Sunday, September 1, 2024

 Sunday, September 1, 2024

    I was exhausted and was in bed by 9:15.  As I thought I would, I woke up very early.  I dozed for the rest of the night. I got up around 5 am. Elsa is my first task each morning, even before I get dressed. I love on her and check her skin.  When I bathed her yesterday, I saw raw sores on her lower back. Ow! My poor baby. We can’t get that skin condition under control. I applied the salve the vet gave me with a good dose of MakesNoClaim on top of it.

   During church this morning, I observed an unbearable scene- an unsupported infant’s head.  The baby must have been about two months old.  Her head dropped so far back that it rested on her back. The mother and the grandmother took turns holding her. Neither supported her head. They even kissed her head while it lolled, putting more pressure on it instead of lifting it out of its precarious position.  The grandmother had raised four children successfully.  I tried to convince myself that she did that with her kids, and they turned out okay.  My mother taught me how important supporting the baby’s head was. I told Judy about it later in the day. She said a two month old should support their own head.  There may be something wrong with this child.  

   Mass was over by 10. I spent some time socializing before I headed over to Unity of Kona for a sound bath at noon. I spoke to Nicole, a parole officer. I told her I would be willing to work with some of her clients and reminded her of my offer. She said she had to consult her boss first; I was in her toolbox.

    I went to my favorite spot on the beach.  I took Damon and Cylin to see it when they visited at the end of July. They agreed it was special.

    I  got to Unity of Kona well before others arrived for the sound bath at noon. It was just me and the folks who had attended the service having their social hour. Diana left and returned ten minutes later with an ice cream cake for the September birthdays. I don’t eat ice cream anymore. We used to have pints of it at least once a week. I scarfed down two pieces of the cake despite the ice cream not being very good. it was just the idea of eating ice cream.

    One of the church members chatted as I ate my ice cream. She spoke about the twins she had adopted. I asked where they were now, and that opened a door to a world of hurt.

     The identical twin girls came from a native Alaskan family when they were seven years old. One died a few years later from leukemia. The other one never did well after that loss. She married an abusive man. She had just weaned her second child when she decided to leave. He declared if he couldn’t have her, no one could and shot her and then himself.  The woman who had adopted the twin girls became the parent to the two young children left behind.

    Besides the sound bath, three women offered healing during the session.  I was near one woman, Denise, who I knew from the Chi Qigong. I asked her to do a healing on me.  She must have worked on me for a good fifteen minutes.  I thought she could see how much pain I was in.  I could feel her energy in my body. It felt good. She stopped when I released a sigh.     

    Fourth-grade LG’s mom had promised to have me work with her husband to see if we could solve the computer problem. She texted me to say they would use their new computer.

   I wasted much of the day watching Vera and doing nothing else until I had my Zoom appointment with fourth-grade MH at 3. I proposed working on writing a story. I find it an excellent exercise. It teaches how to use your imagination when writing a story, how to organize the idea, and how to put your thoughts into words.   

  The students I work with have two problems.  They don’t know how to expand their ideas. When asked to write about something they did over their vacation, they will write one sentence for each event. It’s a list.  Also, they feel every word is set in stone from the start. This activity teaches playing with options. MH wanted to write about a fish that started alone in a fishbowl until its owner brought home many more fish.  I encouraged her to use the first-person narrator.  It was the one that appealed to me the most. 

   I woke up this morning to find more fish in my fishbowl. Until today, I had been alone, and  I liked it because it was peaceful. I heard the owner talking about getting more fish. I hoped he wouldn’t do that, but he did.

    I didn’t like sharing my fishbowl with other fish.  They weren’t even goldish; they were guppies, striped, and neon fish.  I had never met a guppy, a striped, or a neon fish before.   The tank felt crowded with the new fish.

     My fishbowl is no longer peaceful. The other fish talk, and some snore in their sleep.

   This is as far as we got before we ran out of time. MH may leave it or add something else, which might solve the poor goldfish’s dilemma.