I set the alarm for 5:55 am, as I usually do when planning to go to the 7:30 yoga class. I was up by 4:30 and dozed until the alarm went off. I managed to walk Elsa a short distance, but it quickly became clear that there wasn't going to be a lot of activity in my day. When I got back to the house, I went right to bed and slept deeply until 10 am. Go figure! I have no idea why I was so tired.
I spent the day watching the rest of Single-Handed, editing the blog entries, and doing the exercises the PT recommended. They are great exercises that make a world of sense to me. I find myself wondering why no one gave me many of these exercises before. I think Tom Ockler in Cleveland gave me two exercises on the same plane as some of my current PT gave me, but he never explained their purpose. This PT gives me exercises and tells me what their goal is. This allows me to check that I'm doing them correctly and incorporate the objectives into my daily movements.
I spent most of the day flat on my back. I could get up to go to the bathroom and get some food, but the few steps involved activated my problems again. Although I did the prescribed exercises. After I was through, I couldn't get up off the floor. I finally got up by crawling onto the sofa and then getting up from there.
I just saw this picture of Mike and me for the first time yesterday. Mike's son, Damon, took it, and somehow it wound up in my downloads without my seeing it, or I saw it at the time and didn't value it as much as I do now. Love and laughter were the staples of our life together.
While we were both intellectuals, our conversational and thinking styles were so different that it felt like one of us was playing tennis while the other was doing soccer. Our intelligence and verbal abilities served us well in our personal lives. Mike was never afraid of me because of my verbal dexterity, nor did he stand in awe of it. It just was. He was looking for a "worthy opponent," and he found it in me.
We solved life problems together and our personal differences using our skills. Mike liked to say, "Our marriage survived because there was always one adult present, and it wasn't always the same person." We were true equals.
The picture shows Mike leading the play. It could just as easily been me. I miss him: the love and laughter he brought into my life.
Jean and Randy delivered my dinner tonight and spent some time visiting. It was good to see them and just talk and hang out for a few minutes. They're here from Arizona visiting their daughter and grandchildren. Dinner was delicious pot roast, carrots, mash potatoes with gravy, and salad. Right after they left, the two kids who are staying here came home.
I believe some of my lower back problems are coming from further up my body, my scapula, my shoulder girdle, my right upper arm, the right side of my neck, and my head. There are sores spots all along there. Yvette came in to say hello when she came home. She did some work on my neck and head. I have been putting ice on those areas to see if it will buy me any relief in the lower part of my body. She also asked if I had been using the red laser light my friend Katherine recommended. I had entirely forgotten about it. I started using it.
While Yvette was here, she noticed a big wet spot. Randy had walked Elsa. I know she pooped because he said she got it all over her. He actually wiped some of it off. Later, I got her on the bathroom counter and wiped her with a wet micro cloth. I think she needs somewhat of a trim in that area. The question still remained: Was that wet spot from her peeing or her wiping her rear end dry on the lanai carpet. I think it was the latter because there is actually a streak of water. When Elsa pees, she doesn't move; her pee forms a neat circle of wet.
After dinner, I took to the sofa again and read more of The Master and His Emissary. Some of what I learn is new, some is old stuff with no new insights, and some is old stuff expanded. Whatever it is, it is endlessly fascinating. Jean asked how I could remember everything. There are two answers to that question: 1) I don't. 2) I am looking for specific information to guide students who have reading problems with the BrainManagementSkills. The more I know about how the brain functions, the more accurate my instructions can be on using the brain to learn.
Tonight I was reading about how the two sides of the brain get meaning out of contact with other humans. The right brain is good at implicit understanding, and the left on explicit. If there is right brain damage, someone loses their ability to understand metaphor, sarcasm, and irony. They interpret everything very literally. On the other hand, if someone is too dependent on the right brain, they will have abstract thinking problems. The left brain sees the parts, the trees, the right brain sees the whole, the woods. Amazing! And we can know all this because of the functional MRI, which allows us to watch which parts of the brain come into use when we perform specific actions.
After dinner, I took to the sofa, read, and watched more of The Crown. What a horrible way to live. I think you have to be dull as dishwater to make your peace with that life in today's world. It is so restricted compared to the way the common man lives.
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Musings: Really a Mike and Betty story.
I mentioned above that Mike's and my intellectual styles were very different. Mike was linear and inductive. Mine is nonlinear and deductive. My mind makes connections between things. Once Mike and I were talking about Descartes. Who knows what I brought up, but, boy, was he ever put out. I related the discussion to something unrelated as far as he was concerned. This was a massive source of frustration for him. He once said I was so bright, but I misused my mind.
Okay, at some point in our relationship, he got particularly frustrated because he never knew what would come out of my mouth next. We actually went to see a therapist I was working with individually together.
He told her the problem, complaining that my mind wandered from one unrelated topic to the next. I explained that I saw connections between the pattern of lampposts on the side of the road and something else. That was just the way my mind worked. I then said, "I work with primary sources."
He was outraged and said, "I work with primary sources; I read the original Aristotle and the original Aquinas."
The therapist came to my rescue, "She a Phenomenalist," a school of philosophy. Mike's first Ph.D. is in philosophy. She spoke his language.
"Oh," he got it. Not only did he never complain again, but a year before he died, he actually said to me that he found me an endless source of entertainment because he never knew what would come out of my mouth next.
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