Saturday, February 11, 2023

 Saturday, February 11, 2023

 While my alarm is set for 5:30 on weekdays, it doesn’t go off on the weekends. I have no reason to get up that early any day of the week now that I no longer have the seven am Bikram class. I’m usually up by seven, seven-thirty at the latest. This morning, I loved staying in bed. When I finally decided to get up, it was ten to nine. That was a shock. I thought it was eight and wanted to go back to bed. I had a nine am session.

   I grabbed Elsa off the bed and brought her to the doggie door behind the bureau. She balked. I encouraged her and then cornered her. No response. Okay, I tried to push the plastic flap open for her. Oh, dear, the stiff plastic door had dropped. When I pulled it up, exposing the plastic flap, Elsa went through, did her business, and came back in. She’s good at using the door to come in but not go out yet. At least, I have never heard her going out. Maybe it’s because I’m not nearby when she does, but around when she comes back in. I do know she always gives me an argument when I place her in front of the door.

   After our morning walk, I quickly prepared Elsa’s breakfast and texted Mama K to tell her I was running late. I grabbed some food and water and headed to the library for the Zoom session with the three kids.

   I had Twin A first. I have her read the same low-level third-grade passage every session. She is making more wild guesses based on her memory of the passage. It’s not good. Making wild guesses based on knowledge of the material without regard for the letters is a reading strategy of poor readers. I repeatedly remind her to consider the letters. Also, I remind her to decode longer words one syllable at a time. I divided all multisyllabic words into syllables for her. It is a great opportunity to model the skill.

   Then, I had A read a passage from the QRI. I finally compared this program to Jerry John’s evaluation program. QRI passages are more difficult. I don’t understand their grading system. She read more today than she had the other day. We came across the word wait; she read it as want. I isolated the ai and asked her to give me a good guess for the sound the vowel team might make. She said she didn’t know. I gave several clues and opportunities for her to make her best educated guess. “Could it be an /o/ sound?” “I don’t know.” I finally gave all the vowel sounds to choose from. The kids must learn to use statistical likelihood to figure out the sounds. She didn’t understand that ai made one sound instead of two. That said, she still read more today than a week ago. She reports improvement in her reading.

   I had Twin E next. She has continuing memory problems. Twin A had issues, but she has improved a lot; E has not. I am pushing for her to learn to use automatic recall. I started using the Fernald drill procedure. It involves writing the target word, covering it up, and writing it from memory while saying it. I discovered E has excellent visual recall. Her problem is all in the auditory center.

   Fourth grade K was off somewhere with his father. He is the most advanced of the three siblings. He catches on pretty fast, too.

   I ignored the car problem for the day. I couldn’t get the charging plug out. The plan was to drive the car to the garage on Monday with the plug-in, pulling the cord through the driver’s side window. Later in the day, I tried to drive the car to Paulette’s to get more water. Elsa was in the passenger seat, my empty containers in the back seat. I hopped in, turned on the car- and couldn’t get the gear out of park. Oops! Guess I can’t drive it with it in - back to the drawing board.

   I called Paulette to tell her I wouldn’t be up. She said to check on YouTube; I couldn’t be the only one with this problem. I had figured no one would if the Kia mechanics didn’t know how to deal with it.

  There is a severe shortage of competent car mechanics on the island. They’re all leaving for the mainland. Housing may be the problem. Many renters are being forced to leave or live in their cars. You can’t do that if you have a family. It’s a mess- and it’s going to get worse.

   When I shared my experience with the Kia service, I was regaled with stories of bad treatment by other car dealerships. Because many mechanics have left, the remaining ones are overwhelmed. I know the owner of a local garage I dealt with before I bought the Kia is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He has an overwhelming amount of work and can’t find competent help. He has nightmares of a car he worked on failing and killing someone.

    My neighbor Carol dropped off yellow and purple lilikoi. I am slowly adapting to the local food. While I am open to new ideas and foods if someone else prepares them, I have difficulty incorporating them into my food prep routine.