Sunday, June 19, 2022

 Sunday, June 19, 2022  

 

I had some trouble falling asleep last night. All the sleep during the day was catching up with me. I took no ibuprofen or Tylenol last night before I went to bed. My leg felt good then, and I decided to risk it. I did fine during the night. I woke up at 5 am and decided to get up after doing one round of my lying-down exercises. I got up and sat in the chair in my bedroom to meditate. Besides being agitated about something; I had no idea what; sitting put pressure on my leg and made me quite uncomfortable.  

      While I was meditating, the rain started. It started slowly and built and built. It was one of those bucket downpours we were seeing more of. It rained so hard it overflowed the gutters. Then it would ease off. Then the next wave would come. Around 8 am, it stopped, and the sun came out.

  I was starving. I hadn't eaten much for dinner the night before, just some apple slices. I made three scrambled eggs, two slices of buttered, toasted sourdough rye, a glass of homemade lemonade, and Hersey milk chocolate nuggets with whole almonds.

   I discovered half a Zabar's Everything bagel in a baggy in my fridge. I have no idea who left it there. I eat only half a bagel at a time and return the other half to the freezer. I don't put it in the fridge. I finally opened the package of lox I bought before Shivani arrived. I figured that stuff would keep. It's highly salted and in a sealed package. I put some on my cream cheesed bagel, divided the rest into portion sizes, put them in baggies, put all the small baggies in a big one, and popped it into the freezer. Bagels are not my usual morning fare. If anything, I prefer them for dinner. But it hit the spot this morning—only one problem. I didn't have any tomatoes to put on top.  

 I got up at five and was down for a two-hour nap by 9. I only had six hours of sleep. I woke up with a nightmare and an old physical shock reaction that I believe is the cause of my hip problem in the first place. In the nightmare, I was sitting at the head of the bed with two other women with whom I had difficulty getting along. Mike came in, spoke to them, and ignored me. Yes, Mike and I were separated, but why didn't he even say hello? I thought maybe he had trouble with his vision. I spoke to him to ask him what was going on. He looked at me as if my very question was strange. It was almost as if he had never known me. I feel that way about him sometimes. It is hard to remember who we were; the strong memory is just that we were, and it was good.

  I don't know what the shock reaction was to, maybe Mike's response to me. My right glute pulled my hips over. This response is a seventy-four-year-old habit with lots of practice. I responded that way every time my mom yelled at me. She did that a lot. I don't know what I can do to break that habit.

  I called my friend Carol in Ohio. We met during my first year teaching in the Licking Heights school district after Mike, and I moved to that state. She follows my current updates. I received her second get-well card the other day. While I was on the phone with Carol, sitting at the dining room table on the screened lanai, someone came up behind me. It was Judy bearing food. She was there only to drop off the stuff. She had cars to drive for her Turo job.

 I started the practice of resting my eyes eye rest every 20 minutes. I set my alarm to remind me. My vision is degenerating quickly. Letters looked blurred. It helped even after one day. I look up as high as I can and hold it for the count of ten. I do that to each side and down.

  Jana texted me asking if she could consult me about notes she wrote on her first-grader student. She had done as I recommended and checked if he knew the letters of the alphabet. In reciting them, he left out the L and pronounced X as es. After some thought, I asked, "Is he from a Latino family?" Yes. It could be that he heard "el m," as in "the m," he thinks he's saying, "K, L, the M, N, etc." As for the X, he may be confused by the name of the letters. All the other letter names only use two phonemes, 'e-f,' 'g-ee,' ay-ch.' Etc. The name for X is comprised of three sounds, "e-k-s." The letter name uses three phonemes, and the letter represents two phonemes. It is the only letter that does that. The letter X represents the sound ' k-s.' Sometimes kids get things wrong because they're too smart for their own good.

 It had been several days since I last saw Lutz. I texted him to check. He stopped by on his evening walk. He was fine. The rain was interfering with his evening routine.

 It had rained for most of the day, with intermittent downpours.