Wednesday, October 12, 2022

 Wednesday, October 12, 2022

 After seeing only Vince for several days, I saw Juli with him on my morning walk today. Vince said she's lazy. Juli said her heart was bothering her. She has some weird heart condition. If it has a name, she hasn't shared it with me. She said this all started when she turned eighty. She's on medication. I wonder if Vince is in denial or if he believes Juli's problem can be fixed by more exercise. Either is possible. But in my experience, Vince is 'always right.' – not his most attractive characteristic. Denial is also a possibility. They've been together for over sixty years.

      Mike and I made it to forty-five years. I had been single until I became his partner. He was twenty-one when he got married for the first time. He spent a few years alone. I had been single continuously for thirty-two years. I had prepared myself for life alone, never marrying or losing a partner after years together. My dad died when I was fifteen. I understand the need to be ready for anything. With all l that prep, I am blown away by how huge the adjustment is to losing Mike. I miss his warm, loving presence. We were affection junkies. He created a safe haven for me. I assumed I did for him, too, because when I behaved in ways he found alarming, he would say, "Are you a safe part of my environment?" Yes, he would say those words. Yes, he meant safe. We both were raised in emotionally dangerous environments. We created safe havens for each other. I miss my refuge more than I can say. I look at other couples not with envy but with foreboding. Do they know what they have to face if they lose their partner? I grieve for them already.

  Jean, my Hanai sister, reported she got hit by another scam. Someone called her, claiming to be from her online bank. There was a technical problem. Please give them her account numbers so they could correct it. Fortunately, the scammers were stupid as dirt, and the bank was on the alert. They tried to withdraw twenty thousand dollars. That amount alone would have sounded an alarm. Jean's withdrawals are relatively small. In addition, she didn't have twenty thousand in her account. The bank changed all her account information. Jean learned never to give numbers over the phone. These scammers are good. They sound official. I was caught up by one. I'm the one who rescued me from that situation. No one has bothered me since. The institutions rescued Jean. August, our grandson, says there's a list of people who have been successfully scammed, easy targets. Can you imagine?!

   When the Zims come for Thanksgiving, they will stay in the room Scott was currently in. I told him he would have to relocate if I had guests when he moved in. Scott said the room acted as a resonance chamber. Yvette's cat, Brooklyn, has dementia. He howls ever so often. The first time I heard it, I thought it was a distressed baby. I tried to locate the sound. Then it stopped. Scott says the sound reverberates in that room. If it's bad for the Zims, I will sleep there and give them my room. There are two other options. They can sleep in the library or on the convertible sofa in the living room. As I type, I realize if they sleep there, I need to give them to use as a chest of drawers and a closet.    

  I had Adolescent D today. Both he and I appreciate his need to be drilled; I have to do it for him. It's a waste of time, but it's the only way to get it done. I drilled the short and long vowel sounds using a vowel chart. Educational experts say working memory problems in reading are caused by poor phonemic awareness. We have worked on this in our sessions and had him listen to the audio file, exposing him to phonemically transcribed language. This has helped others. It has done something for him, but not as much as I hoped.

  I tried to do slowed phonemic production again. I had attempted this earlier. I usually ask students if they find a quick rate of production irritating. That tells me there is an auditory processing problem, and I know how to deal with it. I slow the production of the phonemes until the student is comfortable with it. Knowing D, he probably lied about his feelings when I asked him, deflecting my efforts to help him. His ego has been a major problem. However, it is what we had to deal with. You can't bypass an ego. I have found it frustrating, and I've sometimes expressed my frustration. However, I appreciate what it must be like to read on a first-grade level in the ninth grade when the rest of the class has progressed. It has to be scary.

 I asked D if he was still listening to the audiofile with transcribed phonemic analysis. He said yes, occasionally. I decided to try the slowed production. I tried different speeds to see which was the most comfortable for him. When we established that, I started reading off the words one phoneme at a time and waiting for him to tell me what the word was. He struggled in the beginning. Then he gained some speed. I asked him if he was surprised. He said yes. Where he had been annoyed at first, he now saw that it would make a difference. He was surprised at how much clearer the speech was when it was presented that way. D has an auditory processing problem. He can't process speech fast enough to grasp what people say. His processing problem is behind his memory problem and his ability to decode words. 

I have used the slowing down process with other students. Usually, I only have to do it for a few words. I can almost immediately start speeding up. I may have to use the slower process with D for a while.

     Excited about the possibility of solving D's auditory processing problem, I called his mom to give her the good news. I mentioned that he was willing to work a bit longer, whereas before, he would be anxious to get out of the session. She suggested extending the session. D was fifteen; we'd better ask D what he wanted. He was a fifteen-year-old boy- too old to be told what he had to do and have it go well. He said he didn't want to do it. Now, I have to help him determine if that was because he wanted control over the situation or if he genuinely didn't want to do more practice. It makes a difference. One is more like an oppositional disorder- very self-defeating.

  I was supposed to have Mama K's crew today. They didn't sign on at 2:45. I called. They were in the car heading to the beach. Mama K expected me to do the session while they were driving. No. We rescheduled for tomorrow.

 My Wednesday and Thursday sessions with ninth-grade K were canceled. He was on a camping trip with his class. I would see him on Friday afternoon.

  I sprayed another two gallons of vinegar on the yard. Love this stuff! I use ½ 30% vinegar and ½ 5% vinegar with a dash of soap. I forgot to add the salt; I have a ten-pound bag.