Tuesday, October 12, 2021

 Tuesday, October 12, 2021

 

     Slept very well, no on and off dozing at any point. When I got up to pee, I fell right back to sleep. Lucky I don't fall asleep on the toilet.  I got up promptly when my alarm went off because it was yoga day.   

    I didn't walk that long because my leg muscles were in complaint mode. Again, I had made a change. As a result of the observations of my PT, Katy, and my acupuncturist, Jennifer, I figured out that I had to raise my right hip and move it over to the left. Both saw my piriformis was tight. Jennifer thought it was because the muscles in the front of my thigh were pulling too hard.  As I played around, I concluded that the muscles on the left are strained because they are pulled too far to the right.

        I got home in plenty of time to work on the computer and get ready for yoga. Yvette brought up some food she got from her friend, Christine when she visited her in Hilo, a corn and rice soup and a lentil and rice mix. 

     It was just Yvette, Scott, and me in the driveway and Deb on the phone from Seattle. Her house here just sold, and they bought one there. Perfect timing!  Yoga is always good, and it gets better. I'm always surprised when the hour is up.

   Yvette and I talked about dogs and dog food after the class. Little is overweight and is on a diet.  Her thyroid problems make it hard for her to lose weight.  I asked her what brand of food she was going to use.  We were both on Scientific Diet for sensitive skin. She said she was using the same thing. How was she doing that when the vet was getting any in? They were ordering it online. How, when you need a prescription?  The vet issued it for the online order. What???? Why couldn't I do that? Why did I have to change brands? Yvette and Josh order the largest-sized bag; I always get the smallest.  She said I should just get the food from them. This will probably make it cheaper for me.  Now, I have to figure out how much I will owe them.

    I had an 8:40 dental appointment. I am getting a Snap-on Smile for my messed-up lower teeth for my Zoom presentation. I don't think of it much when I work with the kids. My screen is only a small one in the corner, and we're both so focused on the work, my teeth are hardly an event.  However, I can't stand the look when I go full screen.  

    Chris, the dentist, made the mold.  His wife, KC, his assistant, noticed that I was still reading Buddhism without Belief by Bachelor. She thought I would be finished with it already. I told her I only read that book when I'm waiting on checkout lines and in medical offices.  I was reading three other books, two on neuroscience and Merton's Seven Story Mountain.  I read a few pages at a time, particularly the neuroscience books. The dentist asked me what I got out of the neuroscience books. This led to a discussion of BrainManagementSkills, a method I developed for helping people change how they use their brains. Then I had a session with the dental hygienist, Roxy, KC's sister. (Their mother is the receptionist.) 

   Roxy said it was time for another set of X-rays. Chris found about half a dozen cavities, all under my caps. OW!  I destroyed my teeth by having a few Hersey's Milk Chocolate kisses with whole almonds and then laying down for a nap without cleaning my mouth first. I marinated my teeth in a sugar slurry. I'm paying for it now. I have become a maniac mouth cleaner since the dentist saw what I had done to my lower front teeth.  Roxy checked: did I floss, did I use that little brushy thing between my teeth, did I brush at night before I went to bed, and finally, did I  use a mouth wash with fluoride.  She told me the fluoride even protected existing cavities from getting worse. It created a barrier.  I just started using mouthwash; fortunately, I have been using Crest with fluoride. I have tons of it already.

    I headed home immediately after the dentist and went down for a short nap before my session with adolescent D. Hawaii is on Fall break now. I asked his mother if she wanted to up the sessions.  Yes, let's add Tuesday and Thursday. I thought I'd have trouble getting him on, but no. he was right on time, and there were no complaints. 

    I used the second method I developed for decoding words multi-syllable words. The first approach was just to underline the vowel letters, then add the following letters orally, and then the letters that preceded the generated set.  Now, I asked him immediately to name the vowel letters in the word as I wrote them on the Zoom whiteboard. If you don't recognize a written word, you must determine the number of syllables by the number of vowel letters that make vowel sounds.  For the word California, he said, "a,  o, i." He had recognized the word. When I asked him why he left out the other vowel letters, he said people say the word leaving out sounds. Maybe some do, but that's not a good strategy approaching any word.  Assume all the vowels have a purpose to start. When you wind up with a wonky pronunciation, then you can make changes.  D also ran into trouble identifying common words He read for, and then from for of. He finally got the right one because 'he gave his mind the letters.'

     I got the feeling that he didn't embed images into his visual working memory deeply enough.  We often just scan the world around us, embedding images in our minds at various levels. This is dictated by attention, but maybe something else as well.  Is it possible to avoid focusing on something even if it's the only thing we are looking at? We don't want to see it. We don't want it to become part of us. Short of being outright negative, there is the possibility of negligence. I'm not sure about the validity of the theory. Right now, that's all it is. I'll play with it. 

     Ah, I do have personal experience with this.  I found it easier to listen to people speaking after I made the hour-long audiofile, reading the individual phonemes of each word of five different stories. After an hour of doing that, my sensory perception of speech sounds became more, what's the word, complex? Detailed? Sensitive?  Exposure to the details and variations of sensory input heightens our attention. 

   I had an appointment with Katy, my PT. She had canceled our last appointment. I found out her reason today: she had the cartilage of her ear pierced, and it became infected badly. She went to the emergency room twice.  We started with me reporting all I had worked on over the last month.  While she was working on me, she said, "I could work on you forever." My first thought was that she thought I was such a spectacular mess and that forever would hardly be enough. But no. She meant she loved working with me. It's mutual. We make a team.  

    She continued working on my hip, the surrounding muscles. She did something new.  While I was lying flat on my back with my knees bent, she wrapped a towel around the inside of my left thigh, placed a sling over that, and wrapped the straps around her waist.  Then she leaned back while pushing away on my left knee; she pulled in one direction with the sling and pushed on my knee in the opposite direction. The effect was to pull my left hip out.  My left hip is jammed up against my right hip. They think they're Siamese twins instead of roommates. There should be some independent movement.

     I went directly to Target from the PT session. I've been dealing with my foot problem using toe separators used when people paint their toenails.  I had no idea there was a better product. I think that's because there was nothing out there when I first searched for such a product twenty years ago.  Katy showed me what was available online and that it was sold at Long's. Target had a Long's.  I bought 4 10 oz. bags of Hersey's Milk Chocolate kisses with whole almonds., but they didn't sell the toe separators.  I had to go back into town to Long's store.  

   On the way there, I passed the carwash place. Oh, yes. I had thought of getting a car wash. The car was cover with brown dust from the volcanic eruption spewing out 85 thousand tons an hour. Long's had the toe separators and bags of Hersey's Milk chocolate nuggets with whole almonds; I bought two.

       I couldn't sign on to Vera tonight, despite having subscribed to Brit box through Amazon. Very frustrating. I went back to watching Offspring.  It must have been a season conclusion. It had a happy ending, with everyone reconciled, except the main characters.  I suspect Dr. Chris is permanent history.  The best part was this song. One sister had slept with the other sister's ex-boyfriend at the time. They had commiserated with each other over ice cream and vodka shots. Let me see two horny thirty-year-olds in frustrating/terminated relationships get drunk – surprise.  The 'cuckolded sister decided she wanted to get back together with her old boyfriend in a committed relationship. The boyfriend felt he had to confess to the 'cuckolded sister, so their relationship was solid. The 'cuckolded 'sister went ballistic. The boyfriend was a musician. He wrote a song for her. "Your sister is a six, and you're a 10." with details.  It should make the hit parade. It was a great song.