Mike's death; Betty's life...: 08/29/26

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Monday, September 23, 2024

I didn't wake up feeling up-and-at-it this morning. My temperature was slightly elevated, from 96.8 to just below 99. I got myself up and out of bed anyway. I did my morning upper body exercises before Elsa and went for a walk.

I found an instructional video on the We Both Reach for the Gun dance meme. The instructions were wonderfully clear. I was surprised by how difficult it was to follow the moves. I did it easily when I thought of the first sequence as running in place. I can call up on my muscle memory from my youth. My plan is to video my performance and post it on YouTube. Hopefully, other octogenarians will join me.

I usually use Yahoo as my email site, but I also have a Gmail account. I try the Gmail account when the Yahoo site doesn't allow me access or recognize the recipient's name, and sometimes, that doesn't work either.

Yesterday, when I went to Gmail, it announced my storage was 99% full and I should buy more. I deleted all my old emails, most of which were advertisements. But there were one or two that were significant. I found one from Blogger.com telling me my With Mike; Without Mike account was now under Square Space.

I actually had two sites under Blogger.com. One Mike's Death; Betty's Life, which went up to September 20, 2019. The second was With Mike; Without Mike, which was up-to-date. I had over 63,000 hits on the first and over 100,000 on the second. The readership on the second dropped to zero recently. I thought it might be because I wasn't posting new entries around the time of my accident in 2023, but that couldn't have been the problem. I hadn't made a new entry in Mike's Death, Betty's Life, since 2020, and it had regular hits. I thought the problem might be that Square Space realized I had two accounts while I only paid for one and shut one down. But the transfer happened in February, and the hits stopped dead in May. Also, only the second account has been transferred to Square Space. I have no idea what is going on. I started downloading all the entries into Mike's Death; Betty's Life, since it is the one that still gets hits.

The woman who called me last week to say her seventh-grade daughter, RH, has been diagnosed with dyslexia finally texted me back. When she called last week, I was in the middle of Covid. I texted her today to say I was much better and that she should call to make an appointment. Then, I had a devastating moment when I thought she had changed her mind and wouldn't want to hire me. it inspired me to get off my duff and advocate for myself. I prepared an ad for Craig's List.

In anticipation of working with MH, I had a great time thinking of how I would approach the stated problem, orthographic perception. I already started reviewing all the strategies I had learned had developed to deal with the problem.

One of the strategies I developed was for the student to write down the word the way it was spelled on the page in one column and how they saw it in their head in another, two different images for the same word. Believe it or not, it worked like a charm for several students.

I found a video of Dehaene's on YouTube explaining how the brain reads. He confirmed one of my theories on why people had problems processing the letters. The information goes to the primary visual cortex for processing. It uses the part of the brain designed to recognize faces. That part of the brain gives two views of the face: one from the left and one from the right, which are slightly different. Both of these views are correct images of the face. However, the brain also produces two images of letter sequences. The reader must recognize that, in words, one is right and one is wrong and reject the wrong one. Many students don't do this. They hold both images, the image of IMAGE and EGAMI.

I spoke to my niece. Her seven year old son does not want to learn phonics. To say he is resistant would be an understatement. I've done a little work with him to no avail. I assume he has an auditory processing problem of some sort. That would make hearing the phonemes pronounced irritating, somewhat like stroking a cat against the fur. I've developed a method for helping students overcome that irritation. Nothing I did worked with him. He is a particularly stubborn young man in most areas of his life. he can also be a delight.

His mom thinks he plans to learn to read by memorizing every word. That was the teaching method used when I learned to read, The Whole Word Method, using the Dick and Jane Book Series. The theory was that we learned to recognize words by seeing them repeatedly. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Rooney, said, "Boys and girls, look for the little words in the big words." After immediately rejecting that as a ridiculous idea because OR in the word FOR didn't mean what it meant when it stood alone, I got it. It worked like a charm for me. Maybe this will work for my grandnephew too. If his memory is good, he can learn all the syllable units. Then, all he has to do is add on the initial sounds. I think this is how I learned to read. I only learned to decode as an adult in my fifties. My reading speed increased dramatically after that. We don't know all our brain does to process the letters and convert them into meaning. Many think that because they read fast, their brains don't use phonics to figure out words. Phonics is only a slow, laborious process. It's a theory, and I'm afraid I must disagree.

I had a session with fourth grade LG this afternoon. I asked him to identify the long and short vowel sounds. He didn't have a clue. I reminded him that the long vowels made their own names, which is a trick to remind students of the long vowel sound. He couldn't hold on to the long vowel sound when blending. He could do it easily when I reminded him to use crossbody blending. The process is not in his muscle memory yet. I reintroduced the VC and VCe syllable patterns. He could not keep the categories or the information within the categories straight. Okay. We're going to start again. His reading is light years better than it was, but there is something wrong with how he processes information that is not fully embedded. If he has to use conscious recall, he gets lost. I plan to follow up on this lesson on Wednesday.

Sunday, September 22, 2024

I slept reasonably well despite having spent most of the day resting. In the morning, Elsa waits on the other side of the bed for me to treat her. She seems to prefer the MakesNoClaims treatment over the steroid cream the doctor prescribed.

I called Al in Florida yesterday to order more of the MNCs gel. I told him about Elsa's problem. He advised me to dust her back with the MNCs power, sprinkle about a teaspoon on her back, and rub it in. Then, apply the cream to her paws; there are acupressure points there.

I bathed her yesterday after four days. I wasn't quite up to the every-other-day routine recommended while I was sick. While I'm sure the neglect overburdened Elsa's system, making her condition worse, there may be another factor- changes in her food.

The vet ordered prescription food for Elsa, literally dog food you can only get with a vet's prescription. She was on a Science diet brand food for years, which did nothing. A vet changed her food to Royal Canin Ultamina. Elsa's skin was as pure as the driven snow for a while. It was amazing. Then, she had a dental treatment: a cleaning with a possible extraction. That 'possible' abstraction resulted in ten (10) extracted teeth. Her skin hasn't been the same since.

My friend, also a good friend of Elsa's, suggested I soak Elsa's kibble in water to soften it so it was easier for her to eat. How kind and sweet Darby was in caring for Elsa. Else ate the softened food as she hadn't with her kibble. Wonderful!

I wrote about the change in my update. My friend, Carol, who has a dog of the same breed as Elsa, a Havanese, with the same dental problems, wrote to tell me she needed the hard kibble to clean the plaque off her teeth. Besides the kibble, her vet had recommended OraVet Dental Hygiene chews to help with the plaque. Elsa loved them.

All this coincided with my Covid episode and neglecting Elsa's bathes, but her skin got much worse. She looked a little like she'd been out in the sun way too long; her skin gleamed with the redness. I wondered why the vet hadn't recommended an edible dental cleaner. Ah, It's because she can't eat anything besides the prescribed food. This poor dog. The good news is she is not constantly scratching. She seems to be at peace with her condition, perhaps more so than I am.

When I got on the scale this morning, it read 130.5. I gained two pounds since yesterday. While I have been concerned about the rapid weight loss, gaining two pounds daily won't be in my best interest either. How did I do it? I had one soft-boiled egg and buttered bagel for breakfast, a bagel lox and cream cheese for lunch, and a salad with 1/3 of the RAO's frozen lasagna and a few small pastries and small handfuls of Kirkland Chocolate Covered Almonds. I did have to commit to eating full quantities instead of stopping when full. I would have skipped the whole evening meal if I hadn't done that.

I texted one of the women from church to tell her I would not be coming because of Covid. Monica and her husband organize the healing sessions at church. They are both caring people. Monia can see me sitting on the lanai from inside the church. She always waves. I suspected she would be concerned if she saw me missing. I didn't want to ruin her experience, so I informed her beforehand.

I met with fourth-grade MH. She was in one of her withdrawn moods. I asked her if she was okay. She mumbles yes, as she always does. I don't know why she doesn't react more. It could be because she prefers to be in a sulk. It could be because she got yelled at when she was in a bad mood when she was young. I learned recently that she loses access to her memory when she gets in those moods. Her condition is bad enough that she was left back in first grade because of it. We reviewed the story she wrote and assigned a title. It wasn't a very good one. MH is often off the mark. We went back to reading Stuart Little. I don't feel reading this book does much. I don't have a clear direction for her. I think her parents are going to end our sessions soon. Her dad told me outright that I would continue with her until she got settled in her new school. When I texted him to ask how she was doing, I learned she was getting As and Bs. I think they hold on to me because they credit me with the psychological changes in her. That's not inappropriate.

I tried to email a copy of the story MH wrote to her parents for them to read. I expect parents to share these stories with grandparents at least. There has to be someone out there who cares. I couldn't locate the story to attach. I tried everything. I don't know why files disappear or become inaccessible. It drives me nuts!

Saturday, September 21, 2024

My temperature was normal this morning. That’s 24 hours of normal temperature. I don’t feel great. Is that because I’m recovering from Covid or from several days straight of reading books on Kindle, listening to books on tape on Audible, and watching TV series on Amazon Prime? They all leave me feeling the same- wasted. I am not designed for a life of physical leisure, mindlessly or even mindfully entertaining myself. It makes me feel half dead or having lost all purpose in living. I have no idea how people do it.

I can see how people are overloaded with purpose cherish time in entertainment land to escape. That I get.

My niece says she gets comfort from reading. Sadly, it has rarely served that purpose for me. I can use it to distract myself from current reality, but not feel comfort. I would have loved to have had a source of comfort. It never worked for me. I had the same relief system my mother did: strenuous physical activity that stressed the muscles. When I was a kid, it was dance. I performed for my grandfather for what seems, in retrospect, for hours each day, improvising to music on WQXR, a New York City classical music station. That was my only relief.

I’ve kept up the walking throughout the illness. I’ve had a pretty mild case. I thought it was just a cold, only to find out that can pass it on to others and lay them low. Someone like me ignored the possibility that he had Covid. He infected three other people. One has been down with it for 19 days and counting.

With 24 hours of normal temperature under my belt, it was time to put the illness behind me. The first thing I did was wash the sick bed sheets. Then, I gave myself a thorough cleaning. My body and my sheets will have a joyful reunion tonight.

I bathed Elsa and dusted her with MNCs powder. I hoped this would help as the little girl suffers so.

Friday, September 20, 2024

Today is my niece’s 40th birthday. Egad!

I slept better than last night, but how much rest can one take? I managed it when I broke my shoulder and arm in a bad fall and was in the hospital for two weeks, but I was on drugs. I was happy to lie there like a slug and mindlessly watch TV for hours. My temperature was normal this morning. I seem to be on the mend except for a lingering cough that settled in the upper chest, a sore throat, and, oh yeah, this yucky feeling that comes over you when you haven’t been active enough.

I did manage to do some housecleaning. I vacuumed the lanai rug and the living room rug. Nothing gets out of hand here.

I got a call from a KP doctor today to check up on how I was doing. Wow! This doctor listed five or six comorbidities that qualified me for the Paxlovid. This online physician declared me too healthy to be eligible for the drug. This doctor has me at death’s door. He said all my medical problems qualified me for Paxlovid. I asked him to list the comorbidities: blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic kidney disease -Stage 2 (mild), prediabetes, anxiety, osteoporosis, a macular hole, and atherosclerosis of the aorta. All, including osteoporosis, the most advanced of the lot, are age-related. The one I don’t know about is atherosclerosis of the aorta. I don’t know how advanced that is. But I do know how to respond to it. I’m going to swing my arms as if I’m playing tennis. Fifty swings every hour. That will address several health-related problems, including osteoporosis, cholesterol, and atherosclerosis. Hopefully, this will add to muscle mass as well. While I don’t want to live forever, I do want to live fully while I’m alive.

Since I’ve started slathering Elsa with MakesNoClaims (a family name for Intrasound), it was time to order more. I called Al, the manufacturer/distributor in Florida, to order a dozen jars of gel. I use it daily on my skin tags, mosquito bites, and pimples of any sort. The stuff works like a miracle. I told Al of my problems with poor Elsa. He had two suggestions: apply the MNC powder to her back after bathing her. Second, use the gel on her pads. Her feet are filled with acupressure points. I still applied the gel to infected areas.

I told Dean and Nina how I used MNCs to help Elsa with her skin lesions. Dean asked how her keloid scars were progressing. They continue to shrink. The progress is slow but much faster than the steroid injections. Nina said she canceled all future appointments with the dermatologist. Then she said she was using another cream as well as MNCs. Then Dean declared that the clay in MNCs was drying up the infection. I said nothing. I don’t know what the clay is doing, but I’m confident it is more than just a dehydrating agent. The clay is run over a soundboard. The theory is the clay absorbs the sound, and it is the sound that heals. I’m not arguing with Dean. All that’s important is that the gel is helping Nina.

Thursday, September 19, 2024

I slept very well. I woke up in the middle of the night but fell asleep again. I slept through to 4 a.m. My temperature was somewhat elevated but lower than the 100.5 I'd been running. I generally felt better. I did a more extended version of the walk than I'd done since I got sick. I ran into Dean on my walk. He was on his second walk for the day.

He hadn't walked with Nina today because one of their chickens had an inflamed eye. I asked if he would take it to the vet. He said the vets here don't treat chickens. Huh? We have hundreds of wild chickens and farmers who raise them to sell their eggs. How can the vet ignore that population? People have pet pigs, goats and sheep. I vaguely remember our previous neighbor telling me how they took their pet goats to the vet. I called the vet and asked. Whaddaya know? They do not treat chickens.

I found the COVID test results on the Kaiser site, as promised. I was shocked I had it. while I wasn't particularly ill, it didn't guarantee that I would be particularly contagious. Also, Lutz told me that Covid can impact the heart or was it the circulatory system. I had several people advise me to get the Paxlovid shot to deal with the symptoms.

I don't like to take medication if I don't have to. There are always negative consequences. The question is, do the benefits outweigh the deficits? I messaged my Kaiser doctor asking if I should take it. I got a message back that it was reserved for people in poor health. Since my health was good, I didn't qualify.

When I lived in Princeton, I went to a vet that serviced large farm animals, horses, and cows. On one visit, I heard the most incredible howling while I sat in the waiting room. I learned they were de-tailing a baby lamb. It sounded brutal to me. Why subject an animal to such treatment? Well, there is an excellent reason. Domestic sheep are bred to have thick fleece, unlike sheep in the wild or domestic sheep bred for meat. Their tails grow a dense fleece. Feces gets caught in the fleece. It creates a block. An animal can die from the condition. Ah! Nonetheless, that lamb's complaints ring in my ears.

I finally got around to bathing Elsa. I had missed a few days. Her skin was the worse for my neglect.

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

I went to bed after 10:30 and woke up around 4 a.m. That was a decent night’s sleep despite having slept most of the day again.

Last night, I sat down with the Covid test Judy brought me. Holy cow! Are those instructions ever complicated, and you’re supposed to follow them when you’re not feeling well. I got as far as circling the challenging bits in red, laying out a paper towel, and placing all the elements on the test on it. Guess what! One was missing. It was the four drops of something you added at the end. When I opened that package, it contained one dehydrating packet. That’s it. I gave up and went to bed. I called Kaiser in the morning to get them to test me. I had one scheduled for 10:45.

Amidst the worst of Covid, they had a tent set up on the far side of the parking lot. You could just drive up whenever and be tested. Today, it was in the building by appointment only. A nurse came in suited up to the whazoo, with a plastic faceshield and a hazmat suit. It was a quick in and out. I got the results the following day.

In the midst of all this, I got a call from a woman who told me my name had been given to her by a psychologist on Oahu as an Orton Gillingham tutor. I’ve never met this lady. I’ve never even spoken to her. I think she’s the one who referred the sisters I worked with. I still work with one of them. The other is getting straight As in a high-end private high school. The younger one has some lingering problems. They’re more psychological than cognitive.

My back bothered me from lying on the soft sofa. I looked for my massage gun. The last time I saw it, it was on one of the lower shelves of the end table by my old-lady chair. It wasn’t there. I realized I hadn’t seen it in a while. I looked in the other place it might have been, in the library on the charger. It wasn’t there either.

Our friend, Scott, may have taken it. I wouldn’t have thought he would do something glike that, but he lied to Yvette about paying me back the money he owed me. That changed the whole picture. I think he blamed me for his staying here for free for a year. He felt it did more damage to him than good. I didn’t do anything to make him stay. I just let him stay here for free. He could have left anytime he wanted. Now, he was in a psychological crisis at the time of his departure. I don’t know that he still feels that way in retrospect. It’s possible. He couldn’t bear being at fault. But he gave me enough that my feelings of warmth and generosity toward him persist. He still gave more than he took.

I had a 4:30 appointment with fourth-grade LG. We’d been working on reading accuracy. I told him his errors were not due to a reading problem per se. “This is a habit you got into when you couldn’t read well. You did a lot of guessing and discovered you’re a good guesser. You learned to rely on that skill. You want to sound good when you read, which, for you, means you reading faster. When you read faster, you make more mistakes. You’ll get better, but you must focus on getting the words right more than getting them fast. When you do, you’re reading speed will increase”. LG said, “ You’re the only tutor who has helped me.” And, “When I first met you, I didn’t think these sessions would be fun. Now, I think they are fun.” Occasionally, a student makes your day with a comment like that. You’d be surprised how infrequent they are. I get satisfaction from seeing the improvement, even when students subsequently spurn me. I remind them of who they used to be, and they don’t want to be reminded.

I had a long talk with my friend Jean about my low spirits. If all that’s left in my life is reading, listening to music, watching TV, doing some arts and crafts projects, and cleaning the house, I don’t see a purpose to living.

She had the perfect response. She listened without reacting. I can’t begin to tell you what a difference it made. It created a significant shift in my down mood. I wouldn’t say I was buoyant, but I was closer to my usual self. I have to find a way to create meaningful activities for mself.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

I woke up not feeling well. I had a runny nose and a fever of 100. By the end of the day, it had gone up to 100.5. Nothing to worry about, but clearly I was sick. As I thought about it, I hadn’t been ill with a contagious disease in 25 years. I just got a Covid shot last week. I never had this reaction before, and it’s been a considerable lapse of time for the shot to be the cause of my current problem. The other option is that I’ve become negligent about wearing my mask when going into enclosed, crowded places. A third option is I caught it from the students at Ulu Wini.

I contacted Yvette asking for a COVID test and tissues. Yvette didn’t respond until late afternoon to say she had tests and tissues. She bought them when visiting her family in Oregon.

Brenda’s boyfriend had a mild cold and assumed it was Covid. Brenda, her sister Erika and Erika’s husband, Mark, all got Covid. While Brenda’s boyfriend had only a mild case, Erika was very sick, recovered, and relapsed. As of now, she has been out of work for 19 days.

Because Yvette didn’t respond to my text, I contacted Judy, who works at Target, to ask her to pick up the test and tissues at Target. Yvette called about 5 p.m. to say she would be home about six and put both items at my side door. I don’t know who got there first, Yvette or Judy. I was asleep when Judy came. I woke in a dark house to see this tower sitting on my coffee table beside the couch. Judy said I was out. She called my name several times, but I didn’t respond. She bought a package of four boxes of tissues. Apparently, you can’t buy a single box of tissues anymore.

I was pretty depressed. I felt useless, feeling this would be my life from now on. It’s not a great feeling. Just reading and writing leaves me depressed.

Meghna Chakrabarty had a program on. The researcher had a bunch of kids on her own. She interviewed people who see having kids as a holy mission. They enjoy parenting. However, these folks are generally part of a religious community with strong support for having kids. Everyone in the community sees children as a blessing from God and parenting as their life purpose. Sometimes, I wonder how I would have done with children. It was not something I had ever dreamt about.

When Mike and I met, we never discussed having children. he didn’t want children because he thought it would negatively impact his son, Damon. I had never felt called to have children. Mike and I discussed taking care of our mothers. Go figure. That was a mission for me. I had a second mission, which was really my first, to find a way to improve the lives of others. I’ve done that. I’ve helped many kids do better in school and stop their suffering. However, I would love to get groups of people interested in the methods I developed. Of course, I’m reluctant to put the work out there. I’m my own worst enemy.

I slept most of the day on the sofa. I woke up at 10:30 p.m. and went to bed. I couldn’t imagine sleeping through the night. Wrong! I slept till 4:30. I woke up at a normal temperature. I took Elsa for a short morning walk. I ran into Dean walking alone. I told him I was sick and kept my distance. The fantastic thing was Elsa didn’t pee or poop on my lanai carpet last night. I don’t know what she did with her waste. It was pouring so intensely yesterday that streams flowing down from the mountain leaped over rock walls, creating waterfalls and flooding roads. The radio announcement on days like this is, “Turn around. Don’t drown.” Cars can be swept away by these raging waters. The storm system was bad because it lingered over our area most of the day. When it cleared at night, the air was fresh and less humid.

Monday, September 16, 2024

The last few days have been uncomfortably hot. The temperature has been that high. Jean, in Arizona, reports temperatures in the neighborhood of 105 degrees. We have nothing like that. The temperatures were as they usually are, the high 80s tops. It's the humidity that's killing us. I put on ceiling fans throughout the house last night after the sun went down to clear the heat. It was cool enough at night that the light blanket wasn't too much. But during the day, it was uncomfortable. My short-sleeved shirt was just bearable on my early morning walk.

This is the worst time of year in Hawaii. It starts as early as mid-to-late August. It didn't this year. It started later. It breaks in mid-October, after Iron Man and Yvette's birthday. One year, it was so unbearable that students passed out from the heat. After that, they installed air conditioning in the high schools.

For most of the year, I wear a sweatshirt for most of the day. Sometimes, it's so cool on the early morning walks that a pair of gloves sounds like a good idea. This time of year, a short-sleeved T-shirt is too much.

The breeze at the shore at Old A during the Chi Qigong this morning was a delight. We had a short session because Daniel joined us today. He arrived at about 8:15 and had to leave by 8:30 to make it to work on time. It was still good. I don't know if I would be so eager to participate without the incredible view of the bay, the rock formations, and the waves at the shoreline. Clyde said he might not be here next week. He needs a surgical procedure to have a growth removed.

I went home immediately after the session on the beach. I had no shopping to do in town. Home didn't offer me anything either. I felt I had nothing to do. I could have cleaned the house, but it wasn't that dirty. A good sweep of the tile floors and a light dusting take care of the worst. How often can you clean countertops? I don't do well without activity. My mother found hard work soothing as I do.

Having nothing to do has been hard for me since before my sister was born. My mother wanted me to sit still like a doll on a shelf. I remember asking if I could wash the baking potatoes when I was three or four. You would have thought I asked if I could build a fire in the middle of the living room. Absolutely not. I couldn't possibly do a good job. Being perfect was an issue for my mom.

People who feel they must be perfect at all times come off as insecure. Their concerns are well-earned. If perfection is the only acceptable standard, they will always fall short. These folks are hoisted on their own petards (which are bombs). There are people who feel insecure because they can't match the standards of others. And then there are those who are only safe when they are the only ones who do anything right. They set themselves up as the gold standard and constantly instruct people on the right way to do everything, seeing every comment made to them as a challenge to their position. Falling below the absolutely right or perfect standard is devastating. I have met a few people like that, and my mom was one of them. She had to be considered right in all regards. To disagree or contradict her about anything was a put-down. Good God!

"It's not personal" is one of my least favorite expressions. I asked Jean if this expression comforted her, and if so, how. Whadaya know? She finds it as offensive as I do. When someone says that to me, I hear, "Put on your big girl pants and stop whining. You have nothing to complain about." How is "It's not personal" supposed to be comforting?

When a black adolescent boy is killed by a stray bullet while sleeping in his bed, is that mother supposed to not take his death 'personally' because no one aimed to kill him? People's actions affect us, whether they mean it personally or not.

Today, I remembered that people are less distressed by bad things happening if they are caused by acts of nature versus by anything influenced by another human being. For example, if a house is destroyed by lava flow, it is a force of nature. If a home is destroyed because of defective wiring, then it is more difficult to accept. We want restitution or revenge. Someone did something wrong. Nature can't do anything 'wrong.' Nature is always doing the right thing. It's not expected to take human needs into consideration. It is genuinely not personal. That doesn't mean the loss of the house due to lava isn't devastating. It just means the added burden of human fault isn't added to the psychological burden.

Someone accused me of being other-directed. One of the comments I hear most often about me is that I'm completely myself. How anyone can see me as other-directed was a mystery. The answer is they see me as always trying to understand the other person's point of view. When I tell friends about this, they say," They don't like that you're empathetic?" It's a quality most people consider positive. Today, I finally saw a possible reason they saw it as negative.

Working to see the other person's point of view is a torturous dead end when they don't want you to see it. We are told one of the greatest needs we have is being seen. I know there are those who have the opposite need. They don't want to be seen. I can see several reasons for it. First, they can't imagine anyone would like them if they knew them. The best they can hope for is a good surface appearance that appeals to enough people to make them included and safe. The second is that they fear that everyone is judgmental. Those people are often downright delusional. They see others as judgmental of what they are or are not. If you don't like everything they do, something is wrong with you. My mom was certainly that way in both senses; she felt everything should be her way, and she feared the judgment of others. Sounds like a hell hole to me. of course, there are so many ways to dig our way into hell

Talking about fearing outcomes. I don't fear judgment as much as actions. The schools are becoming more and more rigid. I know good teachers who loved the work and left the profession because of this rigidity. It doesn't just impact me because I've developed some unusual methods. I have already spoken to the assistant principal at Kealakehe Elementary. She told me in no uncertain terms the only volunteers allowed on campus were the ones who did exactly what the teacher told them to do. if the teacher wanted work done with sight vocabulary, they would give you the cards to work with, and that was all you could do- flip through those cards. You couldn't even apply a conventional multisensory approach. I called a walking buddy who taught at the school. I thought she could ask other teachers if they would like to work with me. I think she offered to speak to the principal. When I told her I already had, the conversation was over. '

I called some charter schools. They all have the same policy. I called a private school. I spoke to a receptionist. That was well over a week ago. I haven't heard a word. Not only do the schools ban volunteers who don't toe the line, but they won't recommend tutors to parents who don't use their precise methods. Holy moley!

Meghna Chakrabarti from NPR's On Point had a speaker who interviewed women who had a passel of children. Women who do this feel children are gifts from God and that it is a special privilege to care for them. All the mothers this woman interviewed were embedded in religious communities that provided support of one sort or another. I can see that. Both aspects: seeing childrearing as a God-given mission and managing better within a community. In my mother's day, women stayed home and met with each other as they brought their children to the park for fresh air and sunshine summer, winter, spring and fall. Childrearing has become an increasingly isolating endeavor. It's every man for themself.

From where I'm sitting, people who want children want them so they have something to love and be loved by. That's a different goal than servicing God's emissaries. Of course, some people who see childrearing as their God-driven mission, have a brood, and abuse each and everyone, never loving or accepting love from any of them.

For those who don't know, the mongoose is one of the many wild creatures living in Hawaii, with the exception of Kauai. These critters were imported to control the rat population. Only one problem: the mongoose is diurnal, and the rats we have here are nocturnal. Now, we have two populations out of control.

The original Polynesians brought the rats here for entertainment and target practice. The mongoose was brought here in crates in the 1880s. The rats were invading the sugar plantations. The Barons wanted none of that and thought the mongoose would be their savior. Look what Rikki Tikki Tavi did! (I just checked the dates. The story was published in 1894. Forgive my poetic license.)

Kauai has none because the man unloading the crates was bitten by one and dumped all the remaining crates into the ocean. Done!

Tonight, Lutz told me that one of his cats has befriended a mongoose. They play tag with each other. You gotta love cross-species friendships. It gives us such hope.

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Today was Damon's 52nd birthday. He called yesterday. A project he initiated ten years ago came to fruition. Damon found the book Wild Robot before it was published. He was a creative vice president at DreamWorks Animation at the time. It was his job to identify new projects. This one sat on the shelf. The administration at the time wasn't taken with it. The one that followed also shelved it. The current one found it interesting. Damon was already involved with a project as an executive producer, so it went to someone else. It's still neat. Damon said it may be a candidate for an Oscar.

I sang the traditional Ross version of the Happy Birthday song for Damon's birthday. Because Mike couldn't carry a tune, we developed an improvised version that didn't require anyone to stay on tune. It involves some caterwauling and/or whispering and/or whatever strikes your fancy. While some look forward to hearing what I produce each year, others have begged off. I have to remember which is which. Damon texted me the day before to say he anticipated this year's version. He was, however, concerned about who else would be subjected to the experience if he was in public at the time.

Later that day, he said I wasn't the only one who sang Happy Birthday that way. He sent me a copy of the song one of his directors sent him. I told Damon his director owed me royalties.

I didn't do much of anything except listen to Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead on Audible. I feel compelled to listen to the book to the end. It's not a satisfying or even comforting experience for me.

The latest in physical exercise and long-term health is the health benefits of racket sports for the elderly. A racket sport involves more of the body than walking. Good possiibliity. However, other activities with similar benefits are orchestra conducting and playing the harp, which are hardly whole-body activities. What do all three activities have in common? They involve percussive moves with the arms, which jars the muscles. My one concern was whether the sudden onset of violent movement would start moving cholesterol in dangerous ways. I know I have atherosclerosis, but I don't know quite how bad. I also don't know how it was detected.

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Ah, yesterday was Friday the 13th. Maybe that's why I had such a difficult day. Hopefully, it was also a healing day.

I shared my grief with two friends. I have to remember not to do that. They don't know how to not take on the burden themselves, and that's not helpful. We are limited in our ability to help others by two factors. The first is being overly sympathetic. We feel what they feel as if it is our problem, our loss. That incapacitates us. The other is shutting down all feelings and being downright dismissive of the feelings of others.

Buddhism teaches the middle road: compassion. How do you define it? Concern for the other person without taking on the burden. That's pretty vague. i know it's a lovely feeling when I do have it. It allows me to respond well within the moment, to give the person what they need or at least something that makes them feel heard and cared for without feeling I need to solve the problem. I can do this with my students. I don't feel I have to get them to be star students; I just need to get a bit better. I find the process of solving the learning problems fascinating. I have to diagnose the problem and find a minimally invasive solution. It's subtle work. It's like reading the water while canoeing down a slow-moving river, the head of the Susquehanna.

I did those canoe trips with my bunkmates when I was a child. They're some of the happiest memories of my life. I still carry an image of me in the stern coming around a bend to the right, reading the ripples of the water to determine where it was deep enough to get the canoe through without scraping the bottom.

I had no tutoring scheduled this morning and looked forward to the empty time. Go figure! Too much downtime makes me feel down. Sometimes, I look forward to endulging my sadness. These feelings are bigger than my immediate circumstances because they trigger old traumas. They're never going to be fixed by alternating present circumstances. They always lurk under the surface, ready to pounce.

Lying in bed this morning, I contemplated the difference between bickering and discussing. Bickering is when the goal of the discussion is convincing the other person to do it your way. The result is one person winning or a 'compromise' where no one gets what they want. The alternative to bickering, I can't think of a word other than discussing, is when the goal is to find a solution that is comfortable for both parties. The talking back and forth is to clarify what the two people want so they can co-create the best solution possible.

In the first case, people enter into the 'discussion' to get something specific, and anything short of that is a disappointment. In the second case, both parties are curious and excited to be surprised about the solution. It may be something neither considered. It will be an adventure. It's exciting. Those in the second category don't assume that their first thought is always in their best interest, and any modification is a negative, They consider it might even be better than their original idea. I love co-creating.

Those who prefer the first way, fighting for their way, usually like a scripted life. They believe there are rules that everyone knows and follows. There is something wrong with those who don't know the rules. Those who prefer cocreation see every interaction as an improv moment. It's not that there are no rules, but those change with the circumstances.

There isn't one way that is always better than the other. The Amish live highly scripted lives. For those who are comfortable with the script, it can be a wonderful life. You know exactly what you have to do to have a secure place in that world. The unscripted life is more stressful—or at least creates a different type of stress. Each interaction holds the potential for surprise and another opportunity to get it wrong.

One way is not better than the other. This battle between the two ways of relating is an ancient one. It is the battle between Confucianism and the Tao. Those who follow Confucian principles find comfort in learning and following the rules. Confucius created rules for what to wear and how to put each item on. Every moment is scripted. The problem with a rule-based life is rules change from one house to the next in a pluralistic society. Each person comes to the table with a different set of rules. If everyone fights for their way, it gets bloody quickly. Contempt flows and drowns goodwill.

In the improvisational setting, you assume everyone is going to pack a surprise, requiring an appropriate response to keep the conversation going. It's got its own set of rules. I do great in a dramatic improv setting. My improv conversational skills need more polishing. As I think of it, I should do a formula study of the rules of improvisation.

In dramatic improvisation, the only goal is to keep the conversation moving. In life real-life interactions, that's only one of the goals. What are the others? We need to be heard. If we feel misunderstood, we get scared. We need to feel the other person respects our needs. We're uncomfortable if we think the other person's only goal is getting everything their way. We want to know if the other person cares about our ideas of comfort and safety. I really must study the rules of improvisation:

As I detailed here, there are two spectrums in this aspect of human interaction. scripted vs improved(?). Oh, that verb form is not going to work. The correct word form is improvised. But that doesn't mean the same thing as improv. I mean the past tense of improv- whatever that is. You can say the word pronouncing it differently from 'improved.' Technically, the spelling should be improved, to establish that short /o/. But nowhere in the English language can you find a double vv. I'm introducing it now, as in I improved.

The conflict between these two approaches, scripted versus improvved, is at least as old as Confucianism and the Tao. They both have their good points and their bad.

Confucius talks about practicing a routine until you can do it in your sleep. If you have a social behavior that doesn't work, adopt a new one, practice it until you perfect it, and don't think about it again. Problem: if the rules change, which they do regularly, you're the one off script.

With the Tao approach, where you're always working with raw, unfamiliar material, you must be in constant flux. There's no stability. It can be crazy-making. Mike referred to it as chaos. He dreaded chaos. He'd freak when I talked to complete strangers and got in the middle of their private lives after a fifteen-minute conversation. He learned to step back and let me do my thing. He didn't have to get involved. He slowly realized that things went well more often than badly, and his life wasn't radically altered.

I made a dietary change about two months ago. I read that starting the day with protein was a good idea. I started eating one soft-boiled egg a day and increased it to two eggs with a side order of butter toast with raspberry jam. I discovered that this egg consumption caused a dramatic increase in my cholesterol count. Wow! I have to modify that. Dean tells me that delicious yoke is 100% cholesterol. Hmm! I cut my consumption of eggs back down to one a day.

I boil my eggs in a gadget that looks like a large egg. The bottom half holds water and has a tray that holds four eggs. The eggs are done after 5 minutes or so. Sadly, I haven't perfected this process and don't consistently get a soft-boiled egg. Sometimes, it's still runny, and sometimes, it's hard. I suspect I don't use the same amount of water, and I don't always fill the shell to the water line.

Today, I overfilled the shell with water. I heard an explosion. Silly me, I thought the explosion would mean the shell had cracked. Bits of egg were all over the microwave. It was easy to clean. I just had to dust the fragments off the microwave walls.

For my entertainment, I have been listening to Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. She won the Pulitzer Prize for this book. I don't consider it her best. I think it's too long and forced. Her need to include all her concerns dominated her literary decisions. As I said, it felt forced.

A week has passed, and I've had no word from Adolescent D. I don't feel inclined to text him to ask what is going on. It feels like a good time to terminate. I feel the loss of work, but I won't force people into a relationship if it doesn't feel right. No one is responsible for providing me with what I need. That amounts to a scam. There's a wide world out there. It's for me to pursue what I want.

Elsa and I visited Paulette. Damon called in the middle. Everyone knows his calls get priority. He's a busy boy; you have to grab him when the grabbing is good. I never call him, knowing he is too busy. He regularly calls me once every two weeks. We spent a lot of time discussing the care options for his mother and stepfather in their retirement community. Both of them are having problems.

Friday, September 13, 2024

I spent most of the day in a funk, despairing about my options. The gardening I hoped to throw my energy into was officially out. When I fell yesterday while getting out of rough terrain, I conceded that caring for the property alone was out. I had been having nightmares about it already. It is just not realistic for an 83-year-old woman with osteoporosis and metal replacement parts to risk falling. The metal replacement parts increase my risk of breaking bones. If I fall hard and catch myself with my left arm with its shoulder replacement and elbow reconstruction, every remaining bone in my arm will shatter. I would need a whole arm replacement.

The lack of interaction with other people and tutoring opportunities also weighs on me. My sense of safety has come from interacting with people outside my immediate family- just about anyone. My mother was a source of endless negative feedback. When I interacted with others, I got immediate positive feedback. My mother assured me they were just pretending, and they didn’t really like me, which made me all the more frantic to get that to prove the feedback was positive. I was like Blanche DuBois; I always relied on the kindness of strangers.

The tutoring was doing poorly. I have lost one client permanently, Adolescent D. I’m semi-delighted for him. Only semi-delight because I fear his reasoning. It’s more than semi-delighted, but i do have some lingering reservations. His departure feels righter than it does wrong. He’s working 25 hours a week at Costco, which he loves doing, and is attending school full-time. He has made dramatic changes in his persona since starting work. He feels like an adult who doesn’t need childish things like tutoring anymore.

D is not entirely wrong. He reads well enough now to get through life, as long as he doesn’t have a job that requires reading. I have two concerns. Will he pass the written driver’s permit test to get a driver’s license? And, will he stay in school for the next two years to get a high school diploma- even if he hasn’t earned it because he hasn’t done enough of the work.

Should he decide to take up tutoring again, I’m not sure I would be good with that. I can handle passivity and passive aggressive behavior in a child, but my tolerance for it in an adult drops precipitously.

At Ulu Wini, I worked with first-grade PY again. In our last session, I discovered she had no recall for words or numbers and used her primary visual cortex to embed images into the nervous system instead of Visual Working Memory (VWM). I showed her where VWM was and recommended she use that, only to discover turbulence in that area. I started to work on a spin release but thought better about doing it then.

When she returned today, she could use the VWM area to introduce images into the nervous system. I have no idea what she did, and it’s irrelevant, immaterial, and besides the point. The important thing is she did it and is doing it. I showed her how to coordinate the visual image with auditory recall. Bingo! Within half an hour, she could identify all the letters in the alphabet and several numbers. Some required clarification. She confused u and n, and n and h. I concentrated on letters rather than numbers but presented a few. She could identify 20 and 22 but not 15 or 30. I left the numbers for another day.

After she identified the letters in the alphabet, I asked her if she wanted to start reading words. Yes. I started with THE. She identified the letters, and I told her the sounds. Once she seemed secure, I had her do a word search for THE in books. She had selected a picture book. She scanned every sentence, looking for the word. When she completed the first book, I asked her if she wanted to stop or go on. She wanted to go on. She went through the process with two more books. She worked with me for an hour and a half without stopping except to fill up her water bottle twice. I have never had a student like that, no less one so young.

Not only did she work hard and long, but she also taught me something I had never considered before. The letters T-H-E are part of other words, like they, then, them, other, and together. As she searched for THE, she had to discriminate between the word in isolation and the words embedded with other letters. This would make an excellent drill for visual discrimination between all those words.

The impact on my mood after this interaction was striking. My love of interaction with others is both a strength and a weakness.

I read more of A Man Called Ove and listened to Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior. I didn’t clean the house or do a craft project—both options. I tried meditating, but my grief was so overwhelming that it was to be avoided. There’s only so much I can stand.

While there is reason for this grief in my current life, Mike’s gone. I’m alone, and I don’t have the type of social contact I need to feel lasting relief. Mind you, when I do have contact with the friends I have, my mood quickly shifts. I recognize this state of sadness and despair from my childhood, from before my sister was born. I’m sure my history just makes this moment worse. One strategy is to avoid situations that evoke this feeling. The other is to sit with it and resolve it.

When my mother moved in with me, one of my goals was to help her grow up so she wouldn’t have to live with the same problems again—in case reincarnation was the reality. I have the same goal for myself. I would like to resolve this issue in this lifetime if I can. Do I believe in reincarnation? Eh. I dismiss and accept all the theories of what happens to us after we die. Anything is possible.