Thursday, April 14, 2022

 Thursday, April 14, 2022

   

   I had a restless night's sleep. It comes and goes. 

   As I started on my walk, I ran into an old walking buddy I hadn't seen for a while. She's a fifth-grade teacher at a local school. She worked with D, who I tutored when he was in third and fourth grade. She said she wondered how I was doing whenever she passed. I told her I was getting up later. I used to get up at 5:30 regularly because we had 7 am yoga three days a week. She said she was glad she had slept in today, so she ran into me. We walked together for a while. Keeping up with her strained my leg, but I could do it. I relaxed the tensed muscle by placing a tennis ball under my left thigh as I worked on my updates. 

     I ran into Judy on my walk after I posted the entry on the blog. I got a hug and an offer of meatloaf. Boy, did that ever seem like a good offer! I was sick and tired of my own cooking. Besides the monotony, it was often not that well prepared. I got tired of Mike's cooking too. No, I never told him.

  Again, I solved the Wordle problem on the fourth try. I have been getting four to five letters every day of late, usually with one green letter.

  I read some of The Faith to Doubt by Stephen Batchelor. I have every book of his now. My friend John Zim introduced me to him with Buddhism without Belief. Batchelor has an open-minded take on Buddhism that I love. In the book I was reading, he compared different types of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is a very dogmatic religion. It's the practitioner's job to conform his belief system to the doctrine, not to question it. Batchelor was greatly influenced by the Vipassana practice. It teaches the practitioner to always come to his own conclusions. Well, it tries. It's the branch of Buddhism I have had the most exposure. Some of the leaders are open-minded, some not so much.  

   I was particularly struck by one line in the book which discussed the two uses of logic. One to discover the truth, the other "to prove what you already believe" and the falsehood of what others believe. Both uses of logic have value. It is beneficial to subject our own beliefs to logical examination. There should be a solid structure to a belief system; it should be logically consistent. If there isn't, something is possibly wrong, but paradox is always waiting in the wings.

    I applied the new approach to embedding memory and strengthening the memory system with adolescent D. We worked on memorizing -ting versus -tion. He had -tion well embedded, but if confronted with a letter formation that resembled it, like-ting, he assumed it was -tion. Using -ting, I had him confirm that he had the visual image clearly in mind, holding it in the area closest to the forehead. Then he had to hold the auditory image of the unit's sound in the auditory working memory. He kept repeating what I said instead of trying to experience its presence in the auditorily section of his brain. In repeating it, he avoided auditory recall. He avoided holding the sound longer in short-term working memory. In repeating it, he was recycling the sensory input instead of remembering it. It was hard to get him to stop the vocal repetition. I knew the memory imprint might not feel satisfying. Still, he had to do the best he could with it if we were to strengthen the neurological wiring. I saw an immediate improvement in his reading. He read with greater confidence and speed. After we had spent time on the memory exercise, he could still get through six items in the driver's license test. The possibilities were exciting. We'll see how this pans out. Is this just a freak change? Was I seeing what I wanted to see? Did this exercise make a difference? Mom did play the 5 Stories from the YouTube audio file last night. How much is that having an impact versus our memory exercise of today? Time will answer all questions.

     Shivani sent me an email saying she was willing to be my caretaker. I didn't even tell her about the operation, fearing she would feel obliged. She had read about it in the updates. I scheduled the procedure for after her visit from May 24 through May 31 visit. She said she was willing to stay an extra week after the surgery. Wow! She said she likes taking care of people. Can't think of anything better. I had offers from people willing to take care of me, but no one who says they would get pleasure from it. A girl after my own heart. I would have to hire someone to care for Sidney, her five-year-old son. While she planned a one-week vacation, she couldn't afford to take two weeks off. She had to work during the second week when I would be in recovery. I will have to find childcare for Sidney for the second week. Our neighborhood is awash in young children seven and under. Our next-door neighbor's house has enough toys to supply a preschool. They even bought a small above-ground pool for their children. 

    Judy stopped by quickly to drop off some of her meatloaf as I contemplated dinner.       

    Darby called. I told her about my lime tree. I went to the bottom of the property to pick limes for my evening drink. I hadn't been down there because of my leg, ankle, and knee problems. I was shocked when I saw my tree. There were no limes on it. When I was there last, the tree was loaded with flowers and the promise of a rich harvest. There was only one section that was heavily loaded with pickable fruit. I thought someone must have come on the property and picked the tree clean. Darby told me a strong wind could blow the blooms off the tree, leaving only that one section intact. 

   Then she asked if I would like a provolone sandwich from KTA, a local grocery store chain. Yes. I was always interested in food prepared by anyone other than me. Should I come to get it? "No, no. I'll bring it down to you." She delivered two such sandwiches. From what I could make out, she had a piano tuning gig. Her client bought her these sandwiches. When she got home, her husband had already prepared dinner. The poor sandwiches would have been trashed the next day if they had not been eaten immediately. No worries. They would meet no such fate at my hand. I ate two-thirds of one of the two sandwiches for dinner and put the rest in the frig for the next day's lunch. I had no qualms about refrigerating the other sandwich for future use.  

   I continued watching Hidden on Acorn. Eh! There are a lot of disturbing images: a young woman who cuts herself, a man who lives with his verbally and physically abusive mother, and an underlying story of a young woman who must have been imprisoned for months, if not years, after being abducted and who was found dead. Lovely, eh? There are 48 Acorn mysteries. Only a few of them are fit for viewing -by me. Give me Midsomer Murders, or give me -nothing.