Thursday, December 8, 2022

 Thursday, December 8, 2022

  I was up early this morning. I didn't do my in-bed exercises because I had driveway yoga. Vince, one of my walking friends, was up early, too. He had to go into town today.

  I called Kia headquarters to check on the information on the car. I took a careful look at the paperwork for the car service. I told the guy there was an unexpected acceleration. That's all he wrote. Did I not make clear that it was above the limit set by the cruise control, or did he not accurately record what I said? Either way, it explains some of the confusion. Of course, the car accelerates on an upgrade. All automatic transmissions do. The car shifts into low gear and pulls harder to climb the hill. I called Kia headquarters customer service. The fellows here may be decent mechanics, but their communication skills could use some improvement. 

  I asked a question of a representative at Kia headquarters. Good luck! It was a call center at an office. They were unqualified to give technical advice. The woman said she would ask someone else. She hung up on me. I was unhappy about the situation but am making peace with it. I was adjusting to the need to be constantly on the alert. I already monitor the automatic stopping feature. It's not set to my comfort. I like to start breaking sooner.

  I had an appointment with my therapist/life coach today. I worked on my extreme reaction to the car situation. I felt betrayed and abandoned by the car. I counted on its safety features. They saved me at least once. I'm ultimately responsible, but I loved that the car had my back. No more! Even as I write this, I feel the loss. I am as sure as I can be this is not all about a car. It's a car on top of Mike's death. Mike promised he wouldn't leave me. Where is he now? Do I understand logically that he didn't abandon me? Of course. But my nervous system only experiences loss. The grief has gotten worse over time, not less. I feel like I am constantly on the verge of sobbing. 

  Early in my relationship with Mike, he said one day I would start crying, and I wouldn't be able to stop. I was to call him immediately, and he would come home from work. Where is he now that the sobbing has hit me so hard? Is he here? No. Do I know rationally he didn't 'leave me?' Yes. He had a few other issues, like a failing body and his death. He tried to stay alive for me way beyond the point where he wanted to. God, I miss the man.

  Many years ago, I told Shelly I was afraid to put my ideas on teaching reading out there because I would be attacked. She said nothing but probably thought I was more than a little paranoid. In the podcast Sold a Story, one woman talks about making a presentation advocating teaching phonics and opposing Clay's approach, and participants verbally attacked her. People came up to her and yelled; it was a moral issue.

  I went to the church for Mary's Tea. Zola had invited me to her table. Judy reminded me I had to bring my own teacup. I brought one that my friend Jean gave me years ago. It's lovely. It is almost unusable without the saucer to stabilize it, but it is beautiful. 

  I knew two women at the table besides Zola, Mindy, and Karen. We were all old ladies except for Karen. The food is homemade finger sandwiches and cakes and cookies. I enjoyed the company.

  After the tea, I went home for a nap. I had first grade I at 3:30. I continued working with the Carpenter materials and decoding. Then, I discovered she had difficulty figuring out words using context clues. It is only possible to be a good reader in English with that skill. She decoded the word was with a short /a/ and a final /s/ sound, so it rhymed with ass. She couldn't figure out what the word was. I made several statements with the word using her pronunciation. "I /wass/ in school yesterday." She still couldn't figure out what the word might be. Ah! This must be the problem the teacher identified. It is a vital skill, as is accurate decoding. She also told me that I was applying what she learned about decoding to everything she was reading. She would be a short-term client.

. In our last session, I worked with I's brother, third-grade J, on his anger. Today, he refused to work with me. I thought it was because I pushed too hard. But no, it wasn't that. He had a bad day at school. He got blamed for something he didn't do, which triggered his anger. Join the human race. He told his mom that I was doing therapy with him. His mom had told him I was a life coach. They're both true. My therapist has to classify herself as a life coach. When people think of going to therapy to fix something wrong, it sucks. It is a way to be a better person. That often involves changing things about myself.  

   Eighth grade K. worked on the main idea of a section of a poem. We worked on understanding the relationship between the metaphorical terms and the events. It took effort, but he got some of it. This fourteen-year-old boy is functioning on a second or third-grade level. Oh, boy.

   Adolescent D signed into Zoom to do a ten-minute session. I give him the individual phonemes, and he had to figure out the word. D has problems with basic phonemic awareness, a predictor of reading problems. I had forgotten all about the session. I was on my vibrating platform doing the alphabet exercise with my ankle when I remembered our meeting at 5 pm. We met. He still struggles, reversing sounds and losing whole syllables as he blends them.