Monday, March 13, 2023

 Monday, March 13, 2023

I went down a New Amsterdam rabbit hole and went to bed close to eleven instead of nine. I love the feel-good show. The issues it raises are real, but the solutions are fantasy. As in the show Father Knows Best, all problems are solved by the end of an episode.

  I woke up at two-thirty, a little more awake than usual in the middle of the night. I meditated and fell back to sleep. I woke up again when the alarm went off at five-thirty.

  I pull coconut oil twice a day before brushing my teeth. The state of the coconut oil informs us as to the temperature here. Up till the day before yesterday, the oil was hard. I had to scrap some up to get enough. Yesterday, the oil was softer; I could scoop it up. This morning, a small well of liquid was in the center of the hardened oil. Spring is here.

  I joined Dean on his morning walk. I got in four thousand steps. Dean is married to a woman born to Chinese immigrants. Her parents lived in Stockton, California. From Dean's description, Stockton is a climate hellhole. While he never lived there, he made frequent trips there as his in-laws' health started failing. They looked for another place to live and bought a house in Hawaii.  

  Dean speaks only a few words of Chinese. He dismisses any need for conversation because all "the Chinese ever talk about is money and food." He also says they complain endlessly. He knows when they are talking about him when they whisper.  

  Dean told me a trick to get rid of cockroaches. I have been noticing more around my house. He puts out a bucket, lines it with coconut oil, and puts some soapy water at the bottom. The roaches can't resist that coconut oil. They also can't get out of the container once they go in because of the vertical sides. He says he always puts the bucket outside. He argues that keeps them from coming into his home. I don't understand how that works. Will that attract some if I put the bucket in my home? I see an experiment coming. Besides a world of new information, I got in four thousand steps in my walk with Dean this morning.

  When I got home, I called my financial advisor to transfer money to my nephew in Holland. I told him I wanted to send some money and that he should send me the necessary bank information. He sent me his account number, but that was it. 

I emailed him to say I needed more information. That was the last I heard. I resorted to getting his wife's contact information from my sister. That did it. He got back to me. His explanation was that he didn't have the address of the bank because it was all online. He found it now.

   My nephew is a wonderful, sweet man—a trait I fully appreciate in him. But he can't be bothered with mundane issues. I am sending more than he usually gets as part of his wedding present. Rather than giving him all the money at once, I'm doling it out. I imagine he won't even notice until six months from now. Then, he will wonder how his bank account increased. Hopefully, the bank can help him figure it out.

   As I wrote this, I realized it would be a dirty trick not to tell him what I was doing. I emailed him and his wife about how much I deposited in his account. It may be a large sum coming from me, but I don't think of it that way. I have the money I have because of my mother's efforts. 

She would want to give him a substantial wedding present. I am following her wishes.  

  When I flushed the toilet this afternoon, there was this incredible racket, and the pipe shuddered. I turned off the water. Did I need a plumber? I wouldn't be able to use it until this problem was fixed. I called Scott, who was in town. Should I call a plumber, or does he know how to fix it? I thought there was air in the pipes. I turned the water back on and flushed so he could hear the noise. He told me to turn the water on full blast. That fixed it. Calcium had built up in the pipe. Turning the water on high flushed it out. Done!

    I called the grandmother of third grade K private school, Kps. I'm going to stop calling her Goldilocks. It has a bad ring to it. Grandma asked me if I could work with her on math, too. I sure could. At the end of yesterday's session, I asked Kps what she was working on in school. Three-digit division. What!!!!?? Are you kidding me? I checked the Hawaiian DOE standards. Ah! It means solving the problem by illustrating it. That makes sense. It also makes sense the Kps can't do that. 

I spoke to her grandma today after our session yesterday. She said she had her do the multiplication problem on paper that they thought she could do in her head yesterday. She had no trouble doing it. She has a problem with abstract thinking; she needs help understanding how it connects to the concrete. She lacks number sense. We'll see. It is a mystery I look forward to solving.

  Later in the day, I checked the third-grade math standards from the Hawaii DOE. Ah! The kids are supposed to use alternative methods to figure out the answer. They are not expected to use the algorithm. They're supposed to illustrate it.

  I got some gardening done. I trimmed some of the shrubs along the edge of the driveway. I got up on a step ladder to trim the tops. I used my four-inch chain saw to cut the branches at the back of the plants against my neighbor's fence. I enjoy the work. If I did half an hour of gardening daily, it would make me happy. But I'm not used to doing that. I think of myself as being Vlad the Impaler in the garden. Darby's comment about her gardening skills keeps me going, "No, we're not good gardeners, just persistent." For the most part, they grow back. However, I have seen wild and unattended plants die on my property. It's downright weird.

  I had Adolescent D in the afternoon. We worked on Phase I using the modeling approach. I ask the question; he decides if he will answer it or not. I wait long enough for him to give it some thought. He has been participating more, giving me more answers as we go along. He still has a devil of a time remembering when a vowel sound is long or short. We haven't come across too many diphthongs.

  Wright wrote about the possible immoral use of meditation and the dharma. Everything is subject to misuse. A sociopath can use meditation to free himself from any negative feelings about killing people. Ted Bundy seems to have done that, although I have no reason to believe he used meditation, just plain ordinary denial. When he heard the verdict, he cried out, "Why? There are so many people!" What's the big deal if he killed one or two hundred? How's that for a convenient reframing? One doesn't need meditation to support immoral intent. The critical component in any religious practice, maybe what makes it religious above all else, is that it's embedded in a moral code.

   While one also doesn't need meditation to support moral intent. It just makes it easier when you're less reactive. While emotions guide all our decisions, it's better if we're not flooded by emotion when we make those decisions.