Thursday, October 21, 2021

 Thursday, October 21, 2021

 

    I changed the emphasis of my gait again.  I pushed my left hip to the side and back.  When I lie down, the left hip is higher because the muscles on the left side of my back are shortened.  When I sit, the left leg is 'shorter than the right. The knee is half an inch to an inch behind the right.  However, when Katy measured my legs, they were the same length.  Most, if not all, of the difference is caused by my spinal curvature. As one of my PTs said, I am a twisted sister.  When I showed Katy my stride, pushing my left hip out. She said that would only address my IT band and not my piriformis.  Then I remember an Ohio bodyworker telling me if I wanted to correct a postural problem, do the exact opposite of what you have been doing. I started pushing my right hip way out and back when I was twelve.  I tried what she recommended. Yeah, it affects my IT band and all the muscles down my leg to my ankle.  It feels right to me. I'll deal with the piriformis some other time.

      My phone rang in the middle of driveway yoga. It was from 'unknown caller;" I hit the message button as fast as I could. I suspected it was an appointment cancelation for the PT appointment I had scheduled for 9 am. (I now have two physical therapists at two locations.  The new one is for feminine problems. I'll leave it at that.)  The phone rang again; it was the same number.  I checked voicemail when class was over. Sure enough. The PT was in pain and unable to work today. My best guess is she blew out her back in her work. PT manipulations are hard on the body of the worker.

   I almost forgot that I had organized my day around that PT appointment. I had several chores to do in town.  I was already organized; things I needed to take with me were already in the car.

 My first stop was the jewelry store.  I discovered that I could no longer remove the two rings I had on my left hand.  I had both cut off. I had my wedding band resized. The other ring was a diamond pinky ring my paternal grandmother got when she was twelve, which my uncle passed on to me when I was twelve. According to my calculations, the ring was bought in 1875. That makes it 146 years old; that's assuming it was bought new for my grandmother.  The jeweler told me that the ring was badly worn down. Of the eight prongs holding a small diamond in place, only four were left, and they were on the verge of breaking.  I had the ring refurbished. I picked it up.

    My next stop was at my accountant's. She called and asked that I pick up my tax return from last year.  I had entirely forgotten about it. After attending to that chore, I head to town to the UPS store to return a book I bought. The whole book was an infomercial for Daniel Amen's work. Yuck!  I heard his TED talk and got wildly excited. Someone else was doing work similar to mine.  He took images of people's brains. He said we should consider how people's brains work when we discuss either phycological or educational problems. I bought all his books. Very disappointing.  He just prescribes lifestyle changes, including some elixir he sells.  His imaging is just to show the before and after.

        I did some research on him after I purchased the books. He is not well regarded in the neuroscientific community.  Of course, I wouldn't be either -if they knew about me.  Of course, I don't charge outrageous sums of money for my work. It is part of my tutoring fee, which is on the high end of commonly charged here in Hawaii.  You can't get rich doing this work.  I spoke to a neuroscientist once who knew of nothing like my work. It's so simple and so cheap.  Neuroscience isn't up to application yet.  It will come. When it does, I'm sure it will be under the medical umbrella and cost a fortune.  Too bad.  While I'm sure my method can't help everyone, I have had a lot of success with it. Then again, there is no such thing as a single method that helps everyone.   

     There were three people online before me at the UPS store and only one clerk serving customers. There was another one processing packages. From the packaging, I would say they were all Amazon returns.  The woman before me, me, and the man behind me were all Amazon returns.  We went through quickly. 

   I headed up to Long's.  A large black truck crossed the center line and came into my lane as I pulled into the parking lot. I slammed on my brakes. She backed up and signaled for me to go ahead-no apology for nearly totaling my car and perhaps me. Fortunately, my reflexes are still functional. At least they were good enough to spare me a disaster. I had a six-dollar coupon for Long's. I picked up some facial moisturizer and three bags of Hersey's milk chocolate kiss with whole almonds on sale.

     Then I went up to the Post Office to mail a StoryJigSaw Puzzle I had made for Ks Twins. I printed out the story on one sheet of paper. I printed a second copy and cut it up, so each word was on a separate piece of paper.  The student has to reassemble the story.  The objective is to strengthen sight word recognition.  The students should be familiar with the story, so there is a good chance they can figure out the words. Then moving from left to right, one word at a time, they search through the displayed words to find the next word in the story.  It means they have to hold the image and then, hopefully, the word meaning in their minds while searching.  My chores done, I headed home.

  I was supposed to have an appointment with Canada A this afternoon. The Tuesday appointment was canceled because mom thought it was on Thursday. It had been the preceding two weeks.  I had switched it from Tuesday to Thursday because of conflicts on my end. I switched it back because it seemed to be mom's preference. She misunderstood. He canceled again tonight because he had to go back to dad's house to get a medication he forgot.  The whole family was leaving for Disneyland the next day. 

   I was looking forward to speaking to Canada A.  In our last session, he told me he felt 'patronized' by our work.  We were working on organizing skills, using his morning routine. He said he thought he was capable of getting himself ready for school.  His problem was with homework.  I told him homework was a huge challenge.  I drew a diagram on the board with morning routine and homework on the same level and lines pointing upward to a third circle labeled logistics.  Ah, now he understood. I was using something he could do and presented no real challenge to learn a new skill.  He apologized, I think, for his assumption. I'm actually not sure. I kept assuring him that I hadn't interpreted his behavior badly. Instead, I was grateful that he said something. But he went back to having to --- that's just it, I'm not sure.  I want to make sure we discuss it again because I feel I left him feeling unheard. Everyone hates that feeling.

    I had an appointment with 3rd grade A later in the afternoon.  I have been worn out working with this kid.  He is stubborn and resists suggestions, and his mother gives me agita too with her refusal to play the audiofile.  I have tried BrainManagementSkills with him several times. It was clear that he was using his visual working memory to process sounds.  I redirected him at least twice before, but he just reverted to his old pattern. With this child, there is a resistance to trying anything that doesn't sound' normal.' He desperately wants to be normal. Understandable, but he was going about it all wrong.  Today I had him work on a story he wrote a while ago, reading it and applying Phase I of The Phonics Discovery System. OMG.  He read the story perfectly. He said he remembered the story. That's part of it, but it didn't make much difference when he read the first story he wrote several months ago.  This was really good. I will have him write a story in half the session and work on The Phonics Discovery System in the second half.

      Darby called to get information from the neighborhood yenta, me. Did I know why the lady who lived across the street stood in front of her house leaning on the rock wall with her phone for a good part of the day? No. I had noticed that myself.  I would find a way to ask.  Also, did I know the name of the heavy-set man who walked in the evening? He had made several strange comments to her, nothing personal.  Advice on how to cheat someone, etc.  This fellow is a ball of hyperness and negativity.  He complains how the people in Hawaii are not friendly.  This is the Aloha state; it is committed to friendliness.  If he can't evoke a friendly response here, he's screwed wherever he goes.

  Later in the evening, I heard a woman at my front door. There was Mei, shaken to the core.  She had stopped to pick up her foreign exchange student as he was walking in the street. Someone came up behind her, honked his horn, and cursed at there. Upset, she abandoned Mark and drove around the block. This is weird behavior for Hawaii six ways from Sunday. No one honks their horn here, and I mean no one. It's just lovely.  People just wait. In this case, the other driver could easily have pulled around her. What was this about? Who was the man?  Mei thought he was the man who lived across the street.  Is that possible? Judy and I have both experienced him as a nice man.  Was this evidence of prejudice against Asians?  Is this the same person who yelled at me just because I was walking in the street? Our street is a quiet one. All walkers and runners do so in the street rather than on the unattended sidewalk.  He told me I had no business walking in the roadway. It was for cars. Really?  I don't know how we are going to unravel this.