I slept like a baby. The temperature was ideal, wonderfully cool. Judy was up when I got up. She has trouble sleeping and frequently goes to bed late and then sleeps in late. She was going to a bible study class at 9:30, and I had plans to go with her. I was partially interested in the class and partially interested in how Elsa would do in their house without me. Yvette has not been interested in taking care of her when I'm out of town. She is very demanding of Yvette and Josh's attention and doesn't play with her dogs. It's annoying. Elsa seems pretty comfortable at Judy's, so this is a possibility for when I'm away.
We were going to take my car. It was dead. It looked like the battery. Paulette had already left in the car she shared with Judy to run a chore before class. Judy and I hopped into Howard's car and took off for the class.
I did have one stimulating thought come out of the class. The speaker talked about how some religions provide rules for behavior, but Christianity says what is necessary is a personal relationship with Christ. Is this the old argument between faith and practice? What constitutes a personal relationship with Christ? Judy thought of learning more about him through study. I can imagine other definitions. I'm not sure why this personal relationship is supposed to be the best for all of mankind.
The speaker made some cracks about other religions and other beliefs that used to be in the Catholic church. I have serious problems with that. But I am admittedly hypersensitive to any rah-rah for me and mine. I couldn't even tolerate a Sarah Coventry business meeting. Also, I have a compulsive need to see the other guy's point of view. If I don't, I get very distressed. Sometimes this compulsion has good results, sometimes it really doesn't make any difference.
When we got home, the first thing I did was call Progressive to see if I even had off-road coverage. I did, and they connected me. The serviceman came pretty quickly. I went to check the mileage and turned the car on. Guess what? Of course. No problems. I turned it off and started it again. No problems. I had the experience with Mike's car. It may be the starter. I made an appointment with my service garage: Tuesday morning. We'll see what I'm going to do in the meantime.
I did some more work on dealing with more clearly expressing the role of connected speech in teaching reading. I finally finished this today and sent it out to Mowg, Lilith, and Shivani, three kids who agreed to be first readers for me – and, hopefully, give me feedback. Many read and correct commas or spelling but do not identify unclear ideas. Then when I reread it, I thought what the - ???? , how did they find that passage clear. It makes no sense to me.
Dorothy called. She usually calls on Thursdays. Today she told me about a student she was having problems with and asked me for suggestions. Wow! This is literally the first time someone has asked me for suggestions. I probably gave her way more information than she could cope with. She was a game girl.
Because Judy wanted to go to Bible study, she prepared dinner ahead of time, planning to eat around 4:30. She made spaghetti with marinara sauce and fried zucchini. I was going to wait to eat, but it sounded so good I couldn't. It was absolutely delicious.
I did some more work on the book and started writing up yesterday and today's blog entries. Then I walked Elsa. When I passed my house, I unlocked the combination lock holding the gate closed while the light was still good enough to see the numbers.
We can't lock our house. I had some thoughts about people breaking in while it was tented but hoped no one would be that stupid. Josh and Yvette thought about it too. They were concerned about drug addicts preying on us. They came up with the solution of closing the gate at the top of the driveway and locking it. It wouldn't stop people from climbing over the fence and trashing the place, but it would prevent them from loading up a truck with all our furniture and emptying the house.
The exterminators had called about 3:30 and said that while all their equipment was out, the house would only be available for re-occupancy at 7:30 pm. Because I am sensitive to chemicals, I fully intended to wait until then to return to the house.
I stopped off to visit Darby briefly. Her husband was home now. She had to walk out of the back room. Patrick held on to her strap, but she walked well. She has called earlier in the day to thank me for spending time with her while her husband was out. I told her about the work Bach-Y-Rita, a neuroscientist, did with his father. When his father had a stroke, limiting his ability to walk, Bach-y-Rita had him follow the learning pattern of a young child. He had him crawl on the floor. Once he had perfected that, he started him walking. Darby said she tried it. She said the first few moves were very difficult, but she improved rapidly. She said she thought it made a difference. When Bach-y-Rita's father died, he did the autopsy on his brain. Where he had the stroke, the brain was dead as a doornail. His brain had rewired. Other parts of the brain had picked up the job of the areas damaged by the stroke, allowing him to relearn how to walk. Amazing.
When I got home, I found the front and side door locked. I went around the back and found the door to the shower open. If one of the doors in the back hadn't been open, I would have been screwed. I don't have a key to this house.
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