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

Monday, June 15, 2026

Friday, May 24, 2024

I dreaded going to the hula class. I left on the late side but made myself go. I was so stressed about it that I was struggling to stay awake. It was concerning but not so bad that I had to turn around and go home. The teacher was teaching a new dance today. I followed pretty well. I still felt like I was dragging. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I understood that the hula was hard on my arms. I was only eleven months out from a reverse shoulder replacement. I may never be able to lift my left arm over my head with the ease I once had. Doing the hula is a good way to explore it. I have to accept it’s a process. I sat down for a while. I got up again but limited the movement to my feet.

I saw my walking buddy, Elaine. She told me about the class. I went up to say hello. She introduced me to a woman who was visiting her. Jeanette was French and spoke less English than I spoke French. I pulled out the French I learned in my sophomore and junior years in high school. It was far from perfect, but I could do some basic communication.

Elaine and her husband met Jeanette and her husband while traveling in Japan. They hung out together for three days, and Elaine and her husband invited them to stay if they came to Hawaii. Jeanette and her husband were just married; this was their honeymoon.

The last time I used French was in 1962. I was traveling in Europe with a student tour group. While visiting some city on the Cote D’Azur, I rented a moped and took it on a highway to meet up with my group, who had traveled to another town for the day. I had an accident.

I was wearing a head scarf. I took my hand off the handlebars to brush the scarf back. The wheel turned sharply first in one direction and then another. Then, the wheel jammed in a turned position, the bike came to an abrupt halt, and I was thrown forward. I survived with a torn skort pocket and a mild abrasion burn. The moped was unusable. A couple stopped to help me. They got me and the bike to the side of the road and were discussing what to do. I saw a bakery truck coming down the road. I stood up, walked past my Good Samaritans, and put my thumb out. I wanted a ride to the next town to meet with my group. The couple explained what I wanted to the driver. He agreed. They loaded my bike into the back of the van and me into the front. I chatted amicably with the driver in French. I nearly failed French in high school. I was not a good language learner. The driver dropped me off where my group was. The tour bus driver fixed my bike. It was loaded on the back of the bus for the trip home. I returned it without a hitch.

After class, I went to Island Naturals to see if they had some of their great tuna fish salad. They don’t usually have any out in the morning, but they prepare it then and make it available in the afternoon. It was my lucky day: they had plenty of salad and their orange raspberry strudel bites. I ate some tuna salad in the parking lot. I was hungry.

I was shocked while checking out. My wallet wasn’t in my purse. Had I dropped it, or had I left it at home? I headed back to the community center where the hula class had been. Judy called just as I pulled into the lot. She told me her son, Adam, cut back the large root that broke their water pipe and fixed the pipe. They had water again. I told her about the wallet. I was surprisingly calm. Thanks to Mike, I learned not to respond to incidents like that with panic. “It’s a problem to be solved;” just take it one step at a time. What a gift that man was to me.

Before walking over to the center, I checked the passage side of the car, not just the seat but the floor. There it was. My purse was open, and the wallet had slipped out and fallen between the seat and the passenger side door. I went home.

My right shoulder has been bothering me as much as my left. Was it caused by my changes, or was arthritis advancing on its own schedule? I felt the problem was coming from my upper back. I used the MELT roller to see if I could get some relief. I rolled back and forth, applying the roller to my thoracic spine. I heard the loudest crack I had ever heard. Had I shifted the metal plate in my shoulder? Had I done some damage to myself? No. It was all good, and my shoulders and upper arms felt better.

I had no students today. Adolescent D was supposed to meet with me but wandered off to do his own thing. I like to think he is having a great time when he doesn’t show up. He has been doing that more lately. It is the end of the school year, so I think there are more social activities. I don’t get that he doesn’t want to do the work. It’s more that he has something fun to do. At least, I hope that’s what’s happening.

Darby didn’t walk this evening. She anticipated a hard day’s work tomorrow and wanted to husband her energy. Lutz had texted to ask if I wanted a mango. No, I fear those critters. The sap from a mango is the same chemical as in poison ivy. I am allergic. He said he would set out around 5:30. I set out at that time, figuring I would pick up Gayle, and Lutz would catch up to us. I ran into Xiu. She said she saw the two of them walking down the road. I didn’t know which way to go to catch up, so I just kept to my usual route. I missed them. Lutz texted me; they had stopped by to pick me up. Maybe we’ll meet up tomorrow.

Thursday, May 23, 2024

I had a challenging session with twenty-six-year-old S. When I asked her to use a strategy, she didn't do what I asked. I asked her why she did what she did. This was not a rhetorical question; it was literal. The difference is important, very important. Does she have difficulty understanding what I said? Is what I asked her to do too hard, and she tries to do something else? Is this a psychological problem? Does she feel insulted by what I am asking her to do and simply refusing to do it? S is defensive.

To communicate the work's objective, I asked her if she could tie a shoelace. There are reasons she may never have learned: her grandmother, who raised her, only bought shoes with Velcro fasteners, or no one bothered to teach her. She assumed I asked the question because I thought she was too stupid to know how to tie shoelaces. While I understand her dilemma, we must deal directly with the problem.

S was put on Adderall at the age of four. She experienced an unusual, but not unheard of, side effect. She had seizures. The pediatric neurologist I got her to see just before she turned 18 explained that seizures reset the brain. That means anything she was taught during the day was erased whenever she had one. Very little ever went into her long-term memory. She presented as 'stupid.' She was regarded as stupid by everyone in her life. She saw herself that way. What is true is that her skills are limited. Life trained her to feel helpless. Interpersonally, she presents as passive-aggressive. While I don't blame her, it severely blocks her learning. We have to deal with the psychological piece directly. She needs to recover from the trauma of her life.

What S doesn't understand or doesn't trust is that I believe intelligence is largely taught. Can I bring her to her full potential at conception? Unlikely, however, I have taught others the necessary skills to learn to read and comprehend. S is unusually behind the eight-ball in terms of her life circumstances. But to help her, I need her to know what is blocking her each minute. I will work to solve it. Suppose it's neurological, meaning her learning or lack thereof is because of some problem in her brain other than lack of exposure to good teaching. It will take time in that case, but it can be done. My belief in the plasticity of the human mind is absolute. If her problem is primarily emotional, that is more difficult to work with. That problem isn't rooted in the neocortex but in the limbic system.

I hounded her today, trying to convince her of my intent. (I do not promise anyone I can accomplish whatever they are hoping for; I've just worked with many students with severe problems and helped them.) Why do I think I'm someone's best shot? Because my position on the learning process is rooted in the belief that intelligence is learned.

Coincidently, I encountered another retired teacher who also volunteers at Ulu Wini. I told her that several of these kids cannot count by five. I noticed a lack of pattern recognition skills. J's reaction: how many of these kids are classified as special ed? My guess is she thinks they're all stupid. Most teachers present material and leave it to the student to figure out how to learn it. If they can't, there's something wrong with them. That attitude drives me nuts! Students have to be taught how to learn.

Most teachers present information; they don't teach students how to learn. To teach students, you have to diagnose the learning problem and teach that. When I saw that second-grade MV didn't see patterns, I taught her how to do it. She successfully used pattern recognition to count by fives. Next, I have to see if she will apply it in an unfamiliar context.

Many of the Marshallese children don't look for patterns. Why should they? The Marshall Islands consist of twenty-four populated islands or atolls. The capital has a population of 23,156. Sixteen of the remaining 23 islands or atolls have a population of under 500. One island has a population of 75. People have lived in the exact location for generations. They encounter few new problems. Everything is dictated by tradition. A group like that doesn't need more than one or two people who can think strategically. They're the group's wise men and women.

In our modern lives, each of us must learn to solve problems. We constantly encounter novel situations for which our tradition-bound elders have no solutions. We're all on our own in a world that presents us with something unfamiliar every day, whether technological or social. My heart aches for these people who lost their relatively peaceful lives because the US government thought their islands would be a convenient site to test nuclear bombs.

I'd say I long for that life, but I'm too mired in the modern world. I doubt I could live in such a limited environment.

It was Ulu Wini day. No one came to work with me for a good fifteen minutes. I sat quietly at my table and worked on the updates. I thought I might have no one. Then, fifth-grade RM came over. She wanted more help with reading comprehension. We worked on a grade-level passage. I drew out of her what she thought the passage was about in general, then the details, and then how all these facts connected.

A young boy, KP, whom I had never seen before, said he wanted to work with me. He said he didn't have much time; he had to go to his uncle's house. He calmly announced his mother had died. Yes, he lived with his uncle. So sad that he referred to it as 'his uncle's house' instead of home. His sister stood by as he worked with me. He wanted to work on math. He didn't want me to help him with anything. He just wanted to show me what he could do. I encouraged him. Someone who thinks math is fun and his accomplishment a source of pride needs to be nurtured. I gave him several sheets of paper so he could do more problems at home.

First-grade JM wanted to work on reading today. She still struggled to recall the basic sight words, list 1-50. In the past, I worked with her on drilling exercises. That did some good, but she was still slow and struggling. Today, I asked her if she was figuring out each word. Yes. I worked on drilling the automatic processing: See the words in visual working memory, ask your long-term memory to tell you the word, pay attention to auditory working memory on the left side, and wait for 'your mind to tell you the word." With the kids, I point to the part of the brain they should focus on rather than name it. I can appreciate why shifting from conscious to unconscious processing is difficult. Good learners move back and forth as needed. It's a little like knowing when to use a spoon versus a fork.

Years ago, I taught the process of automatic recall to a fourth-grade student with Fetal Alcohol syndrome. When she experienced it, she said, "I feel like I'm psychic." Yep. That's what it feels like. The words mysteriously pop into your head. Those of us who were taught by our parents or learned accidentally to move back and forth between the two processes before we got to school take the shifting for granted. Children who did not learn it from their elders or don't come across it by accident must be taught how to do it and supported as they learn to tolerate that shift.

I grabbed second-grade MV for more math work. She stalled when transitioning from the double digits to the hundreds when counting by fives. I pushed her to count the two hundreds by fives. She didn't look at me like I was from Mars, but she still needed help. She told me her teachers noticed the difference. She was pleased with herself, as she should be. I was still waiting for her to approach me for help instead of having to track her down.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

This morning, when I ran into one of my walking acquaintances who I knew wrestled with her body image, I was moved to share Laughter Yoga with her. I don't know if it was primarily developed as a form of breathing exercise or a mood elevator. I experience it more as a physical exercise. Either way, it is also good for developing abdominal muscles. If you sustain laughter for a minute, those muscles let you know they were activated. Yvette finds the exercise tiring.

I am sleeping better; I wake up less frequently and sleep through the morning. Last night , when I woke up at 1:30 to pee, I was wide awake. I didn't look forward to the rest of the night. I planned to get up and meditate if I couldn't fall back to sleep. No worries. I woke up again shortly after 4:30.

I had an appointment with my therapist/life coach this morning for the first time in three weeks. She was touring Morocco. I asked her how it went, expecting to hear a great story. Hmm! Not so much.

She got Covid and was thrown off the tour. When Shelly came down with a cold, her friend insisted she take a Covid test and ran to the leaders. Shelly was put into a cab and sent into the world alone. I would think the host country would terminate touring rights for a company that sends a contagious person into the general population without support.

Shelly was on her own in a country hostile to Americans and unaccompanied women. It didn't get all the details, but she continued traveling and touring. It cost her twice as much as the original plan. The tour company did not reimburse her. I assumed she wouldn't have anything more to do with this supposed friend. But no- Shelly is into forgiveness. She understood her friend was panicked by her Covid diagnosis. When I spoke to her today, she still suffered from 'a cold.' She wasn't meeting with clients in person, just remotely.

I told Shelly all that had happened in my life over the interim. I told her how a video on empaths helped me solve one of my problems. The agony created by longing was resolved. That was a significant change - on to bigger and better issues. Issues around my work were always lurking. That I am a superior teacher and have developed remarkable method for teaching my work doesn't get recognition. While getting more recognition for my accomplishments from the educational community and those I work with would be nice, the main issue is getting the work out there for other educators and parents to use. I'm my own worst enemy.

I watch others promote their products shamelessly. What is there to be ashamed of? But I wasn't raised with that kind of entitlement. If I advocate for myself, I'll feel a lot better whether others respond. When I think of calling schools to put my name on a list of tutors, I feel a combination of shame and humiliation

That got Shelly and me into a discussion: How do shame and humiliation differ? They feel different. Shelly said humiliation is triggered by some external action—someone says or does something that humiliates us—while shame is generated internally. But they are linked somehow.

I experience humiliation in my upper torso, particularly on my upper back. I feel shame in the lower half of my body. I don't know if anyone else experiences it this way. It is those feelings that stop me from extending myself. I have a list of topics I want to make videos on. My fear prevents me from even envisioning a coherent presentation. Now, generally, I'm pretty comfortable playing the fool. I'm a risk taker.

I tried out my 4" chainsaw yesterday. It didn't work. I recharged the battery. It still didn't work. I tried the second battery. It still didn't work. Anxiety hit. I am more vulnerable to anxiety these days. There are so many possible causes I'd have trouble choosing.

I described the feeling of anxiety to my friend Jean. It feels like there's a racing motor inside me while I'm standing still. I dealt with it as a child by moving as fast as that internal motor. While it kept me sane, it wasn't the best solution.

My response to my current anxiety: I hopped in my car and headed down to Home Depot, determined to buy another pruning chainsaw. I love this little gadget. It's good for branches less than six inches in diameter.

I started searching the tool aisle and was directed to aisle three with the motorized gardening tools. Everything was under lock and key. An employee was in the aisle, but he was helping someone else. He said he'd be back in a minute. Ten minutes later, I was wandering the aisles, looking for help. The same man came out of the outdoor gardening section, saw me, and apologized. He got caught up in something else. I decided on the Ryobi 6" chainsaw. It was $99 without the battery. It said I had to order it online at the Home Depot site. The clerk turned to leave and said he'd be right back. Where was he going? Over to the tool aisle. But they don't carry chainsaws. He knew that- but they might carry the battery. All Ryobi batteries are the same. Hey, I had a Ryobi drill at home. What did the battery look like? I couldn't remember. He said all Ryobi batteries were the same. If I had one, I could use it with my new purchase.

Judy called on her way to work. She had quite a story. She got a call from the water company. They read our meters once every two months. Her household had used an enormous amount of water. There must be a leak.

Paulette, Judy's sister, does the maintenance work around the house. She knew where the pipe was. She set about following it looking for the leak. She heard it before she saw it. The PV pipe was only a few inches underground. When she uncovered it, she discovered it was gushing water with a large root pressing against the pipe. However, the ground around it wasn't supersaturated, and there were no above-ground puddles. They would never have detected a leak until they got the bill. The bill for three households on that property is usually $200. This last bill was for $2000.

The twins did very well today. I had Twin E first. I knew which one it was because she greeted me cheerily. Twin A is more subdued. She is more restless in the sessions. She is also considerably more advanced. While both girls are reading in a grade-three level book now, Twin A's word recognition and fluency are significantly better. I have done work with Twin A on figuring out what a word really is when she decoding of a word is correct but does not provide the accurate pronunciation of the word. I'm just starting the process with Twin E.

A friend called to ask for advice. She has a difficult relative, an alcoholic who hurles insults - a real joy. My friend read me a text exchange. She wanted my advice on how to respond. The exchange consisted of the other party criticizing my friend, her defense, and his attacking her on a different issue. My advice: stop reading the texts. There was an issue here, the well-being of a child. All the rest was nonsense. She'd started reading the text again. She said she wanted to fix the problem between them. It's unfixable. She has to keep an eye on the real problem, her access to the child and his well-being. The rest has nothing to do with anything. It's noise, pure distraction. She should ignore those attacks. She went back to reading the text to me. Again, I told her to stop. This is addictive behavior, one I'm familiar with in myself. I know how hard it is not to go down that rabbit hole. I hear Mike's advice echoing in my head: it's a problem to be solved; keep your eye on the problem, not the distractions.

I know it's addictive because I do it. Negative thinking is the default mode of the human mind. The argument is that as our brains developed, we had to contemplate dangerous experiences to learn from them and figure out alternative ways of dealing with them. There's no point in dwelling on positive experiences. There's nothing to fix.

The problem with rumination may be worse now than it was in the past, but since both Buddha and Christ addressed this issue, it is clearly not completely new to the human condition.

It's worse now because we in the Western world live such isolated lives. I think the primary feeling of loneliness is fear. We know no one is committed to our protection. Each person lives in their own social pod. So many of us have no one. We weren't designed to live that way. It puts us in a constant state of hypervigilance because no one else is watching out for us. In a group of committed people, everyone is watching out for everyone else. There's a crowd protecting us, and we're ready to protect anyone and everyone in that crowd. That's security. Not just a firm base but a wide one as well. No one person has to assume full responsibility. Everyone is equally on board. Ah. Sounds so relaxing.

But we don't have that option anymore. It's every man for himself, so our rumination tendencies run amok. I recommended we start an RA group, a Rumination Anonymous. Rumination is more akin to eating than alcohol. Alcohol, you can give up entirely and survive, but not so with eating or rumination. They both serve survival functions. That's the problem.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

I mowed the lower lawn. Darby was right; the lawn gets thicker the more you mow it. For the first time, I could see where I had mowed in the grass. Before this, the only evidence of my efforts was fewer seed stalks.

I think I found a way to work with twenty-six-year-old S that won’t torture us both. I used the original Phonics Discovery System approach. We analyzed each word in the text for its phonemes and the letters representing them. using the sentence above as an example: ‘What is the first sound in we?” /w/. “What letter represents that sound?” w. What is the second sound in the word we?” the long /e/. “What letter or letters represent that sound?” e. I do that with every word in the sentence, whether a word is regular or not. If students have difficulty with it, I may model the process. I always start modeling. Often, students start doing it with me or take over. This develops phonemic awareness, the best indicator for reading success. She responded well to this exercise.

I suffered a bout of anxiety today. I described it to Jean as feeling like I have a racing motor inside me when the rest of me is neutral. When I was young, that was my constant state. I solved the problem by talking and moving as fast as my anxiety. I didn’t notice it that way. Sitting still in the bad ole days was torture.

It was a Ulu Wini day. Fifth-grade ML asked to work with me. She’s been asking almost every day I’m there. She sees improvement in her reading comprehension. I think her reading fluency has improved. I’m teaching her how to form questions as she reads. We read a passage on how police use footprints to identify criminals. She identified footprints immediately. I had taught her to look for the most oft-repeated word or words (pronouns or descriptive words) that referred to it to determine the main idea of a passage. I asked for other words that stood out. She came up with police, investigate, criminal, and identify. I asked how these words fit together. Reading comprehension is figuring out how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. She did two passages with me on grade level.

While I worked with ML, third grade SP passed and said, ‘I’m next.” Wow! That’s some change in attitude. Of course, when I was through with ML and called him, he was nowhere to be found. He passed me when he went to the bathroom. I asked him if he wanted to work then. No, he was involved in something else.

I saw second-grade MV. I grabbed her. She was reluctant to work with me. My objective for the day was for her to learn to count by fives using the pattern. I wrote a column of alternating ones and fives: 05050505050,,,, what comes next? That was hard for her when we started. I was shocked. Then, we put the numbers in the tens place. What was that pattern? It required some repetition, but she got it. She could count from 5 to 95 without a hitch. She got caught at 100.

I also reviewed counting-on. When I gave MV the first addition problem, she didn’t use it. But she used it in all subsequent problems. She produced those answers quickly. Then, she wrote a few subtraction problems for herself. I was concerned she would write a subtraction problem requiring regrouping or, worse yet, an undoable one. But, no, she did well and solved them well. She only blanked out on me once. Her brain freezes when she gets scared; she gets scared whenever she doesn’t understand something immediately. I asked her if she was doing better in class? She admitted that the teacher had commented that she was improving and was proud of herself for her improvement.

First-grade JM asked to work with me on math. Come to find out, she’s good at math. She just wanted to show off. I gave her a pen and paper and told her to show me what she knew. She did about 15 simple addition problems. If that’s her best, I think she’s below grade level. I’ll have to check.

It was Store Day when the kids buy items cheaply or get them for free if they accumulate enough points. They get points for working with me or helping others. The kids are excited about this monthly event. The noise was deafening, and the sun was beating down on me because we were seated at the edge of the overhang. I moved the table against the wall, tucked into a corner by the bathroom. We were protected from the sun and the noise. Perfect! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

Monday, May 20, 2024

I listened to the book Yvette had recommended, Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus, on Audible. It’s a fictional book about the life of a teen girl born without arms. When I finished it, I looked for the book I had been listening to, Undistractable, a book on attention deficit disorder, and couldn’t find it. Had I lost that book because I had switched to another? Were these books only rented and expired, or could I only have one active book at a time? I checked on the Internet. All the books I downloaded on Audible were mine forever, even if I stopped my subscription to Audible. Nice to know.

Nir Eyal, the author of Indistractable, argues that attention deficit disorder results from poor parenting. Parents who are inattentive or unregulated produce children who are inattentive and unregulated. Modern-day parenting puts a terrible burden on parents. That any kids come out functional is a miracle. No human being is perfectly attentive or regulated.

The problem is the shrinking social network that supports children. Ten thousand years ago, a child was born into a group. All the adults were responsible for all the children. That was a broad support base. If one piece of that base was off, the rest of the group maintained the stability. Think of a jigsaw puzzle. If one piece is missing out of 20 or 150, the image is still recognizable, and the world is stable. If you shrink the base, the world becomes more vulnerable. If it’s a ten-piece puzzle, and one piece is missing, the image is still stable but in jeopardy. The stable image is gone if you have a two-piece puzzle and one piece is skewed. Nowadays, you have single parents who live alone without community support. That parent has to maintain the equilibrium for themselves and the child. It is hard enough for an adult alone in the world to feel safe, no less a child with only one adult. We’ve turned ourselves into zoo animals, all living in our individual cages. We feel sorry for the animals. Why don’t we feel sorry for ourselves?

When I arrived at the beach at Old A, only Clyde was there. We stood side by side in silence, enjoying the view. Clyde pointed to the line of dead greens; it had been an unusually high tide. Water had covered the area where we usually stood, and the sand trailed parallel to the shore.When we were about to start, Diane arrived.

Clyde did a perfectly good job leading us through the exercises. When Susan is there, he defers to her knowledge. He almost appears to have mild dementia. He can’t remember what to do. He did perfectly well without her. His bumbling must come from insecurity. We briefly talked after we were through. Diane told me she does water jogging on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 7 am off the pier in downtown Kona. It’s open to everyone.

I stopped by Jack Be Click before I went to Target to check when it opened. The first thing on my Target list was something for my athlete’s foot. How could I have athlete’s foot? I always wear slippers (flip flops), my feet don’t sweat, and I treat them with a Clorox rinse once or twice a week. I should be fungi-free. On, well. Athlete’s foot cream it is. I also picked up a box of strawberries and pastries I wasn’t planning to buy. I had Febreze and a windshield sunshade on my list. Target had Febreze air spray but not for fabrics. I bought the other brand. I went to the automotive section to find a windshield sunscreen. They didn’t carry one. A clerk told me I could find one at Napas.

I found Napa on the map; it was right around the corner. I found a female clerk stacking the aisles. She took me right to the sunscreens. There were a few options. She showed me the one she used and liked. We tried to figure out which side should face out, the black or shining silver side? The directions said either.

I arrived at Jack be Click around 9:45. Bailey immediately attended to me. I told him I had contacted Brian, who told me he couldn’t help me that day but thought the problem with my computer was something trivial. The lagging had gotten worse, and it was scary; I thought it was a virus. I couldn’t use any of my computers because everything is linked through iCloud and OneDrive. I was calm now; I was out of my mind with concern about my computer situation when I woke up early in the morning. I got up at 3 am. and meditated for an hour. It helped a bit. I did make it back to bed to doze some. I think I looked sane as I went about my day. When I was a kid, I certainly didn’t.

Sunday, May 19, 2024

I slept well again. I had slept through the night for several nights now. Was this because of the Laughter Yoga?

When I called Jean, my Hanai sister, this morning, I learned she had Covid. John, her husband, had come down with it several days ago. She became concerned when he slept for two days straight. She called in the medical services in her retirement community. They tested him; he was positive. Jean expresses joy at the advantages of living in this community. However, there is one major possible disadvantage.

Jean and John live in a two-story apartment complex on the grounds. They might have caught Covid through the heating and cooling system, not in-person exposure to other residents. I hope she doesn’t figure that out. She is very protective when it comes to exposure to airborne diseases.

When Covid was raging, she wouldn’t allow John’s grown children to visit with him at a neighborhood park, masked and twenty feet from each other. She was terrified. We all thought her position was extreme. But nothing would budge her. John never got to see his kids when they visited the area for that whole period. If she were to discover their vulnerability in their current living situation, I hate to think of her reaction.

I spent the day alone. I do reasonably well but get down when I am only working on writing. I need physical activity throughout the day, even more than social contact. I can’t stand endless sitting still.

When I was a kid, sitting still was hell. It physically hurt. I was constantly bobbing a foot. When I was twenty-three, I drove to attend the university from Long Island, New York, to Madison, Wisconsin. It was in the late summer or early fall. It was still warm out. The car was a 1956 Biscayne Chevrolet. I had to stop every two hours to stretch my legs. It had no air-conditioning. I drove with the windows open to get a breeze. That breeze was hard on my legs; I wore leg warms to help with the cramps. Just before turning fifty, I found a solution to this problem.

I discovered Vipassana mediation. It sounded like something I had been looking for all my life. It was everything I hoped it would be. I sat through the pain, and it went away. After completing several meditation sessions, I drove for seven hours straight with no pain.

Saturday, May 18, 2024

I had another wonderful night’s sleep. The Laughter Yoga is tiring. This is a remarkable process. Yvette introduced me to it. One of the hotels called the yoga studio where she works and asked if anyone could come and lead a session of Laughter Yoga. Yvette was aware of it and watched some videos about it. She decided to take the certification course because she was preparing to lead a group. She got me involved when she needed to make a video of her laughing with someone else. I joined her in the forty-day challenge, laughing every day for forty days. The yoga was developed by a doctor from India. The instructional videos are annoying, but the process is brilliant.

While I don’t enjoy doing the laughing exercise, I can appreciate the benefits. The founder discovered that the body doesn’t know the difference between real, heartfelt and fake laughter. Laughter lifts the spirit. I don’t know if he started with this premise or realized it as an added benefit.

I don’t usually laugh; I chuckle. Deep laughter is used in this yoga. What are its benefits? Lung expansion and reduced health risks, particularly coronary disease. The yoga exercises include arm movements to engage all the lobes of the lungs. Orchestra leaders who wave their arms around have a lower incidence of coronary disease. The arm movements must do something to improve circulation in the upper body and move plaque right along. Besides good respiratory and coronary health, laughter tightens the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles. It’s an all-in-one exercise for the body and the mind. Yvette will be a great leader of this yoga here on the Big Island, leading groups at hotels and beaches. She had a great big laugh before she discovered this yoga.

I went to the vet to pick up a second order of meds for Elsa’s ears—$51! The first one was supposed to last for two weeks, but it didn’t make it through the first week, so I was not sure what I was doing wrong.

I drove down the hill from the vet to go to Costco. I got my steps in wandering the aisles. They rearrange regularly. You never know where something is going to be. I get my steps in, wandering up and down all the aisles.

The lines weren’t too bad, although the parking lot was full. I don’t bother looking for a spot. The Costco parking lot was never full in the past. Now, there are only a few left at the far end. I have no idea why the change. May be more island residents are coming from all over the island because of the higher grocery prices.

I walked to Darby’s to pick up the trash barrel I delivered the other day full of green waste. I wanted to fill it up immediately. However, a light rain started to fall. It wasn’t a good time to collect the greens, but I did trim some of the shrubs.

Friday, May 17, 2024

I missed today's hula lesson because I didn't remember to put it on my schedule. I scheduled the acupuncturist for the 10 a.m. slot.

I asked the acupuncturist to treat the pain in my upper right arm. Was the pain caused by arthritis, shifts in my posture because of the Gokhale work, a torn rotator cuff, or being crushed between the heavy lawnmower and the metal gate?

I pushed the lawnmower through the gate and positioned it so it wouldn't roll down the hill. Once I had closed the gate, I squeezed between it and the mower and tried to push it. It rolled back and pinned my right upper arm against the fence. Ow! The acupuncturist worked on my neck and trap muscles. While her work didn't provide immediate relief, it quickly dissolved after one ibuprofen.

Elsa and I went up to visit Paulette and get water. Zi, Paulette's three-year-old grandnephew, was visiting too. He threw the mouse to Elsa today.

I felt weird all day. I think it was because of the slight shift I made the other day, which had dramatic results. While the agony had ended, I felt very low-key. It's how I feel when I'm coming down with something.

I continued working on the Gating Game with Adolescent D. The objective is to force students to combine the 'guessing' process, which happens as we read, with the 'checking process.' Everyone's mind 'guesses' possible words as they read. That's how we read material faster when familiar with the subject. We do a rapid 'guess/check' process. Good students don't grab the first thought that comes into their heads. They wait until they have confirmation. Poor students say the first word that comes into their heads and don't bother checking.

I have made a small change with enormous consequences. Instead of listening to HPR talk shows as I write, I listen to the HPR classical music station. Sadly, I didn't do that when Mike was alive. He would have loved the change. However, his taste in classical music was limited to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with some allowance for the early nineteenth century. Me? I prefer music from the late nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. While he hated that I listened to talk shows and played FreeCell, he might not been so happy with my eclectic taste. However, I also like listening to music better than talk shows. I hadn't been prepared to listen to music versus talk shows before. The talk shows distracted me more from the negative voice in my head and the painful feelings in my body. The human voices were more calming then. Now, they don't serve that function. I do better with the music and get much more work done.

A coqui frog made his chirping perch in the shrub right outside my bedroom door. I need to hit that shrub with baking soda. That's what kills these overwhelmingly noisy creatures. The Puerto Ricans love them. The Coquis have natural enemies there. Here, they became overwhelming. In an area where they have flourished, Hilo, it is impossible to hear anything over their racket at night.

Thursday, May 16, 2024

I had a wonderful night’s sleep. I didn’t even get up to pee till after 4 am. Then, I was up by 4:30, petting and brushing Elsa as part of our new morning routine when B called. I thought he had said he needed to leave at 5:30. He was anxious and wanted to get to the airport early. He did. We got there before the Mokulele Airlines office opened. He would make his flight with time to spare.

I continued watching the Laughter Yoga videos. The cajoling voice that bothered me in the first video seemed less. Was I getting used to it, or were they less, whatever it takes to be less cajoling?

I accidentally came across a video about empaths, people who can feel other people’s feelings. I watch a bunch on the topic. Most of the videos were sympathetic to the social plight of the empath. The first one gave me helpful information. It theorized that empaths develop because of a desperate need to connect with people due to a mother who never attuned to them. The speaker also said that if there is an empath in the dysfunctional family, another child will go in the exact opposite pattern; they will become encapsulated.

The empath chooses the path of searching to find attunement with others. Their energy is projected into the world as they search for that connection. That sounded right. They are also hypervigilant. They want connection but don’t trust people.

The speaker said unattuned parents develop kids with extremes of introversion and extroversion. Those words are literal descriptions of what people do with their energy. Extroverts send their energy out constantly, searching for connections; introverts contain their energy and avoid energetic attunement. Then there’s that fantastic state when both are going on, the anxious-avoidant attachment pattern where one constantly reaches out, searches for a connection and rejects it when it happens. I think my mom was that way, very conflicted, downright crazy-making. I remember being that way myself, putting out come-hither/go-away vibes. I know what I did to modify that behavior- at least for myself. Berthold Brecht’s play The Measures Taken gave me a way out of that dilemma.

I understood my behavior as searching for connection and not trusting anyone enough to allow for the connection I sought. Resolving the trust issue was how I started to free myself from the pattern.

The theme of The Measures Taken was to keep your eye on the goal and not become distracted by side issues. I have no idea how that theme led to my solution. Was it to ignore the more minor conflicts, not getting myself into trouble with every relationship? I think that was it. I didn’t have to resolve every difference between myself and another person before I could share time with them. I learned to accept what a person had to offer me, even if it wasn’t the whole enchilada. To accept that intimate attunement would only be a 30% connection. 100% wasn’t possible. That made my life and probably the lives of people who knew me much easier.

The second thing I learned was to set my own boundaries. Ah. What a relief! My mother recognized no boundaries. I don’t think my dad did either, but he showed an interest in what I thought and felt that my mother didn’t.

The healing message I got from the video on making an empath was about the extruded energy, like a pod out into the world searching for something to fix the wound.

I have been told by three or four psychics that I have an enormous aura. They were not praising me. One asked how I managed to walk down a crowded street, as I was constantly bumping into others. Huh? No one offered me any help or a definition of normal or why what I was wasn’t good. I knew nothing of my aura. It was my normal, whatever it was. Putting all I knew about myself with this new information, I allowed the extruded energy to reenter my body. With that, the wound immediately closed. It was the one in my solar plexus that felt like loneliness and yearning, which I’ve lived with since before my sister was born. I had hoped her birth would solve the problem. It didn’t. Neither did it make matters worse except in bringing home the hopelessness of the situation.

I started meditating on drawing the energy back into my body. It brought a sense of peace.

Mike provided some peace for me, as I did for him. We were both denied maternal attunement. Energetic attunement brought us together and was the most vital part of the relationship, the ground zero on which we built our marriage. We may both have been infantile in our needs, but getting them allowed us to function as adults in our marriage. Mike liked to say our marriage worked because there was always one adult present, and it wasn’t always the same person. We were good complements.

I had an appointment with twenty-six-year-old S. She was late as usual. Her mom told me it was because she slept in late. S always denied that, saying she had been up for a while. I told her about the possible way to get driving lessons. She just said no to all my suggestions. She can’t conceive of possibilities and can’t tolerate disappointment. I appreciate her point of view; her life has been filled with disappointments. Nothing has gone well for her.

I can’t get her to strategize when reading. She got stuck on the word arm today. I wrote the word car and asked her to figure out what sound the ar made in the word. The point is to look for familiar words with the same pattern of letters when having trouble figuring out a sound. She said nothing. When I asked her what was happening, she couldn’t tell me. It came out that she was telling herself that she didn’t know the word. That’s all she was doing, listening to those words in her head over and over. I told her to say ar and then m repeatedly until they blended, to ask her mind to give her the word. She locks out the possibility of figuring it out; she either gets it or doesn’t. She has never learned problem-solving skills. It’s all a nightmare for her, and it’s a nightmare for anyone who has to deal with her.

When I told her good news, she received it negatively. I told her she wasn’t required to take an authorized driver’s ed course because she was over twenty-one. Someone in the family could teach her to drive. She said no one was available. They all had their own lives and problems and couldn’t spend an hour a week teaching her to drive. If her estimation of her family is accurate, what a tragedy!

I was tired on our evening walk. Darby helped me tackle a hill by laying a hand on the small of my back—a hiker’s trick my mom taught me. She belonged to a hiking club in Berlin, where she learned it. My weakness was the impact of the change I felt the other day. I don’t know where it will go.

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Darby brought over two empty egg cartons and a star apple, whatever that may be. Star apples are a fruit grown here in Hawaii. The variety of fruits is unfamiliar and astounding. I put both items in my mailbox in the late evening and texted Nina. If I didn't run into Dean and Nina on my walk, they could pick it up as they passed.

I ran into them at the end of my block. Nina was carrying a shopping bag. I turned around to accompany them. When we came to my house, Dean announced he wouldn't go into my mailbox. He had expressed objections to leaving eggs in our mailboxes. That was understandable. If they were in there when the sun came up, they would be cooked when someone came to get them. But this was different. Nothing could go wrong with the empty egg cartons; the apple had only been in the mailbox overnight. It was still early enough to have avoided the sun's baking effect. This was some rule he was following. Of course, it's not just his rule. Using a mailbox for any purpose other than mail is a federal offense. The only people legally allowed to use a mailbox are the mail carrier and the owner. That's it. I said it was OK if they picked up items from inside my side door. That didn't appeal to Dean either. It sounded like a boundary issue. He said Darby could come down to his house to drop them off.

Dropping things off or picking them up at his house is a challenge. You can't contact Dean to tell him you're on your way or there. He has no cell phone and no actual landline in his home. He has an old-fashioned dial phone. It's hooked up to his in-laws landline. If his wife, Nina, wants to call Dean, she dials her parents' number, and they yell up to Dean. His in-laws speak only speak Chinese. No one calls on that number except Nina.

Then there's the gate, which is kept closed. Darby dropped by once to see the batch of young chicks in a tent set up in their living room. She had to coordinate her visit with Nina's arrival home.

I stopped by once. It was at the end of our morning walk. Dean was there already. I like Dean despite his curmudgeon aspects. I tease him about it. I felt free to because I saw Nina do it. I thought it was a show of affection. Of course, I did that to Mike, too. He wasn't crazy about it.

On our morning walk, Elsa used all her strength in that thirteen-pound body to force me to cut our walk short. Impressive.

When we got home, she did something else unusual. Of course, I did something that allowed that. After taking the garbage bag out of its container, I set it on the floor while I did something else; I don't remember what. When I returned to the kitchen, the bag's contents were strewn over the kitchen floor. Elsa had attacked it. There was no foodstuff in the bag; why did she do that? Ah, there was an empty dog food bag. I'm sure the remaining scent was enough for her.

I thoroughly washed the bathroom floor today. It was long overdue. Nothing takes as long or is as hard as I fear it will.

I was in the church parking lot by 11 am to meet with Paulette for lunch. She was running late. Paulette ran the wedding ministry for the church. She had to meet someone at 10:30 after the Kupuna meeting, which I decided to drop out of because I started falling asleep behind the wheel on my way to the meeting. I have no idea what caused that degree of stress, but it did. Going to the meeting wasn't worth risking my life. I texted Paulette to tell her I was there. She was running late. The woman she was supposed to meet came closer to 11 than 10:30. I pushed back the car seat and read. I wasn't in a hurry.

Paulette found me in the parking lot when she was ready. She had proposed eating at a restaurant across the street that sold great hamburgers. It was closed until noon. We walked down the street to see if something else looked good. As we walked, Paulette commented on the smell of the sea. She missed the sea smell of the Atlantic. I did, too. We were both East Coast kids, swimming on the New York and New Jersey seashores. For a brief moment, the Hawaiian sea smelled like our beloved Atlantic Ocean. I had always thought the salt gave it that distinctive smell. Nope. It's rotting algae. There's none of that in Hawaiian waters. It's a food desert. Whales come down here to give birth to their babies. They live on the fat they built up over the winter up north.

As we walked, we found a restaurant that appealed to us. We shared a small homemade pizza, half Margarita and half pepperoni. It was the perfect amount and delicious.

After lunch, we continued strolling down Ali'I Drive, looking in shop windows. I wondered where Lava Java was; had we passed it? We saw the sign as we returned to the church parking lot. It was the restaurant we had eaten in.

I met with Mama K's twins. Twin A is doing remarkably better. Her reading fluency has improved, as has her comprehension. We read an article about a flower called 'Snow in Winter.' It took a minute for her to get it, but she did it in a way that demonstrated logical thinking. Wow! She was also articulate in giving a summary of the article. It was all in her own words. Wow!

I had been working with Twin E on first-grade material, but I didn't have anything easily accessible. So, I used the third-grade material I was currently using with Twin A. Wow! She could read that. The other day, she announced she was starting to figure out big words. I didn't check her comprehension. One milestone at a time.

I accidentally came across a podcast on empaths on YouTube. I have watched several since; none of them carry the same message. Most of them are about the plight of the poor empath. They don't discuss it as a problem for the person and those around them. This one did. It was very helpful. I'm an empath, for better and for worse.

There must be healthy family structures that produce empaths, but this one discussed the unhealthy ones. It sounded like my experience. Babies need parents who attune to their needs. My mother was incapable or unwilling to do that. I recently found a picture of my mom sitting with my four—or five-year-old sister on her lap in an attuned state. I sent it to my sister. We both understood what an unusual state it was for my mom.

As far as we can figure out, my mom considered attunement, along with all forms of affection, sexual and avoided them on moral grounds. I'm sure she was concerned about hurting us.

It wasn't that we weren't flooded by her negative energy. She had little control over her moods and negative behavior. It was just the positive state she inhibited. Mind you, she rarely hit us. I remember being struck once when I was in kindergarten and not again until I was nineteen when she slapped me across the face for being late. Even she understood that was off the charts. When she returned to work after that incident and told her colleagues what had happened, they told her she was lucky I didn't slap her back. I didn't. I turned tail and walked away.

But back to a mother incapable of positive attunement. It creates a hungry ghost and an encapsulated ghost. The hungry ghost describes me as constantly vigilant for danger in others while searching for connection. I was the typical anxious, avoidant child, just like my mother.

The images of some part of me constantly groping in the air to make a connection came to me. I saw it as part of myself that didn't belong out there. I gave permission for it to be returned to me. The feeling of agony that has haunted me for my whole life was resolved. It quieted. Let's see if I'm going to be better off without it. It will be an adjustment either way.

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

I cleared the lower yard of fallen fronds today. The big stash the gardener left is gone. Now, it’s just picking them upp as they fall from the trees. I shoved them all into a large plastic trash barrel on wheels. I add the branches I cut from the red flowering bush from the upper front yard and wheeled the container down to Patrick and Darby’s. I thought it must be a sight. The bouquet of dried fronds with some fresh green branches with red flowers looked like a pagan effigy. It looked bit scary. The movie The Wicker Man came to mind, although I don’t think anyone looked quick like my display. Darby came out and said they needed a picture.

We had two days of fantastic rain fall. Yesterday’s was intense enough to float a 2 by 2 two foot plank of wood Darby and Patrick use to even out their driveway down the street and into the drain.

In my session with twenty-six year old S today, I talked about how she was going to get driving lessons. She said she drove once, suggesting that that should be enough. Obviously, someone in the family would teach her. That’s how I learned.

My uncle taught me after my dad had died. He came to our house every Sunday for dinner. He was very committed to the Jewish tradition of taking care of your brother’s family when he died. He actually proposed to my mother, and he couldn’t stand her. Fortunately for everyone’s sake, my mother thought that was an absurd idea.

I took a driving course at the high school. It was half a credit. He took me out to practice every Sunday. I told S she needed someone in her family to teach her how to drive. She said no one was available. I thought she must be exaggerating. Her sister lives with her. She could give her an hour a week. S needs to learn the basics and needs to learn the rules of the road. Is this family so dysfunctional they can’t even do that for S?

I looked up the requirements while we were in session and read them to her. She need thirty hours of driving time before she could take the road test. She covered her eyes and became silent. I said nothing. I thought she was crying but couldn’t be sure. I asked her if she would prefer to stop the session. She said yes. This woman’s life if filled with disappointment. I can understand why she has a low tolerance for things not gong her way. Her situation is painful for me to observe. I can’t imagine what it feels like to live it.

Yvette came up this evening to film a video of us laughing. She signed up for an online Laughter Yoga course. A guru/doctor from India created this form of yoga. He says the body doesn’t know the difference between real and fake laughter.

Yvette wants to become a certified Laughter Yoga instructor. She videoed us laughing together to fulfill an assignment. I am committed to the forty day challenge of laughing at least one minute a day. At the end of the forty days, we will video ourselves again and notice any changes.

I went to Ulu Wini today. Third grade SP was the first student to come. In the past, I’ve had to chase him or one of the workers had to order him to work with me. No more. I asked him which Reading Roots book he was up to. He went and got a hard copy of #11. He read it accurately and focused perfectly on each word as he read it. So much for the theory he had ADD. His distractibility was just anxiety. He had read that book before. I asked him to get one he hadn’t read before so I could see how he read that. Amazing! Again, he read every word accurately. I could see he was applying my decoding strategies.

SP had all sorts of problems when I started. His speech was unintelligible, and he couldn’t read at all. He wasn’t particularly cooperative with me until the day I broke down every word in a sentence into their phonemic units. When I did that, he sat up in his chair turned to face towards me and was transfixed. It was that day, I realized he is probably not the lowest student in this group, but may well have the potential to be the brightest of the bunch. He has a capacity for abstract thinking uncommon in people who live is high structured closed social groups. This doesn’t mean those people can’t think abstractly; it means their life style doesn’t require it and therefore they don’t acquire it. Someone who trips across it by accident is the odd man out. It looks like SP needs to understand the basics behind an acitivity to understand it at all. He reminds me of my learning style.

Next third grade KJ approached me with a big smile on her face. “You just want to show off , don’t you?” Yep! She is doing spectacularly well. I gave her a third grade passage for the Barnell Loft series. She read it with ease.

Then fifth grade RM sat down. She reported that the work we had done already made a difference in her school performance. I’d describe her as bright, but that just means she responds well to academic instruction. In our last session, I noticed she didn’t follow the references as the vocabulary changed. I did a follow the bouncing ball exercise by color coding each reference. I didn’t choose the best text. It was at a first grade level. She needs it at a higher level.

Finally, 5^th grade ML came to work with me. We worked on three fifth grade passages. I taught her visualization techniques. It blows my mind when I discover these kids don’t visualize the message of the text as they read. It doesn’t even occur to them. it’s not that they don’t visualize. If their mom says, “Clean your room!” they visualize what their room looks like and how it will feel to clean it.

I love working with the kids at Ulu Wini. I don’t just work with the lowest kids. I get to work with a wide range of skill levels and add to their arsenal of skills.

Monday, May 13, 2024

I leaped out of bed around 4 am, worrying about the scam I fell for. I tried to call the police around 3 am. I dialed 911, asking for who in the police department I should call. I wanted information so I could get to the person the next day. I didn't bother with the non-emergency number because no one answered. I told the emergency operator it wasn't an emergency. She must not have heard me. She kept asking me questions. She got angry at me when she realized it wasn't a problem requiring immediate attention. She told me to call the non-emergency number later. I felt I had an obligation to report these people. They were operating out of a shop in town. Residents and tourists needed to be protected. I figured this must be a fly-by-night operation. There wasn't a business number on the credit card; it was just a business email address.

I was wide awake and up by 4:30. I got up, dressed, and texted Pualette that she should call me when she got my text. I wanted her to cancel her credit card.

I had yet to hear from Paulette when I headed out to town for the Chi Qigong class on the beach at Old A. There were only four regulars today and one newbie, someone visiting from Kauai who happened to stop by and join us. Today, I faced the mountain rather than the ocean. It was just as soothing as the ocean view.

On my way home from the Chi Qigong class, I called Paulette. No, she hadn't checked her texts yet. I told her what I thought was happening with the skin care shop. I had reason to believe this skincare place was an outright scam. I told her my credit card receipt said I only got a one-year supply of products rather than the two I was told I would get. Also, Giovani had told me he had results from the Mayo Clinic on my skin samples, and I had bad eczema. I had seen my doctor on Thursday. She said I had no eczema. I would know. It itches. His making a diagnosis was also illegal. I hadn't bought his Mayo Clinic claim. I knew he hadn't taken a sample of my skin. With all that evidence of falsehood, I recommend she cancel her credit card immediately. She groaned. There were all those automatic payments she would have to renew. We decided to cancel our appointment for our facials with Giovani this morning at 11. I didn't want someone who I thought was a crook touching me. Paulette didn't want to subject herself to another sales pitch.

While on the phone with Giovani, canceling the facial appointments, I calmly said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "You said I was getting two years of skin care supplies. It only says one year on the credit card receipt." I don't have any idea where my matter-of-fact calm came from. I didn't play the victim, just the inquiring customer. I was surprised.

He said, "If you look at the receipt, it says, "one year times two." I looked, yeah. It says one year @ 2." Okay. "How do I get more product?" I was supposed to get more when I came in for my monthly facial. Paulette was entitled to this facial, too. She did not order any more than she already had and was committed to not putting out another cent.

I called Paulette to tell her that while it may be a hustle, it wasn't a scam. She didn't have to cancel her card.

I had an appointment with twenty-six-year-old S. I had a text from her saying she thought we were supposed to meet at nine. Our schedule is confusing: it's at 10 on Mondays because of the Chi Qigong class, whereas it's at 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But I was home already and could meet immediately. There was no reply. She didn't sign on at 10. I texted her mom. She finally texted me, but there was no link. I sent another through Yahoo. That didn't work. I sent one through gmail.com. That worked.

She was in a bad state of mind. She was so sluggish I almost suspected she was drugged. She might be taking recreational drugs; she might be taking prescribed pain medication for the pain caused by the third breast under her arm. Also, she might be that way because she is angry about working with me or because she is just generally angry at her situation. She is a typical immature adult who never got a chance to grow up. Her sister isn't far behind her, and the two girls have children. Omg!

I told her what her mother had told me. She didn't do cross-body blending because her third breast caused pain. Why hadn't she made that clear? No response. Her lack of response is unpleasant to deal with. I have to remember her condition is hardly her own fault.

S was a meth baby. Then, at four, she was put on Adderall. I understand that doctors were supposed to evaluate her regularly before renewing her prescription. That never happened. She developed seizures, which impaired her memory and ability to learn and caused muscle spasms, which made it impossible for her to walk more than half a block without severe pain. I discovered the seizures and brought it to the attention of the family and insisted she bring it to the attention of the doctors. Her pediatrician referred her to a pediatric neurologist. He checked her for epilepsy. I told him seizures were one of the side effects of Adderall. He dismissed my suggestion, but I convinced him to take her off the medication. Her seizures stopped immediately. It took several years for the paralytic effect of the drug to wear off. She was just short of eighteen when that happened. She was on that drug for fourteen years. She was robbed of her childhood.

Why didn't her family bring this to the attention of her doctors? They may have thought it was the effect of the meth. When I told her mother about the seizures, she said, "What seizures?" When I described her fixed stare and inability to respond, she said, "Oh, those. She has those all the time." The family was passive in their response to her dilemma, the opposite of helicopter parents.

S's reading improved somewhat as she got further into the passage we were working on. However, I had to repeatedly remind her to start with the vowel instead of the first letter in the word. She has no mental discipline.

I proposed she should start studying for the driver's test. She said she had it on her phone. They don't sell the driver's manual book anymore. Okay, but she still had to memorize the answers to the questions. She kept saying, "I did it on the phone," without being clear about what she did on the phone. She took the written test on the phone and only got three answers wrong. What was a passing grade? I just looked it up: you must get 24 out of 30 questions correct. If she only missed three, she passed. Why can't that test count? You must pass the road test within two years or take the written test. She will have to retake it.

She consistently gives incomplete information and then gets angry because she is misunderstood. I can appreciate her frustration. She has no idea that she has poor communication skills. I'm doing surprisingly well with the situation, remaining calm despite her victim status.

As Lutz, Darby, and I were walking together this evening, Gayle pulled up. She had just dropped her son off at the airport for his flight back to Seattle, dropped off her car at home, and joined us on our walk.

Yvette came up to talk to me about an online course she was taking, Laughter Yoga. While living in Portland, she heard about it many years ago but had done nothing with it. It came to her attention again. She discovered a certification course was starting in two days. As part of the program, she had to video herself laughing. It could be fake laughter; the body doesn't know the difference. Laughter offers excellent physical, mental, and emotional health benefits.