand it, it means being able to identify phonics patterns. I started her on The Phonics Discovery System approach. She does or did have some problems identifying the phonemic sounds. She was thinking top down. I told her I thought she learned to read the way it did by identifying the little words in the big words. I didn't use phonics, meaning identifying the letters that represented the phonemes and the phonemes that represented the sounds. She was a little nervous initially, but I consider it a fun game. I think she picked up on that attitude. As I go along, I mark the syllable pattern. The other day, I worked on the b/d confusion but didn't do anything with it today. I need to do a brief review each session. Correcting those problems takes drill.

The twins were available immediately after my session with RH. They're not doing much on their own. I instructed them to work together to master visual perception. They may be doing something individually but not together. I can't get them to see it as a game. They can use any written material.

One Twin selects a word and embeds it in the visual working memory. They hand the book to the other twin, pointing out the chosen word. The second twin looks at the word while the first one spells the word. Then the second twin asks, "What is the first letter? The second? The third? etc." I encourage them to pick a word of at least four letters, preferably words of six or seven letters. The second twin follows up by asking her to first to name the letters out of order. "What's the third letter?" etc. Then, the second twin selects the word. They seem to be doing surprisingly well. Twin E reports a significant change in her reading. Twin A does not. Twin A was already reading small words fluently. Her problem is with longer words. She ignores the letters. She says the words look like something other than what they are.

Monday, October 21, 2024

I slept better last night, waking up around midnight after falling asleep at 9:30. However, I fell back asleep until 2:30. I had a nightmare. Unusual for me.

I was clinging to the undercarriage of a semi-trailer as it moved down a two-lane highway. The driver warned me that I had to detach before much longer because he would hit a section of road I could not survive. I was scared. When I woke at 2:30, I recalled the dream. I fell asleep again and had a reprieve of the same dream.

While the driver’s voice was male, the experience reminded me of my life with my mom. She didn’t walk; she ran from one spot to the next, whether she moved between the kitchen and dining area or was tearing through the local grocery store. Dorothy and I had to run after her. If we didn’t keep up, we got yelled at. Just thinking about it causes anxiety.

I finally was out of bed by close to six-thirty, unusually late. I had a thought as I drove to Old A for my Monday Chi-Qigong session with Clyde. Why hadn’t I asked the driver to stop the truck so I could safely let go? There was no way I could have asked my mom to stop or slow down without consequences.

When I arrived at the Chi Qigong site, Clyde wasn’t there. By the time I got myself organized and out of the car, Cylde had parked and was organizing himself. After the session, we sat for a few minutes to talk. Clyde told me he had a dream last night himself. He was coming over a rise when he saw a figure dressed all in white and bathed in a white light. When he saw the face, it was clearly mine. I appreciated the positive sentiment. I thought it was interesting in light of my dream. I don’t interpret my nightmare as all negative. I see it as me finally facing an old fear. In my worldview, negative feelings can’t heal unless we face them. I’m sure there’s another school of thought out there.

The other school of thought is to ignore negative feelings and soldier on. I don’t think that’s wrong. As with all solutions, there’s too much of a good thing. The trick is knowing when to zig and when to zag. I overdid zigging. I had to consciously learn denial as a coping strategy. It did me a world of good. My sister helped me to learn it. I could have used more insights from her. Unfortunately, she believed I should have known and didn’t share her wisdom.

I went to Target after Chi Qigong. I needed eggs, bread, and jam. I noticed Haagen Das and some great frozen meals were still on sale. I couldn’t buy that at the time. I planned to stop at Kaiser for my Botox shots and a flu shot, but I did pick up a small box of mini cinnamon rolls, a brie, and a double package of cream cheese.

I had trouble finding my car. It couldn’t possibly have been stolen. I walked up and down the aisles, hitting the door open button. It was exactly where I thought it should have been. When I looked the first time, I hadn’t gone far enough. Who knows what I was thinking.

My car clock said 9:23, and my Botox appointment was at 9:30. I hoped I would make it on time. My clock was 7 minutes fast, and I was about five minutes away.

While I made it on time, I had trouble signing in at Kaiser. Nothing to slow one down like racing. I finally checked in and went to the second floor to surgical specialties. I had a short wait.

While waiting, a woman came out of one of the offices. She gave me a big, friendly smile that confused me. Did she know me? Then, she engaged me at an intense level, greeting me with Spock’s handshake. I wasn’t sure if she was a little off. It was such a firehose of friendliness. I engaged with her. She told me how unbelievable it was that some young people didn’t know who Spock was. The topic switched to the history of television.

I told her my mother was six months pregnant with me when she saw a television that could be in the home. She said I must be younger than her. Her recollection was that the first television came out in the mid-fifties. My mother saw it in September 1940 at the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, New York. It wound up a pleasant exchange. But I wondered, is this how people experience me with my friendliness? Friendliness depends on someone’s comfort with improvising in the moment with a total stranger. I’m good with it. Rather, I enjoy it.

I apologized to the doctor for missing our earlier appointment but told them they owed me a thanks. I had forgotten to show up, but later that afternoon, I felt bad. These were my first symptoms of Covid.

While the insurance covers Botox for my left eye, which drooped so low over my eye that it obscured my vision, the doctor treats the right side of my forehead, too. I know he loves his work. I don’t think he can resist doing the best job possible. I asked him if the muscles would eventually give up or if I would always need these injections. He said for the muscles to atrophy, I would need an extensive set of frequent shots. When he administered the shots, he said my muscles did seem to be atrophying.

I have a drooping left eyebrow because of the face I made for 19 years every time I took a drag off a cigarette, and I smoked two to two and a half packs a day. I figure if I could create the problem, I can make some contribution to undoing the damage. I consciously work on relaxing the muscles on that side of my head. Maybe I should tell the doctor that those brow muscles are part of a set on the left side of my head, reaching as far back as my left ear. I know the face I made. My mother always warned me not to make faces; it could become permanent. I hate to say it: my mother was right.

I stopped to get my flu shot before I left Kaiser. A separate room is set up for dispensing these shots: Covid, flu, and RSV. I had the Covid shot five days before the Covid symptoms showed. Everyone says it reduced the impact of the disease. I asked the nurse if I should have the flu and the RSV today. No, just one. Which one to start? The flu shot.

I went home to nap afterward. I put away the food I bought from Target and took that nap. I set my alarm before I did for 11:25. I would be driving Lutz to the airport to catch his flight to South East Asia. He will be there for the next seven months. It’s cheaper, and he says the people are nicer. I’m sure they’re nicer. They don’t understand what he says and see him as a rich American.

I was at Lutz’s house at least five minutes early. We’re both German. He was born there and came to the US when he was eight. On-time in Germany is at least five to ten minutes early. he wasn’t ready.

I had Elsa in the car. I let her run around Lutz’s yard. It was the first time I let her loose in an unfamiliar place. She ran around checking things out. She always came when I called. My only concern with her is that she chases moving cars. She’s prepared to take them head-on. The dog is a complete idiot.

It took Luz a few minutes to get his shoes on. His daughter and grandkids were there. They both kids have speech impediments. They have psychological reasons for this problem, if not neurological. Their dad died in a car accident a little over a year ago. I dropped Lutz at the Hawaiin Airline departure area. There was no one else in line yet. It’s the way he liked it. Spoken like a true German.

When I got home, I had lunch: an everything bagel, cream cheese, and lox. My Hanat sister Jean called. She will be seeing a neurologist because of a hand tremor. I have one of those, too. My PCP said it was benign and not to worry about it. My mom and granddad had the same thing. My granddad’s was impressive. His hand really shook. The man was fearless. He not only took on eating green peas, but he shaved daily with a straight-edged razor.

When I got home, I bathed Elsa. I was supposed to do it on Sunday but forgot. Her skin is so much better. Her back and sides were clear of lesions, and only a few were in her groin area. I am thrilled with the improvement. The groomer at Petco gave me the healing advice.

I took a box of strawberries over to Darby, the only taker besides Joseph and me. I noticed this morning that Joseph had finished that whole Costco-sized container last night. I ate three out of my box. We took a total of four boxes from B last night. He got several flats of strawberries from his friends. He called to ask if I wanted any. I asked Joseph if he wanted some. I called Mei. She doesn’t like strawberries. I texted Judy and Paulette. I got a no from that quarter. They are on a special diet. They can’t eat anything that isn’t on it. Darby was the only one who said yes. My guess is that Joseph will take the remaining container.

I sat down to work on the updates and blog. After listening to the second half of Fresh Air, I took another short nap. Then, I had an appointment with the fourth-grade LG.

We continued working on math. I drew an array of two groups of three circles and two equations: ____+____ =______ and _____X______=. When he solved that one, I added another circle to each group. I let him figure it out as much as he could. I would say, “If you need help, let me know.” He had trouble determining the total in each group and whether the number after the equals sign should be the total. He could not understand the relationship between the concrete, the diagram, and the abstract, the equation. He saw the repeated pattern in the equations better than its relationship to the concrete. Wow!