Monday, April 18, 2022

 Monday, April 18, 2022

   I slept like a baby. So sweet. I did the exercises recommended in the booklet for Total Hip Replacement. I have been realigning my abdominal muscles. The acupuncturist did something with those muscles the last time she was here. I had suspected my problem was with the muscles of my legs and glutes and those lower abs, which connect directly to the leg muscles. The acupuncturist moved from my glutes to my back on the left side. Then went around to the right to work the muscles at my waist. While it felt right, they also hurt after she was finished with them. It was those muscles that I have continued to work. I use them to push my hip carriage over to the left to relax the left glutes and allow that leg to drop. It left me Charlie horsed.

   At 11, I had my Reading and Writing Office hours for the Step Up Tutoring program. I was expecting one person. Two showed up, and neither was the one I expected. She rescheduled for next week. In half an hour, I gave them something they could work with. Leo was working with a third-grader. He wrote something with him but didn’t know the grade level of his work. He read it to me. I said low 2nd grade. The boy produced a list of things he did over the weekend. He didn’t develop a single idea. 

      Nancy had similar problems with her student. Her writing was below grade level. She needed help with both verbal expression and spelling. I told her to deal with this as two separate problems, focusing on one at a time. I showed them how to use the co-writing activity, being the amanuensis and asking questions, leading the student to develop a single idea.  

     I also talked about asking detailed questions about each sentence to teach students to see language as a puzzle to be figured out. Students with problems will use background knowledge to answer comprehension questions rather than the information the author provided. Leo recognized that his student would have the problem. 

      Damon called. God bless him. He tries to call me once a week. How lucky am I? Today he called from work. He was in a lull now, waiting for the release of his movie on April 22. Everyone is holding their breath to see how it is received in the US. It was already released overseas and well received. 

    Damon had had a busy weekend. One of his best friends from college was in town from the east coast, checking out colleges for his oldest son. They all went to visit Occidental, where August was going to school. Damon saw Oxy in a new way as August showed Ollie around. Damon also got to see his son flourishing. What a joy! They say a parent can only be as happy as their unhappiest child.   Damon and Cylin are blessed. 

   I had a session with the M & W sisters. I had fifth grade W first today because first grade M had taken off with a cousin to feed some pigs. W was not pleased to go first. We knocked off some items from BL DC F at a sixth-grade level. Her reading was halting, but her comprehension was good. She missed the word SINCE. I asked her if she had memory problems. She said yes. How did I miss that? I worked on the memory exercise I developed with one of the Twins and also used it with adolescent D. I haven’t met with the latter two to find out of this method worked. It made intuitive sense to me. Wouldn’t it be great if it did work?

   When M got on, I continued working with the third-grade material for comprehension, asking many questions about a single sentence and the following one. It took a while for her to understand she had to use the information in the text when it was available. I might have to work on a lower level. That wasn’t a happy thought. The lower-level material was harder to work with; it was generally dialogue. Her work today was light years better than when we first started. This was only our second session, and she rocked it.

      The phone rang with an Oregon number. It didn’t say SCAM, but who would call me from that area code? I got a voicemail. It was Terry, my PT, who promised she would call me. I entered her number into my address book and texted her that I would recognize her number next time.

  Paulette called. Was I busy teaching? No. Could she stop by to drop off food? I told her she could stop off any time to drop off food. The door was unlocked, and she knew where the fridge was. She also asked if I had the user’s manual for my weedwhacker that was in residence at that home. She wanted to order a new line. I looked while she drove over. I couldn’t find it. The model number must be on the machine. She couldn’t find it. Did you check the charger? Ah, no. 

   I watched the last episode of Northern Rescue. Well, that was disappointing. I found it weak from the beginning, but I was looking for the Hallmark ending. Boy, did I not get that. Each family member faced a new crisis in the final episode. It would have been good as a season closer, but not for the end of the series. It was shot in 2019. No, there’s not another episode in the can. I think the writers made sure there were all these crises at the end to force the powers that be to produce Season 2. Covid intervened. From what I read, the series will not be renewed.