Mike's death; Betty's life...: 01/22/26

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Sunday, October 31, 2021

Yvette went to Hilo last night to be a second for a friend performing in a drag event. She was helping him with his costume changes and collecting money thrown at him. She said it was great fun and she would tell me about it. She would fill me in on the details later.

As I walked past Adam's house, I noticed his Turo rental car was sitting there. There was some drama around it. A couple from LA rented it. When they arrived at the Kona Airport, they weren't allowed in because they didn't have the right Covid test. They had to fly back to LA, get the proper test, and then come back. There was an additional problem at the LA end when they got there. They missed their planned return flight. They were planning to be married in Hawaii today. Guess that didn't work out. Judy and I both wondered why the Airport didn't offer the desired test. People could be quarantined until the results came in. Forcing these kids to fly back to LA, a good five-and-a-half-hour flight,t is draconian.

I finally got to talk to the mom of the W & M sisters. We both agreed that 5th grade W is functioning on grade level but needs more practice. She is a bright girl and should be a year ahead, not just on grade level. Mom also commented that W was resistant to any discipline. She was reluctant to work on editing anything she wrote. I told her I would work on that with her. I assumed she would have stories galore to write. She is an imaginative child.

I wondered if mom saw any real progress in first-grade M's reading. Mom said yes. Previously, mom commented that my teaching method was very different from their previous tutor, who used Orton Gillingham. I told her that I had never used the approach I was using with M with anyone else before. It's what felt right. She loves reading familiar material. She was afraid of failure and balks when she had to work on something new.

Mei went out for her walk as I did one of my short stints to accumulate my 10,000 steps per day. She examined the grassy strip in front of my house. Her son mowed it once. Those wispy long grass blades were still sticking up. I had thought they looked shorter after he did it once. His mom sent him out to do it again. I'm telling you that grass is the worst. It's like a bristly beard.

While I was working on an update, the radio was playing Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. I remember when I first heard about the riot after the first ballet performance in Paris on May 29, 1913. I thought those silly, uptight people. I had never seen the ballet performed. A few years ago, I caught it on YouTube. Oh, boy. It is intense. I found it almost too much. I consider myself very much a modern woman. I found it difficult to watch. It's raw.

I got to meet with the M & W sisters later in the day than usual. They had a basketball game this morning. I gave 1st grade M a choice of what she wanted to work on: finish writing her story, reading the Carpenter stories, or working on breaking down the words in her old story. She chose the last one. What?? Here I thought this was much too difficult for her. I was concerned I was setting her up for frustration and failure, but no. This is what she wanted to work on. I forget what she called it. Something close to "breaking down the names." We worked on that for fifteen minutes, and then I had her read the Carpenter stories 3-6. She sailed through 3,4, and 5. She hasn't made it all the way through the 6th one. While it's new to her, relatively,

In my conversation with mom, she said that while 5th grade W is bright and creative, she is undisciplined. I told W about my experience. While in grammar school, I saw myself as creative but incapable of carrying something through to full fruition. I wasn't happy about it. I thought maybe I could make a living giving other people ideas for their creative projects. I was functional, despite my predilection. I was able to get Bs in grad school, probably by the skin of my teeth. However, I felt miserable that I couldn't develop an idea fully, at least to whatever I felt was the full expression. I knew of a woman who kept getting pregnant and losing the babies. I thought this is what I feel like; my ideas are all aborted before fully realized. I had the image of all the fine details forming on a fetus. From then on, I worked on developing this aspect of myself. I had this image of an X-axis. To the right was creative; to the left, what I named imitative. Imitative seemed like a good antonym to creative. In one case, you copy what has gone before; in the other, you create something new. People need a balance between the two. To be extreme in either direction is bad.

To be one to the exclusion of the other is a form of mental retardation. To be only creative means you can't even duplicate something that you did previously. Each time you go to boil water, you have to reinvent the process. We're more familiar with people stuck on the imitative side of the axis, people who cannot solve any problem independently. They are incapable of any original thought.

For those who are functional but out of balance, having one side much more developed than the other, even a slight improvement in the underdeveloped side makes a huge difference. Through experience, I learned that if I even improved in my imitation skills a bit, it had the impact of an even greater increase on the creative side. Had I increased the creative side without the imitative side, I would have become increasingly dysfunctional.

I set about working to improve my imitation skills. I was proud of my increased clerical skills; I could maintain my grade book and lesson plans. Someone who barely knew me said, "I bet you're one of those teachers who never writes lesson plans." He meant it as a compliment; I didn't receive it that way. I had worked hard to develop those mundane skills. They were precious. He was right that I didn't adhere rigidly to them if I thought I could do better deviating from them, but I did have lesson plans. Of course, it drove me crazy to write them for the whole week when I preferred developing tomorrow's lesson plans after seeing how the students did on today's work.

W creative side is pronounced in the visual arena, but even here, she doesn't want to do anything disciplined, anything that involves more than responding in the minute. I told her my story and introduced her to the X-axis concept. She understood and agreed.

My plan was to teach her something about the discipline by modeling good form using her ideas. I assumed she would leap on the chance to write a story without having to 'write' it herself. Boy, did I get a surprise! Her imagination didn't extend to story writing. She wrote something about a pen with green ink. It was a flat description. It was boring. It winds up this is not a strength of hers. I asked her if she wanted me to create a story using a pen. I spun a story. I'm pretty good at this. Images come to mind, and I develop those. During our session, the pen that came to mind was magical. As I sit here and write now, I have a different image. I see someone like Benjamin Franklin seated at a desk writing with a quill pen. Since I don't know enough about Ben Franklin to develop a complete story about him offhand, I would make up a story about someone who lived in that period.

On the other hand, I could research about Franklin and find out about a letter he might have written. I might research someone he might correspond with on family issues and make a story about that. A bit of research would be called for when writing about a historical figure. We had to stop then. I will be pursuing writing with her. It doesn't make sense that her story-creating skills are that undeveloped.

Damon called. We talked about his mom's, my hanai sister jean, health issues. She has been in physical pain for a long time. She has a serious spinal curvature because of the way she sat at her desk when reading or writing, or for that matter, when eating or watching TV. She has lousy posture.

We also spoke about his son August. Listen to this freaky connection. August went online to buy tickets for a local rave concert. The backdrop for the internet site was his artwork. What!!? He called the company and told them what they had. Damon said the company immediately gave August credit for his work, offered him free tickets to the concert, and hired him to do additional artwork for their posters- $100 each. How's that for good fortune falling in your lap?

Saturday, October 30, 2021

I met the W & M sisters this morning. One had told me that they had an early morning game and would have to do it later. I texted mom. No. Their game was in the afternoon; we were okay for the morning. Mom was sitting in on the sessions this morning. She hadn't done that in a while. I wondered what it meant. I suppressed any feelings of paranoia.

I was seeing a big difference in 5th grade W. She was performing at grade level. Her decoding skills are good, as are her comprehension skills. She just needs a lot of practice. She still misses some suffixes and sight words, maybe one per paragraph if that many. I want to push her so she is a year beyond grade level. I wonder if I should have her go back to a third-grade level for some additional practice. At the end of the session, W told me she had this great activity where is could convert anyone's doddle into "great art." Would I participate? Sure. I drew something of the sort I had never drawn before. I saw the possibility of it being a woman with a large picture hat. W saw it the same way. She added one line I hadn't anticipated. It was somewhat of a surprise, even though I could see it was a necessary line.

With first grade M, I worked on Phase I on her story. It was too hard for her. I think I'm going to have to back off and use more basic material. She also started writing another story. I

I had adolescent D at 11:30. I asked as I always do if he had done any reading. I wasn't surprised to learn there was no reading done in school yesterday. The school was on party time for Halloween. But yes, he had read some riddles. Could he read them? Yes. Does he see that focusing on the vowel letters helps him read? Yes.

He still makes serious mistakes with the basic sight words, confusing of, for, and from. I reminded him it is common to see students with a history of reading problems read long, difficult words and still have issues with basic sight words. I believe it is because these words weren't stored correctly in memory in the first place. We continued the work. I heard how one word 'slipped out of his mouth.' I could feel the surprise.

It was Saturday: bath day for Elsa. Oh, yay! This is our favorite activity. We have to sit there for 15 minutes while the medicated soap does its thing. At least, I plan it for a time when I can listen to something engaging on the radio. Elsa just has to suffer.

Brian and Tommy came over in the early afternoon. Judy told me that Brian is selling a system that makes the internet more powerful. With what I have now, the upload is 75, and the download is 9; with his system, the upload is 300, and the download is 20. I would drop my account with Spectrum and get my internet connection through their Spectrum account. I'm not quite sure how it works. Worse comes to worst, I'll have to renew my contract with Spectrum. Of course, I will have dropped a pretty penny on the initial expense for the equipment. C'est la vie. Yvette might be interested in participating. We would have one account then.

I would lose my 'landline' phone. It's a landline phone, but it's not 'a landline.' The phone is run through the internet. I don't think is such a thing as a landline anymore. However, I haven't been without a desktop phone since I was 9. It's a little freaky. I don't use the landline for anything except diverting cold calls and scams, oh, yes, finding my cell when I've misplaced it.

Tommy immediately put an app on my computer that will allow me to find my phone. It's better than just calling from another phone. It shows the location of the phone and has the phone make a locating sound. It's unpleasant. It's so high-pitched. I was amazed it was still in my hearing range.

Yvette stopped in to ask if I noticed the car parked at the side of the road in front of the vacant lot next to our house. A couple just sits there, smoking and dropping their cigarettes on the ground. Yvette said they didn't look the healthiest. She thought they might be druggies. Yvette stopped by and asked them to please pick up their butts when they left. They accommodated her. Tonight, I had a chance to talk to them for a few minutes. The man leaned against his car as the woman came walking up with her dog on a leash. I asked if they chose this spot because they liked the view of the sunset. They said no. They lived a few streets away. While the sunsets were great, that's not why they came there every night. Their behavior is weird and requires an explanation. They should move to another spot or integrate into the neighborhood. If they just drive down the hill three miles, there a plenty of parking spaces along the waterfront. Very confusing and somewhat disconcerting.

Friday, October 29, 2021

I slept straight through to 4:30 again. I spent the remaining hour meditating, exercising my feet, and dozing.

I had an eight am Zoom appointment with the young woman who lived with me for six months after Mike died. She is back in Switzerland now, where she is from. I emailed her to confirm the date. She canceled at the last minute, saying she was expecting an important phone call. Also, she was tired.

I had a dental appointment at 11. I was about to jump into the shower when I got a text from the receptionist, saying they had an earlier time. I left immediately. I thought the artificial teeth I ordered were in already. No, KC had made an in-house clear retainer for me to try. She explained the retainer would impact my speech. I might not be comfortable with that. Before I ordered this expensive item, she thought I should try it. How thoughtful! I wore a retainer when I was an adolescent; I knew I would have to adapt. I was able to do it easily. This retainer is clear. You can see my teeth. I wanted the retainer to cover my uneven discolored teeth. This didn’t quite do that.

The retainer snapped into place. Then KC couldn’t get it out. It was a little too tight. She had to have Chris do it. OMG! He had to wrestle it out of my mouth. My lip got pinched several times.

I stopped by Costco down the road from the dentist to check out the futon I forgot to look at yesterday. Mei told me the futon was in stock again. It’s reasonably priced, something like $450; however, the frame is metal. Anything metal is in jeopardy here in Hawaii. All metal rusts. The aluminum refrigerator door gets rust spots.

I stopped at Costco on the way home, right down the street from the dentist, to pick up essential supplies. As I was driving home, I thought to call KC and tell her I wanted to see how the clear retainer looked on Zoom. While it didn’t look fantastic, it did mask the difference between my capped teeth and the five remaining natural ones. It might be enough. The problem is when I model blending, I need people to see my mouth clearly. I think my bottom teeth look gross. KC said she had already thrown it out. I asked her to make another one.; I would pay for it. In fact, I’ll pay for the first one she made and all their time. While I have the money, I would prefer to be generous. If I can use the clear retainer, it would save me a bundle.

When I got home, I showered in preparation for my PT appointment with Katie. When I saw her, she was impressed with the difference in my feet. I did the exercises she gave me and used the acupuncture pen on the outside of my calf. Katie told me that calf muscle connected to something on the bottom of the foot. No surprise there. Yesterday, the second metatarsal on the second toe of my right foot looked swollen. Today, it looks almost normal.

Last week, Katie suggested I put padding in the shoe to lift the first metatarsal. I tried but couldn’t find a way to make it work. I tried to glue a pad to the inside of the shoe. The surface was too bumpy; nothing stuck. Then I tried putting a pad between my toes, so part of it leaned to be under that first metatarsal. That didn’t work either. Kati had a solution. She used two heel lifts together, taped down with Kinesthetic tape. It worked like a charm. I paid for the two she put in my shoe and bought six more.

She also gave me a squatting exercise I may be able to do. She is challenging the limits of my left hip. Can I get more flexion, or is it fixed? I told her I would have a consultation with the orthopedic surgeon on November 4. It finally occurred to me I wanted him to address my problem with Michael’s muscles (the one he wrenched) and my spinal curvature. Katie is not in favor of surgery, probably for anyone, but particularly not for me. Given my high degree of kinesthetic awareness, she said I would not be happy with the artificial joint. She also reminded me of the experiment done to determine the efficacity of orthopedic surgery. Some people had the complete surgery, hip or knee, and some were only cut open. (I assume this was all with patient consent.) The difference between the two procedures was not appreciable. Was the impact of the bogus surgery psychosomatic, or did those cuts do something to the soft tissue, which worked just as well as the full surgery? Either way, surgery promotes tissue damage.

Judy spent some time arguing with me about my decision not to have surgery. She said that if there is a shortage of medical services, the elderly will be denied service. Ah! I was way ahead of her. I envisioned a situation where our civilization was so degraded that there were no medical services, and I had to run from flowing lava. Guess I would be screwed! I can’t imagine that at 80+, I would be able to outrun the lava even if I had the hip replacement.

I had the W & M sisters Today in the late afternoon. First grade M was hyper. She ran to her room to get an award she got at school. She was overstimulated from the day’s celebration, Halloween. She said there was a parade. I worked with her applying Phase I to the words in the story she wrote. She could read the single-syllable words. However, she couldn’t identify the sound of -er. She also read her as hair and then as here. We are having problems, the standard ones. Then, with remaining time, I had her read Carpenter stories #3, 4, and part of 5.

Fifth grade W told me that her teacher has the kids in pairs while one reads and the other, the nonreader, times the reading and marks the missed words. She said she was doing better. When she read for me, she made several small errors Today, but nothing that interferes with comprehension. I moved more quickly through the fifth-grade material I had prepared. She had some problems with comprehension with the more advanced material. I have to speak to her mom about what she wants me to do with her 5th-grade daughter.

As I did my evening walk, I saw a car pull out of a driveway of a newly purchased house. The woman parked in the street, crossed it to get her mail, and got back in the car. Then she jumped out and stood there by the driver’s side door. I rushed to catch up. Someone new on the block. I had to check this out. I introduced myself, “I’m Betty. I’m the neighborhood yenta.”

She was standing there trying to get a loose gecko out of her car. When she put the mail she had just collected on her lap, it ran down her leg. She didn’t want to drive with the critter running loose in her car. Her name is Hannah. She has three children, 12, 10, and 4. They had spent the last two months gutting the house. The previous tenants had trashed it. I told her what I knew about them.

Jenny and Andrew were the primary leaseholders. The house had five bedrooms which they rented. The house has a pool. Every evening, the other tenants were around the pool drinking and talking loudly. It was known as the party house. Hannah told me there was chicken poop all over the house. Ah, that was Andrew. He kept chickens as pets. They make great pets. They love to be in your company, even hugged, if you can ignore the poop and the bird mites.

I came across a passage in Batcheler’s Buddhism without Belief. He talks about watching the breath differently. What he said was nothing new. Goenka talks about not controlling the breath but just watching it. Batchelor puts a different spin on it by saying, ‘be surprised.” That sets up a completely different mindset.

Thursday, October 28, 2021

I stay up till 10 because I was so engaged in Offspring. The more I watch it, the more I like it. It works for loving resolutions without being melodramatic. There is often a comic edge, sometimes subtly. I think it’s very good.

The alarm went off. I wondered why it didn’t sound like my usual morning alarm. I had hoped to have a little more sleep. Today was driveway yoga at 7 am; I had to get up in a timely way. When I looked at the clock, it was 11:50 pm. I had meant to set the alarm for 11:50 am, time to get ready for my 12 pm zoon meeting with one of the tutors in my cohort of new tutors. I had push pm instead of am. I had six more hours of sleep. Great!

Today, Colin was walking Angus and Bailey together. Angus has to lose some weight. When he does, maybe he will be able to keep up with Bailey. I have to watch out with Bailey; he wants to jump up and put his front paws on my shoulders. He could knock me over easy peasy.

When I posted the daily blog entry, I saw my numbers were back up in general and specifically in Indonesia. That English teacher must have a new batch of students. Yesterday it was 117; when he’s not assigning my blog, the numbers are down to 5 or 7 a day. Five or seven a day is still better than it was when I started when the numbers ran from zero to two. By the way, since I started the blog, I have passed 10,000 hits. Many are repeats.

At noon, I spoke to the new tutor, a young man with an advanced degree in electrical engineering who worked as a teaching assistant while was working for his degree. He was quite nervous about meeting this third grader from a Latino family who was having trouble in school. I recommended the structured question format which the other tutor recommended. I also told him that working with a young child from an uneducated family would be quite a change for him. The cognitive style of Latino families that came from small towns with collective cultures is very different from the complex thinking he was used to. In those cultures, you’re expected to do what you’re told without question. There isn’t a variety way of doing things. Everyone does things basically the same way. This young man had to gear up for culture shock. I shared my opinion that neither way is “better.” We have lost connection with our ‘sophisticated’ culture. To work with these kids, you have to keep an open mind, appreciating what their lifestyle has to offer. I told him to stay open as he worked with his student. He had a lot to learn.

I had third grade A in the afternoon. He continues to show improvement. I plan to have him work in third grade material. He gets most of the single syllable words correct. He just doesn’t know how to decode multi-syllable words. I have him read the word if he can. If he can’t, I do and have him identify all the vowels in the word when write on the shared screen below the text. Then have him add on the consonants, blending their sounds with the vowels. Once the word has been identified, I go back and apply Phase I, articulating each sound in the word. We also worked on writing another story.

I had an encounter today with a body worker who blamed me for something that went wrong in our work four times. I didn’t notice the first two until I told her twice that she was hurting me and she not only ignored my complaint but stated she was doing it correctly. My pain was irrelevant. I’m not sitting here nursing the resulting injury. I don’t think this relationship is going to work.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

I slept straight through till 4:30. Sleeping straight through that means I didn't drink enough water yesterday. I woke up to say Happy Birthday to Mike; he would have been 81 today.

On my morning walk, I ran into Kelly and her golden, Bailey. After they went on their way, I saw a new configuration of a human and a dog in the distance through the early morning light. The human looked like Colin, Kelly's husband, but it wasn't one of their dogs, and why was he walking separately from Kelly? Yes, it was him. He had a new dog with him, Angus, a chocolate lab. Where did they get him? A lab breeder on the island died, leaving a bunch of dogs. Kelly and Colin took one. Angus is about 6 years old. Why aren't you and Kelly walking together? Angus walks slower than Baily. How is Angus adjusting? He's still quite nervous; the breeder kept all her dogs together in outdoor cages. Now, this dog is without his usual pack. Colin and Kelly not only have Bailey a golden lab; they also have Peanut, a Maltese. Still, it's all unfamiliar. I made some comment about Angus not sleeping in their bed. Oh, yes. Angus discovered the bed. It's his safe place. Gotta love it!

I had a 7 am session with Shelly, who was leaving on a three-week vacation to Egypt. Shelly made an interesting observation. People who feel that no one likes them tend to be hyperactive. Interesting. I was undoubtedly hyperactive as a child and can still lapse into that state despite my efforts to overcome it. I don't believe I was simply an overactive child; I was in a constant state of terror and either in fight or flight mode. My mother always told me that no one liked me. I didn't feel that when I was young. I was more concerned about liking people than being liked. People found me interesting, if nothing else. It's as I got older and calmer that I found I had more of a problem. I can see where hyperactivity is a turn-off. Every once in a while, I run into someone like that. It can make me uncomfortable. However, I am OK if I can tell the person when I need them to slow down or I need a break. If I have agency, I can be just fine with someone like that. I have trouble with rigid people who believe their way is the right way, and therefore, something's wrong with me. I remember feeling that way when I was in my early twenties. It finally occurred to me that my life wasn't going better than everyone else's. I clearly didn't have all the answers.

One of the reasons I was terrified is I felt my father was grooming me to be a savior. He wanted a solution to the cause of WW I and Nazi Germany. I would come up with possible solutions. He would sigh in disappointment and say, "Ah, Christ thought of that." or "Buddha thought of that." I had failed again. In my early twenties, I understood what was going on with me, whether I had misinterpreted him or not. I called myself a 'drop out' Messiah. My father was from a Jewish background. Jews are still looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. If I had been right, my thought, "My daughter the Messiah." What a relief to put that burden down. If Christ and Buddha failed at bringing peace to the world, how the hell was I going to succeed. I used to refer to myself as a drop-out messiah.

It took a while for S, Mama K's older daughter, to sign-in on the Zoom meeting. Third-grade K. used the time to write 'the sentence' (The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. And his first and last names) independently. He had that done by the time Zoom was up and running. Wow! I pulled out a second-grade text and started dictating. Multiple goals: holding the whole sentence in his working memory as he writes it, retrieving the 'next' word as he wrote, applying what he learned so far about handwriting to this new activity, and practicing spelling, both recalling words and sounding them out. He did a dynamite job. Except I caught the lower case a formed incorrectly. He said he didn't know how to write it. This is a problem when I don't get to see his writing with my own eyes. I have to ask Mama K to send me a picture of his work every week.

Then I had Twin A. I didn't see her last week. She read most of the words in Carpenter A#1, Sassy the Cat. At one point, I asked her if she wanted to continue or stop. She plowed ahead, reading the next word. Wow! Momma K told me that Twin A picked up a book on her own and spent time figuring out the words using the strategies I taught her.

Twin E did better this week than the week before last when she wildly guessed words based on- I have no idea what. She also was prepared to stick with the work. These girls will be OK.

My friend Jean from Arizona texted while I was in session. I called her the moment I was through. Jean had knee surgery. She has had a medical sleigh ride these past few years. It has been one thing after the other. Hopefully, this will be it. She had such good news about her daughter and her grandkids. She speaks with her daughter almost daily, and it's a joy. Her grandkids are doing well at school. Wonderful!

Damon called to share Mike's birthday with me and update me on his son, August. August is doing well in college. His midterm grades were good, and he has lots of friends. The only problem is he shares a room with another student. August is an only child who loved spending time alone in his room, even when he was young. Not having alone time is hard for him. Damon talked about how difficult his freshman year was when he had to share a room with another student. Me, I was the kid they sent to camp; I loved having roommates. My freshman year, I had five roommates in a room designed to hold eight. It was camp all over again.

Jean, my hanai sister, called. She has been suffering from sciatica. Her solution: injections, and when they stopped working, surgery. She had a consultation with a surgeon and is now getting a pre-surgical evaluation. Both Damon and I and the surgeon have encouraged her to work with a physical therapist. She won't hear of it. She hung up on me.

B called. He calls once a week to speak to me for my sake. I put him off because I had the other callers that were hard to get hold of. He finally called me again. This time he had news. His dad was in the hospital with pneumonia and urinary infection. Poor Paul!

Tommy, my tech, came over. The Phase Ii slides for the Phonics Discovery System video were ready to be compiled. He needed all the material sent to him so he could work on it at home. We talked briefly about Facebook's algorithm and why my video isn't included when searching under the Phonics label. We're going to have to think about it.

Yvette and I went to Huggo's for dinner. It was a restaurant Mike, and I loved. We had a half-hour wait. The maître de offered up a high table with barstools. Yvette asked if that would be OK with me. Probably not. The server took us to another table for six. Yvette and I got to sit right by the rail. We had a great view of the exposed rocks beneath and the water surging back and forth in low tide. They only offered their bar menu, not the full dinner menu. We both ordered the poke tower. I also ordered roasted Brussel sprouts. I thought they were great. Yvette, not so much. I got a slice of Key Lime pie to take home.

Yvette told me that her friend Becca asked her to go roller-skating with her. These are two women in their late forties or early fifties. Yvette was up for it. She bought a pair of roller skates. The two do it on the 'middle road,' halfway between the two main highways running parallel to the ocean. Becca doesn't have much going on in her life right now. She is the sole caretaker of her father, who is suffering from dementia. Oh, boy.

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

A good night's sleep, pain-free, until the penny dropped on a Craig's List offer I got yesterday for my electric double leather recliner. I posted a powered leather double recliner. Mike bought it from Costco. He loved it. I hated it. I couldn't sit up straight. Mike slouched, even sitting in a straight-back chair. Using pillows to create something more comfortable for me didn't work. They just slid. It was time to get rid of it because Damon plans to come with Cylin and August for Christmas. I offered to have August bring a friend along. I needed to get rid of those recliners and put something someone could sleep on in the library.

I got two offers on the first day. One was a guy who wanted to pay less. The second was from someone prepared to pay the full price plus $30 for me to hold it for them. They couldn't come over because of Covid. She was getting married. Her financial someone would cut me a cashier's check. I had to provide my name, address, and telephone number. Well, that's the information I would have to provide to anyone interested in the recliners. It was the extra $30 that alerted me. I had thought at the time, "They didn't have to pay that extra fee." I got up at 2 am to check the Internet or Craig list scams. Sure enough.

The offer of a cashier's check is one of the warning signs. It said these scams use your information to arrange to have your mail sent to them to get your bank and credit card statements. I fell back to sleep when I realized all I had to do was ask Josh, a mail carrier in my local post office, to ask Bruce, my carrier, to be on the lookout and make sure that change of address didn't go through. I got two more emails from this contact. The first was just to tell me to make sure to delete the post from Craig's List. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it's to prevent me from getting 'similar' offers. (I got one more. I didn't respond to that one.) The second email was to tell me her financial agent had made a mistake. Instead of writing the check for the recliner alone, it included the cost for the mover. Oh, dear. But she was confident that I would pay the mover with the additional money. I called the post office investigation office. What should I do? He said, don't open the letter and mark it as "Delivery Refused." I wrote her not to send the check. If she did, I would refuse delivery or give in to the Post Office to help them in their scam investigations.

Yvette canceled yoga today. I put on long pants and eye and face protection and went out to weed whack the stripe in front of the house. I mowed it the other day with the manual mower. The mower cut down the short blades of grass. However, we have these long strands of grass that just got flattened as I ran the mower over them. I thought I would weed whack them and then mow the strip again. Ha! Those long strands aren't even easy to cut with the whacker. They were just knocked flat.

While I was working, Mei came up behind me, tapped me lightly not to scare me. She had a bakery box in her hand. She bought a box of pastries for me and one for Judy from a Japanese bakery in Waimea. Japanese pastries!! I looked forward to tasting them. Ha! This Japanese bakery made French pastries. What a surprise! Judy said they are all over Oahu. Usually, these pastries look fantastic but don't taste good. These were fantastic. I gave the one that looked like a ladybug to Yvette. I ate the piece white slice of cake. Wow! It was a strawberry something or another. It had strawberries juice and whole strawberries throughout the piece. There was also a yellow pastry, lemon-flavored. Also, delicious.

Watching me wrestle with the weedwhacker, Mei said she would have her fourteen-year-old, David, mow the strip. Was that okay with me? You bet. Later this month, Phil and Carol will be returning from the mainland. I am hoping that he will drive his bright red tractor down here to mow it. He does the strip on both sides of the street in his section.

I spoke to Shawna, who does the stone inlay I'm considering for our gravestones. I sent her a picture of the design I wanted. 'I want Mike's name to be the way Sandor had it done for the wooden box that held his ashes.

Deacon Michael David Ross, Ph.D²

The superscript is vital. Mike's students called him Doc Squared because of his two Ph.Ds. The man was an academic and loved it. Shawna said that her process couldn't do something too small. The process involves creating the spaces with water' drilling' and filling the space with stone cut to fit. She said if the inlay is too small, it will just fall through. Since I ordered a brown granite slab already, I'm now wondering if that material is too dark to be suitable for an inlay process.

I got an email from some else saying he was interested in the recliner. He was at Costco and wanted to stop by. Great! Someone local. This gorgeous man comes. Yes, he's interested in the recliner. Could he take $50 off? Sure. Then how were we going to get it out of the house? As young and as gorgeous as he was, he couldn't do it alone. I called Adam. No answer. He never answers his phone. Abraham and I walked down to his house. Of course, he would come help. Adam, with his seven-year-old son in tow, walked barefoot from his house to mine. The two men had to figure out how t get it out. I didn't see it delivered, so I couldn't help other than offering them the use of a handcart. They figured out they could get it out the front door. All the other entrances required sharp turns, too narrow for such a large object.

As they got it out of the house and into Abraham's truck, I swept the library. Lots of dead 'worms,' totally harmless local style. Leon held the dustpan as I swept it up.

After Adam and Leon left, Abraham and I sat in the living room while he figured out how to transfer money to me via Venmo. I asked him how old he was. I would have guessed early forties. He was thirty-nine. He was a professional surfer with sponsors all over the world, including Niki. His wife was also a professional surfer.

He said they met when they were both visiting Hawaii 12 years ago. He just started surfing; she was a devoted surfer from Oregon who had been doing her thing in those cold waters. She was riding the waves that day because she had missed her flight home. They were preparing to ride the same wave. He noticed this good-looking woman and signaled her to go first. Their eyes met, and that was that. I looked them up on the Internet. There are pictures of them; they have both been covered in sports magazines. Since Covid started and many gigs were canceled, they have invested their time and money in a hydrofoil surfboard that anyone can ride, even me.

He asked, Did I know the Damasio's? No. Vince and Julie? Of course. Abraham used to rent from one of their sons. If someone doesn't know someone I know here, you have to be suspicious.

I approached my afternoon tutoring session with third grade A in a relaxed way. I was my usual patient self. I have been having more trouble being that person. In the past, I could watch what the student did with the patience of a fisherman watching the water for signs of activity; now, I find myself feeling restless if the student is not showing progress.

Third grade A has been a source of frustration, his mother even more. I realized my interaction with Abraham was renewing. He hung around and took pleasure in my company. Mike gave that to me. He saw me as a safe, nourishing part of his environment. I saw him the same way. At the end of the day, a good hug dissolved the accumulated tension from dealing. Mike told me he loved me, and I was beautiful every day. Yes, literally. I can't remember a day when he didn't. What a gift! It's amazing what that can do for your well-being.

When we first met, he would tell me that I was objectively the most beautiful woman in the world. That did nothing for me. It was totally out of touch with reality. Saying that was ridiculous. I convinced him his thinking I was beautiful had meaning. And boy, did it ever.

It's not that no one in my life enjoys me. It's just no one expresses their pleasure in my company quite the same way. Abraham did. I didn't take it personally. He is just that kind of a guy. He allows himself to fully enjoy, whether it's surfing, his wife, or some random old woman he ran into. I was a beneficiary of his ability to enjoy. It was delightful.

I enjoy watching Netflix's Offspring more with each episode. The characters change. Circumstances bring out different aspects of them. Instead of packing it in for the night at 9:30, I watched till 10:00. I went to sleep when I got into bed instead of reading more of the Seven Story Mountain. I knew I had to get up early because we had yoga in the morning.

Monday, October 25, 2021

I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to fall asleep easily. I found a Facebook post from the young woman who lived here for six months shortly after Mike died. She’s back in Switzerland, where she is from. I liked her post and asked how she was. She said she had been thinking of me, and there I was. It works that way. We made arrangements to Zoom one morning; well, 8 am for me, 8 pm for her. The problem is there is another friend who doesn’t like her at all, who put me in the middle. My renewed contact with her reminded me of that conflict.

Since I couldn’t sleep, I took the opportunity to do the toe and foot exercise my PT, Katy, recommended: spread out my toes as widely as possible, then scrunch them together. Also tried to move the big toe separately, up and down. It caused cramping all the way up to my hip. OW! Who knew about that connection?

I had this weird, unpleasant feeling around my midriff in the early morning hours just below my ribs. I usually associate the sense of shame or sadness with it. This morning, it was just an unpleasant sensation. This is great. That means I may be able to rid myself of my unpleasant feeling. It’s ironic, but the only way to get rid of pain like that is to observe it without wanting to get rid of it. You need to have a neutral point of view. I was able to observe it. I did the release I usually do, “I release anything negative about my hatred for this sensation and keep anything positive or anything I still need.” And then the opposite, “I release anything negative about my love for this sensation, etc., etc. I fell asleep. I have no idea what happened. Sometime in the future, something will come up, and I will notice that I did not have my usual distressed response.

In my last year’s post for the 24th, I rediscovered an understanding of myself. I was trained in the dialectic and lived my life with that as a major guiding principle. I believe in reconciliation of opposites to produce something new and often better. I believe in reconciliation between any two opposing positions, including two opposing ones in myself. I think we all live a ‘he-went-that-away’ lives. Reducing it to the simplest form possible doesn’t work for me. Of course, I have had to learn to live with less than I would like.

I stopped to talk to Mei as I passed her house. She was at the gate, and Elsa insisted on going onto her property. Mei pointed to her breadfruit tree and asked me if I wanted some. She was trying to figure out how to use it. I knew Darby and Patrick use ulu (breadfruit) as one of their primary food sources. I told Mei she should speak to them. I wrote Darby about Mei’s interest. She answered with some videos she found and said Patrick would be prepared to talk Mei’s ears off on the subject of breadfruit. I asked Mei for her email address, forwarded Darby’s emails to her. Then I sent Mei’s email address to Darby. I love fostering these connections.

I had my Reading office hour today. It’s only one hour from 11 to 12 HawaiianTime. I had three people today. I asked each of them what they wanted. The first woman wanted to know how to help her student pronounce the -ed suffix correctly. Her student was in the third grade. The final suffix is pronounced in three different ways in English. After a final t or d, it is pronounced as /id/ or /ed/. After all other voiced consonants and all vowels, the -ed is pronounced as /d/. After the unvoiced consonants, it is pronounced at /t/. Some exceptions, such as wicked and crooked, are pronounced with the /id/ when they are adjectives but pronounced as a /t/ when they are verbs. I told her she could look up English voiced and unvoiced consonants online.

The second student wanted information on how to conduct the initial session. I gave her my spiel, which is pretty informal. When I was through, the first student asked if she could answer that question. She had prepared a PowerPoint with questions which she answered about herself and then had the student answer. She used standard questions. The two other participants loved her suggestion. I told her to post her PowerPoint on the Step Up Tutoring Facebook page and ask Julia to include it in the Step Up resources. I looked up icebreaker questions for children. Now, I can tell other students who need something structured to do something comparable. The questions on the sites I found seemed too sophisticated for our students: would you rather be a narwhale or a unicorn? For my part, neither. I’m rather attached to my human condition.

The third participant wanted to know how to teach comprehension. I teach starting with teaching sentence structure. This is usually ignored when teaching comprehension. It is assumed the students understand the way language works. No! particularly students who come from homes where another language is spoken, and the parents have a low level of education. Understanding how sentences work is complex. I teach by asking as many questions about a sentence as I can. It’s a form of sentence diagramming. I think it is what I do when I read, only automatically. The whole session was only half an hour. I often do an hour with a single student. All three today were those who prefer a structured approach instead of one requiring improvisational skills. I don’t have much to offer them.

I called the local Intermediate school to see what was going on with my application. It was two weeks ago on Monday that I handed it in. At the rate this is going, it will be several months before I get to the next level in the process. Part of that requires that I get an FBI check. That alone will take several weeks if the first set of prints pass muster. If not, it will be several more weeks.

My granite slabs are in for Mike’s and my gravestones. I called the engraver Brenda recommended the other day and left a message. Today she got back to me. The process isn’t engraving; it’s a stone inlay. I could see a sample at her office. It was just above Kaiser. I was heading there when I got the call.

My Kaiser appointment was with the plastic surgeon. I was due for my next round of Botox treatments. The doctor said it looked good; the brow hadn’t drooped that much. I think it held up because I the acupuncture pen treatments. I saw a big difference after that. The idea behind regular Botox treatments is to keep the offending muscles inactive and allow them to atrophy, so they don’t come online again. I asked the doctor if he enjoyed his work. He said he loved it and hoped to die with his boots on. I prefer working with people who love doing their jobs.

As I left the office, my left leg buckled. This hasn’t happened in a while. I assumed it had to do with atrophied muscles being called into use. As always, I had to wait and see which direction this was going in.

Darby sent me more recipes for breadfruit for Mei. I forwarded them to her.

I had a session with adolescent D in the late afternoon. No, he hadn’t done any reading today, not a word. How does someone in eighth grade have no exposure to the written word in a day of school? I assume he must have had a bad day. He had a bad day with me. He was able to read most of the single-syllable words, except for of. When he hit that word, he blanked out. He only did that once before recently. He did it frequently when we first started. Then he read it as for; when I told him no, he said from. This is a common problem. These are words from list #1 of the sight word list. I see kids improve their reading and still have problems with those sight words. I suspect they went in wrong when they learned them. They have to be deleted or overridden with extra effort. When it came to the multi-syllable words, he preferred to use the supported strategy of Phase II rather than figure it out himself. I’m okay with that; it allows me to drill the strategy. He names the vowels; I write them down. Then I add the following consonants. He pronounces what we’ve identified so far. Then we add on the rest of the letters. He did better holding sounds separately instead of mushing them together, losing sounds in the process. Hopefully, it is what he’s using in class. He still had problems with reversals of sounds, or is it letters. Given his shifting of sounds from a short vowel sound to a long one, I suspect it is an auditory processing problem.

I went for my before-dinner walk with Elsa at 5:30. Later that evening, I got a text from Isaac saying he was out for his evening walk. My leg had had enough for the day.

Sunday, October 24, 2021

I had a good night's sleep without any discomfort. I slept until 6:30. Wow! That's late. I ran into Vince and Julie. They were late too. Julie abandoned Vince to walk with me. I changed my route, and she modified her pace to accommodate me. Why were they running late?

They had been up since 2 am working on processing the fish jerky. Vince had a large order to fill. I learned more about the process. Vince will get a large fish, 200 lbs., butcher it into even large chunks, place them on trays and store them in the freezer. He doesn't process them until he gets an order. That's what they were doing this morning.

Vince was angry at Julie because she did something 'wrong.'. They got a new 'sprayer,' used to cover the fish with teriyaki sauce. She had trouble managing it, and Vince got angry. He likes things the way he likes them. Somewhat bossy. But these two have been together for close to sixty years and still walk together every morning. They had an exceptional son, and they, and their respective extended families, accepted this boy with his crossdressing and homosexuality at a time when it was not commonly understood, no less accepted.

Julie also told me their freezer was almost bare, as it is every winter because the fish leave the area. Huh? Where do the fish go? How did the native Hawaiians survive back in the day if the fish left? The native Hawaiians didn't go after the larger fish, marlins that Vince uses for his jerky. They fished the smaller fish they could capture in the fishponds they built. She also said fish wasn't a major staple for them. Julie is a fund of all sorts of knowledge.

I ran into Isaac on a morning run. I haven't heard from him in a dog's age. I concluded the teachers in his church-run school told him to have nothing to do with that heathen. He said no. He was just busy. He was able to tell me the students responded very well to using 'air writing' to learn the alphabet. They see it as a game and do it on their own. Isn't that what we want to have happen? No, he hadn't watched my video yet. Did I mention already that my Phase I video does not come up when I put in 'phonics' in the search bar on YouTube? What??!! Tommy has to fix that.

The day was devoted to minor cleaning chores, incidental weeding, and I started cleaning the lanai screens. I have eight 8 by 4 panels (top) and eight 8 by 2 ½ panels (bottom) screens. I have tried different ways to clean them. Taking them down and washing them outside is not an option. Removing the screens is a big deal. I have found the best method. I use a two-gallon garden sprayer. I put towels on the floor at the base of the screens and microfiber cloths on the top of the railing to catch the water as it runs down. I keep spraying and wringing out the cloths until the water is reasonably clear. As the water runs down the screen, I can see the dirt. It works well. For the screens on the sliding glass door in my bedroom leading to the outdoor lanai, I just turn the garden hose on them after soaping them down.

Judy called with an update on the Mei/a neighbor situation. She stopped short, and he nearly hit her. He honked and yelled at her and then cursed her. Wow! To say this is unusual behavior for Hawaii would be an understatement. Everything is slow here. I moved from Brooklyn to NJ and had to slow down. Then I moved from Princeton to Columbus, Ohio, and had to change my expectations. Moving west has been progressively more and more relaxing. It's a genuine 'whatever' and 'no worries." It's just lovely.

The neighbor has been lovely to the Glicksteins. This was really out of character. Judy mentioned the incident to Adam, who had more contact with the man. He asked him about it. Yes, it was him, and he was embarrassed by his behavior. No, he was not up to apologizing. It was good to know the man felt embarrassed. He must have been startled.

That type of thing doesn't bother me that much. It did happen to me. I didn't get angry. Mike helped me with that. I think we get upset when we feel we are responsible and can't handle it. Mike taught me to focus on the problem at hand. The problem was Mei had stopped short, forcing the man to stop short. Yes, he shouldn't have been driving that closely if he had to slam on his brakes, but all's well that ends well. The problem was Mei was in his way. He could just have moved around her and been done with it.

I have sympathy for his response, even though I wouldn't have reacted that way in that situation. However, when I feel out of control, I have no leverage in a situation, I start scrambling like a frightened animal. I hate it in myself. I also understand that I'm not a 99lb. weakling (an allusion to the Mr. Atlas ads, for those of you who remember them). I must be frightening. It annoys the hell out of me when people see themselves only as benign victims, only defending themselves. Really??? My therapist says you can never get people like that to admit they've done anything wrong. I appreciate that it's their problem, but they make it mine. I have my own vulnerability.

I ran into Isaac on his evening walk. I changed my pathway and walked with him. He is a Seventh Day Adventist, an evangelical church. He's taking a year off to volunteer in a local church-run school. He told me already that his parents would deconstruct the message of the service, saying what they agreed with and didn't agree with. Tonight, he told me that his dad's peaceful nights' sleep ended with the election of Trump. I asked him what about the church he liked. I wasn't challenging him; I wanted to understand

He started saying an accurate interpretation of the Bible. I challenged that. He conceded. I think the Bible has remained significant because it is open to many interpretations. However, I know the Catholic church does not ground itself in the Bible quite the way the Protestant sects do, but each Protestant sect has a different slant. For now, it came down to community. I articulated something I have always been aware of but never put into words before. Church communities are the only ones that involve not just whole nuclear families but extended families. Everyone in the family attends, regardless of age. Each age group finds its own. I can't think of another organization that offers that kind of universality across generations. Of course, few churches offer universality across other parameters. Whatever, I enjoy talking to Isaac. He is thoughtful and articulate.

I enjoyed Offspring more. It's a very well-written Soap Opera. The characters' annoying characteristics are undercut with some satisfying connection.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

I had a great night's sleep despite some troubling thoughts. On my morning walk, I called my friend Carol from Ohio. We met in 2004 in my first year teaching at Licking Heights High School. She never calls me but always receives me warmly. Not sure what that's about. I enjoy talking to her occasionally. She lives close to one of her daughters with three children. Carol is the family taxi service. She loves her involvement with her grandchildren. I'm sure they love having her involved.

My leg held up okay on a long walk. I completed close to 4,000 steps before breakfast. When I got back to the house, I walked onto the lanai and discovered a huge poop. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there when I had dinner last night. I sit within sight of that spot. She must have done it later. I think I have to take her out after she eats if she hasn't pooped on our before-dinner walk. Again, it is a massive poop, two to three times more than she ever does on our walks.

Dash was my first student for the day. He reported that again he was able to do the work the teacher gave him. She hadn't been requiring any work from him up to this point. I asked him if he had told his mom and dad. No. "You know how you've been worrying about yourself. Well, they have been worrying about you too. Tell them you can do the work." His mother had bought the clay I requested, six different colors. I had him form the word THE in the clay. He chose to create a rope and twist it to form the letters. This is an approach used by Ron Del Davis. He uses professional molding clay, the kind that can be fired. It's super hard to work with and smelly. Wrestling with it embeds the impression more deeply; it's still too much. I think the value of this exercise is embedding visual images more deeply in the sensory system. I find that students who have problems often feel like they're just skimming over the water.

Dash did really well on the reading. He asks to go through the supported decoding process more often than figure out the word independently. That's fine with me. We're practicing the process, hoping that eventually, it will become automatic. He names the vowel letters; I write them; then, with my guidance, for now, we tack on the consonants, starting with those that come after and the rest one at a time. At each stage, he pronounces the elements he has already written. The good news is that he more frequently identifies the vowel's sound, and he does much better on blending. Today was a very good day.

In my work with the sister M & W, I started, as I always do with M, who is repeating first grade. I have dropped Carpenter stories #1 & 2 from our work. She read stories 3 through 5 at a good clip. She completed the first read-through of story #6. Then we applied Phase I to the words in her story. This is slow going, but she is requesting it. That's great. She did confuse b/p. I don't know if the problem is visual or auditory. P and B have the same articulation; only one is voiced, and one is not.