Mike's death; Betty's life...: 12/30/25

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

I wrote a response to a question posed by one of the participants in the Zoom Presentation: "Is it important to learn the vowels?" Now, I have to find a way to share it with her.

I finally decided for Yvette that we would not install the new window. I got ambivalent messages from her about it. When I purchased the reel lawnmower, she praised it, so happy not to have a stinky, noisy machine mowing the lawn in front of her house. She had nothing good to say about the window. She was 'willing' to have it installed. I think I pushed something on her she didn't want. There was some drama with the exchange, but I felt calmer afterward. My instinct said something was wrong. I may, of course, be wrong about that, but I am happy with my decision for now.

I had an appointment with my 4th grade D. He still misses words and overlooks misread words that don't make sense.

I have checked with Fs mother for feedback on her children. I was surprised to learn that she sees no difference in M's ability to infer in conversation. She is knocking the inferencing skills we're working on out of the park. We started on a third-grade level. It took a few passages to get her going. Then she rocked it. I skipped from level to level through the book. She is now working on grade level 5th, and she is still soaring. It occurred to me that her problem may be with nonverbal clues.

I asked mom if it was just in nonverbal contests or verbal ones. Mom replied, "Both." That didn't seem right to me. I called her. It came out mom was considering a description of the nonverbal interaction in a narrative. While words were used to describe a situation, it was a description of a nonverbal exchange. I had to tell mom that her inferring from expository writing differed from inferring something that described a nonverbal situation. The two processes use different parts of the brain. Logic uses the left brain; the nonverbal, intuitive, uses the brain's right side. She had problems with empathy. I could feel mom deflating. She knew what that meant. I have thought for some time that M. is on the autism spectrum. Mom knows the significance of that characteristic since her seven-year-old has a clear-cut case of autism. I never said the words "autism spectrum." I wanted to find out if there are services available for M before I push mom in that direction.

I set the computers up in the library for the Zoom presentation. First, I had to get the recording function to work. Ah, it occurred to me that I was in the Step-Up Tutoring account. I imagine Step-Up does not provide the recording option to protect the children. When I changed it to my personal account through Yahoo, I had a recording button. I did only one or two slides. I was calmer and more controlled- less nervous. I had been concerned about getting through in a timely way. I won't have to bother doing that with YouTube. People can stop it and come back to it. There won't be any participants.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

A light rain fell during yoga today. I felt like I was in the vegetable aisle. Toward the end of class, the rain came down stronger. Yvette cut the class short by a few minutes.

My friend Melissa called. I had called her before I made my presentation of my reading method for Step Up Tutoring for her feedback. Then I decided I didn’t want it yet. I knew she would have wonderful suggestions, but I didn’t want to make any changes at that point. It was well-rehearsed. Today, she wanted to know how my presentation went. I had just emailed her the video that morning. I told her I had delayed sending it until I had Judy’s assurance that I didn’t need to feel ashamed.

I sent out Sam’s birthday card today. I wanted to make one all from scratch with a Goldilocks theme. I found an image of Goldilocks holding a bowl with a spoon. I printed it out on card stock and colored it in. Then I faced the challenge of drawing the three chairs. I finally realized that I had set myself a goal way over my head. I hopped in the car, headed to Target to buy a card for a two-year-old.

The Target parking lot was packed. When I went to Costco yesterday, the flats were set in anticipation of a long, long line. I figured they were getting ready for the end-of-the-month dole checks and food stamps. I guess those checks came in yesterday, therefore the overflow of cars. After Target, I went to the bank to cash checks. I changed my mind quickly. Every parking space was taken. I left, planning to come back some other day.

When I got home, I made confetti with the special hole punches that make hearts and stars Yvette lent me. I glued the Goldilocks image I colored onto a backdrop and wrote, “It’s too hot!’ in a corner. No two-year-old is going to understand the image and the words. These are references to something he shares with his grandmother, my sister Dorothy. She started telling him the Goldilocks story during their Facetime calls. He loves the part where she says, “It’s too hot!” He asks her to tell the “oldiocks” story. I got the card in the mailbox. His birthday is tomorrow. I didn’t think he would be distressed by getting it late.

I included a check in the card with the ‘oliocks’ images and the confetti. I needed a new book of checks. At some point, I realized the ‘new’ book was for some closed accounts, Mike’s and my joint account, and an individual account I had when he was alive. I couldn’t open the envelope. Sam’s card couldn’t be easily fit into just any envelope. I warned Karin not to cash the check. I took a picture of my new checks and texted that to her.

Scott came over, and we unpacked the window. It doesn’t open ‘completely,” the top window doesn’t come down, so it’s in line with the top of the bottom one. Scott talked about removing the panels that block that from happening. Doing so will cancel the lifetime warranty. There must be a reason for them being there. I suggested Scott call Milgard and find out its function. Yvette was disappointed in the window. She had nothing positive to say about it.

I had a session with Aiden. We continued with the Using Context exercises. He continues to show improvement. He read the words; I guided his decoding when he got stuck. I read the sentence with the blank space and the multiple-choice words. He answers more quickly and with greater confidence.

I texted Scott and asked him to check the solar attic fan he installed. I could hear the old one on the north side of the house whirling away. It made a racket. When I went to the south side of the house, I didn’t hear a peep from that attic fan. He texted me that he checked, and it’s working just fine. It is so much quieter than the old one.

Monday, March 29, 2021

I was exhausted when I fell into bed last night before 10 pm despite having had several long naps during the day. When I woke, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It was surely close to 5:30.; no, it was only 11:30 pm. Well, I had slept a good part of the day. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't. I finally gave up and read some of The Biggest Bluff. The book is interesting but not as well written as the introduction. That was compelling.

I also got up and continued my search for my beloved earbud. It's for one ear and sits on my head like a blackbird. I no longer get good sound from my phone without the earbud. I looked everywhere; it was nowhere to be found. I finally fell asleep again.

I had an 8:30 phone appointment with my accountant. Miss Kitty had a question about a tax form from a company called Blackstone Group. I know nothing about this stuff. I assumed it had something to do with my Raymond James account. I had forwarded the accountant's inquiry to Raymond James. There was no email in response. I called. The voicemail said that Raymond James wasn't open. That was strange. I hung up and checked if it was a National Holiday. No. I called back and got the same message. I asked them to call me as soon as possible.

My phone rang punctually at 8:30. I was expecting it to be the accountant, but it was Deborah from Raymond James. No, I had no connection with the Blackstone Group through them. While I was speaking to her, the phone rang again. This time it was the accountant. I tried to get off with RJ. She must not have been able to hear me clearly; she kept talking.

The accountant said she had finished my taxes. She looked back at last year's form. No, I didn't have any reference to the Blackstone Group. She apologized. I told her no harm as long as she wasn't going to blame me. I've been having a few turns when folks, wanting not to be on the hot seat themselves, make sure that the blame sits with me. Oh, they make sure to forgive me, too boot. Wild! Unfortunately, it was what my mom did to me, and it was a trigger.

More window drama. Yvette sent me an email saying she didn't think the window would work because the top window didn't come down evenly with the top of the bottom window. Another problem! I wondered why she sent that to me when we hadn't even tried to open the window. I thought this was her way of saying she didn't want it. When I saw her, I checked if she didn't like it. She said yes.

On the subject of my mom: she was able to change. I told you she used me as a whipping boy. When I was 34 and she was 71, I sent her a letter saying I had been afraid of her all my life. I couldn't find a way to deal with the fear. I needed to not speak to her for a while. In the same letter, I told her that my best vision for us was her sitting on a sloping lawn with children running around her.

I had sent that letter in August. In early November of the same year, she called me. She said, "I'm old. I forgive you. Let's get together." I just said, "I'm not ready yet." You can see the problem. She didn't see me as an independent agent. She thought she had all the control.

A year after that, a cousin of ours hosted Thanksgiving dinner at her house. She called to invite me, telling me that my mom would be attending. I said yes.

My mom and I greeted each other like strangers, with the politeness one extends to those we barely know. It felt sad to have such a distant, cold relationship with her. But it rapidly changed and became better than it had ever been.

Besides writing that letter and communicating that I had boundaries, I had an internal commitment. I would only allow her to say three bad things about me per contact. At the fourth, I would quietly leave. I wouldn't make a fuss; I wouldn't even explain why I left. I'd say I had to go. She never violated that limit. I think holding that thought within myself was enough.

As many of you know, she spent the last eighteen years of her life living with me and Mike. That would never have been possible if I hadn't written that letter and set that boundary. Mike and I decided having her live with us was doable when we thought I was separate enough, and I had easy access to therapy if I should become overwhelmed. Despite this, my mom told me at one point that she still viewed that letter in only negative terms. While she may not have been conscious of what happened, she was able to change. She did learn that I had boundaries. Because she was, we were able to develop loving relationships (with plenty of bumps). I was able to offer her a home in the last years of her life. Some people are not able to make that adaptation.

Despite repeated attempts to find my precious earbud, I had no success. I tried to use another one I had in the house with no success. I couldn't figure out, for love nor money, how to operate it. I had to struggle without my earbud during a wonderful healing session on the phone. (The client's pain level dropped from a 10 to a 2.) I decided this couldn't go on that way for long. I got in the car to drive to Target to get an earbud I could operate with plans to stop off at Costco on the way back. There was my precious earbud. I must have taken it off in the car. It wasn't that easy to see. Thank God. Ahh!!! I forgot about Target and headed right to Costco. Besides lemons and salad, I got four-and-a-half gallons of vinegar.

I had two cancellations today. What started as a busy day wound up being somewhat relaxed. J canceled for the whole week because it is spring break in LA. I. canceled because her Hulu dance group will be filming on Saturday, and she has to rehearse every day this week. I told Julia, our Step Up tutoring tech, that I didn't want to work with the 5th-grade girl, E. Something about that situation felt very wrong. She is going to make my excuses. I was done. Another Ah.

I had two appointments for tutoring today. The first was with my seven-year-old H, who is autistic. He was more anxious today than usual. He wanted to work on writing jokes. He became upset when he couldn't get me to do exactly what he wanted. I guided him with a new visualization that I learned today as I worked with my adult in a healing session this morning. When she started working on something, it caused her to feel very dizzy. This was spinning, which can be healing, but it was too much for her. I told her to picture a brightly colored kite swirling in a blue sky. I figured it would be a controlled, pleasant image of spinning. Because it was being done in the context of what she was experiencing, the kite's spinning would reflect the spinning in her head. It worked for her. I tried it with H. It also worked for him. He calmed down. I worked on helping him learn to ask for what he wants calmly and politely. When he screams at me because I am not giving him what he wants, it is hard to cooperate even when I want to. I don't understand what he wants me to do. I still haven't heard from his mom if he is making any progress.

I had an appointment with my adolescent D at 4. It was just the two of us. His mom was busy until 6:30. She asked me if it would be okay if I worked with him alone. It wasn't my idea that she be present for all sessions. However, I did feel D. had to feel comfortable being alone with me for this to be okay. He was.

In our last session, I had him write a short essay. I had him work on phonemically transcribing the text. He and his mother worked on that. They did a good job. When I spoke to his mom, she said he still wasn't reading fluently. Yikes! Don't push fluent reading until he has gotten the phonics down. I can always show him how to switch then. This is not the time to push him through the text.

I talked to D at length about conscious processing. I believe he chose to avoid it. Many people feel that way. It is somewhat uncomfortable, mainly if you have been performing the task at some level automatically. However, if someone wants to improve, they have to engage their conscious minds. This is true at all levels. Professional musicians practice the scales every day. Those are the same scales the beginning learner starts with.

We worked on continuing to decode the words in the story he was reading. I wanted to switch him to more difficult material. I tried something in Wiki because I knew he was ego-adverse to working with 'simple' material. The Wiki was much too hard. I was able to pull up some work I had prepared for M on a fourth-grade level. We completed one paragraph.

I was dismayed to see that he still didn't have his vowels down pat. When I asked him to identify them, he included a consonant in the list; he corrected himself. That fourth-grade work was at least two grade levels above his current level. He was able to acknowledge that his reading level is low. He was dismayed by the number of mistakes he made.

Eventually, he said he had had enough. We had some time left. I grabbed a 4th-grade book I had at hand and worked on phonemically breaking down the words. I had to struggle with some of the words. I asked how he felt about my making mistakes. He said it was funny. What do you know? We got the word 'fun' out of him—a definite improvement.

Judy had stopped by earlier in the day to drop off food. She had offered to bring over tortilla soup yesterday. I sat there waiting. I finally called her. She had settled in for the night—all well and good. I made my dinner. The next day, she dropped off the soup and salmon she had prepared earlier in the week. She had finally watched the video of my presentation for the Step-Up Tutoring program. She said no, I didn't look like a demented old lady with a Bronx accent and a speech problem. She thought I looked animated, lively. However, she said she had tons of questions about the work, how it worked. She wants to get together with me for an hour to talk about it. She wondered if the other viewers had a lot of questions to ask. I said no. I thought that was because they didn't understand it well enough to know what questions to ask. Judy is trained in Orton Gillingham Phonics. She knows enough to have questions.

Sunday, March 28, 2021

I slept until 6:30. I couldn't reach Dorothy and didn't hear back from her until late afternoon. I would have worried, except that she was visiting her daughter and her family in Seattle. If she didn't show up, Karin would have been in action. Later in the day, I learned she had been busy with family activities, as I suspected.

I only did a short walk because my leg bothered me, but not in the joint where I received the shot. There it was itching. It was the second time I had forgotten about the band-aids. The doctor uses these little round ones that are good for covering a pimple.

While I was working on the updates, Judy called. Xander, Adam, and Jazzy's dog was missing. Adam and Jazzy had gone away for the weekend and left Judy in charge. Xander is a lovely, somewhat older German Shepherd. He is the gentlest, sweetest dog ever. When Leon, Adam and Jazzy's son, was five, he and Xander stood eye to eye. There was a scene where Leon stood at the top of his driveway with his arm around Xander's neck, 'restraining' him from coming after Elsa and me. Right!

We've had some window drama here. I ordered a new window for Yvette's yoga studio. She has a casement window in there now. Because that room was an add-on after the house was built, the overhang isn't large enough to protect that window; the rain comes flooding in. I ordered a double-hung, so the bottom half could be closed while the top was open to let in air.

Since the window was a special order, it took several months to arrive. Then Scott, who was going to install it, had other projects to work on. It was just last week that he finally started to work on it. Yvette and Scott came up to tell me that the top window doesn't work; the top window doesn't open. Then Scott told me he looked it up online; he found a video that showed how it worked. He showed me the video. As I watched the demonstrator drop the bottom window into the room, my immediate reaction was, 'Oh, this is for cleaning." But Scott said this was how the window worked. It was some weird model. Returning it wasn't an option: it was a special order, and it was well over the 90-day limit. I had plans of going in on Monday morning to figure out how I got this weird model and make sure it never happened to anyone again. In preparation for that confrontation with Home Depot and possibly Milgard, I watched the video – and the one after it.

When I watched the first video to the end, I saw that opening the windows that way, dropping them into the room was for washing purposes only. I had double-hung windows like that installed in my house in Ohio. I loved them. In Scott's defense, the demonstrator said, "This is how you operate this window," and he never said anything about washing them.

There was a second video that followed the first. That demonstrated the regular use of the window and the window washing feature. I called Scott to tell him.

Today was the third session with the Yoga Farms Ithaca workshop on the Awareness Keys to Excellent Living. Last week's key was noticing change, as in everything changes. In preparation for today's session, we were to listen to the Awareness Keys Primer Video. I was exhausted, probably due to the ozone injection, I had yesterday. I lay down to listen and fell asleep. I know me; if something interested me came on, I would wake to pay conscious attention.

Much of what the presenter was teaching was familiar. There was one bit that was helpful. I don't know what the bit was, but I remember what I got out of it. It wasn't something I hadn't thought of before; it felt new. It was probably from a different perspective. The thought: whenever we find ourselves being contrasted to others as not as good, we will have one of two immediate responses: anger or self-denigration. This insight was significant for me because I have been having a lot of angry responses. Some of this may be my preference for this feeling over the feeling of grief. Anger gives energy, fight. I remembered the clear insight: arrogant people believe they are better. It's a defense against not being good enough, but so is self-denigration. The latter serves to appease the 'superior' through submission.

The leader discussed what was once thought of as the four Fs Fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating. Which recently became the five Fs: fighting, fleeing, freezing, feeding, and mating. The presenter talked about a new F: fighting, fleeing, freezing, fawning, feeding, and mating. I thought of a seventh one: Fighting, fleeing, feeding, fawning, outfoxing, feeding and mating.

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Yvette came in after yoga this morning and put the pressure sleeves on my legs. This is the new thing. Everyone was wearing them and raving about how good it makes them feel. When she put them on me the other day, they did feel pretty good. They felt okay today- until I went for a walk. Then my right leg hurt. I came home immediately. The discomfort was scary. Something was wrong. I called Scott because I thought Yvette had left already. He didn't answer. I called Yvette. She came right up and got that sleeve off my leg. I think the problem is water retention in that leg. Why would I have it in one leg and not the other? Yvette put tape on my right lower leg. It performed a similar function to the pressure sleeve without putting pressure on the tissues around my ankle. The left leg continued to feel good. The pain I felt in the right leg was scary. If I hadn't been able to get hold of Yvette, I would have gotten in my car and gone to neighbors to see if I could get one of them to help me.

I had two tutoring sessions this morning. My first was with the adolescent D. I had him do some expository writing. I had to drag it out of him. He does not provide the details on his own. Then I worked with transcribing the words phonemically. He continued to blend the vowel sound with the following consonant or with the preceding one. No phonics program teaches the latter; I suspect it is counterproductive. Good readers can read sounding out from the initial letter(s) if they have already chunked the vowel with the following consonants. In the meantime, it is essential to know that vowels make distinct, separate sounds. Once that is clear, chunking the vowel with the following consonant works just fine. Once someone is secure with the individual sounds, I push for the chunking, seeing the vowel with the following consonants as a unit. All phonics lessons teach starting with the vowel with the following consonants, not the preceding ones.

I had an appointment with Aiden. He must have been exhausted. He was writhing in the chair as we worked. He made more reversals than usual. However, he did well in the Using Context Clues exercises. I called his mom afterward and recommended that he work on oppositional movement.

I had a 1:30 pm appointment with the folks from the stem cell company. This was a follow-up to the stem cell injections. Today, I was to get ozone injected into my hips. I had asked Yvette to come with me since I had such a bad reaction to the cell injections. I was in debilitating pain for two days. This was a quick in-and-out treatment. As the doctor injected the ozone into my hip, I thought, "What the hell am I doing?" Mike would have been beside himself. These folks rent a massage therapist's room in a flotation business. Really? The space is less than sterile. Does this procedure need sterility? Then again, my acupuncturist puts needles into me. How sterile does the room have to be for that? I could just imagine what Mike would have thought of all this. The injections hurt.

L-o-ng needles were pushed into my hip joint. As if that's not bad enough, then a substance is forced into that small space- In my case, it is very small because most, hopefully not all, of my cartilage is gone. While the needle hurt when the r put t in the right hip, the left hip was much worst. I was finished in a few minutes. Yvette was sitting on a chair in front of the door. I came out and drove us home.

I wasn't incapacitated by the ozone shot as I had been from the stem cell implant. I was able to do more vinegaring in my backyard. Also, I cut back a flowering shrub that I've had my eye on for about a month. I just love torturing myself about things I have to do instead of just doing them.

After watching a documentary on 'the real' Audrey Hepburn, I watched Funny Face, a movie she did with Fred Astaire. It was a ridiculous movie. She did more dancing than he did. When I checked Wiki, I found out that Funny Face was almost the last musical Astaire did. I suspect his body wasn't up to his standards anymore. She had several dance scenes without him. Hepburn said she was scared to dance with him knowing he was out of her league. I suspect he wanted to dance with her because she wasn't out of his league due to his age. Of course, they looked silly as a romantic couple.

Besides these updates, which I email to friends and family as I finish them, I have a blog, "Mike's death; Betty's life." I post updates that are exactly one year behind. I check the stats daily when I post. In the past two years, the numbers have run, 0,1 or 2 a day, occasionally, 3. Recently, the numbers have been increasing. I never see a zero reader for a single day. I sometimes see a one, two, or three, but the numbers are frequently higher. Very interesting. Am I becoming au current? We'll see. I hope my thoughts are helpful to someone.

_____-____-____

Musings:

Since I've finished with A Very Short Introduction to Spinoza, my dinner-time companion has been A Very Short Introduction to Theology by David E. Ford. He speaks about three types of evil: personal, structural, and natural. When they talk about evil these days, most people are focused on personal evil. I don't hear people talking about natural disasters as a form of evil anymore. Death of a loved one, natural disasters just are. They are not seen as manifestations of the devil.

Personal evil is discussed as an outcome of personal trauma. It is assumed that everyone would be good if we could heal all traumas. Hmmm! Maybe, maybe not. Moreover, structural evil is ignored altogether. What is structural evil? Ford doesn't define it clearly for me. But I would consider Nazi Germany an example, only the most blatant one. There are concepts of the nature of man that can get out of hand and become forms of evil.

I find it interesting that the Marxist optimistic vision of what man is capable of, absolute goodness, leads to evil. Yes, from what I've read, Marx's idea that if the government didn't get in the way of man and we all had an opportunity to live as equals, we would embrace this and have a utopian society. Marx's ideas are often used as an excuse by the leaders to treat the population worse than almost any other form of government. It unleashes true evil.

When I hear people around me speak in optimistic terms about the nature of man, I shiver in fear. These people not only see the potential for good in others but also see themselves as examples of this arrived, woke state of mind, perfected man. Oh, boy.

Friday, March 26, 2021

I woke up at 3 am; my mind was writing an article on what to do when your students ‘read too fast,’ making many mistakes. I tried to go back to sleep. Three was much too early to get up. I failed; My mind was in writing mode. I finally thought, “I’m in labor; might as well birth this baby.” I worked until the alarm went off at 5:30. I had written quite a bit by then. This was a rough draft, of course. I must sort out what I want to include.

I had a session with Shelly at 8 am. I was angry. There were issues with others dumping blame on me prophylactically to prevent me from blaming them. However, I had pretty much accepted the situation without attributing blame. I managed to deal with my reaction as my problem. I couldn’t see a positive outcome confronting the situation with the others. I knew they were protecting themselves. It still twisted my gut.

While the anger was on the surface, I could feel the grief beneath it as the more current feeling. The anger was an easy override of sadness and grief. The latter two leave me feeling helpless; go anger. I feel invigorated and strong- So much better. Sadly, so much worse in the end unless I want to create unnecessary drama in my life.

I went back to what I worked on last time: sadness about being different. I think the world is divided into two poles: those who see everyone as unique and those who see everyone as the same. I’m in the former group, with consequences for myself. I’m sure all choices have consequences. We each have to deal with the outcome of our own choices.

The sadness came back to my mother’s reaction and treatment of me. She was brutal. She was distressed by my behavior. She said I was like a “colorful dog,” everyone knew who I was. That was terrifying for her. To protect her child, she tried to destroy what made me so visible to others. Others may not have been crazy about aspects of me, but they also presented no danger.

When I was nineteen, I finally said to her, “Why don’t you just accept that you hate me, and we’ll start from scratch.” She was shocked that I would think that she hated me. I don’t think it was me she hated, or not at least what she thought of as me. She hated aspects of me, and she hated parts of herself. To relieve her stress, she attacked me. I have a friend whose husband is not doing well since she left him because he no longer has her to attack. My mom all but said that she used us for that purpose. Toward the end of her life, she once said, “I didn’t need therapy; I had children.” I understood that to mean she felt comfortable relieving stress by using her children as ‘whipping boys.’ From what I can make out, I got the worst of it. BBBBB

Whenever I told her she was hurting me, she not only denied that but insisted that I was saying that only to hurt her. I can believe that she didn’t intend to hurt me, but neither was she willing to acknowledge her impact on me. She made it clear that to think such a thing would be devasting for her. She saw herself as a good person who only did what was best for her kids. Oh, well.

In this session, I was able to sit with the pain she caused. I just experienced it without telling her about it. I saw her reacting to this information. It was devastating for her. If there is any impact from these imaginings, I can only hope that it will ultimately benefit her. There is no question that it would have caused/is causing her great pain.

I sprayed four gallons of vinegar on the backyard area. Ah, it already looks much better. I also watched the video of my Zoom presentation for the StepUp Tutoring group. I had some positive responses, people saying thank you for the information. However, I found the presentation painful to watch. It was a hyper old lady with a Bronx accent complicated by a slight speech impediment, waving her arms around like a windmill and misspeaking any number of words. It was humiliating. I thought I could use this video to post on YouTube. No, way. I will have to redo it and work on a calmer, more dignified presentation style. I wonder now if I come across as such a crazy lady usually. I wouldn’t listen to me. Too much.

After eating nothing but Hersey’s Milk Chocolate Kisses with whole almonds for two days until dinner and seeing the scale reflect my bad choices, I decided to find something else to sate my hunger. I chose hard-boiled eggs- one a day. I know that Darby and Patrick eat a lot of eggs each day and survive. I thought I’d give it a try—only one problem. I hadn’t cooked a hard-boiled egg in at least 45 years.

I looked it up on the Internet to find that it was nothing like my mama used to do. “Place the eggs in the bottom of the empty pot; then pour cold water over them. Bring the pot to a boil and turn it off immediately. Let the eggs sit in the water for three to 15 minutes, depending on the preferred degree of hardness. Put eggs into ice water, not just cold water, immediately. Crack shells for easy peeling. Leave them in the ice water for an hour.” I remember my mother bringing the water to a boil, lowering the eggs into that boiling water, taking them out, and running them under cold water, period end of sentence. I called Judy to tell her what a culinary disaster I was; I didn’t even know how to boil an egg. She laughed. I learned how to boil an egg is a hotly debated topic. Who knew?

I sent Judy the slide show accompanying the audio file. The emailed version looked very different from the one I had on my computer. The designs were fuzzy and, in some cases, downright different. I have to modify one of the slides, giving more explicit information on how to contact me and get a copy of the transcript.

I have a follow-up treatment from the stem cell folks. It has been about three months since I got stem cells injected into both my hip joints. The release forms were scary. Yikes! Look how many things can go wrong. I had a bad reaction when I got the stem cell injected. I was in scary pain for two days. I’m committed to following through. We’ll see.

I had an 11 am appointment with Daniel. We’re continuing with the inferencing. He is moving slowly. I think his word recognition skills are improving. He is using the strategies I taught him independently without me reminding him. We are working on a beginning fourth-grade level. I had that work prepared for M and used it for D. He is moving through them slowly. With M., I can go through 10 exercises in half an hour. With D, if we make it through three, that’s good.

I’s mom called to cancel her four o’clock. They were heading to the beach. I think she is progressing nicely with her word recognition skills. That’s all we’ve been working on. She does the exercises I recommended on her own.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

My leg was bothering me, as was my wrist. Yesterday, Elsa yanked it when I wasn't prepared. I was distracted speaking to someone. I iced the wrist, slathered it in Deep Blue, and put a compression sock on for the night. The wrist was better than I thought it would be, but not fantastic.

We had eight students for yoga today, but still not one of the women from our street. Scott was back after a break, and Casey, Jared, and Jared's sister Tara came. Deb offered a bribe with freshly baked blueberry muffins.

Elsa's belly was still covered with lesions despite the medicinal bath of yesterday. I tried Willard Water. I learned about it while still living in Princeton. I haven't used it in years. It was a product offered by some little-known website when I first got it. Now, I could buy it at Walmart. Wow! Someone got rich.

Elsa hates baths and hates having her ears treated. I thought a cold Willard Water compress would be of the same order, but no. She completely relaxed on my lap as I applied the compresses to her lesions. I took a video of her stretched out, completely relaxed. I told her she was making her daddy (Mike) happy twice over. One because she was happy with what I had to offer her, and second because she made me happy. I had to throw her off my lap. This is great. If the Willard Water helps with her lesions, this will be an easy fix for both of us.

I found the original order receipt from Home Depot for the window. Scott said the window is not double-hung. I was sure I made it plain to the Home Depot Associate who placed the order that it had to open both at the bottom and the top. Having a window that just opens at the bottom is useless in this case. One that opened just at the top would work. The rain comes pouring into the room if the bottom window is open. I was going to go to Home Depot myself. It occurred to me it would be better on any number of counts if Scott did it. He could take the window with him. He would know what people were talking about when he explained how the window works or what was wrong with the order. A refund is dubious since it was ordered 8 months ago and delivered 6 months ago. We can try and then go from there.

Scott told me that he found the diesel gas cans, poured 2 gallons out of a full can (5 gallons) in another can, and placed it in my shed. I can't possibly manage to lift a 5-gallon can. I will use the diesel gas to kill the haole koa trees.

I drove to town for the second time in two days. I stopped at Ace Hardware to pick up gloves for handling chemicals. Scott said to wear them when I applied the diesel to the haole koa trees. Then I went to the bank to cash several checks. There was no line. There was only one teller serving people. A second was at a window but unavailable. The one providing service walked away. Besides cashing several checks, I had a question about the debt card the government had sent me. I had no idea what my password was. How could I find it out? She told me that she could cash it without a password. OMG!

I thought sending debit cards through the mail was a stupid idea. People must have been breaking into mailboxes to get them. Now I come to find out you don't even need a password. Anyone can grab the card and cash it at the bank.

I worked with J at 2:30. He continued working on reading comprehension. He often misreads small, high-frequency words, but not enough to interfere with his comprehension, which is quite good. The passages are long, 12 to 15 paragraphs. He generally remembers what he read. There was one story today where I had to ask him to go back to the first paragraphs because I wasn't sure of the answer.

As I do every day, I asked him today if he is getting more answers right on his own. This is the first time he said, "A lot!" Yay! However, I noticed a letter and number on the top of the last story. N.2. What does that mean? In the F & P reading levels, N is the beginning of third grade. Is that really what his reading level is? Maybe. I think the reading material is pretty complex. I would be surprised if it's considered beginning third grade. I will have to ask his teacher.

E, my adolescent, wasn't free. His family was dealing with a bee infestation. I went for a short walk. I had A at 4:30. We did more of the Context Clues exercises. He moved through five of them with relative ease- a significant improvement. Not only did he do that, but he could also use context clues to figure out what a word might be when he wasn't able to get the correct pronunciation through decoding. He completed all the passages I had typed. I was amazed we got through so quickly. I texted his mom and asked her to call me.

She got back to me within the hour. A's father was on the line too. I told them about our work on context clues and why. I recommended they create a book with all the transcribed reading selections from the Carpenter materials and a separate book with his stories, so he can read them on his own. They said they were seeing a big difference in just two months. He was reading words when he came across them on signs or TV. I asked if they were seeing a difference in him. They said yes. Where before, he had no life ambition, he now declared he wanted to become president of the US. Who knows? Anything is possible. Maybe he would make a good president someday. More importantly. He sees himself as capable of aiming for whatever he wants. I'm seeing increased confidence in his ability to learn.

I made a list of chores I wanted to accomplish this morning. It helped motivate me to get things done. Treating Elsa's belly was on the list, as was going to the bank. I got those things done. Washing the kitchen floor was on that list too. I got that done. I am sure it was easy to get to it because of the list. Must do that more often. I didn't get around to spraying the backyard with vinegar. Still, I did move four of the 1-1/2-gallon jugs of vinegar from the driveway to the backyard. At least, they're ready to be used, and I felt I did something. I did close to nothing on Sam's birthday card. But I did get an idea of what I wanted to do. I was not good enough to be sure I could pull it off because I pictured it.

Dorothy told me she started telling Sam a fairy tale. The only one she could think of was Goldilocks. Sam actually requests the story, "oliocks!" He particularly likes the line about the Papa's porridge, "Too hot!" I'm thinking of ways to use my golden wrappers from my Hershey's Milk Chocolate with whole almonds for her hair. I see three chairs of different sizes. Goldilocks will be sitting on the just-right chair eating Papa's porridge, crying, "It's too hot!" This is an ambitious project.

For Sidney's birthday card, I made a giraffe out of yellow card stock with his neck bent over, tucked into the card, hiding a sticker with cupcakes saying, "Enjoy these!" Then under his tail, I placed some brown stickers and wrote, "Don't enjoy these!" He's three.

I didn't do any work on writing for work. While I wrote the kids that they could decide about the septic tanks, I hadn't heard back from them. I made the decision myself. No- too many complications. And the kids are definitely not interested in something that requires maintenance.

_____-_____-_____

Musings:

I'm reading the Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova. She's a journalist covering psychological and social issues with a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. She learned to play poker to better understand the difference between skill and luck. She did research on how people dealt with luck. She experimented with subjects, I'm sure grad students, playing the stock market. She found that those who thought it was all a matter of skill didn't change course when they lost; they didn't adjust to life circumstances. They hung on to the belief that they were in control. The biggest bluff is playing life well. That can only happen if we discern the difference between our ability to control the circumstances and how out of control we are.

We don't even control ourselves on a minute-by-minute basis. What we control is limited, very limited, but very significant. If every move we made was 'controlled' by us, we wouldn't make it from our chairs to the bathroom. It would require enormous effort. We do most of what we do on automatic. We observe ourselves going through our paces. What we do have is veto rights. We can say no to an action we disapprove of. We can also say yes to something new. That yes isn't an absolute yes. We have to run it past the committee, all the 'brains' in our body, each with their own voice. I am sure my vision of the human condition is a nightmare to others- self by committee. But I'm quite content with this. I've made my peace with it. All the parts have found a way to negotiate peacefully.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Dorothy woke up with a cold. To be Covid or no to be Covid? She's had both shots. She had a Covid test after arriving in Seattle, but she didn't have the results. She's not nervous about having the virus. She was concerned that she wouldn't be able to participate in family events, the reason she traveled across the country in the first place.

I find myself picking fights with people in my head. Underlying that is this ongoing grief. In the past, I had waves that came and went. Now, it's continuous. I had heard that 'the bad period' of grief hits people at different times. I guess this is mine. The sorrow is mostly about the loss of me, the me that I knew with Mike. That 'me' was mostly love and laughter, with some seasoning of annoyance and occasionally anger. I don't think I ever didn't smile when I saw him. I miss being that loving, joyful person. And I miss being loved by him. He told me I was beautiful, and he loved me every day until they stuck a tube down his throat.

I hired someone to locate my cesspools in preparation for replacing them with septic tanks. I had heard all cesspools had to be replaced by 2030. That would be 10 years from now. When I spoke to someone at the Health Department, in the process of securing blueprints showing where they are located, he said, "No, the deadline is 2050." That changes the picture. I'll be long gone, and the kids will be in their 80s. I decided to go ahead and have the cesspools located anyway. The guy who did this work came today. While he was at it, I had him check how the cesspools looked. Ken, who had done contract work on our house, told us we probably wouldn't have problems if we were not having problems yet. However, when I checked cesspools versus septic tanks on the Internet, it said that both had to be cleaned out periodically. He found the exact locations of the cesspools with a snake with a camera at its head. When he was finished, the engineer called me to show me where the cesspools were. I asked him how they looked. He hadn't checked the shape they were in, but he could. Ours were in excellent condition and shouldn't be a problem- for us. The only problem is the environment.

If Yvette and Josh have to decide what they would prefer. Getting the septic tanks puts a continuous burden on them. Those do have to be cleaned out regularly. If it's just the three of us, it could be ten years before it has to be done. Unlike cesspools which can go on forever, septic tanks must be pumped out. There are other problems with the septic tank route. It sounds like the environment be damned.

The engineer told me that if I'm not going to get septic tanks to let him know. He will have to refund half of the money I gave him. The price he quoted me included permits for the septic tanks as well as his survey.

After the engineer left, I called Darby to tell her how my presentation had gone yesterday and that I would walk to her house to return the book she lent me. I know it is very precious to her. She offered to buy one for me. While I found some of the information about Hawaiian life before the white man arrived interesting, it's not a significant interest of mine.

I got a text from Dorothy. She got her Covid test results. She was clear; she just has a cold!!!!!

I had a session with E, the young girl in LA. I'm covering one hour a week for her usual Step Up Tutor for a few weeks. I never had a good feeling about this gig. Then I had terrible problems connecting through Zoom. It was downright weird. Every time I dialed her mom's number, it dropped. I have never had that happen with any other number. In our second session, it came out this kid has a tutor at least 5 days a week. She said that some of them are from a 'public service.' It sounds like it's another free service. StepUp tutoring is free to all LA students. It's supposed to serve students whose parents can't afford tutoring. The other service she uses may be free, but I suspect it costs money. That means this family can afford tutors for their child and signed up for this program depriving some poor family of support. Yuck! It also looks like she has all these tutors because she is so insecure that she can't do the work independently. I asked her outright if she was put under pressure. She said yes. She may do this to herself, but I doubt it. She must have approval from her parents for all these tutors. Her parents must have submitted her name for a Step Up tutor. I am pushing her to try to do the work on her own and have the tutor review the work.

She had to write an essay on the history of Swing Dance. She couldn't do the necessary research because her dad had blocked all the sites. She wasn't supposed to use Wiki because it gave fake news. All the encyclopedias I read as a child were in the same boat as Wiki. They weren't written by experts in a field. They were written by researchers who summarized what they read. In fact, Wiki may have real experts making entries. The whole situation is twisted. I consider it a form of abuse.

I see E as a bright child frozen by demands for perfection, which either she places on herself or her parents have placed on her. I pushed her just to summarize whatever she found in Wiki. That's what I did as a child. She is only in sixth grade. A more complete understanding of the world should not be required. She may be plagued by some intuition the world is more complicated than what she just read in a brief essay on the Internet or her history textbook. She is damn right, but we all do just the best we can.

I had J, also from the Step UP program. We worked on reading and math. He said he was only seeing a small improvement when working on his own. He always did better when he worked with me. Damn! When he works with me, I don't help him. I just sit there. Sometimes, I even do something else when he's working on the reading. I find his comprehension quite good.

We did some math work today, too, order of operations. There was one problem that had me baffled. I would have to consult the family math expert; my hanai sister, Jean, has a master's in math.

I had A at the end of the day. I continued working with the A (first grade) level Barnell Loft context clue book. While his responses weren't great, they were better than the first time. He still suffers from b/d confusion and does not use the memory tricks I taught him, although they work when I push him.

Tommy, the techie I hired, arrived at 5 pm. I heard him pull up on his turquoise motorcycle. It seemed to take him forever to come in. He said he was being attacked by a turkey at the mouth of my driveway. It was going after his legs. I have never seen one of our turkeys get aggressive with a person. He said it was the motorcycle that got them worked up.

We discussed my slide show for the audio file. I couldn't find the one I modified. I was confused. Tommy told me how to set it up. I worked on it after he left and got it in order pretty quickly. I listed the tracks for each of the five stories.

I got an email from Julia from Step Up. I hadn't been able to find where she posted the video of the presentation. She said she was going to do it on Wednesday. Here was a copy for me in the meantime. I had to give a username and password. Nothing I put in worked. I suspect all the tutors will have the same problem. This may be the first time she tried to do something like this. She'll figure it out.

Monday, March 22, 2021

D-Day. Today I was making my presentation to the Step Up Tutoring tutors. I was having a problem with one of the slides. I called Julia, the program’s tech person, for help. I couldn’t get out of draw and into text. That was solved when I reinstated the default text boxes on the slide. Julia told me that only seven people had signed up. Okay. That was a small number. I had been worrying about a big crowd. That information drained all the stress out of the situation. Ah!

Damon’s call during the morning. He had to travel from point A to point B. He uses that time to make his personal phone calls. I thought he was doing that because his wife had put her foot down about him making phone calls from the house. That would be a great idea. Many families stop functioning because each person is on their own phone talking to someone outside the family. But no, neither Cylin nor anyone’s concern for family togetherness is at issue. The problem is these are the only times he has a chance. Otherwise, he’s doing something for work or some chore around the house.

Damon revealed that Yvette had recently told him that Mike’s fatal pancreatitis may have been caused by his anti-depression/anxiety meds. One of his doctors stood by his bedside and told him that it was the only explanation for his condition they could find. Mike wasn’t on the usual dosage of these meds; his prescription was over the maximum recommended. He lived with much anxiety; he said it was the only way he was prepared to live, despite any consequences. I worried about the consequences more than Mike did. None of the therapists he worked with could find a way to help him with that anxiety until he worked with EMDR. He started to make some inroads with it. Then we moved to Hawaii. Kaiser, our insurer, did not have therapists who used that method. I offered to pay for an uninsured therapist myself. He didn’t accept. Then I learned from my dental hygienist it was possible to get a therapist who used that method if your primary physician at Kaiser wrote a prescription for it. His doctor did, and he found an EMDR therapist here in Hawaii. Too little too late.

I was on one of those short walks I take throughout the day while I was on the phone with Damon. Jan stopped her car to say hello. John and Julie passed. I congratulated John on his successful suit against our neighbor with the dozen roosters, forcing him to get rid of them. Ah, blessed silence. Well, not excessive rooster noise; we still have wild chickens. Then Darby came running out into the street to give me a book. Damon made some comment about being popular. Nah. That’s not the right term. I’m good at developing loose connections. If I lived in his neighborhood, I’d probably know most of the people by name too.

I run my updates and blogs through Grammarly. They give me a weekly update, appraising my work. They say my writing is mostly sad and mostly negative. I live with a lot of gratitude, but it isn’t reflected in my updates. I need to include some gratitude in each entry.

I caught a nap and did some gardening while I waited for the call from Amazon. I needed to straighten out my mess with them so I can get back on. Free shipping to Hawaii is crucial. Something that might cost $5 to ship on the mainland can cost $50 to ship to Hawaii. I had a pair of glasses sent by UPS- $60.

In preparation for the Zoom presentation, I showered and put on makeup. I used a set of grease sticks I bought. They’re great. The blush spreads out over my face instead of looking like a clown’s apple check. I had visions of Mike saying, “painted woman,” that is, if he could have seen the difference.

For the first ten years of our life together, Mike insisted that I was objectively the most beautiful woman in the world. My only close competitor was Jane Fonda, think Barbarella. It took years for me to convince him that I didn’t consider his comment a compliment. It only brought his sanity into question. I knew perfectly well that I wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world. I doubt even Jane Fonda thinks of herself that way. What had a lot of meaning for me is that he found me the most beautiful woman in the world. That had a lot of meaning for me. It brings me to tears just thinking about it now. The man told me I was beautiful every day of our life together.

Shortly before 2 pm, the starting time for the Zoom Presentation, I reconnected with Julia. She told me that now there were 20 people signed up. As we talked, three more signed on. It was too late for me the freak-out.

I flubbed the first slide, my very introductory comments. I sailed through the rest. I had rehearsed it to the max. Never thought about it as anything else than another rehearsal. I had fun. I didn’t get a lot of feedback during the presentation. There were two times we went to breakout rooms. Julia put me with the same people both times. Two men were positive about my work. One man actually thanked me. This is something anyone can use; they are learning along with the student. But it requires the teacher to also be a learner, someone who makes errors while working with their student. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

Some people asked me for advice in dealing with the student they were working with. I told them to email me with their questions rather than ask them during the presentation.

After it was over, I relaxed and napped- postpartum. I looked through the book Darby gave me. It was on Hawaiian traditions before the haoles (white people) landed and helped them ‘improve.” The haoles brought Christianity and convinced the Hawaiians that they were some lower form of life. Maybe the Europeans invented arrogance.

Later in the day, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole following Broadway shows and dance videos.

Before I went to bed, I called Amazon. It had been over twenty-four hours and no call from them yet. Again, I spoke to a rep who said he would send another message for them to call me. We’ll see.

Sunday, March 21, 2021

I finished Sidney’s birthday card today. Yvette loves creating decorated cards for people. She has a small bag with stickers, two-hole punches that put out stars and circles, glue sticks and scotch tape, and colored pencils. Now, I have to make one for Sam, whose birthday is on the 31st. His birthday is easy to remember. Mike’s funeral was on the 30th. Sam’s mom, Karin, was in labor while watching it live-streamed on Facebook. The wonders of modern technology.

I had another session with my 14-year-old D. We continued with the book on Spinoza. He was doing much better. While he wasn’t comfortable being seen, he wasn’t as glum and withholding. At the end of today’s session, I asked if he was having fun. He said yes! Boy! Did I ever jump for joy!

At 1 pm, I had the second session with the Yoga Farms program Keys for Exceptional Living. The key for this week was ‘change,’ everything changes. Our assignment for the week was to notice this. While I looked, I couldn’t think of anything that changed. My sadness and depression were setting in.

In the breakout groups, someone talked about how realizing their connection to everything changed their life. I can imagine it did. However, it dismisses the aspect that is anchored in our bodies and our individuality. One woman described our bodies as meat suits. That same woman then asked what I thought.

I don’t think the ego and the life of the body are nothing. I think they are as important while we are alive and in them. To not deal with the life of the body is spiritual bypassing. Yes, the body presents challenges to our ‘goodness,’ but there is no escaping those challenges while we are alive. They have to be faced fully. I explained the paradox of the universal versus the individual. I gave my favorite example of the human hand: universally recognized as human yet specific to each individual. If snowflakes are individual, how is it possible we can’t be? But both the individual and the universal are essential.

I’m still slowly working my way through a book on spiritual bypassing. I see I’m not the only one concerned about the human need to ignore the human condition, mainly as it manifests in ourselves.

I passed by Adam’s house on my before-dinner walk. A man was standing in front that I didn’t recognize. He wound up being a friend who was there for dinner with his kid. A delicious smell emanated from the house. I asked what was cooking. I thought he said roast pork; did I want some? Yes! It took a while before he came back out. I was expecting a small serving for my dinner. Instead, he had two small pieces speared on a dinner fork. That was not pork; it was beef, and it was delicious. Adam is a professional-level cook. He did a dynamite job on that hunk of meat.

Judy called as I walked in the door. Had I eaten dinner yet? They had a Mexican dish for dinner that was really good. It’s unusual for Judy to praise her meals. She hopped in her car and drove it down. Besides the main dish, she included some taco chips and a small container of guacamole and sour cream. There was a dessert with it too.

The acupuncturist had recommended I get magnesium oil to treat the spasming muscles in my leg and the whole left side of my body. I went to order it on Amazon only to discover that I had no access to my account. I called Amazon customer support. They told me my account was on hold. I gathered. I would get a call from the accounting specialist within the next 24 hours.

There had been a statement about some unpaid charge. As I read it, it asked for the last four digits of my account. I sent that information to Amazon. What was disturbing was that I had had that complaint once before. I thought they were targeting me, thinking I was a scammer because of what happened six months ago.

I had made charges on Katherine’s card. That was the woman who had lived here for six months. She had asked if she could order something on Amazon using my account. That way, she could get free shipping. Sure. I entered her card under my account. When I tried to delete it, I was unsuccessful. I hadn’t realized that I had highlighted it as my primary card. I wound up making several changes to her card. Amazon called and told me the problem. I gave her the last four digits of my credit card. She said no, that’s not the one I used. Then I saw Katherine’s card number. I gave her those four digits. Yep. OMG! I emailed Katherine immediately, telling her I was her scammer and offering to pay for any inconveniences she experienced.

Saturday, March 20, 2021

I couldn't reach Dorothy this morning. She was in Seattle, probably adjusting to the different time zone. A friend who read my update and saw I bought a yellow diesel gas can, called to say that he had five full five-gallon yellow diesel cans, and I should feel free to use them. I use the diesel to kill the haole koa trees that grow like mad here.

We only had three students for yoga today. Of the five women who said they would come to the Saturday morning classes, zero showed up. It's hard to make a change; I understand. I had problems with my left leg this morning. It was so strained by the difference in my walk it limited my yoga. And then my phone rang in the middle of the class. It was B. I don't usually answer calls. I just quickly said, "Yoga," and hung up. He must not have heard what I said because he called back immediately. Concerned that he was having an emergency, I went into the house to take the call. No emergency; it was just that he had just read about my diesel gas container adventure. He told me he had five yellow 5-gallon containers with diesel fuel. "Please, feel free to use what's in them."

I had my second class with teenager D. He had said he didn't have trouble with reading, only with spelling. He's a bright boy. Formal testing has him on a first/second-grade level. It was hard to know if he didn't know he had problems reading, or he hoped he could avoid having me see the truth. Is this a way of protecting his pride, or is he unaware he has a problem? The first choice is a worry; the second isn't.

I gave him a choice about what material we would use for Phase I work. Did he want to work on third-grade material, fifth-grade material, a book written in Hawaiian Pigeon, or a philosophy book I was reading? He chose the philosophy book. With this method, you can use any material. No, I did not go zooming through the text.

We worked on one sentence for an hour. I led him to determine the number of syllables and then figure out the sounds in each syllable. I wrote the words. I modeled the relationship between the sounds and the letters. He did what he could. My goal was phonemic awareness, the single best predictor of reading success.

I learned something new today, as I often do, working with the reading method I developed. One word we worked on was the word 'principle.' Adolescent D did well on the first two sounds of prin. When I asked him what sound the 'I' made, he told me it didn't make a sound. After clearing up that problem, I also emphasized there is a vowel letter in every syllable. Well, not quite, but close enough. English always has an exception. In this case, the word 'rhythm.' That baby' is a two-syllable word; there is no vowel letter in the second syllable. Someone thought the way this student did; the nasalized consonants embedded the vowels- no need to add an extra one. Wrong!

Then we came to the last syllable in prin/ci/ple. What's the first sound in the last syllable? He said '/b/. I thought, Oh, boy. This kid does have trouble hearing the sounds. Yikes! He's right. I said /ble/ for that syllable. Here, p and b are allophonic in English. Who knew?

After half an hour, I asked if he wanted to continue or quit. He said, "Continue." I asked if it was because he was having fun or because he wanted to push through. He said, "Push through." I told him it was time to quit. He had told me that he had the mental habit of shutting down when someone tried to teach him to read. He changed his comment to "sort of fun." We completed another half hour. I covered several phonics rules along the way. I don't expect students to remember the rules. I am just alerting them to their existence. It's like, "on your trip, look out for these sights." Deep knowledge is acquired through seeing the patterns over and over again. You might ask, doesn't that happen when you read. No. The letters are just a blur for many kids, not because they have bad eyesight but because they have not looked at the word in detail. Studying detail results in awareness of those details. We become more aware and recognize patterns more quickly.

I did some more gardening. The day gets away from me. I don't think I'm that busy. Of course, I need at least one hour for napping.

I had an appointment with my acupuncturist. I am excited by my work with her. She did something injurious last time, draping my left leg over the edge of the table to better access the tight muscles in my upper left thigh. Uh-Uh! Those muscles were so tight they could not be reached with this stretch. The best I can hope for is that I don't get damaged. Aside from that, she is doing spectacular work. Her work on my right hamstring has created room for more movement in my left hip. That's how it works.

I stopped off to check on Costco. The parking lot was full. That meant a long wait on the cashier lines. I went home to read and nap. Boy, Theroux's view of Africa is so dark. One line sticks with me. He made friends with an African man of the middle class. They traveled across many unemployed people who hung around in the streets laughing, dancing, and begging. A guy traveling with Theroux said, "This is what the end of the world will look like." He saw it all as despair. It does sound like a large number of Africans live that way. It weighs heavily on my heart.

And then I watched the end of Coming to America. Too bad I'm reading the Theroux book at this time. I see Akeem and his family as rich oppressors of the poor.