Tuesday, May 2, 2023

 Tuesday, May 2, 2023

 I woke up around three-thirty and was wide awake for a while. I thought I hadn't slept, but the next thing I knew, it was five thirty, and the alarm rang. I must have slept. Either way, I felt rested. I did the usual morning routine with Elsa, but this time, I returned to applying the steroid cream rather than the tea tree oil. The cream makes her fur look dirty. 

  I was tentatively scheduled to work with siblings third-grade J and first-grade Iz. I texted their mom last night. She canceled because they were with their dad. I had no tutoring sessions today. Hoped to catch up on the updates and get some other long-neglected chores done.

When I post the blog each morning, I check the hits for the day. Yesterday, I had one hundred and sixteen. That was probably a bot. Today, I had one hundred and ten. It may be another English teacher has discovered my site and is assigning it to their students. I'm sure that was the explanation for the year I had hits in hundreds daily. The numbers switched between Indonesia and Germany. I figured it was someone teaching English to Indonesians in those two countries who wanted to immigrate to America. Those large numbers showed up in Indonesia or Germany but never in both simultaneously. It must have been the same teacher. They're back at work, but now in the USA. The total number of hits so far is over 63,000. I checked the site to get the number accurate. The number of hits went up from 110 to 210. If this continues for several days, I'll believe it's not a bot. In the meantime, I kept an open mind.

I checked the number of visits to my reading videos every morning too. Phase I has been viewed by four hundred and five people, Phase II by one hundred twenty-five people, and The 5 Stories by two hundred sixty-five people.   Once someone has viewed a video, it is never counted again. Several people have subscribed to my channel. The last time I looked, there were eleven. Today, I noticed the number had jumped up to eighteen. I should get around to posting more videos. I have several in mind.

I did some work ripping the vine off the fence I shared with my neighbor. The edge of their property is loaded with weeds, and they do nothing about that. I have to spend time each month clearing it. I try to get it down before the fruit ripens and plants more. Today, I noticed a bee buzzing around as I worked. It means the bees use the flower of this vine. That's upsetting. We don't have a lot of flowers that are good for the bees. Taking them down means I am depriving the bees of food.

I participated in a Gokhale free workshop on scoliosis. Esther teaches posture and movement. She had a bad back problem and searched the world for a group of people who didn't suffer from back problems. She studies their posture and movements, and this is what she teaches. Besides finding her theories interesting, I love her demeanor. She is not didactic. She has a point of view she is committed to. She describes herself as disagreeing with others; she doesn't describe them as wrong. It's a mental space I find comfortable and safe. 

She recommended using gentle spinal stretching to correct the curvature. She demonstrated this by sitting in a chair or lying down. Her 'gentle' approach is compatible with my thinking; it is generally the most effective. She spoke against inversion tables; they also stretch out the ankle and knee joints, which is not a good idea. Also, people get injured on these tables. There's too much pressure on the head; sometimes people fall off and land on it. 

Esther has developed products that help, but she also showed us how to accomplish the same thing without using her products. She is more interested in helping people than pushing something on them. Her free workshops serve to advertise her work, and she offered $100 off an evaluation conducted by her. She is not the only one doing the work. She has many teachers who trained under her. The closest practitioner to me is in California. I don't think so.   However, I did apply what she taught. 

Elsa peed on the lanai carpet. I'd only seen her do that once before. She knew how to use the doggie door. I can't imagine why she chose to do that. Stress from yesterday's vet visit? I came out stressed with all the bad news the vet gave me. She was stressed until she was sure the vet was only interested in talking to me and not poking her. Then she lay down on the floor and relaxed.

  When we got home, I brushed her while watching The Glass Castle to the end. I was shocked. Her hair was full of knots. I felt for them and pulled them out with my fingers or cut them off. I hadn't understood how knotted her hair could become and how close to the skin. This must be another source of discomfort. I feel so sad for how Elsa has suffered from my negligence. It may be borne from my misunderstanding of her experience, but she still suffers.  

I bathed her. I am committed to doing it daily until she is free from all lesions. Then, I'll experiment with doing it every other day.   

I love the film The Glass Castle. I checked the reviews and awards. I thought Hallelson's performance was remarkable. The movie got only 56% on Rotten Tomatoes because the responders thought the script was not a faithful rendering of the book. The parents are depicted as sympathetic characters rather than monsters. I didn't get monsters from the book. Difficult for sure, but they raised four strong children. The monster in the book was Rex's mother. Her fruit was her son; he was an irredeemable mess. His life was one of pure misery interrupted by a burst of pure joy. As disturbed and disturbing as they were, this couple gave their children something essential: a deep sense of belonging to the family. More importantly, they didn't prevent the children from forming a strong bond between themselves. That bond helped them survive, even the youngest, who was left alone with her parents when the other three had made it out. Rex wanted to keep them but didn't want to keep them just for himself. He allowed them to bond with each other. How do I know the difference? I came from a family that inhibited bonding between family members. 

My mother couldn't stand the chaos of relationships she couldn't control. She was an only child. My father pushed beyond her demands by convincing her I was a basket case who needed constant help. When my mom moved in with Mike and me, one of the first things she tried to do was break up me and Mike. I knew she was after total control over me. I looked at her and said, "Mom, you don't even want to succeed at what you're trying to do." I knew she would be devastated if Mike and I divorced because of the sorrow it would cause me. She had her demons to contend with. She needed a little help from a friend. I gave her that. To her credit, she never tried again.

I found easy yoga on Yoga Go. A white-haired woman led a chair yoga session, closer to my speed but not as good for my strength. I couldn't do all the poses as modeled; I couldn't. They were all gentle stretches, and I needed something to improve my strength. 

At one point, I had to raise my arms over my head and put my hands in the prayer position. It hurt a lot to raise my left arm. I'd been having trouble with it for a while. Then, I fell about two months ago and did something additional to my left arm. When I went to bed, my neck and head hurt. I was sure it was related to the arm motion. Before my rotator cuff surgery in 2003, I had terrible problems with my neck and back. I took this as proof that I had done something to my surgically corrected rotator cuff. I slathered my upper back and neck in Salon Pas, anticipating I would be in agony in the morning. I would get that shoulder X-ray to check what was going on. Ultimately, to be sure, I would need an MRI. I was surprised I wasn't in terrible pain when I lay down, a sure sign of a rotator cuff problem.