I got up before 6 am this morning. That's more like my old routine before the yoga studio was closed. I weighed myself. I gained a pound. I checked my waist measure; I gained an inch on my waist. This isn't fair. I walk and walk and walk and complete up to 12,000 steps a day and gain weight. Does that sound fair to you?
I was on the road by six. I walked slowly for two reasons. I focused on my alignment, and I was in discomfort. It was my leg a little bit, but it was more my back, from the shoulders right down to my coccyx. It was stiff and achy.
Elsa had a good poop on our walk, and then I found another sizeable poop on the shower floor. I had changed her diet two days ago. Will a heavy poop schedule be in her future?
I had a Zoom appointment with Ann to check that my Zoom was up and running, and another one with one of Ann's students today for a tutoring session. When working with the student, I applied the method I developed to ask detailed questions about each sentence until the student demonstrates that they can decode language at a sentence level. The first sentence was, "Jack, look at the pretty bluefish," said Annie. The first question was, "Who said, "Jack, look at the pretty bluefish?" He didn't have a clue. If students don't understand how written language works at that level, the likelihood of comprehension is slight at best.
He improved dramatically over that time—such a simple solution. No, you don't have to do it with the students for every sentence in every book. They are learning the basic structure of language and how to decode sentence structure. I have done one session with students and seen a difference. I haven't worked again with this student. As for the one I was working with now, there were three possible outcomes: one he will show some improvement, being able to remember the text we cover, two he will forget the text and the strategy for understanding text which I taught, or three, he will move ahead showing ever greater improvement having understood the strategy for understanding language structure. Have I ever seen improvement after only one session? You better believe it.
While I taught some information, i.e., what the quotation marks mean, the primary purpose of this approach is to teach a strategy. The strategy is to ask questions. Do I ask questions as I read? Not consciously. It all happens at a nonconscious level. But I realized that is precisely what I do. I am asking who, what, when, where, and why questions with each sentence. When the text doesn't answer one of those questions, I can fill in the details myself. If the text provides the information later on in the book, I have to edit my movie. I do this automatically. I teach students to do it consciously, so it becomes automatic. It doesn't require a lot of instruction.
It also came out that he didn't create his mental movie as he read. I don't know how you can understand the narrative text if you don't, and we were reading a Magic Tree House book. We covered all of three pages in half an hour.
After the tutoring session, I needed a nap. At least I thought I did. I couldn't sleep. I needed to go out to Home Depot and Costco. I decided to get up and do that. When I tried to turn the car on, it was dead. Fortunately, Scott was here visiting Yvette. I knew he had all sorts of mechanical knowledge and would easily be able to solve my problem.
Scott came up and popped the hood on my Prius. Question: where is the battery? The hybrid battery dominates the front end of the car, but there is also a starter battery. I called my garage, JAWS. Fortunately, Edwin answered, and he told Scott where the battery was, in the back right-hand corner of the trunk. Okay. On to the next problem: the latch on the trunk is broken.
When I moved to Hawaii, every time I opened my trunk, I got black gunk all over my hand. I was told this was a design flaw on this model of the Toyota. They used some material that melted in the heat. That's what we have here in Hawaii, heat. I solved the problem by covering the latch with duct tape. This solution worked well for four years. Then I had to replace the tape that was on there. I ripped it off, and part of the latch came with it. For a while, I stuck my finger in there, found the little button, and got the trunk open. No more. And no, there is no release latch on the inside of the car. It's a 2007 model.
Scott found a video on YouTube with instructions on opening it trunk if the latch breaks. He had to crawl into the trunk from the back seat, move the tire cover, and push a button. I didn't even watch. There is no way I would be able to do that at this age. He got inside, charged the battery, and sent me on my way. The assumption was that the battery would recharge after my five-mile drive to Home Depot. Scott and Yvette said if I ran into trouble, call.
Upon leaving Home Depot, I found the battery had died again. I called Yvette and Scott. They came, recharged my battery, and followed me to Costco. They were going to look for a new battery at Costco while I did my shopping.
Costco was its own trauma. The produce aisles were almost bare. When I told Scott and Yvette what I had seen and not seen, Scott assured me that they were just waiting for a shipment. We, here in Hawaii, are overly dependent on shipments from the mainland. We would be out of food after ten days statewide. They didn't have my sweet kale salad that I love, but they did have leaf lettuce from Maui. When I got it home, it wound up being three heads of what looked like Boston Head lettuce. I like my sweet kale salad better, but at least it was green.
When I met up with Scott and Yvette at my car, they told me that Costco didn't have a battery that would work in my car. They were going to have to look elsewhere. I got in my car, and it started right away. Scott said that maybe I didn't need a new battery. Yvette's eyes flew wide. She said she wanted me to have one. She didn't want to worry about me being stuck if I had to get someplace when she wasn't home.
I got home all right. Scott and Yvette went battery hunting. While I napped, Scott came to my door and asked if he could get into my toolbox. He wanted to take my battery with him, so he was sure he got the right one.
While they were out, Yvette texted me. My old battery was getting a long charge. They were heading out to Walmart and Target. Did I want anything? Yes, two or three apples. When they got home, I was told it was definite; my old battery would no longer hold a charge. They had to buy a new one. It was already dark at this point. Scott put the new battery in for me.
I haven't said a word about yet is how deeply grateful I was and am for the help that Scott and Yvette gave me. If they hadn't been at the house when I first had the problem, I would have had to call for road service. I would have made it to Home Depot only to have had the battery die again and call road service again. And then I would have had to deal with getting my car someplace to get a new battery. This was a stress-free event for me. I knew these kids had my back. I was not alone. "Mike, do you hear this? I am not alone. I have people who are prepared to help me out!" I can feel him crying in sheer joy that I have the support I have.
Besides the apples, Yvette brought me two slices of pizza. The fish I defrosted will have to wait until tomorrow. During dinner, I continued reading A Very Short Introduction to Marx. This VSI series is wonderful. It's published by the Oxford University Press, written by experts in that particular field who write clearly. I love reading them. The book's about four by 6 inches and approximately 100 pages long. Wow! I may start my own collection. I found them in Mike's library. My first thought was, why would he have a Reader's Digest version of these great thinkers. As it winds up, they're right up my alley.
After dinner, I watched another episode of Case Histories, a Scottish mystery series. In this episode, a woman is married to a swine of a man who is a bookie. He is found dead on their front lawn one morning. She is suspected of killing him. The police discover that she has a storehouse full of elegant dresses. She has been stealing from her husband to buy these elegant items. She makes it clear to the police that it wasn't theft because it was their business. She worked with him. She was entitled to joint ownership, even if he didn't want to share the wealth with her. She asked if they could understand what it means to live with a man who never cared about you for thirty years. That took my breath away. What a concept! I had a deep moment of appreciation for what I had in Mike. He cared about me, my welfare, and what made me happy. He always cared about me. I can still feel how deeply his caring touches me. I'm not metaphorical. I can feel his love in the depth of my gut. His love and caring permeated every cell of my body. I was one lucky lady. I had a man who cared about every minute of our 45 years together.
No comments:
Post a Comment