Friday, September 3, 2021

 Friday, September 3, 2021

 

        It was warm today on my morning walk. My Tesla app showed it was on Storm Watch; again, all the electricity was going to the power wall and not to the house. I saw no storm warnings on the Internet. This warning was a fire warning. The threat was over fifty miles away on the Kohala coast.  That didn’t mean it couldn’t make its way down to us sitting on the Hualalai Mountain. We are, after all, living on an island. 

   I had an appointment with Shelly.  I was dealing with holding my own against other’s negative views of me.  I don’t mean a behavior someone doesn’t like; I mean when someone sees me as a fundamentally bad person, vilifies me.  That’s what my mom did to me. There was nothing I did that was good.  She accused me of all sorts of character failures.  I would try to do something I thought was good, and she would see it as another sign that I was bad.  It was very confusing. She would just throw invectives at me; she never told me what I was doing that was disturbing.  It was very confusing.  

    As an adult when I run into people who do see me in such negative turns, I can walk away.  That’s tough when it’s a member of my family.  Fortunately, I found Mike.  He saw be as a fundamentally good person and never changed his mind after forty-give years of being together.   We are all characters in each other’s scripts.  We have to choose people who like us as we like ourselves and help us become better people.  Someone who sees us as fundamentally bad and gives us no information about what we do that disturbs them is crazymaking.

   Sometimes there are head on collisions: Someone accuses me of being bad because what I’m doing is challenging for them.  I push for them to see me as I see myself, or the more positive version of it. 

    Something good did come out of my mother’s treatment of me.  I became a better teacher.  I learned when someone doesn’t understand what I say, I haven’t said it in a way they can understand it.  I am golden as a teacher or as a healer.  When I’m working in that capacity, I am communicating concepts that may be foreign to someone.  I have to figure out why they don’t get it and find a way to modify my presentation.  On a personal level, when someone doesn’t get me, sometimes, I just have to accept that reconciliation is impossible.  Sometimes, this is bearable; sometimes not.

      I spent some of the day working on paperwork I have been putting off for several months. I prepared documents for notarization.

     About a month ago, the dentist found a rash of cavities in my lower front teeth.  I thought of just having all those teeth capped. They are discolored and grossly out of line. I doesn’t mean much when speaking to someone in person.  There’s plenty to focus on  when they are with you in person.  However, on Zoom, teeth figure prominently. The dentist proposed putting in a bridge. Sounds kinds of yuck. I had asked a while ago about getting a masking bridge to cover those bottom teeth. That’s my name for it.  I heard that movie actors use them. I never heard back.  I had put the question to the receptionist who said she would ask the dentist. When she didn’t get back to me, I figured they didn’t have any information. I subsequently learned she forgets.  Now I had an email address for the dentist’s assistant.  I put my request into her. She said they would research it. If that works out, my cosmetic concerns will be addressed. Then I will have to address my multiple cavities and my dental hygiene.

      I saw the PT at 2 pm.  We worked on my ham strings and calves. These are two sets of impressively tight muscles.  I assumed they were dried up.  She told me they were close to nonexistent, especially on the left leg.  She gave two exercises to build the muscles up in the legs.  One I’m lying on my back with my knees bent.  I push the heel of my foot into the floor, or the mattress if I’m doing this exercise in bed   For the other exercise, I lift my heel off the floor/mattress while keeping my knee locked and my thighs engaged.

    On Thursday, I asked Yvette’s friend and one of our driveway yoga buddies to tell me how much he would charge to weed whack ‘the lower forty.’ I just wanted an estimate to compare it to what my gardeners are charging.  They ask $150.  Casey says he charges $30 an hour and thinks it will take two to three hours. Even if it takes four hours it will be less than $150.  At first, I thought I was just asking him to get some idea if I was being charged fairly,  but he talked as if he was expecting me to hire him.  I thought he had a job with a company and wasn’t looking for work.  After a day of thinking about it, I thought why not hire him.  I called Yvette and asked if she would be okay with this. Then I thought this is her area of the property, why doesn’t she just deal directly with Casey instead of going through me.