I woke up at midnight after going to bed at 10. I slept well until then. I lay there and worried about my credit card. The current activity recorded an unusually high bill for me. I was concerned one of the scammers had hacked it. I turned on the light and read from L'Engle's Two-Part Invention. It isn't the best writing, but it is a delight to read, nonetheless. I finally fell back to sleep, but it wasn't my best night's sleep.
I completed only 4,000 steps instead of my preferred 6,000 steps on my morning walk. I was back in the house by 6:30 instead of returning home just before the driveway yoga started. I did some straightening in the library. I have more than enough boxes with more coming in with every Amazon delivery. It was time to cull the boxes that were too big. I wouldn't have been able to lift them once filled with books; I hated to think of some poor postal worker wresting with a box that size and weight.
When it was time for yoga, I realized I hadn't given Elsa her food yet. I had prepared it, pouring heated water over the bits to create the gravy, just not put it out for her. I put her bowl by the side door, so Yvette would hear when she was through and let her out.
After yoga, I had a list of things to do. I called Amazon yesterday about my credit card problem. For some reason, my new credit card was not working on Amazon. I had canceled my old one and set up a new one because of that scam I nearly fell for. Yesterday, they told me that I would get a call from Amazon within 24 hours-still, no word. When I spoke to customer service, she told me to respond to the email I got a while ago. I had to put in the last two digits of my credit card, list all the order numbers of challenged payments, and write a note authorizing the payment. I was told I would hear within a few hours. That would have been by 10 am this morning. I still hadn't gotten an email in response. I think the new credit card never registered with Amazon in the first place. They don't have the information they need to respond. I will try again tomorrow.
I also called the credit card company. I had called them yesterday to ask about my problems with Amazon. I was freaked out by how high the bill was at this point. The customer service guy was so nice. He very, very patiently helped me log in so I could see the activity on the account. There were no purchases I hadn't made. At least, the card hadn't been hacked as I feared.
The bill was that high because they reinstated two charges paid for a genuine service for the company that promoted the scam. The credit card company had sent me documentation to fill out. I was supposed to provide evidence that I had ever paid them in the first place. Guess what? I never received a receipt from this company. I think I was so used to getting a routine email receipt, it never occurred to me that I didn't get one from this company. It should be a pretty routine act. I was going to have to accept that loss.
I was relieved to discover a friend of mine is in exactly that position. When I called her to tell her how I got hit by a scam, she told me her story. Now I find out she had a second incident. She feels there's a target on her back. There is. My grandson told me that my name might appear on a list of easy prey because they got me as far as they did. However, I was the one who interrupted the transaction. Once I hung up, I was done. I got ten texts and repeated calls. I didn't respond to any of them. My friend's transactions were interrupted by someone at the bank who grabbed her phone and screamed at the scammer. My grandson says if she doesn't fall for follow-up scams, her name will eventually be dropped from the list.
I had an appointment with J., my sixth-grader in LA, through the Step Up Tutoring Program. He didn't answer immediately. When I'm late, he texts me. I called him. He said, "Oh! He was currently in the bathroom. I told him to call me when he got out.
We worked on co-writing today. I always make it the student's choice. He didn't know what to write about. I have a trick for triggering an idea. I tell the student to pick a color, any color. Then I ask them to back up and tell me what object is that color. In J.'s case, the color was blue; it was the sky. Then I asked him where he was. He said outside. I asked him if he was out on the street in front of his house or at the beach. At the beach. Did he have a story that took place on the beach? Yes, the day his dad caught a lobster.
I got two pages out of him today. His start wasn't great. He didn't orient the reader. Once he understood he had to do that, the details behind the story poured out. I saw significant improvement.
We had some time to work on the reading. The sentences in the current reading are tricky; they are long, the vocabulary is at a high level, and it's dotted with metaphorical language. The complexity of the sentences requires inferencing. Every time a different word is used to represent an object, inferencing is necessary.
I did some work modeling phonemic awareness. I asked J if his understanding of what he hears continued to improve; he said yes. Okay. I'll take it. His verbal expression skills are improving. That I can hear.
I took a nap after I was through with him. I hadn't slept well, and the work, while fun and rewarding, was tiring. Scott was shopping for what he needed to set up the 250-gallon water tank. I'm preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. We should be all right for a while between the Life Straws I bought and the water tank if the local infrastructure collapses. We can make sure it's filled using municipal water. The tank is going to be set up so it can collect rainwater. That way, we'll have a good source of water.
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Musings
I'm on the chapter about Plato in Ten Theories of Human Nature. What do you know? Plato was a communist. He believed many of the same things that Marx did. Private property should be abolished; children should be raised as members of the larger group. Plato goes so far as to say that children shouldn't even know who their parents are. Stevenson and Habermas point out that Plato didn't have much to do with child-rearing and was unaware of children's psychological needs for identifying with their parents.
Plato and Marx differ on several counts, not the least their faith in human goodness. Plato believed that it was possible to create an elite group, philosopher princes, who could be elevated above the temptations of power through education. These men, just men, would then be absolute dictators.
Marx also believed that people had to be forced to surrender all private property. However, he thought it would be at the hands of the proletariat. There would be a dictatorship of the proletariat to institute communal living.
Marx is ultimately more optimistic than Plato. Marx believed that once people saw the virtue of living communally, they would prefer it. Then the dictatorship would no longer be necessary. Plato saw no such rainbow on the horizon.
I think both men were longing for early tribal life. Each member of the tribe was preserved by all the members of the tribe until, and this is a biggy, their presence became more of a drain, an actual threat to the preservation of the tribe. Then they were done away with quickly. Disabled children were dispatched. Disabled adults were left behind. People who refused to conform to tribal expectations were reprimanded, punished, exiled, and killed. It was a dictatorship, but it was dictated by the need to survive- a real need to survive, not one promoted by a dictator that frightens people into obedience.
I'm sure every tribe had a few rules that governed behavior not directly related to survival. There were rules which knitted the group together: food, dress, language, how to eat, when to eat, where to eat, etc., etc. Mavericks need not apply.
However, every tribe needed a few mavericks. It was their job to risk their very lives in defying the rules of the tribe for the tribe's very survival.
I heard a story about a woman in a small Greek town who ate a forbidden food, snails as it happens to be, during a severe food shortage. The townsfolk saw she was not losing weight as everyone else was. They confronted her. I can't remember what they did to her. Minimally, they shunned her. Violate the house rules and survive or maintain them and die? Groups often have to make that choice, as do individuals. Had the group followed her divergence, more of the group would have survived.
Now confusing the value of maintaining what is versus trying something new is a dilemma we all have to face. Yes, there are rebels, but they have their own blind spots. No one gets to claim twenty-twenty vision except in hindsight.
There are Plato's terminal pessimism and Marx's conditional optimism. Neither meets my best vision for us. I believe we are happiest when we find the narrow way between our own needs and others' needs. I don't think anyone can be happy unless we are all happy. No, I don't think it is possible for everyone on the planet to be happy. But we can address certain universal needs.
Finding the narrow path is a personal commitment. I have found it satisfying. Needless to say, there are many people I don't choose to engage. I don't know what to do there. I hope that each action of mine will be the best for both of us.
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