I woke up again at 5:30. I forced myself to stay in bed until 6. I was off on my walk with Elsa by 6:20. The muscles in my left thigh are complaining in a good way. What does a good complaint feel like versus a bad complaint? A good complaint is a degree of discomfort, letting you know that you are using the muscle in ways it isn't used to. A bad complaint is a sharp pain.
In deference to the complaint, I decided not to take on the steep hill up Kukuna. Instead, I turned right at the end of Nehiwa and headed down Kukuna. I made a right turn at the end of the block and continued on Holoholo. Nehiwa and Holoholo are parallel to the ocean. The lay of the land is flatter on the parallel road than the roads that run perpendicular to the ocean. No roads are entirely flat on the Big Island. The parallel roads are like gentle rollercoasters.
As I walked, I continue to emphasize using my abdominal muscles to lift my legs, and I took up air-punching my arms across my body, aiming the punch in the direction of the opposite thigh. This action stimulated the muscles in my mid-back. I can still feel those muscles that had me flat on my back for a few days after being triggered, but it is nothing like it was when it was really bad. Now when I stop moving, they stop complaining.
I posted the April 14th public blog for 2019 today. I had written about using my abdominal muscles and twisting my upper body in opposition the same way as I am writing about it today. Of course, now, a year later, my body is very different.
Yvette had a yoga class in the driveway when I came home. Scott was in the class. Elsa went right to him, lay on top of him, and asked to be pet. She knew why he was lying down in the driveway; it was for her. I reminded her that she wanted her breakfast, and she came along with me.
It occurred to me to ask Scott if he could free the filter from the vacuum cleaner. After the yoga class, he came and tried. When he turned the vacuum over, water ran out of it. We have a way to go before I can sound the all-clear. Scott couldn't free the filter. He said he had a lubricant spray at home. He would bring it over the next time he came.
I'm becoming the housekeeper that Mike would always have wanted. He once came to a school where I was working. He took one look at the room, noticed how well organized it was, and declared, "I'm so jealous!" It does make me sad that I didn't do this for him when he was alive. I feel like I've taken over for him in keeping the house neater. Cleaning wasn't his thing, and it's only mine occasionally. I clean like a maniac on the occasion of guests. Mike and I used to say, "Where are guests when you really need them?" Then we would both get to work getting the house ready. Mike was great at making sure everything was either out of sight or neatly, very neatly stacked. I'm getting much better at doing both.
I finished putting together the towel rack I designed with PCV pipe. It's wide enough to hang up the bath towel without folding it. I designed it for two towels, mine and the last one Mike used. I decided to keep the old towel rack for Mike's towel. Using the towel and the towel rack is his way of communicating with me. He throws the towel on the floor or moves the whole damn rack. I plan to hang on to it forever.
Tonight, was going to be Taco Tuesday at our house with Elise bringing the tacos. Yvette called in the mid-afternoon to say that the weather looked threatening. She had some beach tents, but with a strong wind, they would get blown down, and how would we get 10 feet between each person.
In the late afternoon, it started to rain. I was standing at the side door. I thought I would love to be sitting outside. Believe it or not, there is a difference between sitting on a screened-in lanai versus an open-air one. I grabbed the hard copy of my book, and I went out to sit on the chaise lounge on the back open lanai. Houses in Hawaii have large overhangs. We need them to shield us from the sun and torrential downpours.
I started rereading the chapters I had already written. Dorothy and Shivani both feel my writing is too meandering. They want me to reorganize the introduction and chapter one. I do see that my objectives aren't clear. I also suspect that they don't understand why I'm writing the way I am. However, I love reading my own writing. I can only hope someone else will too.
From some of the feedback I'm getting from Dorothy and Shivani, I wonder if they have a different concept of what I am trying to communicate than they do. Both feel I have to give a detailed definition of what a phoneme is. I realize the definition may help some people, but it's irrelevant to my objective. My focus is on a process that teaches the student to discover aspects of language. I don't teach third-graders what a phoneme is. I could teach this method to adults without mentioning the word or talking about the concept explicitly. Phonemes mean more than the sounds of English. The only reason I include it because there are teachers that have been exposed to the word. I don't believe they are taught the concept. I think they confuse it with phonics rules.
I can see readers who read my book anticipating something different from what I am presenting. I recently had an experience like that myself. I picked up a book on Jung's theory of the God-image, The New God-Image. I was expecting a psycho-social approach, anthropological in nature, covering God's changing image over the centuries. But that's not what I got. It wasn't a psycho-social approach; it was a psycho-epistemological approach. He asked what the changing god image says about the human psyche through the lens of Kant's epistemological views.
Because I approached the book anticipating something other than it was, it was a little like banging my head against a wall. I would read a chapter and wonder when he would get around to discussing what I thought he was going to discuss. I was stubborn. It took me most of the book to get the point. I can imagine that those who read my book may have the same difficultly. I was even familiar with the psycho-epistemological approach to the God-image discussion, but I still resisted. I believe my method for teaching reading will be unfamiliar to most teachers. I certainly not what is being taught in the teacher training programs.
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