Driveway yoga day. I got up shortly after 5:30. It was so cold this morning I could have done with a pair of gloves. I got some great videos of our neighborhood wildlife, primarily turkeys. I make them daily and send them to my great-nephew Sidney in CA. I understand they're a hit with him. I experienced something new in yoga. I got more flexion in my left hip. I was able to sit at the edge of the chair and be straight. Whatever, yoga is always calming. I need it.
I got a text during the class but ignored it. Yvette asked me to turn off the sound so it didn't disturb others. I'm good at ignoring my phone. I suspect others don't do as well as I do. I lived in a commune. The phone could be for anyone of twelve people. Letting phones just ring and ring was a survival skill. ( This was in the 70s. Well before the invention of cell phones.)
When class was over, I read the text. It was my friend from Ohio. I hadn't spoken to her for a while and called the other day. I got a message back that she was very sick and couldn't talk at that time. I wished her well. Today she told me that she had been in the hospital for a month already. There were plans for her to go home Tuesday. Today I got an update; it had been changed for Thursday. She gave me some details. It's not the virus, but she is incredibly ill. Her body was shutting down.
Jean called to tell me the New Jersey and New York had shut their borders to visitors. Anyone coming to stay has to observe a two-week quarantine. Jean and I spoke the other day about how to deal with visitors. Jean's husband's daughter was planning to come up from Richmond, VA, to stay with a friend and visit her parents. Jean and John both have health issues. Jean was adamant that his daughter and grandson should not visit. They weren't going to come into the house. There is a lovely open porch at the front of their house. John was going to meet them there. It seemed reasonable to me if they were all masked and sitting at appropriate distances. Jean was still nervous about it. The decision was taken out of everyone's hands with this state order.
Marissa from Progressive called me back. The other day, she told me her parents were ill, and she had to take care of her one-and-a-half-year-old son. Today, she told me that her parents both had Covid. Her mother is in her late sixties and her step-dad in his seventies. This is not good. I told her what I had learned from the State Insurance Department. Auto insurance companies can raise rates if a driver has been in an accident, even if there is no claim against the said insurance company.
I spent most of the day struggling with the article I'm writing. I can see that I have lost whole chunks of material that I had written already and liked. This is very upsetting. I called Dorothy to get some comfort. It was late for her already. She had a doctor's appointment the next day. She talked excitedly about this student she is tutoring for SAT prep. She is having a blast. Dorothy is a fantastic student and found the verbal part of the practice tests difficult. She wondered how she did so well when she was younger. I am thinking maybe she hasn't maintained the skills she needs. Tutoring this child serves as a refresher course. She says the passages require very close reading.
She talked about a passage that was adapted from Watson and Crick about DNA. There are several unfamiliar terms. It's interesting. For the purpose of reading comprehension, the reader doesn't have to know what the words mean. When reading for understanding, you only have to understand the relationship between the objects well enough to understand the passage. Learning about the structure of DNA is different than learning to understand an article about the subject. In this case, understanding the role of the function words is more important than knowing the vocabulary. The function words, of, and, to,, by, for, etc., tell us about the relationship between the words.
Sandor told me that he took a speed reading course. He was told the trick was to only read the context words, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. That works when you are already familiar with the material, like a novel. We are all familiar with the relationships between characters; therefore, we can infer the information provided without the function words.
I continued my indoor walking. I had completed 5,000 steps before my before dinner walk. After dinner, I wanted to watch "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." Amazon found it for me. It was carried by some company I never heard of. It wasn't for rent, only for sale. I didn't want to pay $16 for a movie I would watch only once. Thank you anyway.
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Musings:
I was faced with upsetting realizations yesterday about the political situation. I learned that people will support a dictatorship under Trump; they will support whatever he says. They are afraid of a dictatorship under Islamic rule. So far, I have heard many cries from the right about anarchists, Marxists, and Communists. So far, I have heard nothing about Muslims being behind the protests.
Can I believe that there are Muslims out there who are plotting to take over the US and force everyone to convert? Sure. I can also believe there are Christians who want a dictatorship in the name of their religious values and want everyone to be Christian and follow their form of Christianity. You name the group; I believe a faction dreams of absolute rule over the US. Let's add China and Russia to the list. I am not less afraid of one versus another. They all sound horrible to me. None of these extreme forms of politics represents a world I would want to live in. All of them are based on the exclusion of some other group, demonizing the others. Do I believe there are demons among each group? Yes.
What I look at is which group is surging forward. It's like watching a race, watching one horse gain a lead, and then another pull up and overtake it. I don't see Islamic forces in the front of the pack. My horse looks for the narrow way between protecting the rights of others as well as mine. I see it nowhere in the current power structure.
Some claim it is a violation of their civil liberties to have to wear a mask. These people potentially put the lives of others at risk. They are prepared to cause others' death on the strength of their beliefs, political and religious.
I bet these same people judge a mother who does drugs while pregnant as a criminal because of the potential harm to her child. How is it that a group can be so hypocritical? If it is their right to put others' lives in danger, why isn't it all right for this woman to do what she wants and put her unborn child in danger? Is my adult life worth less than the life of an unborn child? To boot, there are people under 60 dying of this disease. If you want to blow off my life's value because I'm old, I can relate. But it isn't just the life of the elderly that is at stake.
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