When I got home from Bikram, I did some gardening. I boiled several pots of water and dumped them on some haoli koa I had cut back. Nothing seems to kill these invasive trees. They have to be pulled out by the roots or forget it. Someday, they will take over the island.
Progressive called about the car accident. I told them I had canceled the claim. Shivani made the call for the road service. When she was asked was it due to an accident, she said yes. I had not told her not to do that. It added a layer of confusion but nothing more. The agent told me that just dropping the claim wasn’t doable. I had to answer a bunch of questions. She was concerned that the other party might sue. I told her he didn’t have any information. Which, as I think of it, of course, is not true. How many Priuses with a ring of white flower decals around the car are there in Kona? Only mine. So if he wants to track me down, he can. Given how little damage there was to my car and the only contact with his was with his hitch, I doubt that there will be any problems. We’ll see. I suppose anything is possible. I’m not worrying about it.
I called the medical alert company I found online that was rated #1, Mobile Help, to ask why the cost for the annual payment was $110 more than it would be if I used the monthly payment. I calculated the relative cost of each manner of payment: monthly- $239.4 a year; semi-annually: $395.4 a year; and annually $ 359.40. Now that was a surprise. Usually, when you pay an annual lump sum, the cost is the same or less. This was $110 more, and I wanted to know why. I smelled a rat. I suspected that they relied on addled elders to assume that the annual cost would be less and use that option without checking first.
My conversation with the salesman was interesting. He refused to discuss it. He kept saying that he was just the salesperson and didn’t set the prices, saying that the marketing department set them. I asked him to give me the number of the marketing department. He refused. I called the AARP to report the company, believing, incorrectly, that they recommended this company. Besides that wrong assumption, I also discovered that their fraud department wasn’t prepared to deal with this problem. They were there to help people deal with online frauds and help them recover their funds. They told me to follow up with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission.
I arrived at school shortly before 1 pm. I worked with the two boys in Mrs. D’s class. She had been feeling lousy on Friday. I was surprised to see her back in school so quickly. She didn’t look good but could function.
I worked on comprehension with N. I think his problem is that he thinks he is supposed to find the answer in his head rather than from the words on the page. When I get him to focus on the print, he does just fine. I asked him outright if he looks for answers in his head rather than the page. He said yes. He also said he was fine switching. Great. I told Mrs. D to remind him to get his answers from the page instead of his own head when he had problems.
I worked on spelling with B. He wasn’t up for much. He looked like the prospect of working on spelling was altogether too much. I did have him look for the phonics patterns in this lesson. He was able to identify the pattern: oi, oy, ou, and ow. This is good.
I asked him if it was okay if I did the work, and he observed. He said yes. So I identified the phonemes and then the letter(s) that represented that sound. Wow! Then I lapsed into just making the sounds so he could provide the letters which represented that sound. He has fundamental problems with identifying which letters represent which sounds. For the sound of [l] he gave the letter e. Really? Well, one good thing came out of this. I think I have narrowed down what his problem is. He can identify the phonemes, but he can’t identify the letters. He’s not even close in many cases.
In some cases, he is, as when he confuses that spelling for [n], providing either a d or t. It seems to help when I tell him explicitly how the mouth position for these sounds are similar and different, showing him how [t] and [d] are pronounced with two mouth positions and [n] only with one. Pointing out that [n] is nasalized seemed a little too much detail, but I did cover the voicing difference between [t] and[d]. But now I know what to work on and how to work on it. I’m very excited.
Mrs. D said she is seeing significant improvements in reading for both boys. She is surprised by how much. This is great. When she told me, I immediately thought, “Okay, where do we go from here?” But as I’m typing this, there is a smile of satisfaction crossing my face.
I haven’t bought any food in over a week. I still have a salad item Shivani bought. I finally finished the steak tonight that Steve made for my birthday, but salad and pasta were left. I’m thoroughly enjoying this pasta. It’s spicy the way Mike liked it. I had a cookie leftover from Monday’s tea and only one Hersey’s Milk chocolate bar with almonds.
When I got up from dinner, my back was in trouble again. I used the infrared light on it and on my neck. Hopefully, I’ll be in good shape tomorrow.
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