I didn’t use the walking pole on my morning walk. I was afraid it might get tangled in the leash and trip me. That little bit of work I did yesterday with the pole helped; I put more weight on my left leg. I rolled the outside edge of the left foot up to the metatarsal of the little toe. I remember that I used to have problems making contact with the ground with the outer edge before, no more. The only place I feel discomfort now is in the left foot, as it is forced to realign. The hip muscles feel weak and tired but don’t hurt.
The first person I ran into on my walk was David. He lives on the street below me and is side by side neighbors with the chap who has 10 roosters on his property now. David confirmed what I have been experiencing; the noise is not quite as bad as it was a week or so ago. The roosters were new then and adapting to their surroundings. There is still one that crows a lot. He’s probably the alpha animal. The rest have to keep their mouths shut and do. Yeah!
David told me this fellow also has a couple of goats and a pig. The goats and pigs are probably for food. The roosters are for cockfighting. Disgusting. Illegal. But good luck in getting this guy to get rid of his roosters. David confirmed that there are laws against dogs who bark for more than half an hour. Roosters don’t crow for half an hour straight; they crow, wait, and crow again, wait, crow, wait, and crow. Maddening. But it is definitely better than it was the other day.
I ran into the couple walking their three dogs. Elsa pulled towards them and barked fiercely. The woman made some crack about controlling my dog. Good luck! I may be wrong, but I don’t think I can train her not to do this. But maybe, it’s worth a try.
Then I ran into Marsha from across the street. She was heading out for her morning walk. I could see she was wearing a sling. She broke her wrist. She was standing under the overhead in front of Walmart in a downpour and fell.
It reminds me of how lucky I was when I fell. I had no broken bones, only a bruised disk when I fell. Someone else I ran into on my walk had a similar fall and broke a disk. I doubt that diagnosis since it could be fixed by a chiropractor. Either way, I had only a slight bruise, which healed quickly. Incredible.!
I had a ten-thirty zoom appointment with one of the teachers from the 3rd grade to observe her work with one of the students I worked with. Very interesting! I also had a chance to watch her work. It is very different from mine. I was concerned the mother would have difficulty with the way I work because it is not conventional. Fortunately, the teacher made some comments about the way I worked to help students. While watching him read, I got an idea of how to help him move to greater automatic processing. I will also be working with him on math. The teacher told me that he has trouble learning his multiplication facts. This ties in with the problems I see him having in reading. Something is going on with his automatic recall. Every time I check, he winds up using the right side of his brain for these chores.
You can make some headway using the right side of the brain for associative recall, but it’s like using your feet to knit instead of your hands. It can be done; I saw a thalidomide victim born without arms do amazing things with her toes. However, if you have hands or a left hemisphere, you’re better off figuring out how to use them for the chores they were designed to do.
Dorothy called briefly. She had to get off because she was getting ready for a zoom dinner date with a group of people. She got dressed up for the occasion and looked great. She had completed editing Chapter two on my reading book on the subject of learning the alphabet. She found this chapter clear and potentially helpful to teachers. She said she would reread my original chapter 1 on the basic sound units of speech, known by linguists as the phonemes. She said the chapter was too technical as I had written it, and it didn’t serve my purpose. I know that I wouldn’t have developed this method if I didn’t have this knowledge to work with. I would think that any teacher who uses this method would be better off with this background information. However, I also know that kids go home and use the technique without the benefit of this background information, so I imagine teachers can use the method without it.
I wound up not going out shopping yesterday. I was too tired and spent most of the day napping. Today, after the teaching session, I was full of energy. I was going out. I loaded the car with packing materials from the vacuum delivery and collected cardboard for recycling.
My first stop was the UPS store to drop off the packing materials. I hate to put things in the trash that I don’t have to. I deliver all the packing materials I receive to UPS.
On my way over to Target from the UPS store, I went through a stop sign I should have been aware of. After not driving for so long, it seems I have a self-isolating brain. I’m sure there is such a thing. At Target, I bought doggie bags, one package of Hersey’s Milk Chocolate with whole almonds Nuggets. I also looked for some Romaine lettuce. They had none. I don’t know why. Could it be because none is coming in because of shipping problems related to the virus? Is it because Target never carries Romaine lettuce but only Iceberg? Or because no one was buying it after the E-Coli scare a while ago?
This was my first time in a store since March 14. I knew that everyone was going to be wearing masks. It was still a surprise. Restrictions are much more relaxed now than they were. The parking lot was full, and people were not lined up outside the store waiting to be one of the fifty people allow in at the same time. Next, I went to Kaiser to pick up my eye drops. I had been there before. The only dramatic difference here is the temperature check station. Seeing nurses and doctors wearing masks seemed pretty normal.
My next stop was the transfer station, where I dropped off the carboard I had been collecting in my laundry room.
It was Costco next. My tire light had gone one, so first, I stopped to get air in my tires. Again, everyone was wearing masks. The entrance to Costco was reconfigured with shopping carts and piled-up wooden flats. I moved through the maze quickly; there was no one waiting in line. Everyone who came could enter. Again, everyone was masked. Truly weird. It was even stranger that it seemed that everyone considered it normal. I had a list of things to buy. I moved through quickly. The line was a bit of an adjustment because I had to stay six feet away from the person in front of me. Everyone else knew the drill, and things progressed without a hitch. Except – an employee approached me and asked me to follow him. Since he didn’t take me to another register, I was concerned that I had done something wrong. But no. He had a cash register off on the side and could check me out. I asked him if he pulled me out because I was old. He said no, only because I had a few items, and he wouldn’t need a counter. Okay.
When I got home, I was able to do some work on the book. My last move was to put each subsection of the Overview chapter on a separate page. I was using a different writing style and/or format in each section. The writing was jerky as a result. I did more work than I had done in a while. Rule: just sit down and write; let the words pour out. Then select what makes sense and looks good.
After dinner, I continued watching Case Histories, a British mystery series. It’s engaging without being distressing. When shows get too dark, so do I. I don’t need that ever, particularly not now.
No comments:
Post a Comment