Thursday, August 19, 2021

 Thursday, August 19, 2021

 

     As Elsa and I did our morning walk, I wondered when my driver's license was up for renewal. In Hawaii, people over 72 have to renew it every two years. As I remembered it, it was due in December of 2022. I made a mental note to check the renewal date when I got home. I was right. 

      As I read my entry for August 19, 2020, in preparation for posting it on the public blog, I discovered it was this time last year that I renewed my license. Yes, indeed, I had another year to go. I read that the clerk told me that I needed an official social security card. The tax return I brought in would not be accepted next time. I had entirely forgotten about it. I sat down to figure out how to get a new card.   

     Deb, Joe, Elise, and I were the students for this morning's driveway yoga class. Elsa brought out her favorite ball. I took it from her and tucked it into my pocket. She spent the whole class whining at my side. For the most part, she used her 'indoor voice." At one point, she upped the volume. I told her to tone it down, and she stopped. It's hard enough to explain to a child that you're doing something for their good. It might have gotten lost if I let her play with it in the driveway. Or, looking at it from her point of view, maybe not. She would always have found it.

     At nine am I had an appointment with my dentist. He discovered cavities in my bottom front teeth due to my negligence. I would pop some chocolate into my mouth and nap, marinating my teeth n a sugar slurry. Those are my only remaining natural teeth. They look gross. Not only are they badly discolored, but they are also terribly crooked. I have become aware of their appearance from being on Zoom. Since you only see people's heads, you focus on all the details. I noticed how people's bottom teeth show when they talk. 

    Besides not liking the look of these teeth, I now know they have cavities; they are doomed. Not being optimistic about the future of our world, I opted for capping these teeth now while I have the money. Who knows where we all be in a year? I am preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I am making plans for both eventualities.         

      Since implants were an option, the doctor wanted to take these special X-rays to check the bone mass in my jaw. He had this incredible machine. I had to stand while these clamps locked my head in place while it took the pictures. I commented that it must have cost as much as a car. He said, "As much as a BMW." That's impressive. 

      I had sufficient bone mass. However, the process can damage the jaw when the teeth are extracted. That and the $10,000 price tag convinced me to go with caps. If I had gone with the repair to the existing teeth, it would have come to $1500. The caps are more but seem worth it since one of my concerns is appearance. 

      I went to Costco up the street from the dentist's office right afterward. It was just 10 am, but it was clear they had been open for a while. There were people already exiting with full carts. There must have been over 70 people lined up waiting to get in, but the line moved fast.  

      I was there to buy the vitamins for the ivermectin protocol and a few other things. I could only find the Vit. C. They had no Zinc, and the melatonin was in the form of a gummy bear. I passed. The check-out lines were badly backed up. Everyone had a full cart. I don't know why it was so bad today. Do the benefit checks come out twice a month? 

      As I exited, I noticed an item I didn't recognize in my cart. There was a four-pack of Crest Toothpaste. I use plain ordinary soap on my toothbrush. Toothpaste isn't good when you have artificial finished teeth. It scratches them. I already have enough crevices for bacteria to seek shelter in my mouth. I don't need to provide more. I went to the return desk to get my money back immediately.

       I received a call from the special ed instructor from the local middle school. Adolescent D attends a private school. After attending the school for seven years, they finally realized that D was entitled to special services through the public school. His mother had him tested at the beginning of the year. He easily qualified. Matthew, the teacher, called to ask if they could hire me to tutor him. He said I would have to go through a hiring process. I told him my credentials. I believe I am the most qualified reading teacher on the Big Island, if not in all of Hawaii. Besides my education, I have taught children with problems for over 50 years. He sounded excited to meet me. He asked me if I wanted a job teaching in the school. No. I told him I was eighty and done with that. Besides not wanting to meet anyone in person because of the Covid, I like the Zoom format. I am learning to make adaptations and teach in ways I never considered. Working on Zoom allows me to do things I couldn't do in person.     

   I did some gardening. My back will only hold out so long. Working in spurts is good.

    I met with A alone today. I had hoped to have a session with his mother. She was going to help me see A the way she saw him. I continued modeling the Phase I analytic process. When I asked him if he wanted to do the work himself, he said yes. He did very well except with the th digraph. He may be performing from memory rather than using sensory data. However, he was able to identify the sounds in of and was correctly. He had to pay attention to the sounds to do that. Or maybe not. It is possible he memorized what I modeled. He hadn't memorized the th in the initial or the final position or the /z/ sound for the final s in was. I see A as a rigid thinker who doesn't respond well when things don't go as he expects them to.  

     I had adolescent D today instead of yesterday. He had been home sick with a cold. While he hadn't taken the test, he insisted it wasn't Covid. I don't know how anyone can know for sure. Some insist that the tests aren't accurate either. They are mostly false positives. I know nine people who have taken the test and had negative results and only one whose results were positive. 

    I continued to see improvement- and setbacks or, better yet, places where he still gets stuck. He read with greater accuracy but still got stuck on want, reading it as went and imposing top-down comprehension versus bottom-up sensory perception. He only made a few errors like that, and his errors made sense. How do I help him get pattern recognition? How do I help him so he remembers the difference between her and here?

    I canceled my appointment with my acupuncturist tomorrow. While I've taken extra precautions when I go to Costco (wearing a shied as well as a cloth mask), it didn't occur to me until today that working with her in a small, enclosed space isn't the best idea either. I will miss my sessions with her. She is good, very good. 

  A & E canceled Longmire because its primary audience was old people like me. Yep! I loved it. It had a moral basis and wasn't out to scare me. It wasn't dystopian. The characters were people who cared about being good decent people—what a novel idea.