Thursday, November 4, 2021

 Thursday, November 4, 2021

 

    Even when Mike was alive, I couldn't tell if he was still in bed by my side or not.  That was weird to me since our energy connection was a biggy in our relationship.  I tried to feel how his empty side of be felt this morning. A little different but not cold and vacant either. I remembered his sweetness.  I told him how I missed that. Such sweetness.  I couldn't feel if he was present energetically when he was alive; I can't feel much difference now that he is dead.  Since energy connection was a biggy for us, I assumed that we were always connected, present or not.  It feels somewhat different now. A little weaker, but I have to concentrate to feel the difference.  I assume he remains present. 

  This morning, I told him how I missed his sweetness.  He. as always, was surprised and delighted that I found him sweet.   His mother assured him he was a terrible person; he was male, an obvious villain after all. As I lay there, I connected to him.  My heart flowed with love for him. I focused on my love for him and his sweetness.  What a lovely feeling.  I have to remember I can achieve that connection even when he's not here. I love loving him.

     During yoga this morning: I worked on modifying my posture through the pelvic floor. Someone showed me a model of the woman's pelvic region. I was shocked. The vagina and the urethra are embraced by those muscles. I always imagined the pelvic floor a  muscle lying flat across the bottom of the abdomen floor.  Not at all.  I discussed the difference with a doctor. She said there is only a slight difference between the male and female anatomy. Viva la difference!  The difference in the muscular is a huge as the difference in genitalia. I can see where a physician might not think so; it's a matter of a half-inch. The female pelvic floor Vs downward, where the male pelvic floor lies flat at the bottom of the abdomen.  For those of us with good kinesthetic awareness, the difference is important. It's those muscles that impact our hip, leg, and back muscles. They all interact. As I concentrate on those muscles from this new perspective, it makes a difference in my ability to relax the muscles around my hips.

    Before yoga each day, Yvette struggles to put yoga toes on my feet. Today, she told me she had an easier pair to put on than what I had.  Mine are two parallel strips with holes for my toes.  She had to wrestle my toes into the holes. Since some of my toes are bent, and one is skewed, this is quite a challenge. Yvette had yoga toe gems. She went down to her house to get them.  These have a single strip with projections that are slipped between the toes. I ordered a pair immediately.

   I learned something new in yoga today too.  Yvette often talks about lifting from the 'pit of the abdomen." I always assumed this referred to the pelvic floor. Yvette said no; it refers to raising the pubic bone. It's a different way of directing someone to tuck their hips. The difference, again, is huge to me. 

    I had an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon at Kaiser.  The last time I saw Dr. Lee was in 2018.  My primary thought it would be worthwhile to be on the surgeon's radar if my hip got bad, and I decided to get surgery.  With the preliminary evaluation done, the time between requesting surgery and getting it would be less.  I walked in and told him why I didn't need surgery. He said he doesn't usually see that. People typically come in begging for surgery as soon as possible; they are in agony.  There is no question that I qualify for a total hip replacement. I made this appointment because I pitched forward when I bent down to pick something up sometime in the spring. I thought it was time to reconsider.  I requested an appointment. In the meantime, I concluded that there had been a shift in my alignment, which put me off balance. As I got used to the change, I regained control over my body.  I kept the appointment because I wanted to see if he could help my injured inner thigh muscle. Like all the previous orthopedic surgeons I have consulted, Dr. Lee was enthusiastic about the benefits of the surgery. And no, there was nothing he could do about the muscle. He said that any problems with the muscle would clear up with the surgery. 

     I can believe Dr. Lee and all the other orthopedic surgeons I have spoken to see incredible results with surgery. People come in hunched over and in pain; after surgery, they stand straight and are pain-free.  However, he doesn't see people like me often.  Why did he see me? Because I had an AMA loyal husband, and I was willing to explore the possibility. It's a statistical problem.  These doctors are not seeing a random sample of human beings.  They are seeing a self-selected group, those in pain who want surgery. They don't get to see those who are prepared to exercise and try alternate routes to improve their condition and have some, if not total, success. 

    When I returned to my car after my Kaiser appointment, I heard the radio running.  I realized immediately, I had left the car running and unlocked. I had been distracted when I got out of the car. Judy had called. I focused on transitioning the phone from the car to the speaker.  The car is keyless. I don't need it unless I have to unlock the car door. I usually don't lock it unless I have valuables.  So far, so good. I have turned off the car in all other situations over the last year and a half.  Because the car is electric, you can't tell it's running. Probably no one noticed. Thank you, God.

   I headed down to Target to pick up a few things. Naturally, I checked out their Hersey's Milk chocolate kisses with whole almonds. They didn't have any of those in, but they did have a few bags of the nuggets. Desperate times call for desperate measures. When I got home, I napped. 

  After my nap, I walked up to Judy and Paulette's. They've been working on their deck. They hired someone to do what they can't do, but they have done much of the work themselves. They have been treating the sections of dry rot in the boards worth saving.  That is quite a process.  Dry rot isn't just water-laden; it's spores that get into the wood and eat away at it.  They treated the wood with some chemical that kills the spores. Then they had to fill in the holes with a compound, sand that down, and seal it. Paulette and Judy were on a break. Paulette sat in a rocker lounge chair on the lanai; Judy was upstairs eating lunch.  I spent about an hour sitting with Paulette under the shade of a tree. The breeze was fantastic.  It was a lovely afternoon. 

  When I got home, I spent two hours washing the lanai screens.  I use a garden sprayer, aiming the flow so it's parallel to the screen instead of perpendicular to it,  which I do when  I need to knock out stubborn spots.  I always have to remember to open the sprayer, removing the pump handle when I'm not using it.  If I don't, the pressure destroys the gaskets.

  On one of my periodic walks I do throughout the day to get my 10,000 steps and break up the day, I ran into one of my neighbors.  She and her husband got terrible news.  Her husband had melanoma in two different spots on his body: his back and left forearm.  She said there was such guilt. They were not the sort to quickly go to a doctor. Besides that, they feared Covid exposure.  This is a couple in their early 60s.   They are much younger than Mike and me. I'm already worrying if she set up so she can easily continue living in their house should he die.  I was 'lucky.' My father died when I was fifteen.  I prepare for everyone's death.  Mike used to make cracks, "She's burying me." I prepared for the moment of his loss from the day I accepted him as my life partner. It may sound morose. But there was also an upside.  I lived my life with Mike knowing I could lose him at any moment. These moments were precious- make the best of them. 

    I had an appointment with adolescent D. Today he had a reading assignment. Yay! He often reports he did no reading at school. It makes me wonder about the school.  He said he could read some words but not enough to understand the material. The information was presented calmly. Wow! That would be great. No self-hatred, just an accurate evaluation of the situation.  I suspect he could have read more of the words if he would be willing to write them using the process I taught him.  This is better than nothing.

    I finally got hold of the lady who does the stone inlay.  She told me the superscript two after Ph.D2  would be too small and fall out.  I would like to investigate this process in more detail.  I have questions.  How large does that superscript have to be to work?  Will it fall out if the granite slab is lying flat on another surface? Would applying superglue help the situation?  I am willing to start from scratch, ordering another larger slab than I have now. I may need a lighter-colored backdrop piece to make inlay doable. The piece I bought is dark brown. Even if it's large enough, what contrasting color could I use?  It would have to be a lighter color. Does that work?   If I have to order another piece of lighter-colored granite, can I use the slab I already have for the fill?  So many questions.  

  I told the woman I wanted to come in for an appointment. When would she be in? She gave me the weirdest answers after I told her I wanted to investigate the process and was prepared to start from scratch. She said I needed to come with a second slab for the fill.  Yes, but I wasn't up to that point yet. I just wanted to come in to gather information. She was giving me some weird feedback. I just told her I would be in at 8:30 on Monday morning. I wonder if she's going to stand me up. I have no idea what is going on with her.

   I sound pretty reasonable as I write, but I believe my tone when people are on a different page is not pleasant.  Mike would say, "Be gentle." He was right. I have been struggling with this all my life. It was why I didn't have children. I saw the worst of my mother in myself. I didn't want to pass this misery on to another human being, no less my own child. I'm still struggling. Shit! 

      I passed 11,000 hits today on my blog.  I did some research on how to read blog statistics. I was trying to figure out what the numbers meant. There are about half a dozen sets. Which numbers represent the number of people signing on? Which numbers represent the number of pages read that day? As I did the research, I read about making money with a blog. Huh?  I read people can make money with as little as five hits a day.  I get between five and ten hits on a bad day.  I get over a hundred on many days. I don't know if that counts. No one writes any comments. I am reasonably sure the high numbers come from some English language teacher assigning it.  These high hits come from Indonesia, Egypt, Germany, Great Britain, and occasionally the USA. 

     Tommy called early in the evening to say he would come over on Sunday to show me my compiled Phase II video. I asked him if he could help me explore getting money for my blog. Also, I need him to strip Mike's old computer so I can give it to Mamma K.