I called Shivani. She had heard my message about my dream about Sidney. I dreamt that I was taking care of him and was doing a lousy job. He had to ask me to feed him and change his diaper. He remained calm and accepting despite my lousy job. Shivani laughed and said he was really like that. As we talked, he pulled the covers off her and told her he needed his diaper changed. He is an unusually lovely, easy child. Shivani is an unusually lovely, relaxed parent. She told me that she had received the scrapbook which her mother put together for Mike many years ago. It had family pictures from previous generations and immigrant documents, marriage certificates, and birth certificates. It is incredible.
There was a light sprinkle the whole time I walked this morning. Driveway yoga was going to be out. I called Yvette and proposed doing the driveway yoga in my house. We could move some of the furniture and fit in eight mats and provide a safe space. When Elsa and I got home, Yvette and Scott were coming up the driveway to set up in my house. They quickly turned around and walked out again. Izzy, one of her three dogs, set up a howl because she could hear Yvette’s voice. She can cry nonstop. She sounds like a baby. One day I heard her crying and was sure it was a baby. Amazing. In response to her crying, Yvette realized using my house was undoable. So, she set up downstairs in her house. We got six people in.
I did some work on the article. At 10:30, I had a session with D. He remembered the multiplication facts we had been working on. He was able to repeat them quickly. I added a new one. However, when I asked him to remember that one, he couldn’t. This fellow also has a devil of a time remembering procedures—every time, I have to remind him of the steps he has to go through.
I told him to recall my voice, saying the multiplication fact. Then, press the save button, his nose, and send the information down to long-term memory. He didn’t remember to press the save button, but he did remember which way to move his finger on the side of his head; he moved it in a clockwise direction. When he followed the procedure I taught him, he was able to recall the fact.
When we worked on the sequencing activity, he did reasonably well but not perfectly. His speed was delayed. I’m going to wait until that response is up to speed before I layer on the next activity.
We worked on reading for the rest of the session. D. had trouble discerning the difference between cars and carts again. Problems with word recognition show up when he’s tired. He was yawning a lot. He said he went to bed and asleep at 9 pm and got up around 7. I have no idea was he was so tired. We were only able to cover one paragraph. Again, there were errors in word recognition and comprehension.
When I asked him to visualize a word for the purpose of recognition, he couldn’t do it. He said he could see it in his mind, but he couldn’t recall the word. When I wrote the word and showed it to him, he was able to recognize it immediately. So why is that? There has to be a difference in how we perceive what we see with our eyes, what we recall, and what we imagine. If not, there would be no way to tell the difference between the three. There would be no way for us to know if we are actually seeing something, remembering it, or just imagining it. That would be crazy-making. I assume that what we perceive with our senses is the strongest impression. We have to learn to recognize the rest.
When I finished my tutoring session, I worked on the article today. I was running it through Grammarly when I became so tired that I needed to sleep. I went down for my midday nap. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to go back to tutoring at school. By 11 or 12, I need to go down for a two-hour nap.
Dorothy called as I was beginning to surface, but I was still too tired to answer. I got up to go to the bathroom and lay back down, intending to sleep longer. I was wide awake a short time later and got up to call Dorothy. We talked a little about her ex-husband, who is having a tough time. She also complained about being bored by her confinement due to the Covid virus. Dorothy has always been good at entertaining herself. I’m the one who had problems with it. However, this confinement has pushed her to the end of her tolerance for it. I am lucky. I have face-to-face contact with people here. I see Yvette, Josh, and their friends fairly regularly, even if it’s just to say hello in the driveway. I participate in Yvette’s driveway yoga class with several other people. Also, my house is open to nature. I’m not confined to my house.
When I got up, I finished editing my article and sent it out to Dorothy and Shivani. Scott texted me while I was on the phone with Judy saying there was a response to Craig’s List posting of my Prius. Amazing. Scott also volunteered to post the ad for the car and for a stationary bike that Mike had. I am very grateful for his help. This relieves me of a stressful situation. The guy wanted to come over today to see the car. Scott had plans of meeting with him a block away from my house to be on the safe side. I would never have thought of that. He told me to get all my stuff out of the car and locate the title. Those two chores were easy. I thought I might do some cleaning of the inside of the car too.
Yvette and Josh had their 15th wedding anniversary party tonight. It was a small group of ten people; I wasn’t going to have to travel far.
I spent the afternoon attending to the car. First, I took out the plastic floor mats. They hadn’t been cleaned in years. It was no big deal. Once I had them out, I ran the garden hose on the jet-setting over them. Perfect! Then I went to do some vacuuming. First, I had to have Yvette move her car to get the Prius closer to the house. I had never used the attachments on the Shark, which Yvette bought for us before we moved here permanently and brought our Rainbow with us. I always used my Rainbow. The suction on that one is fantastic- it was fantastic. I only realized after I struggled with the attachment for the Shark for a while that I hadn’t understood how the machine worked to have use of a longer hose. Also, I couldn’t get one of the attachments off the machine. Scott came up to run something under a hose, and he got it off. There was no special release button. It just required brute force, something I’m a little short of these days.
I went into the house to shower to get ready for the party. Yvette’s friend Elise, who trained in a French cooking school to become a professional chief, prepared heavy pupus. The food was delicious, and the company was great. This was the best group ever. We all fit around a large round table out in front of the house. Then it started to rain, and we moved inside. We all fit easily into Yvette and Josh’s house. We had gathered there because Izzy made it clear that doing it upstairs in my house would be impossible.
We played a social game called Two Truths and a Lie. I went first. I had prepared a list. My lie was easy to find. Then Steve went. He told three long, long stories. Others followed his example. The stories were great, and we were all listening to the same person. I guess I’ve never been to a party with people I don’t know well where a game is used to connect people.
After the game came the dancing. Not everyone danced. I managed to get up and do some. I think some of the people were amazed that I could still do as much as I did.
I had had a little beer with the pupus. A little means one-third of a juice class. Does anyone remember juice glasses? They are the size of two shots glasses. Small. I got a buzz off that. I like the taste of beer, but I get hit fast and hard by liquor. If I have too much, like a full juice glass, I wind up with a mild hangover the next day.
When I was ready to go back upstairs to my quarters, B. walked me up to make sure I arrived safely. Besides my having a buzz, it gets very, very dark at night here. When I got home, I watched a little bit of Bosch before I went to bed.
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