Monday, May 13, 2024

 Monday, May 13, 2024

  I leaped out of bed around 4 am, worrying about the scam I fell for.  I tried to call the police around 3 am.  I dialed  911, asking for who in the police department I should call. I wanted information so I could get to the person the next day. I didn't bother with the non-emergency number because no one answered.  I told the emergency operator it wasn't an emergency. She must not have heard me. She kept asking me questions. She got angry at me when she realized it wasn't a problem requiring immediate attention. She told me to call the non-emergency number later.  I felt I had an obligation to report these people. They were operating out of a shop in town. Residents and tourists needed to be protected.   I figured this must be a fly-by-night operation.  There wasn't a business number on the credit card; it was just a business email address.    

   I was wide awake and up by 4:30.  I got up, dressed, and texted Pualette that she should call me when she got my text.  I wanted her to cancel her credit card.

   I had yet to hear from Paulette when I headed out to town for the Chi Qigong class on the beach at Old A.  There were only four regulars today and one newbie, someone visiting from Kauai who happened to stop by and join us. Today, I faced the mountain rather than the ocean. It was just as soothing as the ocean view.

    On my way home from the Chi Qigong class, I called Paulette. No, she hadn't checked her texts yet.  I told her what I thought was happening with the skin care shop.  I had reason to believe this skincare place was an outright scam.  I told her my credit card receipt said I only got a one-year supply of products rather than the two I was told I would get. Also, Giovani had told me he had results from the Mayo Clinic on my skin samples, and I had bad eczema.  I had seen my doctor on Thursday. She said I had no eczema. I would know. It itches. His making a diagnosis was also illegal. I hadn't bought his Mayo Clinic claim.  I knew he hadn't taken a sample of my skin. With all that evidence of falsehood, I recommend she cancel her credit card immediately.  She groaned. There were all those automatic payments she would have to renew.  We decided to cancel our appointment for our facials with Giovani this morning at 11. I didn't want someone who I thought was a crook touching me. Paulette didn't want to subject herself to another sales pitch.  

    While on the phone with Giovani, canceling the facial appointments, I calmly said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "You said I was getting two years of skin care supplies. It only says one year on the credit card receipt." I don't have any idea where my matter-of-fact calm came from. I didn't play the victim, just the inquiring customer. I was surprised. 

     He said, "If you  look at the receipt, it  says, "one year times two." I looked, yeah. It says one year @ 2." Okay. "How do I get more product?" I was supposed to get more when I came in for my monthly facial. Paulette was entitled to this facial, too. She did not order any more than she already had and was committed to not putting out another cent. 

    I called Paulette to tell her that while it may be a hustle, it wasn't a scam. She didn't have to cancel her card.  

    I had an appointment with twenty-six-year-old S.  I had a text from her saying she thought we were supposed to meet at nine. Our schedule is confusing: it's at 10 on Mondays because of the Chi Qigong class, whereas it's at 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But I was home already and could meet immediately. There was no reply. She didn't sign on at 10. I texted her mom. She finally texted me, but there was no link. I sent another through Yahoo. That didn't work. I sent one through gmail.com. That worked.

   She was in a bad state of mind. She was so sluggish I almost suspected she was drugged. She might be taking recreational drugs; she might be taking prescribed pain medication for the pain caused by the third breast under her arm. Also, she might be that way because she is angry about working with me or because she is just generally angry at her situation. She is a typical immature adult who never got a chance to grow up.  Her sister isn't far behind her, and the two girls have children. Omg!

   I told her what her mother had told me.  She didn't do cross-body blending because her third breast caused pain. Why hadn't she made that clear? No response. Her lack of response is unpleasant to deal with. I have to remember her condition is hardly her own fault. 

   S was a meth baby. Then, at four,  she was put on Adderall.  I understand that doctors were supposed to evaluate her regularly before renewing her prescription. That never happened. She developed seizures, which impaired her memory and ability to learn and caused muscle spasms, which made it impossible for her to walk more than half a block without severe pain.  I discovered the seizures and brought it to the attention of the family and insisted she bring it to the attention of the doctors.  Her pediatrician referred her to a pediatric neurologist. He checked her for epilepsy.  I told him seizures were one of the side effects of Adderall. He dismissed my suggestion, but I convinced him to take her off the medication. Her seizures stopped immediately. It took several years for the paralytic effect of the drug to wear off.  She was just short of eighteen when that happened. She was on that drug for fourteen years. She was robbed of her childhood. 

    Why didn't her family bring this to the attention of her doctors?  They may have thought it was the effect of the meth. When I told her mother about the seizures, she said, "What seizures?"  When I described her fixed stare and inability to respond, she said, "Oh, those. She has those all the time."   The family was passive in their response to her dilemma,  the opposite of helicopter parents.

    S's reading improved somewhat as she got further into the passage we were working on. However, I had to repeatedly remind her to start with the vowel instead of the first letter in the word. She has no mental discipline.

    I proposed she should start studying for the driver's test. She said she had it on her phone. They don't sell the driver's manual book anymore.  Okay, but she still had to memorize the answers to the questions.  She kept saying, "I did it on the phone," without being clear about what she did on the phone. She took the written test on the phone and only got three answers wrong. What was a passing grade? I just looked it up: you must get 24 out of 30 questions correct.  If she only missed three, she passed. Why can't that test count? You must pass the road test within two years or take the written test. She will have to retake it.

    She consistently gives incomplete information and then gets angry because she is misunderstood. I can appreciate her frustration. She has no idea that she has poor communication skills. I'm doing surprisingly well with the situation, remaining calm despite her victim status. 

    As Lutz, Darby, and I were walking together this evening, Gayle pulled up. She had just dropped her son off at the airport for his flight back to Seattle, dropped off her car at home, and joined us on our walk.  

    Yvette came up to talk to me about an online course she was taking, Laughter Yoga. While living in Portland, she heard about it many years ago but had done nothing with it. It came to her attention again. She discovered a certification course was starting in two days. As part of the program, she had to video herself laughing. It could be fake laughter; the body doesn't know the difference. Laughter offers excellent physical, mental, and emotional health benefits.