Wednesday, December 29, 2021
I slept well for the first part of the night and then dozed on and off. I used the cramp-release strategy during the night. The pain in my ankle had shifted from below the ankle to above it. It was uncomfortable walking this morning. It was better when I went through the full range of motion in the joint. The discomfort feels like it did when I sprained it while living in Ohio. Horatio, aka Horrorshow, butted me from behind, knocking my leg out from under me. I twisted my left ankle. Horatio and I didn't like each other.
Susan from the dentist's office called to say that my dental mold was in. I needed to make an appointment for a fitting. First, she made one for Thursday. She called back later to say she had to change it for Friday.
Today was garbage day. I have two containers in pull-out 'drawers' in my kitchen. I have one of those in my bathroom. We designed our home with two Portuguese Water dogs in mind. Then there is the covered pail in the driveway we use for dog poop. Soon I will need more small one-gallon trash bags. I use them for my bathroom pail, the poop pail, and packing the books in Mike's library for shipping. The books travel by boat. They can get wet. These were bags I bought when my mom was still alive before 2001 when she died. The industrial-sized quantity I bought is finally running out.
At 9 am I had the third session for the week with the M & W sisters. First grade M had problems reading the word after even though she had read the passage in our last session, reading it as other. This triggered a burst of insecurity in me even though she correctly read every other word in the passage. She just had problems with two-syllable words at a higher level. It was time to incorporate Phase II, decoding multi-syllable words.
Fifth grade W did a great job with Phase III. Today we covered the punctuation with quotation marks and the overall organization.
W wrote a story in which she ate a lot of food in a dream after eating a full dinner beforehand and didn't want to eat for the next day. She proceeded to set up an experiment in which she didn't eat a real meal or a meal in her dream to see how she would feel the next day. That was the only experiment she did. In the middle of using this material for Phase III, she decided she wanted to change the wording in one paragraph to change the experiment. I told her not to do that but instead to expand the story with another form of the experiment.
I was surprised; here I was doing high school or college-level work wither. I knew it was a two-by-two experiment, but I found myself scrambling to figure out how to express the idea. I thought if I had laid it out as a two-by-two to start out with, it would have saved me time and aggravation. That's what I did when I wrote papers in college; I would create a chart outlining the paper's organization, but I couldn't figure out how to do it now. I struggled with the design and finally told W to draw the various options to make sure she knew what she was doing. I planned to create a chart to show her what the drawings should be about. I am encouraging her to use her love of drawing to help her organize her written work.
Judy called while I was out walking. She was on her way home from the dentist. She turned onto our street as I was walking toward the intersection. It was weird talking to her on the phone and simultaneously talking directly. We switched off our phones, and I walked beside her car as she inched down the street. I told her how the two sessions with the M & W sisters made me feel inadequate. Just talking about it calmed me.
Mowg called to tell me he had Covid. The other day he told me he was exposed and tested. Now he had the results. I wasn't particularly concerned because I knew Omicron was mild, and he was jabbed up to the max. He said he had mild symptoms. It was nothing to be concerned about. His biggest problem was he couldn't go into work. He's a general manager at a local restaurant. He feels like he's abandoning his staff. While he doesn't wait tables, he pitches in if his staff feels overwhelmed. He sounds like a great boss.
At 12:30, I left the house to go to Holualoa to pick up the Sundog sourdough bread I ordered. I arrived just at 1. Today, they were already distributing the bread. Last time, their opening was delayed by a late setup. Today, they started a new arrangement where the preorders were picked up in a different spot than retail. The guy who was doing the preorders was scrambling and apologizing for the confusion. He had 30-50 slips of paper in his hand. He had to go through them to find my order. I suggested he divide the slips of paper into alphabetic groups A-D, E-G, etc. He would have fewer pieces of paper to scramble through and would be less likely to get them all out of order. He asked if I would like to come work for them. When I got my two loaves, I walked away. I had a thought about how to improve the system. Place a colored piece of paper on top of each pile with the letters of the alphabet contained within that pile. I walked back to his table, waited until he was through serving the next customer, and made my suggestion.
When I got back, I saw Judy's car parked on the street in front of Mei's house. I went into the house and got all the trays, plates, and containers I had from Judy's food contributions, so I didn't starve. I put them in the front seat of her car. Then I walked to my car, picked up the loaf of sourdough I bought for her, and put it on top of the plates.
I finally washed the kitchen floor and the tiled hallway. Ah, did that feel good! I haven't even been sweeping the floor regularly in anticipation of washing it every day. I also got up-to-date on my updates. The blog numbers are going up instead of down. I have no idea. I requested to learn more about my readers, asking them to make comments, but there had been no response.
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