Wednesday, April 3, 2024

 Wednesday, April 3, 2024

   I was up by 4 a.m. and called the company holding the warranty on my failing solar panels. They had received my email. Phew! Done. That was a relief. The sixty days had expired. They told me the document I sent recently wasn’t what they were waiting for. They got the one I had sent in February. They had sent another one with an offer.

   When I checked, there was no email. They sent another one. The offer is for 77% of what I paid. That might cover the repairs. The sales rep at Provision Solar gave me an estimate for a completely new system with 400-watt panels instead of the 300-watt ones I have now. I wouldn’t have more energy with the updated system, which would cost considerably more. It took a while to get the estimate for the 400-watt panels from the company’s sales representative. He’s a young kid who probably doesn’t know what he’s doing. At least a month ago, I asked him for an estimate on the work on the 300-watt system. I had Hawaiian Solar send him the picture of the panels, marking the ones that had already been replaced, which seemed good.

    I ran into Dean and Nina on my morning walk. They were expecting a package with 24 baby chicks. Dean already had a small flock of cage chickens that were delivering eggs, but he wanted another flock that would range wild on his property. He ordered two breeds of chickens. They were supposed to arrive today, but they had been held over in the Minneapolis airport for two nights instead of one.

    I also ran into Elaine. She told me she was preparing a lasagna in anticipation of her son’s visit. He loved her lasagna. I told her to save me a slice. I was joking, but I’m always open to food offerings. Mike was the cook in the family. I had forty-five years free from that drudgery.

   When Mike went to DC during the school year when he got his second Ph., my mom said, “Make sure you leave her food.” At the time, I thought she was concerned about me. I finally realized she knew I would be at her door asking for food. Ha! Jha!

    I gathered more fronds for Darby. I filled up the trash barrel and rolled the trash barrel down the street to her house. When I come down her driveway, delivering the trash barrel, I yell, “Delivery!!”

    I went to Ulu Wini this afternoon. I worked with third-grade SE. Oh, dear. He has no memory and poor phonics. I didn’t handle this session well. I pushed him beyond his ability level. He’s a runner to start out with, and then I pushed. He wasn’t with me. I know he can be. When I find his sweet spot, he’s transfixed.

   I also worked with first-grade K. He’s progressed somewhat in memorizing the sight word list he worked on. Now he’s got the first 50 words under his belt. He used the memorization procedure I taught him more. Still, it wasn’t coming easily. I worked with his sister, second-grade CH. She is light years ahead of him. Thank God she isn’t his younger sister.

   Judy has chronic back problems because she had a cyst removed from her spine. She’s good for most of the time, but it can get bad under certain circumstances.   

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

 Tuesday, April 2, 2024  

      I met with first-grade B again today. I planned to work on her psychological need to have everything her way. We all want everything our way, all of us. Adapting to life’s realities is the key to a successful life, one with any contentment. After thinking about it for a good part of the day, I approached the problem as an issue of attention instead of self-centeredness. I used the slow, thick line method.   I started by asking her how she felt when she had to pay attention to the letters. She said, “Bad.”

   I developed the slow line method with a boy with emotional problems who had trouble paying attention. It came to me as many solutions come to me- out of the blue. I told him to follow the line I drew as I moved my pen across the paper. I moved the pen slowly and erratically across the paper. I didn’t know where the line was going to go. I followed my impulse. Miraculously, many of the boy’s emotional and attention problems cleared up. I asked him if his mother saw the difference. He said, “Yes.’ I asked him what she said. “Holy cow!”   I’ve used the slow-line method with other students to teach letter formation and drill sight words.

   First-grade B did a good job following the line. I asked her if she found it interesting. Yes. I said that’s what you do as you read the letters; you wonder what the next one will be. I had her reading third-grade material from a Barnell-Loft book. I chose that because she had read all the first-grade material I had in school. She remembered the stories and rewrote it rather than words on the page. On the unfamiliar third-grade material, she had to concentrate. She did very well until the end of the session. I think she was tired and lapsed back into a less focused mode. That confirmed she had a problem with attention more than reading.

 

 

 

Monday, April 1, 2024

Monday, April 1, 2024

 

   Darby called to tell me they had a dilemma. Remembering how efficiently I responded to the three lost French bulldogs she found in her garden, she called to tell me they had an unidentified sheep. Did I know anyone who owned one? I couldn’t think of anyone at the time. But of course, my next-door neighbor had a lamb. I didn’t think of them because Darby knew about their lamb as well as I did. Then I heard Patrick count, “ One, two, three. . ., and then both of them say, “April Fools!” no one has treated me to an April Fool’s joke forever.

     I planned to attend the Chi Gi Gong class on the beach that Alison and Gail had told me about. Because it was something new, I was hesitant. I had excuses. I got up too late to attend on time; I didn’t want to go until I had eaten something; I hadn’t gone to the bathroom. At eight-twenty, I forced myself to drive down there and at least get my feet wet. I would know where it was and get a feel of the group. I was so glad it did.

   I found them quickly. Once I had driven through the gate to the Ole A (The old airport) park, I saw a group up on the rise heading to the beach. I climbed up and was treated to this fantastic view of the ocean and the bay. I gasped.  

   I saw Gail in the circle with her back to me. I crept up behind her and put my arms around her waist. She looked at me and smiled. I joined in what turned out to be the closing exercises of the class. When it was over, Alison came over to greet me, too.

  She introduced me to the couple who led the class and a man named Clyde, who would take over the instruction when the couple left for Colorado for the summer at the end of April. I was definitely going to join this group.

   Gail proposed we all walk on the pathway. I had heard about the walkway at Ole A. I imagined it to be a small sandy path parallel to the waterfront. Nothing close. It was a half-mile, six-foot-wide paved circular road with tended gardens on either side. I had to leave because I had a ten a.m. class with twenty-six-year-old S.

   I made it home in time to eat something before the session. Again, S had done no work, arguing she had no time. I called her on it. She is home all day taking care of her three-year-old daughter. While childcare can be time-consuming, the girl goes to bed before her mom does. She can find two minutes before she goes to bed. Her progress would be much better if she did some work independently. I can hear she wants to avoid doing the work, but not that she has NO time. I know better.

   I asked her if she thought of doing it during the day, and she said, “I’ll do something else first.” Does she really think I don’t know this trick? Who doesn’t use it? In one of the podcasts I’ve been listening to, I heard a psychologist recommend asking yourself what you’re feeling when you choose to avoid doing something and procrastinate. I encouraged her to do the same thing.  

   Given what S has been through, I can fully appreciate her fear of reading. Besides being a crystal meth baby, the doctors put her on Adderall at four which caused seizures. Seizures reset the brain. All learning is eliminated from working memory before being downloaded into long-term memory. She couldn’t learn. She was seen as stupid and perceived herself that way. She got off the Adderall just before she turned eighteen. Her teachers reported a dramatic difference. I find her a good learner even when she doesn’t make an effort. While she doesn’t sit down with the reading in hand and read it, she must be doing something because I see an improvement from one session to the next. She reads the story we’ve been working on better with each session. 

Today, I pushed the envelope. I had S read a new story she hadn’t seen before. She had to rely on reading the words, not remembering the story. She saw the difference. Just thinking about the text helps. She may be doing nothing more than giving her mind permission to learn.

    I went down into the yard to work on the weeds in the plot of land where the Ficus trees had been. The ones I had poured boiling water came up easily. I pulled up by hand whatever I could.

  Earlier in the day, Yvette sent me something from the Internet saying how damaging boiling water could be for the land and how ineffective it could be for weeding. The site talked about making big pots of boiling water. Most sites I saw also spoke about adding salt to the water. The only solution they propose is hand weeding. Hand weeding 750 sq. ft. area is quite a challenge, particularly when you’re eighty-three doing all the work alone. Boiling water can kill off microbes in the soil, but can it cause long-term damage?

  I don’t add salt or dump large pots of boiling water. I target each plant specifically and pull out what I can. I found that plants that came out with difficulty initially came out more easily the day after I shocked them with boiling water. Yvette recommended I get weed barrier fabric.  

  I continued watching This is Us on Netflix. This show is right up my alley. It is wonderful. It won many awards. That sounds right to me. When I spoke to Jean, my friend, I found out that I am one of the last to discover this series. Well, better late than never.

   At 5 pm, I had first-grade B. She read he for has. She wasn’t paying attention to letters. I got a new lead on her problems. She likes to follow her thoughts rather than be affected by an external stimulus. I asked her mom if she was that way with her. Yes, she needs to do things her way. She needs her mom to give her all her attention. Given there are two other children, one just turned one last month, B is out of luck. I finally had a bead on her problem. Until now, I felt unsure of what I was doing with her. I couldn’t figure out why I felt that way. Now, I know. I wasn’t addressing the real problem. I don’t know if my conclusion is correct, but it gave me an angle to pursue. Whatever it is, it is more psychological than academic. She doesn’t have a problem with reading as much as her willingness to attend to the letters instead of her thoughts.