Monday, November 8, 2021
I stayed in bed till after 6:30 am. I had trouble falling asleep last night; I was overstimulated from the day. There was Damon's announcement that he wasn't coming over Christmas, there was the work Tommy did on Mike's computer, and there was the impact of the Netflix series, Offspring. Once I did fall asleep, I felt pretty well.
Yesterday, Tommy came over to work on an old computer of Mike's. I asked Tommy to do this a while ago. It seemed a shame to have it just sit here unused. Mike's computer was a Microsoft. To get into it, Tommy either needed his password or some special permission from Microsoft. The chore was put off for quite a while. The computer just sat on the dining room table.
Then Mama K's computer broke when her middle school daughter fell while carrying it, cracking the screen. This put a fire under me. I told her I would give her this one.
Tommy got into Mike's computer by removing the hard drive from the Microsoft computer, putting into some gadget, and connecting it to an Apple computer. Apple isn't as strict about letting people in. Tommy told me to look at the files and see what I wanted to save. I saw some I recognized and wanted to keep: Mike's books and his thesis. As I thought of deleting his other files permanently, I was devastated. These were all work files; Mike poured his heart into his work. Deleting those files felt like erasing him. He's no longer around to renew his imprint. At some point, his visible mark on this earth will fade to nothing. His uncredited impact will go on forever. God, he was a wonderful man. Tommy stood over me as I wept. He told me we could save those files on an external hard drive. Ah, I had two. Tommy tested the two hard drives I presented to him. Neither was good anymore. I was going to have to buy a new one. I needed 500 something or another.
Even though I slept well last night, I needed my mid-morning nap. My upper back started hurting me again. I iced it as I napped. The cryotherapist made me aware my back was inflamed. Her treatment made me feel much better. I was reasonably sure that it became inflamed because of overusing my right arm. I always hold my walking stick in it. Each time the stick touches the ground, those muscles in my mid-back feel the impact. Also, I do a lot of right-clicking when doing FreeCell and hitting the space bar. My poor right side. I also believe the problem is because I lean too much to the right. I had set up my 'old lady chair' with pillows to force me to lean more toward my left. The pillows slipped, creating an equal surface. I rearranged them to create a cliff for my left hip to fall off. Also, I stopped using the walking stick now to give my back relief. The combination of strategies seemed to be helping.
I called Damon twice. I left a voice mail both times. I told him I was okay with never seeing him again as long as I lived. I've made my peace with not seeing any of my family living on the mainland again for one reason or another. What hurt was the thought that he wouldn't come out if I was very sick or dying. I heard him saying, "Yvette's there to take care of her. I don't have to go." As I walked, I wept. I told him it wasn't his responsibility to protect me from disappointment in the second phone message. I wouldn't feel this way if I didn't feel he loved me and allowed me to love him.
Much to my surprise, Damon called me. He never calls from work. He assured me that he would come if I was in medical distress. Then he explained that he hadn't come in for his mother's open heart surgery because she assured him it wasn't necessary. I doubt I would be that generous.
Damon told me an old girlfriend had gotten hold of him. She lives in Seattle and is head of some municipal agency that persuades film companies to do their work there. I am suspicious about why she wants to get in touch with Damon. It couldn't be for work because his company only does animation. It doesn't need a 'location.'
Tommy passed me in his Jeep as I did my walk. He and Brian were coming by today to install my new WIFI system. I warned him that I would be out till about 10. He said they wouldn't be here before that.
I had an 8:30 am appointment with the inlayer. I was so discombobulated I had trouble remembering how to get there. This was scary. Getting lost in a familiar setting is not a good sign at my age. However, I had been crying most of the morning. And then I had this great relief when Damie called me. He stayed on for quite a while. He finally had to go because he was in the middle of a meeting. The man has a very stressful job. Fortunately, he enjoys the work.
I had terrible problems communicating with the lady I contacted about the inlaying for Mike's gravestone. I thought it might be something I was doing. No way. This woman has such problems with communication she's certifiable. How does she function in that job?
In our original conversation, she told me she wouldn't be able to do the superscript two. Mike had two Ph.Ds. His students called him Doc Squared. It was so Mike. She said if the two was too small, it would fall through. Since the only thing we had talked about was the background slab, which would have carved out spaces for the letters to fit into. I didn't see how that could be a problem. If the background piece was lying flat, how could something small 'fall through." Okay, today, she explained it would fall through the carving machine into some space where it would become inaccessible. My first question is how large the font size must be for the superscript 2 to be big enough not to fall through. That's my question. This woman couldn't answer the question. I can't imagine the inlayers can't answer it. She said I needed to present the design. Does she know someone who does that work? No.
Then she told me I had to pick out another stone for the fill. Why did I have to pick it out now when I was still just contemplating using this approach? Ah, that would determine the price of the work, which depended on the cost of the stone. Which was the cheapest? Granite. I told her to say it was granite. I finally got what I wanted. She had a printout of the design, the type of stone and size I was planning to use for the background slab, and the type of stone I planned to use for the inlay. I hoped I could find out if the background slab would be large enough to accommodate the subscript two with this information. I had to figure the process out and what information I needed to give the company. Pretty incredible experience.
Then off to Office Max to pick up extremal drive. Tommy said I needed to save Mike's files. The clerk at Office Max said they didn't carry an external drive with less than 1 of something. I called Tommy to have him talk to the guy. Tommy said yes to the clerk's suggestion. I stood wondering how expensive that would be. I thought several hundred dollars. It wasn't anything near that, a mere $50.
Next, I headed over to the bank. Since I was going to the shopping center where Long's was, I thought, "Good idea to check on their Hersey's milk chocolate kiss with whole almonds." Good thing I did. They were on sale. I got all four 10 oz bags of kisses and one bag of nuggets. I prefer the kisses because their smaller.
The line at the bank wasn't bad, and there were a lot of tellers on duty. I cashed a check I got from one of my clients. Most prefer to pay via Venmo. Then I went home to nap.
I set my alarm from 10:55 to be ready for my 11 am Reading Office hours. Fortunately, I woke up from my nap before eleven. I still waited until my alarm went off when I heard the radio announce it was two minutes after 11. What!!!?
The Acuity announcement was confusing. Something about the Spanish book club signed up. I usually get people's names. Also, it said it would start at 11 am. I typically start at 11 am, but the mainland had the fall time change on Saturday. Now, there is a two-hour difference. When there was a three-hour difference, 11 am for me was 2 pm in LA. If the time stayed the same, their 2 pm would be noon for me. Why did Acuity tell me my office hours were still at 11? The best I could figure out, they changed the time for the folks in LA. Now, they can get to me at 1 pm their time instead of 2. I needed to inform Julia. That may not be good for the folks in LA.
I signed on to the Zoom meeting a few minutes late. There were two women on. The older of the two announced she volunteered for any number of things. She did the English and the Spanish book clubs and something else. She said the tutors she was working with needed a refresher course on phonics. I demonstrated The Phonics Discovery System. This poor woman couldn't shut up. Whenever I said, she said she did it already and detailed how. However, it wasn't anything like what I was doing. When I asked the ladies if they knew what phonemes were, the talkative one gave a wrong answer. When I explained what they were, she reeled off her knowledge of linguistics. I stayed calm. At one point, I told her that what she was doing was good work. However, was she interested in what I had to offer? The other woman laughed out loud. The talker was quiet for a while but no longer looked at the screen.
I was calm and peaceful, and reasonably gentle. I asked that question quietly and, I hope, softly, as if it was an honest question instead of snarky. Here's the thing: she reminded me of who I used to be. I understood that her behavior is fear-driven. I handled her as directly and gently as I could. She really didn't understand what I was doing. I demonstrated how students could determine how many syllables are in a word from the sound. She said she did it by highlighting the syllables. Not a clue. In one case, the teacher showed the students the information; in the other case, the teacher showed the students how to figure out the information. I think the other woman got a lot out of the session. The woman in charge said she would have her tutors watch my video. I said I was happy to meet with the tutors and answer questions. She said no, the students wouldn't do well with it. I reminded her we were talking about the tutors. Oh, yes. We made an appointment for me to meet with them on November 17 at 5 pm.
Brian and Tommy spent several hours installing the new WIFI system. We'll see how it goes. It's expensive to install.
No comments:
Post a Comment