Sunday, October 16, 2022

 Sunday, October 16, 2022

  Boy, was I ever in a great mood today! I’d say I was bipolar if my mood swings were greater and if they affected my behavior. Today, I was exceptionally at peace with whatever. I’d say I was delusional, given what was happening worldwide. But a delusional day is good every once in a while.

     The left ankle bothered me a little, but not so badly that I couldn’t complete over three thousand steps on my morning walk.   I ran into one of my walking acquaintances I hadn’t seen in a while. “Mary Ann?”  She said, “No. Think of a spice.” “Ah, Rosemary.”  We talked at length today. She was a little nervous around Elsa and explained that two dogs had attacked her. She is a mobile notary. She arrived at someone’s house before they did. When they opened the door to go in, the dogs came bounding out and attacked. She was now afraid of dogs she didn’t know. I  needed a notary to sign the legal document. I asked her how much she charged. She said, “Oh, I do it for free for friends if it’s not too complicated.”

     The stats on visitors to my blog were zero for the last two days, and today, they were one hundred forty-four. Unless the number is over one hundred tomorrow, I was sure a bot hit me. Why do they show up in such large numbers? On the other hand, I questioned the zero, too. I hadn’t seen that since the first year of the blog. It is clear now that the large numbers I saw consistently were because a teacher had assigned them. That teacher was either no longer teaching or done with my blog.

   Before I left for church, I did two rounds of Wordle and a pot of boiling water on my recently cut-down haole koa. The shorter trees were still not putting up new shoots, and I hadn’t dumped boiling water on them for about a week. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of this method.

  After church, I ran into Scott as he waited for his mom to come out of the bathroom. I knew through his wife that he had dislocated his hip after getting a replacement doing Bikram. I asked him if he had an anterior or posterior approach. He had an anterior, as I did. His doctor assured him he could do anything. The hip dislocated while doing the camel pose. Scott said he told the doctor he did Bikram, and that was fine. The doctor takes the blame for the error in judgment. Scott told me the new hip bothered him, but nothing like his old hip did before the surgery. He was in agony. He couldn’t walk anymore. Since that pain was not my problem before the surgery, I wouldn’t be as thrilled if the replacement didn’t provide a much greater range of motion than my arthritic one. After I walked away, I started thinking of questions I wanted to ask Scott. How long after his surgery did he do the yoga? Why can’t the doctor remove this damagd hip replacement and put in a new one?

      I agreed to meet a friend at church. We went out for coffee afterward. I had a fruit smoothie, and we shared an almond muffin. Her life is quite an adventure. She was born in Hungry, spent time in Ukraine living with a poor family in her teens, living only on freshly picked mushrooms and just caught fish, saw what was going on in Russia with Putin and decided to move to the United States because it was the only place you could say what you wanted to. A much older man offered to marry her to get a green card. It wasn’t a fake marriage, except for the intimacy. They lived together for over ten years, helping each other. They were each other’s significant other, even if it wasn’t a traditional marriage arrangement.

  Her husband died last year. As far as she could figure out, it was on October 28. She had moved out because he became impossible to live with. She continued bringing him prepared food every day. He would taste it and throw it on the floor. He called the police and asked them to stop her from bringing him food. She stopped. She got a call in November from the neighbors. When they went into the apartment, they found him dead. The coroner figured he had been dead for at least a month. He had died of starvation.

  Because her husband died in the apartment and lay there decaying for a month, a hazmat unit removed everything, including the plumbing, the sheetrock, and the flooring. I had no idea that could happen. She moved into the apartment once it was cleared and started the reconstruction.

  A man came to the door, offering her a fan. She spoke with him at length. He was curious about what was going on. He saw materials being brought to her door every day. He couldn’t understand how that much material could go on in such a small apartment. She discovered he was a handyman and offered him free room and board to work on the apartment. He was an evangelical Christian, and she was a devout Catholic. He was bent on showing her the error of her ways.

     M & W’s mom texted to ask if we could meet at 4 p.m. instead of 2. That was fine with me. I’d just come home from church and anticipated needing a nap. Although, I hadn’t seemed to need them as much lately. It was probably part of my mood swing phenom.

   When the girls signed on at 4 p.m., I saw them sitting in a car. They were far from home. Second grade M had participated in a basketball contest. They were waiting in the take-out line at Panda Express for a late lunch.

  With second grade M, I continued with WbyW. Today, it was a lot of thinking. What does weight measure? How much do you think a robin weighs? I guessed 4 oz; she guessed a pound after having first guessed twenty pounds and then ten. I looked up the answer: 2. 7 oz. Then the question was, would a baby robin weigh more or less than an adult? This was challenging for her. The final question was, “If a baby robin ate more than its weight in food, did the food weigh more or less than the baby robin.

  With sixth-grade W, I continued with the Gating Game using material from her assigned book, the Westing Game. We discussed the information we got. Today was the author’s point of view. Did the author think Angela or Tuttle got the better deal? Their mom was terrible to both of them, but which one had a better chance of having a decent life as an adult? We agreed under normal circumstances, neither would have a good chance. Angela was under her mother’s total control. Turtle was not only neglected, but she was also constantly told she was defective and worthless. The author had a bias. My best guess is she had experience with an overly involved, controlling mom.     

     Darby called to tell me she put a papaya out for me in a bag. When she puts limes out for me to pick up, she leaves them on a rock under her mailbox in plain view to passersby. She tried that with the papayas. No luck! They were snatched by keen-eyed walkers. Now she calls, warns me, and puts them in a bag with my name.