Tuesday, August 2, 2022

 Tuesday, August 2, 2022  

 

   One of my caps popped off when I flossed my teeth last night. It was about forty years old. That's about as long as they can last. Because I was only nine weeks post-surgery, the dentist was seriously limited in what he could do. I called the office at one am to leave a message for their receptionist, Susan, the dentist's mother-in-law. The office is truly a family business. Sometimes children are floating around because there's no available childcare. 

  Susan called back while I was on my morning walk. Could I be there by 8:50? You better believe it. The dentist said he could put it on with temporary or permanent cement. The permanent would fill any cavities in the tooth and last for a while, but I would need a new cap eventually. I said let's do it as soon as possible. I have no confidence in there being money in the foreseeable future. He would be able to do work on my mouth in September. I had to wait three months after the surgery before having work done on my mouth. I would also need an antibiotic for the next two years. There are different opinions on the subject. What subject doesn't avail itself to differing opinions? My dentist said the thigh muscles would encapsulate the new joint and protect it from bacteria after two years.

   I ran into my new walking buddy, Sue. The first time we spoke, she was looking for a local doctor. She had only recently moved here. I have Kaiser. Those without their insurance can't use their doctors. David, another walking buddy, passed, and I asked him for a suggestion. 

Sue tried his doctor. She didn't like the setup and found another one. 

  I like Sue, but she has some disturbing aspects. One day I saw her walking carrying a large palm frond. I joked and asked if she was carrying it for protection. She was- against loose dogs. She encountered a large one and told the owner she would shoot the dog if it came near her. I asked her if she was carrying a gun. She said no, "Bear spray." Why didn't she threaten to spray the dog instead of shooting it? Going around threatening to shoot at all is a different level of conversation. I enjoy much about Sue. I hope to have the opportunity to suggest she adopt a more moderate form of expression. 

   Today as Sue and I stood talking, Paulette came along. A dog did attack Paulette. Sue knew something about this incident but didn't know the details. One of our local residents is mentally ill. She is a hoarder and rents space on her land to the homeless. That sounds good, but it's not. It's not maintained. The place looks like a garbage dump. To boot, the people she rents to sell drugs. It was one of their dogs that came out and attacked Paulette. Dinette, the property owner, came out and told Paulette not to make a big deal of it. "Just go home and wash the wound." Paulette went to the hospital. The dog bit her right through to the bone. Paulette joined the chorus of people who have tried to get something done about the situation on this property. No one knows why nothing happens. The last I heard, Dinette was six years arrears in her property taxes. I went inside, leaving Paulette and Sue to compare notes.

   I had my second session with second-grade homeschooled L. However, she prefers being called M. We wrote a story together last week. I formatted it so there were only one or two sentences on each page so she could illustrate the story. L had made it plain that she vastly preferred drawing to reading. Today, she told me she had illustrated the story but didn't have it there to show it to me. She again said she wanted to draw during our session. I told her we could try to do that at the end of our session. I set my alarm, so there were 10 minutes left. In the meantime, I chose a single word from the story that I could work with. I chose had. She could name the letters and tell me the sound each letter represented. She ran into trouble holding on to the sounds while blending them. It suggested an auditory processing problem. I led her through all the one-syllable words in the -ad word family. She dropped her request to draw, but she did ask me to choose the color with the rainbow' ink' on the draw feature on Zoom. In the end, I counted the words she had read. Before today, the only words she could read were a, the, and cat. That was it. I did not expect her to remember what we did today in our next session. We would see. 

   I drove to the post office to drop off Damon and August's birthday presents. I wrapped each one, decorating them with a bow I drew in black. Cylin told me Damon's favorite color was blue, and August's was black and white. I used blue card stock to wrap up Damon's shirt. For August, I turned a quilted plastic Amazon Prime envelope inside out. There was a line at the post office, but it took only a short time before I was served.

    Judy and Paulette came by to drop off Kangen water and this amazing chocolate cake with raspberries. Unbelievable!

 

     Mama K put off our sessions for another week. She managed to avoid all tutoring for the summer. She said she was too busy. She was taking the three youngest I worked with to paddling classes. Something is wrong here. Six people are living with her who could have spared ten minutes once a week to get the kids on Zoom. The kids only went paddling four days a week. She says she wants me to continue working with them. I give her the sessions for free. I don't know what is going on. I don't know that she does either. But it is peculiar that she didn't make classes over the summer a priority. K is going into fourth grade. If I work with him occasionally, he should be okay. The work I do with him has a significant impact. But the twin girls. . . They were going into third grade and were reading at a low kindergarten level at the end of second-grade. Due to Mama k's lack of effort, they did NO reading over the summer. In all likelihood, they lost ground.

   Marina told me she nearly contacted me to ask for a ride. I assured her she could do that. We exchanged numbers. Pretty soon, I will have the telephone number of everyone on my block. It is a great neighborhood. I am so happy Mike, and I moved to Hawaii. I'd be suicidal by now if I lived anywhere else. The aloha spirit is alive and well here. People are friendly. I live in a great house that can't be close off from the open air. My main living area is a 500-square-foot screened-in porch with a view of the Pacific Ocean. I get to see these amazing sunsets every night. Mike and I would often applaud. It is truly a beautiful place. It becomes more beautiful the longer you live here. The other day, I started appreciating the mountain view differently. Mike and I were aware that we found the Big Island got more beautiful the longer we lived here. Darby, who had lived here for thirty-five years, said this deepening appreciation continues. 

    I watched the Big Lebowski finally. It's been on my to-do list for a while. I loved Fargo, and I liked the Big Lebowski. When the Coen brothers do comedy, it is fantastic. Although I wasn't that crazy about Oh, Brother. Where Art Thou? However, all their characters lack a moral compass. Someone would have to tie me down and tape my eye open before I'd watch No Country for Old Men.

    I finally suggested to Adolescent D's mother how to encourage him to do some work on his reading without falling into a pattern of wheedling or bullying. To get him to listen to the audio file daily: she should ask him if she can turn it on before she goes to bed each night. To get him to do some reading: I sent her a copy of the transcript for the audio file. He should be sufficiently familiar with the stories because he's heard them repeatedly read each time he listened to the audio file. She should ask him his favorite story and only print out that one. Every day ask him if he will sit down and read a paragraph. She is to accept his no or if he says he will read it later. If he takes the papers with him with the stated intention to read them later,  she should print out another copy of the story, so she has it ready for the next day. She should not ask him what he did with the copy he took. She shouldn't monitor his reading. He may fake it. He may scan the words instead of reading them. He may read the words incorrectly. Whatever he does, she is not to challenge him. What he does is his business. Her only role is to offer an opportunity to listen to the audio file and read the transcript daily.                    

      D's mother confirmed what I have experienced; getting him to change his mind is impossible. He has a theory about what reading entails; his approach meant he still read at a first-grade level at 14. I tell students: I can't guarantee my approach will work, but I can guarantee theirs won't because they tried and it didn't.

    B knocked at my door. He had brought me dinner from Netta, fish, rice and asparagus. I tutored her son a while ago. He was an immature five-year-old with a serious speech impediment. They stopped seeing me without explanation. I understood he would be seeing a speech therapist at school, and there were limits to what I could do in general, particularly over Zoom. The boy's father was over here helping B with something one day. He said everything I did for them made a difference. How nice to have told me that.