Wednesday, April 21, 2021

 Wednesday, April 21, 2021

 

            I read a bit before I turned off the lights at 10 pm. When I woke, I was well-rested and ready for the day. I assumed it must be about 3:30, but no, it was 11:30. Damn! I dozed on and off through the night. I woke up feeling okay except for being worn out by an emotional issue. Oh, well. This course I'm taking on the Awareness Keys to Exceptional Living for the week was clarity. This key was life-altering, not necessarily for the better. It resulted in me not being as forgiving as I have been. I had to cut back on some of my most important relationships. While they may be important, life-long relationships, they are not satisfying. Some people are uncomfortable with me for one reason or another and are not into resolving differences. I don't want to spend a lot of time with people who don't enjoy me.

On my morning walk, I've been running into the parents of one of the local residents walking their daughter's dog, Bailey, a lovely young golden. The parents are visiting from Alaska. The connection between Alaska and Hawaii is pronounced. When Elsa sees Bailey, she pulls to greet him; or it is Bill and Debby she is anxious to greet? They give her lots of affection, something Elsa has an endless tolerance for.

            I came across a good-sized crushed egg in the street. When I poked it with my walking stick, it became clear that someone had made a safe exit before it was mashed. There must be another turkey baby in our neighborhood.

            I had a shock yesterday. I got my car registration renewal notice. The charge was $40 more than my prior registration for the same car. Why? The registration form said I could get a breakdown of the charges if I went to a website. I went there; it only offered me an opportunity to register and pay online. There was a number listed. I left a voicemail message. When I got the return call, I was told I had to provide the VIN number. The charge is based on the weight of the car. This morning, I looked in the driver's manual for that information. I wanted to compare it with the information they had listed. I also searched for my insurance card; I would need it when I got the car inspected. I had to take everything out; I found I had the title tucked away in there. Oh, great. All's well, that end's well. 

            Today was the first day of the grief workshop. Just being present in the Zoom relaxed me and drained some of the tension I was carrying because of my anger. I have no idea why it has that impact, but I'm grateful it does. Daniela, the leader, spoke for a while. I don't even remember what she said. I think the emphasis was on remembering what the person's strengths were. There are sixty people signed up for this course; that's sixty times $259. This woman has a good gig; she also does good work. She has great energy, and her theories align with mine. She's not into endless positivity; she understands that we have to deal with our darker sides to become better people. 

            We went into breakout rooms. The losses are so much worse than mine. One woman lost her brother to suicide. What a burden! Another woman had lost her husband to Covid. She was now totally alone, isolated in Delaware when her children lived in Pennsylvania. She couldn't move there because she had barely enough money to support herself in the less expensive Delaware since she was in a one-income home. I am so lucky!! At the end of the class, those still hanging on went into a breakout room. I find that contact interesting and often rewarding. There were only four people. Two were related, a mother and a daughter. They were in the class because the son/brother had committed suicide three years ago—two suicides out of sixty.

            I had M. at three today instead of 2 pm. Her mother agreed to change the time. That allowed me to participate in the Grief Workshop. She is knocking it out of the block. I hadn't prepared enough passages from the Barnell Loft book. She had a book she was reading. She started in the middle of the book, where she had left off reading it for herself. She did a fantastic job explaining all the story's details that I wouldn't have known since I was starting in the middle. I never get positive feedback from the mother. M. is back in school now. I asked if her teacher said anything about her progress. She said no, but her grades were better. Great!

            I had an appointment with my adolescent D at the end of the day. He had struggled in our last session after moving through several passages with ease on Saturday. I suspected he was angry with himself. I started the session by asking him if he was angry or sad about his work on Monday. He said no; he said it with sufficient force that I knew he was unavailable to talk about it even if he did. I backed off. I asked him if he was reading along when his classmates were reading aloud and did he find that he was recognizing words. Yes!!! I told him that my goal is for him to feel delighted when the work goes well and excited when he hits a troublesome spot. Those spots allow him to wrestle his brain into a new order so it reads better. He struggled today too, but I didn't feel he was angry or disappointed. The better his attitude, there greater his progress will be. He has good phonemic awareness; he hears the individual sounds in words. His problem shows up when he has to blend the sounds. He has difficulty holding on to the sounds; he switched to another sound than the one he started with and had difficulty blending and merging two sets of sounds. Blending requires transitioning from one mouth position to another. It is not apparent. The University of Florida describes the process as saying the two sounds quickly, one after the other. It has nothing to do with speed, although it may be a way to arrive at the process. Each phoneme has its mouth position. The mouth has to change its shape to blend two phonemes together to arrive at the next mouth position. The sound of the first phoneme changes, but it's small, and our ears are not trained to hear it.