Monday, December 9, 2024

 Monday, December 9, 2024 

  This was the second night I slept straight through till 4:30. Wow! That hadn't happened for years.  I started a new before-bed exercise I came across on the internet, maybe one of Facebook's shorts.  I crossed my arms, grabbing the upper arm with the opposite hand and twisting my upper body back and forth to the count of 50. Next, I do fifty cross-body punches. I knew it was worthwhile trying because I found doing upper body exercises exhausting. I was always ready to nap.  I had no idea why upper body movement has that effect, but I wasn't complaining about it.

    I was in quite a state this morning, deep grief over the loss of Mike and other family problems. My emotional state was profound and disturbed my thinking skills. I tried to nap when I completed my morning yoga exercises and walk. That didn't work.  I got up.  

   Today was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a celebration of the Virgin Mary. Suzanne B., a professional baker, set up a 'tea' in her honor. The tea is quite a project. I've participated in two others.  

    I went to the noon mass and then the tea.  The mass couldn't have taken more than half an hour.  We were in line for the tea well before 1. It was almost two before the food had been blessed, and we could help ourselves. 

   Everyone lined up shortly after the mass. It was a very slow-moving line. Suzanne had assigned seats. She made a gingerbread cookie with our names on it for everyone who signed up, which was placed at our assigned seat. Suzanne wanted to force people to sit with people they didn't know.

   The problem was there was only one person at a desk with a handwritten, unalphabetized list of everyone who had signed up ahead and had an assigned seat. Suzanne's intentions were beyond admirable. Her method of getting us seated was poor.  I pushed ahead to talk to the person with the list and recommended they Xerox it, so we had four copies with four people checking the names.  I wasn't pushing ahead, but Suzanne gave the checker my name, and the next thing I knew, I had my table assignment, and my advice was ignored.  If Suzanne wants to do something comparable next year, I plan to volunteer to develop a better system.  

    I conversed with four people at my table. Evita and Gene were a couple. I asked where Evita was from. She was not from Argentina but from the former Soviet Union, specifically Lithuania.  She said it's a common name there. Did the famous Argentinian Evita have a Lithuanian name, or did Lithuanians name their children after the Argentinian Evita?

    The Evita, sharing a table with me, came to the US in the 1990s. I asked how the couple wound up in Hawaii. It's a common question asked of haoles, white people from the mainland. Few white people were born here, particularly of the over-fifty set. I wondered how they met.

     Gene, Evita's partner, immigrated to the US from Canada. He hired Evita as his immigration lawyer in 2000.  They maintained contact for work reasons. And then the contact became for pleasure. They moved to Hawaii.  I saw Gene on Sundays.  He said he attended the 7 am mass.  He hung around afterward. 

    Claudia sat to my immediate left. We introduced ourselves. I explained I was Deacon Mike's widow.  She explained that she had spoken with me on the phone. She had volunteered to donate her kidney to Mike. She was the only total stranger to do so.  I told her I had volunteered but had qualified. My kidney function was already too low. Nothing serious, just age-related, but it was still below the cut-off. Claudia asked me what he died of.  Pancreatis.  Paulette's husband also had kidney failure and died of pancreatitis.  I suspect there's a causal relationship.

   A young woman sat at the table, moving someone's gingerbread cookie and sitting in their spot. I told her seats were reserved. She told me the woman told her to sit in her assigned seat.  Her face looked vaguely familiar, her facial mannerisms even more so.  I asked her who her dad was. Sure enough. Her dad had taken Mike and me out to dinner several times with his two daughters.  She was now twenty years old. I hadn't seen her since before Mike died five and a half years ago. She was in college studying philosophy and something else.  I asked about her younger sister, who was three years younger. The girls didn't have much to do with each other. I sympathized. I had similar problems with my sister. She asked me if my sister was a jerk, too. I said we were both jerks. Children who come from difficult backgrounds tend to have problems.    She nodded in agreement. 

    Her family situation was unique. Her dad was 61 when she was born, and she was the oldest. Her mother came here from the Philippines for an arranged marriage. Her father always put her down when he spoke to us. On one occasion, she was included in our dinner. She displayed genuine concern and affection for her husband, who was a difficult man. 

   Finally, Deacon Sandor blessed the food, and people lined up.  I was involved in a conversation and didn't get in line until everyone else had.  I looked at the time. I needed to leave in fifteen minutes. It would take more than fifteen minutes before I got to the food. I sat down, resigned. I said something about the time problem. Fern, who sat at my table, grabbed me and marched me to the table.  That was something I would have done for someone else. It was something I would usually have done for myself.  I was subdued by the weight of my grief; I didn't have the energy to be that brazen.  I loved that someone else did that for me.  I know many people cringed when I did things like that, sometimes the people I did it for.  I loved it. it was like a breath of fresh air. 

    I got some food: a tuna fish sandwich with cranberries, a lilikoi bar, pumpkin crunch, an oatmeal scone, and a mochi bar. Judy and Paulette made everything except the scone and mochi. They provided most of the food and spent time helping Suzanne lay out the table. Amazing work.

    I had a session with fourth-grade GV.  He saw a little bit of difference in his reading- he thought.  I asked what he wanted to work on. He said spelling. About half a year ago, I developed  Phase III of the Phonics Development system.  I thought of it primarily as a method of teaching writing skills, the most complex of the neurological literacy tasks. 

     First, we compose a sentence (I won't address its relationship to the rest of the paragraph/whole text). Next, we isolate the first word, recall its spelling through auditory and visual recall, and write it.  We need to remember the sentence we were writing and go through the same three steps while suspending the complete sentence somewhere in our minds.

   As I dictated the words to GV, I only gave him a phrase at a time instead of a complete sentence. It became clear that he spelled everything by sounding it out. He had no automatic visual recall, so  I led him through the BrainManagementSkills exercise for visual recall.

   I asked him the color of his blanket. When he had that in mind, I asked him where he held that image; I pointed to several places on the skull, starting with the forehead.  GV pointed to the forehead. In my experience, this spot works best for visual recall. (There is no scientific evidence to support my finding.)  Then, I asked him to write a five-letter word on his blanket, using his imagination.  Borrowing from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I then ask the student to name the first letter, the second, etc.  Doing it deliberately forces the student to concentrate on each letter. The next step is to ask the student to name the fifth letter, the first, and the third.  The purpose is to force them to 'read' the letters, holding them all in his mind for easy viewing.  He had never done that before. Clearly, he didn't have a neurological problem; he just never thought to turn on his short-term visual memory.  I will have to observe how his long-term memory works.  He may just need additional instruction on how to use that.

  Then, I had fourth-grade LG. We reviewed rounding to all digits 10-100,000. He did well, but I think he needed to do this exercise several times. Then, I switched to counting by 10s. He had no problem counting 10, 20, 30, etc. I told him to start with the number 2. He didn't know what I meant. I modeled, and he caught on quickly: 2, 12, 22, etc. 

    I asked if he was doing better in math. He laughed. Yes, he was doing e much better.  His last report card showed he had problems with writing. When I  said I wanted to work on that, he said he was doing much better since I showed him how to form the letters. He was referring to his handwriting. he formed them from the bottom up; I showed him how to form them from the top down.  I told him I wanted to work on storywriting. LG groaned.  I reminded him that everything I did with him wound up being fun. He couldn't imagine writing being fun.  

     I asked LG to pick a color. Red. Name something that is red.  A rose.  Where was the rose? In his backyard.  He wondered if the story had to be true. I told him it could be whatever he wanted it to be. It could be fiction or nonfiction. The story could be entirely made up or based on a personal experience. He seemed stuck. I modeled writing a story based on the details he shared with me.  I love doing things like that. I explained I followed the movie my mind revealed to me.  I love writing in general and writing stories using a cowriting method. So fun! 

  My internet kept failing while I worked with the two boys. I'd been having problems with it for quite a while. I complained to Brian S., who set up the system. He kept telling me I didn't have a problem. Today, I finally got through. I asked him if he could recommend someone who could if he couldn't. 

    He said there were 46 devices in the immediate vicinity.  That much electronic activity slows down the internet.  He had me try speedtest.net on my phone.  It came out as a one, a very low level. He finally got it that I had a problem. He came over. He concluded there was a problem with the 'tunnel' or the access device. If it was with the access device, he would have to replace it.  I connected to Josh and Yvette's internet for my 4:30 session with LG.  it was faster and more stable. When I was through, I ran speedtest.net on Brian's instructions. The speed was much quicker.  He had fixed it.