Mike's death; Betty's life...: 09/10/26

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Saturday, November 23, 2024

I started the day texting friends for help getting places since my car didn’t work. Was anyone going to Costco today? I needed a few things. I anticipated being without a car for the foreseeable future. The car wasn’t charging correctly, and the Kia dealership mechanic had no loaner available. I am so lucky I had five friends I could ask for help.

I caught a glimpse of Dean and Nina passing by my driveway as I was getting ready to take Elsa out for a walk. I rushed out to catch them. they were already out of view. I planned to cut down a side street to catch them coming around on the street below us when I saw them walking toward me. Mei passed them while driving back to her house, stopped, and offered them fruit from her garden. Dean and Nina were heading back to collect. While they went into Mei’s house, I grabbed the doggy bag I had forgotten from my house.

Nina said she was going to Costco. I was glad I had a chance to speak to her because I could give her details about the products I wanted from the store. Then I texted her a list, not expecting her to remember.

She asked if I wanted salted or unsalted cashews. Salted, of course. I love salt. Dean and Nina said the unsalted cashews were sweeter and had less impact on my blood pressure. When I got home, I checked it. It was 118/72. Pretty good. I think it’s improving because of the interval walking I’ve been doing. Also, I’ve been making percussive upper arm movements after reading that seniors who play a racket sport have fewer heart attacks and strokes. In one of the shorts, I also saw that certain hand exercises strengthen the brain. I think all these exercises are designed to get more blood to the brain.

I continued trimming the plumbago hedge. Eli trimmed down the excessive growth on my neighbor’s fence with the vines climbing ten feet into the air. It is that side of the hedge that concerns me most. It’s hard to get to and invades my neighbor’s property. I expected to find a walkway between the fence and the shrub, but there was none. I have no idea what they did. I trimmed what I could with the hedge trimmer, but I also had to do hand trimming because the vine had roots in that area. I pulled out what I could. The rest I cut back as close to the ground.

I also spread out the drip hose so it would be relaxed when the shrubs were planted.

I worked with the Twins today. I haven’t been working with them as frequently feeling they are doing better on their own. My goal in my tutoring is to teach people how to learn. They are starting to do that. Today, I saw Twin A ‘think’ for the first time. Up to this point, it either clicked or it didn’t. She had no conscious means of accessing her memory. Many of my students have problems with memory. The twins had it the worst. I told their mom my goal for them to qualify for honors classes in high school. My guess is the school thinks of the girls as cognitively impaired. Neither could name all the letters in the alphabet by the end of first grade. These girls have been a challenge. They’re in fifth grade now. Twin A reads on a third-grade level, and Twin E is on a high second-grade level. Will they ever become good enough students to qualify for an honors class? Who knows. While that is my long-term goal. In the present moment, I work for every slight improvement I can. That’s how you get where you’re going: one step at a time.

Friday, November 22, 2024

I was determined to do some gardening daily. The plumbago Eli tamed after it grew 10 feet high, climbing my neighbor's fence, needed to be trimmed. I set out with my battery-driven tool. It didn't work as well as expected; the branches and leaves got caught in the machine. I thought, "This isn't very well designed." I stopped working because my friend Carol had called from the East Coast. I couldn't speak on the phone over the noise of the machine. It was time to leave for my Friday Hula class anyway. I continued my conversation with Carol as I drove to town.

Carol has the same breed of dog as I do, a Havanese. Zoe suffers from the same skin condition as Elsa. Carol bathes Zoe regularly with the same antibiotic and antifungal soap I do. I told her of the fantastic solution the groomer gave me. Carol bathed Zoe twice, adding the oatmeal conditioner, and saw a small improvement. It took two or three baths before I noticed a big difference. Sharlane said to bathe her only once a week instead of every other day and to leave a residue of conditioner on her to help protect her skin.

While I'm participating in two Hula classes, one through the church and the other through the county senior citizen program, Carol and her husband, John, are taking ballroom classes.

I arrived at my Hula class early for a change. I usually get there when they're just about to start. I enjoy the opening practice of the standard steps the most. I don't have to raise my arms high. That still bothers my bad arm, the one with the reverse shoulder replacement. Instead of using back muscles to raise it, I now have to rely on my deltoid and upper arm muscles. Coincidentally, the husband of one of the instructors, who always comes and sits at the sideline, came up to me to say how much better I was doing. He saw that I could do more and last longer before my arm gave out. This is the second unexpected compliment I've gotten in this class.

I spoke to Kayla, one of the younger participants. The class is only open to those over 50. I don't know her exact age, but she doesn't have much grey hair. Her hair is even finer than mine. With hair like that, all you can do is select a hairdo that will let it do its thing. Hair like ours won't even hold a permanent easily.

I told Kayla how a friend of mine in college begged me to set my beautiful hair so it looked luxurious. I told her there was no point, but sure, go ahead and try. She said, "See how good it looks," when it came out of the rollers." I said, "Wait an hour." She never tried again. I told Kayla, "Wait till your hair goes grey. It gains body, and it stays in place."

I stopped at Target to pick up a few items. I checked if Haagen Das was on sale. It was, but not chocolate chip cookie dough, the only one with that fantastic vanilla taste. Ben and Jerry's was also on sale. They had that flavor.

When I got home, I was set to saw some large branches off the shrubs along the edge of the driveway. I went in search of my six-inch chain saw. I couldn't find it. I wondered if someone could have stolen it when I spotted the hedge trimmer. OMG! I used a chainsaw to trim the plumbago this morning. No wonder it didn't work well and got jammed with leaves and wood. I could have done some severe damage to myself. I cleaned the chainsaw, oiled the blade, and cut down the large branches.

I called the vet to make an appointment to get Elsa's ears checked. The receptionist was very friendly. I don't know if she remembered Elsa or quickly brought up the file, but her response felt good. The earliest appointment she had was on December 14. She told me to call at 7:30 in the morning to try for a same-day visit.

I got a follow-up call from Jovian, the Provision Solar tech who solved the problem with my newly installed solar system. I told him I had a problem with the Tesla app. He asked if I had an iPhone and knew how to quit the app. In fact, I did. Joseph had just taught me. The folks at T-Mobile told me to swipe, which I tried repeatedly. It worked sometimes. Joseph is the one who showed me that I had to start at the horizontal bar and the bottom of the screen and only swipe up halfway, leaving the shrunken image of the app on the screen. If I swiped too far, the app would disappear. He said most people didn't know how to do that. How can that be? Jovian has been a treat to deal with.

At two p.m., I packed up and got ready to tutor at Ulu Wini. When I started the car, I saw that the charge had failed completely. I only had three bars left. I was concerned I wouldn't make it there and back, so I texted Shauntel to say I wouldn't be coming in.

I called Kia to complain about the situation. The guy who answered the phone said. Yeah, intermittent charging. It's a problem with the Kia Niro. The prongs in the mechanism corrode. Wow! That's a freakout. I bought the car to save on gas and the environment and prepare for Armageddon. It wouldn't fit the bill if I had to replace the charging unit every two years. I had a minor freakout. He said I could try and clean the prongs, but that wouldn't be very effective.

I planned to drop the car off on Monday. I had enough to make it there with ease. Did he have a loaner? Not until next week. He wasn't sympathetic. He just said this is the way it is. Kia may come out with a replacement part that isn't as vulnerable as the one I have now. He didn't sound very hopeful.

Something finally clicked. Both fourth-grade GV and seventh-grade LV made the same mistake. They thought the i in the second syllable of animal was silent. When GV did it, I thought, "Ah, an auditory processing problem," and started thinking of ways to remedy that. But today I got it. Both these kids said the sound of /n/ was /n¶/, adding the schwa to the /n/. The letter doesn't represent a short or long i sound, so they figure it's just part of the /n/ and not a separate sound. The importance of 'pure' sounds became more apparent. That's why they don't think the following vowel letter represents a sound. I have to give a lesson on vowel sounds in unstressed syllables.

I had an appointment with sixth-grade RC. I'd been getting frustrated with her. I felt she was passive-aggressive and withholding, downright punishing. Today, there was a change. She showed her face on Zoom, where she usually hides it. She spent a lot of time preening, checking out her image as if she were alone looking in a mirror, unaware that I saw the same image. I've only seen that behavior in one other student. It indicates a troubled psyche. I didn't know how long I could deal with that. it is one of the behaviors that triggers me, that and arrogance, even though I know it's a sign of a deeply troubled soul.

I continued working on the decoding exercise, identifying the syllable pattern for each word. While RC consistently denied there was any improvement and couldn't remember the steps in the decoding process from one minute to the next, her reading showed improvement. I suspected she had a serious memory problem. I also felt she was withholding.

Addressing the auditory processing problem, I tried an exercise today to determine how bad it was. I gave RC a phrase to repeat, "patrolled the streets at night." She had no trouble repeating it perfectly. I created distractors. I continued working on the decoding for a minute. Then, I asked her if she could repeat the phrase. She did it perfectly. I created a longer distractor. Again, she did that perfectly. Then I told her the first step in the decoding procedure, identifying the vowel letters, and asked her what it was. She didn't know. She didn't have an auditory processing problem. I called her on it. She was deliberately denying she knew the procedure. I didn't reprimand her for her ruse. I told her she was getting in her own way. She acknowledged it. She knew she could do more than she pretended. I thanked her for letting me know what she was doing. Let's see where it goes from here. Now, my concern with RC is her vulnerability. I suspect she doesn't feel she can trust many people. People who lack trust have an inaccurate estimate of their ability to tolerate the bumps and scratches of regular human interaction. I will have to handle the situation with kid gloves.

Passive aggressive behavior has its place. Slaves use it to defy their masters. They pretend to be incompetent rather than disobedient. How else do you find a way to declare your autonomy in that situation? It's perfectly understandable. Defacing yourself is your only course of action. Why does this twelve-year-old girl feel so helpless that she has to undermine herself to feel she has some control over her life?

I had an epiphany today. Fourth-grade GV and seventh-grade LV assumed the I in the word animal was silent. That could be because they don't pronounce the phoneme n as a pure sound; they add a schwa. The phoneme n is a continuant; it is one mouth position and can be sustained until you run out of breath. These two kids add the vowel to the /n/, concluding that the I doesn't make a sound. The sound of that I is neither a long nor a short /i/; it's the schwa, used in unstressed syllables in English.

Darby arrived with her friend Tracy while I was finishing off with GV. They waited for me on the lanai. Then the three of us, plus Elsa, went for our evening walk. Tracy is an old friend of Darby's. They met when Darby was 19. Tracy was a philosophy student of her dad's. Darby hung out with students from the college even though she didn't attend.

Thursday, November 21, 2024

I started doing the before-bed arm exercises. They look like boxing moves without the punching bag. While the range of motion is good for you, the percussive, jerky moves make the difference. I slept deeply from 9:30 to 1:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, I had insomnia for the rest of the night. I must have gotten some unsatisfactory sleep because I saw the first glimmer of daylight when I looked again. It was 6 in the morning. That's late for me. I got up and did my morning exercise routine, and Elsa and I headed out for our walk.

I checked the status of the car's battery charge. I had trouble with it for the last two days. Once, it didn't charge at all. Two other times, it only charged up to 13 miles and stopped, even though the car was plugged in all night. I started recording its progress every hour. There was a problem. I planned to stop at Kia after I dropped Elsa off at Petco for her grooming. Then, when I checked this morning, it was fully charged, 26 miles. It usually charges only for 24 miles. Was the system upgrading? (Note: I have a combined electric/hybrid.)

I had to leave the house at 9 am to get Elsa to her grooming appointment at 9:30. We arrived in plenty of time. I saw two young girls staffing the front desk of the grooming salon, checking people in. I didn't see Sharlane, the groomer who gave me the correct advice for solving Elsa's skin problems. The vet told me to bathe her every other day and use a prescription anti-bacterial and anti-fungal soap. It did nothing for her skin. Sharlane told me to wash her only once a week and leave the conditioner residue on her skin for protection. It cleared up her skin almost immediately. Amazing!

I was concerned she would be groomed by one of those two young and inexperienced women. Then I saw her. She must have just arrived. When Sharlane came out to speak to me, I said, "Take a look at her!" assuming she would remember something as significant as curing Elsa's painful lesions when the vet couldn't. "What am I looking at?" She didn't have a clue who Elsa was and what she was looking at. I explained how I followed her recommendations and cured Elsa's skin lesions. While this woman is lovely and knows what she's doing, Elsa was not happy to be left with her. She wrapped her front legs around my arm tightly and shook. Poor baby.

While I was driving to Petco, I called Provision Solar. Today, a tech was scheduled to come and figure out what was wrong with my solar installation. Something was clearly wrong. I was getting less solar energy from my new, larger system than I had gotten from my old, broken-down one. I told Spencer my schedule for the day and gave permission for Jovian to do whatever he had to do to fix the problem, even if I wasn't home.

Jovian, the Provision tech, called. He would be at my house at 10:30, which was perfect. I was on my way to drop Elsa off for her grooming, and I would also be home around 10:30.

I stopped at Safeway to pick up frozen meals on sale. Lutz told me that Safeway's sale prices were better than Target's. I stopped at Target afterward because Safeway didn't carry Kevin's frozen foods. I brought the sales receipt from Safeway with me to compare prices. Boy, was Lutz ever wrong. The regular price for the same items was a dollar less at Target than the same item at Safeway on sale. I'll stick to Target in the future. Unfortunately, Haagen das was on sale again. I bought two pints, vanilla chocolate almond, and cookies and cream. Neither was very satisfying. With any luck, this is the last time I'll fall for its lure.

Jovian arrived a few minutes after I got home. He worked for hours. The tech who had turned the system on after the permit came through had thought there was a problem with the panels being correctly hooked up. He had checked. He didn't tell me he hadn't found a problem. I noticed the continuing low production value. I called to complain. Provision was monitoring my production and saw the same problem. That's why Jovian was here. He confirmed there was no problem with the panels themselves. He went into the attic to check the electrical hook-up. He found a bend in one of the wires. Once that was fixed, the system started producing as expected. I expressed concern about a fire hazard. Jovian told me there were several fail-safe cut-offs if anything goes wrong.

I had a tutoring appointment scheduled for 1 pm with a new client who lives in Pacifica, California. Her mother found the ad when my niece, Shivani, posted it. The woman was impressed with my credentials. One pm was an unfortunate time. If Petco called to say Elsa was ready, I might not have time to get to Petco and back by one pm. By noon, I hadn't heard from Petco. Too many events were happening simultaneously, such as picking up Elsa, the tutoring session, and leaving for Ulu Wini by two. Elsa's grooming made everything particularly difficult.

Since I hadn't heard from Petco by noon, I knew I couldn't make it back for my 1 pm session. I decided to go to town to pick her up after the session. I sent the Zoom link. Nothing. I called the girls' mom. Our appointment was for 'four o'clock' Pacific time. Yes, and it's 1 pm my time. I forgot about the time change. It was a two-hour difference now. I suffer from moments like this but I can't begin to tell you how much I love living somewhere that doesn't do seasonal time changes. In my last years on Eastern Standard Time, I had an accident every spring. It was a nightmare.

Realizing our appointment was for two p.m. my time, I told the mom I might be a few minutes late. I went out to pick up poor Elsa from Petco. Sharlane, the groomer, had made her look spectacular. She had also pulled as much hair out of her ears as possible and examined her for an ear infection. Sure enough, she had one. I would have to call the vet.

I made it home in plenty of time to hook up with LV, a twelve-year-old in seventh grade. As always, I started the session by asking the students to tell me something they're good at. I do this to even the playing field. The relationship is predicated on the teacher's strengths and the student's weaknesses.

LV's strength was her acting skills. She had been in a production of The Lion King, Jr. and was currently rehearsing Guys and Dolls. I didn't ask her what character she was playing. I learned she was attending a performing arts school. I didn't know they had one in Pacifica.

LV was playing with something while I taught. I could see there was some antagonism, not to me specifically but to the situation. She clearly didn't want to be there. I didn't call her on it. Adolescent pride has to be protected.

I started working on decoding multi-syllable words. I told LV the plan was to start there, move to comprehension, and switch to working on increased fluency when both are under control. Since that work involves decoding every single word in running text, I suspect she would not be too keen on that now.

I started her decoding multisyllabic words with my seven-step procedure. She could read: Portland, Oregon, and elephant. I told her that it was impossible to decode a word in English, so it guaranteed an accurate representation of its pronunciation in speech. Using phonics rules, you can usually get close enough to figure out the word in the text of a sentence -if the word is part of your listening vocabulary. You had to be familiar with it. LV had a dismissive attitude, verging on rudeness, until we hit the last word. Then it clicked. I repeatedly told her I was teaching the procedure, not how to read those specific words that she could already read and didn't need help with. I hoped I converted her into a word hunter in our first half hour.

It was too late to go to Ulu Wini, though I planned to go tomorrow. I needed to ask Shantel if I could change the days I come to tutor. LV's mother can't make it any other day than at 2 pm my time on Thursdays. She volunteered to change her schedule. I thought it would be easier for me to make the adjustment. I could go there any other day.

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

I got in touch with a historical aspect of my psyche I thought was resolved: the maniac messiah. I’m terrified of this impulse. As a child, I remember feeling I had a mission to save humanity from itself. I have no idea how much of this was self-generated and how much came from my father. Part of it definitely came from him.

My father was a survivor of Nazi Germany. Like me, he thought in abstract terms of the human condition. As a Jew, he was familiar with the concept of the messiah, or a single redeemer sent by God to establish justice and peace in the world, which dates back to the 8th and 6th centuries B.C. Orthodox Jews include reference to such a redeemer in their daily prayers.

While my father wasn’t a religious Jew, no less an orthodox one, he was culturally Jewish. His parents maintained a kosher house. While I don’t see any trace of the messianic concept in my Jewish friends these days, in fact, I don’t see any trace of it in the rest of my father’s family, I do believe he embraced the concepts of the last of the just and that a single human being could have such an impact on the world. Jesus did; according to the Jews, he failed miserably in fulfilling that objective. Can’t really argue with that. The very institutions that promote the belief in Jesus as the promised redeemer have promoted behavior harmful to other humans. Christianity’s goal was universal justice and peace. The Jews were/are more conservative. They hope for justice and peace for the Jews. I think my dad was aiming for a more expansive goal. He saw Nazi Germany not as a failure of the Germans but as a failure of human beings, a flaw in the human condition. My mother, a Lutheran by birth, saw it as a failure of the Germans. She had no such magnificent ambitions.

Assuming I’m right about my father’s dreams, he had anointed me as “my daughter the messiah.” What he was hoping I could accomplish is unclear. I suspect it was nothing more than being a ‘good’ person. But all that was couched in a 10,000-year tradition of messianic belief, which he shared with me implicitly and explicitly. Sometime in my twenties, I resolved to be a ‘dropout messiah.” I didn’t want to carry such a burden; thank you anyway.

For the most part, I’ve done a reasonably good job. I’ve confined my ambitions to something I could reasonably accomplish to relieve the suffering of others. The methods I’ve developed to teach reading and learning fill that bill. Of course, to promote them, I’d have to unleash that willingness to be seen, which evokes those old messianic impulses. Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather deal with rejection than approval at that level. I’ve been pretty good at achieving that end. Since I believe I have developed something that would be useful in resolving reading problems and learning problems in general, it’s frustrating. I’m in a double bind. However, given that the world is about to go to hell in a handbag and we’re about to send all of humanity back to the stone age, if not obliterate ourselves altogether, the ability to read will become irrelevant. Survival skills will be of a different caste.

But I recently found the remnants of that manic impulse in me. The problem is I’m not the least bit comfortable in that role. It feels like it possesses me. It feels like the manic state of a bipolar person. I don’t think I’m bipolar because I never go into a depression so deep to become dysfunctional. If I were bipolar, I couldn’t control the mood swings that easily.

The two ends of those mood swings are deep depression and high elation. In a depressed state, people become immobile. They can do nothing but sit around feeling terrible. In the manic state, anything is possible. The two poles represent being grounded and freedom from all constraints. The person inflicted with a bipolar psyche experiences the extreme ends of these two states, but we all fluctuate. Lo is the poor soul who has ambitions of creativity but wallows more in the depressed end of the spectrum instead of the manic. If you create something original and want it recognized, appreciated, and used by a large group of people, you have to be somewhat manic regardless of the field of endeavor. Look at Elon Musk or even Steven King, for that matter. Anyone capable of dealing with that order of rejection before acceptance. Steven King endured 80 rejection notices before anyone gave him a break. Actors have to face that rejection in person. Ow! What kind of a psyche does that take.

I got into the yard by 7:30 and did weeding and trimming. It was still cool enough to warrant a sweatshirt. I was okay and enjoyed it. Why do I put off doing the gardening? I was going great guns, but I experienced a failure and have been reluctant ever since. Half an hour a day would do the job. When I do get out there and deal with what I can do without putting my life and limb in jeopardy, everything is better.

What is it when we don’t start something because we don’t think we can do it? I heard a story of a famous performer who was nervous before each show. When asked why she felt that way when she knew she had consistently done well, she said, “ Yes, but I don’t know if I can do it the next time.” We are a weird species.

I finished listening to another delightful murder mystery from the Audible Plus collection, The Mistletoe Murders. The ones written by Audible are radio plays. They remind me of my childhood, before television, when we were entertained by radio plays. One of my favorite activities was riding in the car on Sunday and listening to the shows with my family. Mistletoe Murders is light, in the vein of the old TV series Murder She Wrote. There are three available now. I’m looking forward to the next one.

I planned to go to Home Depot to pick up the Milwaukee auger drill bits English Mike had recommended. They were on sale until the 20th. When I got in the car, I discovered it had never charged despite being hooked up all night. I didn’t have enough juice to safely make it to Home Depot. I plugged in the car again and went inside. When I had enough juice, I drove to Home Depot.

I checked the tool aisle for the item. Not finding it, I approached an associate. He said, “Follow me.” He walked out of the tool area. A massive display of Milwaukee and Diablo tools was set up for the Black Friday sale. We walked up and down the display several times, but no Milwaukee auger drill bits were to be found. I returned to the tool aisle on my own to search again. I couldn’t find anything.

I met with fourth-grade LG. I asked him if he remembered what the odd and even numbers were. He said he didn’t remember. I drew a vertical line. Did he remember me drawing that vertical line? Yes. What did I write on either side of the line? Numbers. Did I only write numbers? I reminded him that I wrote tallies and numbers. I’m teaching him to recall anything he can remember about the learning experience by recalling anything about the lesson, no matter how unrelated. Everything recalled can act as a loose thread to pull up the targeted information. Once we got beyond the I point where he recalled I wrote both tallies and numbers, he recalled the odd versus even numbers. I wrote two and three-digit numbers ending in odd or even numbers. He identified them with ease. Of course, I left the chart with the tallies and the identifying numbers in view. It would still be good for LG; he had to apply the information.

I reviewed the multiplication fact families. I drew a triangle with the factors and product, two multiplication problems, ___x___=__, and two division problems _ _ _/_ _ _ =___. He filled them out flawlessly. Then, we switched to reading.

I was exhausted after my session with LG and desperately needed a nap. I figured I would leave at 5:30 for hula practice with the church ministry. I lay on the floor with my legs up on the sofa, the best way to get a quick rest. Then, I heard Darby at the door. She was here to walk Elsa. She does that on Wednesday nights so I can go to the Hula practice. I remembered that I was supposed to be there at 5:30, not leave at that time.

When I arrived half an hour late, no one said anything except hello. I practiced the first sequence of moves on the dance Anita taught last Wednesday. There is no way I’m ready to perform the dance on Thursday for the 9 am Thanksgiving Day mass. The woman who videoed Judy doing the dance, so we had a model, caught me dancing in the background. I looked like an old lady with dementia. I was honestly confused, looking around frantically so I knew what to do. I did a little better.

Terry, one of my many physical therapists, was there. I’d seen her at mass when the hula dancers performed. She was always a surprise. When I worked with her, we both wore masks. Her lower face was different than I expected. During a break, I spoke to her briefly about a friend she had worked with. Did Terry know she had a child? She had a complicated pregnancy, spending almost the entire nine months in bed, which made for a difficult delivery. She had no muscle tone left.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Where yesterday, I mowed the strip in front of the house, today, I mowed the large lawn area.

I made it to the bank today to cash the checks tutoring clients sent. I got cash: $100 in tens, $100 in fives, and $100 in ones. I get small bills when I cash these checks and hide them around the house. I'm preparing for the worst. Although I have no idea what's coming. If it's a depression, having ones and fives on hand is a good idea. If it's runaway inflation, not so much. My mom and dad experienced that type of inflation in Germany. My dad bought a tie for 10,000 dm. The mark and the dollar were roughly the same worth before the inflation.

My mom people brought money in wheelbarrows to buy food. The inflation rate was so rapid that people got paid twice a day. They would run to the store during lunch to purchase food before the price increased later. We have so much to look forward to

I had a list of additional chores. I love organizing them, bunching them together, and figuring out the sequence depending on their location to use the least amount of energy. My first stop was at the transfer station to recycle cardboard.

Then, I went to Costco to get gas. I drive a hybrid/electric. I use the electric-only motor going up hills. It makes all the difference. A friend has a Prius hybrid. He gets an average of 30 mph. I get 120 mph. Going up the hills uses a disproportionate amount of energy.

My next stop was at the electronic recycling center to drop off the two solar panels identified as dead. The transfer station is run by the country. The electronic recycling center is a private enterprise.

Then I went home, having forgotten two of the chores I had in mind. At the bank, I meant to ask the clerk how to get a password for my online account. Also, I forgot I was planning to stop at Home Depot, down the block from the electronic recycling center, to pick up a set of Milwaukee auger bits on sale. My friend Mike told me to get that brand. It was not available. In the meantime, I picked up a set made by Diabolo. I don't know if there's much difference for my purposes.

When I got home, I found a text from Paulette. She was eating lunch; Elsa and I could come anytime. While Paulette lives two driveways south of mine, I always drive up there to get refills of Kangen water from her: one one-gallon and three one-liter bottles. They're too heavy to carry home. The moment I pick up the empty blue bottles, Elsa starts bouncing. She knows where we're going.

Today, Elsa did something remarkable when I dropped her off at the bottom of Paulette's steep, long driveway and watched her charge up it. What a blast to see her excitement. Excitement is one thing, but if Esla sees or smells a cat, she will pull me over: she's intent on making contact. I know by the strength of her pull if it is a cat she's after, even if I don't see one. Today, as she ran up the driveway, Paulette's cat, Mew, stood in the middle. Elsa ran right past her without missing a beat. Holy cow!

I had sixth-grade RC at 4:30. First, I checked on her recall of the multiplication fact we were using to train her memory: 6 x 7 = 42. She got 6 x 7 = 49. When I told her the nine was wrong, she immediately recalled the 2. Once she gets it on the first shot, we can start introducing other multiplication facts.

We continued working on reading, following the multi-step procedure for decoding words, and identifying the syllable type and the sound dictated by the syllable type. She has problems remembering what she hears. She also has problems using her appropriate background knowledge. Is she confused about what background to use or how to even consider her background knowledge? Does she think she is supposed to 'know' everything without figuring anything out? Does she have a neurological problem processing what she hears, or is RC ]just so frightened she can't perceive it? I've encountered several who think they're just supposed to know and resist using their conscious minds to figure it out. I've experienced some who don't know how to use the conscious mind in learning. I suspect these are the kids that don't do well on tests. I don't conclude they're 'stupid'; I conclude they lack the skill of using their conscious minds and must be taught how to use it.

I had her read a passage she wasn't familiar with. She decoded an unfamiliar three-syllable word, carefully reading the syllables one at a time before blending the word. I was thrilled. She read the rest of the passage smoothly. I asked her if this was better than expected. She said yes. I asked if she was surprised. She said no. She is very withholding, not only with me but herself as well. I hate passive-aggressive behavior. If she were an adult, I would drop her. But this is a child. I will adjust my strategy. If it's too hard for me, I have to back off.

I had fourth-grade LG as my last student of the day. I checked on his math work. He worked on division. I discovered he didn't know what the odd and even numbers were, and he didn't understand the fact families are vital for doing division unless you want to memorize an additional set of math facts when you don't have to. I drew the triangle for the math facts: the product or sum at the apex, the factors, or the addends at the other two angles. Using that basic information, I had him write the two addition or multiplication problems and the two subtraction or division problems. It was clear he would need at least one additional session to get it.

Because I mowed the large lawn today, I had more than enough steps in. I just took a short walk with Elsa.

I've been watching Elementary. It's a modern version of Sherlock Holmes. It's okay but not great. I skipped one story thread with Sherlock's supposed love interest. I picked her out as a manipulator. I didn't want to watch her do her thing.

Monday, November 18, 2024

I had a good night's sleep. I was in bed by 9:30. I got up at least once to pee, woke up later just enough to check the time around 3:30, and was happy to go back to sleep. I finally got up shortly before five.

I got a text from Clyde saying Chi Qigong was canceled. I was going to spend some time on the beach taking in that view anyway. I started my car and saw only three bars on my electric charge. That wouldn't be enough to get me to town and back. I had plugged the car in, but something went wrong, and the car hadn't charged. I even got an announcement that the charge had failed. I went back in the house. I was a bit disoriented. I had three chores planned after the Chi Qioong. It gave structure and purpose to my morning.

I had a session with Shelly at ten. She had started advocating that I leave a troubling situation that caused me grief. She expressed concern about the impact on my nervous system. In a bad situation, you must choose between two unpleasant possibilities, preferably with the least negative consequences. I've faced that in some meaningful relationships. In those cases, separation was the least painful choice. At least I didn't have to face the pain daily as I would if I had to deal with the person regularly.

In this case, the least onerous choice was to stick with it. I wanted help learning to self-comfort so I could deal with the situation sensibly, ignoring what I don't absolutely have to pay attention to. I want to learn compartmentalization and denial. I think this comes easily if you've given up hope of ever repairing the relationship when there's no way to resolve the problems in a mutually amenable way. Oh, well. So sad. But there's nothing I can do about it.

As if my day wasn't upset enough as it was, fourth-grade LG's mom canceled his session. I was looking forward to it, too. His mother texted their family therapist, who had an opening. From what I've seen, this is a family needing therapy.

I worked on formatting an exercise for seventh-grade LV to help with her comprehension. I always start with sentence comprehension. This is ignored in the regular classroom setting. I've heard professionals pooh-pooh the need for such a thing. They think everyone should understand a complex sentence if they speak English. Boy, are they off the wall? Sentence comprehension is tough. Most students grasp the content words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs) and create a story. Some students don't understand how the words within a single sentence interrelate; many don't understand how one sentence relates to the others in the paragraph or from one paragraph to the next. They fumble through the text like a blind person navigating an unfamiliar room. They have some skills, but they wind up bumping into something along the way.

How do I teach sentence comprehension? I ask questions about the sentence using four categories. In The Book, Think & Search, The Author& Me, and Beyond the Text. In the book looks easy to anyone who can do it, but you would be surprised. Underlying this is a fundamental understanding of the way language works. It is very complex.

Let's take a sentence I just wrote. Other sentences are much more complex, and formulating appropriate questions can be challenging. But thinking about it as a question-and-answer exchange helps with comprehension.

I ask questions about a sentence using four categories.

In the Book.

Who asks questions about a sentence using four categories? I
What does 'I' do? Ask questions about a sentence using four categories.
What are questions "I" asks about? (This is an ambiguous question.) A sentence
How many categories are there? Four

Think & Search:

Who does 'I' refer to? The narrator. The person who performed the action in the sentence. (I is one of the more difficult subjects when not in quotation marks.)
Categories of wh
What are the questions about?

The Author & Me:

What is a sentence

Beyond the Text: I can't think of anything in this category now.

We're already in an order of complexity here to which I would never subject a student below third grade. I use very simple sentences with younger children that involve characters and action and are written in the third person narrative.

I spent time checking updates in Grammarly.

I started with a new client today, sixth grade GV. His grandmother saw my ad on Next Door. She worked with him on his spelling last year. The boy struggled. His reading was better than his spelling, but he often reversed letters. Grandma had to check with her daughter. She anticipated GV might object, but the opposite was true. He was looking forward to our sessions.

I started the session as I always do when I meet a new client. I asked him to tell me something he enjoyed doing or did well, and he said he enjoyed reading. Wow! He likes stories. Then I asked him to tell me something he did well. He was hesitant. I told him anything he did well, including cutting his toenails. I suspected he thought I meant an academic subject. His answer was draw. Children who have difficulty reading often are good at drawing. It suggests the problem is overuse of the right side of the brain.

Then I asked him what he wanted help with. He surprised me by saying keeping his focus. That's a problem with attention, something his grandma didn't mention. I determined he was easily distracted by something in the environment, not his own thoughts. The former is much easier to resolve than the latter. I taught him the 'bull's eye' exercise.

I draw a bull's eye to represent the attentional system. The things we are most focused on are in the center of the bull's eye. However, a lot of additional data is coming in, such as the sounds of animals, other humans moving about, or the wind moving through the trees. That type of attention dysfunction is often easy to fix. I told him he had my voice in the center of the bull's eye. The chickens squawking in the background should be on one of the outer rings. For him, those chickens flew right into the center of the bull's eye.

I taught GV the 'pinball' exercise. You pull back and shoot the pesky noise right back to one of the outer circles. It worked well for him at the moment. I could feel his mind quiet. I told him to continue practicing it.

Then, I had him read a passage from the Barnell Loft Drawing Conclusion C booklet, my go-to text. He stumbled badly on the multi-syllable words. Well, I knew what we had to do. I taught him the multi-step procedure for decoding words of more than one syllable.

Step 1 is identifying the vowel letters, VL. GV couldn't name them off the top of his head. I worked on learning the names of the vowel letters in order: _, eiou, a_iou, ae_ou, _, eiou a_iou, ae_ou, aei_u. I also showed him the "I owe you" trick. I used that when I memorized the names in order. I still refer to it, although I doubt I need it.

The second step was to identify which of the vowel letters represents sounds. Since it is one syllable for every sounded vowel, this is important. The third step is separating the vowel sounds into their own syllables. The vowels are the cornerstones of the syllables. Everything follows the vowel.

Once the words are divided into syllables, the reader has to decode and blend each syllable as if it's a separate word. Only then should the student blend all the syllables in the word. It's as unlikely as it is likely that the decoded word will produce the sound of the word the way it is produced in everyday speech. There is no way to know how a word might be pronounced from the written word in English. however, you can get close enough to figure out the meaning in context. GV looks like he's going to be a pleasure to work with.

Around 3:30 or 4 pm, I got to work with the Twins. Their mother was at work. She called home to see if their dad could set them up. I've been using the original Phonics Discovery System method with Twin A. Working on a sentence at a time, analyzing every word for its syllable division, and the sound of each phoneme and the letter(s) that represent them. She finally said she saw an improvement in her reading. With Twin E, I continued letting her take the lead with the decoding, not adding the analysis of the seven-syllable patterns.

I felt like I did little to nothing when I did do something. I called Margo, posted three ads, and taught three students. But I'm not busy enough to keep me happy. Like my mother, I like to work hard. I'm reasonably sure it's throwing myself into an activity that calms me. That way, I'm moving at the same rate as my anxiety. I guess there are two ways of dealing with it: outrun or deny it. Coming to terms with fear is such hard work.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

When I spoke to Judy on Friday, she told me she spent the night in the Emergency Room with her daughter-in-law. Adam, her son, called her the other night and asked her to take Jazzy to the hospital. She was running a temperature of 103 degrees and was delirious.

The emergency room was packed. Jazzy's gurney was placed in a corridor. She was there overnight because there wasn't a single bed available. When I was in the hospital with my broken shoulder and elbow, I learned that half the beds in the hospital were for long-term care patients who couldn't find a place in a regular long-term care facility.

The hospital immediately identified a urinary tract infection and gave Jazzy antibiotics. Further blood tests revealed she had mononucleosis, a highly contagious disease. They put her in an isolation unit. I considered the impact on the family if everyone got it. It would have been a disaster. They realized the antibiotics she got upon arriving impacted the blood test. She didn't have mono. They kept her for an additional night, concerned about sepsis. The UTI became so advanced because it was symptom-free. I know that happens in older women. I didn't think it could happen in a 330-something

After church, I walked to the shoe shop in the Kona Inn Village Shopping Center. The pair of Oofos I bought on sale arrived. There are little plastic things to display them and a foam form to hold their shape. I always drop those off at the shop. They can be reused by the shopkeeper. Something else I don't have to add to the landfill.

I got a call from someone wanting to buy another solar panel. They were just on their way to Costco, five miles from me. He would stop by on his way home.

I got a call from the mother of a twelve-year-old girl in seventh grade who responded to the ad my niece Shivani posted on her Next Door app in Pacifica, CA. While in the middle of that call, the man interested in the solar panel arrived. I walked quickly to the side door, let him in, and pointed to the panels he was interested in. He passed me a hundred-dollar bill as I left the room to continue my telephone conversation with my prospective new client. As I passed through the living room, I saw Joseph. Oh, I had promised to get his clothes off the line. I turned to do that. Much of my life is empty of external stimulation; then, I have moments like this where everything happens at once.

The mother of seventh-grade LV said she was impressed with my qualifications. Her daughter had already received a lot of tutoring. She had problems with both reading and math. She was still working with a math tutor. The reading teacher moved, and her mother was looking for someone else. Since the girl lived in California, I could work with her midday with the three-hour time difference. Local clients are available between 3:30 and 5:30, so I have little to do during school hours and am slammed in the afternoon. From what the mother said, LV had some problems decoding two-syllable words and could use some additional help in reading fluency as well as comprehension. Some difficulties with word recognition and more serious comprehension issues are also present. Her literature comprehension was on the 5th-grade level; her comprehension of informational text was on a third-grade level. I told the mother I would start with a strategy for decoding multi-syllable words, then work on comprehension, and finally increase word recognition skills.

Judy said she saw my ad on Next Door and had no idea why I wasn't getting many responses. The need for reading tutoring is legion. Many kids are behind grade level, some because of the damage from the Whole Language Method, some because of the gap created by the pandemic, and some because they would have had difficulties learning to read with the best the classroom approach to reading had to offer.

Saturday, November 16, 2024

I was exhausted yesterday. I was fighting to stay awake by 7:45 p.m. I tried to stay up. I made it to 8:30. I was asleep by nine. Then, I was wide awake at 11:30 p.m. Getting up at that time was out. I had an insomniac night. This is a rare event. Hopefully, this is a one-off. I suffered from insomnia every night from the time of my father's death, March of 1956, until I spent my first night in my freshman dorm in September 1958. It was hell.

There were some good moments during the night. Elsa, who had already moved from Mike's side of the bed to my feet, curled up next to me. I could reach out and touch her at any time. At one point, I could feel her shaking. I thought it might be a dream where she was chasing a car in her suicide attempt to overpower it, or it could be she was having a seizure. Why not consider all options?

Am I better off having Elsa sleep where I can wrap an arm around her? This is a dirty animal with her own brand of filth, bugs, and outright disease. Am I okay with being exposed to this? I am not a germaphobe. I think germs, even the type that can make us sick, are good for us. They challenge our immune system.

The more serious problem with Elsa is that she's getting underfoot. Is this an extension of her increased attachment to me? I could trip on her if I turn, and she's right there. That would not be good. Have I sown the seeds of my own destruction?

I tried to nap after my morning walk and breakfast but was too wired to fall asleep. I have no idea why I was in that mental or physical state.

I had to pick up Joseph from the airport around 10:30. I received a text at 10:04 that the plane had touched down. He was in the back of the plane, and it would be a while. I picked up my handbag and said "Okay!" to Elsa. She knows what that means; she was going for a ride. I hoped she wasn't counting on a visit with Auntie P. She knows I take the blue bottles when we go there. The moment she sees them in hand, she starts bouncing in excitement.

I stopped in the cell lot to ensure Joseph was near the curb for pickup. He texted that he had disembarked. I pulled up to the curb under the Arrival sign. It still took quite some time. I saw the pilots and flight attendants leave before he showed up. Yeah, this airport is small enough that only one plane would have landed at this time.

I did get around to washing the kitchen floor and working on my updates, but otherwise, the day wasn't busy.

Around 4:30, I heard the washing machine going. Joseph was doing his laundry. My alarm went off. Joseph would run the dryer when the rates were the highest, 5–9 p.m. The solar system was only running at half power. Someone from Provision Solar is coming on Thursday to check it out. We are running primarily off the grid. I hung his clothes on the clothesline.

Our electric company had recently switched to a "time-of-use grid supply system." That means between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., one kwh costs $.20; between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., one costs $.60; and between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m., it costs $.40. Needless to say, running the dryer between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. is out, especially since the solar wasn't functioning. I hadn't needed to tell Joseph when to do his laundry because he generally did on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Today, he was exhausted from the flight and went to bed to get some make-up sleep. I anticipated he would want to do laundry after being away for 10 days, but I figured he would do that on Sunday, not in the late afternoon. He was out of underpants.

Some people worry about being judged a lot. I think they feel every form of displeasure is a judgment. The amoeba would qualify as a judgmental creature if that were the case. What makes something a judgment versus another state of displeasure?

We all want and don't want things. We all like some people and don't like others. It's impossible to be with someone in an extended relationship without finding things about them you don't like or moments when you bump into each other. As my mother so accurately quoted my father, "If two people always agree, there's only one mind at work." Boundary conflicts are the norm for all plants and animals. What makes any human interaction bearable?

There are rules of interaction. If both parties agree, I don't know if they're happier, but it keeps people from outright conflict. Everyone has to swallow their disappointment and dissatisfaction. Rules tell us who has a right to dominate. The nice thing about rules is there are no surprises. We all know where the path is and when we or someone else steps off it. However, we don't live in a culture with a single set of rules. I don't know if any culture has regulated perfect human interaction.

But I divert from my point, which is the difference between judgment versus displeasure. Displeasure says I don't like something you did or did not do. Judgment says something is wrong with you if you displeased me or you're displeased with me. It assumes my way is the only way, and you're bad if you don't do it that way. it is the character assault that defines judgment.

People who always worry about others' judgments are unaware they are the judges. They project their own negative judgment of themselves onto others. They are judgmental and accuse others of being so.

Of course, we have those with the perfect syndrome. They must always be perceived as perfect, and they are crazy-making. They are offended by anyone who doesn't consider their every action perfect.

Run when you come into contact with someone with perfect syndrome with an inferiority complex. That's the worst combination. They see everything you do differently from how they would do it as a slight. If they feel slighted, watch out. I wish I could have more compassion for people like that, but all I want to do is run.

I usually don't worry about people's judgment of me. I used to. It's taken years of hard work and forty-five years of having a place where I felt safe: my marriage to Mike.

That I should have felt safe with a man who made others feel like trash and worthless is priceless. Yeah, when I met Mike, he was an arrogant bastard who really believed he was right about everything. Why did I trust him? Some of that was justified, and some was just plain blindness. But the blindness meant his slights went right over my head, and his support meant the world to me. When I became aware that his slights were not sardonic jokes but real, I got to work. I didn't like it, even if he just did it to others. I got through when we were living in Ohio. He argued he had a right to his opinion. I defined his opinion of the movie: he didn't like it; he thought it was poorly made, versus his opinion of the people who made it and enjoyed it. once he got it, he was like an overnight convert. He was a different man.

Friday, November 15, 2024

Elsa has changed her sleeping pattern. She used to sleep on Mike's side of the bed, by his sleeping pillow. Now, she nestles around my feet and doesn't move when I get up to go to the bathroom.

Today was Hula day. The county provides classes for seniors. For $20, I get 10 Hula lessons. This is the second series for me. The woman who usually leads the class was absent. Her assistant led it today. She usually models the dances as the main teacher explains them. I knew from the moment I walked in she would be a better teacher in one regard. She was aware of the student's perspective. Usually, three rows of students are spread out to cover ¾ of the depth of the large space. Paulette had the rows closer together. That way, it would be easier for us to hear her.

She modeled a move, and I had a question. I felt comfortable asking her. I don't with the other instructor. She teaches the moves. She doesn't think about their mechanics.

After the class, I spent a few minutes talking to a classmate. A woman came over and said, "Who are you?" it sounded friendly, but I couldn't imagine why she would ask such a question. I said, "Because of my big mouth?" referring to the question I asked, which freed up other students to ask their questions. "No, I watched you dance. You know what you're doing." I had also observed her dancing. She was a native Hawaiian. From the way she moved, it was clear she had danced competitively, if not professionally. I had some idea why she said it. She saw my hip action. Most of the haoli (White) women in the class don't get the hip action. It comes from shifting the hips from side to side. It doesn't. It comes from dropping one hip. The strain is in the thighs both for strength and stretch. I yelled after my complimenter, 'I have a background in dance." The only problem with the substitute teacher was she didn't have a good plan for the class. We did the same three moves over and over. Our thighs were challenged. I anticipated having to stand when eating dinner.

Like this Hawaiian lady, I noticed another woman who came in and rocked it. She, too, like me, had no background in Hula. She reminded me of Estelle Parsons. I told her so. Her response was negative—not because she knew who Parsons was and didn't like the comparison, but because she didn't want someone coming up and talking to her. At any rate, "Estelle" was a physical education teacher. That explained some of her movement gifts, but she was unique.

The compliment I received from the Hawaiian woman was particularly welcome. I joined the church's Hula ministry rehearsal for the first time. Mike had always wanted me to join, but I never did while he was alive. With the help of the others in the ministry, I learned a Hula and performed it at his funeral.

When I entered the practice space, I was greeted with cheers from Anita and Judy S. No one else knew who I was, so I doubt anyone else participated. Those two were loud enough to sound like the whole group. Anita taught a dance that Judy knew well; everyone else seemed to know well enough.

Someone videoed Judy dancing to send us so we could practice the moves. I was standing right behind Judy. I thought I looked like an old lady with dementia, someone hardly worthy of the compliment I got this morning from the Hawaiian lady. After seeing myself dance, I thought there was no way I could perform this dance on Thanksgiving Day. Besides embarrassing myself, I'd distract everyone from the other dancers with my awkwardness. That video was a clear downer. Whatever my problems may be learning the moves, I can never execute them with my reversal shoulder replacement.

After class, I headed to Petco to make a grooming appointment for Elsa. I wanted to make sure I got the groomer who advised me on the effective treatment for Elsa's lesions. I got an appointment for the 21st.

I walked down to Island Naturals to check out some prepared food. I got a tuna salad (I love theirs), a lilikoi tapioca pudding, and some mini orange apple strudels. Then, it was off to T-Mobile to see if they could figure out why notifications didn't work on my phone. I could be wearing the earphones attached to the phone and wouldn't receive a notification. I waited two hours for what wound up being a two-minute consultation. One of the employees was chatting with her colleagues when she could have served me.

I made it home for a quick lunch before going to Ulu Wini to tutor. I caught Josephine, the head of the social service unit there. I asked her if she would be willing to give me a reference. I have a new client that asked for one. I have asked three people already, and I'll see if fourth-grade MH's father carries through on his promise to call on Saturday.

I worked with second-grade NV today. She read more of the first 25 words on the Fry Sight Word List—a huge improvement. She decoded all the words, making the word OF hard to figure out.

I did some work on automatic recall. I asked NV what her mind told her to say. She said her mind didn't tell her; she just knew. I finally asked where did she think that information was coming from. I saw the lightbulb go on in her head. Hopefully, this will get us closer to her learning how to use the automatic processing system of the brain, which is currently blocked when it comes to recalling words.

I also worked with second-grade JM. Her word recognition and reading fluency are above grade level, but her comprehension is nonexistent. I used WbyW, asking questions about each sentence as it appears in a kindergarten-level story. She struggled but followed as best she could. This is the way to go. I explained the function of the quotation marks.

I would love to do this with 6th grade ML. She desperately needs WbyW. When she read the sentence "The pond Sam had discovered . . . ," she thought Sam was the name of the pond. Disambiguation is always a challenge, especially for students like ML, who are English language learners and are not fluent in academic language, even in their own language.

I finally spoke to someone at Provision Solar who could help me. My Tesla app had stopped working, and I could not monitor what was happening with the newly installed solar system. Did the app's dysfunction reflect a problem with the system? I wanted someone to tell me if the system was running or shut down.

The tech on the line asked me if I had swiped the app. Huh? It never occurred to me. I did it, and it fixed that problem. Now, on to the problem with the solar system. The production is much lower than the old system's when it should be higher. The tech on the line agreed with me. He would be out on Thursday to figure out what was wrong.

I had a long talk with 6th grade RC's mom. It's hard for me to communicate with her. If I try to discuss a possible problem RC is having, she becomes defensive and explains it away. I got the information the RC told her mom she wasn't comfortable with the work we were currently doing. That was fantastic information.

I started the session as I had been, asking her if she could remember the multiplication fact we had been memorizing. The fact was 6 x7=42. For the last two sessions, she's remembered it at 6 x =47. I encouraged her to recall what she could and compare that to the correct answer. Then, practice the correction. Partial memory is better than none. Today, for the first time, she remembered the whole expression. However, she said 6 ---7= 42. She left out the word' times." I'm sure she knew what it was.

We worked with this single multiplication fact because the objective was to learn how to remember a math fact, not a specific one. The aim is to retrain the brain and build the neuro networks necessary for memorizing all facts.

I asked RC how she felt about the work we were doing. I wasn't doing some of my more way-out work on how the brain functions; it was pretty cut-and-dry principles from Orton Gillingham. I asked her if she thought the work I was doing was irrelevant. "Yeah."

She didn't understand how what I was doing would improve her reading. Her understanding of the reading process was that you 'know' the words. It's an understandable misconception of the learning process. People look at the outcome and draw conclusions about how to get there. She generated the Whole Word theory of word recognition popular when I started school. People believed we memorized each word. That's a tough call in any language, particularly in English with all its variations of letter-sound correspondence.

I explained the theory of learned automaticity using the standard example of tying shoe laces. Once we've learned it, we can do it 'without thinking,' whatever that means. It's effortless. But it took conscious thought to learn it. We use the conscious mind to teach the unconscious.

I also showed her Dahaene's theory of how the brain processes words. The visual information is sent to the primary visual cortex. Some words move up the chain quickly, and some go step by step. Some are 'recognized,' and some are decoded by the unconscious mind. The more the brain is trained in the details of the letter-sound correspondence, the quicker the mind can process the information.

Professional musicians practice the scales several hours a day. The scales are the basic building blocks of music, and the basic building blocks of reading are the letters and the sounds they represent. Identifying the letter-sound correspondence in one sentence a day helps us maintain and improve our reading skills.

I told her about the research that proves good readers demonstrate an advanced ability to discern phonemes, while poor readers lack that skill.

Then, I had her work on the exercise. "What does the V stand for?" Again, she was hesitant. I asked her, "Are you hesitant because you're confused or afraid you'll have the wrong answer?" She was afraid she would have the wrong answer. We'll have to work on that.

This was a watershed lesson. Two issues were addressed. I think RC will feel better about the work we do. I told her to always let me know when she feels uncomfortable with the work. I thought I would have her practice answering a question with confidence. She never does that, even when she is sure of the answer.

RC's mom told me she has a challenging situation at school. The science teacher yells at the kids. She may pick out one and yell for an extended time—Mom said as much as 10 minutes. I can believe it feels like that, but it's unlikely. However long it may be, it's damaging for the kids. The woman should be fired. However, the schools are so desperate for teachers that this is the best available. The woman is the head of the department.