Saturday, October 31, 2020

    I had a terrible night's sleep.  I was distraught over what the tree trimmer had done to my trees, particularly my lime tree. It's not just that he damaged my tree; it's that he should have known better, probably did know better, and just didn't care.  I lost it. I fell asleep easily and woke up two hours later. I lay in bed for two more hours before I got up, sat in my meditation chair, and meditated for another two hours.  I could finally fall asleep. I was up by 6. A little late in the game since there was driveway yoga at 7. 

            I shared my upset about the tree trimming with Yvette and B. I was declaring that I was going to post information on his lousy work on Facebook.  If I'm right about him, he really shouldn't get work. People have to be warned.  Yvette suggested that I contact him and ask him about my trees before I slander him.  Good idea!

            Scott came over to lay the acoustic pad. He decided not to lay the other underpad in case Mike, the carpet guy, needed to see the edge to put down the tacking strips. He made a list of things Mike would need. Scott is meticulous. It is so reassuring. I know he is going to think through every detail. 

            Darby joined me on my before-dinner walk.  I gave her the reflective armbands I bought for her.  I had my own already.  I could see hers were visible from a distance. When I looked down at mine, they didn't look like they could be seen without light hitting them directly.  I didn't want to count on something that didn't work. 

____-____-_____

Musings:

Co-creation. In marriage, a two-part invention. 

            Madeleine L'Engle wrote entitled a book "Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage." I've known about the book for a long time; I just ordered it on Amazon.  I don't know her story, but I feel Mike and I lived that way in our marriage; we believed it was something we created together. 

            I have met people who just believe things just are the way they are.  I couldn't afford to think that way.  I was a mess for most of my young life.  I had to believe recreating myself was possible, or I was sunk.  I remember thinking as a young person, possibly even in high school, "If there is a way into this mess, there has to be a way out." I was committed to finding it and passing on what I learned to others. 

            Mike and I believed in co-creation; we believed in the dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.  Start with two ideas, mix, and come out with something completely different – even better than the two original ideas. It's not a matter of one person conceding to the other; it's not a matter of getting your own way.  There is an acceptance that 'I' don't always know what's best.    Besides that, the purpose of a marriage isn't a means of getting what 'I' want; it's a means of learning to be a bigger person.  

            I know I had this concept long before I met Mike. I don't think he had thought it out quite as well I had, but I do know that he loved the idea. I do know that when a colleague told him to look for a 'worthy opponent' in a mate before he met me, Mike liked that idea.  We all need to be stopped in our tracks and pushed in a slightly different direction, but always with love, never because we want it our way or want to dominate. When those motivations slip into the picture, it's all over but the shouting. 

Friday, October 30, 2020

            As I walked this morning, my left leg felt achy; achy signals nerve pain. It's the worst. A friend recently complained of leg pain. I asked her does it just hurt or does it feel like agony. I associate agony with nerve pain.  I had to drag myself through my morning walk.

            B. texted that water would be shut off at 10 am. The pipe I hit was still leaking. He had fixed it once but probably didn't leave it set long enough for the glue to set before turning the water back on.  He had to start from scratch, ripping out the piping he had already put in replacing the pipe I ran over. He told me that the instructions said to let the glue sit for 24 hours.  That would mean that Josh wouldn't be able to shower in the morning.  I usually hear the water go on at 5 am regular as clockwork.  We arranged for B. to turn the water back on just before he went to bed. 

            Dorothy called. We didn't speak during my morning walk because she needed a nap. I dusted the house as we talked.  I had been putting off the task with my excellent procrastination skills.  The whole job took only a few minutes.  From whence comes the resistance?  I don't get it.

            I was feeling lousy, so I meditated. My neck kept falling to the left.  I often have that problem. Today I realized that I have to lift my head with my upper back muscles, not my neck muscles.  When I pulled those back muscles down, my head came up.  

            I had a tutoring session with D.  Wonderful. He still has problems reading each word accurately. He often guesses the word based on the first letter, ignores the other letters, and sometimes is even unperturbed when his reading produces a nonsense sentence. But if he decodes a word, holding on to all the consonants and pronouncing the word with one of the possible sounds for a vowel letter, he can infer the word. Today, he misread two words in the sentence and still came out with the correct meaning.

            I had chores to do. I was so glad to get out of the house. I don't know if my life would be much different than that of many retired people. Of course, in my case, I would have gone to Bikram every morning and then off to tutor at the local elementary school. Then I would have run some chores in town besides.

            At the Post Office, I mailed three boxes of books to St. Patrick's seminary. I had stopped looking for books for a good while.  I will miss the library when it's gone; it was so Michael.  I had tried to talk him out of bringing his 3,000+ books. He said, "There are only two things that must go to Hawaii, my books and you." Well, when he put it that way.  So now I have 4,000 books to get rid of in ways that bear some resemblance to what Mike had wanted.  He wanted his whole collection kept together. His first choice was the seminary he taught at in Ohio.  As he was dying, I told him I was already in touch with the seminary's Rector.  Yeah, I was in touch, and I had a pretty good idea of what the answer would be. It was worse than I expected: they didn't want one single book. Oh, well. Off to other seminaries.  To keep all the books together, I would have had to build a Ross wing onto their already existing library.  When I took a break, Matthew Horowitz, the seminary librarian (yeah, another convert from Judaism), said he needed a break too.  It was taking time to catalog all the books I was sending. 

            Besides the books to the seminary, I sent two copies of my daughter-in-law's picture book, The Bookstore Cat, to Ohio schools where I had worked. It's become my tradition to send them copies of her books.  Most have been written for young adults. The librarian at the middle school has told me repeatedly that Cylin's books are always checked out. They are well-liked. 

            After the Post Office, I went to Target. I was looking for some reflective something or another I could wear at night as I walked.  Yvette came around a corner the other night and freaked out when she caught a glimpse of me at the edge of the road.  She felt she felt she nearly hit me. Dorothy talked me into getting it; she said it is a courtesy to drivers. When they catch a glimpse of someone at the last minute, it's a shock, even if they were nowhere near hitting the person.  I found strips I could wear on my wrists. Perfect!  I don't have to put on one of those crossing guard straps.  I was doubtful that I would use that regularly.  I bought an extra pair for Darby, my frequent evening walking companion.

            When I got home, I needed a nap; I was exhausted.  I set my alarm for just before 4. I had an appointment with Et., a five-year-old with speech problems.  I spend more time with his father than either Et. or his mom. When I asked the dad how Et. was doing. He said he was doing better in Preschool. I asked why. He said he thought he knew the kids better. I suggested his parents being less afraid might have had an impact.

            I started working on leading them through the blending exercise. I had told dad how to use crossbody blending.  Start saying the individual phonemes, touching each shoulder. After saying them separately three times, hold the vowel sound until your hand comes to the other shoulder and then, with a flair, pronounce the final consonant. 

            Dad told me how they had used the crossbody blending with the word run.  They started with the r and combined it with the u.  I told him not to do this with this boy.  I see too many children have trouble reading because they start with the first consonant when they don't have the 'word family,' the rhyming piece, in place. He should start with the u, then add on the n. I told him to steer clear of adding on the initial sound for now—one step at a time.

            Then he told me that they were seeing improvement in his speech since I started with him. His preschool teacher commented on the progress. Why didn't he tell me that from the beginning? I have no idea. 

            I recommended that he work with 'word family' blends, vowels with the following consonant, using only the consonants formed toward the front of the mouth.  He has trouble forming sounds in the back of his mouth, for example, g, k, l, and r.  Save those letters for later.  

            I emailed him a list of the letters classifying them according to their formation in the mouth and whether they are voiced or unvoiced. Voicing is the growling sound you make in your throat, which changes a t to a d.

            After the session, B. called to say he was at Costco. Did I want anything? Yes, lemons and sweet kale salad if they had it. When he got home, I was reminded of my damaged fruit trees.  I had my trees trimmed last February.  I asked the guy to trim my lime tree.  He cut down a two-story tree to my height.  I was in shock.  He assured me it would come roaring back.  The branches and the leaves did, but not the fruit. It used to be abundant with limes.  That was the source of my limeade every night.  I had to supplement with an occasional bag of lemons. Now, I have to rely on Costco's lemon supply.  

            I was devastated by what that guy did to my trees. He also mangled my mac nut, avocado, and mangos trees.  If I know you don't treat trees that way, surely someone in the business also knows that. He just didn't care. I guess he figured I was a woman alone, and I wouldn't see the difference.  I am planning to file a complaint. It's the contempt that gets me,; the indifference. It actually hurts my heart, literally. 

____-____-_____

On divorce today.

            Judy knows a woman her son's age who left her husband, even though, as far as Judy could see, he was a decent human being who cared about her and their son.  She wondered about people today. Neither Judy nor I know the real circumstances of their separation.  However, we do notice a pattern today among young people.

            I heard something about this on the radio. They said where once a failed marriage was a source of shame; these days, people were ashamed when they stayed in marriages that weren't wholly fulfilling.  Holy cow!  I don't know how any marriage lasts if that's the case.

            Today's life partners have to fulfill the needs that were initially addressed by a whole village. Back then, no one expected a life partner to be a best friend, a lover, life mate, co-parent, support, stimulant, and comforter. Now, it all falls on one person. 

            The bad news with these expectations is that no one finds satisfaction in life. This is partially a result of having too many choices. They said back in the day, a girl caught the eye of a young boy on the other side of the watering hole, and that was that. Good enough.  They secured each other's place in the social structure, produced children together, and maybe had a conversation now and then- or maybe not.

            Having too many choices guarantees dissatisfaction. We can't handle more than five to seven options. Now, we can go to the grocery store and have over a hundred choices in salad dressings.  For our possible choice of a life partner - anyone in the whole world.  We have access to everyone through the Internet.  There may be someone out there who is better than the mate we are currently stuck with.  People feel ashamed if they are not blissful.  It used to be it was shameful to allow yourself to be abused.  That I get. But blissful. 

            The problem is that all things being equal, bliss is something the person has to bring into their own life. It's not up to the partner.  Maybe that will be the next step in our social maturity.

            The good news about this new standard is that people are more careful about selecting a life partner.  I think I lived the new modern standard a generation before my time.

            The first thing I knew was I had to get myself into shape to select a partner I wanted to live with, no less attract one.  I drew plenty of men; well, my body did. They weren't so happy with my personality, but then again, I wasn't that happy with theirs either.

            I was just about to turn 33 when Mike and I had our first date.  I immediately said, "You know I'm very bright." He said," Yes, you may be one of the brightest people I have ever met." In the first place, Mike hung around with professors in the Columbia University philosophy department.  He wasn't comparing me to any slouches.  In the second place, he wasn't complimenting me. He was just stating a fact. Most men chose to overlook my intelligence, or is it my verbal agility, as a minor defect. If he didn't actually consider it an asset, Mike was aware of it and not alarmed. Hmm! The first coin dropped. 

            I don't think I entered into my relationship with him with passion.  There was nothing dewy-eyed about it.  I entered into that relationship because it felt 'right.' I compared it to the way coins sounded in the old payphones. The coins didn't always catch when you put them in; you had to try several times. They made a sound when they registered. You knew you could now make your call.  It was the same feeling.

            On our second date, we went to see a movie on the east side of Manhattan, The Way We Were. I remember standing in line with him feeling no sense of urgency to do anything.  I could just stand there and do nothing. Ah!  I have no idea what he was feeling. 

            Right before I met Mike, I had decided that I would probably never find a mate I could live with for the rest of my life. I decided I'd better get good at dating. To that end, I set up rules. I would date anyone I didn't think would do me bodily harm; I would only see that person once a month, and they could only call me once a week.  I would have sex when I damn well felt like it. We were coming out of the sixties; this stance was novel for its day.  Mike was frustrated with all my limits but also pleased that I set them. It assured him that I would take care of myself; it wouldn't all fall on him.

            After the movie, we went to a Baskin Robbins for ice cream and then started walking back over to the west side where he lived. He was going to drive me home. As we stepped into the street to cross, he announced that he was $2,000 in debt. Well, that ended any prospect of a long-term relationship.  He might as well told me he was an alcoholic.  I managed to overcome that glitch in his character. There was too much that was right. 

            The difference in the way we related to money could have made our relationship very difficult. He believed you pay as little as you can at a time as late as you can.  I think you pay off what you owe as rapidly as possible.  Fortunately, we had enough money that it never became a big problem.

            I can't tell you that all the years were good. We had a few plagued by dead air. We also both had some traits that were irritating to the other. Sometimes we snapped in impatience; I was more the snapper; Mike responded differently.  But I can tell you, there was more pleasure than there was pain, more laughter than tears, more joy than sorrow.  We were both affection junkies. We loved the good cuddle, the good hug, and the great kiss. It was a good life. God, I loved that man.

 

Thursday, October 29, 2020

            I woke up early again and was out the door for my walk well before my alarm went off.  I am disturbed by M.'s mom. She seems very rigid and controlling. I don't do well with that.  She wants her daughter to think for herself and come up with the answers she would have given. 

            The mom had worked with M. on some of the answers. I had to ask M., "Did you write these answers or your mom?" Both.   Then when mom didn't get what she said she wanted, she blew a gasket.  The girl is sweet and a delight to work with. The mom, not so much.  I think I can bow out now in good conscience.  I think I accomplished what they 'said they wanted.  I can't help it if they don't like the way it looks.

            In my original interview with the mom, we had an interesting talk about the conflict between wanting something and reacting to the result.  Mom said she wanted her daughter to think more the way American children did. I told her the story of my mom on this subject.  She immigrated from Germany; she wanted me to be an American and then blew a gasket when she saw the results.  No, no, no. Not that.  The mom giggled knowingly. I should have had more compassion for her, but it was hard for me.

            It's interesting. My therapist made some comments in our last session that she saw me as insecure.   I doubt many people see me that way.  I may be out of touch with reality about people because of my PTSD, but I'm not insecure.  Unless you can say if someone puts a gun to my head and threatens to kill me, yes, I feel insecure.  I feel out of control.  I am scared, shaken.  Now, if that's her definition of insecure, that's accurate.  Even I know that my reactions are inappropriate. I just can't control them.  

            What did I do yesterday? I didn't write any notes. Surprise!  Well, I was surprised.  

            Scott was finished with the floor. I contacted Mike to lay the carpet back down.  Scott couldn't do it.  It is a particular skill. Mike said it would be all right if Scott laid down the padding.

            I had sessions with Eb and El.  Eb. is making steady progress. We're working on two words per session; we analyze one word, break it into syllables, and identify all the sounds in the word.  We use her speech, mapping the sounds onto the letters. For the second word, I select a word she might not know. There she has to start with identifying all the vowel letters.  Next, she has to determine which vowel letters make sounds. The vowel sound is the cornerstone of a syllable. Then that unfamiliar word has to be divided into syllables, and each syllable has to be sounded out.   The second process provides opportunities to work identity traditionally taught phonics patterns.

     El. 's mother is complaining he wakes up late and is therefore late for school. He said he loved sleeping in because he felt cozy. This was a new feeling. Now, that's not bad.  I think it means he is more comfortable with himself.  Now, I had to help him feel more comfortable wake and in the company of others.

            El. was born to two kids who were not in a steady relationship just out of high school. Neither was ready to be a parent. Dad died in a car accident when El. was about three.  Mom grew up and became a woman committed to being a good parent. I helped El. Experience the love she has for him now. He was surprised—what a delight. 

            I teach that we are the only ones who can heal old psychic wounds. We are the only ones who have access to that aspect of ourselves.  A wound we received at age two years one day can only be healed when we are two years and two days old by us.  Yes, mom can hold us. That certainly helps. That creates the healing environment, but the healing the child has to do themselves. They have to let go of that pain. No one can do that for us.

            We worked on the skill of opening a door in ourselves to allow others to love us. We can't pull love out of people, but we can open a passage or shut it out.  This is a difficult skill. You don't want to open it too far because the other person can be frightened by the possibility. 

______-______-______

Musings:

            There was a TED talk on polygamy.  Did I hear it right? Polygamy is legal in 86% of the world!  The speaker said she interviewed a man who had three wives. She asked him if he could have as many wives as he wished, how many would that be?  As the man contemplated his answer, the interviewer imagined his response: 5, 25?  His answer was, "None." Polygamy makes life complex.        

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

       My leg was problematic this morning. It was pinchy in the joint and crampy in the calf.  Again, I found myself thinking I might need a total hip replacement. Only, that will not be available for the foreseeable future- maybe ever. 

            First, I had an appointment with Shelly, my counselor. I work with her weekly, dealing with the stress everyone is going through these days.  I may be dealing with current stress, but it increases all the underlying stress.

            I worked, as I so often do, on the fear of putting out my work. Today I was able to sit with the fear as just the sensation throughout my body.   I don't know if I would normally label it as fear; it didn't sit in my gut. My whole body felt shaky. My skin felt shaky. Not a great feeling. But, as I sat, my stomach started to growl. Now, that was a good sign. A growling stomach means a meaningful change.  

            That shaky feeling is uncomfortable. I don't know how to describe it. It feels like a loss of control.  A loss of control means an outside threat to respond to – if things are going well.  The goal is to reestablish control. That tiger has to be killed or gotten away from. Ah, shaking- that's my body getting ready to go into action. But, if there is no tiger, what is my poor body going to do. All that shaking and no place to go. 

            The things that scare us these days, at least for now, are not life-threatening; they're merely embarrassing.  We didn't follow someone's script and made an error. That's all. We introduced an idea that a listener was uncomfortable with. Taking off in a dead run toward or away from the person we made uncomfortable would be most inappropriate.  We can scream at the person who 'makes us uncomfortable,' but that makes us look like we have a screw loose and ultimately makes us feel even worse. We can attack ourselves, but that doesn't fix the problem. Or we can stand there and feel the shakiness and feel crazy as a loon.  None feel like good choices. However, the only option that frees us is to stay calm and feel shaky until it passes.  It will pass. At some point, it becomes clear, even to the deepest recesses of our minds, that our lives are not in immediate danger.

            I had two students today. I had D. at 11:30, and M. at 2 pm.  D. is doing much better for the time being. He said his memory is getting much better. Fantastic! I feel freer to challenge him when he makes a mistake.  It has become a form of play. We finished chapter one of Socks today; we've been working through it for several months, at least since August. It's still slow going but not like it used to be. It's become fun for both of us. 

            I had requested a consultation with M.'s mother- again.  When I got out of my 10 am counseling appointment, there was a text from her telling me she was available for fifteen minutes around 10:30.   I also found a long email telling me that she worked on some written answers to a reading assignment on the Montgomery bus boycott. To the question of what some of the inconveniences were, M. answered, "their feet hurt.' Her mother said it took her half an hour, and she couldn't get her to generalize to the idea that the boycotters had to walk a lot because they couldn't take the buses. The mother said she couldn't get her to see this broader point. The mother said she saw no improvement over five sessions. First of all, the five sessions amount to two and a half hours. Also, my assignment was to help her daughter think 'outside of the box.' She was unable to use background information and make inferences. Gee! Speaking about how the feet of the walkers hurt wasn't in the text and, in fact, and makes sense. (I found a quote on the Internet, "My feet are tired. But my soul is resting.”) The next step will be to learn to infer the answer the teacher wants. She had a grip on background information now. She thought of how her own feet would hurt. The next step would be putting it into academic language. I was thrilled; mom almost said outright that her work with me was a waste of time. 

            M. and I worked on some of the other questions due today and tomorrow.  I thought she did brilliantly. In one case, I think she did a better job than I did.  As she started to answer it, I thought she was going in the wrong direction. But it became clear she connected the passage to the story better than I did. I typed all her answers, following her words as near as I could. I also wrote notes about the actions I took and didn't take. I sent it all to the mom, making it clear that I thought she had improved.  I think part of this girl's problem is her mom's need for perfection. Not only does she want the right answer, but it also has to be her correct answer. I don't think mom is very good about thinking outside the box, either. 

            As I closed the half-hour session, I asked the girl if she felt she had made an improvement. The girl gave an enthusiastic answer. I told the girl I had had a lot of fun. She thought it was fun, too. That's what I'm after, finding learning fun.

            Scott finished the floor today. It looks great. He does meticulous work. I feel that we have done the best we could at this point.  The new subfloor is much more solid than the old one. The original builders scrimped on building materials and labor. The house will stand till my death, but . . ..

            While my leg was pinchy and crampy this morning, every time I stood up after sitting for a while, it moved easily. This is a change; I usually have to give a few minutes to get my left hip to gear. Not today.

            After being ready to throw the frozen salmon patties I bought in Costco away because they tasted so bad, I now look forward to them. Once I discovered that they were delicious when grilled in a small frying pan, they became one of my new go-to dishes.

            I got a letter in the mail from the police department today. After my unpleasant experience, I wrote to the Police Chief about my effort to get a valid fingerprint chart at the Kona station. I had to go all the way over to Hilo to get one. The two stations under the same chief had completely different policies. What do you know? Kona is now receiving blank fingerprint forms, and all the police stations in the district had a meeting to coordinate the policy in all the stations.  

            Darby came out to greet me as I went for my walk. She wanted to talk to me today about a friend who is somewhat older than me. She has a new 'boyfriend' from Africa. They are planning to run away together someday. All she has to do in the meantime is send money. Hmm! I said, call the cops. This is elder abuse. When I got home, I Googled the sweetheart scam. There is no legal action possible unless the victim complains.  All you can do is convince the victim they are a victim.  Good luck! These scams prey on lonely older adults. They only go after people who are over forty. I suppose after forty, you've either given up although or gotten so desperate you will grab at any straw.  

            Ironically, I had some gentleman try to make contact with me through Instagram. In his picture, he looked like a slightly thinner St. Nick. He wanted to call me from Germany, I think. At least he wrote to me in German. It was a common enough phrase, so I could read it; I am a first-generation American of German descent. Because of my talk with Darby earlier in the evening, it occurred that this might be a Sweetheart Scam.  That would make sense. Sandor helped me post information about the blog" Mike's death; Betty's life" on Instagram with plenty of hashtags.  Someone smelled a sweet deal out there, a lonely widow looking for love. Not. There is no way I would respond to a miscellaneous man reaching out to me.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

            I was so warm on this morning's walk that I felt I didn't need my sweatshirt. During the summer, there have been mornings when I would have welcomed gloves. Huh?  Usually, the humid season is August, September, and mid-October. After that, the humidity breaks, and it gets cooler. This pattern is weird. Disturbing. Something else to entertain us.

            Yvette dedicated the yoga session to Mike. Today would have been his eightieth birthday. After the yoga class, Yvette came up and lifted the corner of my mat. There was a note, an envelope with golden 3-D letters glued, B & M (Betty & Mike). I assumed it was from Yvette. She often does stuff like that, leaves decorative notes, but no. It was from Elise, one of the regulars at driveway yoga. What a lovely gesture.

Dear Betty,

I did not know Mike, but I know cooks---Wild guess, but his heart was golden, his generosity unparalleled & humor well-seasoned! Today my practice is for this wonderful, mysterious stranger who had the impeccable taste to love you. I know he made it to practice today for you.    Love, Elise.

            Scott didn't come to yoga today. His body needed a rest. The work he's doing on the floor is hard on his body. Every time I check in the room, he bounces on some newly laid boards to show how much less give there is.  The originals were thin as wafers in comparison. Scott keeps assuring me that anyone who had seen in original underflooring without ripping it up would not have known how bad it was. Doubtful. I could feel the floor dip under my step with the carpeting down and two layers of padding under that. They could also see the nails; the floor had been secured with nails and not screws as it should have.

            I spent some time trying to recover information about a tutoring session I had had with Eb. I wanted to use the work we did for the video presentation.  I could not find any references to the work I had done with her, ever. I was surprised by how little I included in my daily notes. 

            Today Scott discovered an additional problem. The floor joist slope to the center of the house. He said this was badly constructed.  I learned something new. You're supposed to construct ta house, so the highest point is in the center, the crown. This house was constructed with the highest points being at the outer edges. I had some information about this from Ken when he was redoing our kitchen. He discovered the floor by the stove, toward the center of the house, was a good three inches lower than the floor by the refrigerator. He had to design the kitchen to compensate for this difference. Scott will now have to lay down shimmies to make the floor even. Unlike all the other builders, Scott won't overlook this flaw; he will deal with it. 

            I spent a lot of the day in the library, pulling books for St Patrick's. I had about forty books from one bay by the time I stopped. I didn't do any work on the PowerPoint for the video on my reading method.  Procrastinating again. 

            As I was working in the library, I heard Judy's voice calling me.  I came out of the library to greet her. She was in my kitchen already dropping off some homemade bread pudding. 

            I spent several hours completing the NY Times Mini Crossword Puzzles.  I enjoy them, and they are less damaging for my hands than FreeCell. While I sat on the lanai and did those puzzles, the sky opened up, and we had a major rainstorm. We haven't had rain for a while. It was most welcome.  Winter is the dry season on the Big Island; it's the wet season on Oahu.  I tried to take Elsa for a walk. However, like her mom, she's a Princess Never-Get-Wet. 

_____-_____-_____

Musings;

            Interestingly, as with everything, there are two groups of people. Those who feel you not only can but should expect people to change. You should tell people if their behavior bothers you, not only for your sake but for theirs as well.  The opposite is those who feel you should say nothing and just accept people as they are.

            I'm on the side of believing that we have an obligation to help others change. Now, let's be clear, this does not mean becoming a nag.  The comments and requests have to be presented in limited dosages. In all teaching circumstances, they have to be well-timed.

            I can't imagine I haven't told this story before.  One Wednesday afternoon early in our relationship, in response to my obsessing about some difficulty I was having with a commune-mate, Mike said, "I love you, but you have till Friday to resolve this. After that, I never want to hear about it again." My reaction was, "Ah!!" I don't have to talk about this all the time.

I have no idea why I got into compulsive talking about a frustration. What a relief to feel I could stop.

            I don't have a big sample of people who feel that you just have to accept people the way they are, but I have observed a pattern. They believe that there's nothing you can do but accept people 'for the way they are.' They are very tolerant of those in their group; and equally intolerant of those outside whatever they consider their group. 

            Quoting Dear Ben Franklin, moderation in all things is probably the best.  I had to learn to back off.  My happy life with Mike would not have been possible if I hadn't. Clearly, he wasn't perfect.  There were habits of his that drove me around the bend. But the positives way outweighed the negatives. 

            There were some traits that I could live with- - - until I couldn't.  I like to think that this 'no- more' state of mind was co-created. He was ready for the final push, which increased my irritation, motivating me to make my move. 

            I do know Mike was attracted to me because he knew I would help him become a better person. After he left his first wife, he asked a colleague for advice, "What should I look for in a mate?" The guy said, "A worthy opponent." Mike liked that answer. He found it in me. He told me that he thought I was bright, moral, and was as concerned about the well-being of the other as I was about myself. 

            I watch people who don't live as Mike and I did, living in a constant state of frustration with their partners and accepting it as the only option.  There can be something immoral in this behavior. When someone has a chance to help their partner live a better life, they should take action. I see how the 'good partner' is using the 'difficult one.' 

   I started thinking about relationships somewhat differently today.  I realized that the 'difficult partner' looks for someone who will never challenge them in a meaningful way.   They're stacking the deck against change. Maybe they want to know that someone can love them in their full obnoxious glory. 

            I admit it. I don't get it. Why do people want to wallow in their own self-created misery? It's not that I don't continue to create my own misery. But I also keep working on changing. It's hard; it's a long haul. No snap-change makes everything right. It's a slow process but so rewarding. Not only within myself but in improved relationships with others. Does it work in all my relationships? No, of course not. Does anything always work? Life is a risk.

Monday, October 26, 2020

            My friend Jean called while I was on my morning walk before I called Dorothy.  I had been enjoying the silence.  Jean responded to my SOS last night, declaring I was down.  I did get to speak to Dorothy last night and had a lovely walk with Darby.  My spirits were lifted.

            I got some vacuuming done in the far corner of the lanai.  I work slowly.  It drove Mike nuts. There was always something in progress rather than all settled and in order.  I can just ignore the tumult; he couldn't. 

            As I was procrastinating with the NY Times mini crosswords from September, the phone rang.  It was Angel from Lowe's.  He said the eight boards Scott had ordered for the underflooring were unusable. They were all damaged.  Scott had already told me yesterday that Home Depot was out. Oh, boy. I called the remaining building supply company in town, HPM. They had something like 350 in stock. Ah! There have to be some good ones in the bunch.  I hung up and called right back. "How quickly could they be delivered?" I gave my address; by Tuesday or Wednesday. 

            Scott wasn't available; he was in a stress management class at Hawaii Heart Care.  I called there to find out when the class got out. In the meantime, I had texted him all the information I had.  He called and said, "Oh, boy." I would have been fretting plenty if I hadn't called HPM and found out we could get some immediately.  It would have been another six weeks before there was another shipment from the mainland. 

            I called Scott are 10:45, knowing he had been out of his class for 15 minutes.  He and Yvette were at Lowe's looking for something. We were going to have to cancel the order at Lowe's. Could we get the insulation material Scott wanted at Home Depot, close to our house, or even at HPM?  Neither Home Depot nor HPM carried the Rockwool he wanted. The plan was to put in two more layers on top of the insulation he had put in when he redid the ceiling in Yvette's bedroom.  I volunteered to do repeated runs to pick up the Rockwool from Lowe's;. I didn't want to pay to have the Rockwool delivered alone since we weren't getting Lowe's subflooring.  It costs the same no matter what you order, and I would have to pay for the delivery from HPM.

            I heard B. at the side of the house. He was loading Yvette's cardboard recycling to take to the transfer station. I asked him if he could pick up the insulation while he was in town. Scott came home, and he and B. consulted. After speaking with Scott, I called HPM to place the order for 8 tongue-and-grooved ¾" sheets of subflooring.  B., overhearing the conversation between Scott and me, said he could pick up the subflooring from HPM as well as the insulation.

            The woman at HPM mumbled something at me with a W in it.  I asked her, What? She repeated her original mumble.  She finally got that she was going to have to speak slowly and clearly, "Will call or delivery?" Ah.  Will call.  It would take about an hour before they were ready to have it picked up.  

            B. went ahead to drop off the cardboard. Scott left a bit later, and they met up at HPM. It was just as well this material was not delivered.  The problem with Lowe's boards is someone had handled them roughly with a forklift and snapped all the tongues off. That makes the boards unusable.  Scott said B. took the lead at HPM.  He looked at the stack of boards, "We'll take the top five of this pile, not the rest," etc.  Scott said he would have done the same thing.  We wouldn't have had that kind of control if the material had been delivered.  Even if all the tongues were in A1 condition in the store, they might have been damaged in the loading and unloading process. B. and Scott both had an investment that these boards got home undamaged. All's well that ends well.

            Scott thanked me for staying calm.  I had a few lapsed moments, but I was okay, ready to take on another disappointment/frustration without taking an emotional nosedive because of Darby, Jean, and Dorothy's support. 

            While the boys were out doing their thing, I went down to vote.  I decided to do it that way because my handwriting was somewhat shaky, and I was afraid my ballot might be rejected.  I had called Melissa yesterday to make sure where the in-person voting was at the Civic Center. 

            There was no line. I had to fill out a green sheet. My signature was accepted.  I thanked all the elderly people manning the polls.  Precautions were in effect.  

            I had my mail-in-ballot in my hand.  There was a shredder on site.  The poll clerk suggested using the paper ballot as a cheat sheet, something I could study before getting in the polling booth.  After I voted, I asked what would happen if I didn't shred my mail-in ballot, keeping in mind Trump's cheating claims.  She said that the moment I signed in to vote in person, my mail-in ballot was voided.  Ah!  

            I find it interesting that Trump is accusing the Democrats of cheating on voting, but there is no suggestion that the Republicans might do the same thing. I find in-group blindness fascinating when it is not horrifying.

            Just before I entered the building after filling out my green sheet, Darby and Patrick came to drop their ballots in the ballot collection box.  I thanked Darby for her help yesterday.  I also told her that Yvette had texted me. She said she had come around the corner while we were walking last night and nearly hit the three of us, Darby, Elsa, and me. She recommended wearing a reflector or carrying a flashlight.

            Darby always refers to Patrick as her minder. It reminds me of Mike. He was always so protective. It verged on annoying but never quite got to that point. The biggest irritation is that he didn't believe I had the right to be as protective of him as he was of me. It was mostly sweet.  

Patrick took in the news that Darby needed illumination. I'll bet she will be prepared on our next walk.

            I stopped off at Costco next.  I had a list. The store was practically empty. I had to stop in the Pharmacy section to get Vit. E and Dove soap.  The whole area had been reconfigured.  Several rows of shelving had been removed, and four or five new checkout counters stood in their place.  It was disorienting.

            As I pushed my loaded cart back to my car, I thought, Damn, I didn't buy lemons.  Okay, maybe I'm supposed to be off lemonade for a while. The water tastes really good.  My cart was heavily loaded, or at least it looked that way with a huge package of toilet paper. A man on the high side of middle age approached and asked if I needed help. He wasn't wearing any badges identifying him as a Costco employee. I think he was just a nice man seeing an old lady pushing a heavy cart up an incline.  He helped me load the car. When he was just about done, a young woman across the aisle asked if he could help her load too. It's Hawaii.

            When I arrived at the house, the subflooring was leaning against the side of the house under the four-foot overhang.  Scott helped me unload the heavy stuff, and I hooked up the car to be charged. I took a look in the room. Scott had gotten up all the old subflooring yesterday, but it was laid down loosely on the cross beams so he could walk across the floor easily.  Scott spent the day stuffing the Rockwool between the joists. That alone was a project and a half. He got one of the new boards laid down loosely before he left. 

            When I walked into the room, he said, you would not believe the difference between this flooring and what they had down.  The other stuff was not just thinner; it had been damaged.  Scott speculated that the house had been open when they laid the subflooring, and it had rained. Then that flooring had only been tacked down with poor quality nails.  Scott is going to secure the flooring first with liquid nails and then with screws. Those boards ain't going nowhere.

            Yvette came up to check out the work.  I said, "If this doesn't work, you can move out." Scott proposes earplugs. Whatever.  

            Scott and I spoke briefly about doing the work on the rest of Yvette's ceiling.  I will not take up my flooring; the rest of the house is tiled.  The plan is to open her ceiling at specific spots so whatever's loose can be secured and blow insulation in. Problem: No one is renting a blowing machine. We don't know why. Lots of other machinery is being rented.

            Damon called at the end of the day. I told him about the gift I had sent him.  I sent him and everyone in the family water filter bottles designed to filter sewage if necessary.  After reading Chapter 3 in Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy, I am resigned to a new Dark Ages with internecine wars raging around us.  I think I'm in the best possible situation here in Hawaii.  

            Damon is still optimistic that we can pull this country out of its current morass. I'm not, especially not after reading Chapter three of Applebaum's book.  She exams historical parallels. I stand convinced; it's like trying to stop a tsunami. It's beyond human powers. Something has been set in motion worldwide.  It will resolve itself. I doubt I will live to see it. How long did the Dark Ages last? Will our Dark Ages be shorter or longer even? If enough people survive to continue the human race, will there be a resolution at the end of the rainbow?  It will just take time.

            Damon told me that August had his college interview. He is applying to Occidental in Los Angeles.  I think he's a really together boy, well, young man. I'm impressed. 

            Damon said how he was concerned about his coping with his first year being away. Huh? Damon said his first year at Vassar was challenging for him. I spent two months at a sleep-away camp for seven summers. Going to college was just like going to camp. No problem. Damon had never been away from home.  Damon started thinking about all the things they didn't expose August to that would now cause him difficulty.  I assured him there was no way to avoid that. I think a parent's responsibility is to prepare your child to solve their own problems. The worst thing a parent can do is make everything perfect for their child, so they have no worries. Worries are just part of life. We all have to find a way to cope. Short of being extremely abusive, I don't think there is anything worse a parent can do than strip a child of their problem-solving ability by assuring them that they will do it all for them.

            Mike and I didn't come from the best environments. We were both socially inadequate at best as adolescents. However, we made lives for ourselves, satisfying lives.  Oh, yes. Damon is worried about August's social skills. He has spent all this time isolated from his peers. I reminded Damon that he was in good company; all his peers would be delayed.

_____-_____-_____

Musings:

            The book Twilight of Democracy started well. The first section is beautifully written. The second chapter is a tell-all. The author reveals how people she knew as liberals turned around and became right-wingers.  

            Now, I'm in the third chapter. It supports a theory I already found attractive.  People are distressed and scrambling because they are being bombarded with too much information. The world tilted after every communication breakthrough, print, telephone, and now the Internet.  

            People crave a stable point of view, not one that is open for discussion. Mike argued for Marx's point of view: people fought over land and resources. But once those two are available at a minimal level, the struggle between people is over beliefs, beliefs about daily reality, and religion. Is my concept truer than your concept? And people are prepared to kill and die over this.  

Sunday, October 25, 2020

            Two more days before what would have been Mike's eightieth birthday.  Oh, boy. 

            I slept reasonably well, waking up at my usual time and getting out of bed at 6. It's Sunday, and no driveway yoga; I can sleep in. After my morning walk, I did about 10 NYTimes Mini Crossword Puzzles. I'm not up for the real ones. My mother-in-law loved them.

            I put off doing work on the PowerPoint presentation I was compiling for my video presentation.  I am an excellent procrastinator. I finally sat myself down and modified the PP using Dorothy's recommendations. Then I sent it to Dorothy and Judy for review.

        I reread the article I wrote on my reading method. It's been sitting on the coffee table for more than a month. I was shocked by all the errors. Some of it didn't even make sense. How is it that my first readers ignored that?  By the time I got through working on it, I was heading toward clinical depression.

            I called Jean, my friend, but I only got her voicemail.  I put the phone down and then heard Dorothy's voice.  I had butt-dialed her. I hung up and then called her back.  I told her I was down. She talked to me about her goings-on. 

            I was still working when I heard a woman's voice call me from the driveway.  Judy? Paulette? Yvette?  I went to the door. It was Darby asking me if I was going for a walk. She always cheers me up.  She told me I could call whenever I needed to.  Another fantastic source of contact. Ah!

            I continue watching Hinterland. Yes, it's melancholic, but it's soothing, and the countryside scenes are a visual treat. 

            ______-______-_______

Musings:

            Some people disagree with my view of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. Some take offense.  They believe the current theories, introduced through neuroscience, that we make most decisions unconsciously and our conscious mind's role is 'minor' are dead wrong.'  

            It's the opposite; the role of the conscious mind versus the unconscious mind is minor.  It is tiny and comes in late in any decision-making. The research shows that we are often in action before our conscious minds even come online.  Then do we have free will? I argue, yes. But our self-control is limited by our ability and willingness to acknowledge the role of the unconscious mind in our everyday decisions and actions.

            How can we have free will if our unconscious minds play a major role in our daily decisions and actions? The conscious mind's role is to observe and say "yes!" or "no."             It is the conscious mind that stops an action in progress.  Think of all the times you have changed your mind about something, pulled your arm back from an action, either trivial or momentous. 

            Also, think of all the times you have approached something new with hesitation, even trepidation, and it is your conscious mind, with direct access to the outside world, that says, "Yes, I will try something new, unfamiliar."

            The unconscious mind deserves its reputation.  It is designed to override our conscious mind and drive actions. That can be good, and it can be bad. The override function is for our survival.  You don't want to stand there and contemplate options if you're being chased by a lion. You want to get the hell out of there. 

            I have experienced that unconscious mind's override of my conscious mind. It resulted in a comic moment, fortunately. I was fifteen years old at a summer camp in Vermont. In their wisdom, the counselors organized a game of 'tag.' We were a bunch of adolescents aged 13 through 16, dividing us into two teams, Cowboys and Indians. Each one of us was given a piece of cloth to tuck into the top of our jeans. 

            I was a Cowboy; I had zero interest in this game, zero.  The Indians had gone out and hidden in the surrounding landscape, New England drum and kettle.  The Cowboys received a signal to go when the Indians were in their hiding places. My team walked down the road surrounded by trees on both sides.  I was talking to a friend. I was not going to participate in the game in any serious way. 

            The trees ended abruptly. The landscape opened to a grassy field with this drum and kettle formation. This means the landscape was dotted with these low hillocks. From behind these hillocks, my campmates rose, whooping and hollering.  

            I jumped, made 180-degree turn mid-air, and started running back to 'safety." I don't know how many strides it took for my conscious mind to kick in and register what was going on. When it did, I started laughing at the ludicrousness of my situation, but I could not stop running.  I didn't have the physical strength to counter my adrenaline-driven run.  I finally got back to the home base.  I stopped myself from running by throwing myself onto a raised bit of land.   I was still laughing when an "Indian" came along a snatched my cloth out of my waistband.  

            There are less dramatic ways our unconscious mind can hijack our conscious minds.  I recently had the privilege of addressing this phenomenon with parents terrified for their five-year-old child with a speech problem. They allowed me to tell them that their fear is for their child's life. There's a historical reason why their brains responded that way, but it does not apply to our current situation. Once they accepted that their extreme fear was driven by inappropriate concerns in their current situation, they relaxed.

            Our unconscious minds function at a primate level, much as our dogs do. Elsa barks at the mailman. "Thank you, Elsa. He's okay." And she quiets down.  I function as her' conscious mind.' When fear is triggered, our unconscious mind always interprets it as a life-threatening danger. That's its default programming. It is how we were designed. No, it is often not appropriate for our current lives. (Hopefully, that will continue to be true in the coming years.) However, we do want the default program of our unconscious lives to be concerned about saving our lives.

            The question is how to relate to our unconscious mind. Hating it doesn't work.  Suppressing it works in the short run but not in the long run.  I argue we must respect and love this powerful instrument that is such a presence in our lives. We are not just our conscious minds.

            I'm a democratic, lower-cased. I believe in negotiating.  I think there is value in the push and pull of various points of view- if you can get to the core of each one. If either one of them, the conscious or the unconscious mind, is given too much power, it generally winds up a disaster.

            As much as we have to respect the unconscious mind's drives, we have to respect the value of the conscious mind's storytelling gift and knowledge of the current reality.  The two forces must work together in the framework of a moral overview. 

            I know, be careful what you wish for.  Moral overview??? What does that mean?

Saturday, October 24, 2020

            I woke up at 4 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I had the feeling that one of my student's parents was pissed at me.  She wants me to do class assignments with her daughter. She wants to see evidence that I am working with her on grade level.  I can't work with her on grade level if she is not performing on grade level.  Does mom want to get classwork done, or does she want me to help her daughter with her problem of not engaging background knowledge appropriately when reading?  She sticks strictly to what the text has to say. Mom recognizes that she doesn't think out of the box, and that box is very small. 

            My problem is that I have seen this girl engage in background knowledge and cognitive empathy. If she could do it once, why can't she do it all the time?  I suspect fear of making a mistake. 

            I was up and out the door by 4:30, completing my morning 6,000 steps before six.  When I came inside, I meditated for an hour.  I had time to wash the dishes and feed the dog before Yvette called me for driveway yoga.  

            Yvette has been doing an exercise with a strap, which is doing wonders for me. I loop the strap around the heel of one of my feet, then I pull tightly with straight arms while lying flat on my back. It's tadasana on steroids. I started with my legs lying on the ground.  Now I lift them slightly off the ground. It strengthens my upper thigh muscles.

            After class, I completed about 10 of the mini–NY Times Crossword puzzles. I love doing them on the tablet. I have quick confirmation if I'm on the right track. There's the check option. The incorrect letters are struck through with a red line. I can check without spoiling the rest of the puzzle for myself.   There was only one mini-puzzle this morning that I gave up on.  I pressed reveal almost immediately. There wasn't a single clue I recognized.

            I finally went to pull up my updates file.  I couldn't find it under recents. Huh?  Oh, right.  I spent last night deleting and consolidating files to make more room in my computer storage. I'm running out.  I had three or four update files.  I didn't need them all.  I must have deleted the one I had been currently using. I had to reconstruct it from a variety of different sources. Fortunately, I was up-to-date in sending them out through email, so all were available for recovery. Being update-to-date is very unusual. 

             I had two short sessions with clients today.  Et. 's father had to cancel our Friday evening session.  I had texted him during the week because I had an idea. I pursued it this morning.  The mother had told me that Et. had trouble saying the final g in dog.  I concluded that he had problems with speech sounds that were formed in the back of the mouth. Then it occurred to me to ask if he could pronounce the /g/ if it was the initial sound. That would mean that my diagnosis was off.  Sure enough, he has no problems when these sounds are the initial sounds. 

            Okay, revised diagnosis and revised suggestions. It sounds like Et. has trouble transitioning from a vowel to a final consonant.  I recommended that the parents model,l saying the individual phonemes in a word family unit, like -an, individually, and then slowly blend them, holding the /a/ until they reach the n.  The tongue shape changes while saying the /a/ when heading for the /n/. The tongue shape is different depending on the final consonant.  I am now speculating that Et. has trouble moving from the relaxed tongue to the tense one. We'll see.  I recommended that we only model the sounds at this point. He's an immature five-year-old.  He will compulsively listen to anything the adults around him do.

            I asked dad if they had seen any difference in Et. over the week.  They said they were unable to do some of the exercises I recommended.  But he is more confident when speaking to his peers in preschool. 

            I also had a session with Eb. I picked the words for her to work on.  She analyzed the word Bricker, which she was able to read easily. For the decoding exercise, I picked the word urgency. I don't think of any specific phonics objective when choosing the word.  It does wind up Eb. has trouble with the g=g&j and c=k/s rules.  She pronounced the g in gen as a /g/.  I went over the rule.  I then asked her if that was clear. She kind of blew me off, "yeah, it was clear." Then she went to read the gen with a hard g. I led her through the exercise. I pointed out that the g  was followed by an e. How should you pronounce that g if you follow that rule? "Oh!!!" We had to go through the same song and dance for the c before a y.  We covered this rule before.  I think there are problems with pattern recognition. Everything has to be learned as an isolated example of something.  

            Yvette texted me to say that the water in Kua Bay was calm; did I want to come down to the beach? She would meet me in the parking lot and carry my chair and whatever else I needed carried.  

            Scott had suggested that I go to the beach. Swimming in the ocean, just being by the ocean, is a distresser.  I couldn't believe how fantastic it felt to be surrounded by water.  I went in up to my neck. Yvette was by my side every minute; I held on to her hand.  My legs are so much weaker despite all the walking I do.  

            My mother was more of a tiger than I am with less exercise.  She went on a rafting trip down the Delaware River with Yvette, Damon,  Yvette's brothers, Mike, and me.  Damon, Yvette, and Mowg were in tires. Mike, mom, and one of Yvette's older brothers, and I were in a raft.  We passed a stream with mild rapids. I got out of the raft, grabbed a tire, walked up the stream bed, and floated down. My 80+ mom decided she wanted to do this too. Okay. She walked up that stream bed. As she floated down into the Delaware's main flow, Mike was frantically manning the raft, terrified that she would slip by and float on downstream.  My mom loved it.  I don't think I could walk up that stream on my own carrying a tire now, and I'm younger than she was.   

            Yvette had told me she had brought some snacks, a skewer of chicken, and a small container of salad. That was my dinner. 

            Scott had been in the house all day, ripping up the old subflooring. His job was made much harder because of all the screws I had him put in through the carpeting to secure the subflooring.  He had to saw a slice of the board out and then pry it up.  When I got out of my shower, I went to check. He had just pulled up the last board. He is going to have to do some major reconstruction.  The house isn't the best built.  This better fix the problem with the sound.  Or let's put it this way. I give up.

______-______-______

Musings:

            Living with contradictions. Some people can say two totally contradictory statements in one breath and see no problem.  I suppose if you don't know the value of or the possibility of reconciling contradictions, that type of departmentalism makes sense.  I can't imagine that we don't all do that to some extent. It is a stop-gap measure, if nothing else.  If I can't find a way to reconcile them, I have to hold both thoughts.

            I place myself far on the side of the bell curve of those who need to reconcile logical contractions.  I am a dyed-in-wool dialectician. It influences everything I do. I believe there is value in all points of view.