Tuesday, January 21, 2020

    When I arrived at Bikram this morning, Jen said, "I have your frankincense and myrrh spray ready for  you." Jen loves playing with scents and makes these incredible mixtures for the sheer pleasure of it. She says she uses either witch hazel or tequila as a base for her blends. She introduced this particular one about a week ago. I found it so calming. She said she would make me one.  Have I told you how much I value this community yet? Only maybe a hundred times.

    After class, I was going to Target and then Costco.  I was looking for more Milk-Bone pill pockets at their sale price. When I was there the other day, while the sale sign was up, Buy 3 get one free, there was still only one package left on the shelf.  The sale sign was down, and there was only one package left on the shelf. 

    I went looking for a new battery-powered facial brush.  While I like it for my face, I need it to clean my left foot. I can't reach it otherwise.  My older one stopped working. I bought new batteries, but that didn't help. 

    I then went to check if the Hershey's milk chocolate covered almonds were still on sale.  I never have enough of those.  They were I bought three more packages. 

    I went looking for vegetables in the produce aisle.  There were none except for salad greens, potatoes, and onions. I have bought fruit at Target before but never checked out their vegetables. Live and learn.

    While wandering up and down the aisles searching for veggies, I came across a chicken pot pie in the frozen section. Love chicken pot pies.  I grabbed that and saw some other frozen dinners.  They sounded delicious.  I checked the sodium count; I always had to do that for Mike. He couldn't tolerate anything higher than 8% because of his Meniere's.  This had 26% sodium. Well, Mike would not be joining me for dinner. When I cook, I add zero salt to anything, so this probably won't be too bad for me. I told Yvette that I bought some frozen dinners. She commented that Mike would be turning over in his grave at the thought of my eating prepared frozen food. Oh, right. He's not in his grave yet. That's scheduled for February 15, 2020.

    Since I had the frozen food on me, I went home directly and didn't stop at Costco.  When I got home, I did some work on the blog, showered, and headed out to school. I put on the new scent. I'll use it until I run out. I was a little concerned that it may be too intense for young children's noses. (I got no complaints.)

    Scott arrived shortly after I did. He would screw down the subflooring in the guest room right through the carpet with this system John Zimmerman let me know about. Scott told me that the system was working. Thank you, John Zim, for doing the research and letting me know. I thought I had ordered 2000 screws.  I confused the product number with the number of screws in the package, which was 250. Twenty-five dollars for 250 screws is still better than $11 for 50. I ordered two more boxes.  Scott may also use this method to screw down the subflooring on the lanai, which is also over Yvette's house.

    When I arrived at Mrs. D's class, R. immediately asked if I would work with her. I took her first.  Mrs. D. told me the other day that she was starting to read. I told her to bring a book. Wow! She is off and running. 

    Next, I worked with B. He got 55% on last week's spelling test. This doesn't sound good, but it is a spectacular improvement for him.  While we worked on this week's spelling words, I calibrated his score on last week's test by comparing the number of letters in the words versus the number of letters he got correct and in the correct sequence. His score by this method was 81%.  Because I was somewhat distracted by calculating his score while I was trying to give him the words and guide him at the same time, he took off and did the work himself. Wow!  

    Before we had started, I asked him to identify the pattern for the spelling test.  He saw -ce and -ge and the ends of words. I think the teacher probably pointed that out when she introduced the words that morning.  While he is good at recognizing patterns, he is not good at remembering them when spelling the words.  He left out the c in place and in another word. He tried to spell the /s/ sound as ec instead of ce.  But, all in all, he continues to improve. It's just a long haul.

    After that, I worked with D., who has been having behavioral issues. I asked him how his day went.  He said, well. He doesn't feel like a ghost anymore.  I checked this with Mrs. D. She said she had to go one on one with him about the need for him to wear shoes when he went out on the playground.  Mainlanders must think this is weird. Why would anyone be without shoes? It's Hawaii.  These kids run around without shoes all the time. They often walk around in class without shoes, no problem. I have seen a teacher walk around without shoes in the classroom. When they do wear shoes, they are often just 'slippers,' know in the rest of the world as flip-flops. But she said the rest of the day had gone well.  He hadn't made peculiar noises during class or done anything outrageous.  Maybe he did do a 1800. Wouldn't that be great?

    Next, I worked with N., continuing our work on comprehension.  He brought out a P level book without my having made an issue about it.  However, that book was much too easy. I have no idea why it was ranked that high.  It may have been because of the topic, which was on discerning when things are dead or alive.

    He went in and got another book. While he was good at understanding relationships between sentences, he still has problems inferring the correct pronunciations of familiar words and inferring possible meanings of unfamiliar ones.

    Then I went to work with the children in Mrs. B.'s class. I. had passed me while I was working with the children in Mrs. D.'s class and asked if I was going to work with him. He came right out with a book he wanted to work on.  He is still struggling, and I don't really know why he is making so little progress. 

    The class had a sub today, and he was playing a game with the children while I was working with I.  Despite the joyous noises coming from the classroom, I. focused and continued working.  I finally asked him if he wanted to go back into the room.  He said yes. 

    D. saw I. come back in and approached the door to work with me.  I asked him if he preferred to stay in the room.  He said yes.  I told him to enjoy himself.

    I walked across the atrium to the other side of the octagon to Mrs. L.'s room.  I had promised to work with D. in her room.  I had worked with him two summers ago but hadn't seen him since. I was planning to work with him after school, but there was a change in his circumstances recently, and he is no longer staying after school.

    He came out with a high first-grade book. He read pretty well but showed he had some problems decoding longer words. I did some work with him on that.  School came to an end.  I spoke to Mrs. L. She agreed he had some problems decoding longer words. Also, he had comprehension problems and, most importantly, problems paying attention. She said when he focused, he could do pretty well.  I told her his difficulties with attention were her problems.  However, I will try to do something about his attention problems. The poor kid is squirmy. He has had a lot of family problems to deal with. Hopefully, I can help him. When he was working one-on-one, his focus was good.

    Scott worked on the floor until after 6 pm. Then he turned his attention to my running toilet. I just had the insides replaced about a month ago, and the toilet was running again. Scott and I both believed there were probably some deposits on the surface of the inside of the tank that interfere with the seal, causing the toilet to leak and run. He discovered that some part of the mechanism rotated when he checked it, making the chain shorter, making it run intermittently. The short term solution was to pick up the tank cover after flushing and turn the part slightly clockwise. 

    I wasn't hungry at dinner time. I just prepared my limeade and pills.  I finally did eat two slices of pizza at 8:30 pm.  Oh, well. So much for my good intentions. 

    I watched more of "The Good Place." Actually, I am finding it interesting.            

Monday, January 20, 2020

    Look at that date! Someone out there turned twenty today. I remember when Yvette's birthday fell on 10/10/10.  She was not ten at the time, more like forty-one.

    I had a terrible night's sleep.  Well, not compared to people who suffer from chronic insomnia.  I had a terrible night's sleep for me, which means after going to bed around 11 pm, I woke up at four and only dozed after that.  I was feeling rattled and couldn't calm myself down. 

    I am more aware of grief now than I have been since he died.  They say the pattern of grief is different for each person.  Some experience their worst grief immediately after the death of a  loved one, and for some, the worst year is the third. And then there are those poor souls who go into morbid grief and bide their time until their own death. Mike's mother was like that. She said she felt that she was no longer a person after her husband died.

    I feel a lot the way I did after my dad died.  I don't remember feeling sad as much as body racking fear.  With his death, I was alone with my mom. She wasn't the kindest person to me. She was hypercritical with both Dorothy and me. Dorothy told a story of seeing a therapist and describing our mom's behavior.  He asked her if she and I were bad kids. Absolutely not.  Our mom was just nuts. 

    Besides her constant barrage of criticism, she and I had a particular problem. I was trained by my dad to think for myself and speak up. As far as she was concerned, for me to have any perceptions, opinions, or insights different from hers was an act of disrespect.  I didn't get what her problem was until shortly before her death.  I couldn't conceive of anyone thinking such a thing. Oh, well. Maybe in my next lifetime. In the meantime, she tried to convince me that no one liked me. I was a jangled bundle of nerves.  I had insomnia from the day my dad died until the first night I slept in my dorm room my freshman year of college. 

    On a positive note: what made the lady crazy was a well-earned case of PTSD.  That she had any sanity after what she experienced during her first six months of life is a fantastic testimony to the strength of her spirit. (She was subjected to a medical procedure to save her life that could be described as primitive at best.) But that same PTSD, which made her less than the best mother, made her a fantastic person when our lives were at stake.  She was there for us, kept us going, and saw to it that Dorothy and I went to college, something my father wanted for us. She would never have thought of that on her own; her background was more limited.

    My mom managed to go to a high school that taught clerical skills only because her father was in Russia, fighting WWI on the Germans' side. When he got back, she was 15. He was not pleased with the path she had taken. As far as he was concerned, she should have been trained as an upstairs maid.  

    My grandfather had been a rich man's chauffeur before the war, driving him around in a horse-drawn carriage and taking care of the stable.  When he got back from the war, his boss told him he had bought a car and drove himself. He offered my grandfather one of two jobs: he could become a taxi-driver (His boss would have bought him a car for that purpose.) or the janitor in the bank the man owned.  My grandfather took the janitor's job.  Had he become a taxi-driver, I doubt he would have been very successful.  He would verbally attack people on the street if he disapproved of their behavior. It would not have been a pretty picture. 

    When I got to Bikram this morning, I saw Yvette in the lobby and told her I wasn't doing well and needed a hug. She gave me one, and then Maite stepped up to give me one too.  When I went into the room, Bill, who was on the mat next to me, saw I was in distress. I explained to him that the first anniversary of the onset of Mike's illness, which killed him, was coming up, and I was feeling alone and scared. Scott called out from across the room, "You're loved, Betty."

    While I was lying on my mat before class started, Maite came up and knelt by my side. She advised me to breathe deeply.  I had been doing that with no success, even after many years of sitting Vipassana meditation retreats. I knew all that, but it wasn't helping me calm down.  However, something about Maite's presence did. After she went back to her mat, I could feel the ghost of her presence at my side, and my anxiety slid away.  I was calmer than I had been in two weeks. 

    This was an enormous relief.  I was afraid that I would be feeling this way until I died. That the only thing that had protected me from this feeling was Mike's presence in my life. I'm strong, but he was my protector – or comforter.  

    The first time we visited my mom as a couple, I needed to take a nap.  (I have told this story before for those of you who think you're experiencing Deja vu all over again; you are. ) I went to my bedroom to lie down.  Mike came up and turned my desk chair, facing the head of the bed, sat there, and read.  My mom didn't come near me.  My mother didn't resent his statement; she admired him. 

    It wasn't that Mike could always protect me from my mom or others with who I experienced conflict, but he could always remind me that I was loved, valued, appreciated, and enjoyed.  That took the sting from the slings and arrows of others.  No, no one is actually verbally assaulting me these days, but I am experiencing differences in communication styles and values. I don't have Mike to come home to, to be assured that I'm okay.

    For me, when I hear what I call tribalism, I get scared.  My father had raised me to know how dangerous tribalism can be.  Tribalism doesn't always look like outright prejudice against a whole group of people; sometimes, it shows up in small ways.   There are two friends I have told of ways my sister hurt me.  Their reaction is to never want to speak to her.  I was appalled and frightened by their response. No, no. It's your job as my friend to create a bridge between my sister and me.

    Jean, Mike's first wife, is friendly with both Dorothy and me. She has kind of apologized for continuing to be her friend. I love that they are, as long as she doesn't cut me out of her life in favor of Dorothy, I am not just good with it; I'm delighted with it.   I like and love Dorothy. I believe Dorothy loves me; she just doesn't really like me or enjoy me and has said some incredibly critical things. No, she didn't scream you bitch at me. That would have been just fine. She calmly told me what she thought of my character. Let's say she sees me as a bad person who is not concerned with others' needs. It was devastating to hear this. Jean's friendship with Dorothy creates a flow between Dorothy and me. While Dorothy may have hurt me, she has a sibling's license, similar to a poetic license.   Dorothy has been wonderful since Mike has died. We speak regularly, and I love talking to her.     

    When we were all in Oahu shortly before Mike died, Damon took a picture of the three of us, Jean, Dorothy, and me.  He had it printed on Plexiglass by Shutterfly.  I have it sitting by my bedside.  I love it.  These two women are my sisters.  Given how bad it can be between sisters, we're all doing reasonably well.  I value these two women in my life, even with the hurt.

    I reached out tonight to several family members and asked them to schedule me for weekly phone calls because I anticipated a tough time coming up.  People were very good right after Mike died.  Jean called daily; Shivani, Damon, and Dorothy each had a day they stuck to.  But life goes on, mine as well as theirs.  Unfortunately, I seem to be more in need now than I was then.

    After the yoga class was over, several people came up to me to give me hugs. I waited for Maite to come out and thank her for what she did for me.  I told her what a difference she made. I was calmer than I had been in two weeks.  I told her it was something about her energy that deeply affected me.  I asked her if I could reach out for her energy when I needed it. For those of you who don't know, I'm a healer who works with energy healing.  I believe in our energy touching each other, even at a great distance. Maite told me that she would be honored for me to use her that way and thanked me.  I told her I understood.  I frequently thank the kids I work with for trusting me as they do with their vulnerability.  I work with them on things they are not good at and are often ashamed of.  If I'm lucky, that child will say, "You're welcome." In all the years I have taught, I think I can count the number of children who have thanked me for helping them on the one hand.  

    I remember one incident when I was teaching in a Catholic school in Trenton when Mike and I still lived in Princeton, NJ.  I worked with an eighth-grade boy to help him improve his reading and spelling.  His teacher told me that not only was he doing better with his reading and spelling, but he was improving in all his subjects. When his mother came to school, she was introduced to me. She said, "Oh, my God. My son loves you. He said you explained how words work." Really.  All I saw was a sullen face. 

    After dinner, I went to the library to watch some TV. I finished Season 6 of 'Grace and Frankie." I switched back to season 3 of "The Good Place."  It's okay; I'm not as taken with it as I was with Seasons one and two.

    Yvette came in bearing a pizza box.  When she gets pizza, she usually drops off one or two slices for me. Yeah, another dinner is taken care of.  She asked if she could drop off more than the usual two slices. She had ordered half pepperoni and half cheese, and they had messed up the order.  They gave her a free all cheese pizza. Okay, so I have two dinners taken care of now.

 

____-____-____

Musings:

 

    I am uncomfortable with those who believe if someone hurts a friend, you should cut out that person from your life very distressing.  I think the idea behind this behavior is loyalty. I know that loyalty is an important concept, but somehow it's not part of my thinking.  Consideration yes, loyalty no. I'm going to have to think about it more. Maybe I've just never been in a position when loyalty was an issue.

    I find the idea of cutting a person out of your life just because they have hurt a friend – well, horrible.  I can see cutting that person out of my life when their act represents a fundamental character flaw.  I can see doing it easily if that person set out to hurt my friend. Wow, who wants someone in their life who is capable of malice.    

    When Mike and I were first together, someone reported me as a VD contact. I hadn't slept with anyone other than Mike for over a year. Where did this come from?  My first thought was it was his ex-wife.  Mike said definitively, "She would never do something like that." That's the truth. There is no way Jean would ever do something so sneaky and malicious, no way. 

    It took me quite a while to figure out who had done it.  There were three people involved. I figured this out from their behavior during the incident.  It took me several years because I couldn't imagine someone I knew could do something like that. They tried to ruin my life by ruining my relationship with Mike.  

    FYI: One of my commune mates asked me if I had slept with anyone else.  I said I didn't think so.  I told this story to Mike. He laughed. He said I would never have been able to keep that information to myself if I had.  I was the most open and honest person he knew. I would never have been able to keep that information from him.  So much for their efforts to get him to leave me. 

    I don't know if these people regret their behavior and have changed. I can tell you that none of them has apologized to me for putting me through that ordeal.  That behavior represents a character flaw. I want nothing to do with them. 

    On the other hand, I was seeing a healer in Princeton.  I recommended her to Mike.  He was pleased with her work.  It was while he worked with her that he realized his affinity for Catholicism.  She ended her relationship with me in a most unprofessional way.  I never told Mike what she said because she helped him, and I was afraid he would stop seeing her when I told him.

    Many, many years after he stopped working with her, I told him exactly what she said. He said he would have stopped seeing her, not because of what she did to me per se, but because her behavior was blatantly unprofessional.  Again, I react to what I see as a person's character, not the amount of pain that someone caused me. (Ah, I was confident that she wouldn't do anything like that to him.)  

 

Sunday, January 19, 2020

    I had a terrible night's sleep.  I was upset about my interaction with two people, and I heard the water running every 15 minutes.  At first, I thought Yvette and Josh were going to the bathroom frequently.  However, it went on and on and on.  If they didn't have diarrhea, it must be a problem with their toilet. I finally realized it was my toilet. I was too tired even to figure out that I could turn off the water and have silence.  I eventually fell asleep.  Then I woke up around seven. I didn't get out of bed immediately.  I tried to go back to sleep. That only worked for so long. I got up, and Elsa and I did our long walk.

    I put more work into the blog. I have been editing the entries from last year to finally post them on the public blog. I am reading about Mike's collapse, transport to the Honolulu hospital, his five weeks in the hospital, and his death. Oh, yay! Boy, is this making me feel great? I have to live with the ups and downs of those five weeks. 

            It's worst now. When I was going through it, it was easier than rereading it. At the time, I was fueled with adrenaline, dealing with the situation at hand, and planning how to deal with his recovery. Despite all the warnings I had, I didn't grasp that he would die until the Monday before we took him off life support.  I think I'm still having trouble understanding that he's gone. 

    I went to church with Judy and Paulette. During mass, I got to observe two elderly couples sharing affection. One white-haired couple is from Brazil, visiting here.  At one point, the husband bent over and rested his forehead on his wife's head, closing his eyes. A little later, he was rubbing his hand across her shoulders while they were waiting to receive communion.  

    Another elderly couple was standing in front of us. They were holding hands. God, I miss Mike.  He was affectionate and affirming with me.  When I was at Jacquie's farewell party the last Tuesday, one of the guests told me that she didn't know who Mike's wife was until one day she saw him gently rest his hand on my rear-end. It's those take for granted moments of physical contact and affection that are sorely missed.

    Dorothy called today. I talked to her about the way rereading the blog made me feel.  When I contacted her to tell her that Mike had pancreatitis, she looked it up and knew it was serious, and he only had a slim chance of living.

    I spent most of the day working on getting the blog ready. Let's see if I can get it out by January 24.  I am hoping August, my grandson, can make this happen.

    I did take a break and vinegared my weeds in the front yard. Yvette came home and asked if I was up for a massage. You bet! She said she would be up in half an hour.  We talked about our lives and how we felt for about half an hour before we did the massage. Those moments are worth their weight in gold.

    Shivani called.  We went through the rest of the linens to see if she wanted any.  No, she did not want the 4 by 2 monogrammed linen towels with zero absorption, which Dorothy thinks are actually bath towels. She did want a few of my mom's dish towels, which I remember from my childhood.  Why she saved them is beyond me.

    Among the dish towels were two that I had never seen before.  When I unfolded them, I saw the initials MSD stamped on them.  I imagined a background story for those towels.  

    My dad was in the USA a year and a half before my mom came over.  They were married here. The deal was that he was going to go to America.  If, if, if, he could make a living and support her, he would send for her.  He had his law degree in Germany.  He was doing his apprenticeship in the German courts the day the Nazis marched in and ordered all the Jews out. 

    That was the day he called my mom and asked her to meet him in the Tier Garten in Berlin, where they lived.  That was the day he told her he had to go to America and proposed. 

    In preparation for her arrival, he decorated their apartment.  He had cloth-covered hangers in the closet.  Everything was in matching sets.  He had come from a very wealthy Jewish family.  His standards were high. She had come from a lower-middle-class Lutheran family.  Her standards were probably not as high. She would have been delighted with much less, but she got him as a husband and had to take the consequences. Another woman might have been appalled that her husband decorated their home without consulting her, but not my mom. 

    Those monogrammed dish towels I found, I suspect they were part of the package he put together for her. I am sorting through linens from the old country. They are all monogrammed.  I doubt my mother's parents would have ever thought of something like that.  Not so fast.  If my mother brought over monogrammed linens table napkins with MS (Marguerite Starick) on them, that she must have monogrammed herself. Maybe it was a standard across all the classes.  Of course, my father's parents had their professionally monogrammed with such fancy curlicues that I can't make out the initials.

    While on the phone with Shivani, I told her the story of my parents' separate arrivals to America and the problems they overcame to communicate with each other while separated.  Because my father was Jewish and my mother Christian, it would have put her at risk for my father to write her directly.  A good friend of my mother's, Lotte Levy, became the intermediary. My father sent his letters to her. Then my mom gave the replies for Lotte to put in an envelope and address to my father.  This meant that for that period, he could never write her name. He could never say, Dear Marguerite.  

            Dorothy found a letter written in German and had a friend translate it.  I sent it to Shivani and am including it here.  

 

H. Ernst David

74 Wadsworth Terrace

Apt. B-41

New York, N.Y.

 

 

            My eternally beloved Marguerite, for close to a year and a half, not once in my letters have I been able to call you by your own name.  A year and a half, that, in spite of the not unsatisfactory business developments, has not been a very easy time.  For me, the worst was the fear that I suffered for you from time to time, from the thought that, indeed, in spite of all my caution, I might have made some mistake that could result in giving you difficulties.  

            So the thought that when you receive this letter you will be ready to start your journey here, and that four weeks from today I will be able to see you again and kiss you as my dear bride makes me all that much happier.

            I know, darling, that you have just made a very upsetting and painful farewell, which is surely still weighing on you.  I understand this pain very well, and you may be sure that I wouldn't expect that you would love your parents even in the slightest less than before.  Rather, I will really try my best to always be a good and loving son to them.

            You are going to be coming into an alien country, darling, with a foreign language, and people who are strangers. Don't try to rediscover our Germany here, the one whose familiar beauties of home existed only once in the world and which, with the best will cannot be  magically recreated here. Much is different from what we are used to, many things will seem strange to you, and some will seem ugly.  Try, my darling, as a favor to me, to take things as they come, and if possible, without drawing comparisons at every step, recognizing the good, and at least overlooking the bad, for the first while that you are here.  If you follow this advice, you'll soon find out that America and in particular, New York, has great attractions and outstanding beauties, which, if we discover and enjoy them together, can replace much which Fate has taken from us.

            It may be, darling, that I too have changed in the last year and a half, and that you will find in me faults and weaknesses other than the ones you already know and for which you are not prepared. On no account let a feeling of disappointment or dissatisfaction arise in you.  Tell me right away what you don't like or what is on your mind, just as I am planning to share all my thoughts and feelings with you.   We two have always been able to understand each other, and will, as I confidently hope, continue to do so as husband and wife.

       Neither of us is a child, dearest, and we are mature enough to know that marriage is no game, but a serious undertaking, that responsibilities, sacrifices and discomforts for both partners, and in critical moments, which will happen to us too, can only be overcome with an iron will. But on the other hand, our feeling of belonging together through thick and thin, which underpins such determination, contains the possibility for the greatest fulfillment of happiness that two people are capable of.

    You, my dearest, by your actions in the last years, have shown that you are well and truly willing to do your part in the fulfillment of the task that is in front of us, and I promise you I will also do everything to make our marriage a true partnership.

     So, my dearest, I am looking forward with joy to the future, in the confident hope, that from our shared joys and sufferings, that future will bring us mutual satisfaction and happiness.  

This is a serious letter that I am writing to you, dearest, to lead you from the old Europe to a new continent and new future, but you should know how seriously I will take the vows that we will make to each other a few days after you receive this letter.

You should know, dearest, not only that I love you with all my heart, but also that I feel I carry a deep and heavy responsibility toward you, a responsibility that I can only discharge if I succeed in making you, and in that way, also myself, happy.

As a result of a new law in the state of New York, our wedding cannot take place until three days after your arrival, which should be December 21, and I am looking forward to that day, which will join us for life, with longing and joyous expectation.

On Wednesday, Erich's telegram arrived.  So far, we don't have any further news.  I am hoping that he will be with you on the ship.  I wish you and everyone else a peaceful, pleasant, and smooth voyage.  Best greetings and kisses.  The next ones will be real.

                                                                                                                              In great love and longing,

Saturday, January 18, 2020

    I got up before the alarm went off but not at my usual 6 am.  Bikram is at 8:30 on Saturdays rather than 7:30.  I saw Yvette leave early to pick up a friend before they headed off to the class. When I arrived, the room was already pretty full, but Yvette had laid down a towel in my spot.  I replaced it with my mat and headed out for my final bathroom run before the class. When I came back, my yoga towel was laid out on the mat. Bill is my usual yoga fairy, but he wasn't here today.  Yvette pointed to Jeff. I went up and told him he had been outed. Thank you. These little acts of consideration mean so much to me. 

    After Bikram, I went to Lowes to check if I could buy the toilet I wanted there. I had checked out Home Depot only to face sticker shock.  The toilet I wanted, chair height with an elongated seat in bone or bisque, was available in white in the store.  That toilet cost something like $150. The toilet in bisque or bone had to be order and shipped; it cost $470, including a seat and shipping costs. I was going to give up when it occurred to me to check out Lowes.  

    The system for special ordering at Lowes is different from Home Depot.  I first checked with the customer service desk, where you have to go when you walk into the store to place a special order.  She sent me to the plumbing department.  The man there told me that I had to go to the building department because he was a part-time worker and he didn't have a computer available even to make a special order. 

    I had to wait for the man in the building department to get off the phone. I heard him say, "$850," and then he looked up at me and said, "He hung up." I guess I'm not the only one with sticker shock. The associate told me that it is hard to buy toilets in colors other than white because no one buys them anymore.  I don't want one with an intense color, like grey or black, but off white.  He said he couldn't order anything that wasn't in the warehouse. I asked, "A warehouse here on the Big Island or in Honolulu?" He looked at me and laughed. He said all the Lowes warehouses were on the mainland. He found a toilet in bone that was chair height with an elongated seat that he could order for me.  It cost $271, including tax and home delivery. I took it. Hopefully, I will like it when it finally arrives. We'll see. If not, Josh needs a new one, and he has a lot of brown in his bathroom. If he doesn't like it either, it will go to B., who says that the tank on his toilet is cracked.  So many options.

Friday, January 17, 2020

    In Bikram, my focus was on moving my right hip over to the left.  When I saw Katie, my PT, I demonstrated how I did standing-head-to-knee while lying down.  While I was thinking the big problem was with my left side, she identified a problem with my right. I got over far enough onto my left side, contracted that glute, and was able to hold that position. Katie was impressed.  Then I had to do it on the other side.  I got the right leg and hip in place to be the standing leg. As I raised my left knee, I pushed more with the right hip to free the left leg. Katie told me that I was only correctly aligned when I was driving that right hip over more. I had no idea how out of whack that right hip was.  Do I love this woman? She gives me fantastic feedback. I can make use of everything she gives me

    I also read that upping my aerobic activity would be better.  I started doing speed walking now.  It means taking smaller steps and swinging my upper body back and forth in oppositional movement.  It is something I can do in place while Elsa stops to check out the pee-mail on the street.

    I read that empty freezers consume more energy than full ones. When Mike was alive, our freezer was overloaded, so overloaded it broke- repeatedly.  Now, it is empty.  I found two large plastic containers.  I filled them with water and put them in the freezer.  It is loaded now.

    I was exhausted after Bikram. I’m dealing with some difficulties with people that are throwing me for a loop.  When Mike was alive, I would come home and curl up in his arms and be comforted. It worked. Now, I have to comfort myself.  The bad news is it takes a while to calm down. The good news is that I do calm down within 24 hours.  One thing that helped was putting my face in a pair of Mike’s old board shorts and moaning for a few minutes. I have to keep this in mind for future reference.    

    There was no school today because it was Martin Luther King Day. After a 3 hour nap, I got up and did some work on the blog.  Sandor texted to say he was running late at work and would come by on the weekend instead of this afternoon.  No worries.

            

Thursday, January 16, 2020

    The day was devoted to getting ready for Sandor's visit to publicly publish the blog beyond my email distribution.  I started with Bikram. Thank God for Bikram. While I feel exhausted afterward, I always feel better.  At the end of class, I pass out, well, fall asleep. I get so relaxed, it's hard to move when class is over.  

    I discovered a problem with the blog file I had set up.  I have been working on editing the original entries in the update file.  I read them, run them through Grammarly, run them through Microsoft's spelling and grammar check, and then add the entries to the public blog.

    I discovered that I had a problem with the update file.  There were repeat entries, and one was out of order.  Figuring out how to determine which of the entries I would delete without deleting everything was crazy-making.  I finally figure out a system for deciding what and where the duplicates were.  I wrote down the entry dates and the page numbers.  Rereading this, it sounds like it should have been easy. Maybe easy for someone else, but it wasn't for me.

    Once I had straightened out that mess, I continued editing the early entries. I'm impressed by how much I wrote those first five weeks.  The summary was: Mike was sick and in a hospital. He got sicker, and he died.  I turned that into a 150-page document. I do love words.

    I took a nap at some point.  I have been upset by some unfortunate interactions with others. (I do not describe problems I have with others with respect for their privacy.) I find I am vulnerable in a way I wasn't before Mike died.  Is it because he's not here to comfort me?  I do find that when I ask him to send me love and comfort, I can feel it spreading across my chest like melting butter.  It warms and soothes me.  

    I did rush off to school for a while, even though I had been working on getting as much done as I could on the blog before Sandor arrived. I was concerned about working with D. in Mrs. D.'s room. His problem is behavior.  Mrs. D. reported that his behavior changed suddenly just before Christmas. I approached him yesterday to ask him if he was disturbed by his behavior and wanted my help. He said yes, and we talked about how it felt to behave in disruptive ways and how it felt to behave appropriately.  He had mixed feelings.  I assured him that wasn't unusual.  We are all of two minds, at least.  He told me that while he behaves this way at school, he doesn't behave this way at home. 

    When I spoke to Mrs. D. after school, she told me what she had observed about his parents' behavior. It's just as bad.  He was hitting his brother. His parents told him to stop repeatedly.  He ignored them.  Mrs. D. told the parents that they had to set up consequences.  The parents said they didn't want to do that because they didn't want him to make him feel bad about himself. Mrs. D. said they were threatening to deny him Christmas presents and then didn't follow through.

    Ah, these parents mean the best for their child. Maybe they had parents who punished them, so they have swung to the other extreme, and they are committed to never treating their children that way.  They are determining what is best for their child based on their own experiences.  However, they are not looking at the child in front of them. It's tough being a parent. 

    When I met with D. today, I told him a story about a child who was allowed to do anything he wanted to, to hurt others, be rude, etc., and no one stopped him.  D. said, "He felt like a ghost." I had thought invisible but had not spoken the word; ghost was his word. He also got the point that this 'story' was about him. 

    While his parents loved him and only wanted what they thought was best for him, I told him he couldn't count on his parents to set limits. He was going to have to deal with this situation himself. He's proposed that his parents punish him in various ways: deny him access to electronics, not give him Christmas presents.  I told him those choices were not an option.  Then he proposed that he make 'good choices,' which is the mantra the teachers and counselors in school teach.  

    I believe that if someone is willing to change, dealing with the wound is vital.  I told D. we had to figure out how to help him, so he no longer felt like a ghost.  I pointed out that everyone counted. Everyone made the world a better or a worse place, minute by minute. I asked him if he knew the difference when a student in his class was absent.  See, each person makes a difference just by being there.  We stopped around there. He's a bright child with a capacity for deep thought. This is going to be interesting.  I don't think you can expect a nine year-old-child to make a 180⁰ turn overnight, but I have seen it.  I always tell kids to think about who they will be when they're thirsty.  Is this the person they want to be?  With D., I also pointed out that if he continued on the path he was on now, he would be in deep trouble when he got to middle school. 

    While I sound like Saint Betty (Mike liked to call me that) in my dealings with this child, I don't have to deal with his behavior in class.  I have a relative who drives me right around the bend, who has treated me and Mike badly.  I can imagine that her problems drive her behavior, but I don't believe that I owe it to her to subject myself to that behavior.  I have nothing, and I do mean nothing, to do with her.  I feel sympathy with Mrs. D., who has to deal with the impact D. has on her classroom. 

    After that, I went to work with D. in Mrs. B's class.  I didn't have a chance to work with him yesterday. Again, his reading of familiar words was fluent, but the moment he hit a longer word or an unfamiliar word, he 'guessed.'  Let's say, his choices didn't have much to do with what was on the page.  They never matched the letters, and they often didn't make sense in the text. 

    I was worn out.  I told him he was driving me crazy with his habit of making these wild guesses on words that he must know he doesn't know.  D. is a really good kid.  He apologized.  I asked him if where he got the information from on these words he missed.  He told me it was from his brain's right side, the correct ones he got from the left side.   I told him he had to discipline himself to recognize when he doesn't know a word, stop, and practice the decoding.

    He was a little better.  It may be that my losing my patience will pay off.  I didn't attack him and tell him he was lazy; I just told him I couldn't stand what he was doing. We'll see. Was the impact of my behavior helpful or hurtful?

    I rushed home after working with only the two kids because I was expecting Sandor.  He was running late because he had a client he had to deal with at work.  He texted me regularly to let me know that he was running late and when he left work. 

    When he arrived,  bringing a scanner I asked him to bring, he discovered that he had forgotten the computer he needed to run it. It had the program he needed to operate that scanner and had the information on the blog on it.  It was good to see him regardless.  He is a loving man, and I enjoy his company and his interest and concern for me. We also could get some things done.  He took the pictures of my mom as a child and a younger woman home to scan. I was also able to load up two boxes of written materials that Mike had collected. Some of the documents were Xeroxed copies of articles; some were copies of papers from his students at the seminary and men in the distance learning program for deacons. Also, there was a copy of another book he had written and his study notes for Latin and Greek from 1994 when he was preparing for his language exams for Catholic University.  That man saved everything. Sandor said he wanted all of it.  He said he'd sort it out and get rid of what he didn't need himself.

    Since my house looked like a furniture store, I discussed the work I was doing to get acoustical soundproofing for Yvette. As it wound up, he had the same problem in his home.  He wanted to soundproof the downstairs ohana so it could be rented.  He gave me new information.  He said he installed the same acoustical mat that I had and found it didn't make a great deal of a difference.  He told me that he was in touch with a company that does acoustical insulation for expensive condos.  There is this costly process with pretty much guarantees as much quiet as possible. I need to get their number from Sandor so I can talk to the company. 

     When Sandor saw my antique linens lying around and some of the stains, he said he had a fantastic solution for those stains.  He had been visiting a relative who was changing her baby's diaper.  There was some stain. She pulled out this spray bottle, sprayed, and the stain was gone, gone, gone.  He asked what it was and went out and bought it. He said it's amazing.  He has used it on stains on his clothes that he has treated over and over to no avail.  He said he would bring me a bottle when he came back. 

    Sandor loaded up the two heavy boxes into his truck and took off.  He had to go home, eat dinner, and get ready for his Bible study class tonight.  While he was here, I called Judy, who had been driven over to Hilo to have her kidney stone treated. They were unwilling to blast it because there was so much inflammation in the area.  They put in a stent instead.  She said she wouldn't be attending his class that night.  She said it wasn't because of the pain; she was recovering from all the drugs she had been taking to deal with the pain of the kidney stone.  I have heard that stents can be painful.  It's nothing compared to what she's been suffering from the stone.

    When Elsa and I got back from our walk, Yvette had already come home.  She was making dinner for us. Some sort of commercially made patty with meat, cheese and kale and a barley vegetable soup.  It was all good. It's nice that we can do this every once in a while.  Yvette is good about taking care of me when I need help and making a point of spending some time with me.  

    I had gotten an email announcing a new season of Grace and Frankie. 'When I got the site, I couldn't remember if I had seen the previous seasons.  I started watching the season before the last one.  I think I have seen it, but I don't remember much about it other than that she will be married to Nick in the season's final episode. It's still relaxing and distracting.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

    Heather taught the yoga class this morning.  I had plans of talking to her after class about my PT, Katie, who said that she knew Heather from the bar where she worked.  I gave Heather her name but no bells. She understood who I meant when I told her she worked at Ola’s. I have given both of them permission to speak about me. Two body nerds, no waiting, and Betty makes three. I had mentioned to Katie that I thought I owed Heather money for all the personal observations she has shared with me.  There’s one yoga teacher who will only do that once you’ve paid him a lot of money for one of his privates.  Heather said she wanted to schedule a private with me. I told her I was thinking of giving her money for what she has done for me already.  She said no, no. She would do it for free. She sees it as an equal exchange. She sees me as her teacher. She also wanted to compare notes to see what I’m working on to see how she can help me more.  I told her no way.  I had the money, and she needed it. 

    I stopped at Island Naturals to pick up some spinach.  They had none in stock. I took home some broccoli.  I went home, searched my email to see if there were any updates on the library book request list from St. Patrick’s.  I need it reformatted and enlarged so I can read it without going blind.

    I showered and went to school. I don’t usually go on Wednesday, but I wanted to follow up with B. in Mrs. D.’s class. He had a breakthrough with his spelling yesterday.  When we started, he couldn’t bring up an image.  As we continued working, one came up.  I asked him what he did to make that happen.  At first, he said he didn’t know, but then he thought he did.  He was able to spell several words correctly.  Unfortunately, you have to get every letter correct in sequential order for it to be considered correct.  For kids who have problems, giving credit for each letter that is correct and in the correct order would be very beneficial.  I don’t know if B. will have an improved score on tomorrow’s test, but we both think he’s moving in the right direction.

    I worked with R. next. She just read the new story.  She did a pretty good job. She was anxious to get back in the room because they were doing art. 

    N. came out next for a few minutes.  He was working on a book about Henri Rousseau.  He didn’t have the vocabulary he needed, but he did well.  He made several inferences.   However, when asked to imagine what strolled meant in the sentence, “He strolled through the parks in Paris,” he came up with sat.  Come to think of it, you can sit through a movie, but you still can’t sit through a park.  I cued him enough, and he finally came up with walked.  It didn’t take forever. That’s a good sign. 

    Mrs. D. said there was this one boy who was driving her crazy with his behavior. He stood on his chair one day and screamed.  Okay.  I asked him if he was happy acting this way.  He said no. I asked him if he would like me to help him.  He said yes.  I met with him after N.  I helped him realize that while one part of him wanted to behave appropriately, another part of him didn’t. I was just aiming for understanding that he wasn’t of one mind, something most adults realize when faced with their favorite junk food or anything they’re addicted to. I didn’t think we had solved the problem at hand, but it was a start.  I asked him if he wanted to work with me again.  He said yes.

Tuesday, January 14th, 2020

    Bikram first, then a stop at the Friendly Place to see if they take old sleeping pillows.  They do.  I dropped off two. Then to Target to pick up some more pill pockets for Elsa. They were on sale. Buy 3, get one free.  I grabbed that.  I had been buying the pill pockets for cats. The pills are small; Elsa is small. I figured I could get more bang for my buck with the smaller pill pockets designed for cats. Also, Elsa loved the salmon flavor. I discovered Milk Bone’s pill pockets are the cheapest I can find, and I can quarter them.  This makes the price very reasonable.

    Home Depot was my next stop.  I wanted to return the additional packet of replacement screws I bought for the Everbilt system for screwing down subflooring through carpeting.  I knew Home Depot only had two more packages on the shelf, and I was going to need more. I checked Amazon and discovered that I could get over 2,000 screws for $25.  The smaller packet with fifty screws that I returned cost $11. 

    I also checked on the cost of having the bisque toilet I was interested in at this Home Depot. I got the same sour-faced clerk I got the other day.  It was not my fault she was a sour puss. I was smiling today. She checked it for me. The toilet in white, which is in the store, costs $176.  Because I want the bisque one, and it has to be special ordered, the toilet will cost me $450.   That is some impressive cost difference.  I have to think about this.

    I went home, did some work on the blog, took my shower, and checked my email.  An email from the Apple Store told me that I had made a purchase for $49.99 for some game.  I don’t think so.  It said if I wanted to cancel the purchase to tap on this.  I followed the lead.  I had been suspicious from the start because the logo didn’t look like something I associated with Apple. I  may be old and somewhat slow on the uptake. Fortunately, I know that if someone is asking for credit card information or my social security number. I am going to call that agency directly.  When they asked for my credit card information, I stopped everything and called Apple’s customer service. The agent told me to check my credit card information to see if a purchase had been made. Okay, that was over my head.  She checked it on her end and told me that there was no record of one.  I was a victim of a phishing attempt—my first. The Apple agent thanked me for catching it and asked me to forward that email to her. I did my good deed for the day.

    I headed out to school. First, I worked with B. in Mrs. D’s class. I worked with him on reading when we first started, but Mrs. D. asked me to switch to spelling.  He has been a remarkably bad speller.  Often his spelling made zero sense. There is no apparent relationship between the word and his spelling, either by sight or sound. 

    He said he had studied and known the words.  I dictated them to him and observed.  Oh, dear. Moreover, he couldn’t remember the repeated spelling patterns of the lesson. It was on regular plurals; each word ended with either -s or -es.  Nonetheless, he would spell the final sound with either a z or an s, but not consistently.

    I asked him if he saw the words in his head. He said no.  I had worked with him on this before. Obviously, it hadn’t sunk in. I cut off a strip of paper and wrote the word trays on it. I held it up to his forehead after showing him the word and asked him to see the letters in his mind. While he was able to see the letters, they weren’t in the right order. I asked him if the letters were moving around. He said yes.  We had done the spin release before. Obviously, it wasn’t enough.  I proposed trying again. I asked him if he would like to try the work again.  He said yes.  He indicated that the letters spun around in the forehead area, the visual working memory, in a spin from the inside out following the right-hand rule.  I had him do a release.  I think I told him to release the spinning in the wrong direction.  I told him to release outward from the forehead.  With the spin in the direction it was, it should have been out the back of his head. Whatever, it seemed to make a difference. 

     Then I asked him to write the word, copying it from the image in his mind. He copied it correctly.  We did this with 6 more words.  I had him look at the word, see it in his mind’s eye, say the letters while looking at the image, and then write the word on paper.  

    After we had gone through each word once, I dictated all 6 to him in a row. He got 100%. Unheard of.  I felt I had given him a study strategy for him to use.  It will be interesting to see how he does on this week’s spelling test. Anything over 50% is a win. 

    Next, I worked with R.  She read the story she had dictated to me the other day.  I asked her if she wanted to read it to Mrs. D. She did. Mrs. D. was duly impressed. R. is making some improvements. It’s slow. When she went outside to work with me, she dictated another story and then did the StoryJigSawPuzzle with her first story.  I went off to work with another student.

    I grabbed N. He is having problems with comprehension. When he brings out a book, it is always on a 2nd-grade level.  I have to go back in and get a P, which is a high third-grade level.  His word recognition skills are excellent.  He looked at the words on the page more consistently to find the answers.  I still have to tell him when the answers are on the page versus something he has to figure out.  When he looks at the words, his answers are consistently correct.  I asked one question that referred to information that had come previously in the paragraph.  He got it!!!! Wonderful.

    I didn’t work with anyone in Mrs. B.’s class. I saw the class pack up and go somewhere while I was working with the kids from Mrs. D.’s class.  I went home. 

    I checked the number of seasons for “The Good Place.” I had just seen the final episode for Season 1.  There were two more seasons to go, and it sounds complicated.  I wasn’t up for the ethical struggles of these folks.  I switched to an Australian detective series.  The ones I found were too intense.  I may watch reruns of Miss Marple.

Monday, January 13th, 2020

    What a day! I started at once in the morning and finally finished at  4:30 pm.  After I woke up at 1 am, I didn’t sleep well after that.  I finally got up at 6 to get ready for Bikram.  As I walked Elsa, I continued concentrating on using my left butt glutes.  I noticed the other day that the left glute is about half the size of the right. I am also working on my left glutes in yoga. Of course, as I worked, it bothered the right side of my body.  I’m always a work in progress.

    After yoga, I was off to physical therapy.  I hadn’t seen her since December 19th.   I had an appointment on January 3rd, but I overlooked it after the lapsed time; the missed appointment cost me $30. 

    Katie, the PT, told me again that my joints are hyperflexible. I have never been told that I’m flexible in any way before in my life.  What she means is that my elbow and knee joints are bend more than they should. This does not result in good flexibility, but poor flexibility as my muscles compensate for my weak joints. She had me hold on to parallel bars as she guided me to learn the correct amount of bend/straightness for my knees and then had me lock my thigh muscles.  I don’t know if I can duplicate this on my own.  I couldn’t find the proprioceptive feedback I needed to be able to remember the correct position.  

    Because I asked her about some lines on the clinic floor, she demonstrated some fancy foot move exercises.  I copied her. She was amazed that I had that much mobility.  Well, it depends upon the mood my body is in.  I call it my bi-polar body: I’m either down for the count or ready to dance.   We went back to the private room so she could do some more body manipulation.

    She commented that there has been a dramatic change in my posture since we started.  She is giving me instructions I can use.  She doesn’t just give me exercises; she tells me what the problem is and what I am working to accomplish with an exercise.  This allows me to make adaptations in my daily movement, which I find is more effective than doing some exercise once or twice a day.  I left the clinic by 10:15 am.

    Because I had plans to be at Zola’s house for a farewell party for Jacquie, and  I had plans to be at school by 11:30, so I could leave at 12:30, I had thought to stay in town and run a few chores. Because I got out earlier than I expected from PT, I decided to go home. I was worried about Elsa being confined to the house for the whole day. She would need a bathroom break. I called E. and told him I was heading home and would have some time to work with K. 

    K. was waiting for me in the house, playing with Elsa.  I sat down to work with him but heard this terrible howling from Yvette’s house.  I wasn’t sure what was going on. I had never heard it before when they weren’t up here, and Izzy complained about them not being with her.  I texted Yvette, concerned.  She said the dogs were confined because we were expecting the gardener. Yes, just open the door and let the dogs out.

    I told K. to read the selections on his own. I could hear his voice clearly from below because he was sitting at the dining room table on the open lanai.  He did better work when I wasn’t sitting next to him. When I was next to him, he had been distracted, and I had to push him to read. Once I was gone, he did just fine. He was reading a story he hadn’t read before. His willingness to do this on his own is fantastic news. 

    When I got to Yvette’s door, there was Izzy. When I opened it, she just stood there, looking confused. I ran back upstairs to do some work with K. I had him read, “Danny and the Dinosaur and the New Puppy.” He did pretty well.  However, something interesting happened.  He didn’t recognize the word the, the first word in the story. He came up with there, they, and them.  As he read on, he came across another  the, read it correctly, and recognized that it was the word he missed in the beginning.  As I wrote this, it occurred to me that he may have been confused because of the capital T on the the because it was at the beginning of the sentence.   I think I will do one session via FaceTime with his mom and him to teach her how to use the material he can’t read on his own. 

    After K. left, I quickly wrote a check for the gardener and answered some of his questions.  Then I went off to school.  

    I worked with R. in Mrs. D’s class first.  I had prepared the story she had dictated to me the other day for a StoryJigSawPuzzle activity.  When she first looked at the printed document, she dismissed it. I pointed to her name and asked her if she could read it.  Fortunately, recognizing her own name is not a problem. She quickly realized that this was her story and started reading. Once she had read it once, I introduce the jigsaw puzzle activity. She loved it and asked if she could take it home. You bet!

    I worked with D. from Mrs. B.’s class next.  He is a lovely poised boy, the type you know will be a great adult. There is a depth to him.  I asked him if he thought his reading was better.  He said yes.  I crossed my fingers, hoping he would be right.  He selected a story from the middle of the third-grade textbook. Wow! He read more fluently, with greater accuracy.  He was able to catch his errors on the one-syllable words.  However, he is still struggling with two-syllable words and remembering phonics rules.  What sound does the ch make? I don’t know how many times I have gone over the options. I have no idea why he has trouble remembering rules.  I am going to have to think about this. Hopefully, I come up with a solution. 

    I worked with I. last.  He hadn’t made much progress, but he hadn’t lost a lot either.  While D. worked over the three weeks since we met last, I’m sure that wasn’t the case for me.  It does help when the students participate enthusiastically. Surprise!  However, he did read the word correctly most of the time. There were two incidents when he didn’t but caught his own error.  There was only one incident when he went back to reading it as she.  Nothing to jump up and down about, as with D.’s progress, but nothing to sneeze at either.

    At 12:30, my alarm went off. I packed up and headed out to Zola’s. Thanks to my iPhone, it wasn’t hard to find. Wow! Do Zola and Jack have a fantastic house! They have a large unscreened lanai with a 1960  view of the ocean.  They’re not that high up, maybe 200 to 300 hundred feet.  The view at that distance is spectacular.

    Suzanne prepared the food. She and her husband used to run a bakery.  She made finger sandwiches and sweets. She loves doing this work to this day—lucky us.  Jacquie had plans of flying back to the mainland Wednesday at 9 pm.

    Again I had set my alarm to leave on time for my doctor’s appointment at the Kaiser Clinic with Dr. Edwards.  I had a lump on my back, which the PT had found. I also brought up the lump I found on my upper arm just outside of my left armpit.  She felt both of them were benign. The one on my back was a lipoma, or a tight spot called a trigger point.  The one under my arm was just a muscle formation. She told me to check the other side in the same area. Yep, there was a similar formation there but not as large. 

    She reminded me that she asked me to consider taking statins. My LDH has been in the 160 range forever.  However, my HDLs are dropping. They once were over 100; now they’re in the mid-seventies.  Not bad, but that drop does change my ratio and implies an increased risk of heart problems.  I am considering having her prescribe the lowest dose and then cutting it in half, with her knowledge. 

    When I got home, it was time to lie down.  I didn’t make any dinner.  I had all those finger sandwiches and sweets for lunch.  I was good. 

    I continued watching “The Good Place.”  I am fascinated by the discussion of ethics in the middle of a comedy.          

 

Sunday, January 12th, 2020

    It poured last night, just poured.  It started raining as Elsa, and I did our before-bed walk.  We raced home.  Elsa does not like rain.  I meant to get my yoga stuff off the line, but I forgot. There was nothing I could do by the time I got home.  It was a hard one that soaked everything in the first few minutes.

    It doesn't usually rain continuously here. We may have hard rain for an hour, but that's it.  I knew from the sound of the rain that this was an all-nighter. I have no idea what I heard that made me know that, but I was right. As I lay in bed, I thought, "I'm not going to church in the morning." Going to church would have meant having to sit through mass, being cold and wet.  I remembered my mom's comment when I was reluctant to go out in the rain, "You're not made out of sugar; you won't melt." I lay there, thinking she was wrong.

    When I got up around 8 am, Elsa and I went out for a walk.  It wasn't raining, but the cloud cover was dense.  We didn't go too far before I heard the rain and then felt a few drops.  Elsa was as anxious to get home as I was. As we ran back, I could hear the rain falling, but it didn't seem to be falling on me at the same rate.  I actually looked around to see if what I was hearing was only water falling out of the trees. There weren't enough trees or any close enough to explain what I was hearing.  I saw a few drops on my sweatshirt sleeve.   

    Judy had written me that she wasn't going to church.  She had another kidney stone attack, had taken some painkillers, and gone to bed.  

    I called E. telling him I wasn't going to church, and he could send up K. whenever. Then I lay down to do some reading.  While I had a sweatshirt on, I was only wearing shorts, and my legs were bare.  I didn't throw the blanket over me, and I could feel the cool, damp air on my skin. I remembered nap time at camp on those cold, raining days in August in Upstate New York.  Our camp was on lake Otsego outside of Cooperstown, NY, where the baseball museum is.  Camps provided me with some of the best times of my childhood. 

    Those days camp was an eight-week affair. School closed at the end of June, and within days we were off.  We traveled by train and then bus.  We all assembled on one of the balconies at Grand Central Station, excited to see our friends again.  I know we were there by the four of July because I remember celebrating it there every summer. Every kid had their own wooden "boat' with a candle set in it.  These were launched on the lake on the evening of the Fourth.  It was a lovely sight, but as I write this now, I have several questions.  I think we all made our own boats. How did we all get that done in time?  And, of course, what happened to all those floating candles and their wooden 'boats'?  Did we pollute? Probably. It was the early 50s. Who thought about things like that at the time? 

    I remember the first summer I went to camp, my parents were so nervous. Afterward, they told me that I quickly connected with the kids in my bunk, who I gathered with on that Grand Central Station balcony and ignored them.  They were hurt.  Parents! What are you going to do with them?

    I had another one of those nightmares about Mike leaving me for another woman while I was napping.  This time, he made it clear that he was leaving me for a gentler woman. I'm kind, but I don't think anyone would consider my demeanor soft.  Again that reference to Mike, he told me to be gentle with a nurse in all his agony.  I still want to report her for what she did. It made me furious.

    E. had called while I was napping to ask if he could send K. up.  I called him back.  K. was able to read the stories we had been working on and one more. I don't want to push it too much because he is still reading word for word.  I want to wait until he can read the first two stories fluently before I move ahead. 

    I called his mom to update her.  She told me that all the roads were closed on her side of the island because of fallen trees. Also, Saddle Road, which cuts across the island through the valley created by two mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, was closed because of flooding and debris. It was still raining; it looks like E. and K. will be here for a few days longer than expected.

    I called Karin because I found another runner I hadn't shown her. She was in a movie. I called Shivani; she had a friend over and would call back when she left.  When Shivani called back, she picked out several items. She loved the stuff and took a lot of it.  Yeah. 

    K. and E. came up. I had E. work with K. to train him to follow up on my work. He read three of the Carpenter stories with him. Then I started on "Danny and the Dinosaur and the New Puppy, a Harper "I Can Read!" level 1 book.  I had him read the words he could, waiting to see if he needed my help. Words of more than one syllable, I just gave him. I guided him to decode words of one syllable with any phonetic regularity without digraphs or silent letters. Words with some phonetic surprises, I pronounced all the phonemes and gave him a chance to blend them.  I could give him up to five phonemes at once, and he blended those to get the word correctly. 

    After they left, I got to work on the remaining lines, things like napkins and towels.  There are linens items four feet long and eighteen inches wide with embroidered initials.  What in God's name are these?  I called Dorothy; she knows everything. She suggested they are bath towels.  Talk about nonabsorbent.  She said they couldn't be dish towels, which is what I thought they might be, because my father's family would never have done their own dishes. They had servants for that and wouldn't put embroidered towels in the kitchen.  Maybe their big hand towels.  I also found some unidentifiable initials.  I found a G.R. and an F. something that looked like a P; neither of us had any idea who these people might have been. The one sure thing is they are all dead now. 

_____-______-______

Musings:

 

    I heard a discussion on what makes for good marriages on NPR.  Research shows that people who complain more have better marriages. My guess is there is a difference in how people complain and how partners respond to those complaints. 

    If someone says they are not comfortable with what the other person is doing, that's one thing. However, if they are just constant complainers, complaining about their general dissatisfaction, or presenting their complaints as accusations, that's another thing.  I can't see how a character attack is going to be well received. 

    The value of complaining also depends on how the partner responds.  There are three ways of responding:  Shrugging off, or even better, laughing off, their partner's complaints. There's nothing that beats being totally ignored.  The second is an automatic surrender and just suffering in silence.  The third is the winner. The partners work out their differences and find a solution that is most comfortable for each of them.  

    This is NOT compromising.  The term compromise suggests that both people give something up, sacrifice.  I prefer the idea of co-creating.  In co-creation, a unique solution is found. It is something that neither party may have considered and may contain elements of both partners' original expressed needs. It's a surprise. 

    Co-creating entails trusting your partner to have your best interests at heart as well as their own.  It also involves a willingness to explore the unfamiliar.  

    I have found that I get more than I had ever hoped for in the process of co-creating. It rarely backfired. I'm sure it sometimes did, like when Mike and I toured Ireland in 1976.  Oh,  yeah.  That wasn't a co-creation.  I just did what Mike wanted without expressing my needs. 

    I must confess there were times I did things where I didn't clearly understand how it would benefit me, like moving to Princeton, NJ, to be closer to his young son.  I remember feeling that this was something we had to do.  I wanted this for him and Damon. I'm not sure you can call it unselfish.  It felt like my need. By the way, it wound up being wonderful for me.