Thursday, November 10, 2022

 Thursday, November 10, 2022

 

  I got up when my alarm went off at 5:30 for an early walk because of driveway yoga at 7 am. It was only Yvette, Scott, and me this morning. While I was better than last week, I still couldn't get down to the floor or back up alone. Will I ever be able to do that? Is this the impact of age on my body? The first time I recognized I had trouble bending that left leg, I was at thirty-two. I couldn't pull it through in a Salutation to the Sun series.

  One of our old yoga buddies who moved to Seattle is struggling. She recently returned to the island to say goodbye to a close friend who was dying of cancer. Then she flew to California to be with her nineteen-year-old son, who started cancer treatments for a rare form of cancer affecting the heart. This was his second bout with the disease. His first was at ten. He was a make-a-wish child. Her life has been challenging. Despite all her hardships, she remains a warm, loving woman—prayers for her and her son.

  I hired Canopy Care to trim my trees partially for their health but mainly to ensure my fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean three miles away and the western horizon with its spectacular sunsets. The crew was coming today after a few delays. I had expected them to come several months ago. Tree care is a booming business here, mainly to protect views. The company is a family operation, a seventy-year-old dad with two sons.  

  Dad hails from Cincinnati, where he met his first wife, an African-American woman. His son from that marriage was raised here with his dad after his parents split. That son works on clean-up and maintaining the machinery. The second son was born to a white woman; he does the tree climbing and trimming. The dad married a third time. They have a troubled adopted daughter. Dad's first wife married again to another African American. Three siblings share DNA: mixed, all-white, and all-black. How's that for a Rainbow family!! I see a wonderful, caring spirit among the family members. It's a delight to have them on the property.

  I started cleaning the office to make it more comfortable for Christine. That's part of the reason. The real reason is I want to use the pressure of guests to motivate me to thoroughly clean my house. I started with the lanai screens, mostly 8x4 screwed-in, top and bottom panels. It takes about an hour to clean one set. The view and the breeze are slightly improved as a result. No one would notice. Mike did, bless his soul. In the office, I wanted to dust all the bookshelves and wash the floor. I came across some papers that I didn't need to hang on to. There was an extra copy of Mike's second Ph.D. manuscript. I have another hard copy, a bound copy, and a digital one. This reminds me that I need to see what Mike's colleague is doing about publishing his book. I plan to release it on Amazon if no book publisher picks it up.

  Julia from Step Up Tutoring sent me an email. She posted my office hour for Monday. Maria must have given her the go-ahead. I argue for keeping both office hours, Saturday as well as Monday. I have no idea why Maria put the kibosh on that. 

  When I checked for the post announcing my office hour in Julia's weekly announcements, I couldn't find it. Julia said it was under the Office Hours tab, where everyone's office hours were listed. That would be fine if that had been the way they were posted in the past, but that wasn't the case. One person had signed up for Monday. I had already set up two medical appointments.  

   I called the chiropractor to cancel. She was able to move it to a later time.

   I read the instructions for the new math program Step Up Tutoring was implementing. It's a scripted approach- no diagnosis needed; just follow the script. My task will be curtailed. Just tell people how to follow the script. No way. I ran into Anne Marie, who teaches 5th grade at the local elementary school. She still talks about loving teaching even though her role as a teacher has been limited. Many good teachers I know have quit because of the push to regulate. Regulation prevents teachers from adapting their teaching to student needs- or their own.

  She was skeptical when I told Anne Marie that one of my students had gained seven or eight years of reading in a year and a half. Today, I remembered his mother telling me he started reading signs after several months of work. That is what beginning readers do. He had never done that. The other day, he read an article from a magazine to her. Would he pass a second-grade reading test? If he misread of, for, and from in a single selection, that would be the end of the testing. He still misses the basic sight words.