Friday, January 15, 2021

Friday, January 15, 2021

            I slept beautifully, deeply till 1:30. The rest of the night, I struggled to sleep. It felt as if the jellied fat right under my skin was vibrating. I was awake at 5:30 when the alarm went off but tried to stay in bed longer. When I got up, I had a text from Dorothy saying she was in a funk and wanted to skip our morning telephone call while we walked. Her problem was though she had made every effort to get a Covid vaccine, she could find nothing. She wanted to lick her wounds. She rightly said that the problem is that we were told it would be readily available, and now it's not. She said if I wanted to do some work on the PowerPoint presentation on my reading method, she thought that might be good for her.

            I called my friend Jean while I walked. We talked about the vaccine situation, too. Arizona, where she lives, has it the worst; very few people got the vaccine. Her 90-year-old mother, who lives in a nursing home, hasn't gotten it; her schizophrenic sister, who lives in a rehab facility, hasn't gotten it. The governor says there isn't enough money to distribute it. Yikes!

            Then Jean told me something truly amazing. Observing my interaction with Mike made her understand that more was possible in her marriage. She saw us kiss goodbye and saw the depth of our love in the act. She said she had never even seen young people kiss like that. While Mike and I had a sex life, we had this other way of relating to each other, which showed up when we kissed in public. His kiss was one of the best things in my life. She said we inspired her to explore greater depth in her marriage. I can't think of anything I could like better than to help people live better lives.  

            I also brought up the tv show "The Wilds," which she recommended. She was right. I found the psychology fascinating and was looking forward to the rest of the show. Then I discovered this was a contrived situation, putting a group of teenage girls in great danger for some research project. It reminded me of what the Nazis did to the Jews in the concentration camps. Terrible! Evil! I was so done with the show after I saw that.

            Once home from my walk, my first task was to call Geico. I got a letter saying my payment was overdue and my insurance coverage would end on January 23. I remember speaking to someone a month ago. The automatic payment didn't go through because I canceled my credit card because of the scam I was involved in. After a twenty-minute wait, the automated voice told me that I was paid up. I still wanted to speak to an agent to make sure. Why did I get this notification if I was paid up?   

            Next, I called Dorothy and said I was ready to work on the PowerPoint. I had written a script for myself on Damon's recommendation. I needed to have both computers on to see the PP and the script simultaneously. 

            I had problems getting Dorothy's modifications of the PP up on the tablet. My computer is an Apple; Mike's tablet is Microsoft. Two different styles. I have no idea how to get the tablet format to work for me. It's all hit and miss. Finally, I had the PP on the tablet in Zoom with Dorothy and the 'script' on my Apple.   She liked what I had done and had good suggestions-as usual. She thanked me for doing this with her. Doing this work helps improve her mood. I express gratitude for her help. It is the best, the absolute best; I can't be emphatic enough. She goes through the work critically, helping me clarify my thoughts and triggering new ones.  

            Today I reminded her that when we were in our twenties, I said, "If we were one person, we would be perfect." We are perfect compliments to each other. This is the first time in our lives; it serves us so well. Wonderful!

            I was going to do some work when my phone rang. It was from Judy. A good friend of hers has been in the ICU on Oahu for about a month, and it looks like she is not expected to live. This is a woman she has shared a lot of her life with. They raised their children together. While they live on different islands now, they have remained in touch, speaking at least once a week. This is a hard loss.

            I was walking around the house while on the phone with Judy. I noticed some lady out in my yard. A friend of Yvette's? Then I saw she was taking pictures. I realized it must be Katherine from the solar company. I am seriously thinking of buying a battery to support my solar panels. I don't have enough panels to run everything on the property. I am also thinking of having enough electricity to run the refrigerators if the whole grid goes down. I am planning for the worst and hoping for the best.  

            While I was on the phone with Judy, I asked her for the name of her water filtration system. I have bought a lot of life-straws, and I purchased filtering cups for everyone in the family. To use those, you need a puddle at least. With Judy's system, you can pour water in the top and collect a gallon or so. I asked her to text me the name of her system.

            I had a session with D. shortly after I was finished with Dorothy. I would have had to stop the work we were doing anyway. I have a limit on how much I can do in one sitting. Sometimes, she reaches her limit before I reach mine. I tried to set up a Google Meet on the tablet. I prefer using it because it has a touch screen, making it easier to write on the whiteboard.   Uggh!!! I couldn't get the computer to recognize my Hawaiian Department of Education email.  

            Yesterday, the DOE tech had told me the problem was that I had used Safari instead of Chrome as my search engine. Safari was keyed to my yahoo account. Today, I went through Chrome, but it brought up Mike's old email address and wouldn't register my DOE account. Back to the drawing board. 

            I called D's mother and told her the problem, and we were going to have to work with him on the phone as before. She was concerned about everything I went through to get that account working. It has been frustrating, but so much of life these days is. Hopefully, it doesn't get much worse.

            The session with D was disappointing. In our last session, I thought we might have made some progress engaging his left brain. He actually got a math fact correct coming right out of the box. He got two correct, and then it went back to the way it has always been. He guessed wildly; his brain does not reliably give him the answers.  

            The session was agony for me. I'm sure the disappointment in D's progress was part of it, but I was also exhausted from lack of sleep. After our session, I went down for a much-needed nap.  

            When I got up two hours later, I called Katherine from the solar company. I was still exhausted. She had just gotten home and was also tired. We agreed with would talk tomorrow.

            I felt brain dead; the muscles in my face felt slack. I don't know why I am hit so hard. I did a little work on the PP, making changes Dorothy had recommended. Other than that, I played FreeCell for a couple of hours. I also listened to Heart's rendition of Stairway to Paradise, which they performed at the Kennedy Center. I had seen it before. It's amazing.

            It was time for Elsa and me to do our walk. I was shocked to realize that I had nothing on the updates all day. I was planning on doing catch-up today. Oh, well.

            I finished watching the Sound of Metal, the story of a rock drummer who went deaf and how he dealt with it. Not well.