Wednesday, March 24, 2021

 Wednesday, March 24, 2021

             I feel somewhat better today- not quite as touchy. Thank God. Being easily irriitated is the worst. I ran into Jill on one of my walks. I had seen her in a dog’s age. She told me that her mother had just died. She was on the phone with her mother when her speech became garbled. She hung up and called emergency services. She was able to get to the mainland and visit her mom before she died. As we were talking, Mary Ann and Paulette came along. When they asked how I was, I told them a bit better, but I generally have a tough time. Paulette told me that it is frequently said that the third year is the worst. I guess it takes that long to sink in. Mary Ann announced that she had lost her fiancé just before Christmas. They had been together five years. I walked with those two ladies a bit before my leg gave out. Paulette said she has heard of more and more people who died of pancreatic cancer or pancreatitis as Mike did. 

            I think recovering from the loss of Mike is a bit like drug withdrawal. Paulette said it was generally considered more as PTSD. Interesting. I can see if someone experiences an unexpected loss. That must be very shocking. I had been expecting Mike’s loss since the day I accepted him as my life partner, long before we were married. I lost my dad when I was fifteen. Many people who lost parents as children live anticipating the death of those they rely on. This can have certain advantages. Each day I spent with Mike was a precious gift, and I was prepared when he did die. Also, I am freaking lucky. Living where I currently live made the transition relatively easy.

            But now I have to deal with the loss of part of myself. I am no longer in the role of Mike’s loving wife. I loved being his life partner, his go-to person, the person he loved being so much, and the person I loved so much. All that is gone. It’s a huge loss. However, I will never forget that I had it for 45 years and appreciate how blessed I was.   

            I did some garden work. Ah. What a relief to do just a little every day. Even 5 to 10 minutes a day would take care of the work. When I do do that little bit, I feel I’ve done well for the day—so much bang for so little buck. 

            I had my 10-year-old D at 11.   He’s back to using his mom’s phone to connect with me. Maybe I’ll try to figure out how to use his school computer again. I have to go through the school’s email. It took forever to get that assigned, and once I did, I still couldn’t figure out how to use it. His tablet died, and the one his grandmother passed on to him doesn’t have a working microphone. Oh well.

            I worked on the Barnell Loft paragraphs on the third-grade level Drawing Conclusions book. The book offers paragraphs and then multiple-choice comprehension questions. D. is challenged by having to read the words and then figure out the answers. Today, when decoding a word, he couldn’t remember the vowel letters. More specifically, he forgot that A was a vowel letter. Everything has to be reviewed with him. There is no recall. However, there has been progress. While there is no conscious recall of anything, he can apply principles directly from the unconscious if he can get it into his long-term memory. On a good note, he did stop when he misread a word because it didn’t make sense.  

            Then it was off to drop off my taxes to Miss Kitty. I had planned to do that and then go to the Post Office and then the bank. By the time I arrived at Miss Kitty’s, it was one. I had to be back by 2 pm to work with M. I expected the office to be locked already and had to push my documents through the mail slot in the front door. I saw a table sitting outside the office, but I also noticed that the door was open. I entered to drop off my taxes. Miss Kitty came toward me and told me to drop it in the basket. As I drove back to town, I got a phone call from her secretary to make a telephone appointment with Kitty to go over my taxes before she completed the forms. 

            I stopped off at Ace Hardware on the way home. I had time to do that. I picked up some WD -40 on the saw as I trimmed some of the thicker branches. I got home in time for my 2 pm. session.  

            I continued working with M on inferencing. She moved along swimmingly. I started at a low 3rd grade level in the Barnell Loft material. We are now moving quickly through fifth-grade material. I’m having some trouble with it. I don’t find their items as clear-cut at this level. I think there was one where I made a mistake, and M got it right. I was too top-down in my approach and did not use the words in the paragraph enough.  

            After I had her, I had a session with J. First, I had to tell him that Jean, my hanai sister, confirmed that his solution to a math problem was correct and mine was not. I couldn’t remember the order of operations. When I looked it up, I could only find that multiplication and division came before addition and subtraction, but I couldn’t find information on which came first multiplication or division. Jean reminded me of PMDAS. Ah yes. I hadn’t seen that at a time.

            He again zoomed through his work. I asked him if he was getting more items correct on his own than he had. The answer was finally yes. Yay!! He’s finally learning some self-confidence. I will stick with him as long as he needs me, but he’s going to dump that ole bag soon enough- as he should. That is my objective. He is going to be a dynamite student.  

            He had to do work on a lesson on evolution. He had to define terms. He watched a video on the topic. It was a cartoon designed for kids. It was a pleasure to watch. The follow-up work was good too. He had to define terms. In some cases, he could get the information from the video; in some cases, he had to go to the Internet to find the terms. Get this definition of evolution: “The time when the stuff from the past is upgraded.”  I don’t know if his teacher will like this definition, but I think it is brilliant for a sixth-grader. It is his definition, and it shows an understanding of the concept. Perfect? No. But I sincerely hope it will be good enough for his teacher.

    Some object to kids learning from videos rather than books. Bull shit! These kids are getting ten times the information we got when we were kids. The exercises are just as challenging. They require a fair amount of writing. I don’t know about you, but when I was in sixth grade, I went to the World encyclopedia when I had to make a report. It was easier to understand than the Britannica. I rephrased what I found in that book, which was considered good enough. Now, the material is written for these kids. They don’t have to go to the library to find it. It is now easily accessible. Is that bad? I’m learning something new or having old information refreshed. It’s fun.

            I watched some more of Mank on Netflix. It’s a good movie, but I need something like the Andry Griffith Show or Mash. Everything is so dark, troubled. There isn’t a nice person in the whole movie, with the possible exception of Marion Davies. She was an innocent, or that’s how she was depicted.