Tuesday, July 30, 2024
I woke up this morning to find my phone hadn’t charged overnight- again. Sometimes, I haven’t placed it incorrectly on the wireless charger. I tried again; it didn’t connect. I looked for a charging cord and plugged it in; it didn’t connect. Sorry, I can’t live without my phone. Then I tried that alcohol trick. No, I didn’t take a drink to calm my nerves. I wiped down the back of the phone and the surface of the wireless charging unit with rubbing alcohol and bingo.
When I weighed myself this morning, I had lost another half a pound; I was down to 134.5. My steady premenopausal weight was 128, but I’m told I need to weigh a bit more now that I’m older.
The significant drop in weight was last year after the fall when I shattered my left shoulder and elbow joints, spent two weeks in the hospital, and another month at home with 24- hr. care. I couldn’t risk getting up and going to the bathroom by myself. I was weak and unsteady. I couldn’t dress myself or prepare my food. Because other people took care of me, I changed my diet. I made additional changes recently. I read starting the day with protein was my best bet. I now eat two soft-boiled eggs each morning, followed by buttered toast with a heaping portion of red raspberry jam. Hardly a diet anyone would recommend. I eat something substantial midday: a bagel with cream cheese, lox, and a kombucha. I’m usually not hungry at night. Last night, I had looked forward to enjoying dessert after the meal at Huggo’s. I ate the garlic bread, which was fantastic. I also ate a few bites of the salad and lemonade. I couldn’t finish the poke tower. Damon had a few bites of it, and I took the rest home. I am getting a bit concerned. Even if the weight loss is because of reduced food intake and better exercise, I can’t go below a certain point. I need some fat on me at my age.
I was tired during my morning walk. The air punching exercise combined with laughter yoga drains me. The release feels good, but then I’m exhausted. Should I stop it or do it at another time of the day?
I met with the Twins this morning. They were both frustrating. While Twin A’s oral reading is continuing to improve, her comprehension skills have maxed out at mid-third grade. Twin E had problems with both word recognition and comprehension. Given how depleted I felt, it was hard work.
Damon called around 8:30. He and Cylin were off to Yvette’s yoga class and heading to Kua Bay around 10. I canceled Adolescent D for the week. He is ready to pack it in, as is his mom, and I am, too. I’ll miss him at one level, but it’s time. My concern is he will want to quit high school. He loves his job at Costco; I envision him saying he’ll work there for the rest of his life and won’t need a high school diploma. I know Costco will hire someone without one, but will that limit his ability to get a higher-paying job within the company?
Damon called after the yoga class to say they were heading to Kua Bay and should meet them there. There is only a small actual parking area. Everyone else parks just off the road. That’s what most of the cars have to do. I drove down to the drop-off area in case a spot opened up. None did. I had a quarter-mile walk to the drop-off spot, comparable to the walk I had to do as a kid from the Jones’ Beach parking lot to the waterfront.
Damon and Cylin weren’t there yet. I sat on the rock wall in the shade of a tree overlooking the shore. Of course, I had my back to the ocean. I turned to catch some of the view. Damon called as he entered the access road leading to the bay. I told him the parking was pretty bad when I arrived half an hour before, and more people were coming than leaving. Did he have an umbrella? No. It was now 11:30, which is never a good time to be at a beach. The Hawaiian sun toasted-roasted my legs on the walk down. I hated to think of what I would look like if I sat out there for two hours. I would look like a tourist. They have this pink burn you never see on someone who lives here.
Damon and Cylin agreed this wasn’t the best time to do Kua Bay. They drove down to the drop-off area, picked me up, dropped me off at my car, and waited until I had pulled off the rocky area onto the road. We changed into our street clothes and went to town.
We parked in the church parking lot. Our first stop was the church graveyard. Damon and Cylin had never seen the headstones, but they thought they looked great. I like their look better each time I see them. I did a great job.
Then we headed to Lucasie, the skin care shop where I dropped thousands of dollars in a moment of weakness. The skin care products are good even if they are expensive. I knew I was being hustled; I didn’t know I was being conned. I was vulnerable for the bait in the first place because it was a beautiful day, and the shop had a view of the ocean through an open screenless window, a mood-altering scene. Besides that, I am an 83-year-old widow. It was a perfect storm.
The facial peel worked like a charm. I’ve been disturbed by my aging skin. Aside from the acne I suffered as an adolescent and later some other form of outbreak, I inherited incredible skin. Other than my facial skin, the rest of my body was in great shape. No more. I find rough spots. I use a plastic equivalent of steel wool to scrape dead skin off my face and body. I was given a product that would remove that dead skin. I was sold. The cost of the three products I got that first day was not unreasonable. I was to return a week later for a free facial as part of the deal.
A week later, my friend and I returned for our facials. The man who provided them, placing ‘golden masks’ on our faces, examined my legs and told me I had eczema. That won me over; I had an explanation for the changes in my skin. My uncle had suffered from psoriasis. Maybe this is what I got instead. That diagnosis won me over. Okay, I didn’t have all my marbles lined up, or is it I had a few screws loose? I see incidents of that in my thinking more and more often. I can’t focus on two things at once. One topic can consume all the energy my prefrontal lobe has to offer. I drove through a four-way stop without looking because I was thinking of something else. That would never have happened when I was younger. I’m sure the losses are more significant because of the eight hours of surgery I had a year ago after my catastrophic fall when I shattered my left shoulder and elbow.
I let the pitchman talk me into paying for two years of product up front. I was still on board when I got home, but I had an appointment with my doctor early next week. I asked her about the eczema. Absolutely not! Eczema itches, and she saw no sign of it. Then, I got a phone call from the pitchman. He had sent a sample of my skin to the Mayo Clinic. He got the report back: I had severe eczema. That tipped the scales. I was dealing with liars. Then, I knew I had been scammed. I was told to come in for a facial once a month and pick up the product. I no longer wanted to be touched by anyone working there. I waited a little over a month and went to pick up my $200 worth of product.
One day, I was greeted by a young woman who told me she had just started working there and didn’t know how to help me. I came back another day. A man greeted me this time. He offered me one jar of night cream and told me that those products were supposed to last three months, etc. I refused the product and told him I wanted my money back. I videoed myself demanding he acknowledge I had accepted no product on that visit.
Damon and Cylin knew the story. They were both outraged. Damon’s mom had been hit by several scams, and so had Cylin’s parents. In Cylin’s case, her parents had engaged a local company to install a walk-in tub for a mere $9,000. They gave him the money upfront. The provider called time after time with explanations for delays. They finally demanded their money back. The owner made excuses and begged for time. He finally declared he didn’t have the money and agreed to pay them back piecemeal. They got a check for $500 one month, a thousand next, and nothing. They finally hired a lawyer.
The lawyer recognized the provider. He had a reputation for selling walk-in tubs to elderly people, delaying delivery, betting on their dying, or being too senile to recall. The lawyer offered to take their case for free. They got some more money back but are still waiting.
Damon, Cylin, and I entered the store. A young woman greeted us, saying she had just started there. When we asked to speak to someone in charge, she said no one was there. Two young people said the same thing the first time I came back. I said something about frequent turnover; she denied that. Because I had shown Damon and Cylin the video of my confrontation with the guy, Cylin recognized him sitting in a corner and pointed him out to Damon. Cylin and I are both excitable. Damon threw me out first, and then Cylin. While we were standing on the pavement, the young woman we first spoke to came out. Cylin said, “You should be ashamed of yourself working for a place like that.” The young woman was also excitable. She said, “I am a mother!” Cylin replied, “I am too.” It was a tie. Afterward, I thought of an excellent response to her declaration that she was a mother. “Thanks for telling me. I will call Child Protective Services immediately.” She was obviously involved in criminal activity.
Cylin and I moved away from the shop while Damon dealt with the man who was the owner, Lucas. When Damon joined us, he insisted this was a reputable shop. Damon reported that Lucas said we could refuse payment with the credit card company, and he wouldn’t contest it. He had lied about everything else; this was probably a lie. Cylin kept telling Damon in an agitated tone that this was a scam. She looked up a scam site. Sure enough, there were two complaints against the company. One woman’s mother-in-law had spent $21,000 with the company.
We left Kona Inn Shopping Village, intending to go to Kua Bay. Damon wanted to stop at Kona Mountain Coffee Shop. We met there. Cylin and I went to the public bathroom to change into our bathing suits. As I drove into the right-hand approach lane, I thought about checking for my phone. I couldn’t find it and panicked. I backed up my car so it faced the intersection and placed my car at an angle, indicating I wanted to go through the intersection the moment the light changed. It’s Hawaii; no one honked. Not until I missed the light change and the first car honked to tell me to move on. Oh, boy. I went across the intersection, made a legal U-turn, drove around a circle before the entrance of a gated community, drove back across the four-lane highway into the parking lot, and raced to the bathroom where I suspected I had left my phone.
My phone actually rang at one point when I was making all those maneuvers. I was sane enough to wonder how it could if it wasn’t in my car, but not rational enough to stop and look again. Well, that’s not entirely true. I looked again while waiting for the light to change while in my angled position. I couldn’t find it. Needless to say, it wasn’t in the bathroom. As I walked back to my car, it rang again. I had stuck it in the bra top of my two-piece bathing suit. Now, all I had to worry about was the police finding out about my very illegal maneuver and all the repercussions from that. I called Damon and Cylin and told them I had had enough excitement for one day. I was heading home.
When they came over for dinner later that night, they told us their tech-savvy son, August, had checked out the company. Lucas set up one scam after another. Their Juniper light gadget had been refused FDA approval. Damon checked the item. It’s made of cheap plastic with a faux metallic finish. Damon declared, “It’s worth $28.”
Yvette joined us, bringing Masha up with her. This was the first time Masha had been in my home. Her arrival was a complete surprise, and I was somewhat shocked. I chose not to say anything. Elsa had had contact with Masha, and everything had gone well in the middle of the dinner. Elsa attacked Masha. Yvette sprung up, separated them, and took Masha downstairs. The concern wasn’t for Masha. Elsa is a 10-year-old 13 lbs. dog who recently had 10 teeth extracted; Masha is a 40 lb. 2-year-old dog with a pit-bull mouth. We have no idea what prompted Elsa’s attack. Masha had been peering under a sofa. Was one of Elsa’s favorite balls there? Who knows. We sure didn’t.
