If my mom were alive, she would be 116 today. She died two weeks before her 98th birthday. I miss her now more than ever. I miss people who I knew loved me. I know those of you who read about her treatment of me wonder how she could love me and treat me the way she did. I had some questions about it as I was growing up because her craziness overwhelmed anything positive about her relationship with me, but that was not true when she lived with Mike and me for the last 18 years of her life. It was clear that she had loved her children passionately, perhaps a little too passionately, all along. My mom was a person who was difficult to like but easy to love. Go figure. I could try to explain it, and I certainly have to myself. Maybe I'll try to explain that phenomenon in a musings one day.
I decided not to go to Bikram today. I was foggy yesterday. I think it was from having taken that muscle relaxant the day before. Also, my left leg had something to say. The truth: I'm scared about triggering that terrible pain again.
When I took Elsa on her morning walk, I did it without the support of a walking stick. I walked up a high hill, emphasizing the full extension of the right hip with every step. Incorporating movement that triggers specific muscles is much more effective than simply doing a prescribed exercise once or twice a day.
When I came home, I made my morning smoothie. At 8 am, I called the carpet store to see when the salesman who had changed the product on me would be in. I needed to talk to him directly. His wife said he should be in between 9 am and 2 pm. If I haven't mentioned it already, Yvette volunteered to go with me to support me. She's not as good as Mike, but she's here and willing to do what she can. I am so lucky.
I went to the flooring store first. The man I dealt with wasn't there, but his wife had gotten all the information from him. It was always assumed that the thinner material, which comes in a roll, would be used. It is the material that is used in the condos. She said that the thicker, more rigid material is used in gyms to buffer falls. The solid pieces come in tiles and would be less effective as acoustic insulation. All seams create spaces for sound to penetrate. I said it would be good for them to be clear about that from the start. She pointed out that a lot was going on that day- i.e., me sobbing in his wife's arms. I paid the deposit and left satisfied.
I had more chores to do in the area but had to come back later when Costco was open. I went to Lowe's to check on the acoustical board they had shown me. I wanted to get the manufacturer's name to learn more about the material. Once I had it, I went to Target to stock up on doggy bags and chocolate. Then off to the transfer station to finally get rid of the glass I had. I checked online, and the transfer station still takes the glass.
Then, I headed to KP to have my blood drawn to check my kidneys. After that, I went to Home Depot to buy a better-quality sprayer. The better ones are all 2 gallons, but I have been buying the cheaper 1-gallon ones because they're easier to carry. I was going to go to Costco to get salad, but I figured I could do that tomorrow.
I've been feeling stoned. I thought it might be the muscle relaxant, but I've decided it is full-on grief. Mike's birthday was on October 27. On the 28th, besides that meltdown at the carpet store, I learned I wouldn't have a place to stay on the East Coast, so I couldn't join my family for Thanksgiving as Mike and I have done ever since we moved to Ohio. And I found out that the family I thought would be here for Christmas won't be coming either. I was devastated immediately but could see the good side after about 2 hours. However, the lingering knowledge of how alone I am in the world can't be erased. For Mike, I was number one. He would have been with me if he had had to swim the ocean. (Okay, a slight exaggeration. He couldn't swim that well. But you get my point.) Even if he hadn't been here, he was supposed to have been here. He was someone who was supposed to be with me. No one else has that distinction now. I am really alone.
If all the circumstances of my life were to do a 1800 now and I could have family for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it wouldn't make any difference. What hurt was the knowledge that I was alone. I have heard reports that for some people, the grief can hit three years down the road. Can you imagine being blindsided that late in the game? I'd rather have it now when people can still feel some sympathy for me. This is the reality of my life now. I was going to have to face this depth of grief at some point. So here it is. I only hope it doesn't get much worse than this. It's interesting. My facial muscles were totally relaxed. It's hard to smile.
Judy called to invite me for dinner. Then I went out to pull down the vine, which grows, regrows, and regrows on the part of the fence I share with my neighbor, a commercial farmer. He was already overwhelmed with his weeds; he didn't need mine, too. I enjoyed the physical energy output. I must have worked for 2 hours. When I came inside, Judy had sent a message telling me to come up at 5:30 pm. It was 5:30 right at that moment. I called her and told her I would jump in the shower and be there as quickly as possible. I was up there by 6 with Elsa in tow.
I will be staying at Judy's the night of the 6th while the house is being tented. I had never heard of tenting when I lived in the northern climes. People tent here when they fumigate a house for termites. It's been nine years since the house was last tented. It was time to do it again. The preparations are enormous, and everything living has to leave the house – or die. We're going.
She served something called Tortuga soup. It was delicious. I couldn't finish it all. I have been eating much less since Mike died. I didn't think grief caused my diminished appetite; I believe this is my natural appetite. Mike always cooked delicious food, enough for the Russian army, and ate a lot himself. He blamed my weight gain, which only kicked in when I was 55, on my love of sweets and not his overstuffing both of us.
Over dinner, I was in a hyper mood. Trimming the vines flipped me from grief into something else. I brought up topics that I should have known better and avoided. They were contentious topics. The only good that came out of it was that I got to know Judy's husband, Howard, better.
Judy had to leave early to pick up Jazzy and Luke from the airport. They came in earlier than Adam and Leon because the insurance covered her flight and Luke's. Adam took the cheapest flight he could get instead, so they didn't come home together. Luke had had an operation on his eyes to fix his weak eye muscles. Judy couldn't wait to see him.
I worked on reading and writing. I am struggling with a section of Chapter 1 of my book on word recognition in Word. It's a section on connected speech. I suspect I'm having trouble because I'm writing about something that most people haven't thought of before. I am writing about the distinction between the pronunciation we use in conversation and the pronunciation we use when reading out loud. Teachers say the goal is to have children read 'fluently,' which I heard a teacher define as sounding as if they are speaking normally. But that's just it; the conversational voice differs from the reading voice. The intonation pattern and the pronunciation of individual words are different. Children have to become familiar with the reading voice. The primary goal of having adults read to children is to have them become familiar with the syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation of the read word.
I recently worked with a girl who claimed that she had no idea what an expression meant. I repeated the sentence in a conversational voice. She got it immediately. She knew what the words meant. It sounded so unfamiliar to her that she thought she didn't know what it meant. (Ah, I am going to include this paragraph in the book. It's a good introduction to the section on connected speech.)
I walked Elsa and went to bed.
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Musings:
Howard brought up several topics that challenged my thinking. One was why sociopaths were allowed to survive historically. Why weren't they eliminated from the gene pool?
Okay, here's my answer. A sociopath is a person who does not respond to social praise or punishment. They don't feel the same need to conform that most people do. How could this be an advantage to our primitive ancestors? How does this sound to you? The sociopath, not fearing censure, is free to think thoughts that do not conform to group standards. That means they can introduce change into group dynamics, adapting to new circumstances.
The idea that you would need someone special to perform that role seems alien nowadays. We live in a pluralistic society. Everyone does something different — our clothes, food, table manners, you name it. We are constantly faced with a need to adapt to new social circumstances. People we have known for years do things entirely differently than we do. That didn't happen way back then. There were individual differences, but I guess they are in such a small range that our 21st-century minds might barely perceive them.
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