Friday, May 3, 2024

 Friday, May 3, 2024  

     This morning, I made it to the hula class Elaine told me about. I parked in the church parking lot and walked to the Ali’I Drive community center. I had been there for church events before the Grace Parish Center was built.  I walked to the back. That’s where I entered for church activities.  All the doors were locked. I didn’t see anyone inside.  Someone came from the waterfront. I thought she was looking for the class, too. I asked her where the entrance might be. “Probably around the front.”  I was anxious and didn’t say thank you. She snarled, “You’re welcome.” Oh, well.

   I found the front entrance clearly visible- in front of the building. The class hadn’t started yet.  Someone told me I had to sign in. When I did, I discovered I needed to sign up and pay at the Civic Center. The hula class was a course offered by the city for the kapunas (seniors).  I could participate today, but I should be signed up and paid by the next class. There were about 50 people in the class, all women, Hawaiian, Filipino, and haoli, white.

   The teacher gave me a shawl to tie around my hips.  Many of the women wore these unattractive skirts.  When I got home, I ordered one on Amazon.

   The teacher taught one move – the figure eight. She often had her back to us.  I followed other dancers who were familiar with the basic moves. Then, she continued leading the class in the dance Lovely Hula Hands.  I got some of the moves. I certainly added to my daily steps.  The dance requires the dancer to raise their arms high, sometimes above their shoulders and heads. Those moves were still a challenge for my left arm.  I was only ten months out from eight hours of surgery for an elbow reconstruction and a reverse shoulder replacement.  I rested my arms when it became too much and then picked it up again.

    I introduced an exercise I developed with Dominik in the 1980s to Adolescent D., the objective was to keep him engaged with the decoding process.  With Adolescent D, the aim is to force him to consider all the letters before concluding what the word is. 

    I learned something new today. When I did the exercise with Dominik, I learned that I make a guess with each letter.  If I give you a seven-letter word and then reveal each letter individually, observe what your mind does.   S- searching through all the words starting with S is daunting. I think my mind waits for the next letter.  Then there are two letters: SP.  Now that it narrows down the field, my mind throws up a bunch of words that start with SP but recognizes that none of them are long enough to fit the bill.  Now there’s a third letter SPE. Again, my mind does a random search for all the possible words. A few of them reach my conscious mind.  Then SPEC.  Hmm! Spectacular.  Too long. Spectacle. Also too long.  SPECI   Species??? Possible.  SPECIA  Ah, SPECIAL.   When working with Dominik, I was astounded when I guessed the word correctly well before I had all the letters.  Then, I realized that our poor readers make those guesses just as I do- a confirmed good reader. The difference is I insist I wait until I’ve seen the whole word.  I don’t impulsively grab at the first word my unconscious mind serves up.  I reject the initial suggestions.  Our poor readers don’t. 

   I meet with Jana on Zoom.  I met Jana through a volunteer tutoring program in LA. She asked me to mentor her.  She had a question about a student she started working with.  I can’t remember what she said about her problem, but I do remember I didn’t have enough information to draw a conclusion.  

   I asked her about a student she worked with last year.  She said his problems cleared up when she started using my methods with him. That was lovely to hear.

       I wondered about Campbell Scott, a lead actor in Royal Pains.   He plays the very powerful, rich, and dignified Boris on Royal Pains. As it turns out, he is the son of George C. Scott and Coleen Dewhurst. How’s that for inheriting a set of acting genes?