I walked Elsa around 7:30 am. It was still cold; the temperature must have dropped considerably last night.
During PT, I had a memory of my Uncle's unwanted advances when I was 16. My dad had just died the year before. My Uncle, honoring the Jewish tradition of a man marrying his widowed sister-in-law, offered to marry my mother. These two people had a serious dislike for each other. My Uncle once asked my father how he could stand to live with her. Her behavior was often inappropriately explosive. She suffered from PTSD. My dad's response, according to my Uncle, was, "I love her."
My Uncle did fulfill his obligation by coming out to our house for dinner every Sunday. My mother didn't say no to that. My Uncle became an important support person in my life. My dad had been my rock, my mother my storm. Unky also served as a safe harbor- until he started acting up. He would arrange me, so I was leaning against his groin. I would shift; he would shift me back. This didn't go on long before I called his first cousin, Johnny. I told Johnny what was going on and asked him what I could do. He said, "I'll take care of it." The behavior did stop. I called Johnny and asked him what he had said. He said he told my Uncle, "For heaven's sake, Werner, leave the girl alone." That behavior never happened again. I was one lucky girl. Why this memory came up during the PT, I don't know. I don't remember thinking of it as a particularly traumatic experience. Among other things, I had the power to take action to stop it.
After PT, I stopped off a Memory Lane to drop off a donation, a queen comforter, a throw pillow, and some magazines. I checked their aloha dress rack. They have these fabulous dresses that can only be worn comfortably in Hawaii. They are beautiful and comfortable. I dropped off more donations at the Friendly Place. Lisa saw me coming, pulled out her clipboard to add more items to the already extensive list.
I went to Costco to pick up milk, salad, and lemons for immediate use and canned goods, particularly beans anticipating a two-week quarantine. I'm thinking of what I should do if I am hit. I don't want to expose other people to my disease. I am assuming there is a chance I won't make it because of my age.
On that note, I am feeling I should put my book out on the Internet as is. It needs considerably more work. Both Shivani and Dorothy say my presentation is unclear, definitions are missing. Two great minds agree; I'm sure they are right in their criticisms of my writing. Nonetheless, I may not have time to do all the corrections before I fall. In response, I want to make available what I do have finished, with a clear statement that this is an unedited version. I fear the work will die with me, and right or wrong, I feel there is value in my work. I want to make sure it is available to those who might do something with it. My plan is to the incomplete work copyrighted and put it out.
I finished listening to Meghna Chakrabarti's program on the truth. She was interviewing philosophers from the Ancient Greek and Muslim tradition. I did learn that most Muslims consider truth to arrive by divine revelation. All other forms of truth are rejected. Pretty fundamental.
When I got home, I planned to hang the blanket I put in the washing machine just before I left for PT. I opened the lid to allow it to dry some before I had a chance to put it on the line. Oops! The blanket was a crumbled mess. It was made of some old foam material and was now in pieces no bigger than half an inch across. Wada mess! I'd have to take care of it later. I downed some of my morning drink, changed, and headed out for school.
I arrived shortly after 1 pm, late for me. Mrs. D. told me that her class would be leaving for a lesson in the garden in a minute. I asked if I could work with K. for one moment. I had her write an addition problem. She wrote 5 + 8=. I held my breath to see what she would do. She confused me for a minute but settled on putting out 5 fingers instead of eight. And then, and then, she counted 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Bingo! The recall of the procedure was good. I sent her back into the room and told her to keep on practicing. When she is a little more secure, I will move on to something else. In the meantime, she is enjoying her success, and so is her mother.
Next, I went to Mrs. B's room. The school counselor was teaching a class. I can't pull the kids out then. I went over to Mrs. L's class. I didn't see D. in his usual spot. One little girl mouthed something to me, telling me where he was. I didn't understand and signaled to her to come to the door. She told me D. was next door in a different classroom. I didn't quite understand. Mrs. L. told me he had been moved to a different classroom altogether. I suspect it is a special class. I was concerned they wouldn't allow me to work with him, but they did.
I did a quick review of addition with regrouping with D. and started on subtraction. He looked nervous. I had to assure him he learns quickly, which he does. He was taught subtraction in first and second grade and again in third. Was he having trouble because he didn't listen in the first place, which the teacher complains about, or because he couldn't remember what he has been taught? My guess is it is the former, but he doesn't know the difference. All he knows is that he can't remember what the teacher said. Well, if he doesn't listen, he wouldn't. After I had assured him, he was a good learner and that everyone doesn't know something they have never seen before, including me. I told him no matter how old you are or how smart you are, when you see something new, you don't know about it and have to learn.
He knew to apply what he learned from addition to subtraction without regrouping. I didn't have to do anything. I went immediately to subtraction with regrouping. He wanted to take 7 away from a group of 6. I asked him his sister asked him for five cents, and he had only three, could he give it to her? It took a couple of examples like that to get the point through. We did several more problems. I asked him if he wanted to do them or wanted me to do them. I modeled several more, asking him questions about the procedure along the way. He could answer those questions with ease. After a while, he asked to go back into the room.
I went back to Mrs. B.'s room. The counselor was gone. Mrs. B. asked me if I would work with a new child. He can decode longer words, but he is having problems with sight words. I worked with him for only a few minutes. He seemed to have no issues with sight words. I took him through all the steps to check how he used his brain. Everything seemed to be in order. He said everything I told him to do; he usually did. Then someone came out of the room and asked if he could go back in. He left, and I. came out to work with me.
I used the same book with I. that I had with K. It was much too difficult for him, but I was only asking him to read the sight words I thought he might know, not all the other words. I. read those. We worked on automatic recall, which is this child's main problem. We had cleared his problem with moving letters (yes, many people have to deal with letters that move around on the page or just in their minds.), the block he had which prevented the information from coming up from long-term memory to working memory, and finally with the problem of the information going deeper into the brain rather than forward to working memory. He certainly did much better with many of the words until we came across the word have. He guessed a word starting with the letter h.
I had an insight. When I teach students how to embedded images in their working memory, I usually display the word across the entire expanse of their foreheads. I had the image that this child only had an image on the left half of his brain. I told him to see the whole word, all the letters of have on only the left half. Bingo! His word recognition improved immediately. No more guessing. His eyes filled with tears. I asked him if he was sad. I finally asked if he was crying because he was excited. It was a very exciting moment for both of us.
I had been exhausted by the day before I went to school. Being at school energized me, but I still needed a nap. I went home and did precisely that.
I woke up around 5pm did some miscellaneous tasks and was sitting playing FreeCell when I got a text from Sandor saying he was on his way home from Hilo, where he and Meaali'inani have a second office. He asked if it would be convenient for him to stop by and drop off my second pair of glasses. I got up to walk Elsa so that I would be home when they arrived.
I had just gotten home and was opening my mail when they did arrive. In the mail was a letter from another Judy in my life, Josh's mother. She mailed me an article from her local newspaper on Crocs, which is the only shoe I have worn for the last fifteen years. I bought my first pair in Hawaii on Ali' I St. from a stand in the spring of 1994 when I came out to visit Yvette.
Sandor and Meaali'inani spent a fair amount of time visiting. Their company is a treat and makes me feel like a million bucks. Besides dropping off my glasses, he checked out books that he would like from Mike's library. There are whole sets of basic books that would have to be in any seminary library already or not be a decent library. The librarian in New Orleans said he would be happy to receive them and mail them off to a seminary in Africa. I am delighted to have these books go to Sandor, who will consider them not just valuable in themselves, but valuable because they were Mike's.
We talked about Cynthia Taylor, who has been in an ICU in the Kona Hospital for the last two weeks. Sandor told me she was involved with an organization for the prevention of human trafficking. Apparently, it is a big issue here on the Big Island. It feels so safe in this small town, but I guess not. Sandor said one of his employees had a story from one of her cousins. A woman with a blue Corvette was by the side of the road and asked her to pull over. When she got out of the car to talk to the woman to see if she needed help, a man jumped out from behind the car with a rope. She successfully ran away. Rumor has it the police do nothing. I don't feel personally threatened. Who wants a seventy-nine old woman, except for a man who loves her? But I am concerned for other women I know. They may be in their forties and fifties, but they are in great shape and look at least ten years younger. I am also concerned for another young woman I know, including children. Talk about pure evil.
We also talked about the condition of my eye. Sandor says that I do have to be careful with my puckered macular. If I lift something heavy or drop my head below my waist, I could make the situation worse. He said he would be happy to spend an hour a day working on pulling out requested books, packing them up, and putting them in my car so I don't have to do any lifting. When I get to the post office, I don't lift them. I wait until someone young and strong comes along to do it.
Sandor and Meaali'inani prepared to leave shortly before eight pm. Meaali'inani announced she needed to use the bathroom before she left. Sandor and I stood in the laundry room. I showed him what had happened to the 'blanket' I had just washed. He lifted it out of the machine and dumped it in the garbage pail I had already provided. He then wiped around the sides to loosen what was clinging to it. He recommended that I vacuum out the rest. I don't think I would have thought of that on my own. I would have relied on the washing machine to clear it out when it was in operation. His suggestion was the better one. After they left, I hauled out the vacuum cleaned, and it worked like a charm.
I watched more of Peak Practice. I had been looking for a show called Ambassador that John Zimmerman recommended, but the only show that came up was something contemporary rather than a period piece as John had described it. During the first episode of the show, I thought the lead character looked very familiar. He looked just like Paul McCarthy. Could he be a relative? When I did look it up, I discovered the actor was Keven Whatley. I had to scroll down through his credits to figure out where I had seen him before. Ah, in Inspector Lewis, a favorite show of Mike's and mine. Of course, he was much, much older when he did that show. In Peak Practice, he is still a nerdy version of a stud, and he is a charmer. So much fun seeing him in his earlier incarnation.
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