Saturday, September 4, 2021

Saturday, September 4, 2021

 

 When it's 9 pm, I feel tired. At 5:30 am, I need to get up. I don't sleep through the night. Most nights, I have to get up and pee several times. On good nights, I'm out like a light shortly after my head hits the pillow. Then there are nights when I spend a lot of time dozing on and off but never struggling to sleep. Occasionally, there's a night when I'm wide awake, but it's not tortured.

    I had torturous insomnia after my dad died when I was 15 until my first night in my dorm bed in my freshman year of college. That was horrible. I was exhausted and couldn't sleep. I pity anyone who suffers from that. 

   As I was waking up, I smelled smoke. I have had several occasions when I smell smoke early in the morning but can find no evidence of fire. There's no one burning anything in the neighborhood and no reports of brush fires. It happened often enough that I became concerned. When I checked the Internet, sure enough, olfactory hallucinations are symptoms of Alzheimer's. I emailed my doctor expressing my concerns.

    This morning, the smell was unusually strong and didn't go away. It was there while I walked. I spotted Mary Ann coming down the hill with Chloe and Razor. I asked if she smelled the smoke. Yes, it was downright irritating. Oh, thank God. I thought I was going crazy. Now, I was happy there was a brush fire somewhere burning down another ten acres. I planned to check the Internet when I came home, hoping it was nothing too serious.

    Further on in my walk, I ran into Julie and Vince. Vince said, "Yeah. They're cooking Kalua pork up on the mountain. They do that every Saturday and Sunday. It's worse today because they're preparing for the holiday." I never noticed the day of the week when I smelled unexplained smoke, but it was intermittent. 

    I texted my primary doctor, told her what I had discovered, and canceled my appointment. She replied, "Ha! Ha!"

  As I walked, I could feel the increased strength in my hamstrings, but I was experiencing discomfort or downright pain in other parts of my body, my right foot, my left knee, the inside of my left thigh, etc.

    Darby called. She had listened to the same NPR show I had about people who connect easily with strangers. While I heard this was the social foundation of successful community building. She heard that people who do that are more personally successful. She picked up on the personal; I picked up on the societal.

    I took a long, long nap. Why am I so tired?

   I sent a Zoom invitation to adolescent D at 10:30. I called. No answer. I texted his mom. No reply. I sat there for a while doing other work. Then I texted the mom to say I was closing the session. If they wanted to do it late,r to let me know. The mom asked about noon. I said fine. Then another text came through from D, asking if I was available now. He was asleep at 10:30. I think we should schedule for a later time. The boy is an adolescent. D apologized. I told him thank you for the apology, but I knew he was never rude.

   However, he had something else to apologize for. At the beginning of every class, I always ask him how school went and if he did any reading, even a few words. D has consistently said, "No!" I ask him this to make him aware of his choices and to develop his metacognitive skills. Today he told me that he read a sheet the teacher gave her with several questions. He was able to understand most of it and answer the questions. I said, "Wow! this is a huge change." He said, "I've been reading on my own." I asked him when this started. He said when school started. He was somewhat snarky in his answers. I pointed out to him that he had always said he didn't do any reading before. This withholding is what he has to apologize for. I asked him if he had told his mom what he was doing. I instructed him to do so. Good God.

      I worked on Phase I for our reading practice, analyzing the sounds and the letters that represent them in eighth-grade text. D's level of participation was much improved. He made an effort. He never said, "I don't know," in an invasive way. I had him read the words, telling him if he couldn't, I would. The main purpose of this work is to analyze the words, starting from their sound. There were several moments where his response was delayed. I offered to read the word. He said no and figured it out on his own. Also, we discussed several patterns, mostly with vowel diagraphs. This was the first time he was an active participant rather than passive. He holds on to the belief that every single letter represents a single sound. Boy, is that not English.