Saturday, October 5, 2024

 Saturday, October 5, 2024 

   I borrowed three dollars from Elaine to pay for the Hula classes yesterday.  I took precautions to ensure I would have that money on me when I walked in the morning. I put the three dollars on top of my charging earphones.  I usually run into Elaine as she walks. As I approached her driveway on Holoholo Street, a truck pulled out of the driveway.  It was Elaine.  She stopped to talk, and I gave her the money.  

   She had an opportunity to observe me doing the Hula in yesterday’s class. The teacher had half the class perform Lovely Hula Hands while the other half watched. She wouldn’t usually see me dancing.  She stands in the front row, and I stand in the back.  I’m not hiding. I must watch the other students execute the moves to perform the dance.   I can’t hear Sweetie, the instructor, calling out the instructions, and I don’t know the Hawaiian vocabulary for the moves anyway. I have to carefully watch the other students. Elaine said with a bit of surprise that I was pretty good at the dance.  I have a background in dance. I understand isolating movement.  Many of the students get the hip thrust by bending at the waist.  Many use their knees to get the effect.   The action should all come from the hip joint.  When I do that, my thighs start hurting, not my knees.  I am told that all serious Hula dancers have knee problems. I wonder if they are taught to use their hip joints instead of their knees.

   I continued my search for my Shotz earphones without the separate microphone.  The one I prefer has a built-in microphone.  When I get a call, I don’t have to worry if the separate microphone is in the right position. When I wear the one with the separate microphone, I put it up when not in use for fear of breaking it off. Then, when the phone rings. I must remember to bring it down so the mic is near my mouth instead of behind my ear at the back of my head.  The last time I saw the preferred missing earphones, they were in the car. I left them there when I went to tutor at Ulu Wini.  I checked the car several times without success.

     While  I forgot to weigh myself this morning, I did weigh myself later in the day. Yesterday, I was at 131, a decent weight. Today, I was down below 130.  That was getting scary.  My weight for most of my adult life was 128 lbs. I never had to worry about weight. I maintained that weight even after menopause. I gained twenty pounds at fifty five, five years after menopause. My sister was overweight, and my mother was on her case. Dorothy told me she put on the weight by eating muffins. I started eating two muffins and one serving of French fries weekly. I was afraid my mom would use my slender figure to bully my sister. I would rather be fat than be used that way. 

     Joseph, my tenant, who turned 28 yesterday and lives on a diet of milk products, suggested I add condensed milk to my diet if I wanted to gain weight. I wasn’t ready to go that route. The condensed milk sounded disgustingly fatty. I went for ice cream. I found Haagen Das chocolate almond vanilla popsicles. I ate three a day and put on two pounds. The weight comes back on as rapidly as I lost it.  I didn’t want to gain all the weight back. I had to be careful.

    I contacted my friend Jean about bringing the crate with the two small angels to the house where she was staying while visiting. I was concerned that the crate would be left behind in the last-minute rush to leave the island.  Jean said bringing it to her son-in-law’s house wasn’t a good idea. It had to be carried down two flight of stairs and up another two, and there was no place to store it.  She would pick it up on her way to the airport when she left on Monday.  I don’t know about her, but I’m always in a last-minute rush when I travel. 

    Today was a bad day for grief.  It’s not just the loss of Michael. It’s the grief I felt as a child in my relationship with my parents, the grief over friends I am no longer in contact with either because they cut me out or they did something unbearable, and I cut them out.  For someone who longs for connection and belonging, this is a disaster.  Some of it is my sensitivity. Some of it is theirs. We all do damage out of woundedness.

   Videos about Maggie Smith were appearing on YouTube.  I watched a few and then realized she died on September 27. How did I miss that?  I love that woman’s wit.  I don’t envy many people, but Maggie had a full life with many successes. She is also open about the agonies of her life.  That’s inescapable. What distinguishes us is the way we deal with those. I give myself a C+ to a B- rating.