Tuesday, October 11, 2022

 Tuesday, October 11, 2022

      I woke up around four and did most of my in-bed exercises before the alarm went off at 5:30. I went into savasana between each exercise to allow my body to process the changes and dozed off. I got up around six thirty and did my morning walk. My ankle bothered me, but it got better when I kept walking.

  I meditated for an hour after returning from my walk and fed Elsa. The theme was shame, not about anything in particular, just the generic feeling of shame. Sitting with that was no fun, but it did feel better as it resolved. I am convinced that shame is one of our primary emotions; it's linked with the default mode network. I love it when people call shame an unnecessary emotion we shouldn't have. How's that for promoting shame for having shame?

  I had my second appointment with my new chiropractor. My first visit included laser treatment for toe fungus and a postural assessment. I was there for a total of three hours. Yikes! Lisa is leisurely. She loves to chat and do several random things as she goes along. However, she is also good at what she does. Today, I was there for a chiropractic treatment only. I got out after an hour and a half. Lisa must have worked on me for a good hour of that time. When I left, my left ankle felt better. That pain is coming from my back. Interesting.

  As I walked out her door, I ran into Mindy and Ed, friends from church I hadn't seen for a while. We're all over eighty and still up and functional. Mindy has several medical issues and is still doing well. Ed took a bad fall a few years ago, and he's up and functional too. A team of troopers.    

  My friend Carol Zim called. She was finalizing her plan to visit me for Thanksgiving. They want to come on the 20th or the 21st and stay in Hawaii for two weeks. I checked with Damon to make sure they had no plans for visiting me for Thanksgiving. Cylin got back to me promptly, clearing the way for the Zims.

  Besides visiting me, they will travel to Kauai for a few days. Did I want to come? First place, I don't particularly appreciate touring, running around seeing things to add them to my list of things I have seen and bits of knowledge I have collected. It doesn't do it for me. Second, I was there on a deacon retreat; we toured all the Catholic churches on the island. Mike and I stayed a few days extra.

     I remember one place we visited when we were on our own. Mike spotted a brown rock. Surprised it wasn't black as most lava rock is, he asked the guide where it came from. Without turning around, the guide said, "The volcano." Mike insisted he look. The guide repeated, "I don't have to look. Every rock on this island comes from a volcano. Rocks are different colors because they contain different minerals."

     What I remember most about the visit are the gorgeous chickens.   Kauai has the largest wild chicken population of all the islands. A powerful hurricane hit Hawaii in 1992, impacting Kauai the most. Among other damage, all the chicken coops were destroyed, releasing them. They not only went forth and multiplied, but they also transformed from domestic chickens to wild ones. The wild ones are spectacular. Their colors are brilliant, often iridescent. The locals hate them. You would, too. Roosters are noisy beasts.

  I had an appointment with ninth-grade K. I planned to start WbyW, the questioning procedure. The program asks four types of questions about each sentence: In The Book, Think & Search, The Author & Me, and Beyond the Text. I generate between six and ten questions per sentence. I started at a fourth-grade level, knowing he had problems with comprehension. He handed that material with ease. I switched to a ninth-grade passage I got from adolescent D. He had trouble with this. While cooperative, he didn't understand the benefit of the exercise. I would have to prepare material at a sixth-grade level for our next session.

  I found the Good Cop on Netflix. I've seen it before. It's on the silly side. Both main characters are on the jerk continuum.