Mike's death; Betty's life...: 03/10/26

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Friday, November 11, 2022

I had an acupuncture appointment today. I told her the difference the chiropractor made by working on my back. The acupuncturist started with a back massage. My back muscles are ropey. I didn’t talk much today. It’s harder to talk when I’m lying on my belly with my face jammed into a cradle.

I was supposed to have the M & W sisters this morning. Sixth grade W goes to a private school; they didn’t have Veteran’s Day off. Poor girl. Boohoo! I worked with second-grade M on story writing. She was reluctant. It was hard to get a coherent story out of her. When I asked her who her characters lived with, she told me the story was imaginary. Does she understand how you use her real-life experiences to create an imaginary story? I will have to review that.

I had a ten-minute session with adolescent D. We meet twice a week for half an hour; we work on phonic rules then. We meet three times a week for ten minutes; then, we work on phonemic awareness. I sound out the phonemes in a word, and he has to figure out what it is. Some students find this a piece of cake. When we started, D needed help blending /t/ and /oo/ to make the word to. He reversed the sounds. We are now working on two-syllable words. He runs into serious trouble when confronted with consonant blends, two or more consonants in a row. He can’t hear them. He also had problems hearing the difference between /f/, /s/, /th/, /ch, and /t/. When we started, he couldn’t even hear I was making a sound when I said them. Turning up the volume on his computer solved that problem. I thought the problem might be hearing the sounds over Zoom. Other students didn’t have the same problem.

Despite continuing problems hearing sounds clearly in two-syllable words, he has made considerable progress. His mom told me the other day he picked up a magazine lying in the car while driving and read it out loud. She was stunned. He was reading big words with ease. She was pleasantly surprised.

I continued working on washing sections of the library floor and dusting shelves. I washed the large window on the east side of the house.

A hard wind blew for most of the day, the type that slams doors and clears palm trees of dead fronds. There was no rain. It was cooler than it had been. The wind blew in the Hawaiian winter. That’s a few degrees cooler than it is during the summer. A few degrees make a big difference.

Thursday, November 10, 2022

I got up when my alarm went off at 5:30 for an early walk because of driveway yoga at 7 am. It was only Yvette, Scott, and me this morning. While I was better than last week, I still couldn't get down to the floor or back up alone. Will I ever be able to do that? Is this the impact of age on my body? The first time I recognized I had trouble bending that left leg, I was at thirty-two. I couldn't pull it through in a Salutation to the Sun series.

One of our old yoga buddies who moved to Seattle is struggling. She recently returned to the island to say goodbye to a close friend who was dying of cancer. Then she flew to California to be with her nineteen-year-old son, who started cancer treatments for a rare form of cancer affecting the heart. This was his second bout with the disease. His first was at ten. He was a make-a-wish child. Her life has been challenging. Despite all her hardships, she remains a warm, loving woman—prayers for her and her son.

I hired Canopy Care to trim my trees partially for their health but mainly to ensure my fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean three miles away and the western horizon with its spectacular sunsets. The crew was coming today after a few delays. I had expected them to come several months ago. Tree care is a booming business here, mainly to protect views. The company is a family operation, a seventy-year-old dad with two sons.

Dad hails from Cincinnati, where he met his first wife, an African-American woman. His son from that marriage was raised here with his dad after his parents split. That son works on clean-up and maintaining the machinery. The second son was born to a white woman; he does the tree climbing and trimming. The dad married a third time. They have a troubled adopted daughter. Dad's first wife married again to another African American. Three siblings share DNA: mixed, all-white, and all-black. How's that for a Rainbow family!! I see a wonderful, caring spirit among the family members. It's a delight to have them on the property.

I started cleaning the office to make it more comfortable for Christine. That's part of the reason. The real reason is I want to use the pressure of guests to motivate me to thoroughly clean my house. I started with the lanai screens, mostly 8x4 screwed-in, top and bottom panels. It takes about an hour to clean one set. The view and the breeze are slightly improved as a result. No one would notice. Mike did, bless his soul. In the office, I wanted to dust all the bookshelves and wash the floor. I came across some papers that I didn't need to hang on to. There was an extra copy of Mike's second Ph.D. manuscript. I have another hard copy, a bound copy, and a digital one. This reminds me that I need to see what Mike's colleague is doing about publishing his book. I plan to release it on Amazon if no book publisher picks it up.

Julia from Step Up Tutoring sent me an email. She posted my office hour for Monday. Maria must have given her the go-ahead. I argue for keeping both office hours, Saturday as well as Monday. I have no idea why Maria put the kibosh on that.

When I checked for the post announcing my office hour in Julia's weekly announcements, I couldn't find it. Julia said it was under the Office Hours tab, where everyone's office hours were listed. That would be fine if that had been the way they were posted in the past, but that wasn't the case. One person had signed up for Monday. I had already set up two medical appointments.

I called the chiropractor to cancel. She was able to move it to a later time.

I read the instructions for the new math program Step Up Tutoring was implementing. It's a scripted approach- no diagnosis needed; just follow the script. My task will be curtailed. Just tell people how to follow the script. No way. I ran into Anne Marie, who teaches 5th grade at the local elementary school. She still talks about loving teaching even though her role as a teacher has been limited. Many good teachers I know have quit because of the push to regulate. Regulation prevents teachers from adapting their teaching to student needs- or their own.

She was skeptical when I told Anne Marie that one of my students had gained seven or eight years of reading in a year and a half. Today, I remembered his mother telling me he started reading signs after several months of work. That is what beginning readers do. He had never done that. The other day, he read an article from a magazine to her. Would he pass a second-grade reading test? If he misread of, for, and from in a single selection, that would be the end of the testing. He still misses the basic sight words.

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

After finishing my morning activities, I was exhausted and needed a nap. I did not have that deep, satisfying sleep I so love. When Scott returned from a PT appointment, I was awake but unhappy about getting up. I forced myself to work cleaning another set of screens on the lanai.

The lanai is a five hundred square foot screened-in porch. There are eight sets of eight-by-four-foot on top and eight eight-by-three-foot sets on the bottom. I washed them in place with repeated water rinses from a two-gallon garden spray bottle while I rubbed the screens with a rag. I do this at least once a year. It is hard to see the difference.

The other day, I stopped in the middle of a screen. I had only washed half before I went off to do something else. The washed half dried, and I could see the difference between the two sides. A brown film covered the unwashed side; it made a huge difference.

At two pm, I had adolescent D. We worked on spelling. I used a piece he dictated using the Google speech-to-writing app. He sounded out the word and determined the most likely spelling. He sometimes uses a less likely spelling, such as when he used sh to spell the /s/ sound and later a /ch/ sound, as in the chair. I tried spell check on his spelling.

In most cases, the correct word came up, and he recognized it. He had a problem with the word our when he spelled it owr. Spell check did not offer the correct spelling. Given the phonetic accuracy of his spelling, the fault lay with the program, not D. He was impressed by how well he did.

Eighth-grade K was off early today. I met with him right after the session with D. I thought I was supposed to work on the Capstone project. His mother interrupted and said he had something due immediately. Time was wasted as his mother told me what he had to do. K had no idea, or he wasn't up to expressing what he did know. I scanned the teacher's email to K's mom. I got that he was supposed to do something with the characters and theme in A Raisin in the Sun. It was almost impossible to get information out of him. It is very frustrating when he goes into his "I'm not saying nothing" mode.

I spent time dealing with his emotional state. He has thoughts; he doesn't share them. We established he was scared. I did a visualization with him in a previous session. Today, I asked him to list the people who would stick by him if others laughed at him. He listed his family and friends. Then I asked if he had ever seen people laugh at someone. Did that person come back to school the next day? Yes. Did his friends abandon him? No. His friends laughed at him, and they all remained friends. This image had deep meaning for him. He said it made a big difference for him. In the remaining fifteen minutes, the words flowed. He gave some information about each character in A Raisin in the Sun. He expressed a theme without realizing it with each character's description. I helped him write the point.

I had Mama K's three kids immediately afterward. They were on the iPhone instead of one of the two tablets. They were both out of juice. K started. He wandered as we worked. The image was all over the place, making me dizzy. At one point, I snapped, "Where are you going?" "To the bathroom." Was he going to take me with him? He was trying to get one of his sisters on instead, but he didn't think to tell me what was going on.

I worked with Twin A. Yes, she had gotten on Starfall once during the week, but she hadn't used it to work on reading the way I asked her to. She picked a story on a reading level beyond her ability level. She read the words she could; I sounded out the others, and she had to figure out what the word was. I used the process I developed with adolescent D and her brother, fourth-grade K, to help with their auditory processing. Both have seen a big difference. K with his ability to understand what people are saying, and D with his reading. They don't see the printed word as I sound out the phonemes because they read well enough to figure it out from the print. Neither of the twins read well enough to do that. A read here as her twice in a very short story. Both of the girls have problems with word recognition. Phonics is their strong skill.

While we were working, Twin A walked down the street yelling after her mother. What??!! Mama K had told me they could work up to four pm. The family was on the move to someone else's house. The twins older sister, S, got on the phone. I told her I would work with Twin E on Friday when the kids were off school.

I started watching a documentary on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home. That man is weird; he's amazing but very weird.

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

I called Carol Zim, who will visit me for Thanksgiving with her husband and sister-in-law, to tell her the road to the active volcano is paved. It will be an easy walk. While the roadway is probably not lit, we will be part of a crowd heading out to view nature's fireworks. Others will be carrying flashlights. I must check where this road is. Judy went there with some folks and wound up on the wrong road. They never got to see the active volcano.

On that topic, we're having fun here. Mauna Loa is promising to blow any day. There have been as many as fifty earthquakes a day. I feel some of them, one or two a week. They're small. That activity predicts an eruption. We know it's due. It's been close to one hundred years since the last one. Our house is safe from the flow. We have Hualalai standing between Mauna Loa and us. Our mountain came up out of the hot spot before Mauna Loa. Both are considered active but with long periods between eruptions. Mauna Kea's last eruption was four thousand years ago. Hualalai's last eruption was 2,000 years ago. Scientists expect both of these to blow again, all in my lifetime. Oh, yay! Mauna Loa is the only one making noise at this point.

I went to post an update on my blog. Oh boy. When the nice lady from Apple cleared my history, she cleared my automatic access to the blog. When I tried to sign in, it didn't take me to the right spot. Today, I visited the blog site for Mike's Death; Betty's Life. I had no idea what had happened. I don't know if the first title was Mike's Death, Betty's Life, and then I decided to go with With Mike, Without Mike, or the other way around. An icon would come up; I always clicked on that without thinking about it. At some point, I realized the early entries were not on the site I currently had access to, With Mike; Without Mike. I had no idea what was going on and ignored the problem.

Today, I had access to Mike's Death; Betty's Life. The last entry was on September 21, 2019. There were all the early entries. This site had 43,000 hits. Huh? With Mike; Without Mike had close to 56,000. I made daily entries on this one. I added nothing to Mike's Death; Betty's Life, and it still had many hits. I am sure the numbers are due to teachers recommending the blogs. That's stopped now on both sites. The daily hits now are in the single digits, where they had been in the hundreds. Those teachers must have been teaching large classes.

I received an email telling me my annual payment was due for Mike's Death; Betty's Life, and nothing about the other site. Sandor set the blog up; hopefully, he can figure out what this is all about. I suspect the two blog sites are considered one. They should be. They can't automatically charge my account because my credit card number has changed. Sandor said he would come over and do what he could.

I arrived at noon for my chiropractic appointment. She told me she had expected me yesterday. I know I didn't make that appointment. I always have to save the Monday 11-12 for my Literacy Office Hour. The chiropractor had another client. That woman had wanted her husband to receive a treatment as well. When she heard my dilemma, she scheduled him for Saturday to allow me to have a session. I was there for an hour and a half.

Eighth grade K's mother canceled because he had just come from a conference with his advisor. He has to complete a Capstone project by the end of the year. He was overwhelmed. K never had to do high-level work before. He was in his first year of a high-end private, academically oriented school. He was in way over his head. His mother hadn't realized how far behind he was. His verbal expression skills were low.

I had a 10-minute session with adolescent D afterward. His blending skills continue to improve. I hear him work with sounds rather than desperately listening for a word that makes sense as we work with multi-syllable words.

I watched the end of George Clooney's film, Up in the Air. That ending was like a punch in the gut. He ends up alone after having the need for connection awakened. I was looking forward to a happy ending. Guess not!

Monday, November 7, 2022

I woke at 4:30 and fell back to sleep. I started the in-bed exercise routine at 5:30 when my alarm went off. I finished the exercises and got up at 7. Did it take an hour and a half to complete the exercises? Yes and no. I do savasana between each pose. Yoga teachers say that’s when the learning takes place. I fall asleep during those relaxing poses. I fall asleep so easily. It’s a lovely problem.

I fed Elsa before our walk because I got up so late. As I turned on to Holoholo, a loose dog approached us. Elsa went wild. The dog was wearing a collar; it wasn’t a stray. When I saw the dog was a female, I was concerned. Elsa is not friendly to female dogs. I tried to keep her back. The other dog ran when Elsa ran toward her barking but came back. I cautiously allowed Elsa to have contact with the dog. Then, both of them calmed down. Once they sniffed each other, the other dog lost all interest in Elsa and moved on. As I turned around, another loose dog barked her fool head off. I suspect someone left their gate open.

A yellow lab barks at us over the rock wall as we walk down the street. The other day, she whined as we passed her after barking for a while. Today, the gate to her house creaked open as we passed. I was concerned the dog would come running out. She came out but on a leash with her owners. I asked the dog’s gender, Female; better not take the risk. Then, a man walking two pale labs said, “Hello, Betty.” Oh, dear. Who was he? He looked like John, but his dogs were a darker color. I ran into the man again, walking a little dog as I walked up Ilau. Now, that was magic. I asked him his name. It was John. I explained why I was confused. He had to put down those two darker labs; I didn’t ask why. He walked the cockapoo separately because she couldn’t keep up with the two white ones. Not only were they larger, but they were also much younger. The smaller dog was sixteen now,

I also had an interesting contact with another person. He and his partner bought and cleaned up a neglected house and property. The difference was fantastic. The house and yard look meticulously kept except for one corner, awash in haole koas. I told him about the boiling water trick I used to kill them, which was nontoxic and effective. He had an ad for a law practice on the side of his car. I asked what kind of law he did. He explained his partner was a lawyer; he awarded scholarships to locals at the nearby branch of the University of Hawaii. I told him I did tutoring. I was on a tear to get more people to work with. I told him I had an amazing way of teaching reading. If he knows anyone who needs help, please get in touch with me. I called him, so he had my number. I was willing to work with people at way below my usual rate, even free.

The Step Up Tutoring program changes have brought me to a peaceful state of resignation. No school is going to accept my approach to teaching. The schools, and now a volunteer tutoring program, adopted scripted programs that teachers had to follow verbatim. Good teachers are leaving the profession in droves. There is no way to make adaptations to the needs of the students.

I prepared for three tutoring sessions before going to my 2 p.m. doctor’s appointment to get my Botox injections. I checked in and waited and waited. The last time I had an appointment with specialty services, the doctor wasn’t informed that I had checked in. Was this a similar situation? I got a nurse to say she would check for me, but she never returned to tell me what was happening. Around 2:30, a nurse finally called my name. I was pissed. I never had to wait that long at Kaiser. It would have been better if I had known the doctor was running late. Although not quite okay since I had a tutoring session at 3. The doctor apologized. Since he had returned from a month-long trip, this was his first day at the Kona office. I asked where he went- to Indonesia.

His flight back to the States was canceled at the last minute. They could catch another flight in a few days. No, no, no!! He couldn’t wait that long. He bought another ticket on another airline and took a much longer route home.

The doctor is a plastic surgeon. I get Botox injections once every six months to lift my brows. They droop so far that they create problems with my vision. The treatment is covered by insurance. I don’t know how much of a difference they make to my appearance.

I worked on spelling with adolescent D. His reading had improved enough that it was time to make this shift. I didn’t abandon his reading. Working on spelling will reinforce all he learned about decoding words. He must use the knowledge he gained in our reading sessions to do the spelling. I have him sound out the words and tell him to use the most likely spelling if he doesn’t know what it is supposed to be. For example, K is a likely spelling for cat. The k is guaranteed to represent the /k/ sound. Spell check might catch the error. If not, the reader can figure out the word anyway. D did surprisingly well.

I called Apple support to find out how to change my password on my Key Chain. I received notification that some of my passwords were comprised; the key chain was one of them. When I tried to change it, I couldn’t. The Apple support lady was wonderful. She asked if I had Opera on my computer. Yeah??? She said it was whatever they call it when referring to fake sites used to phish. She kept saying never to respond to a pop-up. I thought I didn’t, but I realized afterward I didn’t think of that warning as a pop-up. I learned something new. The lady helped me delete Opera from my computer and cleared my history. It sounded good. I was grateful for her help and told her so. I think she thought the order of my gratitude was weird. I felt so helpless; the lady treated me with gentleness and respect. I appreciated the way she spoke to me.

Sunday, November 6, 2022

I noticed some numbness on the bottom of my left foot last night. It suggests I will have the same problem with that foot as with my right one- hammer toes. The ones that curl under aren't too much of a problem. It's when the second toe starts crawling over the first that the fun begins. That can be crippling. It was for my grandmother. The podiatrist told me it's inherited. My grandmother's hammer toe was triggered when she was a young adult. I managed to put off mine until eighty-one. The doctor told me to wear either Crocs or Oofos because of their soft soles. He didn't mention closed shoes or arch supports. I don't know if those shoes wouldn't make much difference or because recommending closed shoes to someone living in Hawaii is like spitting into the wind.

I thought I saw Lina, a woman I knew through the church who was there for me when Mike went into the ICU. I barely knew her at the time. When they took Mike away to the ICU for the first time, I called John Coughlin, the head of the diaconate training program with which

Mike was involved. I felt a good connection, although I had only known him briefly. I said, "They just took Mike to the ICU. I can't be alone." He said he would be there as soon as possible. The next thing I knew, there was a woman by my side who I didn't recognize. It was Lina. She lived close to the hospital and was at home. John called her. She was by my side in a shot. I couldn't fully appreciate it at the time. I was treading water, drowning while still breathing easily. Lina didn't leave my side until John and his wife Kathy arrived. John and Kathy stayed until Damon, Mike's son, and his ex-wife, Damon's mother, arrived.

I knocked on the glass door separating me from the woman I thought was Lina because she was inside the church and I was on the outside lanai. I signaled to the woman and asked if she was Lina. She nodded yes. I expressed gratitude for what she had done for me.

I stopped at Target after church to check their stash of Hershey's milk chocolate nuggets with whole almonds. They had replenished it. Yay! I picked up another four 10 oz. packages. I also bought another bottle of Nature's Miracle to clean stains on my lanai carpet and a bottle of Mayonnaise. I discovered I was almost out when I made a tuna fish salad the other day.

Yvette came out to greet me as I came home from church. She returned from a weeklong trip to Portland, Oregon, for her father's eightieth birthday. Her whole family lives there now, and her uncle Warren came from California to join the party. I got news about all the siblings. Her dad wasn't doing that well. He sounds tired of dragging his body around. Oh, well.

I had the M & W sisters later in the afternoon. I worked on the Question game" with second-grade M, as requested. I had difficulty because the language was awkward, and I didn't know how to ask clarifying questions.

Sixth-grade W and I talked a bit about the end of The Westing Game. Then we talked about the upcoming book, Out of the Dust. I asked her if she knew what blank verse was. Yes, her teacher had already talked about it. I asked her how much homework she had. Basically, none. They are not even allowed to take their books home from school. They're supposed to do everything in class. They do write answers to questions. The teacher corrects their work for grammatical errors. I'm just grateful I have Grammarly. I am astounded by how many errors I make and miss on the first edit.

Josh came up and went over their will. Their first will Josh made using a form from the Internet. For this one, they consulted an estate lawyer. I have been looking for a way to protect my right to residence should they die before me. They did an amazing job. I couldn't have asked for more.

As I expected, when they told the lawyer they wanted to build protection for me into their will, she asked who I was. It sounded like I was a little old lady who had been nice to Yvette in a time of need. She was naturally skeptical. The kids explained that Mike and I bought this house with them, and they had a moral obligation to me.

Saturday, November 5, 2022

I ran into Juli and Vince on my morning walk. I've turned into a good listener in my old age. Juli loves to talk. She started sharing her irritation over the misuse of subject versus object pronouns. Using a subject pronoun after the preposition of drives her crazy. I feel some irritation when the subject pronoun is misused, less to none when the object pronoun is misused. 'It's me" sounds correct; I would find "It is I," irritating. But I love the "me and my ….." construction. It just rolls off the tongue. I believe in the reality of language change. It is always in the process of changing.

She also told this horrendous story about an adoptive father who kidnapped and dumped his kids in another state when he left their mother because he didn't want to pay child support. Real evil. The boy was found immediately. The girl was found seven years later. She was brought into a hospital with a broken arm. X-rays showed repeated breaks. The authorities took her from her "parents,' people who were abusing her. Someone figured out who she was and returned her to her adoptive mother. The story was important to Juli because the girl was very smart. She learned multiple languages. All I wanted to know was what happened to that father. Was he found? Did he go to jail? Those topics weren't interesting to her. The story left me feeling depressed. That's the impact of evidence of pure evil.

I was exhausted by 9:30 and took a nap. I hadn't slept well. I am very distressed by the political and social environment. No matter who wins, we're on the verge of violence. Can it be averted? If it were just in this country, I'd be more optimistic. But it's not. Then there's the rise of anti-Semitism. My family went through this in Germany. That's why they came here. Almost everyone made it out. Just three people remained behind, by their own choice. The parents died in Auschwitz, and their daughter survived Theresienstadt. Given the worldwide mood, a repeat of a program of Jewish genocide is a possibility. Even if that specific atrocity doesn't happen, the threat of violence looms as gun-toting people prepare to kill those who disagree with them. Some people are not gun-toting but contribute to the polarity, feeding into the dangerous atmosphere.

Scott did a laundry and found the drier didn't work. The Sears repairman was here on Tuesday. It worked before he was here; he must have done something wrong. Fortunately, Scott is knowledgeable. He pulled the top off the drier and discovered a disconnected wire. Connecting it was simple. Unfortunately, he dropped a screw into the drier case. Retrieving it was the biggest problem. He fished it out and got the drier up and running again.

I was hot and sticky today. I had been that way for several days. I often wear a sweatshirt all day; today, I got out of my T-shirt and put on a tank top. This is weird. Our hottest months have always been August, September, and October. The heat and humidity break around Yvette's birthday, October 10. This year, those months were cooler than it has been in November. I put on the ceiling fans in the evening while watching the Spanish version of If Only on Netflix. So far, It had been fun to watch, but it was taking a dark turn.

Friday, November 4, 2022

I was exhausted by 9 a.m. after posting my public blog, after completing the NY Times Wordle, the Mini puzzle, and continuing working on one of the regular crossword puzzles. I couldn't finish it. I needed a nap. I slept for two hours. This is after going to bed at ten and getting a wonderful night's sleep. I wondered why I was so tired.

I had nightmares about the state of the world again this morning as I dozed. I know I'm scared to death about our election next week. I doubt there can be a good result. News about the ever-increasing rise of white supremacists is scary. I thought this morning of telling all family members they could find refuge here in Hawaii. Everyone would make a full house, but it would be better than being killed or sent to a concentration camp. I am not optimistic. If these are the thoughts plaguing me, no wonder I'm exhausted.

Second grade L's mother got her daughter's father to pick up the session and pay for it. Instead of considering it an additional session, she canceled the one on her time and dime. Her daughter has a terrible time with reading, both decoding and memory. I am applying the phonemic awareness exercise I developed with Adolescent D to all my students. I read recently that poor memory problems may be related to poor phonemic awareness.

Adolescent D did fantastic work today. He held on to all the sounds in lobster and blended them. He paid attention to sounds versus meaning. Reminder: most syllables in multi-syllable words are nonsense. We have to figure out each syllable and then blend them. So far, adolescent D's movement has been in the right direction. It is gratifying.

I called Jean, my Hanai sister. It sounded like the phone was answered and hung up. I called again, unsure. The phone was picked up and hung up again. She was either napping or in a family conference. I would call her back later.

Damon called. What did we talk about? Everything. I told him about my five tooth extractions and my thoughts about the Zims visit. He has known them as long as I have. I talked about my new wave of grief as I confronted another layer of Mike's absence.

I also told him I was jealous of his frequent conversations with his mother. He doesn't call me as often. I understand why it is that way on any number of counts: she is his birth mom; she is the one he lived with and spent most of his time with; his mom calls him (I don't because I know he's busy.); she is in much poorer health than I am; and while her husband is alive, he also has some serious health risks. My life is fuller; I have someone, Yvette, watching over me. If anything goes wrong, she will call him immediately. Jean also has a lower tolerance for conversation. She announces she has to nap and has paperwork to do and says goodbye. Damon asked if she also cut me off, announcing she had to nap. I laughed; yes, she did it to me, too. However, we have real satisfying conversations. Jean is not the best at that. Jean and I love each other deeply. Yes, she is Mike's first wife. I am lucky to have her in my life.

I continued with the thorough cleaning of the lanai. I washed another set of screens and removed some of the carpet stains. Cleaning just one of the screen sections takes at least an hour.

I made a tuna salad with onions, celery, and mayonnaise. I had a can of tuna sitting on the counter in preparation for several weeks. The onion I bought a while ago was in good shape because I keep it in a brown paper bag in the vegetable bin in the frig. I kept the celery there, too. It had been there for a while. Unbelievably, while it was pale in color, it wasn't limp.

Adolescent D showed me a passage he wrote by dictating it into Google's speech-to-writing program. His sentences were punctuation-free, but some phrases were complex and interesting. I wondered if those were his words or if he had copied them from someone else. If they were his, this kid has much more going on than we know.

I watched a bit of The Sinner. I thought I had watched it before and was repelled. I never saw Bill Pullman in the other show. When I read summaries of the series, I noticed I started with season two, starring Matt Borner. He played a very sick man. Yikes! Disgustingly evil. Way out of my comfort zone. The season I was watching now wasn't as dark, but it was hardly a spot of joy either. I was done with edgy. Life was edgy enough.

Thursday, November 3, 2022

I finally got up at 7:30. I felt so relaxed and peaceful that I could have stayed in bed all day. Why I felt this way after having nightmares about the world situation is beyond me. The upcoming election prospects are frightening, regardless of who wins. Then I threw in images of a world that could no longer sustain life, particularly humans. We have done everything to destroy our world, our wonderful, beautiful planet. Apparently, our original sin was agriculture, particularly the invention of the plow. Also, it was agriculture that made us individual possessors of land, another source of more corruption. No, I do not think eliminating all forms of ownership would not solve the problem as Marx did. To quote my mother, "That was a stupid idea," only she said it in German, usually about something I proposed.

Once finished with my morning chores, feeding Elsa, my morning walk, posting last year's update on the public blog, and starting the NY Times daily Wordle, Mini, and regular puzzles, I desperately needed a nap.

I had an appointment with Shelly after a five-week hiatus while she toured Europe with some friends. I had half an hour before our 10 a.m. appointment. I needed to get some sleep before the session, or I wouldn't be able to function. After the session, I was just as tired, even though it was mostly a catchup.

Today, I couldn't listen to the radio and write at the same time. Usually, I don't have a problem. This was new. My processing speed wasn't as good. Was it because I was getting old, or had the two rounds of anesthesia impacted my brain function? Lutz said there was as much as a ten-point drop in IQ with the old anesthesia. Propenal is supposed to be better, but I see a difference. I hope I can recover my wits.

I tried to reach my friend Jean in Arizona. She said they had just put her sister on life support and were moving her to hospice. Her sister is disabled. She lived with her mother until her mother died. Then, she was moved into this wonderful care facility. She was never happier. Then this happened. Jean was dealing with it alone. She had two other sisters. One was in a different city and couldn't get there immediately; the other wasn't responsive in such situations. Jean was on her own.

Eight-grade K's mother called to ask if we could cancel for the day. He had had a Capstone conference about his eighth-grade end-year project before graduating from middle school. He was overwhelmed. He needed to have better planning strategies. We will have to break down his project into bite-sized pieces so he can cope. He wants to make a video about hunting, an instructional video. He plans to include interviews. Speaking to strangers will be a challenge for this boy. He is good at visualizing. We need to build on that. The teacher already proposed a storyboard.

Somehow, I wound up having a session with K. He was at his grandma's on a phone rather than a computer, and the reception was terrible. His voice warbled. He said he spoke more during a class discussion. That would be great news. I called his mom and asked her to ask his teachers if they saw a difference in his participation at the end of the week. She didn't see a difference in his conversational involvement at home. He also said he was never inhibited when talking to family and friends.

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

I've tried to explain the impact of widowhood. I'm not part of anything. I have no fixed place. I have friends, I have work, and I have family. But none of that makes up for losing Mike and the unit we created together. It's hard to explain the difference. It's obvious at one level. As Maggie Smith said, "You're not #1 for anyone." When the music stops, you no longer have someone's hand to hold.

When your partner is there, you have someone who, if it means dying now, wants to do it with you. No, it's more than that. It's having a secure place in the world. While my home life as a child was difficult, my place was secure. We had assigned seats at the dining room table. The table was pushed up against the wall. My dad sat at one end, my mom at the other. Dorothy sat in the chair closest to my mom; I sat in the one closest to my dad. We had our places. We were secure. Mike gave me that security.

When Mike's three-year-old, Damon, started to visit with Mike in our home in the commune, I insisted we set up a bed for him that stayed put whether he was there or not. He had a 'place' in our lives. It was always there. He was a fixed element of our lives.

While the physical place is essential, it has to be backed by a psychological something or another. Mike and I made a family with Mike's first wife and her husband. There are people I am closer to genetically with whom I do not share that bond. They may not do it with anyone. They always float apart. Mike and I shared the need for family connections. We gave it to each other and built it with whomever we could.

Not only have I lost my life partner, but I have no partners in other ways. I could have a business partner with whom I planned; we'd work together to build something. There's nothing like that in my life.

My gums bothered me a bit more after the extractions. Chewing irritated them. I found the calendula rinse Shivani recommended for canker sores worked well for this problem. I put some water in my mouth and then a few drops of calendula oil from a dropper, hold it in my mouth for thirty seconds, and everything feels better. I wonder if it speeds up the healing process.

It's been over a week since I sawed down the twenty-foot haole koa tree and started pouring a tea kettle of boiling water over it—still no new growth. I stopped treating the two-foot trees with boiling water a while ago, and still no trace of new growth. If I have found a non-toxic way to kill haole koa, I deserve a Nobel prize.

I met with a new employee of Step Up Tutoring. She is an academic coordinator. She said she was interested in meeting with me to find out what I did and what suggestions I had to offer. She sounded like she was sincere. I don't think so. She was the one who canceled all the tutor support services. She wants to enforce a system she is introducing or being forced to introduce. She may not be comfortable with her assignment either. The contribution she wanted from me was information on what kind of help tutors were asking for, phonics or comprehension so that she could provide more activities. She had no interest in my input. I consider those categories too broad. Some can say phonics and some tutor is forced to work on a basic phonics program that's inappropriate for that student. I'm sure she is going to push me out. Too bad.

While I was in the Zoom meeting with the academic coordinator, Elsa jumped up on me. It took me a minute to figure out what was upsetting her. My neighbor was using a nail gun to secure tar paper on his roof. While I had a grip on her, I checked her belly for lesions. I carried her to my ole-lady chair. We sat together for half an hour enjoying each other's company before I applied the salve to her boo-boos. She got off me as quickly as she could after that.

I had a half-hour session with Dash today. I started asking him how his reading was going. He said he read a whole passage without assistance. I told him to tell his mom when he got off the phone. He does not appreciate how much they worry about him and how much news like that means to them.

Tuesday, November 1, 2022`

Patrick, Darby's husband, called in the morning to say her piano tuning gig was canceled, and they were available. Wow! Such lovely people surrounded me.

Today would have been my mom's one-hundredth birthday. It was hard to understand that she had been gone for twenty years. She was still so vivid for me. She was a difficult personality but so alive, even at the end.

I was up by 7 am. I called my friend Carol, who will visit over Thanksgiving with her husband and sister-in-law, to discuss food and plans to visit the volcano. She made overnight reservations. I would join them on this outing. I'm not someone who enjoys touring and sightseeing, but I have fond memories of visits to that area. I was there with Jean and John once and with Carol and John at another time. Mike and I loved the Thai restaurant there. The plan is to walk to the active volcano at night. It's a mile-long walk in the dark along a path called Desolation Rd. Doesn't sound good, does it?

Carol and John have a Havanese like Elsa. We got Elsa because of their dog, Zoe. Now, Zoe is producing lesions the way Elsa is. Carol washes her dog every other day like a good dog mommy. Not like me.

My friend Melissa called. We had a long talk about Buddhism. We talked briefly about one of my favorite authors on the subject, Steven Batchelor. John recommended the first book of Batchelor's I read, Buddhism without Belief. In a later book, the author says he found evidence in the original texts that Buddha never intended to establish a religion; he wanted a social revolution. Buddha, like Christ, worked to establish a new world order to create a peaceful world. Good luck! Well, it was worth a try. The religious aspects of Buddhism were added. People associated ethical principles with religion and had problems relating to them outside that context.

I was supposed to meet with second-grade L on Tuesday when she was with her father. He had taken over the literacy aspect of her homeschooling. L's mom felt he should give time for me to work with L, too. Her father canceled at the last minute. He had forgotten her laptop. I was too tired to argue. She could have used her father's phone or computer.

I had an appointment with the chiropractor at noon. When I arrived, she was finishing off with another client. That took about half an hour. Then she worked on me for an hour and a half. I could hardly complain about her generosity to another client when I was also a beneficiary. I was there for two hours.

Scott texted me to say he caught Elsa standing on my ole-lady chair eating my vitamins from a bowl on the end table. How long has this been going on? We saw her sitting at the dining room table, looking for something on the table the other day. Could it have been my vitamins? Scott checked to see which vitamins were dangerous for dogs, and we both kept an eye on her. She was fine except for throwing up her dinner and breakfast the following day,

I had eighth-grade K later in the day. Today was his fourteenth birthday. I thought he was in ninth grade, but no, he was in eighth. I sang the version of Happy Birthday Mike and I developed together to compensate for his inability to sing. It's a lot of caterwauling, but it's fun and makes others laugh.

K's teachers were complaining he didn't participate in classroom discussions. In my experience, he is quick to say, "I don't know," about any question you ask. I asked him if he was afraid to speak. He said no. Do you have thoughts in your head and decide not to share, or is your mind blank? He has thoughts. I explained his decision not to speak was driven by fear. He doesn't see it that way because he quiets the fear by keeping his mouth shut and avoiding being wrong. As I remember it, he saw my point. Either way, he agreed to a visualization exercise I use to quell social fears.

I ask the student to picture 'a little them' in the middle of their heads just under the fontanel, the soft spot. Once I am sure the students know no one would kill them for being wrong (if that is not clear to the conscious mind, this exercise will not work.), I have 'the little them' turn around and face the back of their head. 'The little them' has to announce to every cell in the back of their brain that no one will kill them if they say something wrong. This is a very primitive fear that exists in all of us. If the student feels greater relaxation, the exercise is working. Most people who do it are surprised by the effect. We don't walk around aware of the low, persistent fear we live with daily.

I had a ten-minute session with adolescent D after that. D had problems blending the sounds of two individual phonemes. I checked with other students. They didn't have the same problem, even over Zoom. They could hear the sounds, identify them, and blend them correctly. D couldn't even hear that I made a sound. I was concerned he had a hearing problem. I told his mom what I was seeing. Then it occurred to me that the problem could be with his computer. I checked if he could hear the sounds over the phone. He could. It must be something with the computer. I asked him to raise the volume. That took care of the problem.

I started using two-syllable words for the blending exercise. Where D had mastered blending five and six-phoneme words, he couldn't blend three phonemes when working on two-syllable words. Huh? Oh. He couldn't bear to blend sounds that didn't produce a meaningful word. His mind balked. He twisted the sounds to something familiar. Most syllables that are part of multi-syllable words are nonsense. Some teachers argue that it makes no sense to teach nonsense words. The reader has to learn to blend the individual syllables, retain them in working memory, and then blend them. D had to learn to overcome his discomfort with nonsense syllables.

Monday, October 31, 2022

I was up at 4 a.m. I did my in-bed exercises. I set my alarm for 5 a.m. because I had to drive B. to Waimea this morning for his rotator cuff surgery. I got out of bed shortly before 5, tried to turn off the alarm, and discovered the phone was locked. I figured I'd take care of it on the drive up, but then my phone rang. It was B. I hoped the phone would work for incoming calls; it didn't. B. called again while I was walking Elsa. B. had to be worried about what was going on with me. Was I still in bed? Would I get up in time to drive him? When I got home, I finally dealt with the phone. I knew what to do to reset it. I had tried it once already without success. I took the cover off this time before going through the button routine. I have an iPhone 12; first, I have to press the up-volume button, then the down-volume one, and then the on/off button. Without the interference of the cover, it worked quickly and easily. I called B. to assure him I was up and ready.

We had to be there by 6:40. I thought we would leave around 5:45 to be sure we got there. We left at 5:30. I think B was anxious. His first scheduled surgery for the shoulder was canceled because he got pneumonia. He didn't want to miss this one.

B drove. I rode shotgun with Elsa. She hyperventilated the whole way. I perched her on my shoulders; she made an excellent headrest. It took her a while to settle. She lay down on my shoulders, but she never stopped panting.

The drive up to Waimea offers fantastic views. We saw dawn come up over Mauna Kea. It was worth getting up that early.

When we arrived, I took Elsa for a walk in the parking lot. When I came back to the car, B signaled me frantically. He had thought the surgery would be at the specialty clinic. When it wasn't open by 6:30, he figured he had to be at the hospital. Fortunately, the hospital was within view. B pulled up to the entrance. He got out; I took care of the car. I told him I would wait until I heard from him to know he was okay. Elsa was calm on the drive home. Apparently, she was disturbed I wasn't the driver.

When I got home, I got a call from a nurse at the hospital. B had named me the person who would care for him when he got home. He would be recovering from the anesthesia and had a sensory block on his shoulder. I had to watch he didn't walk into doorways and bang his arm. I told the nurse to tell B that I would call the police if he didn't cooperate with me. If he named me as his caretaker, his caretaker I would be. The nurse told B what I said and added, "She was only kidding." B said, "No, she wasn't."

I called Netta, the friend who was picking him up, to tell her to make sure he came to my house instead of his. He underwent surgery around 9 and was released from the hospital at 11. Holy moly!! No wonder he needed someone to watch him.

The nurse told me the best situation was for him to sit in a recliner. I had Mike's old one sitting on the lanai. Scott helped me move it into my bedroom. B. would have privacy there and easy access to my bathroom. The doorway is extra wide to be wheelchair accessible. Mike and I designed the bathroom to accommodate our end-of-life needs. Scott noticed that with the tile floor, the chair might slide as B got in and out of it. He put a large, heavy object behind it, and we put rubber pads from the kitchen under the front feet. B. likes it cool. Driving up, he set the temperature on his side at the lowest possible number. Scott and I set up two fans to keep him cool.

B was reasonably cooperative. He had to go down to his quarters to get his medication. I walked him down and carried the bag with his provisions on the way up. B. spent most of the day sleeping. I let him go home to be on his own toward the end of the day. This was his third rotator cuff surgery. He knew the drill. He was stable when he walked. I walked him down, carrying his things so he could concentrate on navigating.

I had an appointment with adolescent D. at two p.m. He did a good job blending four sounds.

M & W's mom called as I signed into Zoom to tell me they were caught in Halloween traffic. Could they cancel for the day? Of course.

I had the Sears serviceman coming tomorrow, and I booked a chiropractic appointment at the same time. Scott had a PT appointment at the same time. There must be an adult in the house when the serviceman is here. B probably wouldn't be able to do it. He would be recovering from his surgery and couldn't come up. The block would have worn off, and he would be in pain. I called my friend Darby, who lives down the street. She had a piano tuning appointment (She is the tuner.) She said she could adjust if necessary.

B came up before dark because I told him he had a package from his stepmother. I didn't expect him to come up immediately. It was clear he could come up to greet the Sears serviceman the next day. I called Darby to tell her I didn't need her; B could do it. I am so grateful for all the wonderful, generous people in my life.

I finished watching Raymond and Ray. It was wonderful.

Sunday, October 30, 2022

Yvette stopped by to say goodbye before she left this morning for a week in Portland, Oregon, for her father's eightieth birthday. She would stay one night with each sister, one night with her brother and his girlfriend, and a few nights with her dad and his wife.

I went to church this morning. I felt well enough and didn't want to break the habit of regular attendance. It's partially for Mike's sake and partly because it gets me out of the house. The ritual is comforting, and I see people I know casually and have several short conversations.

I felt off-kilter during the service. I remained seated for a good part of the ceremony. I was fine by the end. I stopped at Target to pick up some Hershey Milk Chocolate with whole almonds.

I was supposed to have the M & W sisters at 2 p.m. They didn't sign in. I called both their mom and dad; and neither answered. Dad called me back to say the girls were at a polo match. Could we meet at 4:30? Sure.

I had second grade M first. We continued with the Question Game. Her participation is always good, and her skill level continues to improve. I would love to get feedback from the teacher.

After half an hour, M called sixth-grade W to come to the Zoom meeting. I heard W say something in an irritated tone. Her mother had told her to get into the session in an annoyed, critical tone.

W was distracted during the whole session. She frequently draws while we work, but her participation is fine. Sketching is like breathing for her, and it comforts her. Today was different. I asked her several times not to draw while we worked. She apologized.

I realized afterward that W was distracted by her negative interaction with her mom. I wouldn't think much of it, except her dad and sister said mom's behavior is problematic. Dad told me that mom yells at the kids all the time. He said she was raised that way. I can't imagine she thought it was a pleasurable childhood that she would want to pass on to her kids. She may believe it made her a better person, as my mother thought she benefited from her parents' constant criticism.

Besides the dad's comment about the mom's overly critical behavior, M said her mother was known as a crazy person in the family. It sounds like she is very reactive. W talks back. Her mother criticizes her attitude and frequently banishes her to the garage. The banishment is not as bad as it sounds. There is a van with a bed in it. Sometimes, M chooses to join her. While the banishment may not be damaging, the constant need to defend herself is. She is a bright firstborn as I was. She is affected by the interaction. When dealing with a difficult parent, there is no way to escape paying a price.

I bathed Elsa. Her skin was a problem. I could feel her belly was badly infected.

I watched the Netflix movie Raymond and Ray. I only have high praise for this film. It was wonderful in every regard.

Saturday, October 29, 2022

It was another day for recovery. I finally got started working on the legal document I had to retype. I had to retype it originally because of changes I wanted to make. I did that a while ago. Then, I ran into a formatting problem that stymied me. The margins on pages one through three were one-way. Then, they changed on pages four through six. I tried everything I knew to fix the problem. I copied and pasted the whole document to see if the bug affected the original document. Nope. I tried copying and pasting the last three pages and modifying it. Nope. I finally retyped pages four through six in a separate document. That looked like it worked.

I did some housecleaning and read a lot of Katherine Newcomer’s book, Tatiana and the Hidden Land Discovery, a science fiction fantasy story. It is not the type of story I would typically like, but I loved it. Newcomer’s writing is wonderful. Her images are vivid and keep me in the action. I couldn’t put the book down.

I got a lot of sleep today. The after-effect of the extractions finally caught up to me.

Friday, October 28, 2022

I canceled everything for today, figuring I would need time to recover from the five extractions I had yesterday—nothing of the sort. I felt just fine. Elsa had an appointment with Petco for a grooming. I had asked Scott if he could take her down. I felt good enough to go myself. It would be less stressful for Elsa if I took her than if Scott did.

Our appointment at Petco was at 9 a.m. We got there early. The store didn't open until 9. We walked up and down the strip mall sidewalk so I could get my steps in. Good thing. Elsa had an attack of diarrhea. I could pick up some of it, but some was just liquid with a little bit. When we headed back toward the store, Elsa tried to pull me back to the car. No, this was not one of her favorite activities.

When I dropped her off, I asked for something to wipe up the poop on the sidewalk. The groomer gave me a clean cloth. I asked for a paper towel. She said this is what they used to clean up messes in the store. Okay. It worked.

I stopped at Target to pick up a microphone I could plug into my computer. I wanted to see if adolescent D had trouble hearing any sound when I made the /s/ sound with this improvement to the sound system. I had tried making the sounds with other students, and they had no problems. Not only could they identify the word, but they also identified the individual speech sounds.

When I picked Elsa up a few hours later, she was delighted to see me. She leaped into my arms and wrapped herself around my neck.

On my Hanai sister Jean's advice, I started watching In the Dark on Netflix. I liked it. I like the main character, Murphy, a tough, blind lady, was fun to watch. I like a touch of snarky. I'm not comfortable with those movies where every character is a wise guy.

Saturday, October 29, 2022

Thursday, October 27, 2022

It would have been Mike’s eighty-second birthday. Oh, well. I scheduled myself to have five teeth extracted today. I worried about it. Losing any teeth is sad. Losing five is downright freaky. What will I look like? How will I speak? Will I cancel my tutoring class until I get my fake ones installed? I slept well despite those concerns. I got up early because I wanted to get a lot of steps in before Yvette’s driveway yoga class.

Another concern was a possible break in my daily step count. I had completed ninety-six consecutive days toward my goal of three hundred sixty days straight. I got up to three hundred thirty-seven days in a row before a problem with my foot stopped me from walking regularly. I was twenty-three days short of my goal. It was heartbreaking.

I got four thousand steps in before I went home to feed Elsa and prepare for class. Scott was driving me to the dentist. We could leave at eight, once the class was over, and make it in time for my eight-twenty appointment. I changed my mind and told Scott that I preferred to leave early.

It had occurred to me they wanted me there early to take the antibiotics I needed to take before any dental procedure because of my recent hip replacement. I called the surgeon’s office promptly when they opened at seven-thirty. No, they would not give me the antibiotic when I arrived and have me sit for an hour. I would go right into surgery prep at eight-twenty. The doctor would administer the antibiotics intravenously. My primary care physician told me I had to take the meds an hour before the procedure. I chose to take the prescribed pills immediately.

Scott and I arrived early, and we had to wait. The nurse ushered me into a surgical suite. I got on the gurney. No, I couldn’t wear my hooded sweatshirt; they needed access to my arms. One nurse put the intravenous drip into my left arm; another put the blood pressure cuff on my right. Then, one put electronic sensors on my chest to monitor my heart. On the doctor’s advice, I chose complete anesthesia. I had done one extraction a few years ago with only Novocain. I asked the doctor what he would do given he would extract five teeth. He said, “Total anesthesia.” That’s what I went with.

The doctor had told me it would take about an hour. I didn’t ask how long it had been when I regained consciousness. A nurse told Scott I was ready and that he should pull the car around the back of the building. They ushered me out the back door. I got a glance at myself. I had two blood-soaked gauze pads sticking out on either side of my mouth to staunch the flow. The pads forced my mouth open in a ghoulish grin, exposing my crooked, discolored bottom teeth. I was a sight.

It only occurred to me afterward why they ushered me out the back door. Can you imagine the response of patients waiting in the reception area? They would have run for the hills.

I had to pick up an antibiotic. Scott drove to the Kaiser clinic. I gave him my Kaiser card and driver’s license. He went in to get the meds while I sat in the car. I expected to sleep for the rest of the day. However, the post-operative directions were not to sleep. I was supposed to sit and walk. I did take a nap. The instructions said I was allowed to if I was tired. I was.

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

I changed my walk because of something I learned in Yvette’s yoga class. She had us put some padding in the crease between the buttocks and the top of the leg while lying down on our backs. She had us straighten our legs while pushing the padding down. It made me aware of muscles I hadn’t considered before. I understood using my glutes when I walked but not using the area at the top of my thigh.

I joined Juli as she walked this morning. One of her embossing machines was down. She had to subcontract the work to someone who didn’t have the same type of machine she did. Hers pins down the item to be embossed by creating a vacuum. The man she gave the work to a man who had to hold down the item with his strength. He can’t do the embossing of the whole image at once. He has to do a small bit at a time. From what she said, he screwed up the job. I had completed 3,000 steps when I got home from my morning walk.

My eyes bothered me as I got the public blog post ready. After I finished it, I was exhausted. I went out and got another thousand steps in before taking a nap. I slept for a good two hours.

The other day, I observed that my left eye had wandered. Ah, that would make images blurry. I told Sandor. He said he would see what he could do about it. The eye exercises Scott gave me helped. I used them for a while. Once my vision was better, I stopped doing them. It is only a few minutes a day. I will have to do them regularly.

I have so many activities that are ‘only a few minutes a day.” They add up. There are my in-bed exercises in the morning before I get up, spending 10 minutes on the vibrating platform, I have two apps I want to do to keep my mind active, Brain HQ and learning German on Lingopie, Wordle, and the NY Times mini-crossword puzzle for the day and at least some of the regular one. Add to that meditating an hour a day. Retirement is a terrible challenge. I got more done when I worked full-time.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

I slept last night, but it was not that deep, satisfying sleep that makes going to bed a joy. I had been under unusual stress; my hair was falling out. I didn't have a handful every time I touched my hair as my new friend Jackie did. Her hair started falling out after she had Covid. I only find strands on my keyboard. The THR surgery would be one source of stress. The upcoming tooth extractions worried me because I would have to walk around without replacement teeth for two to three months before my gums settled and I could be measured for the new teeth. This would impact my tutoring. I might not be able to speak clearly, and I would be unsightly. Being without that stimulation for several months, either because I couldn't speak clearly or because I'd be unsightly, is scary. I need the activity, the contact with other human beings, and the challenges of teaching, which I love. The extractions were on the same day as Mike's birthday. I miss him more every day, not less. Just being with him relieved built-up stress. There's nothing like a hug and a kiss from the right person. I talk to him nowadays more, not less. Will I sink into morbid grief eventually? At the rate I'm going, who knows?

My body did well this morning. Elsa and I went around the block instead of just up and down our street. My legs gave me no trouble at all. The morning in-bed exercises were helping, but I still couldn't bend my left leg much more than I could before the surgery. I believe Mike damaged a muscle in my inner thigh when he wrenched my leg eighteen years ago. However, I remember not having the full range of motion in that hip in a yoga class doing the salutation to the sun before I ever met Mike. It couldn't be all his fault. He just made a bad situation a lot worse.

On my early morning walk, I ran into Vince and Juli on the last leg of my walk before turning into my driveway. I turned around and walked with them. Vince walked ahead, and Juli and I talked. She told me she just got two large orders for hat embroideries after a fallow period. She also asked if I would consider joining a group to play Mexican trains. It sounds like a bridge or mahjong group. I have never participated in anything like that.

However, Juli is a lot like me. She is interested in everything and always has something to talk about. The Mexican train group would meet every other week for three hours at 4 or 6 p.m. If it's at four, people will bring food; if it's at 6 p.m. we have to come pre-fed. I told her four was out for me because I tutored. She said she would tell the group they had to meet at 6 to accommodate me. I'm expecting the other participants to be very culturally different from me. I wondered if I would fit in comfortably. I was willing to give it a try. Jean, my Hanai sister, told me she joined a mahjong group in her retirement community. It sounded like fun to play games with a group of people. It was worth a try.

Juli talked about her favorite author, an orthopedic surgeon who writes young adult books with no cursing and no sex. I enjoyed the children's books I was reading with my students. She told me this author also wrote advice for other doctors, short paragraphs of insights. She said a good doctor must be an engineer and a construction worker. He told people they could purchase one of the surgical tools at an automotive parts store.

I told the M & W sisters I might not meet with them next week as I recovered from the extractions. I also told them I would probably not look very good and would not appear on the video. M said she wouldn't mind me being without teeth. It was so sweet and loving.

I felt stressed about visiting friends I hadn't seen since Mike died. We always related to each other as two couples. I would have to renegotiate our relationship. Today, I finally realized how I would feel without Mike there. This would be my first situation when I couldn't see his absence as temporary; he was out shopping, walking, or napping. I would have to face he was gone, permanently gone.

I told Yvette how I felt and could feel a good cry coming on. I got off the phone and sobbed for a good five minutes. Those deep, wracking sobs were wrenched from the depths of my body. Someone who heard me cry like that on the phone said it sounded like I was laughing. I've cried like that less than a dozen times in my lifetime. It was good to face it.

My mother-in-law cut everyone she knew from before her husband's death out of her life when he died except her children and her brother and his family. Her friends were confused and dismayed by her behavior. When I heard that, I thought, "Leave it to Lee to do something like that. What a bitch!" Now I understand her motivation. Judy told me that many people do that when their spouse dies. I could understand it, but it didn't seem like a healthy response. I would blow off relationships with people I'd known for forty years. Aside from preferring to keep old friends, I think facing the pain of that loss is healthier than avoiding it.

I may have more strength than Lee. My whole identity wasn't wrapped up in being someone's wife. I didn't stop being a person when he died. That attitude wasn't all Lee's fault. It was the social attitude at the time. Widows were seen as threats to the marriages of their friends. Really? Well, in the bad ole days, you needed to be married to have a bank account or a credit card. The morality police didn't reinforce the limited position of women in society as it is in Iran right now, but it was pervasive. That all changed in my lifetime. It had changed in Lee's, too, but only after the death of her husband. I was still young and unmarried. I had a chance to adapt to the new world.

One of my walking buddies came over. She is a mobile notary, and I needed something notarized for a lawyer in Germany to claim an inheritance. I needed proof of my name change from my maiden name to my married one. I never did anything official. I changed it two years after we were married to a hyphenated name. Somehow, the Department of Motor Vehicles, which issued my license, the Department of Social Security, and the Department of State, which issued my passport, all accepted my name change. I Xeroxed copies of my marriage certificate and passport in preparation for notarization. Rosemary looked at that and said, "I can't notarize those Xeroxed copies. You have to get official copies from the issuing departments." I contacted the law office and told them what Rosemary said. They said just send the Xeroxed copies as is; we'll see if that is good enough." I found a temporary driver's license and threw that in, too. I mailed them all by registered mail. It cost $20 instead of $1.50 to mail them to Germany.

I saw the last of the Ted Lasso episodes. So sad. I didn't realize it was that as I was watching it. I only understood what it was at the end of the series when the 'next episode' displayed was not a Ted Lasso.

The episode was brilliant. It wasn't a happy ending; they didn't resolve conflicts and all personal difficulties. Neither was it an ending designed to force the powers that be to produce another season. Shows that create a crisis for every main character invite the audience to pressure the production company to continue the show. In this final episode, there were significant changes in everyone's life. It could have been a season's final episode, but I was surprised it was the last-ever. A truly amazing series. It deserved every award it received.