Sunday, April 24, 2022

 Sunday, April 24, 2022 

 

 I finished the Amazon series Delicious last night and started watching Balthazar again. I didn’t remember it. Why had I stopped watching it? That became clear. It is horrifyingly violent. When I read my entry for April 24, 2021, I found my comment about the show. Too edgy; filled with psychos. I wasn’t going to watch it anymore. I came to the same conclusion last night.

    I made it to church for the 9 am service. I got there too late to park in the church parking lot. I turned around and parked in the library staff parking spaces. Church was good for me today. I have been suffering from grief and anger. During part of the service, I dozed. It was healing. I felt much better for having gone.   

    I had the M & W sisters today. With fifth-grade W, I used 2nd-grade material to eliminate the need for decoding longer words. I had her read as if she was reading a list of words and keep her focus on the left side of her head. Since she usually used her right brain for most things, she had to make a conscious attempt to use her left brain. I theorized she could accomplish this by deliberately focusing on that area of the brain. I saw a difference as we worked. I saw an increase in the speed of her recall. She reported no difference. When she read, I got the image of her straining, like swimming upstream. She said that did describe her feeling. Reading should feel like falling off a log rather than swimming against the current. We did about fifteen minutes of this exercise with the 2nd-grade material before switching to the sixth-grade material. We could see the difference when she read a passage at that level. Her word accuracy and processing speed were better than usual. Wouldn’t it be great if this fixed the problem?

     With first-grade M, I had her read her Unicorn story for purposes of review and editing. The language was above her reading level. She did a great job. She carefully decoded any words she had trouble with.

   My friend Carol Zim called. She and her husband, John, were driving back to Maryland from visiting their son in NYC. They went to a flamenco concert and visited an art gallery that displayed the work of their son. They were running late getting home because they had trouble getting to the art gallery. The streets were blocked because there was a Brooklyn marathon. They had to park their car and take a subway to get there. 

   We talked about my plans for THR surgery. I told them some of my concerns prompted by two bodyworkers telling me they didn’t think I would do well. Their concerns have to do with my muscular problems. I plan to ask the PT for details I can share with the doctor when I speak with her. The PT also mentioned that osteoporosis could be a problem without knowing I had it. The osteoporosis could prevent the remaining bone from adhering to the device. I had my first bone scan at fifty. The doctor told me I had the bones of an eighty-year-old. The results of the surgery could be a disaster. If the hip doesn’t take, I could be in as much pain as if the femoral head collapsed. I would be in pain within six to ten years with the hip replacement. If I didn’t have it done, it would happen sometime within the next 15. My choices suck.

   My friend Jean recommend Anatomy of a Scandal on Netflix. She thought I’d love it. I tried to sign in but couldn’t because Judy was watching something on my Netflix. That was weird because I knew she had her subscription. They borrowed mine briefly before they bought their own. Why were we having problems? It is possible that while they bought the subscription, they never signed out from my plan and signed into theirs.   I watched something silly on Amazon, Harry Wild. Jane Seymour plays a silver fox who gets involved in solving crimes in unconventional ways, much to the dismay of her police officer son. It’s silly.