Wednesday, June 5, 2024

 Wednesday, June 5, 2024

    I had a session with Shelly, my therapist/ life coach. She had already told me she had been bumped off a guided tour in Morocco, but not all the details. OMG!  What they did should be illegal.  

   When Shelly’s friend went to the tour guides and showed them the result of her Covid test, they called for a cab, put her in it, and sent her on her way. I learned today that she had a day-long cab ride before her. They were out in the middle of the desert when she got sick. There was nowhere for her to go.  

   The tour guides did try to find a hotel for her in the town/city they sent her to.  They identified one but told her not to tell them she had Covid. They wouldn’t let her stay.  The hotel cost $500 USA dollars a night.  Shelly remained there until she recovered and did more touring independently. The touring company didn’t reimburse her a single penny or make any effort to cover the cost of the cab or the hotel. 

   I can’t believe what they did wasn’t illegal.  They abandoned Shelly in a foreign country with very different attitudes toward women traveling alone and some built-in antagonism toward Americans. Shelly said she’s just grateful this illness hit while she was in Morocco rather than Egypt.  I don’t know why she thought Egypt would be worse. 

   Her abandonment was not just a problem for Shelly; the touring company unleashed someone carrying Covid on the rest of the Moroccan population.  The government must have some feelings on this subject.

    Today is my half birthday. Lutz asks, “Who thinks about half birthdays?”  I do because my sister’s birthday is on June 13. She is four and a half years younger than me, which means she’s five years younger from December to June 13 and only four years younger for the rest of the year. 

  I had the Twins and Adolescent D.  They’re moving on slowly and steadily. Most sessions are just more of the same.  I had my third session with third-grade LG.  His mom was off to the side. I think it would be best if she were out of the room.  Her anxiety gets in the way.  I continued with the phonemic analysis of every word in a third-grade-level text. He discovered that all the A letters don’t represent the same sound as we went along.  The letter A represents six different sounds “regularly” in English, which means it happens often enough to be considered an official pattern. Then, there are a few outliers. It’s English. The complexity of the relationship between the English sound system and its spelling surprised him. He had clung to the notion that each letter should make one and only one sound.  I told him he had to move to Italy if he wanted that. At the end, LG declared, “This is fun!  I spoke to LG’s mom after the session. I could hear the relief in her voice.

  I spent most of the day cleaning despite my statement to my anticipated house guest that he would do all the cleaning.  I started where any sane person would when expecting a guest that evening, with the windows.  I washed all the screens and the inside of each window. The days when I can clean the outside are behind me.  

    It was a good thing I did some cleaning. The bed linens were unsightly.  They were the ones Scott used for one year. They were a pale blue when they started. Now, they were green with blue around the edges.  The southern sun in the windows above the bed leached out every bit of blue.

    For my finishing touch, I turned on my Shark Navigator vacuum to quickly sweep the carpet in the guest room. The container needed to be emptied. It was filthy, and it smelled. I struggled to clean it from the top hatch. I couldn’t get all the dirt out. I struggled to open the bottom hatch. While that released all the waste stuck there, it also ripped out the seal.  I got online to see if I could buy a replacement seal. Forget it. Also, the vacuum was purchased in 2011. It’s over ten years old. I may have underwear that old, but I can’t expect to have an electric appliance last that long.  I ordered a new one through Amazon.  I’m secure in my three, no four now, vacuum status.  I have a Rainbow, a Bissel Cross wave, a hand vacuum that I just bought for quick spot jobs, and my new Shark Navigator coming in the mail.  I bought the Bissell Crosswave when I thought my Rainbow had died. I love washing floors with a wet/dry vacuum. It gets them clean. Without it, you leave a film of evenly distributed mud on the floor’s surface.

   It was a busy day. Rick, the electrician Darby recommended, came. He changed the outlet at the side of the house and showed me the burnt plug on the 12-gauge extension cord I used to charge the car.  He recommended I get a 25’ cord instead of the 50’ I had.  I couldn’t find a 25’ cord at Home Depot. Issac was going to look for one at Lowes when he went out. I doubted he would find it at Lowes or Ace.  I  ordered a 10 gauge online through Amazon. God bless, Amazon.

  While Rick was dealing with the outlet, the Sears truck pulled up. The serviceman was here to diagnose the cause of the leak from my dishwasher. He was the most sullen Sears repairman I’d ever seen. He didn’t greet me. He wasn’t interested in hearing me say anything. He ran the dishwasher when I told him there was a leak. Yvette called to say the water was coming through the ceiling. The guy pulled a rag out from under the front edge of the dishwasher and declared the dishwasher was fine. Good-bye.  Huh?

   At four pm, I picked up Issac from the airport. We picked up his Turo. Then, we went home. We decided to eat out on his first night. I thought of Huggo’s, a restaurant Mike and I loved, although we didn’t eat out much. Issac and I both ordered poke towers from the appetizers menu and salads. It took forever for our food to come because Isaac told the waitress he was allergic to nuts. We were so engrossed in conversation that we wouldn’t have noticed the delay, but a server came over to apologize. They were being extra cautious against any contamination. We had a table by the rail overlooking the water, crashing on the rocks below.  For dessert, we shared a sherbert. We split the bill, dropping $50 each for the food. I offered to pay the $20 tip.

   Lutz knocked at the door for our evening walk. I told him to come in. I wanted him to discover Isaac in my kitchen.  Lutz, Issac, and I used to walk together when Issac lived here for a year two years ago. He was teaching in a Seventh-Day Adventist School for his missionary year. Poor kid was totally alone here. He and I became friends as a result.  Lutz’s response was disappointing. I thought he would be enthusiastic. He wasn’t. I suspect he may have been a bit bummed. He was used to being the rooster with his three hens, Darby, Gayle, and me. Now there was a competing cock in the picture. 

   Lutz noticed the 4” chain saw sitting on my kitchen counter. I explained it was broken.  He took a look at it and told me why. The chain was rusted.  Had I oiled it before each use? No, did I have to?  Yes!!!  Oh!!!  He told me to get motor oil and work the chain loose. Really??? I hoped I could get Steve to do that. He fixed my regular chain saw, which I never used and will never use. I’m not totally insane.

   I told him about my dishwasher problem. He said he’d stop by and pull the dishwasher out to determine the problem. Then, he headed out to continue his walk.  I would join him after another round after I walked and fed Elsa.

  B stopped by to say hello.  I had texted him earlier to see if the chickens on the property had recently dropped any eggs. He doubted there were any fresh eggs, but he would look.