Monday, August 31, 2020

After my morning walk, emphasizing the figure eight with my hips, I checked my email, had my morning two cups of water, and meditated.  

 When I spoke to Dorothy this morning, I told her that Microsoft Word is blocked on Mike's tablet.  I have access to the tablet. Fortunately, he told me his password for it before he became ill. Unfortunately, he didn't volunteer all his passwords as he lay dying. Hmmm!  Dorothy said she had an Excel document listing all her passwords; she told her children there was such a file and that the password to her computer was in it. That way, they only have to remember one password.  I have been writing them down in a notebook, but I am worried about how Damon, Yvette, Josh, or Karin would find them.  It was just one page in a large spiral-bound notebook. Who would look there? 

 Dorothy said she preferred Excel to Word because it was easy to sort the list alphabetically.  I told her that it could be done in Word, too; I do it when I create work for students based on stories they have written. Dorothy insisted that it wouldn't work as well in Word.  As it winds up, creating items without spaces between them is necessary.  I put dashes between the words; every paragraph was a string of connected letters. I sent all the kids the information for my computer password. 

 At 10 a.m., I planned to call the parent who had answered my Craigslist ad. He was jumping the gun. His son had just gotten off a plane from Arkansas the night before. He had moved from there to Maui to live with his dad. He was under a two-week quarantine at his dad's house.

 His dad really knows very little about his son's academic needs.  He was getting ahead of the game, preparing for the worst, and hoping for the best.  He did know that his son's school reported that he was 'fine." In my experience, 'fine' means something in the neighborhood of a year behind grade level to on grade level. More glowing terms mean someone is ahead of grade level.  I told the man about Khan Academy to help his son with his math.  As we ended the conversation, it was unclear whether his son would need help.  I told him to call me if something came up.

 Later in the day, he texted me to say that his son had reported having trouble with spelling. That opens up any number of possibilities.  I suggested that we start a tutoring schedule as soon as possible. 

 I called Progressive today.  The same run-around. It's maddening. I'm not hoping to get any money back. I want them to explain why they changed the premiums, totaling over $1000 within 8 months. I am putting together data to make a report to the state monitoring agency.  

 The only explanation I have received so far is that expenses have increased. I said, "Great! Why isn't that stated on the premium renewal?" There is no explanation and no documentation to support that position.

 Then, I learned Adam was added to the insurance plan and held responsible for a serious car accident while sitting in his parked car.  He hadn't moved. Someone backed their car into him at 40 miles an hour. The woman driving the car panicked after bumping into the car in front of her as she tried to get out of her parking space.  They did say there was an increase; the only problem was the plan's increase was $54 unexplained dollars higher than they stated.  

 The agent checked and came back to tell me they reimbursed the money they charged for Adam's at-fault accident. Well, not exactly. They initially charged $54 more than they stated and only subtracted a portion of the amount they had incorrectly added.

 I heard my voice echo every time I spoke to the agent. I didn't know if that was deliberate or not. I pressed a button on my earpiece to resolve the problem, but accidentally disconnected it.  Just as well. There is only so much of this I can take in a day. We were up to item #3 and had nine more to go. So far, it had taken close to an hour.

 Then I went and checked my Amazon bill.  The tech support guy from Acoustical Surfaces told me he had found unexplained Amazon charges. When he checked, they confirmed he had not made any purchases.  They told him that Amazon had to fire several employees for selling credit card information or using it themselves. Everyone was making sure no charges exceeded $50, in case any slipped through. I went through all my Amazon charges since May.  I found some that were suspicious. I also found some that weren't charged.  Both had to be straightened out.

 I headed out to order a new window for Yvette's yoga room. Someone added the room after the house was built. The roof overhang isn't big enough to protect the window from rain. We have four-foot overhangs here to protect us from the sun and rain, but because of the add-on room, those overhangs are too short. The window in that room opens from side to side. I ordered a double-hung window that could be opened from the top, leaving the bottom panel closed.  

    Before I went, I retook the window measurement. Scott had told me it was 4 feet by 3 feet. It was about a quarter-inch short of both those measures, but he said that would make a significant difference.  

    Scott and I had both tried to find a window online. None was three feet high, which meant the window would have to be a special order.

 When I got to Home Depot's window/door division, I sat down to wait. Fortunately, I had my Kindle with me. I must have sat there for a good five minutes before any employees even passed in view. I yelled and asked if he could find someone to help me. Another five minutes later, another associate came by; she got on the phone to track someone down. 

 Finally, someone came by and started working on the order. I asked Scott if he knew what he was doing. He assured me he did. Ha!  After we had been working together for a while, another man came along.  I didn't know who he was. Then he whipped out his identifying Home Depot apron. He wound up being the expert for that section.  Good thing he came by. The other guy had done it all wrong.

   I made it clear that I needed a double-hung window that opened from the top. The first man had ordered a window that only opened from the bottom. Brian, the second associate, caught the error. I had repeated the information over and over and over. That distinction was crucial. There would be no point in ordering a window that only opened from the bottom. Not only would that not solve the current problem, but it would have made it worse. A special-order window is much more expensive than a ready-made window online. I wanted to do this now because I was not optimistic about my money lasting. I might as well take care of all items while I have the money. That's why I bought the car NOW.  It will take 1.5 to 2 months for the window to arrive.

   Of course, I bought a Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar with almonds before I left. Then I head off to Costco.  Sandor had saved me some shopping, but I wanted to pick up more vinegar for weed spraying and Greenies for Elsa.   I bought four 1.2-gallon containers. I needed the Greenies because I suspect that Elsa's bad skin problems may be caused by the dental chews I purchased instead of the Greenies.  I will switch her back to the Greenies, see how it goes, and switch her back and see if her skin gets bad again.

    I also picked up another case of almond milk. I always pick one up whenever I go to Costco. I've been there when they have none. That happens to us here in Hawaii. As Yvette says, always grab it when you see it. I may not be there again for several months.

     I listened to Terry Gross's interview with Cherry Jones. I never heard of her. As with all of Terry's interviews, it was interesting.  The next broadcast was a news item on Kenosha's shooting; Jacob Blake was shot in the back. The problem isn't just with shooting black people. Our police department is still living in the Wild West: shoot first, ask questions later.  I can see shooting him if he was facing them, charging them with a knife in his hand. But at the moment they shot him, he had his back to them.  Okay, let's say he was reaching for a gun.  He could have shot without turning around, maybe. There are arguments that he was resisting arrest, but that doesn't put the police officer in danger, and we don't give people the death penalty for resisting arrest. The police are entitled to make the verdict and execute it. Other countries don't think to shoot so fast.  We are a particularly violent nation. It's time we grow up and learn some impulse control. 

__________- ___________-_________

Musings:

    On empathy.  Notice that the negative aspects of 'empathy' are all in the realm of feeling, not cognitive empathy or empathic concern.  When I Googled, "What's the difference between sympathy, feeling with someone, and empathy, I could not find a satisfying answer.  One site tried, but it seemed to me that the definitions they offered were the same, just phrased differently.

    Feeling sympathy is a category of its own. It is not empathy. I prefer to reserve the definition of empathy for the cognitive understanding of another's point of view. Yes, sociopaths often have excellent cognitive empathy, but they lack feeling or emotional "empathy' or sympathy. 

       Cognitive empathy has a clear definition: the ability to understand what another person is thinking and feeling, but not to feel what they are feeling. As with anything, it can be used for good or evil. It would be nice if there were a human trait we could point to and say has no downside. I don't think one exists.  

     Suppose someone is going to say, LOVE, oh boy.  How do you define that? What is the love a parent has for their child? Have you never seen that go wrong? Love, as it is broadly defined, can go very wrong.

 I'm on this rant because I react adversely to people who think they are virtuous and caring. After all, they feel for someone else's pain. I run out of movies when I think someone might get hurt. How does that help anyone?  I can't stand traveling to countries with extreme poverty. How does that help anyone?  My sister says that if I traveled there, I would at least contribute to the economy. Really, should I make that my vacation priority? If I am going to travel there, I would want to be involved in something that is directly helpful other than contributing to the economy by having a 'good time' since I couldn't have a good time. Oh, we are such a complex species.           Monday, August 31, 2020   

 After my morning walk, emphasizing the figure eight with my hips, I checked my email, had my morning two cups of water, and meditated.  

 When I spoke to Dorothy this morning, I told her that Microsoft Word is blocked on Mike's tablet.  I have access to the tablet. Fortunately, he told me his password for it before he became ill. Unfortunately, he didn't volunteer all his passwords as he lay dying. Hmmm!  Dorothy said she had an Excel document listing all her passwords; she told her children there was such a file and that the password to her computer was in it. That way, they only have to remember one password.  I have been writing them down in a notebook, but I am worried about how Damon, Yvette, Josh, or Karin would find them.  It was just one page in a large spiral-bound notebook. Who would look there? 

 Dorothy said she preferred Excel to Word because it was easy to sort the list alphabetically.  I told her that it could be done in Word, too; I do it when I create work for students based on stories they have written. Dorothy insisted that it wouldn't work as well in Word.  As it winds up, creating items without spaces between them is necessary.  I put dashes between the words; every paragraph was a string of connected letters. I sent all the kids the information for my computer password. 

 At 10 a.m., I planned to call the parent who had answered my Craigslist ad. He was jumping the gun. His son had just gotten off a plane from Arkansas the night before. He had moved from there to Maui to live with his dad. He was under a two-week quarantine at his dad's house.

 His dad really knows very little about his son's academic needs.  He was getting ahead of the game, preparing for the worst, and hoping for the best.  He did know that his son's school reported that he was 'fine." In my experience, 'fine' means something in the neighborhood of a year behind grade level to on grade level. More glowing terms mean someone is ahead of grade level.  I told the man about Khan Academy to help his son with his math.  As we ended the conversation, it was unclear whether his son would need help.  I told him to call me if something came up.

 Later in the day, he texted me to say that his son had reported having trouble with spelling. That opens up any number of possibilities.  I suggested that we start a tutoring schedule as soon as possible. 

 I called Progressive today.  The same run-around. It's maddening. I'm not hoping to get any money back. I want them to explain why they changed the premiums, totaling over $1000 within 8 months. I am putting together data to make a report to the state monitoring agency.  

 The only explanation I have received so far is that expenses have increased. I said, "Great! Why isn't that stated on the premium renewal?" There is no explanation and no documentation to support that position.

 Then, I learned Adam was added to the insurance plan and held responsible for a serious car accident while sitting in his parked car.  He hadn't moved. Someone backed their car into him at 40 miles an hour. The woman driving the car panicked after bumping into the car in front of her as she tried to get out of her parking space.  They did say there was an increase; the only problem was the plan's increase was $54 unexplained dollars higher than they stated.  

 The agent checked and came back to tell me they reimbursed the money they charged for Adam's at-fault accident. Well, not exactly. They initially charged $54 more than they stated and only subtracted a portion of the amount they had incorrectly added.

 I heard my voice echo every time I spoke to the agent. I didn't know if that was deliberate or not. I pressed a button on my earpiece to resolve the problem, but accidentally disconnected it.  Just as well. There is only so much of this I can take in a day. We were up to item #3 and had nine more to go. So far, it had taken close to an hour.

 Then I went and checked my Amazon bill.  The tech support guy from Acoustical Surfaces told me he had found unexplained Amazon charges. When he checked, they confirmed he had not made any purchases.  They told him that Amazon had to fire several employees for selling credit card information or using it themselves. Everyone was making sure no charges exceeded $50, in case any slipped through. I went through all my Amazon charges since May.  I found some that were suspicious. I also found some that weren't charged.  Both had to be straightened out.

 I headed out to order a new window for Yvette's yoga room. Someone added the room after the house was built. The roof overhang isn't big enough to protect the window from rain. We have four-foot overhangs here to protect us from the sun and rain, but because of the add-on room, those overhangs are too short. The window in that room opens from side to side. I ordered a double-hung window that could be opened from the top, leaving the bottom panel closed.  

    Before I went, I retook the window measurement. Scott had told me it was 4 feet by 3 feet. It was about a quarter-inch short of both those measures, but he said that would make a significant difference.  

    Scott and I had both tried to find a window online. None was three feet high, which meant the window would have to be a special order.

 When I got to Home Depot's window/door division, I sat down to wait. Fortunately, I had my Kindle with me. I must have sat there for a good five minutes before any employees even passed in view. I yelled and asked if he could find someone to help me. Another five minutes later, another associate came by; she got on the phone to track someone down. 

 Finally, someone came by and started working on the order. I asked Scott if he knew what he was doing. He assured me he did. Ha!  After we had been working together for a while, another man came along.  I didn't know who he was. Then he whipped out his identifying Home Depot apron. He wound up being the expert for that section.  Good thing he came by. The other guy had done it all wrong.

   I made it clear that I needed a double-hung window that opened from the top. The first man had ordered a window that only opened from the bottom. Brian, the second associate, caught the error. I had repeated the information over and over and over. That distinction was crucial. There would be no point in ordering a window that only opened from the bottom. Not only would that not solve the current problem, but it would have made it worse. A special-order window is much more expensive than a ready-made window online. I wanted to do this now because I was not optimistic about my money lasting. I might as well take care of all items while I have the money. That's why I bought the car NOW.  It will take 1.5 to 2 months for the window to arrive.

   Of course, I bought a Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar with almonds before I left. Then I head off to Costco.  Sandor had saved me some shopping, but I wanted to pick up more vinegar for weed spraying and Greenies for Elsa.   I bought four 1.2-gallon containers. I needed the Greenies because I suspect that Elsa's bad skin problems may be caused by the dental chews I purchased instead of the Greenies.  I will switch her back to the Greenies, see how it goes, and switch her back and see if her skin gets bad again.

    I also picked up another case of almond milk. I always pick one up whenever I go to Costco. I've been there when they have none. That happens to us here in Hawaii. As Yvette says, always grab it when you see it. I may not be there again for several months.

     I listened to Terry Gross's interview with Cherry Jones. I never heard of her. As with all of Terry's interviews, it was interesting.  The next broadcast was a news item on Kenosha's shooting; Jacob Blake was shot in the back. The problem isn't just with shooting black people. Our police department is still living in the Wild West: shoot first, ask questions later.  I can see shooting him if he was facing them, charging them with a knife in his hand. But at the moment they shot him, he had his back to them.  Okay, let's say he was reaching for a gun.  He could have shot without turning around, maybe. There are arguments that he was resisting arrest, but that doesn't put the police officer in danger, and we don't give people the death penalty for resisting arrest. The police are entitled to make the verdict and execute it. Other countries don't think to shoot so fast.  We are a particularly violent nation. It's time we grow up and learn some impulse control. 

__________- ___________-_________

Musings:

    On empathy.  Notice that the negative aspects of 'empathy' are all in the realm of feeling, not cognitive empathy or empathic concern.  When I Googled, "What's the difference between sympathy, feeling with someone, and empathy, I could not find a satisfying answer.  One site tried, but it seemed to me that the definitions they offered were the same, just phrased differently.

    Feeling sympathy is a category of its own. It is not empathy. I prefer to reserve the definition of empathy for the cognitive understanding of another's point of view. Yes, sociopaths often have excellent cognitive empathy, but they lack feeling or emotional "empathy' or sympathy. 

       Cognitive empathy has a clear definition: the ability to understand what another person is thinking and feeling, but not to feel what they are feeling. As with anything, it can be used for good or evil. It would be nice if there were a human trait we could point to and say has no downside. I don't think one exists.  

     Suppose someone is going to say, LOVE, oh boy.  How do you define that? What is the love a parent has for their child? Have you never seen that go wrong? Love, as it is broadly defined, can go very wrong.

 I'm on this rant because I react adversely to people who think they are virtuous and caring. After all, they feel for someone else's pain. I run out of movies when I think someone might get hurt. How does that help anyone?  I can't stand traveling to countries with extreme poverty. How does that help anyone?  My sister says that if I traveled there, I would at least contribute to the economy. Really, should I make that my vacation priority? If I am going to travel there, I would want to be involved in something that is directly helpful other than contributing to the economy by having a 'good time' since I couldn't have a good time. Oh, we are such a complex species.           

Sunday, August 30, 2020

            While I was watching Wild Bill with Rob Lowe last night, it occurred to me that the carpet I soaked with water and vacuumed up may not dry properly. We're going into the humid months; nothing dries completely.  I put the overhead fan on in that area before I went to bed.  

In today's driveway yoga class, Yvette had us standing with our legs hip-width apart and make figure eights with our hips. I had been doing something like this when I walked, pushing my left hip out further to the left. This clarified what I had to do.  With each step, I worked on pushing my hip out as Yvette instructed. It made a difference.

            I was sort of lost for a good part of the day.  I meditated. That helped a little. I tried to nap. That wasn't what I needed. I got up and did some work. I finally posted my new and improved tutoring ads on Craig's list on three islands, Oahu, Big Island, and Maui.  I figure that's where the money is. 

            I had plans for weeding and spraying vinegar. I still had water in the spray bottle.  I decided to use up the water, cleaning another section of the screen. There are six eight-foot sections of screen on one side of the lanai.  The one I did yesterday hadn't been done since we had the house repainted. It sat behind a chair. The next section wasn't quite as dirty. 

            When the water was gone, I went out to do some gardening. First stop, pour 1.3 gallons of vinegar into the spray bottle.  Our neighbor had complained about our plumbago vines growing over his fence.  I spent a week or two hacking them back, creating a two-foot space between the vines. Since I got it cleared, I have had the gardener maintain it. However, I knew they just did what could be accomplished with a fuel-driven machine. None of that on their knees weed pulling. That's what I did it pulled up every piece of green I could and then sprayed vinegar over the area I had covered.  I didn't get all of it done. This is at least a three-day job.

            I had an hour-long talk with Judy, which felt great. We can talk about many things.  Then there are subjects which are off the table.  I mentioned two people I hadn't heard from in a while, Shivani and Sandor. When I got off the phone with her, I made a point of texting Shivani. She had plans of camping for a few days. Then Sandor called, saying he was at Costco. He would stop by to drop off some supplements he recommended.  I told him I was about to take Elsa for a walk. I would see him as he passed me on his way to my house.

            That's what happened.  Sandor stopped to talk to me on the street. He and his wife had gone to Costco to help out a poor woman who just had a baby. They bought diapers and whatever she needed. They bought me a bag of lemons and a bag of sweet kale salad.

            ______ ________ ___________

Musings:         Hidden Brian had a program on empathy.  This is huge for me because I have strong opinions about what works and what doesn't.  The speaker defined three(3) types of empathy. 

 

1.         Emotional empathy

2.         Cognitive empathy and

3.         Empathic concern or compassion, wishing someone well.

They say different brain systems support the different types. For example, people with autism lack cognitive empathy but are good at emotional empathy. While sociopaths lack emotional empathy but are excellent at cognitive empathy.

 

The speaker did address the downsides of empathy.  He said it is very taxing on service providers who have to deal with distress or pain in others..  If they feel too much of what their clients are feeling, they have nothing left for their own lives.  The other downside is that being overwhelmed by emotional empathy can result in people turning themselves off and denigrating the victims to the point of dehumanizing them.  When people's jobs require them to mistreat a group of people, many do exactly that. They dehumanize their charges and then give themselves permission to treat people badly, very badly in many cases, murderously badly. 

    The other negative aspect of emotional empathy is that people can feel more for "their tribe /group' than the 'other tribe/group.' He said you shouldn't just ask people if they feel for the other group, but do they feel 'more' for their own group members than the other group.  I would guess it has to do with the degree of disparity of empathy between our own group versus another group.

             We're facing problems like that now. Yes, black people are being poorly treated because they are basically bad people, according to many. Many of those who have been killed by our policemen had criminal charges against them. I recall that one man was arrested for wanting to walk home while drunk, panicked, grabbed the policemen's laser, and ran away. He was shot in the back. That poor cop. He was protecting himself.  He was a good person. The man who was shot was basically a bad person. After all, the police were called because he was so drunk he fell asleep in his car blocking the MacDonnell's drive-thru.  Seems deserving of the death sentence to me, no.  

            Many people have more emotional empathy for the police than the black man who was shot. They have more emotional empathy for the policeman who felt threatened and shot the man.  For me, the problem lies in the way we train our police force.  Why are these police officers so quick to shoot?  There are police forces all over the world that do not have the same practice. Are the people in their culture more law-abiding? Does anyone really believe that there is a difference like that?

            There are many more examples of black men who have been shot than whites, but not exclusively.  There was that seventy-year-old man who was knocked down while peacefully protesting. When a police officer wanted to help him up, his buddies pulled him away.  

            The Camden police force offers us an alternative.  It was defunded ten years ago because their city went broke.  The police department was disbanded, everyone was fired. The police chief then hired a new police force. He interviewed the applicants to make sure they were committed to "serving" the community instead of "controlling "it.  Guess what!  The crime rate drop, the murder rate dropped. The bad interactions between the police and the members of the community, mostly black, dropped.  There is something wrong with the culture of the police departments. I don't know where it started. 

            Some say policing in this country was developed to pursue runaway slaves and then control emancipated black people who wanted to have a role in governing. What did control mean in this case? Making damn sure they had no voice in the political structure. Making damn sure they owned no land. Making damn sure they got no education. Make damn sure they had nothing to leave their families when they died. 

            Should there be any question in anyone's mind as they read the above, I definitely believe the police, some police, and American policing culture are guilty of bias against blacks.  I think that most, if not all, shootings were unnecessary. Most of the crimes these people have been guilty of are minor crimes. The worst ones are serious domestic violence charges.  For many, their only crime at their time of being shot was being black.

            What do you think the police would do if they arrested a black man who walked into a church prayer group of whites and shot them? What did the police do when they arrested Dylan Roof?  They were gentle in their handling of him. They understood that he was mentally ill. They went out and bought him a Burger King.  Do you think the police force would have done the same thing for a mentally ill black man who shot up a church prayer group?   If there is a comparable case, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

            I mentioned the seventy-year-old white man earlier. Maybe the case is their bias is against anyone who disagrees with them. That white man was demonstrating for black rights. That made him like one of them. There are words for people like him: n    ------ lovers. That would mean he was one of THEM and not like US.

 

Saturday, August 29, 2020

      I discovered a BritBox show last night. I have enjoyed it so far- except for a sinister Russian Mafioso presence threatening one of the main characters.  Rob Lowe stars in Wild Bill. It is set in England. He's an American transplant.  I have no idea why Britbox produced a show about an American coming in to save the British in the middle of the rise of British nationalism.  Britbox canceled it after one season. What a surprise!

          I got up around 6, forgetting that my alarm isn't set automatically for the weekends. Elsa and I got in a short walk before driveway yoga.  Neither Scott nor B. were there today. They both had other things to do.  This will be our last class with Yvette for the week. She and Scott are participating in some four-and-a-half-hour yoga class every morning for the week. It starts at 5:30 Hawaii time and ends at 10. I'm sure the timing is more reasonable on the mainland.  Yvette is preparing an audio class for us in her absence.

     I feel like I got very little done today, or at least it feels that way.  My big accomplishment was cleaning the fixed screens on the lanai, well, one panel. I finally figured out a good way to do the cleaning.  I have one of those garden spray systems, a two-gallon jobbie. I spray the screen holding the nozzle of the garden spray bottle sideways, so more area is covered.  I spray the area repeatedly. I have cloth on the ledge below to catch the water. Then I wipe the water off the screen. I repeat this until the cloth comes out clean as I wipe. Voila! It's labor-intensive, but, boy, you can see the difference. I step back and forth between the screen I cleaned and the one by its side to compare the difference. Mind, my screens never 'look' dirty. It's not like they're opaque with mud. After finishing that one screen panel, I sprayed the close weave carpet with water and sucked it up with the Rainbow vacuum cleaner. 

     While I was doing this, a moment I shared with Mike came to mind. My thought was "a shared life." There was nothing major about the moment. It wasn't a high or low moment, just a moment, the stuff shared lives are made out of. We were knitted together. I had initially written, "we were so knitted together." But we weren't so knitted together.  We had very separate lives, too.  It was the perfect balance for me. I hope it was for him also. I think he believed that he hadn't spent enough attention to me before he retired.  I don't know who he thought I was. I was not the needy type.  What I did need, he gave to me except for a few years there in Ohio.  Those were the cool years. We didn't fight. We weren't mean to each other. We continued to be kind and considerate, but the light had gone out.  That was horrible. Once the warmth and laughter were back in place, I was good.

      I had some thoughts about getting back to work on that article on my reading method. Watching that classroom teacher work with a student alone made it clear that I do something very different.  I was shocked when I observed what she considered a reading lesson. She would often say that she wished she could listen to kids read individually as I did. I think she believed that was all I did, just listen as they read and told students the correct answer when they didn't get it.  Sad. 

       I had a thought about D. today.  He was making no progress in identifying the sounds in words. We always have to start from scratch.  Today it occurred to me that maybe he thinks he is supposed to 'remember what the sound is. No, no, no. He is supposed to discover it from his own speech.

In past years, I would be kicking myself around the black for not thinking of this sooner. I have learned that everything is in its own season. "In teaching, as in comedy, timing is everything." If the student isn't ready, forget it. You can't force change on people. Sometimes all you can offer is presence and patience. It's a lot like fishing. I feel I'm constantly on the lookout for a teaching moment. 

    Following Sandor's advice, I turned on all the fans and air conditioners that never get used.  If I run them 15 minutes a week when the sun is high, that should keep them in working order. 

   Yesterday, I did more work on my relationship with my fear on my own.  I lived in constant fear as a child. My mother was always angry at me for things I had done, for something I was, and for things I wasn't and hadn't done. It didn't seem to make any difference.  When I told her she was hurting me, she would get really furious, accusing me of saying it for the sole purpose of causing her pain.

      I think I finally am having a moment where I am waiting for my mother to 'come through for me.' This is what therapists always claimed people wanted, for the person who hurt them to come through for them.  I want her to admit that she did damage to me, so I can stop feeling bad.   At the end of her life, I learned that she felt free to use her children, mainly me, to release tension.  Yelling relaxed her. She meant no harm. She refused to acknowledge that she did harm. 

     I find it very hard to let go when I picture her hanging on to her perspective.  I have no idea why.  By initiating a separation without her consent is the best chance we had of deep reconciliation.

I initiated a separation from her shortly after I met Mike. I wrote to her I had been afraid of her all my life.  I had tried everything. Now, I was going to try a complete break.  I sent that letter in August. In early November, she called me and said she forgave me and was willing to continue our relationship.  She was shocked when I said I wasn't ready.  That was the first time she recognized that I was an independent human being with my own thoughts and feelings over which she had no control.  It was definitely the first time that she realized that if she wanted to ever have a relationship with me, she would have to come to terms with my having boundaries and expectations of my own. 

        If it hadn't been for that break, what developed would never have been possible.  The following Thanksgiving, a relative called and asked if I would consider coming if my mother was there.  We were cool and polite, but things got better rapidly. She spent the last eighteen years of her life living with Mike and me. I don't think she ever recognized that that was only possible because of that earlier action. It established boundaries without which I could never have considered the later arrangement. 

  Today I realized that it isn't only the fear I hate, but I also hate myself for feeling fear. That's a toughy.  It feels like my feelings betrayed me.  But who do I attack? Who do I blame for this betrayal? True, my mother triggered these feelings in a young child. True, it is immoral to do so. It robs the soul. That's what the Nazis did to the Jews. They dehumanized them successfully and then blamed them for their condition. That is true evil. 

    In my mom's case, I think she just had PTSD. She had no way to see herself clearly. Dorothy and I agreed that she was about 8 months old when she had me and about two when she had Dorothy.  She was undeveloped. Prenarssitic. Her primary trauma was a medical one that started right after her birth and ended when she was six months old. She's lucky she came out with any sanity given what she went through. Her lack of psychological development was her worst characteristic, but it was also her best.  She had a childlike capacity for joy and wonder. 

Friday, August 28, 2020

            I didn't get up immediately when the alarm went off, knowing I could stay in late. But the bathroom beckoned, and I was up and out. 

            I had an 11:30 Zoom appointment with D. I made plans to do my in-town chores after finishing with him. In the meantime, I washed my bathroom floor and sprayed a gallon plus vinegar on weeds.

            I learned something interesting about my Bissell, or more to the point, this kind of vacuum cleaner.  Judy gave her Hoover model to Yvette. She said it streaked her floor, and she didn't like it.  I discovered why she had that problem.  As I was washing the bathroom floor, dirty water came out of the vacuum.  It would have left streaks if I hadn't vacuumed it up.

            Where did that dirt come from? I didn't encounter it usually when I wash the floor.  Well, I had used the machine on the lanai rug.  I hadn't dumped a massive amount of water on the carpet as I would if I had been using my Rainbow.  I can trust the Rainbow to suck up every drop of water and leave the carpet looking bone dry.  The Rainbow has world-class suction. There's no other vacuum like it in the world.  When using the Bissell vacuum on the lanai rug, I used it according to the instructions.  I only used the water from the dispenser unit on the machine instead of dumping massive amounts. The water in the collection unit was black. 

            At the end of the day's work, I dumped that water into the toilet and washed out the collection container. Everything was sparkling. So, where did that dirty water come from?  From the residue of dirt from the carpet cleaning that got stuck in the vacuum.  It took three washings of my bathroom floor before the water in the collection container came up mildly cloudy.  I have no idea how most people use this machine, just following the directions.  You can't possibly get a floor clean utilizing the amount of water the device dispenses.  It uses less than a quart on my kitchen floor compared to the three gallons I use before the water comes up clear. Used the way this vacuum is designed, it's only suitable for damp mopping, spreading the mud around evenly. 

            I got an email from Elise with the video of the alternating slides with the audio file playing underneath it.  Incredible!!! Elise is one of my driveway yoga buddies. When I asked if anyone knew of someone who could help me make such a video, Elise's name came up.  I had my grandson, August, working on it for a while. He really didn't have the skills. I'm sure he will be interested in how this was done.  She did a fantastic job. She used the slides I created on PowerPoint.  She had to show me how she did it. Maybe I can do the video for the other four stories. 

            When I opened up Zoom to connect with D., there was a different procedure.  I had to sign in first. Well, that took some additional time, but I was in by 11:30 as planned. 

            He was drinking tea while he talked to me.  I advised him not to do that while he was on the computer. If he dumped tea on it, he would destroy the school's laptop, and it would cost his mom $300.  

            I started with the multiplication facts. I sent D.'s mom instructions to post the multiplication facts WITH the answers around the house. My hope is that they will sneak into his brain as he catches sight of them over and over and over again.  Once the four facts we are currently working on are secure, my hope is the neurological pathway for the associative recall will be more firmly in place, and we can proceed more rapidly with the rest of the facts. We'll see if my theory works.

            D. read 3 x3=9 as 3x9 – 'nothing.'  I stopped him immediately to find out what his experience was. Did the numbers move, switching places, or was a number erased? As it wound up, the first three were erased from his visual field.

            I asked him if the switch happened on the page or in his head.  He said it happened in his head. This is a visual processing problem.  I have done work with him on this before without much success. 

            I asked him how he felt about his mind making switches like this.  Did he dislike it or like it?  He said he liked it.  He said it made what he had to look at shorter and easier to work with.  I pointed out that it made what he was looking at altogether different and, therefore, wrong. I didn't understand how it helped him. We spent a fair amount of time talking like this.  I have found that exploring someone's thinking is the best thing I can do. Telling them what they're doing is wrong is a failure, more frequently than not. It just frightens the person. 

            I was only hoping to help D. become more aware of the process, what he experienced, and how it affected his reading and math.  But I got a lot more out of it than I had hoped for.  I asked him how he felt when he came across long words. He said, embarrassed. Wow! Wow! Wow!  I have tried to get to that feeling before. D. always denied it. I didn't argue with him. Some people are unbothered by their failure to perform as well as their peers. This just slipped out. Amazing!  If I hadn't pursued my line of questioning, genuinely wanting to understand his perceptions of the situation, I would never have gotten there. We identified his bad feeling as sitting in the pit of his stomach.

            The embarrassment is dysfunctional in this setting.  It creates fear. Fear is the last thing you need when you're dealing with a perceptual problem. Fear is designed to deal with real-life situations, like that tiger charging at you, not abstract symbols.  Fear creates neurological movement in the brain to perceive a 3D environment, not a 2D image sitting peacefully on a surface.  

            I was a little nervous doing this online with the parent listening. I am sure the mother does listen from the other room because she told the regular classroom teacher she didn't have to work with D. anymore now that I was available. She understood what I was doing for her son. How was she going to respond to what I was about to do?  Well, the kid was more important. Once I had led him through the visualization, he would be good from now on. At least that's been my experience.

            I started by telling him I would ask him a silly question, and I wanted the answer from the front part of his brain, not the back part. I told him these two parts of the brain see the world in different ways.  Here goes: "Do you think anyone is ever going to kill you if you never learn how to read?" He laughed. The answer I was hoping to get.  I asked him, "Do you think your mom will kill you if you never learn how to read?" More laughter. Good. 

            Once it was clear that he felt no threat from his family or the world, I told him to see a little him around the brain's soft spot. He was to turn the little him around to face the back of his brain.  I told him to have the little him tell every cell in the back of the brain that no one would kill him even if he never learned how to read.  As he did that, I asked him if he felt more relaxed. He said yes. That is the sign that the process is working.

            He continued with the exercise for a while.  It takes time for the conscious mind to communicate the information to every cell in the unconscious mind that needs to hear it.  

            Then there was a glitch. I asked D. if part of his brain asked why he wouldn't be killed even if he never learned to read. I asked him if he knew the answer to that question. His response was that if you worked hard enough, you could learn. I corrected him.  I told him I knew of no examples of people ever being killed for not learning how to read. (Well, that's not entirely true. But not directly in the sense of "You're condemned to death for being illiterate. Unfortunately, the illiterate are often judged badly by the courts filled with literate people. The illiterate are the 'other.')  I did tell him that there are people killed because they do learn how to read. Since this child is black, I did not tell him that black slaves were killed if they became literate. I told him the story of Afghan women who put their lives at risk to get an education. He was finally able to let go of all the remaining fear in his body – for now, and possibly forever.

            The origin of this visualization came to me years ago with a boy I was working with. I had an insight that we are all designed to conform to our tribe members or fear for our lives. This was a valid fear when we were roaming the savannas in small bands. Our nervous systems are hard-wired to be the same as those around us, or 'like' them, so we can be 'liked' by our social mates. Not being able to conform while we roamed the savanna did put people's lives in danger. That was real.  We no longer kill those who are disabled. It's a luxury of abundance and safety.  Hopefully, we never have to return to more primitive times.

            When my session with D. was over, I went on with my day. I am trying to drive more now instead of less since I learned I have to use up the tank of gas I got in June when I bought the car before it goes bad.  Instead of driving all on the electric motor, now I have to make sure I use the gas motor as much as possible. I can see as the car toggles back and forth between the two engines.  I was still driving with the electric when I go slowly into town on flat ground. The car even charges as I roll down a hill.  

            I went to Target, picked up three apples, two birthday cards for my September birthdays, and of course, two bars of Hersey's Milk Chocolate bars with whole almonds.  

            Target didn't have plastic bags in the produce section. When I checked out. I asked if they stopped providing plastic bags. The clerk thought they had just run out.  I put the apples in each of my short pockets. The third I carried out in my hand. The chocolate bars went into my purse—the cards I carried in my hands too.  I was going to stop at Costco to pick up some stuff, but I was too tired. I headed home for a nap.

            I find I am on edge. I get snappy over minor annoyances, mostly with people I don't know well.  I meditated after I napped. It helped somewhat.  

           I read an article about the regeneration of cartilage in arthritic joints in mice. They have discovered that if they irritate the endpoints of the joints, they regenerate cartilage.  The medical procedure involves making little chips in the bone and then applying some chemical to stimulate the growth.  I figure if I put more pressure on the arthritic hip joint, it will have the same effect.  My hip problem is clearly the result of having misused my body.  I am aware I was doing things incorrectly by the time I was twelve. That means I didn't start avoiding using the left side of my body correctly because of pain, well, not in my hip joint.

Thursday, August 27, 2020

            Yvette took pictures of me lying on my back during Driveway Yoga to show me my body was straight.  Let me tell you, I am not a candidate for a beauty contest, but I can lie down with a straight spine.  This is huge.

            I washed the kitchen floor and started cleaning the lanai rug. No, it doesn't look dirty, thank God. The carpet has a close weave with shades of brown, beige with flecks of red close.  It doesn't show dirt. However, given that it is open-air and can see the dirt accumulating on the wood and glass-topped furniture,  I can safely assume that the carpet is dirty.

            I had grand plans for the day, vacuuming, then going out to do several chores, picking up medicine from the vet, drop off parts of the old fans to Habitat for Humanity, and mail my fingerprints from the post office.  You cannot fold the print sheet.  I repurposed a large envelope my accountant had used to return my 2019 taxes.

            Then I went on Zoom for my live session with the Step Up Tutoring Program. I was prompt. Nothing. I waited. Nothing. I was the only participant. Not even the host was online. Okay, what had gone wrong? I imagined that I was the only one who had signed up. There was nothing. Disappointed and confused, I took a nap. 

            I got an email from someone named Sam at the Step-Up program that confused things even further. The email told me they heard I was interested in participating; there would be many more students than tutors. Please follow the application procedure. Oaky, this is where I came in.

            I replied to Sam, saying I was confused. I thought I had successfully completed the instructional part of the program.  I had received confirmation of completion from Laura. Why was I getting this email? Did this mean that all my information had been lost?  I also asked why there was no live session at noon my time, 3 pm theirs.

            He apologized for the email. It is automatically generated. As for the live session, he told me there had been none at 3pm, but there had been one at 6pm.  This means that the computer program gives the time adjusted for my time zone, Hawaiian Time.  Good to know.  I must tell Laura that is the case. I have some vision of this organization being run out of a small storefront by folks in the twenties.  Watch, they're all over fifty.

            Judy came over with Luke. Luke is severely disabled. He is close to 2 years old, and everyone is thrilled that he has learned to turn over. He can do it in both directions. He can 'swim' across the floor now too. He has a two-month-old younger brother who is learning to roll over.  There is not much hope for Luke's progress. He is a FoxG1 baby and has a severe case of it to boot. 

            However, however!!! Judy told me that the other day his mom, Jazzy, was saying, "I love you," to him, and he imitated her sound, not just once but three times in a row. That cannot be accidental. This is amazing. He responds to his caretakers, but so do plants. Imitating sounds is a whole different level of relating to his environment.  

            I can think of ways that his behavior is not significant. For instance, when we make the same sound as others, our brains function at the same frequency. Doing that is a source of pleasure. He may just be responding to that pleasure, entraining with his mom, and not reacting socially in a more complex way. It's worth exploring.

            I recommended that Judy play the phonemic awareness audio I created. It has had a dramatic effect on several people. A seven-year-old whose speech was so garbled that his older brother and sister couldn't understand him started speaking clearly after listening to the audio file every night for a month while he slept. 

            His 15-year-old brother, who put the tape on each night before he went to sleep so his brother could hear it in his sleep, found that his ability to understand others improved significantly.  What is there to lose?  Worst-case scenario, he will find the tape disturbing and cry. It may be able to help him. With children who report finding the tape irritating, I break down the words phonemically but much more slowly. I mean, really much more slowly.  I slow it down until the student tells me they no longer find it irritating. When I have done that for a while, I speed it up.  Usually, one slowed-down session is all that is needed to get them comfortable with the rate of phonemic breakdown on the audio file. 

            Judy's visit had a purpose, actually two. She helped me get the hair out of poor Elsa's ears. I had bought the ear powder she said was helpful. I have no idea how.  It isn't advertised as a product that loosens the hair from its roots or makes it easier to grip them.  I brought out the hemoccult I had. It's a little plastic jobbie I got from the dialysis center when Mike was there. Judy couldn't get it to work either. She had a metal one with a much better grip.  I will have to buy one.  

            Judy also came to help me with my doTerra account.  Adam, who is now selling the stuff, had signed me up to receive some pills once a month. Well, I'm not taking the prescribed amount, and I now have three months' worth piled up.  He finally changed my order.  He put me on a monthly order of doTerra toothpaste so I can keep my loyalty points. I can't use toothpaste with an abrasive in it anymore.  It scratches the surfaces of my enamel caps. Then bacteria collect there. It goes from bad to worse.  I did order some grapefruit oil. I will be needing more soon.

            I wasn't hungry for most of the day. I had some leftover soup for dinner with a piece of bread and some cheese. And of course, some lemonade with my pills and Hersey's milk chocolate kisses with almonds.

            My favorite weekday NPR shows are on Thursday, What did You Say? and Hidden Brain.  Hidden Brain addressed a question that had been burning a hole in my mind, what is empathy? The speaker discussed the positive and negative aspects of empathy.  I question the definition, or I should say the label.  I think a lot that is called empathy is really sympathy. I still don't understand the difference between the two. 

            Yvette came up to give me a massage before the radio show ended. I planned to listen to it tomorrow and take notes. I have a big issue with the definition of empathy versus the definition of sympathy.

              As Yvette worked on my mid-back, my left groin muscles tightened up.  I felt relief in my leg when she worked on the muscles on top of my shoulders, where the epaulets sit.  But the real relief came when she used the trigger point gun she lent me on the muscles around and above my shoulder blades. I felt immediate relief in my leg. Okay, THR or upper back massage? It's a hard choice. One takes two minutes, costs only as much as the electricity to charge the machine for that length of time. The other requires major surgery requiring total anesthesia, costs a fortune, leaves the recipient with an artificial joint.  Gee, let me see which I prefer. My physical therapist, Katie, told me that I would hate how the hip replacement felt with my heightened kinesthetic sensitivity. 

            I tried to watch some TV before I went to bed, but I couldn't find anything satisfying. I had enjoyed several episodes of Catastrophe, but the joke was running thin.  The theme of the show is how sex is dealt with in marriage. The show is insightful, but there's more to marriage than a sexual relationship. They touch upon the other aspects, but most of the show is strongly tipped toward the sexual element.

            I went to bed at a reasonable hour, knowing that I could stay in bed until whenever in the morning- no driveway yoga. 

________ ________ _________

Musings:

            I could never connect with babies. I thought they just didn't like me. Then my grand-nephew came into my life. He was an extreme preemie, something like 1 pound something. I could feel that connection with him.  I described him as generous.

            He, like Blanche Dubois, always had to rely on the kindness of strangers.  In his case, he also had loving parents. They spent as much time as they could at his side in the hospital.  But when they weren't there, he was taken care of, held, by a bevy of nurses.  He learned to take goodwill and affection where he could get it.  I believe that experience made him open to accepting a connection with me where no other infant ever had before. It's not that they didn't rest comfortably in my arms; the difference was in the energetic connection.

            I believe people who had children relate to other people's babies because it triggers their remembered love for their infant children, not the baby at hand.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

            I went to bed early last night and woke up late. It still wasn't warm at 7 am. I wore my sweatshirt without suffering, and this is the tropics.  I called Dorothy while on my walk. She reported a beautiful August day in New Jersey. They suffered through June and July. She spoke briefly about the hurricane heading up the east coast. So far, it is only threatening the southern states. We'll see.  She has the solar lanterns now and still has a freezer full of ice she bought during the last blackout. She is prepared.

            I worked on sorting out the old fans.  I think Habitat for Humanity can use the blades and the lampshades. One of the fan motors was already separated from the rest of the mechanism and might be functional.  I threw the rest into the trash barrel for pick up today. I will take the remains to Habitat to see if they can use the parts and take the Styrofoam packing to UPS. 

            Damon prepared this wonderful 'flyer' for me.  Very decorative and well-formatted. Only one problem. I can't download it onto any of the advertising sites. 

            At 10 am, I had my therapy/ life coaching lesson.  I would say I do reasonably well dealing with life between the life lessons I have learned and meditation. I would say I'm spoiled being in good shape. When I'm off my pins, I suffer in contrast. I find talking to Shelly incredibly helpful. I'll write about this session under musings.

            I had my first session with D. since the end of school. We started on the multiplication facts. He got one digit or the other correct in the answers but not the whole product. It was better than nothing. When I asked if his mother had posted the facts on the walls, he said she had but without the answers attached. I had told her to post the facts we were working on with and without the answers.  D. needs to see the problems with the answer a lot before he remembers them. Posting the problems without the answers will do nothing for him. It has done nothing for him.

            His reading, however, was much better. He still made some mistakes, but he caught them much, much more frequently. He stopped and used the strategies I taught him for figuring out words he didn't know. He made some words up, but most of them made sense in the story, and I didn't stop him.  Also, he read the material at a more rapid rate than he had before. 

            I headed out to town to get a postal order for $25 before heading to the Police Station to get my fingerprints. I can understand the police station not accepting checks, but why won't they accept cash either.  Are they afraid of having cash on hand in case they're robbed? While I was at the post office, I stopped at the bank in the same strip mall to cash two checks.  Before coming home, I went to Costco to pick up more vinegar, assuming a new shipment had come in and a frozen eggplant lasagna on sale. 

            Elise texted me to say that she wouldn't be able to stay late after driveway yoga tomorrow. Could she come over this afternoon to set up a video with slides explaining the audio file for phonemic analysis?

            When she did come, we figured out how to set up and use the whiteboard on Zoom.

 

________ ______ _______

Musings:

            I have been agitated for the last several days. I spent my whole childhood 'agitated." I felt like I was jumping out of my skin most of the time. I hated the feeling. I have worked hard to achieve 'calm.' I don't mean a calm demeanor; I mean a calm state of mind. Maybe my standard for calm isn't very high, considering what it used to be. 

            I have had a series of one-two punches: two friends with breast cancer, one receiving chemotherapy and now radiation, one who just had a lumpectomy; one friend who was laid off, along with 200 people at this place of work;  one friend who had to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night; a domestic violence incident at a neighbor's that I got involved in in the middle of the night; the virus causing death and economic destruction, and, of course, the political situation. I feel I can endure anything except that state of rage and hatred I had to live within myself when I was young.

            Mike, God bless him, had a high tolerance for unconditional love, commonly found in young children and pets. 

            Shelly asked me what I wanted to work on. That would be the fear I'm feeling. This fear is not just what will happen to me physically, death by starvation because of the total unavailability of food; my anxiety is triggered by my bad feelings toward others.  

            As I read about some of the tribal attitudes springing up hither and yon, dictating hatred for anyone and everyone who disagrees with the opinions and lifestyle they embrace, I am scared.  I see that rejection and hatred, and it scares me more than anything else.

             I sat with the fear and realized that I hated that fear. I don't think anyone loves being scared.  I released anything negative about my hatred for my fear, kept anything positive or anything I still needed.  That invocation is standard in the therapy I developed. Something shifted immediately.  I became more relaxed.

            I developed these words for release out of Buddhist teachings.  It teaches that our reaction to our pain compounds it and what makes it unbearable. 

            Next, I did the standard companion invocation: "I released anything negative about the love of my fear and keep anything positive or anything I still need." Wow, Peace spread through me.  I felt the deepest love for my fear.

            Fear, like pain, is an unpleasant sensation, but both keep us alive. There are those born without a capacity for physical pain. They don't do well. They have no idea when their bodies need attention. Likewise, fear is an important emotion. It informs us when we are in danger. However, both fear and pain can be dysfunctional emotions.

            Pain is dysfunctional when it is chronic. The purpose of pain is to let us know there is a problem and getting us to attend to it. But chronic pain can't be fixed. The pain alarm system serves no positive function. I say to it, "Okay, you can shut off now. There is nothing I can do to fix the problem." 

            Likewise, with fear. It is great emotion when facing lions and tigers in our walk through the woods on a hunting expedition, but not much good when it comes to financial or physical threats that we can do nothing about.

            Hating that fear makes me hate myself. Well, that's no good. I think for most people, hate is fear converted to self-hatred for having the fear, and then, well, since I don't want to live with the yucky feeling about myself, let's convert it to hatred toward the people who scared me in the first place. 

            Feeling that hatred is the worst. Whatever happens, I want to go down feeling nothing but love. Is this possible? Well, the saints managed it, supposedly. Victor Frankel wrote about maintaining it amidst the brutality of the concentration camp. If he could do it, it's possible.

            I don't want to work to feel love even in the face of persecution to die a 'good' person.  I don't want it so I can feel I have good credentials for entry into heaven.  I want it because love is just a wonderful feeling, and hatred and anger are the worst.  There is nothing unselfish about my goal.  I just don't want to feel hatred, and I do want to feel love. 

            As with all things, the ability to do so at a reasonable, consistent rate means acknowledging when I don't feel love and coming to terms with it. Those who constantly deny ever having negative emotions are just living a lie; the lie is that they have transcended the human condition. As long as we live in these bodies, we will feel fear. Some embrace that fear and convert it into hatred. I hope it gives them some comfort. It's not for me. Not that I don't feel it; it's just that I don't like it when I do.  For me, there is no justification for that hatred.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

            I had a bad night's sleep. Thank God I know how to meditate. It helps beyond words. I was up before the alarm went off. I was dressed and ready for my walk when the alarm rang; then, I was out the door. I called Dorothy. I continued using the walking pole to help me put more weight on my left leg without overwhelming the hip joint and groin muscles. 

            Elsa and I were in the house by 6: 15, early for us.  There were five of us at driveway yoga this morning. We have been a stable group for about a week.  My whole system calms down the moment the class starts. Thank you, Pavlov. 

            I had plans to consult with Scott this morning about what we needed to do to push the acoustic insulation project along. He suggested waiting until Josh was off-island for a planned visit.  I said no. I wanted to get the job done as quickly as possible. I am concerned about the market bombing and being out of money.  I want to get whatever projects I can get done done.  Acoustic insulation between the two floors of the house is an absolute priority. 

            I wanted to do that from the moment we bought the house.  Both Mike and Yvette put me off the task. It wasn't until Yvette freaked out when the young woman was living in that room over her head for 5 months that she finally saw the urgency of getting the problem dealt with. 

            The plan now is to take down the existing ceiling drywall, secure whatever can be secure with liquid nails from the underside, put in fiberglass insulation, put in the special tracks for acoustic insulation, hang 5/8" sheetrock instead of the usual 1/8", and paint it.  If necessary, add another 1/8" of sheetrock with a layer of green glue in between.  Scott was trying to talk me out of using the tracks. I told him there is no way I'm not doing everything I can when I can. I don't want to have the new sheetrock up and find that I should have done more.  

            I am so glad I finally found this acoustic company. They have great tech support. I was told that this system was costly. No, no, no.   All I have to buy from the company is the tracks. That is going to come to a whopping $71.25. Of course, given that I live in Hawaii and have to add postage, it will come to twice that much. Still cheaper at half the price, as Mike liked to say.

            The Sears man arrived early this morning. I have a lunch appointment today with my friend Zola. Since the Sears appointment was between 8 and 12, I made arrangements for Yvette to cover if I had to leave. The Sears man went to work. Two hours later, he had given up. He was unable to fix it. He was going to have to order more parts.  I asked if I could have the name on the shipping label changed. I would have to call Sears directly to do that. I had been upsetting to have packages arrive addressed to Mike.  

            I did a laundry yesterday.  It poured during the night. It dried very slowly during the day. This is unusual.  The humidity was so high, air-dried clothes couldn't dry completely. I threw them in the dryer for a few minutes.

            I was a nervous wreck, between several disturbing incidences; one friend just had breast surgery, another lost his job, our neighbor had a domestic violence incident, and, of course, the political situation. I tried to do some work. I abandoned that and sat down to meditate. I set the alarm for 11:30, so I could jump into the shower before my luncheon date. Before the alarm went off, the phone rang. It was Tom, the technical advisor from Acoustical Surfaces. Love this company.  I put Scott on the call too. He was having trouble believing that the clips were necessary. I asked him if he could just do this for me. 

            I was about to take a shower when Tom from Acoustical Surfaces called. It was time to order.  My calculations were a little off.  Seventy-one was the dollar amount; it was the number of items I had to order. Tom suggested I order 75 so I didn't wind up short in case of a miscalculation.  So it was 75 times, $4.17.  The total came to $312.75.  Not under $100, but still not in the category of very, very expensive.  I thought this project was going to cost several thousand dollars.  I think we will come under that.

            I didn't have time for a full shower before I had to leave for my luncheon appointment. I took what my mother called a French whore's bath combine with an ice water facial. A French whore's bath is a little perfume splash to cover any bad smells.

            I met Zola at church.  She was in the parking lot, speaking to another woman who had attended the noon church service. The other woman is suffering terribly from the after-effects of shingles. Zola and I wound up at the Indian restaurant across the street from the church.  We had to keep our masks on as we ordered. Obviously, they had to come off when we ate. We both ordered chicken marsala. We asked for medium, a little too hot for us but really good. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Zola better.

            I was going to stop at Costco on the side home but decided not to. When I got home, I just read; I couldn't sleep.

            Yvette came up and dropped off three slices of pizza. Josh had picked up a pie on the way home.  I watch more of Catastrophe. So far, I love it.

            While watching TV, I had discomfort and pain in the left leg, but not the hip. I applied the trigger point massager Yvette lent me to all parts of my leg and then my foot but to no avail. Then I used the massager to the left side of my back, the muscles between the rib cage and the hip bone. Bam! All the pain was gone. A little exploration proved that the problem is not coming from the hip but from the back. The THR will do nothing for me.

            I feel like I did nothing all day except for yoga, order the 75 clips to get the work on Yvette's ceiling done, talk to Dorothy several times, post about 5 updates (almost caught up), meet a friend for lunch, and speak to someone at the church to get measurements for a gravestone.  Not too shabby, but I still feel like I did nothing all day. Huh? Oh, yay. I also spoke to Damon.