Sunday, May 31, 2020

    I had a weird moment last night after the lights were out. Elsa is licking away because her skin is bothering her.  I often say, "Elsa, stop it!" She actually did. Last night I said, "Hon, stop it." I haven't used the word 'Hon' since Mike died. He was Hon. Moments like that shoot through me.  It felt like my heart was stabbed from the inside.  I am confused and grateful for the disparity between how my mind is dealing with his loss versus my body. My mind allows me to stay engaged in life as it is now.  My body moans for his loss.  I have this great picture of us on the kitchen counter from when we visited Kauai. We're looking up and smiling. That was my favorite face of his when he was alive. I had one I liked the least too. It wasn't an angry face; it was his face pinched with tension.

    I went for my shortened walk. My pedometer was at my waist, and my phone was in my short's pocket.  There was a thousand step difference between the two. Again, the one that was positioned higher on my body was the one with the lower count.

    Elsa's started a new unfortunate behavior. She chases cars.  She has always pulled to get to at dogs we encounter.  Then she started charging at runners. And over the past several days, she has begun charging moving cars that pass us as we walk. She doesn't bother with cars going the other direction. Maybe I still have that to look forward to.

    I went to the nine am mass today.  It was the first mass at St. Michael's since the shutdown.  The other smaller churches in the parish will not be opening for a while. I managed to arrive while the opening songs were being sung. I thought I was going to be there early. Guess not. Everyone was wearing a mask. I almost started laughing. Hopefully, this will look like a funny scene in the foreseeable future.  I had to clean my hands before I went in. I had alcohol on me, so I didn't need to use the church's antibiotic cleaner. An usher sat me at the end of a pew. The pews were neatly marked with green and blue tape.  The blue tape was for the parishioners. The pews with the green tape were kept empty.  This may have been to assure separation, but it was also necessary because the eucharistic ministers had to walk through those aisles to distribute wafers.  

    I watched the eucharistic minister assigned to my area come toward me.  She wasn't wearing a mask. I thought that was weird.  I checked; all the other ministers did have masks on. When she got to me, I said, "Shouldn't you be wearing your mask?" She said yes, paused and put it on. It had been hanging around her wrist. She had been breathing on the wafers for that whole time. What is strange is that no one else said a word to her.  One of the parishioners before me was a doctor.  I thought if no one is going to say what has to be said in this situation, is it any wonder the George Floyd could be killed while the offending officer's patrol mates looked on.  

    I texted my primary doctor with the results of my oxygen measure results. We'll see.

    I had a Zoom meeting with Dorothy and Shivani to edit my article on my reading method. These guys are the best. Dorothy gives the process thought and time, making changes in the text. Shivani was helpful with suggestions. She had noticed many of the problems that had grabbed Dorothy's attention. She said participating this way works the best for her. She has a full life with work and her three-year-old son. 

    I loved having all three of us together. I speak to each individual, which is always great, but this was even better.  And then there was Sidney in the background and sometimes not so much in the background, and I had Elsa over my shoulder for part of the time. We made a group. It felt wonderful. 

    I finally got around to walking around the block to try and deliver the Science News that was incorrectly delivered to me. The recipient's address has the same numbers as I have, but the house is on a different street. I had driven up there to deliver it shortly after I received it, but I couldn't find the mailbox.  No, wonder I had problems. Our number is 73-4410.  As I walked along, I encountered 4413, and then 4409.  Okay, what happened to 4410.  I continued walking and came upon a mailbox that had no numbers on the outside. When I opened it, I saw 4410 scrawled on the inside of the lid. Besides not having the number of the outside of the box, it was in the wrong sequence.  

    It had started drizzling as I left for that walk. It continued that way for most of my walk and only beginning to come down heavily as I returned to my driveway. How's that for good luck? 

    Yesterday, B called, saying he was coming home with Elijah, Sariah, and Kingston. While he was on the phone, he said Sariah decided to stay home.  When I called him this morning, I found out Kingston had backed out at the last minute.  I texted Kea to have her call me so I could work with Kingston.  It had been a busy day for me with church and the zoom meeting.  I hadn't contacted her until late in the day.  She never got back to me. We'll start again tomorrow.

    I had plans to go to the post office this week for the first time since mid-March.  I have a present for one-year-old Sam, some special crayons that will be easy for him to work with, and a necklace of my mom's for Karin, her granddaughter, a picture of Mike and me for the Zims in Maryland, and some wooden flowers for Shivani. The flowers are pieces of a craft project that I bought years ago and never did anything with.  I also have to figure out how to package a very large scrapbook Shivani's mother and Mike's sister, Randy, gave him many years ago.  I thought she had duplicated those pictures in the printed book she prepared for his life. But no, there are many pictures and documents in there that are originals. This is a precious book.  I told Shivani that if she or her mom don't want it, they should give it to Damon. It should definitely stay in the family.

    I was in bed shortly after 9 pm.      

 

 

Saturday, May 30, 2020

    I did a short walk.  I keep stretching my left psoas as I walk. It's tough on my body. When I got home, Yvette was conducting a driveway yoga class.  There were eight students today. Fantastic!  I went inside, fed Elsa, went to the bathroom, and got my mat to join the class.  I thought I needed a chair to lean on, as some of the other students were doing. Scott told me I could use my walker, which I used for this exact purpose in Bikram.  It was sitting at the side of the house. That worked perfectly for the standing poses. Yvette switched activities, and those using the chairs sat on them.  I couldn't sit on the walker.  I went inside the house to get a folding chair. I spotted my folding stepladder. Perfect!                 

I will have to get used to doing this work.  When doing Bikram, I have made all the necessary adaptations and never pushed my body further than I could.  This is new to me. If I do this often enough, I'll figure out my necessary adaptation for each pose.  Yvette does a form of Iyengar called Aadil yoga. I did Iyengar in Ohio. I didn't feel the same relaxed attitude from that teacher. I will get used to working with Yvette. Besides her encouragement to do what I can the way I can, she gives terrific instruction. She tells us which part of the pose to focus on. I learned from just that one session.

    I texted K, the mother, to tell her to call whenever K, the son, got up.  The call finally came through much later than I expected. When he read to me, I switched to the focus to the pitch instead of the rhythm of speech; it has made a big difference.  He was much more able to utilize the pitch approach on his own. He read the second page.  It wasn't perfect, but it was much, much better. When I called him later in the afternoon, he sailed through page three with reasonably good pitch. We're on a plateau right now—time for practice instead of learning something new. By the way, the book we're working on is at a second-grade level.  He wasn't even at a K level when I started working with him. He will be reading Harry Potter by the beginning of the school year, and he is beginning second-grade in August.

    I took a nap after my first session with Kingston.  Judy came over later in the afternoon to go over the article. She said there were things she didn't understand. I thought she was having trouble with the process. No, there was just information included in the article that was downright wrong or didn't make sense.  They were easy enough to correct. The only part of the process she didn't get was using backward-build-up when blending sounds.  

    I direct students to always look for the vowels in words.  If they get stuck on a word, any word, they are to look for the vowel. Then add on the sounds immediately afterward, if it is a closed syllable, blending those two sounds together. Only after that vowel and following consonant(s) are combined do they add to the sounds that come before. They should be added on one at a time, moving backward through the word.  That sounded counter-intuitive to Judy. I can appreciate that. I learned backward-build up for teaching word and sentence articulation to nonnative speakers. I tried it with readers who had trouble decoding words, and it worked. Voila!  What good readers do when they read is a mystery. Do we read words from front to back? Do our eyes jump around the word, looking for chunks to put together? And then there's what our conscious minds do versus our nonconscious minds. Neuroscientists can now tell us what parts of our brains we are using when we read. Maybe someday they will be able to tell us exactly what our brains process what we read.  I wouldn't be surprised if that happens in my lifetime. They have a max of twenty years to get that right.

    Right before I sat down for dinner, Sandor texted me to ask if he could come over to pick up some more books.  He brought his glaucoma testing machine, but we never got to that.  I told him that my oxygen levels have been surprisingly low.  The first time I tested it with my new toy, it was 96.  But every other reading has been 94 and lower. I had suspected a problem because I have been so tired. I haven't been tired every day, but often enough to be concerned.  I suspect low oxygen saturation. Sandor suggested that I might be low on iron, which is needed to absorb the oxygen. He told me to check my lab results, which are available through Kaiser online.  I will do that, but I remember that everything was in the normal range the last time I looked.

    I love listening to Sandor as he goes through Mike's books. "Oh, my God. This is out of print!"  "Look what he has here. A whole set of  -------!" He assured me he wouldn't be long. I told him he could stay as long as he liked, just as long as he was comfortable with me doing my own thing. I sat on the sofa in the library, working on making some revisions to the article.  Eventually, I got too tired to do any more.  I went and showered to get ready for bed while Sandor continued working in the library. I told him to yell when he left. I lay in bed for a while reading. I finally heard him yell, "I'm going." After a while, I got up to lock the door, went back to bed, and turned off the light.

 

Friday, May 29, 2020

    I got up shortly after 5:30 when the alarm went off.  I spoke to Dorothy on my walk. She had texted me saying that she wanted to get together on Zoom to go over the corrections she made to my article. She said the article sounded good, but she does not sound excited about the work.  

    Now Dorothy is a linguistic wiz. She read before she got to school. Exposed to a new language, all she has to do is inhale it.  There is no way her phonemic awareness is not off the charts. It freaked me out that she didn’t get the work.  I think what is going on is that her phonemic awareness is entirely automatic. Having to think about it consciously feels/is awkward.  Teaching someone to tie a shoelace: It is something I can do automatically without paying any attention.  My fingers know what to do; they need no instructions from my conscious mind.  However, if I want to teach it to someone else, I can’t just show them what I do automatically; I have to break it down step by step.  To do that, I have to become consciously aware of what my fingers are doing. Making something conscious that your nonconscious does automatically is awkward and uncomfortable.  This conscious rendering of phonemic awareness is only necessary for those who have not developed it automatically.  I also believe that it will enhance the reading skills of those whose automatic processing is already off the charts.  This should be interesting. Both Dorothy and Shivani were readers, always way ahead of their grade-level peers.  Also, both of them have been compulsive readers all their lives.  Getting them to see the advantages of what I’m doing should be interesting.  While there may be few teachers who were as advanced in their reading skills as Dorothy and Shivani, all teachers read well by this point and may have the same resistance to becoming conscious of the process.  It does produce an uncomfortable experience.

    When I went to the bathroom, I noticed brown liquid dripped on the floor. That could only mean one thing; Elsa had diarrhea. Sure enough, there was most of her waste sitting on the shower floor.  Yay! Elsa. That’s so easy to clean up.  I just took the handheld showerhead and washed it all down the drain. I wiped up the floor and washed it afterward.

    I met with my one student at 10:30. I’m still struggling with Zoom.  His mother isn’t very patient with my struggle.  However, we work well over the phone with just audio.  I’m distressed that she is only focused on what she needs.  I’m doing this for free; accommodating me for a few minutes several times a week until I have master Zoom doesn’t seem to be too much to expect in return. 

    The boy is reading better. He still has problems when it comes to decoding unknown words. However, he is a little better at remembering the procedure.  He has to start with the vowel.  All this is hard for him because he has trouble sequencing letters.  What is the letter after thee? He could say the one before thee just as easily as the one after it.  

    After my session with him, I spoke to his mother about his sequencing problems. She told me that she was diagnosed as dyslexic.  I told her that it is just a label for a problem. I am looking for ways to solve it.  I gave her some directions over the phone. She asked me to write them up and send them to her.

    I asked the boy today if he felt his reading was better. He said yes. His mother also said she thought he was better. It’s only the teacher that doesn’t seem to see any improvement.  I find the flow of his reading improved as well as his comprehension. 

    After working with him, I called K.  He bucks working with me, although I only do short sessions with him.  He uses up more time fighting the work than actually doing it. He says he doesn’t even find the sessions that bad. Unfortunately, I understand all too well the impulse that makes him behave that way. 

    After working with K, I drove down to Eyeland to get another scan of my retina. When Sandor was here yesterday, he said Meaali’inani was concerned about my eye and wanted to do another one. Meaali’inani had time after the scan was completed to discuss it with me.  The separation looked somewhat better. Huh?  Meali’inani also checked my vision on a wall eye chart.  There was a substantial improvement in the left eye. What was I doing? I have no idea. Have I been taking the eye drops? No.  “Please, please, please take the drops, even if you only do it twice a day instead of four times as it is prescribed.” 

    On my way home, I stopped at Safeway. They had plenty of salad stuff.  I can stop worrying about there being none in the near future. As I wandered up and down the aisles, one woman pointed out that each aisle was now one-way, and I was going in the wrong direction. I thanked her for pointing it out to me.  I had an opportunity to pass that information on to another shopper going in the wrong direction. 

    I was going to go to the post office, but I had to go to the bathroom badly. I wasn’t prepared to use the restroom at Safeway. I headed home.  

    I was exhausted when I got home and lay down for a nap. Even when I got up, I didn’t feel great.  The oxygen meter arrived today, but I can’t figure out how to make it work.  I must be putting the batteries in the wrong way.  Sandor said he would come by today. When he comes, hopefully, he will know how to deal with my new toy.

    Sandor arrived. He fixed my sunglasses. One of the lenses popped out when it fell on the floor at Safeway.  He figured out how to put the battery is into my pulse oxy meter.  I took my oxygen measure immediately; it was 95. Wow! That is low. The last time I had it taken in, it was 98.  Of course, that was years ago.  I checked the appropriate oxygen saturation level for my age. Ninety-five is the lowest it can go and be okay.

    As Sandor worked on the books, I worked on editing blog entries and did some work on the article. It was wonderful having someone around as I did my own thing. We talked now and then but not continuously.  Perfect. I told him he was welcome to come over to the house to work on the library whenever. I don’t even have to be home; just let me know.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

    I watched the end of The English Game.  It all worked out well; the working people got justice. Ah!  I went to bed later than I should have.  I got to read a little more of The Hidden Face of God despite the late hour. 

    The alarm went off at 5:30 am. I got up around 6:30. It wasn’t that I was tired; I felt I had no reason to get out of bed.  The article was finished for now, and I hadn’t heard from Dorothy, Shivani, or Judy.  I had some thought about writing another short-to-the-point article about how to divide multi-syllable words. 

    I had a 10:30 appointment with Ann’s student to help him with his reading.  Zoom is driving me crazy. I think it is more of my fault than Zoom’s. D.’s mother said they were running late. She texted me when they were ready.  I tried to get on Zoom; forget it. I just worked with him on the audio part of the phone.  

    I started asking him what he recalled from our session last week.  He had read most of the book; I was only familiar with the section we covered together.  He needed a little prompting, but I thought he did just fine.  He included a detail that was in that chapter that I hadn’t read yet. Sounds good to me.  When I observed him reading with Ann, it took half an hour to get through a whole chapter.  Today, he read more than one chapter with breaks for reviewing decoding procedures and a few minutes here or there to discuss vocabulary words.  His answers to my general questions were good. He also self-corrected misread words several times. That was particularly exciting.

    There were only two spots where his old problems showed up. In one case, he read a sentence that made no sense to me.  When I asked him what he thought it meant, he twisted the misread words into something that made some sense. Well, at least it held together grammatically.  I challenged his interpretation of the sentence.  He had trouble decoding one of the essential words.  He had some problems identifying the vowel letters but even greater problems identifying the letter than came after vowel versus the one that came before.  He knew what the letter was. His problem was with determining the difference between before and after. How am I going to work on that on Zoom?  

    After I hung up with him, I called K to work with her son K. I want to work with him a few times a day, just short sessions.  I had his sister send me pictures of the text of a Magic Tree House book.  It may be too hard for him, but not by much.  He reads in a word-by-word manner, making him sound like he’s a poor reader, but D can say all the words, and he knows what they mean.  If I’m right about him, he will be reading Harry Potter by the end of the summer.

    We only worked with three or four sentences. As I suspected, K could read most of the words and knew what they all meant.  I had to coach him to say two words as if they were one, using connected speech, so he got the rhythm right. 

    Judy called as I lay down for my nap. She had read my article. She was excited and said she could use this with Leon, her five-year-old grandson, to teach him how to read.  Judy has read every chapter I have written, but nothing she has read so far inspired her interest in the process.  If the book didn’t capture her attention, something is wrong with how I wrote it.  I don’t know if the book is even necessary.  Each chapter in the book is thirty pages; the article is six pages.  Judy said she had to work hard to understand what I was saying. She proposed getting together with me and having me demonstrate the method. Then she will look at my writing and see how my words don’t clearly describe what I’m doing. This is fantastic!  I can’t wait. We are planning to meet on Saturday. Of course, this will be in the yard with both of us masked.

    We also talked about church starting up again on Sunday.  I always went to church with Judy and Paulette. Now we were talking about going together or not going together. I would imagine that Judy is one of the safest people to be around. She has had the virus tested and confirmed.  Paulette was around her daily when she was sick and didn’t get it. She is unlikely to ever get it; nonetheless, with a 10% chance of dying of the virus at my age, better safe than sorry.

    I responded to Crista’s survey asking about what people wanted the yoga studio to do. I wrote that I felt that I could only participate if all the doors and windows were open during the class because of my age.  I will join in Yvette’s driveway classes more. 

    I got a text from Yvette saying to reserve the yard area in front of her house for June 11. It’s her fifteenth wedding anniversary.  I asked her if I was invited.  I was sure I was. I couldn’t imagine that I would have to sit up here overlooking the party and be excluded.  Her request is just so that I don’t schedule the gardeners for that day.  I will have to remember not to say yes to them if they call to schedule for the 11th.

    I feel like I have nothing to do.  I have no idea what is going on.  I can continue working on the article I started. Judy already gave me some food for thought.  I had referred to the process as a game.  Judy said that it was confusing because the word ‘game’ triggers expectations of points and competition.  This game does not include those features.  I have to use the word ‘play’ instead, play as in putting together a Lego structure using the directions and your problem-solving strategies. 

    I wrote Sandor the other day that I was looking forward to him coming over and picking out the books he wanted. He has been studying to be a deacon. He was supposed to the second deacon for St. Michael’s parish.  Since Mike died, one fellow has been traveling from the other side of the island to serve as a deacon, but St. Michael’s hasn’t had one of its own.  When Sandor is ordained in January, St. Michael’s will again have one deacon.

    Once Sandor has taken the books that he wants, I can start searching for the books the seminary has requested.  I got a text from him, asking if he could come over that afternoon to look through. I think he is going to need more than one day. If I had thought about it beforehand, he could have looked through the catalog and picked out the books he wanted. He felt terrible cherry-picking the books and denying the seminary of them. I would rather they go to him for any number of reasons.  He will be the deacon for St. Michael’s as Mike was; he was a student of Mike’s, and he loved Mike. (Oh, well.) Also, I don’t have to search for the books, pack up those books, lug those books to the post office and pay to have them shipped to the mainland. It’s a win-win.

    I only wish I had thought of his taking the books before I told the seminary to put together a wish list.  They will be disappointed now.  Many of the thousand books they requested will be gone already. If they were gone before they got the list, they would have to choose from what is left, and there would be no disappointment. Sandor took the seminary wish list with him.  He will cross out the books that he receives from that list.  Then I will know not to look for them.

    Sandor stopped off at Costco before he came to my house. He offered to get something for me.  I asked for my sweet kale salad mix, which they carry regularly. It wasn’t in when B. looked for it, and it wasn’t in again.  Is it available at all?  Is the problem at the production end or with the shipping?  Sandor said he paid $15 for six cans of tuna.  He said they are usually $11. This is a substantial price bump.  I have plenty of frozen and canned food. I’m good for quite a while.  I will check at Safeway to see how they are doing. Maybe this is just a problem with Costco, but that doesn’t sound logical.

    I got a letter from the parish today.  It detailed the rules for attending mass.  First of all, you have to make a reservation.  I suppose they have to limit the number of people who can attend to satisfy the social distancing restrictions. Everyone has to wear a mask; everyone has to sanitize their hands as they enter (please, bring your own sanitizer), everyone will be seated by the ushers, no one can choose their own seat. Every other pew will be empty, allowing the eucharistic ministers to walk upon and down and distributed the wafers.  I was upset to hear that some people could receive it on their tongues. That means the minister is exposed and then passes on that exposure to the next recipient.  Maybe there is some provision for them to clean their hands after.  It wouldn’t be mentioned in the notice because it’s not something the parishioners have to do.  It would have been nice if they had mentioned it.  

    I’m not sure if I should make a reservation. Going to mass and receiving the host has its benefits for me, but it is life-giving for some.  It doesn’t feel that way to me.  I would hate to think I’m taking someone’s place for whom this sacred act is of utmost importance.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

    The alarm went off at 5:30, but I just let it ring and ring.  I finally got up shortly before six and went for my walk. It was slightly overcast and breezy, perfect weather for a walk.  When I hit an intersection where I have chosen different paths, I was planning to follow Elsa. Elsa looked back at me. She is so bright it is almost scary.

    I made a few phone calls on the walk but only got through to Dorothy.  She was doing well.  She hadn't been aware that I had sent her the article yet.  She sounded a little overwhelmed by the idea of it.  I don't blame her. I don't know if I would be jumping up and down for joy if I read someone else's writing and felt I had to give feedback and edit it.  I still am anxious to hear if the article is more accessible than the chapters I have written.  I think the article is a short friendlier version of chapter three.  I wrote it with a parent in mind as my audience. The book is written for teachers who might benefit from all the additional knowledge. Although I think many teachers would appreciate the simplified version for starters. Then they can decide if they want to pursue more information.  I know quite well they will all do their version of this, whether I want them to or not. 

    I have been treating Elsa's skin condition with infrared light. To get her on my lap, I tempt her with a pill pocket treat. So far, so good, until today.  She sat there on the floor, looking at me. I lowered the treat to her nose to show her it was there waiting. Eventually, she gave up and moved to the other side of the room.  When I got up to throw something away, I put the treat on an inaccessible spot on the end table. When I came back to the chair, Elsa was up there trying to reach the treat. That eliminated the possibility that her legs were bothering her and jumping up was becoming too difficult.  

    This was peculiar not just because she was turning down a treat but because she seemed to enjoy the treatment.  The skin eruptions are currently on her belly, so I have to put her on her back.  She stretches out and relaxes completely. Even after I've finished the infrared treatment, she will remain there.  I thought she was getting off on it. I guess not.  Has anyone met a dog so quietly stubborn?  

    As I was working on the blog and updates, it started to rain. This was a surprise because the sun was shining brightly on the driveway.  It wasn't one of those gentle rain showers; this was a serious downpour.  I took some videos of it.  I don't think I could capture the effect.

    After working on the article for so long, I feel like I have nothing to do.  If this form of 'article' looks like it's going to work, I'll write more of them.   Articles are easier to write because I'm not writing counterarguments anticipating all the negative feedback.

    I found a link to an article in New York Magazine the other day posted by a cousin through marriage.  Her husband's aunt was on the cover and the subject of the feature story. Marga is now 93. She survived the concentration camps in Nazi Germany and now tools around in a red convertible on one of the islands off of Seattle.  I recommend reading it. Her story is truly incredible; below is a link.

 ^{https://www.thecut.com/article/marga-griesbach-profile.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=nym&fbclid=IwAR2qRKrsFWtlxcNJNdm3k-3fvJ8RivrzzGd74j-szaqln06SPR4GLYjXxEw}

    I had heard parts of her story before. I had heard some different details because she wasn't up to telling the whole story yet.  

    I'm kind of lost today now that I'm waiting for the response to the article to come back.  I have to reorient myself and write more articles on different aspects of the reading process.

    My right hand has been feeling swollen and numb.  I know, I know. Too much, just too much.  I did a quick MELT treatment and some infrared light. The swelling disappeared.  Take note!

  

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

      I did a shorter walk this morning because Yvette said that my right foot was inflamed. I managed to get in 5,000 steps instead of 6,500 to 7,000.  When I got home, the gate was closed because Yvette was doing driveway yoga. When I came in, there were four students.  Her numbers are growing.  They were doing a spinal twist while sitting on folding chairs. I had already released Elsa to run around soliciting affection from the participants. I stood there doing the best spinal twist I could while standing.  I told Yvette that I wasn't feeling that well and was planning to go to Kaiser to check my oxygen level. I didn't think I actually had the virus, but something wasn't right. She suggested that I join in and do a backbend with the students, lifting my heart up. I felt better immediately.  I have done backbends periodically. This one was more effective because I was doing it in a group and under Yvette's watchful eye.

    I felt better for the rest of the day. I didn't need a single nap. I finished the article and sent it out to Dorothy and Shivani to be evaluated. Dorothy was already in bed, but Shivani got back to me, giving me a thumbs up on getting the article done.  It was Shivani who recommended that I work on writing an article instead of the technical book I was working on. 

    I went out today to do some chores.  I needed to get my car inspected.  As I drove, the triangle warning light and battery light came on.  That meant that my first stop was going to be JAWS to find out what was going on. Edwin was speaking to another customer.  I stood at a distance and waited.  When he was available, I thanked him for talking to Scott when he wanted to know where the battery in the Toyota was when mine died. This was the first time I drove the car since Scott had replaced it.

    While I was concerned that it was my hybrid battery that was now failing, I also thought it might just be that the signal light had to be reset.  It would have gone on when the battery was taken out. Edwin said he didn't know. He would reset the warning light and see what happened. Happily, the light went out and never came on again.

    I asked Edwin where his receptionist was. She was furloughed.  He said his business was down.  If the phone rang twice a day, that was good. He was hanging on. I thought he would be busy. As he pointed out, if people lost their incomes, car repair was not a high priority, particularly if their vehicle was just sitting in their driveways doing nothing.

    I stopped at Island Naturals to pick up spaghetti and spaghetti sauce. Julia saw me and greeted me joyfully.  She had been a Bikram teacher and was now the manager of the store. She has found her calling in this job.  I was sure they would carry whole wheat spaghetti.  They didn't—what a surprise. I probably couldn't have done better at Safeway. I also picked up two Envy apples. 

    Then I was off to Target to return some pillowcases that were still in their original packaging.  These must-haves been bought well before Mike died. I didn't have any problems returning them. I was going to see if I could find whole wheat spaghetti there but got distracted. I looked for Amy's frozen food products.  Sandor had picked up some of Amy's products for me, and they were delicious. I had picked up another one, and it was also fantastic.  I bought four. I forgot all about the spaghetti.

    I went up to Midas next to get my car examined.  I parked and looked through the box in the car for my car registration and insurance card. I found the current registration, but no luck on a current insurance card.  Adam had said there wasn't a current one a long time ago. Josh and I both said there was one. Adam was right. By the time I put the new card in, it was already expired.  I paid off the insurance for the year.  I suspect they haven't sent me an updated one. I printed out a copy of the insurance cards. I told Yvette that I didn't think she had a current one in the Ford that Josh drove to work. She went to check. Yvette was also surprised. She also told me that I would need a cardboard copy from the company; it was a requirement of Hawaii law. I called Progressive and ordered the official copies.

    I had noticed at some point in my travels that I didn't have my phone on me.  I stayed calm and waited until I got home. There it was, sitting on my typing chair. Ah!  

         I noticed that my friend John called.  He had read about the problems I was having with Elsa doing her business wherever.  I suggested I train her to a wee-wee-pad.  She was trained to a wee-wee pad before I got her when she was two and a half.  I put them out for her. She never used them. She preferred my carpets when desperate.  The last time she used the rug, she did it right in front of me.  No, she was not being fresh; she just doesn't have a way to signal that she has to go.  She barks like a maniac when other dogs are barking, or we meet a dog she hasn't had contact with before on our walk, or, when God forbid, the mailman drops off a package.  However, she never, and I do mean never, barks or gives me any signals when she has to go out.  Elsa will follow me into the bathroom every time I go. Sometimes, she wants me to throw balls for her to chase.  But sometimes, Elsa goes to the outside door and waits there. Then I know she has to go out.  Unfortunately, sometimes, I forget to let her back in. She may be out there for an hour or so until I realize I haven't seen her for a while.  When I rush to the bedroom, she will be sitting on the chaise lounge looking at me.  Why doesn't she bark?

    It's not that she's stupid. Quite to the contrary, Elsa is very bright.  I came up with the training solution while talking with John, putting scented wee-wee pads into the shower.  I have a universal shower. It's easy to access for one and all. I'm good with Elsa doing her business there.  It goes down the drain.  When I went to the bathroom before going to bed, I noticed that a section of the shower floor was wet. That's super bright; she heard me talk about using the shower floor, and that's what she did. 

    I loaded the sprayer with a gallon of vinegar and took care of the weeds in my front yard. Spraying the whole yard prophylactically doesn't seem to be helping.  I went back to just spraying the weeds that were there. As a result, I treated the entire area, getting into one space I hadn't visited for a while.  I discovered that two of my hibiscus plants were covered with blister mites again.  I treated them once before.  I was told by a garden expert that I should cut down the old shrub. The plant came back with a vengeance, so I thought it would be alright.  I suspect it is vulnerable to infestations because it's weakened due to age.  I will have to cut it way back and keep it that way until the gardeners come back and remove it. I'm going to have to cut back the shrub next to it too. I will just treat that one once all the sick leaves are gone.   That is going to be a job and a half.

    Ann texted to ask if I would operate the Zoom for my meeting with her student on Thursday.  I thought I would be okay, but I ran into trouble after I talked to her. August, my grandson/tech advisor, can help me with it today.  My frustration with the program actually got me down.   Go figure. How silly can the human condition be? I think we either get angry or down when we get frustrated.

    Ann was going to follow up on the work I had done with her student on comprehension. However, she got started late and had to cut the session short.  Also, the student wanted to work on a different book.  He didn't do well.  He is having terrible problems remembering the names of the characters.  He does okay with the other repeated words; he just has issues with their names.  I have no idea.  It will be interesting to explore what that may be about. Even if he misreads the word, does he know who the character is?  I will work with him on Thursday. I will try to ferret out the problem and solve it. 

    I started watching The English Game on Netflix last night. This is a show Mike would have liked.  I email Jean R. about it. Her husband is English and might enjoy the show. It also deals with problems between industrialists and workers, a subject Jean will love.     

Monday, May 25, 2020

    Wow! I didn't do much today. I mostly slept. I'd get up, work on the article, and go back to sleep.  I did manage to wash my kitchen floor with my Bissell so I could lend it to Yvette to use. The question is, which works better, the Hoover or the Bissell?  

    I felt so drained that I decided to go to Kaiser the next day to get my oxygen level tested.  

    I had been watching Dr. Foster.  It was getting too grim for me.  It was clear that the dear Dr. Foster was unbalanced.  She was beginning to look like the main character in Fatal Attraction, except here it's the wife who's crazy, not the mistress.

    Yvette did some massage on me last night. I told her what my concerns were and then told her to follow her instincts, which are always the best. She said that my right foot was inflamed. It made me worry that I am pushing too much. Maybe I should lay back a little

 

+++++++

 

Musings:

    I've been reading A Short Introduction to Marx by Peter Singer. Wow! What a surprise!  He wasn't initially concerned about the oppression of the working man; he had some other concerns. I may not know enough or understand enough to express these ideas accurately, but I can share what I did get from what I've read so far.

    It starts with Hegel. He argued for the full expression of humanity, which could be achieved through the dialectic, two opposites working against each other to produce a unique resolution.  The resolution was the heightened consciousness of man. It was through heightened consciousness that man can realize his full potential, realize his true nature. Jung built on these ideas. I believe the idea is that as each consciousness interacts with another consciousness, they become larger. Eventually, everyone realizes that they are all part of the same consciousness, a universal consciousness. When an individual experiences himself as part of the universal consciousness, he has achieved his full potential.

    Then Feuerbach, or was it Marx himself, concluded that religion was the oppressor of humanity.  I remember hearing that religion was the opiate of the people when I was a child. I interpreted that to mean that religion convinced people to accept their lot in life, even if it was a misery. But no, that's not the issue. The issue for Marx is that religion required the people to credit God with their best characteristics, and they had to accept their inferiority. Marx believed in the potential of man.  He believed that human potential was artificially limited by religious beliefs.

    While Marx never gave up the conviction that religion prevented humanity from becoming its best self, he also decided that it was property that kept man from realizing his full value.  He was equally concerned with the property owners and the others that came to be known as the proletariat.  He believed both groups were forced into alienation from their true nature by property.  The proletariat would initiate change because they were the more obviously miserable of the two groups.  They would fight with the property owners, overthrowing them so all would be free from the tyranny of property. The working man, realizing his suffering, would eventually fight against it, freeing both from the chains of property. As far as Marx was concerned, everyone, property holders and workers, could not realize their true humanity until they were freed from property.  This is as far as I have read.

    Mike's parents and Jean's were deeply involved with the Americana communist movement. I suddenly wondered what aspect of the communist movement attracted them.  Mike is gone; I can't ask his parents or Jean's, but I could ask Jean. I called to ask her what made her parents communists.  She unhesitatingly answered, "They wanted justice for the workingman." That's how I remember the aims of communism, income equality. What I have been reading in this book comes as a total surprise. 

    I can realize why Marx came to the conclusions he did, considering the impact of the Industrial Revolution.  It created a distance between man and his labor.  He was no longer laboring to produce something for his family; he produced things in a factory for a wage.  This alienated him even further from his true nature.  Now, that would have been the feeling at that time, much as we are now dealing with how our digital world is separating us from ourselves, leaving us lost and alone, struggling to find our way back to a way of life we can live with.

    On an NPR show, I heard someone who researches obituaries to get an idea of the period. Before the Industrial Revolution, obituaries mentioned a person's character; afterward, they talked about their property.  It was in that context that Marx wrote what he did. Man became his material possessions.  It does sound very alienating.

    I have heard several programs on NPR, which coincidentally spoke to this issue. One was by the author of Eat, Pray, and Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. She gave a TED talk about having to worry about having the success of her second book, being nothing compared to her first. She studied how past artists dealt with this problem. She found an answer which satisfied her among the ancient Greeks and Romans.  

    The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the muses and the geniuses. These were spirits who gave the artists their ideas, in the case of a writer, their words.  If the artist was successful, it was due to these spirits. If the artist was a failure, it was also due to these spirits.  It took a lot of weight off the shoulders of the artist. All they had to do was show up and do their share of the work. The burden of success and failure was not on their shoulders.  Ah, what a relief. Who wants to be as good as the gods?  The best we can hope to be is good humans, not God. Here's a different interpretation of religion: it lifts the burden of perfection off the shoulders of fragile man.  Looks to me as if religion can do both suppress and free.

 

Sunday, May 24, 2020

    My leg hurts in ways orthopedic surgeons anticipated. No, I am not ready to give up. Let's see what happens as I progress further.  This discomfort, too, may pass. I 'limped' as I walked today.  At least, it felt like I was limping. I dropped my weight onto my left leg instead of controlling it. This allows my left foot to relax even more. When I came home, I observed my walk in the picture window. Guess what? I didn't look like I was limping. Go figure.  I will continue with this modification and see what happens.  No, my left leg did not hurt more as I dropped my weight on it.  I hear that people' baby' the leg that hurts. I do the opposite. I put as much weight on it as I can stand. That has helped me.  I don't recommend that someone who doesn't know how to be moderate try something like this without guidance. 

    I downloaded the pedometer app on my phone and compared the number of accumulated steps with the count on my pedometer. They're never the same. If I have the phone in my pocket and the pedometer on the cuff of my shorts, the step count is higher on the pedometer by almost a thousand. If the pedometer on my waist while the phone is in my pocket, the step count on the phone is higher.  

    I spoke to Jean R. in Princeton, my hanai sister, Mike's first wife, and my real sister, Dorothy, living in Lawrenceville. I got good reports on the weather for today. Somewhat warmer. 

    Jean has been involved with prison reform for years. Currently, she is working for the release of nonviolent prisoners during the pandemic.  Prisons, like nursing homes, are incubators for the virus. Social distancing is impossible. Jean argues that people over 55 who have several medical problems should be released even if they committed a violent crime when they were nineteen. She argues that if they have not acted violently in prison, they are unlikely, doubtful, to still be a threat to society.   

    I heard that we started using prisoner release here in Hawaii for nonviolent prisoners. Then it came out that at least two men with violent histories had been released and promptly been violent. After speaking to Jean, I found myself wondering if they were seniors or really inappropriate releases.  One was guilty of domestic violence. Apparently, the victims of domestic violence were not being informed about the release of their abusers. Not good. Is it a case of incompetence, corruption, or compassion? If they are seniors, which was not mentioned in the broadcast, it would be compassion.

    Dorothy and I talked politics and language, mainly linguistics. She told me that language teaching methods have switched to discovery approaches. As always, they are going too far. Now you have to discover it all on your own and never state a rule. One extreme to another. When will people recognize that we have both functions in our brain? The point of having both is so we can use them both for our survival.  

    This discussion clarified what I want to say in my chapter on teaching traditional phonics.  I am introducing a way for students to learn phonics through discovery; it's a procedure. No, I do not think we should completely abandon teaching phonics facts explicitly.  I don't even think we should abandon short daily lessons on phonics. I realize that as I'm writing the book, I have been overemphasizing the discovery method because I'm advocating the development of this skill.    I have to be careful not to add to what I know will happen anyway; there will be groups of people who swing to the extreme to the other end. That's what happened with the Whole Language approach.  The argument for this method has validity, but not to the exclusion of explicitly decoding strategies for teaching word recognition.

    Kingston was leaving this morning. I texted B and Elijah to tell them to send him up. They said he was leaving in a few minutes, and there wouldn't be time for him to come up this morning to work. I will have to call his mom and set up daily Facetime sessions.  The first challenge will be finding an appropriate book to work with.  We won't have the same book.  I will ask his fifth-grade sister to find the easiest book she has at hand.  I can modify the sentences by breaking a long sentence into two or three shorter sentences.  If necessary, I can have his mom or sister dictate a few sentences to me. I can type them onto my computer and have them at hand in both the original form and with any modifications I want to make.  This should be interesting.

    I had a good night's sleep and a long nap. It's a rainy day.  My house is in pretty good shape. I don't have significant projects to work on.  I try to do something every once in a while, just to get movement in. I don't like the idea of endless sitting. I completed over 7,000 steps on the walk, but I would like to be up to 10,000 before I do my dinner walk. 

    I don't do the 'temper tantrum' exercise right now that my leg is in discomfort-pain.  I do shallow squats, and I hang from the molding above my bedroom door. I was reminded of the door-hanging exercise when I came across something from Katie Bowman the other day. She is a biomechanist, which means she's an expert on how we use our bodies for all movement. I've read a lot of her material, but nothing lately. The hanging feels great, but it makes me cough. 

    For the past week or so, my left leg has been hurting when I lie down to nap on my back. It was actually interfering with my sleep. So sad. It sometimes bothered me at night, too, when I slept on my side instead of my back as I do when I nap. Now, it's gone again.  I think the 'limping' I did this morning helped.  I rechecked my walk in the glass door on the library to see if I looked as if I was limping. No, I don't. I looked balanced. Okay, I guess I'll keep going on this and see what happens. 

    I grabbed Elsa and treated her skin infections with infrared light. It does seem to help. I will be able to give her less medication.

    Judy called last night to say, "Guess where Howard and I were for the last two hours?" Without hesitation, I said, "The vet." Judy asked if I had already heard. No. While my guess was correct, my reason for the guess was dead wrong, unfortunately. They weren't at the vet with the little Japanese, white-eyed finch; they were there with one of their dogs, Beau. He was unable to pee. His timing was perfect- just as the vet was closing for a long holiday weekend.  He is going to need an operation to remove a kidney stone, which is blocking his urethra. Oh, boy.

    I have been reading the Oxford University Press books, A Very Short Introduction. I have already finished one on Islam, and Plato and now I'm reading one on Marx. What I'm learning about his thinking is a surprise.  I knew he was influenced by dialectical thinking, but I had my own idea of what that was about. I'm sure that my idea is on the right track in the abstract, but it misses the specifics of Marx's thinking. 

    On the one hand, I think how great it would have been if I had discovered these books before Mike died. We could have had discussions about them. But maybe not.  Mike relished his role as a teacher. He had two Ph. Ds under his belt, both involving philosophy.  A real discussion might not have suited him. As I have said before, his idea of a conversation when we first met was he talked for 35 minutes, and then I got to ask appropriate questions. Guess what. That didn't sit too well with me.  Nonetheless, we negotiated life very well, in which neither one of us was a certified expert. 

    I have some pictures of him sitting on my kitchen counter and one on the dining room table.  We have dinner together every night, and I speak to him often. Not about philosophy but about his concern and love for me and mine for him.  That suits me fine. I can amuse myself with my own philosophical thoughts, but there is no substitute for the love he had for me. Boy, was I ever lucky!

    On one of my walkabouts, I put the chair pillows back on a high shelf. I had taken them down to put on the chairs in the backyard to work with Kingston outside.  Once they were on the shelf, I moved the step ladder over and worked on straightening out the game and puzzle boxes to look neater.  Then I took down all the orthopedic braces Mike and I had collected over our 45 years. If there were a few more, I could have put together a local Lourdes display.  There were more in a drawer. I will keep one back brace and two wrist braces since my wrists are giving me trouble.  I will wash some of the braces, soaking them in Oxy Clean powder in a Home Depot bucket.  Who knows how long I've had them?  I think one of the back braces I've had since the 90s.

    My eyes are bothering me. The computer screen becomes blurry after a while, and my eyes itch. It is one reason I have to take breaks from writing.  I took a TV break. I had been watching a taut scene from Unorthodox. The heroine was in danger. She actually wound up being kidnapped in broad daylight by her husband's friend. Fortunately, he let her go.  I watched the rest of the show now after dinner without having to worry about the outcome. Ah!

    While on our before-dinner walk, a car stopped. It was Karen with her dog Cookie, actually Cookie Dough, because those are her colors. Elsa and I run into them regularly on our walk. 

    I made it home in time to watch the sun go down. I did the Bikram beginning breathing exercises and half-moon while I watched. It's incredible to watch that circle of light get smaller and smaller and then just slip away. How can it be that easy?

Saturday, May 23, 2020

    I spoke to my friend Jean M. during my morning walk. She was feeling fantastic today. Yeah. She said she felt okay after her chemo treatment for a couple of days and then miserable for two days, that kind of miserable that makes you feel if this is going to be it for the rest of my life, I’m prepared to cash in my chips. But then it all cleared. 

    I also saw a homeowner on my walk who has done a lot of work on his property.  I asked him if he was planning to use it for farming.  He said yes if he can keep the house. He takes tourists out fishing, and his business is shut down. He said that the insurance company would not let him off the hook when his boat was sitting useless. He was scared and angry.

    I used Yvette’s cheap razor to trim Elsa. I didn’t put one of the combs on, so she has a few bald spots.  I must say she was remarkably good, sitting still while I worked.

    Kingston came up for another session.  Yesterday, when I coached him to use ‘natural speech’ when reading and asked him to correct his word-for-word enunciation, he said he spoke that way.  I finally called his brother to ask him if he did speak in a jerky manner. Yes, indeed, he did.  Today, I selected a second-grade book a year ahead of the book I worked with yesterday, one with more complex sentence structures.  I told him that he had to listen to the music of language. The words were hung on the music, like ornaments on a Christmas tree.  When he started, he had some problems, but not as much as he had yesterday. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. 

    When he came up the second time, we continued in the Frog and Toad book. When he came up the third time, I started him in a Magic Tree House book with more complicated sentences.  I said the sentence, then banged out the rhythm without the words, and had him repeat the sentence using the rhythm.  He is good at remembering all the words. Then I asked him questions about each sentence, doing a form of sentence diagramming using questions.  His comprehension was surprisingly good.  He knew what ‘appeared’ and ‘mysterious’ meant. When I explained words, he didn’t know, he could follow up on my instructions with examples from his own life. Wonderful!

    After he left, I loaded up my spray bottle and headed out to kill weeds.  I sprayed the other half of the strip in front of the house at the base of the rock wall fence. Then I went down to the bottom of the property to spray the greenery growing out of the rock wall.  Those plants have to be killed, or they will break the wall down. 

    I did a lot of work on the writing today.  I started by giving a label to each paragraph, identifying what it is about.  I did more rewriting.  I don’t know if this is an improvement or not.

    Saturday radio shows. On the Moth Radio Hour, a woman told a story of how the police dealt with her and her husband when their 10-month-old baby died. The police lied to them. They told them that she didn’t die a natural death because there was a bruise on her head. For several days, they questioned them about their actions just before the death.  It created self-doubt; did she do something wrong that caused her child’s death, and doubt in her husband for the wife, and doubt the wife for the husband. 

    The police had lied about the autopsy. There was no indication of bruising. The child had died of SIDS. The police had lied.  This approach to extracting confessions from people should be revisited. There are so many who wind up in jail, confessing to crimes they never committed. I am thinking of the Central Park boys, teenage boys who were tricked into confessing. They were exonerated when the real perpetrator confessed. Only then did they win their freedom. Horrible!  

    Is this method valuable or necessary? Let’s see. I suppose we could give the police a break if they have reason to be afraid that the person(s) being questioned might hurt others. If you are breathing and black, particularly if you’re also young and male, are you automatically a danger to society? 

    I had videoed my sessions with Kingston. I listened to one of them. OMG! I am saying no, with the same enthusiasm I’m saying Yes. Wow! I would scare the bejesus out of me. How embarrassing. I don’t know if I’m that way a lot. I just know that the kids see me as nice and kind, trustworthy. I’m planning to find a dog clicker and use it to signal a correction is needed. That at least will eliminate emotional intensity from the situation. 

    I finally put away the pillowcases, which have been draped over one of my sofas, waiting for me to choose which to keep and which to give away.  I took out all the sheets for my bed stored in the drawers under the bed and chose some of the waiting pillowcases to keep as extras. The other 20 I put into a box for donation to Memory Lane. I put seven ironed shirts on top. Order! Ah! Mike is so proud and so sad that I couldn’t do it for him when he was alive.  He loved order and feared chaos.  I am daily figuring out little ways to make my home look more like a motel room.   

  

Friday, May 22, 2020

    I was out on my walk by 5:45. I’m going to bed earlier and getting up earlier to avoid being roasted and toasted by the rising Hawaiian sun. 

    Yvette, who had borrowed by Bissel, bought it up because I wanted to work on my carpet where Elsa had peed.  She wished me a good walk. She thought I was just going out.

    I washed Elsa.  I’m getting better at doing this solo; we’re getting this down to a science. Yvette had given me cotton pads to put in Elsa’s ears to prevent water from getting in them. I had wanted cotton balls, but she only had pads. She said to fold them up and stick them in. Right. One shake of her head, and they flew out. I tried covering her ears with my hand or her ears. Hopefully, this will work.

    Dorothy called while I was washing Elsa.  I called her back. As usual, we talked somewhat about politics. Things are not good. How sad the world is? Some think it is just this country, but I see the problem as worldwide.  I don’t see relief from encroaching tribalism anywhere. I think tribalism would be fantastic if it meant embracing other people as our own, but unfortunately, this means hating the other groups.

    I went out to spray weeds in front of the rock wall facing the street and the one down at the bottom of the property.   These rock walls are expensive to fix. The weeds get in the cracks and can loosen the stones.

    Elsa and I went to the vet. The good news is Elsa loves riding in the car. The bad news is that she prefers sitting on my lap and pushing at my hand to remind me to pet her.  I’ve been worried about the darkening spots on her skin. 

    This is the second time I’ve been to the vet since the shutdown started. On my first visit, they had opened the window by the reception desk and set up a tent in front of it. The office was somewhat higher than I was standing on the ground. I felt like I was ordering a hot dog from a food truck. They had set out benches on the porch area for humans to sit and wait. We had to wait in there until a nurse came out to collect Elsa; she just needed a booster shot.  

    Now the arrangement was different.  The parking spaces were all number. Instructions were posted in front of each spot, telling us to call the front desk and wait in the car until a nurse came to collect our pets.  A masked nurse came to the car. I told her about my concern. She took Elsa through the open car window. After a while, the doctor called me. She told me that there were various reasons her skin may be darkening, including sun exposure. Whatever it may be, she will not die from it, which was my primary concern. 

The vet also told me that she had an ear infection in her right ear.  I suspected something but only been able to treat her left ear before she got away from me. She also told me that one of her molars was coming loose, and she needed her teeth cleaned. They gave me an estimate, $600-$800. Okay.  As long as I can afford it, I should have her teeth cleaned while I can. I had a bag of Science Diet, which the doctor prescribed for her skin condition. I bought it from them about a month ago. I wanted to return it.  I had switched to Dr. Marty’s. The nurse came out, carrying Elsa, and told me she couldn’t help me with the return. I would have to go to the reception desk to do that and pay for the visit.  

    Donna, the receptionist, asked me why I wanted to return it.  I asked her if I had to tell her to complete the return. She said no, she was just curious.  I explained that I had switched to Dr. Marty’s dog food after checking the Science Diet ingredients. The first ingredient was corn starch. Really? Then it went to hydrolyzed chicken. After that, it was one chemical ingredient after another. Also, Elsa hated it and d Dr. Marty’s.  I paid the $50 I owed. Donna promised to have the returned food cost credited to my account, and Elsa and I headed home.

    I allowed her to walk to the door from the car without a leash. Mike would have had my head for taking such a risk.  If a cat came along, she would have taken off, even across the road.

    Elijah called as I was leaving the vet.  He said I had told B. that I wanted to work with his brother Kingston. Kingston came to me as a non-reader in first grade. I had about three sessions with him, and he took off. His mother, brother, and sister are all working with him.   I was impressed with his decoding skills. We worked on a book that was an end-year first-grade book.  He is on grade level now. However, he still reads very slowly, word for word.  I will work with him on his automatic processing for our next session. 

    I was planning to do more writing on the article on my reading method.  I lay down, read the first page, made a few notes, and went to sleep. When I woke up, Fresh Air was on. Well, I had to listen to that. Again, I put off working on the article. 

    Tonight’s dinner was canned salmon on a lettuce leaf.  I’ve had it before and was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the brand of salmon I had. I mean, I really didn’t like it. I didn’t like it enough that I’m thinking of giving the remaining cans away and returning another package that I brought.

    Tonight, I started watching Netflix’s Unorthodox, which both Dorothy and Damon have recommended. It’s a wonderful drama, but I fear everything that shows any Jew in a negative light as feeding into the growing anti-Semitism.  The evangelic church strongly supports Israel. I believe that while they are pro-Zionist, they are also anti-Semitic. Put those two together.  As one wise old Jewish woman said to her granddaughter, there is a new wave of anti-Semitism every hundred years. It’s almost unstoppable.