Thursday, December 9, 2021

 Thursday, December 9, 2021

 

   I had a bad night’s sleep. I was distressed about conflicted relationships.  Fortunately, I have learned to ignore the downsides of a relationship for long periods.  Once the negatives overwhelm the positives, I have to terminate when it is clear there is no mutually comfortable solution,  

    I called the dentist today to tell them I decided I couldn’t be treated by the root canal guy they recommended.  I got the receptionist of my regular dentist again.  I started to tell her my thoughts.  She interrupted me. “Before you say anything, I have to tell you my boss ( also her son-in-law) said, “I had no business advising you.  I am not a trainer dentist.” I told her I decided based on my personal response to the root canal doctor, not her advice.  He scared me.  I believe he would ignore my discomfort. if I wanted a break, he would say, “Wait till I finish.”    I told the receptionist that I knew she was not a trained dentist. She spoke from what she’s learned listening to her daughter and her husband talk about dental problems.  She gave a sigh of relief. That didn’t mean the dentist wasn’t right. Someone else might have taken her word as the word of an expert.

     I started on my cleaning project in anticipation of Damon’s visit.  There is a bank of six casement windows at the back of the house in that guest room.  The rest of the back of the house is covered with lanai screens.  There’s a substantial drop to the ground from those windows.  The window openings are small enough that falling out is not a problem but reaching the far corners of the window is.  NEWs paper

     My house phone rang. What!  I canceled Spectrum two weeks ago. Spectrum doesn’t prorate, so I couldn’t get a refund for the rest of the month.  I thought service would end on the first. Why was my house phone ringing? I called Spectrum. The guy forgot to tell me that I had to call back to cancel at the end of the month; he would not put the order through. The agent I had was great. She apologized for his error and made sure I wasn’t charged for December.

     I called Mama K about Twin E.  She was the one who was ahead when I started working with them.  She was always doing better than Twin A.  Now,  Twin A is working on her reading how her brother works on video games. She is reading and writing. My guess is she is close to grade level, if not beyond.  Twin E, on the other hand, is lagging.  I was concerned that sibling rivalry would lead her to conclude that Twin A is just smarter. Even more worrying was the conclusion that she wasn’t as smart as Twin A.  I encouraged Mama K to remind Twin E that Twin A was improving because she worked on it, not smarter.

         Yvette brought up a mushroom curry dish her friend Christine made in the evening.  She offered a taste. Did I want more? Yvette loves this woman’s vegetarian cooking. She has been living on the other side of the island. Yvette sees her infrequently.  She would be housesitting on this side of the island for December.  Yvette arranged to get regular meals from Christine in exchange for massages.

  Yvette was excited when I texted her to let her know Damon would be coming for Christmas.  Besides being concerned about the cleanliness of their section of the house, I was worried about the undecorated state I was planning. Yvette had already contacted Damon and made plans to decorate on Christmas Eve after Damon arrived. That solves that problem. 

      I finally got a response from Matthew, the head of the special ed department. He had been as surprised as I was that the school wasn’t going to hire me because ‘they had someone on staff who could do it.’ How could he not know if they would have someone on staff do the job?  He texted me the real answer today. 

    Hawaii is one school district under one board of education located in Honolulu. While that saves on salaries, it makes the operation even more bureaucratic.  It seems the public school system has been flooded by private school requests for services. This is an expensive deal. I guess several schools were processing applications for tutors. The other possibility is the school district is figuring out how to avoid providing the service in the first place. At least, I know it’s not personal. 

      Before I went to bed, I envisioned cleaning the windows in the guest bedroom on the side of the house. I must get up on the roof to reach them.  These windows are about 2 ½ to 3 feet across.  There is no way I could reach the far end of the outside window by sticking my arm through the small slit created by the open window on the hinge side. I asked Yvette if she would keep an ear out for me while I climbed up on the roof in case I fell.  I do feel that I’m not as stable as I was the last time I cleaned the windows.  I suspect that was three years ago.