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

Friday, July 3, 2026

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

My mind was still calm this morning when I woke up. I don’t think my mind has ever been this silent without effort. I’ve achieved degrees of peacefulness in mediation retreats, but this is different. It’s not so much peaceful - just less noisy. The trick was to confront the underlying fear. Learning that that fear is motivated by a primitive understanding of my life circumstances dictated by the experience of my forebearers as they roamed the savanna in search of food was very helpful. It explained the intensity of that feeling.

Confronting underlying fear has been the key to significant changes over and over. The first time I faced fear, I was twenty. I was so wired that a sophomore teacher recommended I seek counseling. Good move. I took her up on it. The therapist was somewhat of a jerk, but she asked a poignant question. Why did I act that way? I hiccupped out, “I’m scared.” I hadn’t even known before then that I was driven by fear. It was a good start.

I went to Ulu Wini today. The kids have stopped coming to me for academic help. Some of it is they’ve put their brain on vacation mode. No one wants to work. On Monday, when I asked going-into-sixth-grade ML if she wanted to work, she said, “No, I’m good.” I turned into a monster, not because she said no but because of how she said it. I hate when people use euphemisms to avoid saying something directly, saying what they really want. I wanted her to say, “No, thanks.” I bullied her into saying, “No.” I saw an aspect of myself I’d never seen before. I was appalled. I apologized to her today. She didn’t know what I was talking about. Still, I think it’s important for adults to apologize to kids when they act out and to take responsibility for their behavior. It lets kids know they have the right to their feelings.

I don’t know the impact of my apology on ML. I made a more routine error with Twin E the other day. I instructed her to look at the word without clarifying where she should look, on the page or in her mind. I didn’t do the same thing I had done with ML but expressed frustration. The frustration was really hers if I was unclear. When I asked her if it made her feel better or made no difference, she said it made her feel better. I know when I hear someone say, “I’m sorry,” in a tone that suggests concern for me instead of a plea not to be beaten, it soothes my nerves. Customer service agents always use it, apologizing for things that are in no way their fault. Ahhhh! Every nerve in my body cools down.

On Monday, I tried to introduce a phonemic exercise to Shauntel. I sounded out the letters /th/ and the /e/ as in the. She looked confused. I tried it on one of the kindergartners. Boy! I think that strategy didn’t work. I never introduced phonemic awareness that way before; I won’t ever use it again.

I have always introduced it by saying the word first and then making the sounds. I’ve never had that fail. As I think of it, I ignored a basic pedological principle: always work from the known to the unknown. I started with the unknown. I spoke to Shauntel about her reaction. I understood it. When I first learned about phonemes in a graduate linguistics class when I was twenty-three, it blew my mind. It still blows my mind. It’s like discovering the world you thought was solid isn’t; it’s made of little bits of other things temporarily stuck together by some force that could easily fail.

Lutz has successfully killed unwanted trees by drilling holes in them and pouring in small amounts of Round-Up. I tried it with one tree. I had trouble drilling the hole. The other day, I asked for more detailed instructions. What size bit did he use? Half-inch bits on the Schefflera. Oh, boy. I used a small one. Even with that one, I had trouble getting it into the tree. Rather than drill a hole, it just pushed the material aside. What was I doing wrong?

I went to Home Depot to pick up more 30% vinegar and the large bits Lutz recommended. I found two sold independently- not in a package of bits. They were advertised as containing titanium. I hope that makes them better bits. They were indeed more expensive. The individual ½ inch bit cost as much as a whole kit of a smaller one.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Yesterday evening, I told Lutz a story about something that happened between my cousin and me. However, I couldn't remember her name for love nor money. As I struggled to remember this morning while lying in bed, I remembered the names of her parents, her sister, her sister's husband, and her niece and nephew. I could even remember the names of her niece and nephew's spouses and children, but not her I went through the alphabet, hoping that would jog my memory. I felt attracted to the letter H. That didn't sound right. I knew her name didn't have the letter H in it. I tried to continue with the alphabet but got pulled back to the H. I contemplated it. Ah, her husband's name started with the letter H. While I couldn't remember his name, I only had a brief contact with him; her name came up. It must have been stored in my brain next to his: Barbara.

My brain was racing while lying in bed. I was frantically solving one problem after another, looking futilely for solutions. This had been going on for several days. Fortunately, it stopped when I had something else to do, writing or a conversation. When alone and not verbally occupied, my mind saw a golden opportunity and grabbed it. Damn! I was determined to get it under control. I meditated.

As I meditated, I asked what was lying underneath the mental spinning. It was fear. Terror really. I sat with it. My conscious mind knows there is no reason for this fear. My life is not in danger. I do not have to fear abandonment in a primitive world.

Thank God I'm not the only one talking about evolutionary psychology. Wilson and Dawkins's books were published in the mid-1970s. This brought the concept, which had been introduced by Darwin in the late 1800s, to the public's attention. I was into it big time in the 1980s, developing activities for the children I worked with based on the theory that many of our responses were rooted in circumstances we had never experienced. Nonetheless, our nervous systems operate as if we were living in hunter-gatherer groups, where abandonment and isolation meant certain death.

But now I had my knowledge of the current reality to share with my biologically driven unconscious mind. I am not living in a group of 10 to 30 people, moving across an unoccupied landscape searching for food and water. I am living in a world jam-packed with people and almost devoid of meat-eating animals. Yay! I am safe. My conscious mind knows what this world I live in is about. I can tell my unconscious, "You are safe. We are safe.

Loneliness is an epidemic. Behind loneliness is the fear we inherited from some primitive forebearer we know nothing about. I'd say, "Thanks a ton for nothing!" but it's hard to hold someone who lived under different circumstances responsible for my nervous system. Well, at least, it's unfair.

Having relieved myself of the fear of death, I could sit with the fear my mother's constant attacks generated in me from a different perspective. A. I did survive it. Despite emotional handicaps, I went on to have a decent life. I had a good marriage and a career I loved. B. I can survive any current attacks as long as they don't reach the fever pitch of the Nazis or the Hutus of the Rwandan genocide. Of course, anything is possible in the future. We're living in interesting times. But weirdly, the thought of that is less distressing than my mother's attacks when I was a child and vulnerable at a different level.

I worked with the Twins and Adolescent D. The work with D is routine, the same every day. He makes small improvements in each session, which is gratifying. If he did this exercise independently daily, he would someday be a fluent reader. The interesting work is with Twin E, as she forces herself to use the part of her brain for recall that works instead of the one that doesn't.

It's worth sharing background information on this work with Twin E. Both Twins had terrible memory problems. At the end of first grade, neither one could name all the letters in the alphabet, and neither one could read anything. They are heading into fifth grade next school year. They are both reading at a second-grade level. Their comprehension is good, and they summarize a short passage on their own after receiving instruction on how to summarize. I think they will do well once they conquer their word recognition problem.

Twin E revealed that she knew when she had a word wrong a few days ago. How did she know? Another part of her brain gave her the right word, So why didn't she use that part of the brain? It was on the periphery of her attention instead of in the center. Could she force herself to use the part of her brain that she knew was giving the correct reading of the word? That's what we have been working on, not so much identifying the word as using the information from a particular part of the brain, she says, gives her the correct answer. It's breaking a reflex action, breaking a habit like any other. Changing her brain so that the part of the brain that gives the correct answer pops up in the center of her attention instead of the part that doesn't. I see her making progress.

Yvette proposed we have dinner together. She picked up a pizza, it was lovely spending time with her. I hadn't had pizza in a while, and I was stunned to learn that a small pizza costs $25. Really!!

Rita Wilson appeared on the TED mainstage with a message. Ask yourself what you really want to do. It's a good question. It was appalling hearing her up there telling her story. "I asked myself what I wanted to do, and guess what? I got it." She learned she wanted to sing. When her agent asked her what she wanted to do, she said, "Be in a musical"- and just like that, she was in one. I heard her sing. She's mediocre at best. I don't have the best ear, but she was off on a few notes. For her to feel comfortable publicly singing suggests she has dementia, and her husband is using all his clout to protect her from that knowledge. Very sweet. But she didn't belong on the TED main stage. She didn't belong on any stage. The only message she had to deliver was one on entitlement.

Wilson's talk reminded me of Linda Lay's appearance on the Morning Show after the Enron debacle. Employees had lost their retirement accounts and had nothing. Mrs. Lay, looking for sympathy, complained that she and her husband, who had defrauded the employees, had to give up one of the homes. Really! That sounds just as bad as being homeless to me, don't you agree? Grrr!

Monday, July 8, 2024

Dean and Nina plan to come by on Saturday afternoon to play Rummikub. He wanted to play Scrabble, although neither Nina nor I did. I find Scrabble anxiety-producing, and Nina's first language is Chinese. Nina still struggles to communicate in English. She does fine at work, where what she has to say is limited. Dean is concerned because he doesn't know how to play Rummikub. He proposed playing with me because I talked about how lonely I was. I am that lonely. I appreciate the company. As long as they're not patronizing, I'll be fine.

I left late for Chi Qigong today but arrived on time. Clyde was standing on the bluff, enjoying the view of the tide pools and the bay. He commented on my Bronx accent for the second time. He's full of assumptions. We talked about religion. I told him that both Mike and I were converts. He asked if we converted because we had epiphanies. He told me the story of how he had an epiphany that got him to give up alcohol. It came in a dream. He saw himself as a knight in metal armor kneeling before a sword. He swore never to drink again; that did it for him. He never touched a drop again after that day thirty-six years ago.

Diane came today and brought another lady with her from her morning water aerobics session in the bay. Diane reminded me of the benefit of standing barefoot on the soil or sand, having nothing between the skin of your bare feet and nature. It made a big difference today. It was immediately calming.

I sat quietly by myself on the picnic bench before I headed off to Target. I needed some more Clorox 2 for my laundry. I gather it's no longer called that. There was a product made by Clorox that was for colors. I bought another small package of pastries, two more cans of lentil soup, my go-to choice for dinner when nothing else appeals to me, and Dave's organic multi-grained bread on sale.

When I got home, I called Mama K immediately. She was volunteering at the Food Bank and had Twin A with her, but Twin E was home. I worked with her. It was a frustrating session. She read the passage we've been using to work on her memory. She got all the words correctly. She got most of them from her memory, but there were some we had gone over she had to decode again. She never remembers the decoding procedure I teach. I have to lead her through it every time. Find the vowel and blend it with the following consonant. Today, we worked on the word against. OMG! I gave her the vowel letters ai. What sound might they make?

I teach students to pick a likely sound. The student can infer the word using context clues if the pronunciation is close enough. She said, /er/. The likelihood of ai making an /er/ sound is very low; however, anything is possible in English. Then she guessed /ar/. She had just seen ar and figured out it made an /ar/ sound. She finally gave me the short /a/, as in /an/. Then I asked her what the following letter was. She looked up at the ceiling. I kept telling her to look at the word to find the next letter. That took a good minute. When I got her to focus on the page, she had no trouble identifying the letter as s and blending /an/+/s/= /ans/. She identified the next letter as t without difficulty. Did I not communicate the idea of looking at the page correctly? I can't remember my exact words. I may have said, "Look at the word." But I tell them to look at it in their heads as well as on the page. Did I not make a clear distinction with my words? I'll have to explore that further. The problem is that poor students often look up at the ceiling instead of the printed text to find the answer. I have no idea why they do that. Well, I have some. They have no confidence that looking at the text will help them. They can't extract information from text, so why bother looking at it in the first place. I have to figure out a gentler way of getting them to do it than repeating the same words over and over.

At any rate, Twin E got to the point where she blended the sound /ganst/. When she put the /a/ from the first syllable with the word, she quickly recognized it as /agenst/; yeah, that's how we pronounce it.

I did some yard work, trimming the shrubs I'd already cut, ignoring the ones I hadn't touched yet. I filled the two-gallon sprayer with 30% vinegar, a dash of Dawn detergent, and salt, rinsing the opening with the remains of a container of 5% vinegar before screwing on the lid. I sprayed the area by the street-side fence. I covered most of it with the three-quarters full tank. This process is much easier than killing the weeds with boiling water, one carafe at a time. Of course, the advantage of the latter method is it gets me on my feet and walking every five minutes.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Yvette proposed we have dinner together. She picked up a pizza, it was lovely spending time with her. I hadn't had pizza in a while, and I was stunned to learn that a small pizza costs $25. Really!!

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Sunday, July 7, 2024

I had a fantastic night’s sleep despite napping a lot yesterday. I had been almost narcoleptic. I would do some writing and feel compelled to close my eyes and sleep for a while. I have no idea how many short naps I took. Then, I was good and ready for bed by 8:30. I feared going to sleep that early would mean a restless night’s sleep. I had nothing of the sort. I slept straight through to 4 a.m. I finally got out of bed shortly before 5 a.m.

I did my gentle yoga in combination with laughter yoga. I made a small but significant change in the laughter yoga. Instead of doing a gentle “Ha ha, ha,” until I ran out of breath, I did a more intense form of laughter. I opened my mouth wider, which lifted my cheeks. This impacted my abdominal muscles; I used a different set. I ran out of breath sooner. How could a small adjustment in my mouth create such major differences?

I was tired by the time I was ready to go to church. I thought I would fall asleep during the Mass, but no. I stayed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I lingered after Mass because I planned to participate in a sound bath event at noon at Unity of Kona, a new-age church. I had a two-hour wait.

I sat on a bench on the south lanai, waiting for the crowd to thin out so I could slip into the bathroom and change out of my dress into shorts and a T-shirt. A couple came up to speak to Paulette. It became a joyful four-way conversation and then a two-by-two conversation.

I mentioned Mike. The husband, FK, didn’t know who he was. I was surprised because I knew the couple were devout members of the church. How could he not know who Mike was? His wife, NC, said he had memory problems. She was his memory. He had been at the soda fountain at Costco when the security curtain came down and hit him on the back of his head. I reached out and asked him if I could touch him to bless him.

I engaged in a lively conversation with his wife. She has a powerfully loud singing voice. She said if you watch a rock concert from a particular date in the 70s, you can hear her voice above the roaring crowd. We laughed together. It was great.

I asked if I could do some healing on him. I hadn’t done a healing on someone other than occasionally one of my students in a while. I thought I would do BrainManagementSkills, as I did with the kids. It never came to that. I only got to work on the psychological aspect of the trauma, which was considerable. He had been injured previously in a situation where he anticipated physical danger and was reasonably good with that. This event was one where he hadn’t anticipated danger; it was out of the blue, random. That made it all the more frightening. At the end of a fun-for-me session, his headache was better, as was his vision and the numbness in his legs. The psychological impact heightened the physical problems.

If the session hadn’t come to a natural end, the 11:30 Spanish Mass was starting. Parishioners were gathering on the lanai. I changed in the women’s room. As I came out, I observed young Spanish women coming to Mass dressed in vivid colors.

I left for the Sound Bath event. It took me a minute to find it. Unity of Kona meets in a storefront in a strip mall. Most of the floor space was filled with yoga mats when I arrived. I found a good spot. Clyde, who leads the Chi Qigong session on the beach, greeted me. He was the one who told me about the sound bath event. The sound experience was wonderful. I did one sound bath with Damon and Cylin when I visited them in L.A. This was much better; I was more open to it or desperate for healing.

The event started with several people walking around the room and sounding something that could be used as wind chimes over each person. The only negative part was that lying on the hard floor hurt my back. That was a surprise. I love lying on the cement at the end of a driveway yoga session, so I thought I would love this, too. I was miserable. Next time, I’ll bring sleeping pillows and a soft blanket to put on top of the yoga mat.

Next Sunday, Unity is doing a crystal healing. Again, people lie on yoga mats. Others walk around, placing crystals on the participants and healing them. I’ll take anything I can get. I’ve been having a tough time.

I thought I’d nap during the sound bath; I didn’t, partially because of my physical discomfort and because I was energized by the healing I had done. It’s a unique gift. Helping people with it is fantastic. Of course, afterward, I worried if I didn’t do too much too soon. I hoped F.K. was okay.

I had going-into-fourth-grade-M at three. We continued working on Stuart Little. I have to explain a lot. Even some of the vocabulary is different. She didn’t know the word arithmetic. It’s always called math these days. She knew about looking up words in a dictionary, but she will be the last. We all look up words online. No one has to learn the order of the alphabet as I did to look up words in those books. We worked on the skill of prediction today. She wasn’t that good at it. We will have to do more work.

I delivered a heavy load of green waste to Darby and Patrick. I wanted Patrick to come out and help. I thought it was too heavy for Darby and me. When he did come, he turned the wheeled trash can around so it rolled down the hill in front of him while he held the handle. That that hadn’t occurred is a sign of my aging brain. I pulled it down the hill, pushing against it so it didn’t roll right over me. Duh!

Patrick told a joke. He asked what the rooster said at daybreak. “Arise you proletariat, and take your rightful place!” I didn’t get it. He reminded me that Lutz and I had a long talk on the political ideals of communism. It was a reference to that conversation. A few years ago, I don’t think I would have missed that reference.

My conversation with Lutz the day before was enlightening. I don’t disagree with those who feel power is becoming more and more centralized, and the voice of the individual is getting lost. The problem is the solution. Marx’s ideal would be great, but it doesn’t happen that way. His plan was for small groups to gather and express their needs. A representative from that group would attend a higher-order group of representatives from these smaller groups. Then, a representative from the group would send a representative to a higher-order group, etc., and the needs of the people would be recognized. Lutz said that something like that happened in some Western communist nations. But what happens to varying degrees is the ‘representative’ of the smaller groups represented the will of the head of the nation, not the people. The locals were spied on to ensure they conformed to the dictates of the national leadership. I have no idea how we will solve the problem of increased international-level politics.

Saturday, July 6, 2024

I went to bed very late because I had to see the end of the movie Darling Companion. I loved it, but it got terrible reviews. It stars Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline with Diane Wiest, and several other actors I recognized and thought well of. The reviews didn't credit the movie's theme, resolving interpersonal relationships.

I walked up to Judy and Paulette's with Elsa, a spray bottle with ammonia in hand. I learned that Judy was trying to remove the tinting from Howard's car windows. It had darkened over the years, and she couldn't see out anymore. That made driving dangerous.

When I spoke with her, I learned Judy had tried several different methods already. Nothing worked. The videos show a guy peeling the tinting off the window in large sheets. Howard's car was ancient. The glue had hardened. Judy had managed to scrape some of it off and get clear glass. I delivered ammonia because Judy had learned it might work. My best guess is scraping is the only way to go.

Judy and Paulette told me they couldn't find ammonia in the local grocery stores. I remember buying it there but hadn't bought any in the last ten years. It's become a hardware item. I wonder why.

I did laundry, anticipating a sunny day. Good luck! When the washing machine had done its job, the rain started. I hung the laundry on the line anyway. I just set aside a few pairs of underwear in case I ran out. Given the strength of the sun here, it would require only a few hours to dry everything, even if it had been rain-soaked.

The rain also busted my plans to walk the green waste down to Darby and Patrick's.

It was a nothing day. The Twins go to a paddling race every Saturday, and Adolescent D had other plans. I worked on updates and napped a lot. I was almost narcoleptic for the whole day, easily falling asleep while writing.

In anticipation of Damon visiting at the end of July, I planned a thorough house cleaning. Damon said, "No, no. that's not necessary." I use guests as motivation to get the cleaning done. Mike used to say, "Where's a guest when you really need one?" Today, I removed the screens and washed all the insides of the bay window.

I planned lentil soup for my dinner. I generally cook it on the stovetop. The burner didn't ignite. I was out of gas. Josh came up to help me. The two canisters that were attached were empty. They were light enough for me to pick up with ease. The two full ones were heavy. It didn't want Josh to lift them. Josh was down with a painful neck a week ago. It was so bad he had to stay home from work. He also has a chronic bad knee. I didn't want him to jeopardize his body when someone else could do it. Tomorrow, he was leaving for Colorado for his fiftieth birthday. His mom, who rarely sees him, insisted he be with her for the occasion. Sounded reasonable to me.

I texted Adam, Judy's son, who lives down the block on the same property as she does, to deal with the propane. Adam does this for a living. His next-door neighbor, Otto, owns a propane dispensing business. Adam went to work for him. Otto has adopted Adam as his Hanai son. He is planning on passing the business on to Adam when he retires. I don't know all the arrangements. But I do know it's a good relationship. Adam offered to come right over and attach the full canisters. I told him it wasn't necessary. I sent him a picture of the two empties sitting in the driveway for him to pick up on his way to work on Monday.

I came across a list of the ten top films on Netflix. Yikes, most of them were violent—not to my taste. Only one seemed reasonable: The Pale Blue Eye with Christian Bale. While it didn't captivate me like Darling Companion did, it didn't disappoint. It has some interesting twists.

Friday, July 5, 2024

I had a bad night's sleep. Between the 24hr. urine collection and my preoccupation about a troubling interaction, I slept poorly for most of the night. I got up around 3:30, dressed, sat in my old-lady chair, and meditated. It wasn't one of the best ones, but neither was it the worst. Around 4:30, I did my gentle seated yoga/laughter yoga combination. I can feel the muscles in my waist tighten. Laughter yoga is a fantastic process. The more I do it, the more I learn about its profound impact. I recommend it for one and all.

I ran into Dean and Nina this morning. Usually, Dean does most of the talking, I ask more questions than tell my own stories, and Nina makes a few quirky comments along the way. Today, I did most of the talking. I don't know why it came up, but we discussed parenting styles. Dean says Nina's parents, who live with them in their own attached apartment, have never said a kind word to her. I've heard that repeatedly about Chinese parents of their generation. I get the feeling the next generation, at least those who immigrated to the US, are trying a different route.

Dean said Nina had never seen my lanai. It is wonderful. It's 500 square feet of screened-in porch, my living area. Given the arrangement, you would think I do a lot of entertaining. We did set it up for when the family visited. No one comes to visit these days. Damon is coming in late July, but my home is no longer good enough for him. He wants a house with a pool and hot tub. They do live in their pool and hot tub at home.

I invited Dean and Nina to come in so she could see my lanai. Dean proposed they come over, and we play Scrabble together. I thought that was a great idea. I would love to have more people in the house. I was a little intimidated by Scrabble; I'm not that good at thinking of words. I said so to Dean. He said Nina didn't like it either. English was her second language. I suggested Rummikub. Hopefully, this pans out.

Yvette had planned to play Sorry with me yesterday, but then she got into enjoying her husband's company so much. That makes me happy. She suggested Sunday, but I won't be free then.

I had an appointment with Shelly this morning. I'm working on keeping myself calm in behavior and internally under challenging situations. I did that with a walking buddy the other day. It's new for me. It makes me feel a little dead inside. I'm experimenting. Let's see where it goes.

I have an issue with boundaries. If I ask someone to stop what they're doing, I expect them to stop. This friend told me he thought he had the right to decide whether or not the topic I reacted to was worthy of that reaction. He also thought it should be his job to be sensitive rather than to respect my definition of boundaries. What I usually see happening with that system is people living side by side in discomfort. I like the goal of looking for what makes everyone the most comfortable.

This friend told me I was being childish when I responded negatively to something he said. Rule #1- if you want to stay in a relationship, never disparage a person's character; only talk about behavior. From what I've observed, those who advocate saying nothing and suffer in silence don't do well in intimate, long-term relationships. They die inside, and the relationship doesn't do that well either. Speaking up for your comfort should not be escalated into a full-scale battle for total control. If everything about a person makes you uncomfortable- get out. If everything about everybody makes you uncomfortable, you've got a problem.

I planned to work with the Twins after my session with Shelly. When Mama K didn't respond, I ended the Zoom session and went to work in the yard. I picked up the branches I had trimmed the other day.

Mama K called while I was working in the yard. She had been up early and fell back asleep again. I could work with the girls now. Twin E came on first. We're working on her memory. The wrong word keeps coming up, although she also sees the right word further back in her head. It occurred to me that she has the habit of looking in the wrong place. Nothing else is wrong with her brain.

Twin A's reading fluency, the speed, and the musical quality of her oral reading have greatly improved. I always ask her to tell me what she understood from the passage. She blows my mind with her articulate,

on-the-nose answers. While I work on the same passage daily with Twin E, Twin A reads at least three passages daily. She faded on the final passage. It's still a drain on her brain.

After the session, I continued with the yard work. I picked up some green waste and stuffed it into Home Depot 5-quart buckets. I stacked two filed buckets into a large, wheeled trash barrel. I wheeled it down the driveway to the Schefflera to pick up some stumps Dan had just left. I wanted to clear the area at the foot of the 'tree.' I put the word in air quotes; the tree isn't called the octopus tree for nothing. There must be 6 to 10 tree trunks, all pushing out new leaves. I have to drill more holes in the remaining stumps and fill them with diesel fuel or Round-Up.

I also picked up some of the logs from when Dan cut down the Sheffelerra. I must clear them out to get close to the trunks without having to fear falling. Yes, multiple trunks.

That's how the Sheffelera grows. They call the tree the octopus tree. I used to think they called it that because its flower has all these branches, making it look like an octopus. But no, that's not the case. It's an octopus tree because it sends out roots that put up other trees. I've never seen anything like it on the East Coast. Every tree has one trunk and only one trunk. Another tree may sprout from a seed nearby. These trees grow new trunks from spreading roots. And these trees grow into giant trees. The weirdest thing about these trees is they are all benign potted plants in New York, the Sheffilera, the Ficus, and the rubber plant. These plants are monsters that will take over your world and break up your driveway and foundation. They have to be killed off. It is a fight to the death. So I poison them.

My next chore took me to town. I dropped off my 24-hour urine sample at Kaiser and was told I needed to give a blood sample. My quick stop-off turned into a longer affair.

I drove to town to pick up a bag of Baking Soda. I use it as toothpaste, a cleaning agent, and to kill coqui frogs. I used it successfully on a coqui a few years ago, but nothing works on the one outside my bedroom door. While at Target, I picked up a few more items. Then I drove over to UPS to drop off Styrofoam. That way, it gets recycled.

Shauntel texted me to say it was a small group at Ulu Wini today. Maybe I didn't want to come. Then she texted that ML and CL were there. While neither one wanted to work with me, another girl said she did. I had never seen her before. She introduced herself as going-into-third-grade AN. She wanted to work on subtraction with regrouping. She was so stuck on the idea that you couldn't subtract a bigger number from a smaller one that the concept of subtraction with regrouping couldn't penetrate. Then she showed me something I'd never seen before. When regrouping in subtraction, we write a two-digit number in the one's place. We've been told over and over that we can't do that. But here, in subtraction with regrouping, that's precisely what we do. I told AN it's a cheat.

AN had just moved to the Big Island from Oahu. Shauntel told me her mother died two years ago. Her dad couldn't care for her and shipped her here to live with her grandparents. I hope the kids living here accept her. She isn't either Marshallese or Chuuk; she's Samoan.

I finished watching Never Have I Ever last night. I watch Darling Companion. I loved it. It got terrible reviews despite a sterling cast, Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Diane Wiest, and some other performers whose names or faces I recognized but can't remember. From what I read in the reviews, the critics missed the point of the story. It's about resolving difficulties in interpersonal relationships. The dog's disappearance creates a situation that forces people to deal with each other and resolve issues. I thought it had a true-to-life feeling. I think the script was good that attracted all those great actors

Thursday, July 4, 2024

I started collecting a 24-hour urine sample. When I picked up the equipment, they handed me two half-gallon containers and one of those little specimen cups for urine collection. You’ve got to be kidding me on both counts. I had a female urinal at home, so I was set.

After discussing osteoporosis with my evening walk crowd, I decided to follow up with my doctor. I had never received the results of my last bone density test. The doctor told me I had lost bone mass for the second time. The loss isn’t enormous, but I had been steady for years. She referred me to an endocrinologist. I needed to collect the urine in anticipation of that appointment.

One morning, I ran into a woman I used to see running, walking slowly with her husband. She had fallen and cracked her hip. They put a pin in. Her doctor recommended infusion therapy for her osteoporosis. I recently learned that my friend Jean gets that. She is reluctant to get the infusion because of the possible adverse side effects. I read about bone and muscle pain today. It doesn’t sound great. I refused statins because of the weird way they made me feel.

While doing laughter yoga as I did my gentle seat yoga, I realized that besides deepening my breath and expanding my lungs, the laughter yoga provided a gentle massage. I wondered what the psychological effects of that massage might be. It’s undoubtedly strengthening my core muscles.

The Twins didn’t respond to my Zoom message this morning. When I called Mama K, she told me they had a paddling race this morning. She was so sorry. I had nothing else scheduled for the day. I would have been alone all day if the acupuncturist hadn’t made an appointment this morning. She came at 10.

I’ve been asking for treatment on my upper back muscles. In our last session, she suggested I should have her work on my pec and shoulder muscles. That’s what she did today. After she was finished, I was wasted for the rest of the day. I did get to wash my bed linens and blanket. I read a report on how bad it was to sleep on dirty sheets. We should wash them once a week, but most Americans waited a month. I actually asked some people I knew. Sure enough, they only washed their linens once a month. I thought I was an outstanding slob. I guess I’m not so exceptional.

I also reassembled the hall closet after cleaning up all the spilled Dawn dish detergent off the floor. Seeing how clean the soap got the tile, I tried it on the ground in dirt in the tiles between my sink and dishwasher. I spread some on the area and let it sit. Tonight, I clean it up. It worked like a charm. I tried everything on white tiles when we lived in Ohio. Nothing worked. This does. Amazing!

I filed an application to work as a tutor for AirTutors. Here, I thought I was volunteering to tutor students who couldn’t afford to pay. Given they will pay me $45 an hour, I doubt this is a service for the disadvantaged. If nothing else, it will be a source of work for me if all else fails. With my success rate, You would think there’d be a line at my door. Not that I want a line. That would be very upsetting to have all those desperate parents and children. I would have to say no.

Gabor Mate, author of Scatter Minds about ADD, talked about individuation. I think the ideal definition is learning what we feel regardless of what others think we should. This doesn’t mean we should always push to get our own way and expect to get everything we want. It’s just knowing clearly who we are and who the other is.

I heard a talk on Ozempic today. This pill is touted for its weight loss benefits. It turns out that if microdosed, it cures a number of ailments, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and auto-immune diseases. Holy cow! I’m ready, willing, and able—once more research confirms those results.

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

I was up before four am this morning. I had slept well, but I was done for the night. I rendezvoused with Elsa on Mike's side of the bed to brush her and check for lesions. Some of the older ones had healed, but newer ones were coming up. I will switch to the food I'm sure worked when it arrives. If it does work, I will donate the other food I ordered to the Humane Society.

I woke up without the usual ache in my solar plexus. I wondered what this was about.

I meditated this morning. I have found one that works to soothe me. I say an affirmation, "I'm safe." I also say, "I love you," addressing my scared, wounded side. I discovered it alone, but I also heard it mentioned in a podcast yesterday. The podcast speaker talked about the ineffectiveness of affirmations like, "I'm rich," "A successful actress," etc. He said those affirmations create false selves that don't work. When you have someone repeat, I am a wealthy, beautiful woman with a wonderful husband, that goes nowhere. It doesn't ring a bell with me. However, I can see it might help change one's personal self-image and make us open to that self as a possibility- if the opportunity comes along. The speaker affirmed, repeating, "I'm safe." That does it for me.

I met with Mama K's twins at 8:30 this morning. This is our preferred time during school holidays. I met with Twin A first. I dropped working on the Magic Tree House book. It progresses slowly. It is all on one reading level. The passages in the Barnell Loft skill books are short, and I can move up as she progresses. We worked on a mid -third-grade level book. She still can't read multi-syllable words on her own. Not only do I have to break them up with slashes (/), I have to remind her endlessly to decode one syllable at a time instead of trying to figure out the whole word immediately. The word was travel; she kept reading it as trail. She couldn't ignore the el in the second syllable, reducing the two-syllable word into one. That's what poor readers do every time. It drives me nuts. You have no idea how often I've had to say, "Pay attention to one syllable at a time." The good news is that students reading on a first-grade level at eight, nine, and thirteen were reading two-syllable words.

When I thought about Twin E overnight, I realized she knew she had the wrong word in the center of the bull's eye. She knew where the right one was. Why didn't she choose to use the one she knew was right? Today, I pointed that out to her. Where in her brain was she experiencing the 'wrong' one in the center of the bull's eye? She pointed to the center of her forehead. Where did she experience the 'right' word? She pointed to slightly above her left ear.

I know, I know. Many of you are thinking, "What is she talking about" How can this child know where images are appearing in her brain? The neurons in the brain don't feel anything. But the blood vessels that run through the brain do. Blood rushes to the part of the brain in use. That's what we can feel. It's not a strong feeling; it's subtle. We have to learn to attend to it. I teach my students to do it. It gives them the power to change the way their brains work. It's no more magic than using our bodies differently to correct our posture.

I asked E if she could pay more attention to the impression she got over her left ear rather than at her forehead. We drilled it one word at a time. I instructed her to look at a word and focus on that spot. When she reported she had heard the word, I said it aloud. I didn't ask her to say it because that would trigger all sorts of emotional issues. Would she be right? What would I think of her? All the usual anxious thoughts that come up in social situations. This way, she could put all her energy into focusing on this unfamiliar brain location. As she reported it, she got all the words correct. Am I sure she did? What I knew was irrelevant, immaterial, and besides the point. What she knew and felt was important.

Twin A did something remarkable today. The passage was about a flower that opened at 4 pm every day. It said it helped people tell time in a separate sentence. I asked her how it helped people tell time. She articulated the relationship. "When the flower opened, people knew what time it was." For good readers, this connection was obvious. But I study how meaning is constructed. The connection is not explicit in this passage. To someone not familiar with using context, the connection is not apparent.

Before, I studied language intensely to discover how meaning is constructed so I could help my students see what was evident to me, but I hadn't seen it either. I didn't know what it meant to make an inference. As it wound up, I was a master at inferring. I had to be. My sister acknowledges she was, too. My mother would start a conversation like this, "She did such and such . . ." We wouldn't dare ask who 'she' was. We listened intently for a clue, inferring the identity of the person. To ask my mom what she meant was to incur her ire.

She came home one day and announced, "It was so hot out today, I froze at the office." Trained as I was to figure out her meaning, I got it right away. The high summer day temperature made the air conditioning overwork, causing lower temperatures at the office. Obviously!!!

After I had worked with the Twins, I called Mama K to tell her about the progress we were making. At the end of first grade, when they were seven, these girls couldn't recognize at least a third of the letters in the alphabet. They started in preschool at three or four. They should have been able to identify all the letters in the alphabet by 4. They weren't. They should be reading on at least a fourth-grade level at ten. The school says A is reading at a mid-second-grade level, and E is reading at a low second-grade level. That means they have made four years of progress in the last three years. If I get them up to a third-grade level, they will have made four years of progress. This is remarkable progress since they made no progress from age 4 to 7. A is reading reasonably well from mid-third-grade passages now. The remaining problem is decoding multisyllabic words.

I received a call from Nick at Provision Solar to answer the question I posed last night before I went to bed. When he called, I was in session and asked if I could speak to him later. He said he would be on a sight visit but could speak to me. I called the number he left me yesterday in his text. It was the office phone number, not his cell. I left a message that I would be available until noon. He didn't call.

I had a session with Adolescent D, who is now 17 years old and going into eleventh grade in August. Our sessions are only 15 minutes at a time as often as possible. We have been working on decoding words exclusively. I don't even know how effective this approach has been. I know he can decode the words more rapidly. I also know he still makes mistakes when decoding multi-syllable words. He invariably misses something if the word is more than two syllables and occasionally if it's just two syllables.

I spoke to his mom. I told her how I once anticipated he would be a twenty-eight-year-old living in his parent's house watching videos. He shared my vision. His mom's point of view was very interesting. She talked about a brother-in-law who was 'slow.' Did she think of D that way? Holy cow!! I don't think of anyone that way, even the Twins, whom I am sure the school staff considers 'slow' at best. Just because someone needs to do better academically makes them poor learners in that domain but not necessarily any other. My husband was considered brilliant by many. I thought he was very bright- he was good at what he was good at. If the prized social skill was singing instead of reading, he would have been considered mentally retarded. Someone has to show no germ of intelligence to qualify as cognitively impaired. I may get a student who fills that bill. Even then, I want to know what is blocking this poor boy.

I've hit an interesting problem. D tries to decode single-syllable VCe words (a single-syllable word with a vowel + one consonant + a silent e) with a suffix -s as a two-syllable word. It is confusing. Whenever I see a word like lives, thrives, or tribes, I can safely assume it is not a two-syllable word unless the C in VCe is an s,c =/s/, ch, or sh. Are there base words that look like VCe syllables but are two-syllable words? I can't remember ever seeing one. Here's a pattern that was never discussed in my Orton-Gillingham training. Of course, they didn't explicitly push the vowel sound as the cornerstone of every syllable.

I went to Ulu Wini this afternoon. There were only a few children there. Families had left for the holiday. I can't imagine where they went. Going-into-third-grade MV, going-into-sixth grade ML and going-into-sixth-grade CL were there. I got to work with all three. ML continued with long division. Today, I had her create the problems. She was very uncertain. I wrote the problem, but she had to give me the numbers to write. As she solved the problem, I noticed she had followed all my suggestions. She wrote out the times table on the side of the paper, and when she had to deal with a number smaller than the divisor, she made marks for the amount in the dividend and asked if she could fit the divisor into that number. She only made a mistake on her subtraction, which wasn't even subtraction with regrouping.

CL tolerated working with me to review subtraction with regrouping, but she didn't want to be there. She had a problem with the addition with regrouping. I ripped two small pieces of paper off and wrote the tens place number on one and the ones place number on the second. I placed the tens digit in her left hand and the ones in her right. She knew what to do then. When she was finished, she did what CL had wanted to do, collect a few younger kids and go around the grounds counting objects.- at least that's what I think she's doing. I'm curious to know exactly what she's doing. The kids she leads seem to be happy with the activity. Whatever it is she's doing, it has something to do with numbers. This was a girl who was terrified of math. The more she makes friends with numbers, the better she will be.

MV is another one who was terrified of math. I reviewed addition and subtraction without and with regrouping. She sailed through the two forms of addition and subtraction without regrouping. She needed a very light brush-up on subtraction with regrouping. I checked place value with her. She flawlessly identified the value of each digit up to 10,000 place. However, she didn't know what the odd and even numbers were. She just arrived from Chuuk last year. She missed all the fundamentals.

I stopped off at Costco to pick up salad. Costco is on my way whenever I go to town. Yes, it's my go-to place, even if I have to pick up just one item.

I met with going-into-fourth-grade LG. He had just returned from a 10-day vacation. He had to use a phone to connect to the Zoom meeting; their computer had a problem. I continued working on third-grade passages in a book in the Barnell Loft skills series. He read most words well, missing a few sight words here and there. Nothing disrupted a meaningful reading. I started working on comprehension and was surprised he couldn't summarize that passage. How much of this was because he really has problems with the skill, and how much of this was due to his anxiety? I'll find out.

His father came in at the end of the session. He wanted to know what he could do to follow up. I thought for one second and replied, "Nothing!" This boy was not ready to have an anxious parent pushing him to improve. However, I learned they made a game of reading road signs while in Florida on vacation. What a great way to reinforce his word recognition skills. His dad praised me for my excellent work. After three contact hours, I transformed his child from a non-reader into a reader. His father asked about improving the situation, so his son concentrated on the work more. I assured him his concentration was just fine. When it waivered, I knew his brain couldn't take anymore, and it was time for a rest.

I was thrilled when his dad complimented my work. It is astounding how little people share it with me. It is only because of my years of experience that I know the students' improvement is due to my work with them. The folks at Ulu Wini seem to recognize it, but they are seeing the impact on multiple kids. A parent sees my work with their child and thinks this is what everyone does.

I'm still binge-watching Never Have I Ever.

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

I was home alone most of the day, and it rained most of the day. It was a bad day for me. I don’t know how much I need company for mental stimulation or how much I need it to stave off loneliness. The combination isn’t good. It drains me. I’m a true extrovert.

I did have the Twins today. I did amazing work with Twin E. She had trouble distinguishing between of and from. I wrote of and asked her to tell me the letters in the word and the sounds. She got both correct. When I asked her where in her head she experienced the memory of the letters and then the sounds, she pointed to the correct space for the visual working memory. She was too far forward for the auditory one.

I had read that attention and imagination are critical to engaging memory successfully. I suspect imagination engages attention. It’s difficult to pay attention to a static image. I asked E to change the colors of the letters in her mind. She had no trouble doing that. We had to be more inventive when it came to varying the sound. We tried singing the word in different ways.

Then I drilled her, writing only the first letter of the word, either o or f to see if I could train her to have an autonomic response to the first letter, knowing those were the only two I would write. . Everything went well until I reintroduced the whole word. She made mistakes again. What was going on?

E said her mind gave her the wrong word. It scrambled the letters. She said the o and f of ofwere reverse. The letters shifted around in a counterclockwise direction. When I wrote the word from she said it came out form. More importantly, her mind gave her the wrong name for the word. She said her mind wasn’t spinning. We did some more drills to see what happened. She couldn’t trust her mind.

She drew concentrate circles, a bull’s eye, and showed me the wrong word went to the center of the bull’s eye, and the right one was on the outer ring. Hmm! I had to think about this.

After the class, I remembered something I did with students a few years ago. I had them divide a paper in half vertically. They would write the word the way it was written on the paper in one column and the way it appeared in their mind in the other. Did she know her mind was giving her the wrong word? If so, she had the right form of the word somewhere in her mind.

I introduced this approach to one girl right before Christmas. When she came back, she reported she had worked on it over the vacation, but it had ‘stopped working.’ I gave her long words from the New York Times. She could look at them and accurately report what the sequence of the letters was. She went home to show her mom. Her mom said, “Holy cow!”

From that experience, I learned that both images can come up. the student has to choose the right one. The right one must be in one location; the wrong one in another. They have to choose the right place just as they must choose between any options.

I had Adolescent D later in the day. He has memory problems too. His are more severe than Twin E’s. however, D is considered a bright child because he has good verbal skills. He can playfully banter with his teachers. Neither of the Twins is regarded as ‘smart’ by any of their teachers. If they took IQ tests, I’m sure they tested well below 100. Because I believe intelligence is largely taught I keep at it. There’s definitely been progress.

When I asked Twin E to get her sister, she reported back she was asleep. I called their mom, Moma K, to ask her if I could work with Twin A later in the day. She said she was up and got her into the Zoom session. Twin A couldn’t find Dolphins at Daylight, the Magic Tree House book were were working in. I used passages from the third grade Barnell Loft series.

Twin A is moving ahead more quickly than Twin E, both in her word recognition and her comprehension. She did much better with ‘fluent’ reading today. She still pauses to figure out a word, but she maintains the melody of the sentence and sounds lightyears better. I’m going to move her ahead more quickly. I hope to have her in the 4th grade book by the end of the summer. That means she may test out on a third grade reading level when tested in August when school starts.

I had Adolescent D before he left for work. He is still struggling with his cold. He made some mistakes today he hadn’t yesterday. He didn’t acknowledge all the sounded vowels and made fewer syllable divisions than the word required.

After I spoke to Jean, my friend in Arizona (I have two Jeans I speak to regularly), I went up to Auntie P’s house. She and Carol were working on a new jigsaw puzzle in the open air garage. I joined them. I’m no good when it comes to jigsaw puzzles, but I could look for the straight edge pieces for the border. I did that. I also helped turn over pieces face up, so they were easy to see. It was wonderful sitting with them with in person contact. It meant the world to me.