Monday, June 7, 2021
After several days of missing them on my morning walk, I ran into Vince and Julie. I asked Vince for the name of the church whose pastor claimed that all the money collected went to the Bishop. Refusing to give more money, Vince contributed by buying a lawnmower for the church. I asked him if he had heard Fr. Lio’s response to the rumors he mentioned. He said no. He was sincere; I know Vince. If he were pulling my leg and egging me on, he would have giggled in glee that I was now going to give him the same information he already had. I told him everything that Susan told me: all churches were assessed according to their income, no additional money ever went to the Bishop, not a cent of the building fund ever left the parish, and the decision to help out the parochial school in Hilo was a parish decision and did not come down from the Bishop. While a panel decided to donate that money to the Hilo school of parishioners, the church was not a democratic institution. All parishioners did not get a chance to vote on decisions of the church.
At eleven a.m., I had my reading support zoom meeting. There were three participants today. Today I told them that I didn’t expect them to apply everything I told them immediately. I could expect them to try something I suggested and think, “This makes no sense.” Unfamiliar situations often don’t make sense to us. I told them to please think of contacting me if they made an effort and let me know how it went.
Today, when one of the participants asked me about the value of doing a particular activity, after I had spoken at great length about not doing it until other work had been done first. I didn’t snap at her. I had that experience in my first session when I did snap at the poor guy. “I just spent 45 minutes telling you not to do what you just described, and you are now asking me if you should do it?” It is hard for anyone to let go of their preferred or just familiar procedures. It means moving out of their comfort zone. It is interesting listening to people harken back to their basic beliefs. All I can do is put these ideas out. All the participants thanked me. Lord only knows what they made out of it. Lord only knows how they will apply what I taught them. I would love to know. There is a good chance they will use it in some way I never conceived of, and I will learn something new.
I continued with Dash’s new regime. He read the paragraph faster with more accuracy but again got stuck on the word silence. With support, he could figure it out but did not try it on his own. I have to take him through the procedure again and again. “Start with the vowel if there are consonants after it, blend those with the vowel. Then, and only then, blend the sounds before the vowel.” I’m not sure if he finds it hard to remember the steps or just wants to read the word from the first letter, and he can’t let go. I reviewed the short and long vowel patterns in the sentences we read. I had him ask, “What are the patterns?” When I asked him if he was looking for patterns, he said, “I don’t know.” I think having him mouth the words may have helped. I hate to be too optimistic. I had him sound out and spell the words we had read. OW! He confused a final /th/ with /z/ sound. He doesn’t have good phonemic awareness. Wait!
The sound /th/ in the final position sounds a lot like the /z/ in the final position—time for me to rethink this situation. I also discovered he didn’t know the vowels. He listed ‘r’ as a vowel letter. This was upsetting. It means neither he nor his mother worked to make sure he did the exercise I sent home. I will have to cover it. He did, however, ask about the beginning sound in amazing. /Uh/, for the a? Yes. The idea of statistical likelihood is an essential concept for readers of English. He understood the concept of the likelihood that a baseball player hit a home run or even a first.
Then I was off to town. My first stop was at T- Mobile. Again, I had a longish wait, but my Kindle was with me. It was an opportunity to read. I had a quick question. What do I have to do to bring up the apps I’ve used to swipe them away? The thing I used to do no longer works. I know when I have too many, it drains my battery. When I got the phone, the clerk showed me how to do it. I saw her wipe her hand across the screen. I tried swiping in every direction; nothing worked. The clerk showed me I had to be at the default screen. The swipe was up, and then a right-angle swipe to the right, an upside-down L. He also told me I could find all I needed to know on YouTube. Problem: I didn’t know what this was called.
I went to the Cemetery next. I wanted to remeasure the stones I saw there. I had decided upon one, but I couldn’t find where I had recorded the information. While there, I looked around to see any examples of gravestones with brass plate faceplates. I didn’t see one. I did see one with a plexiglass plate. I called the engraving company to see if I could use it for a gravestone marker. No, it became cloudy within three years when outdoors.
I stopped at the bank to cash a check. They couldn’t find my account. They said it was closed. “When was the last time I used it? “ I made a Venmo deposit the day before. No idea. After about five minutes, they found it.
As I drove to my next destination, the granite shop, I listened to Terry Gross interviewing Rita Moreno. She told a story about sexual abuse that was stunning. One of her agents raped her. When she ran into him many years later, he said, “I wanted to get you pregnant, so you would be beholding to me.” No apology, no regret for regrettable behavior. How did this man get away with his behavior and walk around free?
I barely made it to the granite shop on time. It was 3:30, and they closed at 4. The manager/owner remembered me. “Ah, you’re back.” Damon and I had already picked out a sample. There wasn’t much to do. I want it in a 12 x 24 x 3 granite slab. The plan is to rest it on an angled-cement pillow. The manager gave me the name of a stone engraver – if I could get hold of her. The person who had done it before had retired and sold the business to this woman.
I don’t know what prompted me, but I told him I was a tutor. He asked me of what? I was surprised by his interest. He had a daughter who had trouble with math. He was pretty pissed with her. He described her as lazy. His daughter has problems.
Damon called as I was leaving the granite shop. I love talking to that guy. I can talk about problems I’m having and what is going on in his life and the lives of his wife and child, who is about to head off to college. My alarm went off, and I didn’t know why.
Judy called while I was on the phone with Damon. I knew she was on her way home from the vet. I had to get off with Damon. As suspected, Xander is on his last legs. The vet said he had the most enlarged heart he had ever seen. His belly was distended because he was retaining liquid. The vet said he would probably drop dead of a heart attack or stroke. He also said he was amazed that Xander was still moving about, climbing the hill from Adam’s house to Judy’s and wanting to play. What a dog! It does seem as if the rapture for animals has arrived on Nehiwa Street. Beau was put down last week and Izzy today; Xander is on his last legs, as is Yvette’s cat, Brooklyn.
I remember a sudden rash of people dying right before Mike got sick. It sent a chill through me. Nonetheless, until the last moment, I held out hope that I would get him back as he was before this illness hit. I know now I would never have had that. People who were intubated from Covid were permanently damaged. It’s not the same as intubation during an operation. Mike and Covid patients have dealt with prolonged intubation, not a couple of hours. Oh, he suffered so. That’s my greatest sadness. It was all for naught.
When I got home, I checked my phone. Oops! I had a 4 pm appointment with I. That’s why my alarm went off when I was at the granite store. Now, it was almost 4:30. We started late. She wrote one whole chapter and started a third in her story about Charlotte and her affiliation with Captain Man.
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