Thursday, May 13, 2021

 Thursday, May 13, 2021

             Yvette has us do a pose in our yoga class where we lie on our backs, sling a yoga strap over one heel, and then lift the leg, pressing our heel into the strap. When I first did this exercise, I had a devil of a time getting the strap over my foot. The next challenge was getting it to the edge of my heel. I noticed today that I could get the strap into position on one try with my eyes closed. 

       My friend Melissa was in Oahu getting her electronic figure printing done. She got involved with the woman who took the prints. She had her grandchildren in tow, two of whom were special needs. One was an autistic boy Melissa described as 'feral'; the second was a granddaughter with speech problems. When I spoke to this woman who homeschooled these two grandchildren, she told me there was a third autistic child. He was nineteen now and sounded functional.  

            The grandmother said the younger autistic grandson was diagnosed as 'high functioning." As the grandmother and I spoke, it became clear that he had only limited speech. I asked her directly what made him high functioning. The medical people applied that term because he had 'some' speech. I looked it up after I got off the phone. High functioning is someone who can speak, read and write on grade level and is capable of independent living. I have a relative like that. He was reading at four, graduated from Yale, and has no problems living alone and managing his life. High functioning autistic are usually outstanding students.

I finally got a chance to do a thorough job cleaning up Elsa's lanai present. I treated the area with Nature's Miracle, scrubbed, and then dumped water and vacuumed it with my Rainbow vacuum. When finished, I sprayed more Nature's Miracle on the spots.

        Judy and I had a long talk about religion. We are both seekers, wanting a deeper understanding of the human condition and the miraculous. We are getting better at sharing those thoughts and learning from each other and about each other without triggering each other. What an absolute joy! Judy has proved an invaluable friend to me.

I had K again today on Zoom. We did more with the handwriting, with me writing the letters in his name slowly and him focusing on the formation. Then he closed his eyes and recalled the process. Judy told me that she taught her boys handwriting by modeling. That's what gave me the idea to have students watch me form the letters. It occurred to me that if they recalled the process, it would strengthen the neurological connection. I am assuming this will also have some impact on K's ADD.   

Many years ago, I observed Emmy Spies at the Lewis School in Princeton do a handwriting exercise with a young child. She had the child form the letter k correctly in oil-based clay. She said that this exercise would also fix any attention problems. I'm not sure about the connection between handwriting and attention, but I think Palmer noticed it. Good penmanship was associated with good behavior and probably morals at that time. 

      After some brief work on the handwriting, I continued working on story writing with K.  He has no trouble thinking of something to say. He started his story by telling me how his older sister is mean to him because she hits him hard enough to make him cry. It came out that she was hitting him because K was deliberately farting in her face. Duh! Remember K is 8. We've written a fair amount so far, and I've recorded anything that came out of his mouth. However, the sequencing of the story doesn't make sense yet. He said he farted in her face as payback for hitting him; he also told me he farts in her face just to annoy her. Hmm?   

       Today, K's mother overheard us. She said, "What is this about farting? Why are you talking about farting?" I called her after the session. I explained that any topic would do for writing practice. This story about farting is a great one. I assured her this was not going to be seen by his schoolteachers.  

     I spoke to my friend John Zimmerman in Maryland. He follows my updates. Many people do to check that I continue to be okay. However, I do not write about some distressing events when they involve other people. Today John wanted to talk to me about something he had read in the update; I used diesel fuel as an herbicide. He was understandably distressed by that. He said the fuel would seep into the water table. Shit! I promised to call the University of Hawaii agriculture department to see if there was some other way I could kill the haole koa trees.