Wednesday, March 30, 2022
I slept very well last night. I went to bed by 10. I did have a few moments in the middle of the night when I was half-awake dealing with negative thoughts. I slept so well in the morning that I didn't remember turning off the alarm.
On my morning walk, I ran into the adolescent girl's mother. She explained her emotional state. She is vulnerable now because she has relatives in Ukraine. I learned this morning that her aunt and uncle were safely in Russia with their family. However, she still explained her reasons for not wanting her daughter to devote two hours a day to earning $20 an hour. She may be right and is doing what is best for her daughter. But she doesn't present as a reasonable person. Either way, it was still in her power to insist that the girl not work. While the girl was 18, I've heard children are only emancipated in Hawaii at 19. In addition, the girl was living rent-free in her mother's house. She still had to live by her mother's rules.
The girl's mother or father might be good candidates for Mei and Peter's second driver. They want to hire someone full-time for $30,000 per year. I decided they were not worth the aggravation. The mother speaks with an accent and mumbles so badly that no one can clearly understand what she says. I talk to her a lot. I was getting used to it, and it was still hard. Mei and Peter are recent immigrants from China and still speak with distinct accents. They would have even greater problems understanding the mother—moreover, the mother whines. I can see her saying, "Oh, I can't make it now," when Mei calls to say there's a car to be picked up or delivered and then bend her ear for the next five minutes with excuses. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. In all fairness, the job is stressful. It breaks up your day, so you can't get anything done, and there are often last-minute changes.
I had my acupuncturist's appointment today. I had already told her I had opted for THR when we made the appointment but forgot I had. Oh, dear. There are things I've forgotten that don't bother me. They have to do with time or numbers. But this was different. It had nothing to do with time or numbers, and I shared important information with someone who worked on my body. I expected her to contribute to my preparation for surgery and my recovery. That I didn't remember that conversation was upsetting.
I told the acupuncturist about much of the information the doctor shared with me, praising her communication skills. I saw how the surgeon would measure my leg length by measuring some distance between a point in my hip and a point high on my leg. The acupuncturist told me they should also measure the lengths of the bones. The bones can be of different lengths in the two legs. I will have to contact the doctor and ask her about this. However, one of my PTs, Katie, measured both legs with a measuring tape and found them equal. This wasn't precise, but it suggests my bone lengths aren't widely divergent.
Mama K texted to cancel for the day. She was meeting with the child study teams to review the progress of her twin girls; both are special ed. and have IEPs. I looked forward to hearing the report. It may inspire me to move in a different direction with the girls.
I also spoke to adolescent D's mother today. She gave me some alarming news, particularly in light of my pushing him the other day. She got a call from a mother of a student D knew when he was in third or fourth grade in another school. She asked if D had an Instagram account. There is someone harassing kids that went to that school many years ago in D's name. This mother said her daughter recognized that it wasn't D talking because he would never speak that way to anyone. There is no way he would bully someone. A huge strength of D's character is his commitment to being a good person. It is also clear that this is a peer of D's, not some adult messing with kids' heads. It came out that the bullying at that old school was intense and continuous. D's mom got the details of what he suffered and was horrified.
She contacted all the parents of kids on the Instagram account to tell them that her son didn't even have an Instagram account and was in no way responsible. One of the people she contacted had a child who had been a friend of D's in that old school, who was also bullied and continued to go to school with the offenders. He was in high school with some of his tormentors now and experiencing such intense bullying that it made him physically ill, enough to have been hospitalized because he couldn't eat.
One of the parents the mom contacted acknowledged that her son could be one of the offenders. He had been involved in another incident. The mother said she took away her son's phone and checked his activity. D's mother thought it was time to call in the Police. Cyberbullying is a crime, as is an identity thief.
I got a return call from Karen, the surgical appointment nurse, and arranged for the THR surgery on June 2, right after my guests had left. I also got hold of Veronica today from the stone engraving company. I dropped off the slabs for shipping to Honolulu two weeks ago and had heard nothing. She told me they picked them up last Friday, and she was working on the designs. She would email them to me the next day.
I continued watching Brokenwood Mysteries on Netflix. Love it. The main characters are never under attack. Ahh! It's not edgy or scary in any way. I was in series 4. I still had more to go. I looked forward to them every night.
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