Saturday, July 9, 2022

 Saturday, July 9, 2022

 

  I was wide awake by 4 am. I meditated and dozed until after 5:30, when Scott came in to grab Elsa for her morning walk. She snuggled up with me. “Save me, Mom!”

  I finally figured out how to fix the stain on the shower tile. I had myself in quite a tizzy. I sprayed the raised toilet seat before returning it with Clorox while it was sitting on the tiled bench in the shower. It left a white stain. I convinced myself I had damaged the ceramic tile, bleaching the color right out of it. Clorox hadn’t had that impact on the granite counter. Also, when the tile was wet, the original color came through loud and clear. Hmm! Could I have jumped the gun? Perhaps this is another example of poor processing due to my aging brain. This is the old-age version of pregnancy scares. Evaluating every error of calculation that way can’t be good for me.  

  At any rate, I figured out how to deal with the white stain. I soaked a cloth in white vinegar and let it sit on the stained area. It took time, but my ceramic tile is as good as new.

  I got around to bathing Elsa. I should do it minimally once a week. I should do it every other day when her skin lesions are bad. It had been two weeks since her last bath. Shivani gave it to her. Elsa may not like her baths; she shivers while she sits covered in the medicinal soap for fifteen minutes. However, she didn’t try to escape and jump out of the kitchen sink when Shivani ran to get a towel.

   I had two naps today. I was becoming increasingly concerned about my need for sleep and feeling everything was too much for me, including dusting. Well, I can’t walk without a walker or cane yet. I convinced myself I was still recovering from the surgery, particularly all the chemicals they fed me to numb the area and me. The top of my leg is still numb.

  While I dreaded contact, I did all right with the M & W sisters. It wasn’t agony. I asked going-into-sixth grade W about the work of the other tutor. She worked with them on their cognitive processing. W described exercises on the computer and with objects. She told me they were designed to increase her powers of concentration. It sounded like it was mostly to increase the speed with which she did the exercises. She did say she thought they were helping. It occurred to me afterward to ask if she saw improvement in her performance on the exercises or in her daily life. It was her daily life that counted.

   I worked on writing with both girls. With going-into-second grade M, I pushed her to describe what she saw at the rodeo. It was hard getting the information out of her. I sympathized with her frustration. We all want others to understand what we’re thinking without making an effort. It’s so clear to us; what’s wrong with the other person? I pushed her, telling her how important it was to make an effort to communicate our thoughts to others as clearly as possible. By combining words with sketches, we made progress. I didn’t know if my image of the event was 100% in accordance with hers, but the two of us felt there was some agreement.

   Going-into-sixth grade W wanted to work on writing a story. She didn’t have anything in mind. I gave my usual color prompts. That didn’t work. I told her to look around her bedroom. Pick any object; we could use it to generate a story. She spotted a shark purse with a missing fin, and the whole story quickly unfolded in her mind. Again, the story has a fantastic quality, another one for The Twilight Zone. The story is going to need work, but the bones are there.

  I had my weekly session with Jana, the first of my disciples. She reported her student had made remarkable progress. He was figuring out words. She commented he needed help with prepositions when he spoke, misusing them. His family is Spanish. He probably came to school speaking it. The prepositions in Spanish are quite different than those in English. They’re the most difficult to get when learning a new language. However little sense grammatical patterns make in any language, the prepositions seem the most arbitrary. Learning a language is learning a new game with different rules than any other game you’ve ever played.

   My leg felt much better after doing the hamstring stretch Katie recommended. I could go back to using the walking stick instead of the walker.

    I had a Zabar’s Everything bagel with cream cheese, lox, onion, and tomato. I had been craving that for a while. I couldn’t eat it because people brought me food I had to eat first.

      I started watching Blue Jasmine, a Woody Allen movie. He always deals with uncomfortable relationships. I didn’t need that. I found a sweet, totally unrealistic romdramedy, Barefoot. It was well-acted, and I enjoyed it.