Friday, March 4, 2022

 Friday, March 4, 2022

 

    When I ran into Olga and her dog, Jack, this morning, I asked if Isaac could call her because he wanted to speak to her daughter Alexandra. Olga was close to beside herself and said she couldn't do that now. She asked me if I knew what was going on in Ukraine. Yes. Olga immigrated from Russia, but she has relatives who live in Ukraine, an elderly aunt who she worried about. I can't imagine. If I could imagine a real setting being bombed; it would be hard for me too. I have the privilege of being able to forget about it, and pretend it will never touch me. I only half believe that. I can't begin to cope with what is going on for those folks. My maternal grandparents lived through the bombing of Berlin. My mother said she never worried about them. I don't have a clue how that could be possible.  

     I convinced Olga to give me Alexandra's number so Isaac could contact her directly. Isaac is a science nerd, as is Alexandra. When I told him she was a National Merit Scholarship winner and interested in birds, I could see his eyes roll enthusiastically. His grandmother is a birder; he joins her in her outings.

     I was in deep grief today. Oh, boy. Something triggered my memory of Mike's few visitors while in that hospital for five weeks before he died. He was in a Kaiser Hospital on Oahu. The people he had contact with every day were on the Big Island. They obviously couldn't visit. However, there were church deacons and priests that Mike knew and had worked with on Oahu. I thought I'd have to work out a schedule to control the number of people visiting at a time. But that never happened. There was only one who visited every week religiously. There was one other who visited two or three times with his wife. There is one who Mike worked with closely, who broke down and ran out of the room when he saw Mike in his final stage. And there was one more who visited once. Sandor and Meali'inani visited when they were over in Oahu, but they lived and worked on the Big Island. Mike cried about his loneliness. It saddened me that this wonderful man was not regaled with love and appreciation in his final days. I thought the world of him. I know it wasn't just my love-blind eyes that saw him in that light. People would tell me how wonderful he was. I was filled with grief today that there weren't regular visitors. We both needed the stimulation and distraction, the laughter and love.

   I needed a Kangen water refill. Paulette texted she was home. I piled the empty bottles and Elsa in the car and headed up the block and up their long steep driveway. I need a ½ gallon of 8.5 for Elsa. That was her clear preference. 

   The instructions were to put out bowls of water with different strengths of Ph. When given a choice between the 9.5, the strength I started with, and refrigerator-filtered water. She chose the filtered water. In the next batch, I got one ½ gallon of 8.5 and one of 9.0, reducing the pH for me and Elsa. I tried her on a bowl of the filtered water, the 8.5 and 9.0. She chose the 8.5. Elsa had spoken. 

    I had had a rough morning emotionally. I sat on the lanai while Paulette worked on this huge jigsaw puzzle. Most of it had been done. I picked up one of the trays and tried to match the pieces. Forget that. Paulette recommended I take a single piece and find its location on the puzzle's picture. She didn't just have the picture on the cover of the box. Her puzzle came with a poster just about as big as the puzzle. She taped it to a poster board. That worked better for me. I  located a few pieces.

   Leon, her 7-year-old grandnephew, and Judy's grandson came up. He's been working on the puzzle with Paulette. She had no idea all the skills she was teaching Leon while working on this puzzle. Patience, for one. Tolerance for frustration for another. Then, visual processing and categorizing skills. Not to mention compare-and-contrast skills. I could hear them discuss why or why not a piece might belong in a particular place. Judy knew how much he was getting from this simple, playful activity.  

   While Paulette works on puzzles with Leon, Judy teaches him basic reading skills. He is one lucky little boy with a multigenerational extended family on one property.

     I spent time clearing, relaxing, and working on the updates when I got home. I also posted the ad on my blog, my Facebook page, and the Facebook page for StepUpTutoring.

     I had expected an email from Dr. Ching's office with a copy of my X-rays. I never saw it. I called and asked them to send it again.

  I spoke to Jean, my hanai sister; she was not doing well. Recovery is hard. Unfortunately, the doctor made it sound like she would have ten days of discomfort and then be back to normal. She spent ten days not being able to get out of bed. She spent several days unable to move her arms and more days unable to turn over in bed. The recovery has been a surprising ordeal. I couldn't imagine it would have been as easy as the doctor implied, but not even I understood how bad it would be.

   I finally got a call from Kona Trans. I had been waiting for an estimate. Instead,  The crating was finished. The weight and the cost were both a surprise. It weighs over 200 lbs, and it costs over $400. Wow! I was shocked. I can afford it, but the packing may cost more than the shipping. Also, all that weight will raise the cost of the shipping. 

   The cement guy called. I told him we decided against the cement blanket to cover the gravesite and serve as a base for the gravestones. I asked for an estimate for the wedges, about $200. And that was for two of them. That was a surprise. I thought cement costs a fortune. It is cheaper than the crating of the two slabs. 

   Sandor stopped by with my new glasses. He dropped them off and took my old ones to put in the new lenses. I didn't even look in the mirror until I went to bed. Eh! They're too big for my face. I have narrowly set eyes. Large lenses leave a lot of skin. It's not my best look. 

  I told Sandor about my problems getting the gravestones engraved. He said he might have someone who could do the engraving on the island. She's not listed on the Internet. She is on the down-low. While having her do it won't save me the $400 crating fee, it will save me shipping costs and crating costs when the company packs them to send back to me.

   I started watching Netflix's Piece of Her. I'll watch anything with Toni Collette.