Tuesday, December 24, 2024

 Tuesday, December 24, 2024

   I weighed 136 this morning. Oh, boy. The scale is going in the wrong direction. Up and down is okay, but not up, up and then up.  I want to hold it around the 134/135 mark.

   I was up early and checked the internet to find out how to insert spigots into a drip hose.  I checked on YouTube. I found videos telling me how to cut the hose, but nothing was on inserting the spigot. Hopefully, English Mike can help me. He says he's happy to help me. He will be here, on the Big Island, until January 10. I should call him anytime.  I hope he can help me figure out what the person I hired to install the drip hose on the strip along the driveway.  You're supposed to uncoil the tubing and make sure it lies flat along the ground.  He didn't do that with the hose at the top of the driveway. Parts of the hose arc up into the air. At the bottom of the drive, the hose lies flat under the plumbagos, but there are no spigots to release the water. Useless.  The man charged me a lot of money. I hope Mike can help me evaluate the situation and figure out how to fix it.  The man charged me a lot of money, then put the hose down on the upper strip without unwinding it or threading it appropriately through the existing plants.  Then, I discovered that he hadn't inserted one spigot. At the same time, he laid the hose down along the plumbagos along the lower part of the driveway.  Fortunately, those plants are deeply rooted and don't need a lot of water.   I hope Mike can help me figure out how to fix all these problems.

   After I watered the 42 newly planted shrubs, Yvette came to help me lay down the hose.  We had unwound it a few weeks ago.  I had to figure out how to cut the hose before I lay it down.  We laid three lengths of hose alongside each of the three rows of bushes.  I think I cut the first one shorter than I should have.  That should be easy to fix.  I would have to buy another connector, but that won't be a big deal.

   I ate half a bagel and napped.  I planned to drive down to the Aloha Theater to check the parking. The mother of seventh-grade RC 'invited' me to 'join them' for the performance.  It's a pretty high price for an amateur production. Of course, it is a donation/price. 

    I was about to leave the house, my handbag in hand, when Mama K called to say the Twins could work with me now. My alarm went off as I set up to work with the girls. What!!?? Oh, boy. I forgot my appointment with Seventh-grade RC. I called Mama K to explain the situation and said I would work with her girls in half an hour.

    RC never responded.  I called her mother and said I figured she forgot and I was going on my way.  I signed on with the Twins. They continue impressing me.  They will use a phonically possible spelling if they can't recall how to spell a word with their visual memory. For example, Twin A spelled sign as /sine/.  Twin A, more than Twin E, will revise the dictated sentence using words that carry the same meaning but are not exactly what was dictated.  I don't correct her.  I only correct her when words don't reflect the same meaning, or she uses incorrect grammar.

    I love these amateur productions. Before Covid, I saw the Christmas performance of the Nutcracker from the West Hawaii Dance Studio.  None of the individual performances rival the great ballet dancers of New York. While many of those performances are exquisite, they are also acrobatics with a flair. Sometimes, the performance is just a demonstration of athleticism with grace, which is not really my idea of dance with my modern dance background. The amateur studio performances are more like dance theater. I love the choreography, mostly the blocking. I see how they solve the performance problems.  I have choreographed for bodies with various skill levels.  When I checked this performance, I learned this studio teaches modern dance versus ballet.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they do. 

   I look Elsa with me on the drive. She enjoys driving in the car. Well, that's what her previous owner said.  She loves driving up to Auntie P's when we go up to get water. She gets anxious when we don't go there. She was hyperventilating as I drove down Kaiminani. I pulled to the side of the road when we turned onto Queen K, thinking Elsa had to go to the bathroom. She didn't.  The weird thing was she calmed down once we passed the turn-off for Petco, where she goes for grooming.  This dog is too much. She is so bright. She remembered the route we used when I took her to get groomed.

    When I got to Kealakekua, I looked for parking lots. There are small ones here and there and a lot of street parking. I should find something.  The theater only holds 300 people. Most cars will hold more than one person.  I shouldn't have a problem.  When I got home, I ate the rest of the nachos from yesterday's lunch with Darby at the Canoe Club. It's not a 'club'. It's just a restaurant on the water's edge.

   I only work with Twin A today. When I called Mama K, she told me they had paddling practice after school, but Twin A was home in the middle of the day.  We continued with Phase III. Today, we discovered two phonics patterns worth discussing.  She left the suffix -s off takes. Students often delete suffixes when reading. Twin A uses them when speaking; she ignores them when reading and writing.  Why? Encountering the problem in this context engages the student in a way that miscellaneous instruction does not.  When I asked her if she knew what a suffix was, the answer was no. I taught a mini-lesson.  We encountered a second spelling pattern, the final stable syllable -ture.  I started a list of words ending in that spelling. She volunteered two or three words without prompting. Amazing.  This is a child who is considered 'slow' by the school.