Saturday, September 25, 2021

 Saturday, September 25, 2021

  

    I got tired at 9 pm on cue. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I tried to stay up because I wanted to sleep through the night. I slept well, only waking around 4 am. That's not too bad since my alarm is set for 5:30. I had some leg discomfort. A tennis ball pressed into the left side of my body resolved that, so I could fall asleep easily. 

    Elsa and I walked up to the second fire hydrant on Kukuna. My leg did beautifully-no discomfort. At the far end of our walk, I realized that Elsa hadn't made a poop on our walk.\ I checked my pocket for the unused doggy bag. Yep. It was there safe and sound. I knew there would be a gift for me when I got home.

    At 8 am, I had the M and W sisters. I started with M, as usual. Today, she made the same 'mistakes' every time. We've read the same stories several times, and she doesn't remember the words, or she doesn't try to use memory. I had W continue with automatic processing. Both girls have problems with automatic retrieval.

     I ran into a friend who lives down the street, walking to visit my immediate neighbor, Mei, to deliver star fruit from her property. You always wind up with access if you grow something on your property.  

      This neighbor had a stroke in 2019. She was a young woman, just over sixty. She was visiting her mother, who was suffering from the onset of dementia, when the stroke hit. Her mom drove her to the ER. She told me she went swimming for the first time since her stroke. She discovered that her left side was much weaker than her right side. She wept. So far, she has made remarkable and ongoing improvements. This was a shoc. Something new to work on for her. She is like me, constantly working on regaining strength

   I smiled to think of her husband when she went swimming. He is as protective of her as Mike was of me. Kind of funny. I pictured him hovering over her with his arms outstretched, ready to grab her at a moment's notice. 

    This woman is also overly cautious about chemical herbicides. She and her husband put up special draped fences, so neighbors' spraying does not contaminate their property. Today I found out what this was about. When she was a child, she had to walk through a cornfield treated with Round-Up to get to school every day. She said her system was overloaded and super sensitive to any sprays as a result.

     I went to Mei's house with my neighbor as she delivered the star fruit. Mei came out to greet us. Behind her, we saw her new house guest. She has taken in an exchange student from Germany, a fourteen-year-old boy. He is in her son's class in the Parker School, about 45 minutes away. Mark had another residential placement. His host gave a party for his class. While there, Mei learned that the host's house was another forty minutes further away. They decided that the boy would move in with Mei and her family. Mei reorganized her house. She put the boys in the ohana and set up David's bedroom as a study area for them. Both boys are thrilled with the arrangement.

   While standing there, Mei went into the house and brought out a tray of pork moon cakes. She gave one to me and one to my neighbor. My neighbor is vegan. Too bad. I got two of them. I ate one right away and saved the other for dinner.

      Adolescent D. and I worked more on the force field, shielding his auditory working memory from receiving speech sounds. He had no idea how force fields were penetrated in video games, but he could describe what the field in his head looked like. It was a thick red ring, the same depth in all directions. He said there was no spinning as I had seen it. That's as far as we could get. We spent the rest of the session applying The Phonics Discovery System Phase I.  

    He intended to listen to the audio file. He proposed putting a post-it note on his bed. That hadn't worked. He couldn't remember. He suggested he listen to it right after the session.

     I bathed Elsa. The vet said I was to bathe her two to three times a week with the medicated shampoo. Yuck! I have to leave the soap on for fifteen minutes; she shivers the whole time. So sad. Which is worse, sitting with the soap or the lesions

    I texted Isaac and Matthew to set up times to talk. Isaac is the young man I met while walking who was spending the year volunteering at a small Christian 2-room schoolhouse here in Hawaii. His principal wanted him to teach kindergarteners the alphabet using scripture. I thought about it and have developed ideas for doing that in ways appropriate for that age range.

     Matthew is the special education supervisor for the local middle school who asked me to become a tutor for the school. I detailed all I had to do to get to the next application phase. I completed a several-page application and a TB test before receiving the second application packet, a 17-page job, some of them double-sided. Some of these pages are repeats. I have to prove my citizenship again. I will only get the fingerprint card for my FBI check once I've handed in this 2nd application. 

   I filled out the application on Friday. There are sections I can't fill in because I don't have the information. I called Denice, the woman in charge of this process. She didn't answer. I will call again on Monday until I get through. One of the pages says, "Type only." Do you know anyone with a typewriter I can use? Maddening.