Sunday, October 9, 2022

 Sunday, October 9, 2022

 

   I slept well, got up late, and had to hurry because I needed to leave at eight-thirty for nine am. Mass. I ran into Nina and Dean as Elsa and I did our morning walk. When a car came down the street, Dean, Elsa, and I pulled over onto the grassy strip to be off the road. Standing there, I felt like I had small pebbles in my slippers, flip-flops to folks from the East Coast. I discovered I was standing on an ant hill. Those weren't pebbles I was feeling. I was bitten. Dean said, "Your feet are going to swell up." Thanks for letting me know. Nothing like that happened. The bites didn't even itch.

      The moment I got home, I started my morning routine. I applied my pre-shower Vit. C facial. I bought Vit. C crystals in bulk, not knowing they sold crystals specifically for facials. Mine were too granular. I felt like I was applying sand to my face. Carolyn, a friend who recommended this treatment, said she added water and made a smooth paste from her crystals. I took the crystals I had and ground them in my coffee grinder. Perfect! I got the consistency I needed. Carolyn does this facial every morning and every night. That's too much for my skin.

  While the Vit C paste dried on my face, I prepared Elsa's breakfast, brushed my teeth, showered, and started working on the public blog post before I left for church.

   Maya was already seated on the church lanai when I arrived. I saw her at mass a few weeks ago. She left right before communion. Huh? Why did she leave then? I was looking forward to speaking to her after mass. Again, she left early. She texted me that she had to go because of another appointment. She would make sure she had nothing to do after mass next week so we could spend time again.

   Yesterday, Yvette told me Colleen invited her to the opening of the new parish house, and Yvette was to invite me too. Dinner would be served. None of that made any sense. How could Colleen know about the opening when there was nothing in the church bulletin? I couldn't imagine that an event like that would be by invitation. It would be open to all parishioners. I asked Meali'inani and Shirley if they knew about it. They are two church bigwigs. They knew nothing. The mystery deepened

  I ran into Fr. Lio. I asked him. He said, "Oh, we are doing the opening on the celebration of our Lady of Guadalupe. The bishop is coming, and he will bless the building." The opening of the church parish house has been repeatedly delayed. Fr. Lio has had it with this project. This poor man has overseen the church's construction and now the parish house. We can all appreciate his frustration and need to be done with it.

  I had a powerful reaction to the gospel reading on the healing of the ten lepers and Sandor's homily. I could feel my flesh crawl, identifying with the men. It was a most uncomfortable feeling.

  I finally got around to spraying the yard with the new vinegar solution, half 30% acid, half 5% acid, and some dish detergent. The 5% is food grade. The 30% can burn your insides. We'll see how well it works.

   The M & W sisters' father called. He asked me if I had received the reports on their educational testing. I had, and I'd read them. I wanted to see it because W was evaluated at a very low performance level in something. I wanted to know what it was. It was in Verbal expression, both oral and written. Written, I could see. Many kids limit what they write because they have trouble spelling. However, I couldn't see her oral verbal skills, which were excellent. How could she possibly have tested at a 2nd-grade level, three years below her grade?

   I met with second-grade M first. She still hadn't mastered the idea that the questions in the WbyW In The Book exercise were about one sentence. Other than that, her comprehension was good. She did shock me when reading several words in the sentence incorrectly. She read family for father. Huh? Time to go back and make sure her reading is accurate.

  At one point, I asked her to read the word before "them" in the phrase "bringing them worms." She said worms. I repeated, "No, the word before them." She repeated worms. Oh, boy. She has a huge problem with before and after. I drew a picture of three people facing left in a line: Alice, Beth, and Carol. They were all facing left. Who was before Beth? She got both the before and after answers right. I went back to the three words. She gave me the same answer. I got it.

  The words move from left to right. Therefore, the word on the right is the first word in the line and comes 'before' the word to its left. In all my years of teaching, I never saw this. I wondered how many kids I thought had a problem with before and after only had a problem with the contradiction between the two conventions. I had to figure out how to make it clear when reading the word on the left comes before the word on the right. In my next session, I will show her that while the words move from left to right, we read the word on the left before we read the word on the right. I can show it to her by writing one word at a time.  

  On my before-dinner walk, I ran into Brian, Lutz's son. We walked together as Lutz and I did before he left for his trip to Thailand. Brian is a generous conversationalist as Lutz is. I told him about my fall down the stairs in Hunter Hall when I was thirty-five. For the first time, it occurred to me that I could have thrown myself backward on the stairs above me. Why didn't I think to do that? That option had passed by the time I stopped trying to get my toe free from the other pant leg. I was already tilted too far forward.

 Judy called on her way home from her Youth Ministry class. Children fight to read and participate, even the ones who don't read well. I told her about the before/after problem. She had never seen that conflict before, either.

 I took the Zabar's shipping box in before Yvette came home and saw it. I bought bagels for her birthday. The package was very large for the twelve bagels I ordered. I figured it was a lot of packing material to keep them fresh. I finally opened it last night. There was no packing material; it was all bagels, seventy-two of them. Holy cow! I thought I ordered half a dozen plain and half a dozen multigrain. I ordered six of six and six of six. Yep, that's seventy-two.