I went to bed around 11; that's late for me, but I knew I could sleep late in the morning. I have a remarkable capacity to ignore the alarm clock when I know it doesn't ring for me. I was up by 6:30. I took Elsa for a short walk because her leg was still bothering her. I meditated for 40 minutes when I got home. When finished, I took another look at Elsa's leg. I can't find the source of pain. She doesn't pull away when poked and prodded. However, her limp doesn't look any better today than it did yesterday.
What does look better is her skin! Wow! I gave her a bath on Sunday. I always use the medicated shampoo the doctor prescribed on her torso and legs. The treatment calls to leave the shampoo on for fifteen minutes. He said, take her for a walk. I couldn't imagine taking her for a walk while she was coated with shampoo. Sounded horrible- for her. One of the Pet Co. groomers told me five minutes should be enough for a small dog like her. That's what I've done in the past: five minutes. This time when I bathed her, I did closer to ten. Voila! It looks like the longer wait time makes a big difference. I bought another package of Science Diet for her when she had her dental treatment, thinking Doctor Marty's food wasn't doing the trick with her skin. Science Diet is really very scientific; it's all chemicals. If I can control her allergic reactions with bathing, I prefer that.
After I poked her leg for a while, I let her stay curled up in my arms, hanging on a shoulder. The two of us sat that way for what must have been a good half hour. It was very calming, delightful. As she lay there, I did some Micromoves on her left leg. After a while, her leg was stronger. She was able to push her foot into my hand.
I called the police reports office to get Adam's accident report from February 2019. There was no answer, not even an automatic one where I could dial the extension. I gave up for a while and worked on the updates. I had to nap after finishing one because my eyes were tired. Working on electronic equipment during the day is hard on my eyes because of the ambient light. I find reading at night with a single light source easier. I wonder if people become night owls because of eye problems.
I emailed the July 17 update to my in-crowd. (Those of you who are reading the actual blog are exactly one year behind. I do send current updates to about fifty people who have been following me from the beginning.) Then I went down for my two-hour midday nap. Judy called while I was sleeping. My phone announced her as the caller, but I was too tired to move. We'll speak to each other in the foreseeable future.
I tried calling the police record department again. This time I just let it ring as I prepared my morning smoothie. What do you know, after about three minutes of ringing, the phone went dead. I was doing something else and didn't bother to turn the phone off. Ten to fifteen seconds later, an automated voice came on telling me to dial my extension if I knew it. Next, I was speaking to a human in the records department. Adam has to order it himself. I, as his hanai mother, could not do it for him. I thought I could order another emailed version. I thought giving Adam's email address would suffice. But no. They only issue hard copies. They put the request into Hilo, and they will send the report to his home or to the Kona Police Department.
I called Judy back. We had a long discussion of nature versus nurture. She talks about traits being part of someone's nature. For instance, her daughter-in-law feels blessed to have her disabled son. They see him as a protecting angel. Other parents would see him as a source of shame. Judy pointed out that in many cultures, disabled children are hidden to protect the family's reputation. Having a disabled child says something negative about them. Judy argues that it is Jazzy's nature to be loving, which she is.
I don't think about a person's nature that way. I think we all want to be loving and loved people, excluding sociopaths. I think more in terms of human nature than a person's individual nature. Judy says my drive to understand, unpack, something like the nature of love is in my nature. I say I was trained to do it.
My father loved it when I thought that way. It thrilled him. Having that positive effect on him was a reward for me. Therefore I sought to get the same effect. With trial and error and I learned to hit the mark. Of course, I overdid it, and I was sometimes most annoying. But I was desperate for some positive feedback given my mother's constant negative feedback. I think I internalized that positive sensation. I love figuring out why something is the way it is and how it can be changed for the better.
At the basic level, I don't know if our positions are remarkably different. I think we both ask what drives this person, their strengths and weaknesses, what they want to accomplish within the realm of reality and morality, and how can I help them achieve it? Do I help them by giving them direct aid, or do I help them by helping them learn to be different? I'm not going to claim that there is no such thing as a natural temperament and a natural way a particular person is. It just isn't relevant to me. I'm an educator. I work to figure out how to help someone be other than what they are, if it is a small thing, like how to form the letter A when writing, or a big thing, like how to become a better person.
I walked 6,000 steps before dinner after having completed only 3,000 on the morning walk. I spent the rest of the day walking up and down my hallway many times. I also did calf stretches using the one and only step in my house. I braced the balls of my feet against the step and bent m my knee. I have tried exercises to stretch my calves before, but it didn't feel right. Now, it feels perfect. I get a good stretch without cramping. While I experienced a sharp pain in my hip over the last week, it is now gone. Moreover, my hip is less stiff when standing up after sitting for a while.
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Musings:
On the topic of Righteous Anger.
Righteous anger feels good. While it flows freely, but is it truly righteous? I have a clear image of a white man beating a black man who didn't step off the curb fast enough when he was walking down the street. I am reasonably sure that the white man thought his response was righteous.
That white man in the above example had the support of his social group and the law. Did that make his behavior okay? Well, it was then. He was beating back the destruction of his culture, the order of his world. Is that a valid ground for brutally attacking another human being? Again, at the time it happened, that man had the complete support of everyone in power.
Now we have protestors. They are expressing righteous anger. They are outraged by the policemen's treatment of minority groups. I say their cause is righteous. I believe in the equality of all human beings and, for that matter, better treatment of the animals in our care that are part of our food supply. However, are all actions motivated by righteous anger appropriate. Are these protestors right to destroy property to make their point?
I prefer the demonstration style of the Afro-Americans in the sixties, Gandhi's model. It gives no quarter to the enforcers to claim that protesters are violent and dangerous. When the protestors actually get violent, I think they undermine their cause. I think there is much more power in a peaceful protest. The Afro-American protestors' willingness to suffer without raising a hand shocked the sleeping white population into seeing what was really happening to Afro-Americans in this country. There could be no argument that the police violence was justified because of the protestors' violent behavior. The only violence the protestors were guilty of is the destruction of the belief that Afro-Americans had no rights.
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