Saturday, September 16, 2023

 Saturday, September 16, 2023

  It’s been two weeks since my last entry. Some of my hesitance is because it’s hard to type with two numb fingers on my left hand, my rinf finger and pinky..  It is three months now since my shoulder operation, and my arm is still swollen.  I thought it was due to inflammation. Katie, my wonderful PT at Hawaiian Rehab, told bm it’s blocked lymph fluid, edema.  She showed me exercises to break up the congestion.  They were the same exercisers Amanda, the OT who came to my home, gave me.  I thought they were strengthening exercises. She didn’t explain their objective.  Katie does that. It is one of the reasons she’s worth her weight in gold. If I understand the reason for an exercise, it makes a huge difference to me.  

    I won’t make 10,000 steps  today. It was raining a six p.m.  I only had 5, 500 by that time. I got 3, 500 in on my morning walk and additional steps when I poured boiling water repeatedly on the weeds lining the street side of the fence. 

   I don’t have much to do these days.  I’m concerned about sinking into inactivity. The less I have to do, the less I get done. It’s a truism: if you want someone to do something for you, ask  a busy person. I find I get more done on days where I have more to do.  All I do now is the 

Wordle puzzle, the  NY Times Mini puzzle, post my public blog entry from  a year ago, and record my stats for the blog and for my YouTube videos.  I’m close  to 67,000 views on the blog on Bloggeer.com. I don’t advertise the site.  I have no idea how people find it or why they’re interested in it.  At one point, I was getting close to 100 views a day. I was sure a teacher  assigned it to his class. Whenever my daily numbers are into the double digits, I’m sure a teacher is behind it.

  The views on my YouTube videos keeps climbing one or two hits at a time.  If there is no change in the number of views from one day to the next, I know it’s time to post them again on Facebook.  I have two pages: my personal one and one for the reading program I developed, The Phonics Discovery System.  While people will download the videos, I doesn’t look like anyone shares them with friends on Facebook. Oh, well. At least it’s something. 

    I was working on another video on Reading Fluency. When I look up how to teach it on the internet, most just say to provide an opportunity to practice it with instructions to read faster or make it sound like you say it in conversation. That helps some students.  The biggest help is hearing competent reader read to the child. My video will include ways to give explicit instruction on teaching fluency.

   I’ve been having fun with my car.  I had a problem for a while with the door to the electric port getting stuck. Then none of the tricks t open it worked. I drove it down to Kia to see what they could do. The mechanic couldn’t get any of the tricks to work either. He forced the door open. I left it ajar. When I got it home, I tried to charge it, nothing happened. I made an appointment with the service department. I drove there with only two white bars. I crawled on the shoulder at 20 mph. 

  I did some chores while the car was serviced. I dropped so packing matterials at ups, at Long’s I bought metal dental picks and I went to the bank to cash to checks.  I thought it woudd be a while so I stopped at the Rasrws Toasted Café to pick up a Greek salad sandwich. I assumed I would have time to eat it there but I got a call while I was waiting for this delicious Greek Salad sandwich . The car was ready; they unlocked it and were charging it.  They would show me what how to unlock it. They were indeed charging it.  The hood was open. The mechanic showed me how to pull the emergency release.  I told him I had tried that; their mechanic had tried that and it hadn’t worked.  The guy who worked on reception said,  “The car’s a hybrid. You don’t need the battery.” 

   I told them the story of my first trip to Hilo.  I ran out of bars as I started up that long hill on Saddle Road. The car died.  I made a U-turn and charged the car by doing 10 mph on the shoulder of that long steep hill.  I managed to get home.  The car won’t run at all  without a battery charge. Dead aa a door nail.

   I fell somewhat better for writing this new entry. I’ve been working on amother project for the last two weeks.