Tuesday, June 1, 2021

 Tuesday, June 1, 2021

             I had a strange dream in the early hours of the morning. I caught sight of Mike floating by in a large red balloon-shaped long and narrow to fit him. I grabbed the balloon by the knot and tore it open. It wasn’t a joyful reunion once he was out; instead, it was a sigh of relief; Ah,  things were the way they were supposed to be. Mike was where he should be. In the dream, a woman I know from Bikram explained what happened to Mike. Aliens had taken him to make him better in some way. A show I watched a show on interplanetary aliens must have influenced me. Ironically, if Mike couldn’t locate me, he feared aliens had taken me. I think he meant it as a joke. Mike wasn’t the sort to believe in aliens.

            I woke to a bad attack of grief. I wasn’t thinking of anything; my body ached. I sat with it for a while. Then I got up and went on with my day. In doing that, I muted my feelings. They didn’t go away; they just weren’t as loud.

           I watched my Tesla app while on my morning walk. The solar kicked in at 6:15. The moment the sun shows up over the top of the mountain, it hits the solar panels. It’s not a high amount of solar energy, but the house in the default mode doesn’t need a lot. We run between .7 kWh and 1.2 kWh. If I run the clothes dryer, I watch that number jump.

            On my morning walk, I had a longer-than-usual talk with a couple I run into regularly. They’re about my age. Today I learned they were Catholics, and they knew Mike in his role as Deacon at the church. Then the husband told me he stopped attending church because he learned they sent all the money collected by the church to the Bishop. He decided how to distribute that money to the parishes. He also said that the first million dollars of the building fund had to go to the Bishop. His third claim was that the Bishop demanded that our parish give money to a less affluent one. 

            I called the church to ask for information on all this. Susan, the parish office manager, if not the parish administrator, was out. She would be in tomorrow.   I called Judy to find out what was going on. She had partial information. She knew that all the parishes had a significant assessment to help cover the sex abuse lawsuits. She also knew the priests earned $41,000 a year, regardless of how long they had been in the business and the Bishop something like $45,000. A first-year priest earned the same amount of money as one about to retire. I still wanted to get information from Susan, the horse’s mouth.

            Brian stopped by to pick up my old Apple and the new one I ordered. My old one has been pulling some funny tricks. It shuts off whenever, even when I’m in the middle of typing. Brian told me that there was a new model out considered the best ever. My old one could crash at any point; I should consider getting a new one. I ordered it. It was supposed to arrive in July; It came two weeks later. Brian transferred data from the old Apple to the new one. I’m set for the next ten years. In the meantime, I’m using the old one until it gives up the ghost. 

            I had two scheduled sessions for the day. One canceled, saying, “Oh, shit! We’re not home!” School is closed now, and people are confused. 

            Then I had my last session with A for a while. His mother was going to try to arrange at least one Zoom session a week. He and his brother will spend the summer on the east coast with their two sets of grandparents in Florida and Georgia. Apparently, the grandparents are not cooperative with the plan to continue tutoring over the summer. Today’s session was the same ole same ole with him. We’re in drill mode. His mother finally told me that his reading score was just under 2nd grade. This makes him just a year behind where he should be. They never told me his reading level before I started with him. I assumed it was very low because they have been over the moon about his progress. I suspect that there are some changes in his behavior as well. His mother did tell me that his hope for his prospects had changed. He said he wanted to be president of the United States. He would never have held out that possibility for himself before.