Tuesday, September 10, 2024

 Tuesday,  September 10, 2024

    I woke up late this morning and skipped my yoga routine. I went for my morning walk. 

    After breakfast and completing the New York Times puzzles, I finally went to the bottom of the property to work on the remaining haole koas.  This is scary work.  The ground is littered with growth and fallen palm fronds and vines, making my footing precarious.  I snapped several easily accessible haole koa trees but never got to the ones along the fence line Dean left for me to do.  

   When I wasn’t out working in the yard, I was at the dining room table on the lanai working on my updates.  I haven’t made a blog entry in a while. I don’t have to write those entries; they were written last year. I must review them and run them through Grammarly again before posting them.  No big deal. 

   I did some more gardening along the edge of the driveway. Much of those areas are entirely overgrown- out of hand, really.  The space I worked on sloped down steeply. I remembered it from before the plants obscured it.  I was nervous about my footing and tested the ground carefully before placing my full weight. nonetheless, I wound up lying on the gravel strewn ground. I didn’t fall.  I don’t quite remember how I got there. It was an awkward moment where surrendering to descent was my best option. I wasn’t hurt. The only question was, how was I going to get up? Fortunately, my agility had improved.  I turned on my belly, got my knees under me, and got up. Yay!!

   I had the Twins after school. Both girls reported doing somewhat better after learning it is essential to repeat/review what someone has said to remember it.  is this really something that doesn’t occur to someone?  Why did I learn it? When did I learn it?  I remember sitting around the third-grade dining table as my parents practiced the times table with me.  My dad, my mom, and I recited them. My dad would say 2 x2=4, I would say 2x3=6, and then my mom would say 2x4=8, etc.  you get the drift.  It worked like a charm.  But that still doesn’t explain why I knew to rehearse the facts in my head, not to say them out loud but to hear them in my head. That’s one of the keys. The other is to allow the information to go to long-term memory. How did I learn to do that?  Why do so many of the children I work with not know how to do it and need to be taught how explicitly?

   Darby came by to pick me up for our evening walk. I’ve been complaining of feeling like I have to drag myself.  My chest felt heavy. Is it heavy from ongoing grief and general sadness, or am I developing a heart problem?  I contacted my doctor to ask for a heart check.  

   I know that sadness does impact the shape of the heart. There is such a thing as broken-hearted syndrome or takotsubo syndrome.  The bottom of the left ventricle sags while the rest of the heart maintains its shape.  From what I read, this is a short-term disorder caused by sudden stress, not a chronic problem.  Since Mike died over five years ago, I should be fully recovered.  I don’t know what the problem is.  It’s worthwhile checking.

   I found an email from my endocrinologist proposing a different medication for my osteoporosis.  My back and spine have remained steady; the difference showed in my forearms.  The doctor recommended Forteo. OMG!  I had to give myself daily injections for two years. After that, I had to take some other medication for life.  if I stopped, my bone condition would get worse again.  And listen to this: it cost me $450 for 28 doses – out of pocket.  Was I that desperate? Maybe.  Either way, clambering over uncertain, rough terrain was probably not one of my best ideas.

       I told the endocrinologist I was not going to go with the Forteo.  It all sounds too toxic to me.  Doing nothing is a risk.  I would rather take the risk and work on increased strength and agility. There’s another medication, but it, too, has its share of adverse side effects. 

   I made a start on the video I have wanted to do forever as part of my Reading Hacks series, entitled They’re All Right & All Wrong. It refers to the three reading methods that have taken turns dominating the reading scene since the 1930s.  it was the Whole World Method when I started school. Thanks to Mrs. Moore, my second-grade teacher, I got clued into the idea that the letters stood for sounds.  She said, “Boys and girls, look for the little words in the big words.”  It wasn’t exactly phonics, but it was better than being told I had to memorize each and every word.  My reading improved radically after Mrs. Moore clued us in. 

   The following method was phonics. The version taught in the schools doesn’t have much to recommend itself. It’s a buckshot approach—not much better than Mrs. Moore’s one comment in second grade. But kids like me were given the key to the game and ran with it.

   The third method, the Whole Language Method, has dominated since the 1970s. It’s being condemned now, as it was the least productive of the methods. 

   My argument is that all three methods teach the aspects of reading we need to be good readers, particularly in English. However, not one of the three can function without the other two. I teach how the three interact.