Mike's death; Betty's life...: 06/20/26

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Something happened that threw me off my pins. I didn’t sleep well. I fell asleep okay, but two hours later, I woke up in an agitated state that became worse as the night wore on. I was glad when the night was over.

Isaac and I continued our discussion on whatever came to mind. We think alike. We both like to analyze and bat around ideas. It’s fun.

I took on the large lawn in front of Yvette and Josh’s door with my new lawnmower-mowing therapy for my shattered nerves. I hit a few bumps. One was hard enough to shut down the lawnmower. Had I broken a second one? Hawaii has an abundance of rocks, and they shift around. Isaac came to say something to me. I told him I thought I had broken a second lawnmower. He stayed calm and walked the periphery, picking up loose rocks. Then he went on his way, and I happily finished mowing the lawn. I love mowing with the EGO battery-powered mower. What a difference from a gas mower! I got the lawn mowed despite concerns that the mower was broken. If it was, it was damaged in the same place the other one had.

Casey came by to chop down the unsightly dead fan palm at the top of my driveway. I was on the lanai, listening for the sound of the chainsaw and wondering when he’d get started. He called me. What was the problem now? The other day, he didn’t have the tools. He was done. The tree was in slices. The top piece had the dead palm fronds attached. I got to work separating the fronds from the trunk. I used the four-inch pruning chainsaw B, which had just been fixed. This time, I oiled the blade and the chain before using it. I stuffed the trash barrel with the fronds and the branches I had cut off from one of the shrubs and wheeled it down to Darby’s.

I called Sears again on Lutz’s advice. I complained about the serviceman’s social skills and his evaluation of the dishwasher. She asked me if water was coming out of the front of the dishwasher. If the water wasn’t coming out of it, it was a plumbing problem. I have to call a handyman.

Tonight, I got to see what Royal saw at the bottom of the hole on Outer Range. Hmm! Maye not. And then Amy was kidnapped. I turned it off immediately. I don’t need that aggravation before I go to bed. I switched to watching Hit Man on Netflix. It looked like a fun comedy – until I checked out the plot on Wiki. I don’t think so.

Friday, June 7, 2024

The acupuncturist came at 10 am. She worked on my upper back and sore wrists from typing and playing endless games of Free Cell.

I continued contracting my chest muscles and reaching my arms forward to straighten my thoracic spine and realign my neck. Maybe I don't use the nonexistent muscles on the ventral side of my cervical spine. It's the muscles on either side of the front of my neck. It eliminates my double chin but adds folds at the base of my neck. I don't think I will fool anyone into thinking I'm under forty.

I worked with Mama K's Twins today. While reading the updates from last year, I saw the girls hadn't made that much progress. I was anticipating they would be reading at a third-grade level then. They do- sort of. A's comprehension is good. But she lacks fluency. She reads slowly. Today, I got what the problem was. She couldn't relax and allow automatic processing to take over. She has that tight, conscious grip on the reading process from over-reliance on phonics. I don't know if she had a choice. It was hard to get anything into her long-term memory. It required endless repetition. Both girls had terrible memory problems.

I started working with Twin E on comprehension. She has already made some progress, inferring the correct word from a well-decoded word that resulted in a different pronunciation. This is a significant step. I started giving her three choices:

The real word.
One that sounded somewhat like it but made no sense in context.
One that neither sounded anything close to what those letters might represent nor made sense in the context of the text.

Yay!! Adolescent D is beginning to pay attention to the syllables in a word rather than try to decode a multi-syllabic word one phoneme at a time. That doesn't work. We always read one-syllable units and figure out how they fit together. The phrase "It is a…" are three single-syllable words. However, they are said as a single word. As I said, we're always reading one syllable at a time and figuring out how to connect them.

I had my third appointment with third-grade LG. His mom was off to the side now. She's too anxious to be helpful when LG is working with me. I continued with the phonemic analysis. I don't have to do much. LG has picked up the ball and is running with it. At the end of the session, he declared, "This is fun!" He is having more fun than me at this point. I feel restless in the sessions. I don't know why. LG will be leaving soon for a 10-day vacation. I asked him if he would be willing to fit in a third session with me before his vacation. He said yes. Wow! This is an impressive turnaround.

After the session, I spoke briefly with his mom, who readily agreed to a third session. I told her getting him to read better shouldn't take long unless there was a glitch I hadn't detected yet. LG loves the process. That means he'll do it on his own. From my perspective, I've done my job already. What's left is saving him time by telling him what I know about phonics. That will be a time saver, but he will learn it all more quickly if he learns it on his own.

I went to Ulu Wini today. I called fifth grade RM, who I discovered couldn't do subtraction with regrouping, to work with me. Without any additional effort on any adult's part, Fifth-grade LY and ML joined us. They all needed help with subtraction with regrouping. Fifth-grade ML blew my mind, getting me to see something differently. I gave her 306-165=. Her answer was zero when she subtracted six from zero (0-6) in the tens place. Wow! Of course, she's right. If you ask someone to give you six candies, and they have none to give you, you wind up with none or zero. How to explain the concept of the negative number. It's the first leap from the concrete to the abstract. Sticking to the concrete perspective, if I have 5-6, the answer is 5. If I go to someone and ask for six candies, and they only have five to give me, I wind up with five. Therefore, the answer to 5-6 is 5. Wow! The book" Is Math Real?" opened my mind to this perspective. I love it!

Isaac and I had another long conversation. We do that well. He's working to figure out what he wants in a life partner. He evaluates his parents' marriage and says it's not perfect. He must have used the word perfect in the negative over five times in our conversation. He's struggling to define his own needs. I told him not to judge his parents' marriage for their sake but only to use it as a guide to help him determine what he wants for himself. Facing his constant use of the word perfect, I said if he used it one more time, I'd wash out his mouth with lye soap. The word perfect should be used only in one context -when declaring something is perfect as is. The search for perfection is doomed to failure. Perfection is unfattenable. If that's your goal, you will fail almost by definition.

I started watching Outer Range on my friend Jean's recommendation. The actors are fantastic, the dialogue is good, and the plot is interesting so far.

Thursday, June 6, 2024

B was at my door at 6 a.m. with five eggs. He warned me they were dirty. They had grass stuck to them. I told him about my chainsaw. I don't qualify as a master mechanic. He offered to take the tool to see if he could fix it.

Isaac used the eggs B brought up. They were fertile with blood spots and fetuses. Isaac picked them out. Eating something with eyes was too much for him despite the additional protein.

I had a dental appointment for a cleaning. I asked Roxie about her kids. Her oldest, a boy I worked with briefly when he was still in elementary school, had just graduated from high school and went to work with his dad's construction company. They were currently working on a major project in the southern part of the island. They stayed there during the week and came home on weekends. One of her daughters has a problem with reading. The school was providing tutoring.

I told Roxie about my dishwasher problem. I wanted to hire a handyman at $50 an hour before I called a plumber at over $100 an hour. She had the name of someone. She also mentioned that her son could do it. I may ask for her son if I can't get a handyman in.

I finally made arrangements to have the dead fan palm at the top of my driveway cut down. It's hard to find a gardener around here. Everyone is booked. There's more work than there are gardeners. I asked Casey, a friend of Yvette's who participates in driveway yoga and Yvette's classes at the studio. He stopped by around 1:30 but hadn't brought any necessary tools. He said he'd be back tomorrow.

I noticed I had scheduled an acupuncture treatment for 10 a.m. on Friday, the same time as the Hula class. I didn't enjoy the Hula classes that much, but I went because they were good for me. I'd forget to put them on my calendar and then schedule something else for that time slot.

Edward Slingerland, author of Trying Not to Try, talked about conscious effort versus unconscious effortlessness tonight on Hidden Brain tonight. Which is better, the spontaneously moral man who does kind deeds because it feels good, or the one who acts out of a moral imperative, as per Kant? The loving shopkeeper who treats his customers well for the sheer pleasure of it, or the emotionless shopkeeper who hates his customers but treats them fairly because it's the moral thing to do.

I remembered my dad saying the man who threw himself on a hand grenade without thinking was not a brave hero. True courage requires conscious consideration of the consequences and doing it anyway. Pure Kant.

I showed Isaac my new discovery. I could get the spine of my upper back stretched out on the vertical by reaching my arms forward and pulling my chest back. Gokhale taught me to pull my head back at the neck, like backing a car into a garage. Engaging the upper back put the apex of the contraction further down my spine. It felt more satisfying. I said something about using the muscles on the ventral side of my cervical spine. Isaac took an anatomy course in anticipation of his stint in med school. He did a complete autopsy. He said there are no muscles on the ventral side of the cervical spine. Ok. Back to the drawing board. I have to explore further.

B stopped by and returned my 4" pruning chainsaw in working order.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

I had a session with Shelly, my therapist/ life coach. She had already told me she had been bumped off a guided tour in Morocco, but not all the details. OMG! What they did should be illegal.

When Shelly’s friend went to the tour guides and showed them the result of her Covid test, they called for a cab, put her in it, and sent her on her way. I learned today that she had a day-long cab ride before her. They were out in the middle of the desert when she got sick. There was nowhere for her to go.

The tour guides did try to find a hotel for her in the town/city they sent her to. They identified one but told her not to tell them she had Covid. They wouldn’t let her stay. The hotel cost $500 USA dollars a night. Shelly remained there until she recovered and did more touring independently. The touring company didn’t reimburse her a single penny or make any effort to cover the cost of the cab or the hotel.

I can’t believe what they did wasn’t illegal. They abandoned Shelly in a foreign country with very different attitudes toward women traveling alone and some built-in antagonism toward Americans. Shelly said she’s just grateful this illness hit while she was in Morocco rather than Egypt. I don’t know why she thought Egypt would be worse.

Her abandonment was not just a problem for Shelly; the touring company unleashed someone carrying Covid on the rest of the Moroccan population. The government must have some feelings on this subject.

Today is my half birthday. Lutz asks, “Who thinks about half birthdays?” I do because my sister’s birthday is on June 13. She is four and a half years younger than me, which means she’s five years younger from December to June 13 and only four years younger for the rest of the year.

I had the Twins and Adolescent D. They’re moving on slowly and steadily. Most sessions are just more of the same. I had my third session with third-grade LG. His mom was off to the side. I think it would be best if she were out of the room. Her anxiety gets in the way. I continued with the phonemic analysis of every word in a third-grade-level text. He discovered that all the A letters don’t represent the same sound as we went along. The letter A represents six different sounds “regularly” in English, which means it happens often enough to be considered an official pattern. Then, there are a few outliers. It’s English. The complexity of the relationship between the English sound system and its spelling surprised him. He had clung to the notion that each letter should make one and only one sound. I told him he had to move to Italy if he wanted that. At the end, LG declared, “This is fun! I spoke to LG’s mom after the session. I could hear the relief in her voice.

I spent most of the day cleaning despite my statement to my anticipated house guest that he would do all the cleaning. I started where any sane person would when expecting a guest that evening, with the windows. I washed all the screens and the inside of each window. The days when I can clean the outside are behind me.

It was a good thing I did some cleaning. The bed linens were unsightly. They were the ones Scott used for one year. They were a pale blue when they started. Now, they were green with blue around the edges. The southern sun in the windows above the bed leached out every bit of blue.

For my finishing touch, I turned on my Shark Navigator vacuum to quickly sweep the carpet in the guest room. The container needed to be emptied. It was filthy, and it smelled. I struggled to clean it from the top hatch. I couldn’t get all the dirt out. I struggled to open the bottom hatch. While that released all the waste stuck there, it also ripped out the seal. I got online to see if I could buy a replacement seal. Forget it. Also, the vacuum was purchased in 2011. It’s over ten years old. I may have underwear that old, but I can’t expect to have an electric appliance last that long. I ordered a new one through Amazon. I’m secure in my three, no four now, vacuum status. I have a Rainbow, a Bissel Cross wave, a hand vacuum that I just bought for quick spot jobs, and my new Shark Navigator coming in the mail. I bought the Bissell Crosswave when I thought my Rainbow had died. I love washing floors with a wet/dry vacuum. It gets them clean. Without it, you leave a film of evenly distributed mud on the floor’s surface.

It was a busy day. Rick, the electrician Darby recommended, came. He changed the outlet at the side of the house and showed me the burnt plug on the 12-gauge extension cord I used to charge the car. He recommended I get a 25’ cord instead of the 50’ I had. I couldn’t find a 25’ cord at Home Depot. Issac was going to look for one at Lowes when he went out. I doubted he would find it at Lowes or Ace. I ordered a 10 gauge online through Amazon. God bless, Amazon.

While Rick was dealing with the outlet, the Sears truck pulled up. The serviceman was here to diagnose the cause of the leak from my dishwasher. He was the most sullen Sears repairman I’d ever seen. He didn’t greet me. He wasn’t interested in hearing me say anything. He ran the dishwasher when I told him there was a leak. Yvette called to say the water was coming through the ceiling. The guy pulled a rag out from under the front edge of the dishwasher and declared the dishwasher was fine. Good-bye. Huh?

At four pm, I picked up Issac from the airport. We picked up his Turo. Then, we went home. We decided to eat out on his first night. I thought of Huggo’s, a restaurant Mike and I loved, although we didn’t eat out much. Issac and I both ordered poke towers from the appetizers menu and salads. It took forever for our food to come because Isaac told the waitress he was allergic to nuts. We were so engrossed in conversation that we wouldn’t have noticed the delay, but a server came over to apologize. They were being extra cautious against any contamination. We had a table by the rail overlooking the water, crashing on the rocks below. For dessert, we shared a sherbert. We split the bill, dropping $50 each for the food. I offered to pay the $20 tip.

Lutz knocked at the door for our evening walk. I told him to come in. I wanted him to discover Isaac in my kitchen. Lutz, Issac, and I used to walk together when Issac lived here for a year two years ago. He was teaching in a Seventh-Day Adventist School for his missionary year. Poor kid was totally alone here. He and I became friends as a result. Lutz’s response was disappointing. I thought he would be enthusiastic. He wasn’t. I suspect he may have been a bit bummed. He was used to being the rooster with his three hens, Darby, Gayle, and me. Now there was a competing cock in the picture.

Lutz noticed the 4” chain saw sitting on my kitchen counter. I explained it was broken. He took a look at it and told me why. The chain was rusted. Had I oiled it before each use? No, did I have to? Yes!!! Oh!!! He told me to get motor oil and work the chain loose. Really??? I hoped I could get Steve to do that. He fixed my regular chain saw, which I never used and will never use. I’m not totally insane.

I told him about my dishwasher problem. He said he’d stop by and pull the dishwasher out to determine the problem. Then, he headed out to continue his walk. I would join him after another round after I walked and fed Elsa.

B stopped by to say hello. I had texted him earlier to see if the chickens on the property had recently dropped any eggs. He doubted there were any fresh eggs, but he would look.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

On a Ten Percent Happier podcast, Dr. Bruce Perry discussed resolving underlying issues that cause negative behaviors. The question shouldn't be, "What's wrong with that person?" but, "What happened to them?" Duh! I took that path while still in high school in the 1950s. I remember figuring if there was a way into this mess, there had to be a way out, and I was going to find it and show everyone else how to fix it for themselves.

I understood that there were 'clear' emotions that prompt certain behaviors while other behaviors are driven by twisted feelings. In not using the words clear versus twisted in any moral sense, I mean they represent two different physical sensations. Anger and hatred can arise out of 'clear' feelings. That doesn't mean they're always right.

I developed my ideas around the same time L. Ron Howard developed his. There were a few differences between my theories and his. Mine resembled current theories underlying trauma therapy while his . . . . involve extraterrestrials. There were other differences right from the start. While his resembles naked ambition, mine were rooted in a moral basis. My intent was to promote peace on earth and goodwill toward men. My messianic bent was curbed by my father's reminder that a prophet is never recognized in his own land" and to look at what happened to Jesus Christ. That life lesson is enough to curb anyone's enthusiasm for leadership. I developed an absolute dread of being a recognized leader. How do you disseminate ideas without taking a leadership role? I still fear the consequences. Recognition, like everything else, has to be in moderation to be manageable. Moderation is defined by one's current circumstances. Suppose you're a resident of a small island in the Pacific with a population of 50 to 500 people. In that case, recognition should be limited to . . . . . I'll bet there is a mathematical formula that works. We can tolerate only so much, whether it's classified as good or bad. People are speaking out about the negative consequences of fame and wealth, whereas once people thought there could be no harmful consequences from either one.

I planned to use my new 6" pruning chain saw but couldn't find the battery. I looked all over the house. No one would have come in and stolen a Ryobi battery and nothing else. It had to be here somewhere. What did I do with it? Ah, then I remembered. I stored it in the oven.

My niece had a fire in her house because a battery caught fire. That's a scary thought. I hadn't had a chance to ask her for details. I only knew a battery started the fire in her kitchen. The smoke alarm went off around midnight. She got her seven-year-old son, herself, and her cell phone out of the house. The fire department responded promptly. It wasn't a big fire. They put it out with a fire extinguisher. There isn't much fire damage, but the smoke damage was extensive. They will be out of their house until September.

Their unfortunate experience taught me a cautionary tale: Batteries can cause fires. When I told others the story, many already knew of the potential danger. However, it only happened when the battery was charging, not when the battery was lying around. That's good information.

Something good came out of the missing battery incident: fear energized me. What had I done with that battery? Yerkes and Dodson did an experiment in 1908 demonstrating the relationship between performance and stress/excitation. If stress levels are too low or too high, it negatively impacts performance. There is some variation in the optimal stress level depending on the task. I live with too little external stress and too much internally generated stress. A little external stress is good for me. It helps me regulate my internal noise.

My retired friends and I comment on how little we get done. The saying is, "If you want someone to do something for you, ask a busy person." They'll get it done. When we have too much time on our hands, everything gets put off until tomorrow, and then the task drags on and on. There is such a thing as good stress.

Having identified my stinking thinking as an addiction has been helpful. I can stop it now. I can say "No" to my limbic system, listen to a podcast, write, or do some gardening. What I can't do is lie in bed and fight with my mind. It will win every time.

It was a Ulu Wini day. Despite it being summer vacation and no school, two kids came to work with me on their own. Remarkable.

I drove to town after tutoring at Ulu Wini to get to the cosmetics shop. I stopped at Petco first to see if I could donate a 14 lbs. bag of dog food I ordered by mistake a while ago. I tried to get someone to buy it at half price on the Next Door app. There were no takers. The clerk at Petco said they no longer had their donation program. Perhaps an animal shelter would take it. The other clerk had the number of a woman who would be happy to deliver it. She worked in a shop in the same strip as the cosmetics shop. She gave me the woman's name and number. Perfect.

Monday, June 3, 2024

It was only Clyde and me at Chi Qigong today. We stood side by side, meditating on the impressively rough waves and taking in the ozone-rich air. Clyde pointed out how far up the bluff the high tide had come. It was higher every week. Was this the result of climate change? Hawaii hadn’t been hit too hard. We weren’t experiencing radical changes in temperature. It was still moderate during the day and cool at night, which was really lovely.

My first stop on my in-town chores was Target. I needed to make a pit stop. Then, I headed to the UPS store to see if they could use the formed cardboard used to pack the lawnmower. They couldn’t, but they assured me they could always use Styrofoam popcorn and air-filled bags. I always bring it to them; they know me by now. I rarely go in for any other reason except the occasional Amazon return.

I went to the bank. I had two checks to deposit, one from third-grade M’s father and the second from Saint Gobain, a warranty company, as compensation for my dysfunctional solar panels. It was a large check. The bank line was long and slow even though there were four tellers and no one with a bag of cash from a business. The wait wasn’t too bad. The checks would clear by Thursday. I planned to stop by Friday after the Hula class to arrange an electronic transfer to my main bank.

I went to Office Depot to Xerox my receipt from the shop in the Kona Inn strip mall that sold Truffoire cosmetics. I dropped a small fortune on these products. I’ve been someone who won’t spend $10 on cosmetics. Now, I’ve dropped several thousand dollars for a two-year supply. Truth is, they are remarkable. I look years younger—not necessarily better, just younger. Even more remarkable is that I’m using them, some daily and some twice a week.

However, the salesperson in the shop tried to convince me not only that I had eczema but that the Mayo Clinic confirmed the diagnosis when he sent in a skin sample. It all sounded fishy. I was comfortable with the hustle, but dealing with an outright lie was sickening. I was due for my second installment of the products out 24. I’d been putting off contacting them. I was repelled enough to consider walking away from the situation and writing off the loss. The repulsion I felt was so strong that it took me over a month to feel I could even approach the people in the shop.

I called Giovani, my ’handler,’ and told him I wanted to come in and pick up my second round of supplies. He said come on; they’re open till 6. I planned to stop by today. Now, I had a Xerox copy of the credit card receipt. I had envisioned them asking to see my receipt and then disappearing it. I don’t have a good feeling about this company.

However, this shop is not a fly-by-night operation. Paulette said she and Judy had seen it there over a year ago. If they were a scam, someone would have outed them by now. When I spoke to Giovani last month, when I canceled Paulette’s and mine facial appointments, he told me I could get the full two-year supply right now. I didn’t want to do that because the products would go stale.

After Xeroxing the credit card receipt, I felt ready to go to the shop and pick up my month’s supply of new cosmetic products. I planned to park in the church parking lot and walk there. The church driveway entrance was blocked with orange cones, and the gate was closed. The paving company that had done work on parking areas last week was working on the driveway now. I turned around and went to Target to pick up some items.

On my way home, I took the formed cardboard, rejected by UPS, to the transfer station. I needed to put it in refuse instead of recycling, as our recycling is limited to corrugated cardboard and glass.

I had my second session with third-grade LG. He remembered nothing about our last session, the phonemic analysis I modeled on a sentence, his voluntary participation, or my question about his ability to follow what others had to say. Did he really not remember, or is he gaslighting me? I continued with the slowed production of the phonemic analysis of all the words in a sentence. He said he liked it when it was slowed down and not when it was faster. However, he tolerated a faster speed today than he did in our first session. I thought he might be ready for the 5 Stories YouTube video. He said he didn’t want something to keep him awake. I told him it should be low enough, so it didn’t do that. If it did, we have to make an adjustment.

I spoke to LG’s mom after the session. I told her I wanted her in sessions to provide him protection from me, not protection for me from his bad behavior. I had to deal with that. She told me he cried for an hour before the session, not wanting to do it. He’d already had several tutors, and none had been effective. The poor kid. While I can’t guarantee I can fix his reading problem, I can guarantee I won’t blame him if I fail. It will be my failure to solve the problem.

I continued with Dash leading the phonemic analysis. He had to tell me where to put the slashes in the printed word, delineating the syllables with slashes and identifying the phonemes with dashes. I love the work. He still hadn’t identified the syllables before doing the phonemic analysis. That causes his problem when he reads muti-syllable words. I am optimistic that this process will clear up whatever problems he still has with reading.

I asked D if he would be willing to speak to LG. He proposed telling him to stick with it. I don’t think that will wash, given LG’s experience with other tutors. I wanted him to tell him that he could trust me. D was not aware that it was an issue worth discussing. Of course, D was not aware of my perspective.

My Carfax app said I needed to rotate my tires. My car was in the Kia shop for about a month while they were trying to figure out how to repair my charging unit. They said they did an oil change but said nothing about a tire rotation. The recommendation is to get service every 5,000 miles or every six months. The customer service agent told me to come in after six months or 5,000 miles, whichever came first. I told him I had the car for five years and didn’t have 14,000 miles on it yet. He said, “Oh, bring it in for a tire rotation when you hit 15,000 miles.” That made sense.

I finally called the electrician Darby recommended. She’d been on the island for about forty years and had a list of the best service providers. He said he would come over on Wednesday. What?!!! I had never heard of anything like that here in Hawaii. Quick responses are not the norm.

Sunday, June 2, 2024

A friend responded with horror the other day when I told her Elsa would have to wear an Elizabethan collar for two weeks to prevent her from rubbing her jaw against something. Doing so could pull out the sutures or get dirt in the wound. She said she never put it on her dogs, no matter what the vet said. Elsa doesn't look that uncomfortable with it. It took her a day or so to adapt, but after that, it was fine. Not only did she look okay, she didn't run away when I put it on her. I took it off when we went for a walk so she could freely smell the ground to find the perfect spot to pee or poop. When it came time to put it back on, she came and stood still while I slipped it over her head.

When I parked in the church parking lot on Friday across the street from my Hula class, I saw a crew laying new macadam. All the grassy parking spots were being paved. Those spots were still not available for parking today. A good quarter of the church parking spots were unavailable. I was there early enough and found a spot at the back of the church.

I kept falling asleep during mass today, even though I wasn't tired when I arrived. I think the problem is psychological. I often fall asleep when I meditate; it's a common problem for meditators. The sleep feels different from the way it usually does. I once had a meditation leader comment on my sleep. He made it sound like a particular spiritual experience. I don't know; I do know I like the feeling, even if it is embarrassing in church. Today, I felt downright narcoleptic.

I was going home right after church to sleep, but then had enough energy to stop off at the transfer station to dump the accumulated cardboard, including the giant box the new lawnmower came in.

While hanging up my clothes after church, my eye fell on the basket where I kept the programs from Mike's funeral. The earphones I'd misplaced at least a month ago hung on the edge of the basket. I knew they had to be somewhere in the house. I checked that area when I lost them, but not that spot. I figured they'd show up eventually.

I had a session with third-grade M. We hadn't met in the last two weeks. She wanted to continue working on Stuart Little. Kindle holds the place for me. We were in the middle of a chapter, and I couldn't remember much about it. She remembered more than I did. It's the chapter where Stuart decides to go out into the world to look for Margalo, the bird. His first stop is Dr. Carey's office. He was the dentist who owned the model sloop Stuart sailed in the Central Park pond.

The work did not feel particularly productive. There were a few moments where I could have moved the needle forward. Today, I showed M how to skim for information. I used the trick my niece Shivani taught me: read a paragraph's first and last sentences. In today's case, the sentence that explicitly held the information didn't appear in the first and last sentences of several paragraphs. However, the first sentence of the following paragraph referred to the doctor. That suggested we go back and check the preceding paragraph. Indeed, that's where the critical information was.

My work with her had not substantially contributed to her improved reading for quite a while. She must be securely on grade level, if not above. I hung on because I thought she still needed the emotional support. Her father told me how much more confident M was after working with me. He credits me with the change. I know I have that impact on the kids I work with. It's reasonable to assume I made a substantial contribution to her well-being. In today's session, she was subdued but not overly withdrawn. I asked her a while ago if she wanted to continue the session with me. She said yes. Maybe I should make a point of asking her regularly. If she says no, I'll check with her dad and mom to see if they would prefer I continue.

I had Adolescent D half an hour later. I was concentrating on decoding skills. He has to tell me where to divide the written word into syllables and phonemes. For a while, we worked on third-grade-level material. When I asked him if he saw improvement, he said no. He always says no, even when everyone else sees gains. But I thought about it. He was doing well with the third-grade material. However, these were mostly single-syllable words. Since he was doing well at this level, it was time to up the ante. I found a fourth-grade passage with a good number of multisyllabic words. Whoa! This was a whole different game.

I was optimistic this would make a significant difference to his reading. D remained skeptical, but he always has been. Me? I was very excited about the work. Many errors showed up when decoding multisyllabic words. That was great. The work was a challenge for him. It also clearly revealed all the problems he was still having. Here was a surprise. He didn't recognize that the vowel sound was separate from the following letters. What!!?? I think he's confusing the need to memorize the vowel patterns as a unit, with the vowel being a separate sound for the following consonant. Hopefully, this work will make the difference clear. It's an important distinction when decoding. If you have the vowel unit securely memorized, you don't need to decode it. But if you don't have it securely memorized, you must identify each phoneme before blending the word.

Saturday, June 1, 2024

I made a video the other day about my point of view on reading, particularly on learning to read English. McMurtrey uses some of my techniques, but her method is nothing like mine. She teaches a strict Orton-Gillingham approach. Letters and sounds are all taught in a rigid sequence, and the teacher dictates the pronunciation of each phoneme; regional and cultural differences are discouraged. She also uses structured texts so the student never sees letter/sound combinations that have not been taught. She argues that doing it that way teaches students they can trust phonics to produce reliable results and prevents them from guessing.

There's one huge problem with her approach. The relationship between English spelling and pronunciation is unreliable; it's highly variable. Students have to be taught how to deal with that. They have to learn what to do when they follow a basic decoding procedure and wind up with something resembling the actual pronunciation. Then, they have to figure out what the word really is. There is no way anyone can figure out the pronunciation of a word if it is not already part of their listening vocabulary.

Elsa tried to get into bed last night using the stairs. She'd gained more confidence in navigating space with the Elizabethan collar. She did a great job getting to the top of the stairs. Only then she couldn't make it to the bed. Instead, she jumped off the top step. I think it was a surprise to her. It certainly was a surprise to me. I think we agree: for now, she should rely on me to get her on and off the bed.

Okay, the stinking thinking started around 3 a.m. I got up at 3:30 rather than stay in bed and suffer. The delight of retirement is that I can sleep as much as I like during the day. I wanted to call Ego first thing in the morning anyway. When I mowed the lawn last week, I hit something. At first, everything looked okay. However, when I checked the bottom of the mower as I put it back in the shed, I noticed a crack in the shield. When I took it out yesterday, I touched the shield to the left of the crack. The piece shifted under my hand. This did not look good. I wanted to know if the shield can be replaced? And if it can, can I get it repaired somewhere on the island. I can imagine there is a repair place on Oahu. It's hard for mainlanders to understand that getting from one island to another is not like driving to the next town. When ferries ran, it might have been somewhat more manageable. But nowadays, the only way to get around is by plane.

While up, I continued working on the updates. I reviewed Josephine's request that I teach English to the children. I hate teaching ESL. It doesn't resonate with me. The Waldorf method for teaching children reading comprehension and language skills at an early age came to mind. They tell stories. The teachers don't read the stories; they tell them. I checked online to find out more about the process. Yes, this is perfect. Teach language by modeling it. I use modeling a lot in my teaching. It works like a charm. It doesn't put the student in the hot spot, constantly subjecting them to evaluation. They can absorb the information from the comfort of their own minds. I don't have to know if they learned what I taught then and there. If I can keep them engaged with an open mind free from fear of judgment, I have a better chance of getting them to learn the material.

My mind was on fire with ideas. Storytelling could be used at all grade levels to teach English. Have the 'teacher' read the story and ask for responses from the kids. What did they like about the story, not like? What was their favorite part.? What do they wish would have been different? How would they have changed the story if they had written it? The 'teacher' can restate what they say in 'correct' English.

But then I had an even better idea inspired by Waldorf. The teacher reads the story and then tries to retell it, not just as a summary, but literally retelling it with all the details, asking the kids to tell them if they leave something out or get something wrong. What better way to get kids to pay attention! Hopefully, this will inspire the kids to do their own retelling of the story. Waldorf says repetition is valuable. A set of three to five stories can be retold in sequence.

Yvette's mother did something like that. She read a chapter to her every night from a stack of books by Yvette's bedside. When she finished going through the stack, she'd start again. It wasn't a constant search for something novel. Yvette could become familiar with the language.

The readings could be scheduled, like on Thursday at 2 p.m. or Stories for Kindergarteners. Friday at 2 for first and second graders. However, it must include all are welcome, including parents. Getting people engaged might take a while, but teaching English through storytelling sounds like a wonderful idea.

One source of stories could be school texts. These would not only serve as good materials for English language learning but also prepare students for the next school year. Surely, Josephine could get copies of the schoolbooks.

I had a session with Mama K's twin girls. Twin A has been resisting the sessions. Twin ed de

Twin A told me she was sad about her poor reading a week ago or so. If someone does poorly in reading and fights getting extra help, one has to wonder why. Third-grade L resented the tutoring until I correctly identified his problem. I suspect that, in the past, teachers have said he wasn't making progress because of a lack of effort, but they never told him what to do to overcome his problem. They gave him more of the same, but it didn't work and drove the kid crazy. Why did Twin A resist the tutoring?

She attended today. I asked her if working with me made her sad. She said no, but I suspect she wasn't comfortable telling me the truth. She may be used to taking care of the adults in her life. often, when kids get that I really want the truth about their feelings, they say, "You're so nice!" I tell them I'm not nice; I'm smart. I want to be successful. I want them to be good readers. How they feel about themselves as readers and the tutoring experience are as important as what they can and cannot do academically.

She read a passage on a middle-third-grade level reasonably well. Then, she came across the word edges. She didn't recognize it and proceeded to decode it. She read ed as /de/. I asked if the letters moved around. No. Then why would she read ed as /de/? I asked her if she saw that the E came before the D? Yes. Did she think she could read the letters in either order? Yes. Huh? I wrote her name with the letters mixed up. Was that okay? No. You can't change the order of the letters when saying the words. Oh! I could see her taking in this information. I asked her if that helped. She wrote, "A LOT."

I have never encountered this before in my over fifty years of teaching reading. Does that mean no other student has had this problem, or does it mean that I've never asked the right questions? I know most teachers assume A is stupid. I consider that maybe she is. But no! She can express a passage's main idea and supporting details. If she could learn that, she can't be cognitively impaired. What would create an inability to see that the order of the letters matches the order of the sounds? Maybe she doesn't hear the sounds. But she does. She can decode unfamiliar words in sequence. She often does. Why does she mix up the letter order when she does? I still have more questions than I have answers.

I speculate she only applies what she knows to be true if the situation is familiar -enough. Then, she assumes the rules she knows do not apply. This has affected all her learning situations. Holy cow! I'll keep you posted, dear reader.

Friday, May 31, 2024

I had an appointment with Shelly, my life coach/therapist. I struggle with anxiety and a lifelong fear of doing things for fear of failure, the very thing I help my students with. I don't fear failing at the same things they do.

Sometimes, my fears are trivial, like whether I will make a mess of a bush when I trim it. I keep Darby's words about her gardening efforts in mind: "We're not so much good gardeners as persistent." I can do persistent. I have to think about it like I do about my hair: a bad haircut will grow out. The same holds for the plants. However, plants can get out of hand, and it's so much work to get them under control again.

As the session with Shelly progressed, I came across a feeling I hadn't dealt with before a desire for revenge against my mom for how she treated me. It wasn't overpowering, but I could sense it lurking in the background. It's not that I wasn't aware of my anger, just not my need for revenge. My love for her was strong enough to keep that impulse in check. It wasn't just my love for her that kept it in check, but also my love for myself. Who wants to be a hateful person? It's not my best look.

My mom acted out her frustrations on her mother. When my grandmother hadn't cleaned something well, my mom humiliated her. When I noticed my mom failing to clean something well, I thought she didn't deserve kindness and tolerance. She didn't give it; she didn't deserve it. I had a friend who wisely said, "No, she doesn't deserve it, but you do!" I deserved to be a patient, kind, and loving person. If this revengeful sentiment is coming to my attention, I'd better deal with it. There are people I don't love as much as I did my mom. I might find a release for my cruel streak with them. I deserve better. I'm not prepared to live with that order of pure nasty in myself.

This morning, I made it to the Hula class at 10 am before the class started. While it's not complete torture, neither is it soul-satisfying. I can only do so much because my arms get tired. It will be one year on June 13 since I crushed my left elbow and shoulder joints. On June 15, it will be one year since I had the elbow reconstruction. On June 22, it will be the one-year anniversary of my reverse shoulder replacement. I did a bang-up job with that fall. I am recovering remarkably well – for my age. My PT said my body heals at the rate of someone twenty years younger, and my recovery of movement is that of someone forty years younger. That's because my mother bequeathed me her "you and who else" attitude. Whatever she took from me, she gave me that. It was a gift of hope and self-agency. It was how she lived. She took on major life problems with stunning grit. She was one brave lady.

While the Hula class is hard on me, it is also good for me. It forces me to use my arms in ways I wouldn't usually. Also, because I have to learn new patterns, it's good for my brain. I want to go down with my boots on.

When I read last year's blog entry for this date, I discovered Adolescent D moved up a grade level in reading from fifth grade to sixth. It took three years to get him up to fifth grade. Not bad if I do say so myself. D would never say it.

I checked out the guest room in preparation for Issac's visit. It didn't look or smell too bad. It's been almost year since Scott left and someone has entered that room. I opened windows to air it out. I'll do some dusting; the window sills are covered with Kona dirt, mostly soil blown in. despite the closed windows. I will let Issac vacuum and clean the bathroom.

I heard Simon Sinek's interview with Steve Bartlett on Diary of a CEO. He said people co-create a relationship. This skill is essential in long-term intimate couple relationships. Mike and I described our relationship that way. We responded to each other. We built something unique to us.

Traditionally, relationships were determined by preexisting rules for the roles of women and men in marriage. Entering into the marriage partnership was primarily a process of assuming a role. The degree of intimacy varied.

Nowadays, everyone has to co-create their relationship in a long-term situation. All relationships have elements of co-creation if they are to progress. There are ways to avoid it. If you confine a relationship to a specific interaction, like playing golf or watching football, you can stick to a script without much variation. You can only speak about things other than yourselves, not anything involving life's joys and sorrows. Certainly, never providing emotional support. That would be much too invasive, much too intimate.

These days, we run into trouble because there isn't a single set of relationship rules we all follow. While it is possible to find someone who will operate on a set of rules compatible with your own, the relationship is bound to wind up with a hitch if contact is frequent enough. That is the real test of a relationship: how to resolve a difference.

One solution is to ignore the irritation. It is viable as is denial. I had to learn the skill of denial. Believe me, it is valuable. It can get you through another day. As the AA's Serenity prayer says, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Let's add here the wisdom to know when it is me who should change versus the external circumstances.

Thursday, May 30, 2024

I weighed two and a half pounds less than the day before. Today, I dropped another two pounds. That's weird. I have no idea why I'm losing weight in the first place, no less so rapidly. I'm sure it's not diabetes. I'm not drinking significant quantities of water nor peeing great quantities, a hallmark of diabetes. I texted Yvette, asking to borrow her scale. I wanted to compare it to mine to check if there was a problem with it. The difference was three-tenths of a pound. My scale only measures by the half pound. I'll keep an eye on my weight. If it continues to plummet, I get to a doctor double quick.

Dean and Nina stopped by to visit Elsa this morning. What, no flowers for Elsa? No flowers. What kind of friends are they??

I only did a short walk with Elsa. I didn't want to leave her alone yet. She was still recovering from the anesthesia. I discovered I had to remove the Elizabethan collar when I walked her. She wouldn't do her business unless she could smell the ground and identify the best spot. She can't do that with the collar on. I'm with her the whole time. I can supervise. However, I still didn't know what I was watching out for.

I called the vet first thing in the morning and got answers to lots of questions. 1. She had to wear the Elizabethan collar to prevent her from rubbing her jaw against the ground or furniture and pulling out the stitches. Yvette's blow-up pillow wouldn't do the trick. 2. I had to give her soft food for two weeks. Again, the concern is the stitches. Her usual hard kibble could rip them out. 3. I had to hand-feed her for two weeks to ensure no food was left in her mouth. Again, the concern is food getting trapped in the wound and causing infection.

The vet tech said giving her her usual food would be best. Since it was dry food, I had two choices. A) I could soak it in water, but that would take a long time. B) I could grind it up in my blender. I chose the second. What a mess! First, I added too much water, and it came out more like a watery smoothie. Cooking is not my strong suit!

I finally called my friend Melissa. She called about a week and a half ago to tell me she was home from her several month stint in the Australian Outback as a volunteer OBGyn. However, she was just packing for a trip to the mainland to visit with her five children and eight grandchildren. We didn't have too much time to talk.

I went to Ulu Wini, uncertain what I would find there today. It was the last day of school, and I couldn't imagine the kids would have much interest in tutoring. I spent the time talking to the head of the program, Josephine. I needed to know how they were going to incorporate my tutoring into the summer program. Josephine wants the tutoring to continue.

I shared my frustration with Josephine over the response to my work. It is so successful, but no one is interested in learning it. Moreover, it is easy to learn. I have taught the basics to inexperienced volunteer tutors who had impressive results with it. It's easy to learn, easy to teach, and inexpensive. If you can figure out the method from my videos, it costs nothing.

Josephine is concerned about the poor English of the children. Most of the parents of the children at Ulu Wini are poorly educated Marshallese. Most of them had no need for education in the Marshal Islands. They lived on a small island or atoll with 75-500 people. What did they need an education for? There's little use for reading and writing. While the children are bilingual, their language development is limited in both languages. Their parents don't use language to express complex ideas. Most conversations are scripted. That doesn't mean there is only one way to express a thought, but there are limited ways to do so.

Josephine was interested in having me teach the English language to the students. She is concerned about the poor language development of the children. I don't like teaching English as another language. I don't like learning other languages or teaching them. I've learned through experience that people who excel in language learning don't like me. The statistics are downright spectacular. I suspect people who excel in language learning love rules. They love discovering rules and figuring out how to apply them. I like to uncover the reason for rules and find other ways to address the issue. I feel confined around rule based learners and, I suspect, I represent chaos to them.

I had no students today. Even Adolescent D canceled

I have a new slant on the entitlement of millennials today. I've heard from others how difficult it is to work with them. They crave praise and think they should be running the company after two months on the job. They make it sound like they have an inappropriate sense of entitlement. I heard a speaker on a YouTube podcast see it from a different light. These kids feel they're supposed to be that successful and consider themselves failures when they're not. They have inappropriate expectations from life and from themselves. When they don't achieve, they panic.

I've heard their mental state blamed on the inappropriate praise they received when they were kids. They got rewards for everything. They were told they were the best, special, capable of anything, etc. Rather than leaving them feeling confident, this burdened them with unrealistic expectations of the world at large and of themselves. They're in worse shape for all the praise. A realistic appraisal of one's place in the hierarchy of excellence is the best. Reality is always the best.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

I was up all night struggling with anxiety and sadness around an unresolved issue. I tried meditation. I tried ordering myself to stop. What did work was my telling myself that I loved myself. It assured me that someone had my back. This loneliness crap sucks.

I heard a speaker on Diary of a CEO saying that society foisted loneliness on us. Garbage, I say. Many emotional reactions are preprogrammed responses. The hardware in our brains was designed to keep us alive when the human race was young, and we were few and far between. We formed groups and watched each other's backs- little military squads, sections, or platoons. If we were separated from our group, it meant certain death. We all feel compelled to find protection. It's too bad that the T.V. characters that fill our lives can't serve that function, but they don't. I have a bevy of friends; they don't serve that function either. I need someone camped in my camp, my home, who shares the campfire with me and watches out for me as I do for them. I don't have that anymore. It's a hard way to live. I can tell myself this is the modern world, and I don't need that type of protection, but the limbic system says, "Forget it!"

I got a text from Issac yesterday asking when he could call me. Issac was one of my walking buddies when he lived here for a year as a volunteer teacher in a Seventh-Day Adventist school. He came here assuming he would develop friendships with the members of his church, particularly with people around his age. None of that happened. He came from a devoted family of four kids; he attended a Seventh-Day Adventist College, where his twin sister and one of his brothers also attended.

I texted Issac that I could speak to him any morning while walking. We spoke this morning. He filled me in on his life, twin sisters', and baby brother's. Issac had just returned from a trip to Spain with the choral group from his school. In the fall, he will be going to medical school. He told me the name, but I forgot. It's a Seventh-Day Adventist school, just like his undergraduate school. At the end of a lengthy conversation, he told me he was coming to Hawaii and asked if he could stay at my house. He's done that to me several times, talked at length about any number of things, and at the end say, "Oh, by the way . . ., "and then tell me why he really called. I've told him again that it makes me feel terrible when he does that. It makes me feel manipulated and conned. "Tell me the reason for calling upfront. Then, if you want to, we can talk about other things." People do this because they think it's polite. I find the behavior confusing at best and hurtful at worst. Do people really find this behavior polite? It just sounds evasive to me. The person is trying to convince me they didn't call for self-centered motives. Yuck! Then I'm the rude one for calling them on it. I would prefer he had called and said, "Hey, Betty. I'm coming for a visit. Can I stay at your house?" When I said yes, he could have said, "Great! Thanks! Looking forward to spending some time with you when I visit." I vastly prefer that.

I dropped Elsa off at the vet around 7:30 a.m. She was scheduled for dental care. Given my upset last night, separating from her was tough. I was practically in tears. And then, I forgot to leave her my sweatshirt for comfort. They would call me when she was ready for pick up.

I spoke to Mama K this morning. I had two questions: 1. Was she okay? The last time I talked to her, she had a bad cold. Apparently, it wasn't Covid 2. Could I work with the girls today? She said no because her older daughter had both P.T. and volleyball practice. Then, she called me later to say the kids got out of school early and had time to work with me. I told Mama K I was concerned about Twin A. She seemed sullen and restless. Mama K argued she just didn't want to do anything.

Today, I had a new client, third-grade L.G. His mom responded to my ad on Next Door. I need one or two more clients to make me happy. I've submitted two applications to volunteer as a tutor: one for Home Boys in L.A. and a second for Hawaii KidsCan; I am still waiting for someone to respond. Why is it so hard to volunteer?

I met with third-grade L.G. on Zoom. His mom was present at my request. When I meet with a child, I want a parent there to protect the child. Unfortunately, they usually think their purpose is to protect me from their child's poor behavior. I had to ask L.G.'s mom to back off several times. A child's behavior indicates something worthwhile pursuing.

L.G. was frowning when the session started. I told him he looked unhappy about tutoring. I assured him he could tell me the truth. He relaxed a smidgen. Next, I asked him to tell me something he enjoyed doing. He pulled out a miniature skateboard. He had small desktop ramps for it. He tried to demonstrate what he did with them but couldn't get it to work on the surface of a book cover. For me to see his skateboard on his ramps, he would have to set up the computer camera angle. His mother said we would try next time.

He told me he also liked dirt biking with his dad and his dad's friends. I said he hung out with the big boys. I asked him if he knew why his mom asked me to work with him. He grimaced. "You don't think you need help with reading." He nodded. I told him I would ask him to read to me. He read low third-grade passages slowly with lots of errors. I described what I had seen. He agreed. "You feel you don't need help because you always know what the words say." He nodded." You guess the words a lot?" Yeah. I want to help you read those words better.

I started modeling phonemes using the text he had just read. He ducked his head. His mom told him to sit up and pay attention. I asked her to let me deal with it. Every minute of his behavior tells me something about what he knows and doesn't. If he's uncomfortable, it says he has a problem with this skill. I asked him if he found the sounds irritating. Yes. Did he have trouble following what the teacher said in school? Yes.

I recommended listening to the 5 Stories YouTube video at night while he was sleeping. I performed the phonemic analysis more slowly, dragging out the sounds. Did that feel better? Yes. I started to speed the process up. Did that still feel good? No. The session was over. I told his mom to wait before playing the video for L.G. at night while he slept. It might still be too irritating. I wanted it to be comforting. I hope I can get him comfortable with the speed of production I used on the video. At the end of the session, I asked him to rate the session on a scale of 1-10. He said a 9.

After the session, I went to the vet to pick up Elsa. I expected it to be a quick in and out. I'd pay the bill, they'd hand me Elsa, and we would go home. They told me she would be ready by three. I got there by three-thirty, and I still had a half-hour wait after I paid. The estimate had been $1500 to $1800. The bill was $1800. That told me Elsa had teeth pulled. Eventually, a tech came out, sat on the bench with me, and went over what they'd done to Elsa and what I had to do for aftercare. Besides routine dental care, scraping plaque, they extracted 10 (ten) teeth. OMG! To boot, she had a fistula, a hole that went from her mouth into her sinuses. The tech gave me instructions on what I was going to have to do for the next two weeks: give her medication and hand feed soft or softened food. It took another fifteen minutes before they finally delivered Elsa to my waiting arms. She wore an Elizabethan collar. It would have to stay on for two weeks to protect her mouth because she had stitches.

I contacted all of Elsa's friends, those she regularly hugged on her walks, and invited them to visit her since she couldn't go for her usual long walks. Gayle and Lutz stopped by. Gayle has become especially attached to Elsa.

Yvette came up for a visit. She has a blow-up neck pillow that fits Little, which is about Elsa's size. That might be more comfortable. I would call the vet in the morning to get more information.