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

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Saturday, January 18, 2025

This was an easy day of working on updates and gardening. I trimmed five shrubs along the top section of the driveway. I need to keep them low enough to reach them. I can use a ladder on some because the driveway is flat, but the ones below are on a significant slant. A step ladder there would be risky at best. Dean and Nina don't think well of me messing with ladders at my age. I agree. If I fall, I'm a dead woman. I do hold on to something while I'm up there. I calculate which way I can fall to do the minimum damage. The biggest threat to my physical safety is the damn sprinkler heads. That's what got me a year and a half ago when I fell and shattered my left elbow joint and shoulder.

I felt so good about taking on those shrubs and finding it relatively easy that I was inspired to clean up the dining room table/ desk. Items were sitting there I wasn't using. They could be put away instead of being decorative clutter.

I am a pronounced extrovert. Introverts are the bane of my existence, not because they're introverts but because they hate me. Extroverts are visible and impactful. Introverts keep to themselves and avoid contact. Introverts believe they do no harm. They are quietly hostile, think no one notices, and have no impact. Everyone has an impact. No one gets out of this without having an effect.

Both introversion and extroversion have positive and negative aspects. To the extent that either is driven by fear, it is negative. To the extent either is driven by positive emotions, it is positive. I can't imagine a person completely free from fear. I'm not suggesting it's possible. But I do know, as an extrovert who chose that path, that it can be as much a defense against sustained contact with other human beings as a total retreat from all contact. I recognized that when in my twenties. I saw the two modalities represented as being on either side of the proscenium. The introverts sit in the audience, and the extroverts are on the stage. e audience. They have some contact with the other actors, but they're a sage distance from learning to deal with person-to-person contact is a developed skill. I've worked hard to accomplish it. I still feel a mile from my goal. I can't be something appropriate for all people at all times. I don't try. I try to be myself with as much consideration of others as possible. That pathway is narrow; it's a slim passage between regard for my needs and those of others.

It was a goal I set when I was a child. I believed there was some way I could be there for myself and my mother at the same time. There had to be a way. There was- at least to my satisfaction. I feel the day-to-day relationship I had with my mother when she lived with me at the end of her life was good enough. Of course, I can only attest from my perspective. I chose to believe from some of the positive things she said to me and others who repeated what she had to say about me, that it was also good enough for her.

Sadly, this does not mean that our relationship was entirely resolved. There were lingering issues from my childhood that we never saw eye-to-eye on. My mother had an 'interesting' point of view. She believed I was putting her down if I held a different opinion, perspective, or even knowledge than she did. When I discovered that, I gave up on believing complete reconciliation was ever possible.

I discovered this fatal flaw a few years before she died. We were watching TV together. An ad came on. I thought the model wasn't beautiful. My mother said, "Isn't she beautiful?" I thought, what an excellent opportunity to share our respective points of view and get to know each other better. I said, "I don't think so." She said, "Why do you always have to put me down?" I was stumped. That stopped me in my tracks. If I had to see everything the way she saw it to be 'respectful', I had to surrender my thoughts to hers. Holy cow! Where do you go from there?

Friday, January 17, 2025

I slept through to 4:30. That constitutes a good night's sleep. I made some notes for yesterday's update. It was nagging me; I was afraid I'd forget. I was surprised to find that I was more up-to-date than I had thought.

I did my morning exercises. I modify and add things. I included 15 sit/stands from a cushioned chair, neck shears as recommended by Gokhale, and isometric arm exercises for strength while sitting. Once on the floor I included leg lowering to the count of 6 in each of four progressively lower positions. I also worked on exercises that are recommended for recovering my ability to get down to the floor and up again without using my arms. I'm not there yet. But while doing the exercises, I discovered my left leg was weaker than my right. I'm working on strengthening it. One video recommended a step exercise. I've adapted that to walking as if I'm climbing stairs. It's already made an enormous difference.

Today, I missed the second of 10 Hulu sessions. I had something scheduled on both occasions. Today, it was a Gokhale workshop. I thought they were covering Glide Walking. It was a two part program. We were told they would be introducing something new in the second half. The first half was a review of how to arrive at the correct posture with a J spine instead of an S spine. That was helpful. The second half was one long advertisement of their offerings. There were one hundred-seventy-five participants, seven of who were trained Gokhale instructors. We were all people who had done the basic course. The online Elements Course was a mere $200 an hour. The in-person group class was $90 an hour.

I am still fuming about the instruction I got in the Elements Course. I thought I would get individual instructions. Nope. It was a scripted course. There was individual instruction, however, my instructor was incapable of helping me make modifications because she didn't look at my body. She expressed distress when she realized I had well-defined high arches in my feet. She was used to people who had no training in body mechanics. For $200 an hour, I expected to help me make modifications specific to my body. She was incapable of that. I'm still angry. Can you tell?

I managed to squeeze in the daily water meditation with Jean, my friend from Arizona, before preparing a bagel, cream cheese, and lox open sandwich and leaving for Kia for more car repairs. This is the fourth time they've tried to fix the problem.

The problem was serviced once under the old management. I think that took six weeks. I can't remember why I brought it in again, probably for the same problem I'm having now. The charging process spontaneously aborts. Joe told me the previous manager had refused to do everything corporate said would be necessary to fix it. The tech knew the repair wasn't enough to correct the problem. Under Joe and the new GM, the old part and two additional ones had been replaced.

Then, the additional one they replaced was defective, so it had to be replaced again. I had a loaner for several weeks while this went on. Joe told me this still didn't fix the problem, so I had to bring the car in again. And here I am in the waiting room with my open-faced bagel with cream cheese and lox, a can of Kombucha, and my computer so I can work on my updates and meet with my 3 p.m. tutoring student.

Monday, January 16, 2024

I was up by 4:30. I watched the Rusty the Fox video Jean, my Hanai sister, recommended. It tells a fantastic story of a young fox rescued by a vet and released in the wild who comes home every night to sleep with his human family. Not only did the fox maintain his relationships with these humans, but it also brought other injured animals to them for help. I was suspicious because it said the vet's wife took terrific pictures, but the video didn't include one of them. I also searched for other stories about this fox. I couldn't find a single reference outside of the video.

At nine-thirty, I left for town with the car loaded with aluminum cans and refundable bottles for Atlas Recycling Center. My haul was worth $17.79. I instructed them to give the money to someone who needed it. The men who work there are probably among the houseless. They get to keep the money. I'm not the only one who does this.

I drove to the bank to deposit money and cash checks. The parking lot was jammed, and I expected a long line. Not at all. While all three tellers were occupied, I was the next one in line. I wanted to deposit money. The teller had me sign a form acknowledging the name she'd written on the form was mine. It wasn't. She took the name off one of the checks instead of my driver's license. She was about to deposit the money into the wrong account. That would have been a kick in my pants and a boom for someone else.

Elsa and I finally got a chance to visit with Paulette. I heard my second horror story. The first was from Yvette. The local post office has finally revised the routes and adjusted salaries. The postal workers hadn't received a raise in a long time. Someone discovered that the updated salary assignments may not be correct. Some people may be overpaid. Instead of making an immediate adjustment, the plan is to wait a year and adjust retroactively. This means some employees will owe money to the post service. They won't know if or how much. The postal workers union signed off on this arrangement. Can you imagine waiting a year before you know it and having that hang over your head?

The second nightmare was the one Paulette shared with me. A son of a friend lives on Lana’i with his family. They moved there because his wife got a job as a music teacher. It wound up being a bad situation. The local library said they would hire his wife if she got her Master's degree in library sciences. She was on the verge of completing it. They started the paperwork on the hiring process. Then she got a phone call. They can't hire her; she needs two years of experience. There is no way to get two years of experience on Lana’i. The public library is the only one. K quit her job with the school district and went into debt to earn her Master's believing she would have this job. She completed it just in time. Her health insurance policy with the board of ed. would expire. Now, she and her family are screwed.

Despite the weight of these nightmare stories, Paulette, Elsa, and I had a good time. Aya, Adam and Jazzy's big bouncy labradoodle, was up there, too. Her 'dad' allows her to sleep on top of him. It's not good training if you'd prefer this 100 lb dog not to crawl into your lap and lick your face. Paulette threw the mouse to Elsa, as usual. Aya chased Elsa, not the mouse. Elsa would have had no compunction taking a chunk out of Aya's nose if she had.

When I had a session with fourth-grade LG,I reviewed rounding. He quickly identified the 'raised the score' and 'let it rest' numbers for each place value. He was hesitant when deciding which one to choose, but he got them all correct.

We also did another writing exercise. LG showed significant improvement. I used the same prompt – a color. He got to choose it. He started looking around him for something that color. I had to push him to use his imagination. He made the shift and dictated a story. It needed some editing, but it hung together.

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

I slept well again last night. I woke up once to go to the bathroom and was ready to get up at 5:30. Yesterday, I woke up too late to do my morning exercises. I planned to do them after the walk. That never happened. I got them done today. I remembered to add 15 sit-stands. I can do that with relative ease. Because it was raining, I didn't go for my regular morning walk immediately. Around 7 am, I checked again. It had stopped raining, and Elsa and I headed out.

I called Jean, my Hanai sister. She didn't answer; her husband, John, did. Sadly, he is suffering from memory loss. His short-term memory is only good for 3 minutes. He is delightfully at peace with his condition. He's a model for me should I suffer a similar loss. While I experience increasing problems remembering names and occasionally words, I'm still doing reasonably well, as my writing attests. Well, at least it looks reasonably articulate to me. I enjoy reading my own writing. Moreover, I have received several compliments on my writing. It makes me happy that people enjoy my work.

At 9:30 am, my alarm went off. It was time to head into town for the second session of the Grief Workshop. I find aspects of the program frustrating and anxiety-provoking. The program talks out of both sides of its mouth. On the one hand, it says there is no right or wrong way to grieve, and then it does a one-eighty and gives a list of incorrect responses. It's not that those actions aren't ever wrong; they are. It's just they're not always wrong. As it winds up, I'm not the only one who notices the inconsistencies. It's just that I'm the most distressed. And then again, maybe I'm not the most distressed. During a bathroom break, I shared my observations with another participant. She sees the same thing I do. At the end of the small group activity, one of the women said she was so happy I was in her group. When I told her I was considering dropping out, she said she would make sure I continued. I appreciate the support. I know closed-mindedness is especially scary for me; it's the Nazis, you know. The group leader is from a military family and lost her mom in a car accident when she was eleven. I understand where she's coming from. I know she is not a threat to me; I'm still so frightened by the mental rigidity.

That being said, I liked the exercise we did today. We had to share the results of our homework from last week in small groups. While one person spoke, we were not to say a word, ask questions, or comment. There was to be no discussion. That went surprisingly well. We had written our responses; they were there for us to read. I didn't have to ask questions to pull it out of people.

Two of the women in our group of four were Asian. Their response to loss was culturally driven. They put on their big girl pants and did what had to be done. This program says doing that is wrong. Huh??? I thought there was no wrong response. The program does not make clear that holding on to that response and not allowing other emotions and responses which all for ways to deal with grief. Instead of making these women feel comfortable, it makes them feel like misfits. Both their stories were particularly tragic by any standard. They had to do what they had to do.

I told one of the women that that's what my mom did when my dad died. She didn't sit around and mourn. Within a month or two, she had moved her mom out of her apartment and into our suburban house and gotten a job. Because she did, my sister and I didn't have to face compounding losses: the loss of our home, school, and social community. That would have added three significant losses to the one we had already suffered. Did my mom do that just for us? Nay. She did it because she suffered from serious, if not severe, PTSD and my mom was at her best when she had to be heroic. While she was a disaster as a gentle, caring, supportive mother, she was a clear winner when it came to the practical. I am grateful every day for what she did and button-busting proud of her to boot. My heart swells when I think of how she rose to the occasion and all she did for us, not only as school-age children but throughout the rest of our lives. She put both of us through college, knowing that's what my dad wanted for us, even though she had no idea what she was doing. She then saved and accumulated wealth from which my sister and I benefited. That woman was a force of nature, for better and for worse. I'm happy to complain nonstop about the damage she did when I was a child and sing her praises from now until eternity for what she did for us after my dad died.

My relationship with the leader of the Grief Recovery class was forged in hell. I criticize the program for talking from both sides of its mouth, but many problems with her are a result of our respective fears. Insecure people who are rigid thinkers drive me crazy. I drive them crazy, too. It's reactivity all the way around. I want to use this workshop to see if I can control my inner barking dog, which is warning me my life is in danger. It's not. But man, that inner dog is not listening.

At least, I no longer fear that I will prevent the other participants from benefitting from the workshop. Two of the women, Asians of all things, have overtly connected with me in a positive way. One I audaciously did a physical healing on. I'm not usually called to do that the way I used to be.

One of the women complained of arm pain. She spent a lot of time paddling when she was younger. (this is a big thing in Hawaii. It's not rowing as it is on the mainland. It's paddling in the tradition of the Polynesians who founded Hawaii.) I approached it differently than her PTs. I felt a relationship between her shoulder muscles and the muscles on the left side of her head. It took less than five minutes to make a small change. I advised her to massage the left side of her head on her own.

The mother of seventh-grade LV texted me to say her daughter wanted to quit. She preferred in-person sessions versus working online. Her mother had pushed her into working with me because of my qualifications. I felt the girl had warmed up. Her reluctance felt more like a resistance to tutoring in general. I thought she made progress in three sessions. However, we never got to work on comprehension. She tested on a 3rd-grade level for that. Too bad. She probably could have made enough of a difference in three more sessions.

Seventh-grade RC is done, too. I don't find working with her satisfying. She isn't resistant to the sessions. I think she has improved a lot. Her biggest problem is her negative response when she doesn't get something right. Good God. If I felt that way, I'd give up life.

RC says she doesn't know if she's improved. She may not. She may be inclined to never see anything positive about herself. It may be an Asian thing to never say anything positive about yourself. I was okay with that with Adolescent D. He denied improvement to the point of insanity. He once claimed that he could always read at a sixth-grade level. I started working with him when he was in eighth grade. His mother reported he had never tested higher than on a first-grade level in reading. I asked, "If you could always do it, why didn't you?" he said, "I don't know." Some of that is the Apex Effect. If a problem clears up, we feel like it was never there in the first place. No reason to dwell on issues that have already been resolved.

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

I went for a haircut today. The salon is next to a deli where I always get their potato salad. It reminds me of the German variety my mother made. Theirs isn't German; it's something like Scandinavian, but it's good enough.

It's always a delight to see my hairdresser. She's a kick. She has three sons from three different fathers. Two of the boys had contact with their birth fathers. The father of the oldest boy, now 21, died in a car crash. His paternal grandparents had flown out to visit him. It's a delight to hear her talk about her boys. She loves being a mother. She adores them. She's a great model for parenthood. So far, her boys are doing well.

After my haircut appointment, I headed to Ulu Wini. When I arrived, several kids asked to work with me. I collected four of the kids who have memory problems and had made some progress: first-grade PY, second-grade NV, third-grade PL, and second-grade MK. Because my time on Friday has been cut back, I thought to set up a situation where a group of kids worked with each other.

All five of us sat around a table. I developed a format for the 'game' as I went along. I started by reminding the four students of the procedure for automatic recall: "See the word in your mind (the area right behind the forehead), then ask your mind (long-term memory) to tell you what the word is, and finally to wait until your mind (area at on the left at temple level) tells you the word. I told them not to call out the answer but to raise their hands when they had it. That way, everyone would have a chance to try the procedure before I gave the answer.

Then, I had one of them become the leader. I reviewed the procedure. Where did they picture the word? Eh. Some had it; some didn't. The same was true for auditory processing. The leader was inclined to call out the word before everyone had a chance to raise their hand.

I actually snapped at one of the girls. It was third-grade Pl. There's something about her that gets on my nerves. I assumed she had a problem at home. Then I saw her with her dad. He adores her. She is clearly loved. When I saw her contract in response to my harsh, No!" I apologized. I assured her my snappy response was my fault and not hers; she was safe and loved. The last comment relaxed her. I can imagine others getting frustrated with her. She is a flake, often distracted. However, she had calmed down when I worked with the BrainManagementSkills with her the last time we worked together. Her agitation and distraction are due to her insecurities. She still irks me. Her perpetually runny nose is a particular irritant. She is a mobile contamination machine.

I had time for some more students. I approached fourth-grade LK, asking if he wanted to work with me on math. He said he would pass for today. My guess is he would pass any day. I can't blame him because I pushed too far the other day. I might have to push him to give me five minutes and make sure I time it.

I had second-grade JM next. This girl's oral reading is way above her grade level, but her comprehension is at a low Kindergarten level. That's what I've been focusing on. The low-level picture books, while they are appropriate for her comprehension level, do not serve as well when it comes to language comprehension. Sometimes, the pictures carry the meaning, and words aren't coordinated with them.

Then, first-grade TR asked to work with me. She is immature for her age, more like a three-year-old. She's lost on all counts. I worked on Phase I of The Phonics Discovery System. I had her identify the number of syllables in words, and the individual sounds (the phonemes) within each syllable. Everything was hard for her. It's hard not to throw up my hands and declare 'stupid.' I've seen situations like this too often. I've had kids everyone calls stupid who wind up being star pupils and kids who are called smart who I can't rescue from the cul de sac of their bad habits or neurological disorders.

TR is another child that wears on my nerves. She's low-functioning and fidgety. All the kids I work with are insecure, but some manifest it in ways that make me uncomfortable. I had her identify the syllables and phonemes in the names of family and friends. She wriggled the whole time but got the syllable identification using the megaphone hands while calling someone at a distance. With their thumbs under their chins, students can feel the 'bounces, one syllable per chin bounce. When it came to identifying the phonemes, she got the consonants and ignored the vowels altogether.

Third-grade AM wanted help with multiplication. The kids have trouble switching from multi-digit addition to multi-digit multiplication. In addition, you work with the numbers in columns; in multiplication, we don't work the process in columns. We use a criss-cross pattern.

I had two students scheduled on Zoom, the twins and Rachel. Then I had problems with the computer. My keyboard didn't work when I was on Twin A's file. I couldn't even draw. I thought the problem was with my computer instead of the file. I tried switching to another computer. I didn't usually use that one for Zoom or even for writing. It's connected to my MacBook Air through One Drive. I can't get One Drive to work correctly for love nor money. I canceled all my Zoom sessions for the day.

I scheduled four appointments for tomorrow afternoon. That may be too much for me.

I had another load of green waste for Darby. I wheeled it over in a rolling trash barrel. She showed me a spot where the barrel's handle was coming loose. Patrick noticed it and was concerned for my safety.

Monday, January 13, 2025

Oh, dear. I overrode the Seroquel this morning and dwelt on troubling relationships that I can do nothing about. I allowed myself to do this. This place of pain and suffering is where I live. Some of it is the default brain, which will always dwell in the land of troubled social relationships. At least, that's what the results showed in experiments. I wonder if the default brain was designed to only deal with social relationships or is also concerned about lions, tigers, and bears.

I concluded I needed to break my mental habit of indulging in painful moments. The other day, I wrote about my realization that my mind, rather than accepting the calming impact of the Seroquel, was preparing to do battle with it. Much as someone might do battle with a calming drug when they know they're in danger, the mind is used to a degree of alertness to danger. It fights the impact of the drug. When someone slips us a mickey, that's a healthy response. When we take a drug, legally or illegally, to calm our nervous systems, our conscious minds sigh with relief, and our unconscious minds fight against it. It assumes the hyper-alertness must be necessary, or we wouldn't be in it. It leads me to believe the unconscious mind has limited contact with the real world. It's quick to respond to spiders and snakes and our discomfort in response to anything out there. However, it doesn't know what's really a danger to us any more than my beloved Elsa does, who is prepared to take the mailman or a passing semi-truck in my defense.

My email problems have gone from bad to worse. Yahoo wouldn't allow me to send my update emails, the last one to go out the usual way was on December 28. I tried using Gmail. It doesn't have a forward-to-all function. I have to paste and copy the email addresses or paste and copy the text. I read somewhere that Yahoo was impacted by a virus on the Chrome server. I had as much trouble with it when I used Safari. Should I take this personally?

My friend Melissa finally came to visit me. We've made several attempts over the last six months, but something always came up. She spends a lot of time in the Australian outback volunteering as an OBGYN and general surgeon. We had a lovely visit. We mostly talk about intellectual topics rather than ourselves, but there's a lovely warmth there anyway.

In anticipation of her visit, I finally washed my floors and dusted and vacuumed. No, I didn't do it because I was concerned about what she might think of my housekeeping. I used her as motivation to get the job done. Mike used to say, "Where's a guest when you really need one?" Melissa was that guest.

I had two students today. I started with 4th grade GV. He was exhausted. His five-year-old brother had kept him up all night. Both GV and his grandmother described the brother as a disturbance. I told him to relax and not struggle against his exhaustion. He did pretty well with the spelling. He always does well remembering the words. His big problem is he's overly concerned about not getting things right. I've been working with him on this problem. his mom has already told me she saw a difference in his willingness to attempt to solve a problem on his own in his daily life. this is very good news, but we have to revisit his fears over and over.

Today, I took on using BrainManagementSkills to resolve the problem. I asked LG if his prefrontal lobe felt it was dangerous to not get it right. He said no. it didn't. Did the back of his brain feel it was dangerous to not get everything right? yes. Which did he think was right? He said the back of his brain. Well, that is the intuitive brain.

I introduced the idea that the back of the brain is great for detecting dangers like lions, tigers, and bears but not that good at assessing danger when it comes to spelling mistakes. It thinks anything we have trouble with could be a source of danger. We have to use our conscious minds to inform our unconscious minds about the reality of our world in the here and now.

I led LG through the exercise, during which he envisioned a little him under the fontanel. Then, he turned the little him around to speak to the back of his brain. I saw something was wrong. I asked him if he felt dizzy; he said yes. I told him to stop. Why did he feel dizzy? He said his brain felt flooded by the information.

I told him he could control how fast it came in. If he had a dial, what would he set it at? He said a 5. I felt that was too fast. I lowered it to 4, then 3, and then 2. It still felt too fast. I suspect he needed a small fractional part.

I told him that he should never do this exercise when scared. I have never had someone harmed by the exercise. The problem is if you do it when you're afraid, you won't ever want to do it again. I have a limited number of tricks in my bag. I can help people with fears using these. I want him to feel comfortable doing it. my big concern with GV is that he won't listen to himself. He won't find his comfort zone. Usually, I warn kids not to do the exercise if they feel fear. I didn't do this today. I have no idea why. For me, that warning is a standard part of the protocol. They have to feel safe and in control.

I trimmed the plumbago. My big concern was the growth against the fence. It would be hard to get in there and cut it back if it got too dense. It has to be cut back before it gets out of hand and invades the neighbors again. It wasn't too bad. I trimmed the side against the fence, the entire length of the top from the fence side, and half the top from the side of the driveway. I had to stop because my right wrist gave out.

I do hand and wrist exercises daily but haven't done the MELT routine in a while. MELT uses a ball for the hand and foot treatment, and my balls were easily accessible.

I had to check the manual. It came back quickly. I did the right hand twice and the left hand once.

I had fourth grade LG at 4:30. I introduced the diction/spelling exercise. He announced he wanted to work on writing. He had no idea what he wanted to work on. When I asked him what came to mind, LG said New York. What about New York? The traffic jams. He didn't know why this came to mind. I did. There was a news story about the recently enforced charge for driving in Manhattan and how that cleared the streets overnight.

But then he switched topics and talked about the LA fires. He compared them to the Maui fire. He said they were different because the government set the Maui fire because it wanted the land. I hadn't heard that, but I thought better about challenging his thinking at this point—maybe at some later date.

The death toll from the Maui fires is startlingly higher than the ones from the LA fires. In the Maui fire 2, 207 buildings were destroyed, 115 people were known to be dead, and 400 were still unaccounted for. As of the 13th, one week after the LA fire started 12, 000 homes have been lost and 25 lives. Holy cow! What a disturbing set of statistics for Maui.

I asked LG if the LA numbers made him feel better. It became clear that these events had been disturbing for him. He felt better after hearing the LA statistics and discussing how people evacuated an area.

He told me of a recent event when his dad's speaker started smoking. He played them with an amplifier, and it overheated. He said the speakers were right behind him. It's this incident that triggered his concern. Hopefully, what we did today did something to comfort him. There's no point living with that level of fire. These poor kids.

I made an unfortunate comment about house fires started by a neglected cigareete are more dangerous. His father and his grandmother smoke. Both have clothes with burn marks as the ashes fall. Oh, boy. I didn't push that idea. The poor kid was traumatized enough. I wanted to create a sense that he could take action if a fire struck his area.

He's not the only one who fears fire. Hawaii has a great deal of vegetation. That's why we live here. We love to be in nature. We're in the middle of a dry spell now. We all worry about fire. The only good news is that we are unlikely to run out of water. Here, they put out fires with helicopters with containers dipped into the ocean, flown over the affected area, and dumped, as well as from fire hydrants and hoses. I was so glad I slept through the New Year's Eve displays. Here, they're bigger on December 31 than they are for the Fourth of July.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

I woke up in a very peaceful state of mind. It lasted for the rest of the day, through mass and then through the crystal healing at the Unity Church. It was particularly powerful today. I don’t think I slept. I just rested in that energy.

As usual, the people at Unity are more interested in social connection than the folks at the Catholic Church. At the church, people usually talk about church issues. At Unity people talk about themselves.

I had planned to work on writing when I came home. My calm state of mind worked against that. I had fourth grade MH at 3:30. We continued with the Phase III of what I call The Phonics Discovery System. I dictate whole paragraphs, one sentence, or clause or one phrase at a time, whatever the student needs. She cannot recall a clause accurately but her version of the clause often gets the gist. She runs into trouble when she changes the syntax and then doesn’t know how to revise it to express the same meaning. I tried to teach her to use the rhythm of the language to help her remember. I beat it out for her. She found that confusing. She didn’t understand why I called it music. I explained it was like a drum rhythm. She didn’t consider that music.

We ran into another problem. The sentence was “What do you expect a ‘skink’ to look like?” She thought she had to answer the question rather that pose it. Something is off here. What? And how do I address it? For starters I think I will push her to repeat the exact wording. That will address the auditory processing problem. I’ll only give her phrases and clauses rather than sentences to repeat. Second, I will help her to use the beat of the language to help her recall the exact words. If you’re wondering why bother with the exact words when she grasps the meaning? That’s a good question. She does get the general meaning, but often she is weirdly off. Her dad has similar problems. he doesn’t get with the program. MH told me he thought the Golden State Bridge was really made of gold. That it was called that because it was painted gold would seem logical, but made of gold? Either he got it wrong, or MH misunderstood. MH’s grasp of things is often slightly off. Once she catches on, she does okay. She’s getting As and Bs in school now. I was grappling with a diagnosis. The only thing I can say is she’s slightly off.

She also had problems with the comparison phrase as _________ as. She claimed she had never heard it or used it. I gave her examples. Is it possible she’s never heard it? With my foreign language students, I can easily believe they have never heard such a phrase. It’s possible they’d never heard it in their own language. Either there is a different way to express the same idea, no makes comparisions, or no one uses complex syntax. The latter is a strong possibility. The language could be limited to ‘look like’ when comparisons are made. A linguistic once said, there’s no such thing as a primitive language, only a primitive culture. Many of the Marshall Island have a population of less than 100. Language needs shrink not only because you know the people and the circumstances of their lives well, but because the physical options are limited.

I wasn’t much up for writing today, but I got a lot done with tax preparation. The big project was downloading my medical bills from Kaiser. I did it with Joseph’s help. I tried to also download the end-year pharmacy and premium bills, but to no avail. Why they don’t make this easy for clients is beyond me.

Saturday, January 11, 2025

My back hurt so much last night that I took two ibuprofen before going to bed. For me to take any pain medication means the situation was dire. While I slept peacefully and pain-free, getting out of bed changed all that. I was back in pain again. My condition eliminated any possibility of getting gardening done. I did pick up some green waste from the ground. Interestingly, that made my back feel better. I also used the massage gun. That bruised my back but didn't relieve the pain.

I didn't have any students today. It felt okay.

Dean and Nina came over to play Sorry. We have a standing date. It's one of the highlights of my week. My back bothered me while we played. I shifted position every now and then to relieve the pain. Before Nina left, she put a large Salon Pas on the affected area.

Damon called as Nina was applying it. Once I lowered my shirt, I walked away. I was out of the house before they were. I realized it was rude. I wasn't feeling well, and I had to grab Damon when he was available. I always enjoyed talking to him.

After I got off the phone, I called Nina to apologize. Dean thanked me for 'throwing them out.' Because I did, they made it home before the skies opened. They got home in time to get their laundry off the line. They were sweet. They were lying through their teeth, but very sweet.

I finally tried an ice pack on my back. Bingo! The pain disappeared completely. I may be in better shape now than I was before the spasm started. My fear of spending the rest of my life in unbearable pain was over. Wow!!

The Grief Recovery course I'm taking is giving me major grief. It boldly goes where every psychopathic leader has gone before: nothing else will help you; the only thing of worth is what I have to offer. Put a program with language like that in the hands of a rigid authoritarian thinker, and you have the perfect nightmare. Of course, I'm her perfect nightmare, too. The leader's problem isn't sociopathology anymore than it was my mother's. It results from being squashed at every turn in an authoritarian system. The difference is that my recovery is somewhat better than hers, but not by much. We're both reacting to systems that allow only one way to think: theirs, whomever that happens to be.

This program claims to be structured along the lines of AA meetings. I've only been to one AA meeting, by invitation of a friend, and several Alanon meetings when I was dealing with my mother-in-law. From what I've seen, the grief course bears little resemblance.

The AA meetings and any in that vein are large group affairs. People connect with each other not only because they all have the same problem but also because there is a stable core of connected people. Wherever you go, you can count on a group of regulars to be sufficiently connected with each other to set the tone of the meeting. They're a stable core. Their relationships have been forged over time. It may be a different group each time they meet, but it is always people who have hammered out their relationships. The grief group is a group of relative strangers. No one has touched the core of another person. These are all superficial relationships. Howw will we connect sufficiently to be an effective healing group?

Friday, January 10, 2025

I went to bed late, around 10:00. I must have been asleep by 10:30. I slept straight through to 4 a.m. when I had to pee. I went back to bed and was stirring when I heard Joseph leave for work. When I checked the time, it was 6:17. I went back to bed again, dozed, and finally got up close to 7 a.m.

Damon and Cylin have been posting information on their state of affairs amid the disasters in Southern California. I only heard about the windstorm and fires through Jean on Wednesday. I texted Damon and Cylin and got pictures of electric poles and lines down on the main street from the high winds. That meant they were without electricity and water.

Because their house is one block from Griffith Park, they might be in particular danger from the fire. As it winds up, it’s probably the exact opposite. While Griffith Park is a tinderbox, the city has surrounded it with water tankers to protect it. Damon’s house is perhaps safer for its location.

Once they started posting, they posted regular updates. They got a hotel room so they could shower and went home each night to be with the cat, which the hotel refused to accommodate.

I had an appointment with seventh-grade RC after a long break over the Christmas vacation. She went to Oahu to be with her aunt while on vacation because he mother worked. We continued working with the dictation and spelling. She misspelled ride as rive. When I asked if mistakes like that happened often, she reluctantly said, “Yes.” She opened up more when I told her there was a good chance we could fix the problem. I told her about neuroplasticity, telling her stories of success. She relaxed and felt less driven to hide the problem. At the end of the session, I left her with the understanding that it could be changed. I always feel the need to progress slowly with this girl. She’s very self-conscious, very ashamed. When students are overwhelmed with shame, I have to move slowly. I often merely show them the problem in a new light and leave it at that. Often, the students make the changes on their own. Just learning change is possible is often enough.

Yvette came up for dinner. We engaged in lively conversation. She told me she was planning to get trained and licensed as an aesthetician to expand her earning options and create an income path as she gets old and loses strength in her hands, making massage difficult to impossible. In the middle of the dinner, the muscle on the right side at the level of my armpit started aching. The pain spread across my upper back. I was in agony by the end of the evening.

The pain was frightening. I hadn’t been in pain like that since my hip replacement. My PT warned my efforts to straighten out my spine and my posture could backfire. The bones had worn down to accommodate my lousy posture. If I realigned them, they wouldn’t fit together smoothly, and I could be in trouble.

Thursday, January 9, 2025

I had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Reed over the episode of hypomania causing my high blood pressure.

-my blood pressure was often in the 140/85 range the first time I took it, but I could bring it down.

-my sleep was remarkably improved.

- halved the Seroquel down to 12.5 mg from 25 mg.

- the effects of Seroquel reminded me of my experience with Dilaudid. It washed over me like water over sand, smoothing out the surface with a calming effect.

- I had more energy during the day.

- I finally remembered to show her what MakesNoClaims did to a benign growth on my leg. It was radically reduced.

At the end of the session, Dr. Reed reviewed my medical history. Except for my osteoporosis and cholesterol problems, I'm in good health. I asked Dr. Reed about my HDL, which is in the 90 to 100 range. Some reports say it's just as harmful to have high HDLs as it is to have high LDLs. The doctor's response was interesting. She said that cholesterol evaluation was in the dark ages. All we can determine is if the number is high or low. It turns out that there are three subgroups of each type of cholesterol. I remember the doctor saying two of them were the hard and the fluffy. The hard is dangerous; the fluffy is not. The numbers don't mean much until we have tools for discerning the difference. This applies to the HDLs and the LDLs.

I told the doctor about my experience with the Seroquel. When I woke up this morning, I watched my mind feed me upsetting thoughts. I resisted; it persisted. The duel was on. I theorized my mind was struggling to overcome what it perceived as the 'negative' effect of the Seroquel. It was calming me down. It was toning down my state of high alert. I have battled against that for most of my life. I spent my whole childhood in a state of hypomania. I knew I was terrified but had no idea what to do about it. While I fought with my mom nonstop, I didn't realize I was afraid of just about everything until I was a teen. My body-brain believed I lived in constant physical danger. I knew I had to stay on high alert to stay alive. It was fighting the mental and emotional claiming for my sake.

The theory is drug addicts require higher and higher drug doses to get the same effect. This effect is thought to be a result of habituation. I would like to offer another theory based on my experience this morning. The nervous system responds to the calming effect by fighting to restore the previous neurological state. Drug abuse strengthens destructive neurological patterns the same weightlifting strengthens muscles.

Sadly, getting people to deal with their negative neurological patterns is difficult. I'm ready, willing, and able. I've been struggling with it my whole adult life, and still find it difficult. Some of that difficulty is because it is hard to do. Some of it is because methods for dealing with 'trauma,' other than the stiff upper lip method and drugs, have only come into the culture in the 70s, according to Peter Levine. And they're still being improved daily. While I'm a huge advocate of healing trauma as an approach to clearing up any number of emotional and behavioral problems, I chuckle with the full awareness that this will become some extreme position into which all disturbances of any sort will be summarily dumped. People not ready to approach this way will be told they are in denial. The path of trauma healing is the one and only way to go. These radical swings are all part of the human condition. The trick is to find the way that's right for each person. It's different for all of us. It's the best we can do; be ourselves.

I got a call from Kia today. I wondered what was going on with my car. It had been quite a while since I had heard from them. Joe had told me he would put a rush order on for the parts to repair my car. It sure didn't feel that way. However, I was good; I had a loaner. I was beginning to believe nothing would fix my car.

Joe asked if I could pick up my car and return the loaner. Since my 2 pm canceled due to illness, I was ready to go. Joe told me that the mechanic who fixed my car thought there was still something wrong with it. He asked me to bring my car back on the 16th. He said it was nothing dangerous. I could drive the car as is. It may be that it won't charge, and I will have to run it on four cylinders. Is there a lawsuit in my future? I think Kia is required by law to take the car back and compensate me, well, according to Dean. I'll check with Lutz. He's an expert on all things combative.

When I came home, I collected the blue bottles and a prancing Elsa and I headed to the car. She knew we were visiting Auntie P. It's been a while because she was sick or I was busy. It was a lovely visit. Ah! We watched some TV and shared the names of the TV series we enjoyed. That's all. Mike and I did that a lot, watching TV together each night. I felt a kind of joy I hadn't felt since Mike died. Just being with him was a great joy.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

I had a weird dream. It was a fictional murder mystery; at least some aspect of the story was. I guess that comes from listening to murder mysteries every day on Audible.

Today was the first day of the Grief Recovery Program. When I arrived, the presenter asked me if I had signed up. Yes. I sent her a text. She had no record of it. She was distressed because she didn't have a copy of the book for me. I assured her it was all okay. No worries.

I met her the day the church ministries set up tables to present their work. It wasn't a support group; it was a class. We have homework, which will lead to discussions. We will support each other as much as AA supports all its participants. That sounded like a support group. I had mixed feelings about the workshop.

The format looked good. When we were asked to list two sources of grief, I listed the death of my father when I was fifteen and Mike's death five and a half years ago. Subsequently, the presenter mentioned there were many sources of grief. As the presenter went on, it sounded more and more like trauma work rather than anything specific to the loss of a loved one. It's basically the principle behind Buddhism, at least Vipassana. Man's suffering (grief) is caused by unresolved disappointment, wanting things we can't have, and getting things we don't want. Buddha referred to that overlay of essential pain as craving and aversion. It's thought that this ability distinguishes us from other animals. The solution in Buddhism is to sit with physical sensations-calmly- until they change.

Interestingly, one of the participants was a Buddhist. She found it ineffectual to help her with her grief, converted to Catholicism, and found relief. I didn't ask her what branch of Buddhism. Some branches concentrate on worshipping Buddha. According to what I learned, that would be the exact opposite of what Buddha taught. Well, that's what my branch of Buddhism teaches.

It's going to be rough for me. The leader is not a complex thinker. She repeats what the founders teach, which says there isn't one way to grieve, and then tells us the 'wrong' way to grieve versus her method. I suspect she's not as open-minded as the method's founders, who have nuanced perspectives. The group leader also is anti-intellectual. The founders had to be just that to design the program.

The leader told several stories directly from the program's script, describing 'anyone's' reaction to a situation. The descriptions didn't match my feelings. I was even shocked by the conclusion. The group follows some of the same principles at AA, including confidentiality. The first was a story about a possible violation of confidentiality.

She asked us to imagine a scene in which we ran into a fellow participant accompanied by a friend in the grocery store. That person turned to talk to her friend while glancing back at you. The presenter said we would think the woman was talking about us. I was shocked. I had no such thought. I concluded the other person was signaling me not to approach, putting them in the uncomfortable position of introducing me, explaining the relationship, and outing her.

The second was an example of someone telling a friend how they solved their insomnia by getting up, walking around a tree in their yard twenty times, and then getting on their knees and thanking God. Message from the presenter: do not force your solutions on others. I didn't see it as forcing. I saw it as offering a suggestion. As I listened to the method, I thought of how to apply it to myself.

The presenter's third no-no was not to hug someone when they cried. 'Everyone' perceives such an act as a cue to subpress out tears. It certainly can be. My mother used to touch me that way when I was upset. She had zero tolerance for my distress. On the anniversary of Mike's death, I wept at the service in his name. One woman supported my sorrow. Another came up and patted me, and encouraged me to cheer up. I slipped out of her grasp. I didn't want to be rude. Neither did I want to give up an opportunity to mourn. It didn't come easily to me. While the presenter is correct that touch can be intended to stifle grief, it can also be physical evidence of support for that grief. It would be if we find out who is comfortable with grief and who is not, and who would appreciate overt signs of support and who would not.

The presenter said this would be a short session. They would usually be two hours long. This would only be an hour. It ended after two hours. Oh, dear. I hate to think how long the 'two-hour' sessions will be. Also, I was deeply affected. I didn't know the homework, but I thought I would compile a list of all my unresolved losses. The deaths were the least of them, including Mike's, however difficult that was.

When I got home, I discovered I had left my computer there. I had brought it along to write notes, but the presenter said no electronic devices. I set it aside and then forgot about it. I made a pit stop, got back in the car, and went back to the church, hoping my computer would be there. I needed it for my two afternoon tutoring sessions.

Elsa decided she wanted to accompany me on the trip. She hyperventilated the whole trip there. When we arrived, the dog immediately made a huge pee in the parking lot. Then as we walked back to the office, she took a small poop. Fortunately, I had a poop bag on me.

When I got to the office door, I realized the staff was on their lunch break and might not answer my knock. They did. I mouthed, "My computer." It was unnecessary. One of the women went to the front office and got it. Ah!

The woman who handed my computer to me said she wanted to talk to me. She told me that her five-year-old grandson hid her daughter-in-law's car keys. They searched for them to no avail. The woman said she would pray to St. Antony. The keys were found. The mother thought of asking her son where he put them. In the silverware drawer. Where else? The mother was raised as a Jew. She promised her mother-in-law she would convert to Catholicism if the prayer worked. Okay.

Then, the office worker asked about Mike's conversion story. Were his parents Orthodox Jews? No, they were card-carrying Communists. Mike was Bar Mitzvahed to appease his maternal grandparents. The event turned him off to religion.

I was going to visit with Paulette today but ran out of time after doubling back to the church to get my computer. Elsa and I missed spending time with her.

I worked with fourth-grade GV and fourth-grade LG. They both have cognitive and psychological problems that interfere with their learning. It is impossible to be terrified of making a mistake and be a good learner. While fear can foster non-academic learning, it interferes with associative recall.

GV's problem is that he needs everything to make sense. Frequently, new material doesn't make sense at first, and sometimes, the material will never make sense. The English spelling system is an example of that. While there are patterns, and it is important to learn the relationship between the spelling and the sounds of the words, it's not entirely reliable. GV's problem is he wants it to make sense before he learns it. I told him sometimes you have to do it the other way around. You have to do the exercises the teacher gives you. Then, slowly, the material will start to make sense. I asked him if that wasn't true for learning the patterns of English spelling. He acknowledged it was. While it still didn't make complete sense, more of it did than before he started working with me. GV's need to have everything make sense blocks his learning.

With LG, the block is fear. I started with another round of the rounding exercise, having him round to the nearest, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, and 100,000, using the same six-digit number for each exercise. He did much better at identifying the target number and the number to the right, determining if you would 'raise the score' or 'let it rest.' Then he had trouble remembering he had to write zeroes after the target number. He wiggled all over the place. I addressed the issue of fear directly. He calmed down immediately. I told him outright we had to address his fear. It was getting in the way of his learning. He sat still for the next five minutes while we discussed it. I didn't have a solution for him. Oh, I have a bag full of solutions I've learned and developed over the years. I didn't have a clear signal of what I should use with him. I ended the session by saying we would work on it next time. We should both think about it. I didn't expect him to come up with a solution. It would be more likely that I would be the one to do that. But he should hold the question in his mind," What should I do to fix my fear?" if he does that, he will be doing a great job.

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

I slept well. I find my sleep is better with the Seroquel, even at the reduced dosage of 12.5 mg instead of the 25 mg prescribed. The doctor said it’s not a medication I have to take daily; I can take it as needed. My sleep is much better on this medication. My uninterrupted sleep is longer, I wake up feeling rested, and I have more energy during the day. I require fewer naps, and those two—to three-hour naps are gone.

I like the impact of the Seroquel on my quality of life. However, having read the side effects, I would like to take less of it instead of more. On the 25 mg dose, I slept nine hours straight through. On the 12. 5 mg, I wake up once to pee. I check the time. If it is still early, I go back to sleep and sleep well until it’s time to get up. I’m going to try an even smaller dose. I’m hoping my nervous system will learn a new pattern from the drug. I would like to reduce it to a homeopathic dose. With trauma, once bitten by a snake, every coil rope looks threatening. Why not the opposite? Once you’ve had a positive response to a situation, why wouldn’t the body respond to an even smaller dose of the stimulus? It’s worth a try.

I wrote that I thought this would be a great drug for the elderly with their sleeping problems. Poor sleep hygiene is a problem at any age. Getting good sleep improves the quality of life for all of us. However, when I checked the side effects, I discovered this is a drug that can be misused. I’m not concerned about my misusing it. If I didn’t feel Dilaudid was the best thing since sliced bread, I don’t think I’m vulnerable to opiates or anything like it.

It rained all night. Lovely. We needed the relief. We hadn’t had rain in I don’t know how many days. The plants were suffering. I went to check on the 42 newly planted shrubs. I didn’t have to water them, but I had to check how much damage the wild chickens had done. They like the loose dirt around the plants. It makes it easy for them to create a depression where they can dirt bathe. They expose the roots. I check each plant and kick dirt back into place to cover the roots.

I had an 11:30 appointment with the dentist to fill a cavity. Coincidentally, another filling fell off a lower front tooth a few days ago. The dentist easily did both since I required no Novocain. One tooth had a root canal, and the other one only needed some surface drilling.

I went to Ulu Wini today for the first time since Christmas. The kids were on vacation, and only a few attended the program. I arrived with a bucket of slime. Holy cow!

I started with 2nd grade NV. She inspired me to buy the slime I planned to use for a multisensory exercise. I had her spell the words she was learning using the slime. She was still struggling with the first 25 words of the fry sight word list.

Then I worked with 1st grade PY, NV’s sister. The girls have the same memory problem. I did BrainManagementSkills with her. Her visual working memory was in her sensory motor strip. Sounds good, but it’s not. In my experience, envisioning a screen behind the forehead works best. She could use the correct part of the brain for effective auditory processing. However, she couldn’t pull up information from her long-term memory. It got stuck just behind her left ear. I asked her what the color of the block was. Green, a pretty green. Could she ask the green block to let the information through? The first answer was no. I told her the green block was protecting her. Did she think it was dangerous to remember words? She thought about it and decided it would be okay. I told her to talk to the green block and tell it she thought it would be okay to remember words. In my experience, children solve the problem in their sleep once I’ve introduced the possibility of change. We’ll see.

Next, I worked with third-grade PL. She is a wiggly girl with a perpetually runny nose. I brought hand sanitizer so the kids could clean their hands before they dove into the slime. While NV used the slime to form words, PY and PL just played with it. Holy cow! The impact is substantial; it’s calming. I decided to check PL on the Fry Sight Word List. She struggled with the first 25 words. These memory problems are daunting. I introduced BMS to her. Her working memory was functional, but not her long-term memory. She decoded every word. I showed her how to use her automatic processing. She did much better on the first twenty-five words. Then she read not as ont. She revealed that her mind scrambled the letters. The spin was from the outer rim toward the center in a clockwise direction. It slowed down as she worked. Whenever the spin is inward, the spin always slows down. I have never had it otherwise. If the spin is outward, the spin speeds up.

I asked her to sit with the spin and observe it. She stopped periodically. I encouraged her to continue. It finally occurred to me to ask her if she found the exercise frightening. I usually tell students not to do the exercise if they feel frightened. It’s not that it’s dangerous. It’s just that they are not going to allow anything to happen if they are frightened. She was afraid it would make her reading worse. I told her to stop and check if she was okay. If she was, she could continue. I had her look at the word list. Were the letters stable or shifting? They were stable. I instructed her to imprint the letters of the word in her visual working memory, ask her long-term memory to tell her the word, and listen for it at the site of her auditory working memory. Bingo! I only had to remind her to try her automatic processing before she tried another strategy. She went through word 1-50 at a relatively good clip.

First-grade PO had asked to work with me. When I called him, he revealed he only wanted to play with the slime. Nope. It was only there to help students while I worked with them on reading or math. He had no interest.

I finally worked with 4th grade LK. Holy cow! The kid had no idea how to multiply a number by 10, no less 100. He missed all of the math. I have to start from scratch with him. I worked with LK on reading last year. He is a bright child. Math makes him feel stupid. I pushed him too much. He said he felt like he was in prison.

After LK, I had 3rd grade BR approach me. I had to go home. I get tired working with these kids. Several called out as I walked past the tables where the kids were working, saying they wanted to work with me. I made it clear that I used the slime to help those who wanted to learn. If it brings them in, I’m good with it. I had no idea it would be such a draw.