Mike's death; Betty's life...: 09/16/26

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Friday, December 13, 2024

What a day!! Everything worked out fine, but oh, boy. Yesterday, I figured out I had scheduled three events at the same time. On Wednesday, Joe, the service manager at Kia, told me a specialist

t would fly in from Honolulu to make a hands-on diagnosis of problems. Could I bring my car first thing on Thursday morning? I told him sure, no problem. I didn't need a loaner, forgetting about my 9 am dental appointment. I called Vicki, the dental receptionist, to see if she could fit someone else in my time slot. She couldn't reach anyone else. I didn't feel comfortable canceling. A friend's father was a dentist, and his mother was his receptionist. I hadn't realized how important that role was in maintaining a solvent business. His mother made sure appointment slots were filled when someone canceled. I knew that this dentist wasn't getting wealthy from this business. I felt I couldn't cancel on him and leave that time slot blank. I got there with Lyft.

I planned to call at 8:15 to order the ride. By the time I started ordering the car, it was 8:20. By this time I had my order in, it was close to 8:25. I ordered the ride in fifteen minutes. There was no response. Frantic, I ordered the car in under six minutes for a few more dollars. That got an immediate response. I concluded they delayed response to the cheaper order. The driver arrived at 8:38. I was at the dentist before nine am. The whole event was trivial, just anxiety-producing because I was unfamiliar with it.

As always, I climbed the stairs to the dentist's second-floor office. The stairs are narrow enough that I can hold on to the railings on both sides. I practice taking those stairs two at a time, holding on for extra oomph and safety. The last time I took those stairs, I could easily take on the challenge with my right leg. I tried it with my left, but didn't have the strength to make it. Today, I did it quickly with both legs. Wow! That's some improvement.

I was just at the dentist for a cleaning and checkup. I got a good bill of health based on the success of my dental hygiene. However, the dentist found several soft spots where the tooth was exposed beyond the cap and one spot that required a filling. I made an appointment for January.

I called Kia while riding in the Lyft to the dentist to check on the state of my car. If the mechanic from Honolulu had been there yesterday, I could get my car this morning. I would have their shuttle pick me up at the dentist's office and save myself a second Lyft fee.

The Honolulu mechanic had been by. He agreed my car needed a replacement part. Joe was explaining what the deal was to me when I interrupted. I only wanted to know if I could have my car back today, in which case, he should send someone to the dentist's office to pick me up. Joe said the Honolulu tech told him to hold my car in the shop until the job was done, but I could have a loaner. I should call when I was through at the dentist, and he would send someone to get me.

When Joe collected my loan form information, he noticed that my driver's license had expired. I usually renew my license at least three months before the expiration date. I had never been in this position before. After some discussion, Joe suggested that their shuttle driver drive me home, wait while I pick up the necessary documentation, my birth certificate, marriage license, and social security card, and then drive me to the DMV. Wow! I have to write a review of the company for its customer service. I have never seen anything like it. it would be one thing if I asked, but Joe's the one who proposed it. Holy cow!

When I got my driver's license renewed two years ago, the experience was a nightmare. This time, it was a dream. I anticipated a two-hour wait while I sat at the picnic tables outside the DMV with at least a dozen other people waiting to be served.

Last time, I waited in line with at least ten people ahead of me to speak to someone to check in and get a number. That alone was a slow process. There was no line this time, and only two people were sitting at the picnic benches waiting to be served. What was going on?

I entered the room. I entered my information into a kiosk. No, I did not have an appointment. I was told there were no appointments available. Please speak to the attendant. I thought I would have to make an appointment for another day. Not at all. He scheduled me for 11:45. I completed the form and sat down. Several people came in who had appointments and went ahead of me. I was called. I went to the assigned window. I handed the clerk an expired passport, birth certificate, and social security card. She asked when I had changed my name legally. I froze. I just added -Ross to my name some years after I was legally married. I hadn't done it through a legal process. She asked if I had my wedding certificate. Oh, that. Yes, I did. I had two copies. Apparently, one was a copy.

Then, I had to take an eye exam. I worried about that. Sandor had suggested I take it in his office instead of at the DMV. It was too late to use that option. "Read the numbers in line 5." I got most of them, only reading a 6 as a 5. The clerk told me to check it. She asked me to identify road signs. That was easy. I paid using a credit card and walked over to the area where they took my picture. first, I had to have my fingerprints taken electronically. I asked for a minute before she took my picture. I was exhausted. I gave my face a fast massage and posed. Good God, I came out looking like I had facial reconstruction. I barely recognized myself.

I called Kia and asked for someone to pick me up. It took a while, as they got delayed at the shop. When I got there, it was quick work. He collected my documents. I now had a valid driver's license, insurance card, and credit card number. I drove away in a grey sedan hybrid.

I needed to eat and nap. I had two clients for sure, and possibly the twins as well. The first was fourth-grade GV. I continued working with him on spelling. I dictate complete sentences from Barnell Loft's paragraphs. The results are amazing when dictating random words in the context of natural speech. I can pinpoint where the student is having problems and address it. I had to review the rule governing the spelling of a after a w, as in wash, watch, what, and want. The a after a /w/ sounds like a short /o/ instead of the short /a/. he also had trouble with the VCe pattern, as in like and take. This led to a review of the long and short vowel sounds. He couldn't remember which was which. When I asked him to remember what he could of the chart, he flipped it so the long vowels were on the left and the short on the right. Then he had problems remembering which ones were the long ones. The trick is that the long ones sound like the names of the letters representing them. He couldn't remember that.

I tried a mental trick. I created an image of being chased by an ape and running a long distance. The connection made no sense to GV. The sentence made no sense, but he didn't panic and go into brain freeze. I struggled to find a way to present it so it made sense. He had trouble with random connections. He also has a history of problems when presented with anything unfamiliar. This mental pattern has interfered with his learning. You can't mentally shut down when the teacher introduces something new. You have to learn to live with the uncertainty and disorientation. Even better, you have to learn to associate it with the joyous event of learning something new. I asked him if he was doing better with that in school. He said yes. "This is the most important thing I have to teach you. Once you learn that, you can learn anything." I teach students that they have to learn to discern the difference between situations that can be really dangerous and those that are disorienting but not dangerous. He said he was interested in learning to be more open.

I had 7th grade RC. I may have been calling her sixth-grade RC by mistake. I introduced the spelling approach I started using with fourth-grade GV and then applied it to several other students. I dictate sentences on a fifth-grade level. She said it was easy to spell small words. The process worked to reveal the areas where she did have problems. She didn't pronounce all the syllables in multisyllabic words. This happened several times. She also had a problem isolating the base word from the suffix. Even that may be an extension of not identifying all the syllables or a unique aspect of the problem. She said this instruction was helpful.

I discovered that RC has an incredible ability to recall long sentences after one hearing. Wow! What a strength.

I listened to the 5 Stories audiofile while I napped. When walking with Darby, she used a Hawaiian phrase. I repeated it accurately and with ease. I have noticed a similar improvement in several situations. This is new. It looks like listening to the audiofile while sleeping can impact me as well as my students. It's changing my brain, even though I'm the one who made the audio file. It's my voice. I'm blown away. This, unfortunately, does not yet mean that I can remember over time what I could so easily repeat. Is my short-term memory already too weak for my recall to be improved? If I do see an improvement, this could benefit all older people.

Thursday, December 12, 2024

This morning, I weighed 135.5 lbs. A few months ago, I was concerned by my rapid weight loss. I got down to 131 from 139; I didn't want to go any lower. At my age, I need to maintain some body fat in case of a catastrophic event. Lutz told me the vulnerable are the very fat, the very thin, and those who are not in good physical shape.

Yesterday, the service manager at Kia, Joe, called to say a master Kia mechanic was coming over from Honolulu to diagnose problems that couldn't be diagnosed online. Could I bring in my car on Thursday morning? I got up early to drop it off. Joe didn't have a loaner available. I told him, "No worries. I wouldn't need one until Monday." I got the car there by 8:30.

My friend Melissa called. Would Friday morning work for me? She would drop in to visit for an hour or so. She was leaving the following day for a month stint volunteering as an OBGyn in the Australian Outback. Then, Vicki, the dental receptionist, called to tell me the antibiotic I was taking for the UTI was good enough. I didn't need to take another antibiotic prophylactically before dental treatment. Anyone with metal in their body, like a hip replacement, shoulder replacement, or partial elbow replacement, must take it. I qualify. For reasons I don't understand, these implants increase the risk of infection. Then, the penny dropped. I had a nine a.m. dental appointment, I didn't have a car to get there, and I arranged for a friend to visit at the same time.

I asked Vicki if she could find someone to fill my slot. A missed appointment is a missed payment, and I hate doing that to someone dependent on their clients to cover their expenses. She tried, but the people she called didn't answer their phones. I called my friend Melissa and told her I couldn't make it. I would see her when she got back in a month. I got the car to Kia by 8:30 a.m., and they drove me home.

Yvette planned to share dinner with me on the night of my birthday but had to cancel because she became ill. It was a short-lived virus infection, starting with a sore throat. We had dinner tonight. She brought an egg sandwich and a side of avocado. I had a bowl of lentil soup and a salad. Neither of us cooks.

I nearly forgot about my appointment with seventh-grade LV. We only meet for half an hour a week and have only had two appointments, and her mother canceled our appointment last week. She's also responding quickly to my teaching methods, so I don't think about her a lot. I started showing her the six-step procedure for decoding multi-syllable words. She applied it immediately.

My initial plan was to teach her how to decode multi-syllable words, then work on comprehension and, only afterward, drill the fine points of decoding to increase reading speed. I forgot about my plan to focus on comprehension. I forgot that her mother told me it was a problem. She read fiction at a 5th-grade level and informational text at a third-grade level. Given her obvious intelligence, it was hard to think of her as having problems with comprehension.

Using seventh-grade material, the work we did today revealed a gap in her comprehension. She didn't get further than the first clause in the first sentence.: "Gazing across the a/r-i-d, rocky Moroccan plain," She hit problems reading arid. She read the i as a long instead of a short vowel. She would need extensive phonics training. However, she did decode Moroccan correctly. By the end of the phrase, I diagnosed a cause for her comprehension problems. upon checking her understanding of the words in the clause, I discovered she didn't use context to figure out the word's meaning. When I asked her the meaning of 'plain," she said not very pretty or simple. True, the plains are simple and unadorned, but that is not an adequate understanding of the word in this context. I asked her if her reading of the word made sense in this context. When I pushed her to use the context: someone's gazing across something that is rocky, even if she doesn't know the word arid. What is that something? She could tell me it was a piece of land. I wasn't surprised that she figured it out quickly. The surprise was that she hadn't done it on her own before.

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

I went to bed at 9 and was wide awake by 12:30 a.m. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t fall back asleep; I got up at 2:30. I called Kaiser’s travel department to make flight arrangements for December 26, 2024, for my heart tests in Honolulu. Kaiser has its main facilities there. People living on the outer islands fly there for specialized procedures. I needed an echogram and a stress test. I had an earlier appointment but missed my flight.

I checked my Amazon orders. After the presidential election, I checked my emergency supplies of rice and beans and ordered fifty more pounds of both. I’m preparing for the worst-case scenario. I thought they should have arrived already. They will come at the end of the month.

While I had gotten up at 2:30 and did some work, I returned to bed and got up late. I didn’t do my morning exercises, but I did do my walk with Elsa.

I had a text from Kaiser that my antibiotic for my UTI was available a few days ago, but I hadn’t found a convenient time to pick it up. While the symptoms had been mild when I consulted the Kaiser after-hours advice line, the results proved I did indeed have an infection. This morning, the symptoms were more pronounced. I had to get to the Kaiser pharmacy quickly. I made sure I was there at 8 a.m. when they opened.

I was their first customer. The pharmacy clerk couldn’t find my prescription. I was afraid of that. Had I waited too long to pick it up? She searched her records and found it. I had to wait ten minutes for it to be prepared.

Afterward, I went to Home Depot for gardening supplies and a magic eraser, reportedly good for removing scuff marks from ceramic tile. I’ve had white tiles for the last twenty years. Some dislike walking on their hard, cold surface. I like it. I don’t like the scuff marks. I tried everything I could think of to get them off. The previous owner of our Columbus home had tried everything to clean the scuff marks. Nothing worked. I finally looked for a possible solution on YouTube. Sure enough. WD40 or Magic Erase. The WD40 did a pretty good job. I wanted to try the Magic Eraser.

I needed a nap when I got home. It was still early. I had to water the 42 newly planted shrubs before I could nap. The chickens are constantly digging up new holes. I asked B to stop feeding and providing water for the wild chickens so they would move to another location until the plants were properly rooted. On my morning walk with Dean, he confirmed this is what chickens do. Only one plant was in worse shape since yesterday. A chicken had moved one of the softball-sized rocks I laid down to protect the roots. I may have to get forty-two tomato towers to protect the plants. Once I’d done my gardening chores, I took that nap. I slept for over two hours.

I texted Mama K to make arrangements to meet the Twins. Twin E was available during the day; she was home from school. While I worked with Twin A on fifth-grade material, I worked with Twin E on third-grade material. We went over the spelling of the word many again. We covered it in the last session. I wasn’t concerned that she didn’t remember how to spell it; I was concerned because she didn’t remember the word in front of her in the previous sentence.

The other day, I asked Twin A if she had improved her reading. Yes. She indicated with her hand that she made a huge improvement. Twin E is behind, but this method might work for her, too. Twin E recalled much of the sentence as I dictated it. Twin E is the one who fell out of the two-story window. There may be some residual brain damage. Given that these girls didn’t know the alphabet by the end of first grade, after preschool and kindergarten, this degree of short-term recall is amazing.

I also had a session with fourth-grade GV. We continued with the spelling of a dictated sentence. I developed this approach over a year ago, calling it The Phonics Discovery System Phase III.

I dictate complete sentences. Students get to spell one syllable and multisyllable words. They get to spell words that conform to the phonics rules and some that wildly violate all phonics rules. In our last session, I taught GV how to use visual recall. There was no neurological problem. He just hadn’t used it. Today, he expressed frustration with a system as inconsistent as English orthography. He said he was confused. He had made some progress with his distress. GV is not comfortable with uncertainty. Good luck!

I asked him if he thought life would make perfect sense for him when he grew up. did he think that while people often behaved in ways that made no sense, someday he would understand it all? He would have perfect knowledge. I told him this was the human condition. We all had our own understanding of how life worked. We are all annoyed and uncomfortable with others for their differences. The best we can hope for is that we will get less annoyed and less uncomfortable with those differences and possibly even enjoy them.

I think of human relations like Venn diagrams. When we increase the degree of overlay, we don’t become smaller; we become bigger. We have to learn to live with confusion. I told him I believed his learning problem was largely caused by his difficulty with dealing with confusion. He is easily overwhelmed. I proposed I lead him through the ‘release’ protocol. “I let go of anything bad about my hatred of confusion and hold on to anything good about my hatred or anything I still need. And then the opposite: “I let go of anything bad about my love of confusion and hold on to anything good about my love or anything I still needed.” The session was almost over. I suggested that he consider whether he wanted to do this exercise. He could do it in our next session next week or the week after. He had to set his boundaries and find a surface that felt comfortable.

I worked with fourth-grade LG on rounding to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, and 100,000. We had worked on it for two weeks. Last week, he was secure; this week, he was confused again. We had to start from scratch. I started the spelling approach with him. He is further behind than Twin A. It made me appreciate how far Twin A had come. Holy cow! Things are going swimmingly with my tutoring. I love it.

This dictation/spelling or is it spelling/dictation approach is working like a charm. I teach the students to sound out the word, syllable by syllable, and represent each sound. In the process, I cover the phonics rules. English spelling is notoriously erratic. I instruct the students to pick a logical spelling for each sound. Spelling animal as anamal is an excellent choice. I affirm which letters represent the conventional spelling and which don’t. I teach them to memorize only some of the letters.

At the end of the day, I took the laundry off the line. I felt a difference in my left arm. It was much easier to raise it.

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

I did those upper body exercises right before bed again. I didn't sleep as well as I had the night before, but I slept soundly through to 3:30. I spent the time writing and doing exercises. The first thing I did after completing my morning routine was go to my neighbor's empty lot with a bucket and pick up softball-sized stones. I planned to place them around the base of the new shrubs I planted so the chickens couldn't dig up the plants.

After feeding Elsa, I went down to water my forty-two newly planted shrubs with the bucket of rocks. As I watered, I looked for plants the chickens had attacked. They create depressions in the ground for their dry baths. They love the freshly dug ground around the plants. In some cases, the roots were already laid bare. I pushed dirt back into the depressions and laid rocks on top. Will the chickens move the rocks? Are they strong enough?

After I watered the shrubs, I wanted to do more work but needed a nap. Two hours later, I got up. I texted Dr. Salassa to make an appointment for my second hip replacement. I had scheduled the surgery for June 15, 2022, but I fell and crushed my shoulder and elbow. Fortunately, I remembered to call to tell them I had to cancel. I hoped they could put someone else in that slot. I got an appointment for March 13.

While I have experienced mild discomfort in my right hip, which reminds me of the type of pain I had with my left hip, my reason for scheduling it now is that I'm concerned about Medicare coming to an end. Musk has promised to cut back federal expenditures. He says there will be a time of great suffering. The national debt is a huge problem. I agree with that. I don't know how to solve it. Under Trump and Republicans, the merit system is valued. Those who haven't secured enough money to live without support will suffer; the super-wealthy will do just fine.

I was too tired to go pick up the medication prescribed for my UTI. I had mild symptoms. I learned that older women don't get the symptoms we did when we were younger. We have to be on the alert. Jean said the caretakers at her mother's elder care facility always checked for a UTI whenever she seemed vague. I had trouble focusing. Wouldn't it be great if an antibiotic cleared that up?

I finally got to visit Paulette. Between my schedule and hers, we couldn't find a convenient time. We talked about Mother Mary's Tea and the people we sat with.

When I got home, I worked on preparing the soil for the kua gardenia I had to plant. I got a small gardenia from Margo a while ago, but it died. It had a blight that I couldn't address. When Eli planted the 42 shrubs before Margo delivered the new one I ordered, I had him dig a hole for the new plant. It was larger than the original. I needed to dig a bigger hole than Eli had. Because small rocks are used as ground cover in that area, they fell into the hole as it was dug. I put the soil into a bucket and sifted out the large stones.

In the afternoon, I went to Ulu Wini. Second-grade JM came to work with me. Her word recognition and reading fluency are at least at a high third-grade level. However, her comprehension was at a low kindergarten level. Last time, I worked with a low-level picture book. Well, the first part of the book was low-level. The second half was very complex-way over her head. I needed to find an appropriate book.

Second-grade NV did better remembering words on the sight word list. However, she still decoded them instead of using automatic recall. I worked on that a bit. For students to develop that skill, they need the patience to wait until the mind delivers the name of the word. This is especially tough if the system works inconsistently at best.

I had planned to stop at Kaiser to pick up the antibiotics for my UTI and at Home Depot to pick up one or two items. I was barely going to make it home for my 4:30 tutoring session.

I made it home in time for my session with seventh-grade RC. She often blocks my view of her face the way Adolescent D did. Today, she didn't do that. She didn't have that sullen expression on her face she has had to this point. In our last session, I confronted her on her passive-aggressive behavior. I told her the story of my experience when I learned it's worthwhile investing in what I do unless it's dangerous for me. Today, she was completely different. She wasn't defensive or antagonist. She had a writing assignment, comparing the adolescent mind to Phineas Gage after his accident when a tamping iron went through his head. I knew about Gage's situation through my neuroscience courses. I read the Wiki entry about him and was quite surprised. I had been fed the myths about him.

While his behavior was radically changed immediately after the accident and at the end of his life when he suffered from epileptic seizures, he regained his ability to be a well-regulated and disciplined person. He spent years driving a stagecoach in Chile. That required meeting a timetable, responding to the unexpected, and relating to people. He must have regained his prefrontal lobe control if he could perform these tasks.

I finally got Elsa bathed. Her skin was so good I didn't feel pressured to do it.

Monday, December 9, 2024

This was the second night I slept straight through till 4:30. Wow! That hadn't happened for years. I started a new before-bed exercise I came across on the internet, maybe one of Facebook's shorts. I crossed my arms, grabbing the upper arm with the opposite hand and twisting my upper body back and forth to the count of 50. Next, I do fifty cross-body punches. I knew it was worthwhile trying because I found doing upper body exercises exhausting. I was always ready to nap. I had no idea why upper body movement has that effect, but I wasn't complaining about it.

I was in quite a state this morning, deep grief over the loss of Mike and other family problems. My emotional state was profound and disturbed my thinking skills. I tried to nap when I completed my morning yoga exercises and walk. That didn't work. I got up.

Today was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a celebration of the Virgin Mary. Suzanne B., a professional baker, set up a 'tea' in her honor. The tea is quite a project. I've participated in two others.

I went to the noon mass and then the tea. The mass couldn't have taken more than half an hour. We were in line for the tea well before 1. It was almost two before the food had been blessed, and we could help ourselves.

Everyone lined up shortly after the mass. It was a very slow-moving line. Suzanne had assigned seats. She made a gingerbread cookie with our names on it for everyone who signed up, which was placed at our assigned seat. Suzanne wanted to force people to sit with people they didn't know.

The problem was there was only one person at a desk with a handwritten, unalphabetized list of everyone who had signed up ahead and had an assigned seat. Suzanne's intentions were beyond admirable. Her method of getting us seated was poor. I pushed ahead to talk to the person with the list and recommended they Xerox it, so we had four copies with four people checking the names. I wasn't pushing ahead, but Suzanne gave the checker my name, and the next thing I knew, I had my table assignment, and my advice was ignored. If Suzanne wants to do something comparable next year, I plan to volunteer to develop a better system.

I conversed with four people at my table. Evita and Gene were a couple. I asked where Evita was from. She was not from Argentina but from the former Soviet Union, specifically Lithuania. She said it's a common name there. Did the famous Argentinian Evita have a Lithuanian name, or did Lithuanians name their children after the Argentinian Evita?

The Evita, sharing a table with me, came to the US in the 1990s. I asked how the couple wound up in Hawaii. It's a common question asked of haoles, white people from the mainland. Few white people were born here, particularly of the over-fifty set. I wondered how they met.

Gene, Evita's partner, immigrated to the US from Canada. He hired Evita as his immigration lawyer in 2000. They maintained contact for work reasons. And then the contact became for pleasure. They moved to Hawaii. I saw Gene on Sundays. He said he attended the 7 am mass. He hung around afterward.

Claudia sat to my immediate left. We introduced ourselves. I explained I was Deacon Mike's widow. She explained that she had spoken with me on the phone. She had volunteered to donate her kidney to Mike. She was the only total stranger to do so. I told her I had volunteered but had qualified. My kidney function was already too low. Nothing serious, just age-related, but it was still below the cut-off. Claudia asked me what he died of. Pancreatis. Paulette's husband also had kidney failure and died of pancreatitis. I suspect there's a causal relationship.

A young woman sat at the table, moving someone's gingerbread cookie and sitting in their spot. I told her seats were reserved. She told me the woman told her to sit in her assigned seat. Her face looked vaguely familiar, her facial mannerisms even more so. I asked her who her dad was. Sure enough. Her dad had taken Mike and me out to dinner several times with his two daughters. She was now twenty years old. I hadn't seen her since before Mike died five and a half years ago. She was in college studying philosophy and something else. I asked about her younger sister, who was three years younger. The girls didn't have much to do with each other. I sympathized. I had similar problems with my sister. She asked me if my sister was a jerk, too. I said we were both jerks. Children who come from difficult backgrounds tend to have problems. She nodded in agreement.

Her family situation was unique. Her dad was 61 when she was born, and she was the oldest. Her mother came here from the Philippines for an arranged marriage. Her father always put her down when he spoke to us. On one occasion, she was included in our dinner. She displayed genuine concern and affection for her husband, who was a difficult man.

Finally, Deacon Sandor blessed the food, and people lined up. I was involved in a conversation and didn't get in line until everyone else had. I looked at the time. I needed to leave in fifteen minutes. It would take more than fifteen minutes before I got to the food. I sat down, resigned. I said something about the time problem. Fern, who sat at my table, grabbed me and marched me to the table. That was something I would have done for someone else. It was something I would usually have done for myself. I was subdued by the weight of my grief; I didn't have the energy to be that brazen. I loved that someone else did that for me. I know many people cringed when I did things like that, sometimes the people I did it for. I loved it. it was like a breath of fresh air.

I got some food: a tuna fish sandwich with cranberries, a lilikoi bar, pumpkin crunch, an oatmeal scone, and a mochi bar. Judy and Paulette made everything except the scone and mochi. They provided most of the food and spent time helping Suzanne lay out the table. Amazing work.

I had a session with fourth-grade GV. He saw a little bit of difference in his reading- he thought. I asked what he wanted to work on. He said spelling. About half a year ago, I developed Phase III of the Phonics Development system. I thought of it primarily as a method of teaching writing skills, the most complex of the neurological literacy tasks.

First, we compose a sentence (I won't address its relationship to the rest of the paragraph/whole text). Next, we isolate the first word, recall its spelling through auditory and visual recall, and write it. We need to remember the sentence we were writing and go through the same three steps while suspending the complete sentence somewhere in our minds.

As I dictated the words to GV, I only gave him a phrase at a time instead of a complete sentence. It became clear that he spelled everything by sounding it out. He had no automatic visual recall, so I led him through the BrainManagementSkills exercise for visual recall.

I asked him the color of his blanket. When he had that in mind, I asked him where he held that image; I pointed to several places on the skull, starting with the forehead. GV pointed to the forehead. In my experience, this spot works best for visual recall. (There is no scientific evidence to support my finding.) Then, I asked him to write a five-letter word on his blanket, using his imagination. Borrowing from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I then ask the student to name the first letter, the second, etc. Doing it deliberately forces the student to concentrate on each letter. The next step is to ask the student to name the fifth letter, the first, and the third. The purpose is to force them to 'read' the letters, holding them all in his mind for easy viewing. He had never done that before. Clearly, he didn't have a neurological problem; he just never thought to turn on his short-term visual memory. I will have to observe how his long-term memory works. He may just need additional instruction on how to use that.

Then, I had fourth-grade LG. We reviewed rounding to all digits 10-100,000. He did well, but I think he needed to do this exercise several times. Then, I switched to counting by 10s. He had no problem counting 10, 20, 30, etc. I told him to start with the number 2. He didn't know what I meant. I modeled, and he caught on quickly: 2, 12, 22, etc.

I asked if he was doing better in math. He laughed. Yes, he was doing e much better. His last report card showed he had problems with writing. When I said I wanted to work on that, he said he was doing much better since I showed him how to form the letters. He was referring to his handwriting. he formed them from the bottom up; I showed him how to form them from the top down. I told him I wanted to work on storywriting. LG groaned. I reminded him that everything I did with him wound up being fun. He couldn't imagine writing being fun.

I asked LG to pick a color. Red. Name something that is red. A rose. Where was the rose? In his backyard. He wondered if the story had to be true. I told him it could be whatever he wanted it to be. It could be fiction or nonfiction. The story could be entirely made up or based on a personal experience. He seemed stuck. I modeled writing a story based on the details he shared with me. I love doing things like that. I explained I followed the movie my mind revealed to me. I love writing in general and writing stories using a cowriting method. So fun!

My internet kept failing while I worked with the two boys. I'd been having problems with it for quite a while. I complained to Brian S., who set up the system. He kept telling me I didn't have a problem. Today, I finally got through. I asked him if he could recommend someone who could if he couldn't.

He said there were 46 devices in the immediate vicinity. That much electronic activity slows down the internet. He had me try speedtest.net on my phone. It came out as a one, a very low level. He finally got it that I had a problem. He came over. He concluded there was a problem with the 'tunnel' or the access device. If it was with the access device, he would have to replace it. I connected to Josh and Yvette's internet for my 4:30 session with LG. it was faster and more stable. When I was through, I ran speedtest.net on Brian's instructions. The speed was much quicker. He had fixed it.

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Oops! I forgot to water the shrubs today. They must be watered daily for several months until they're firmly rooted. I have to battle the chickens and the lack of rain. The chickens love digging up loose soil for their dry baths. Besides watering each plant individually with a hose, I need to make sure the roots aren't exposed.

The charger I used yesterday, the one Kia provided when I bought the car, to charge it didn't work. Was it the car or the charger? Since I had a second charger, it was worth trying. It worked. Bingo!

At church, I saw a familiar child's face. She smiled at me, and I nodded hello. Confused at first, I thought I knew her from when I volunteered at Kealakehe, but she was too young to be one of those kids. I realized I knew her from Ulu Wini when I saw a handicapped child in a stroller.

After Mass, I walked over to say hello. Instead of greeting me, the girl avoided my gaze and turned grey. She looked like she was in agony when I went over to greet her. I asked her if she was okay. She said fine. I walked away. I realized afterward that she was probably embarrassed about her parents, who didn't speak English. I couldn't remember her name. I would have to ask Shauntel when I saw her on Tuesday. If I identified the girl by the handicapped child in the stroller, she would know who I was talking about.

Paulette sat down to talk to me. Courtney came over to speak to me briefly. This was a first on both counts. I guess when I'm feeling lousy and would prefer to be left alone, others see me as approachable. Will someone please explain this to me. I have learned I don't have to put out maximum energy with every connection. I can remain quiet and mumble something.

I arrived at the Unity church before 11 am for the noon crystal healing event. Getting there early assures me of a parking space. I pushed my car seat back to relax while I listened to Hidden Brain on HPR. Today's talk was about the Milgram and Zimbardo studies, which asked why people blindly follow the directions of authority figures. I was familiar with both studies. It's not only the results of these studies that are horrifying; it's the cruelty needed to put the experiment's subjects through those exercises in the first place. The Uni Bomber was one of Milgram's subjects. Milgram systematically humiliated him.

When the Zimbardo prison study rapidly degenerated to brutality, Zimbardo stopped it only because his girlfriend came to observe, was appropriately horrified, and told him he had to stop it. A priest had already observed the subjects' behavior and said nothing. Holy cow!

I ran the car and the air conditioning while I sat in the parking lot, listening to the radio. I was shocked to see I had lost 8 miles of battery in the half hour I had spent there. That's more energy than I need to get up, Kaimiani.

It was a heavy grief day. That's what impacted my subdued demeanor at church. I felt the same at Unity. I wanted little contact. Clyde called me earlier and asked if I was coming. He was going to tell me why he canceled the Monday morning Chi Qigong sessions. It was usually just the two of us. I enjoyed our conversations after we completed the routine. As I left today, he asked for a hug. I told him I wasn't up for contact today, and he walked away. He's an insecure man, needy. He's told me his wife complains about it. I never experienced it. I'm concerned about the repercussions of my 'rejection.' I'll deal with it directly.

I had my usual Sunday session with fourth-grade MH. We continued working on E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. Working with this material has taught me how much unfamiliar syntax and vocabulary can throw a reader. I continued with the procedure I set up last time: I read a paragraph, ensuring she understood all the vocabulary and the relationship of one sentence to the others before she read it aloud. The difference in her reading fluency was substantial. I learned the prereading approach from a Whole Language workshop.

Saturday, December 7, 2024

I check my Tesla app regularly to see how much of our electrical usage the solar covers. I had a shock this morning. Our overnight battery coverage was low. Had the electricians from Regis Electric done something when piggybacking the dedicated line on the solar panel? I texted Yvette, Josh, and B to ask if anyone had used a lot of electricity. Everyone reported no. I called the company to report a possible problem. Now, I had three electrical problems: my car didn't charge when I plugged it in using the Kia charging cord with the undamaged plug, the solar system was underperforming, and my Internet was unstable to downright intermittent. I temporarily fixed the car problem. I tried the other charger, the one with the slightly burnt plug. That worked just fine.

I weeded the vines growing on the rock wall on my neighbor's side more. It's a vacant lot.

Dean and Nina came over for our regular game of Sorry and conversation. I remember it being tense today. I wasn't in a very good mood, still recovering from my birthday upset. Perhaps Dean got into pushing some point about man's interference with nature. While I agree with him that we've been disastrous for this lovely planet, I still feel duty-bound to battle nature, killing off the plants I don't want.

Before we started playing, Nina's phone rang. It was Dean's sister calling to wish him a happy birthday. Neither one of us knew about the other's. I had the Tuxedo cake from Judy, and we all had a slice. I offered to sing Happy Birthday. Dean, having heard my version once, declined. Tensions dissolved as we played. I always feel renewed and refreshed after our time together.

I had no students today. I might have had a chance to work with the Twins, but they were out and about for the day.

We, meaning all of us, often do things to 'help' others that, in the best case, aren't helpful and, in the worst case, are harmful. My mother did that a lot. It was a crazy-making situation. She actually believed she would do me harm if she said anything positive. Sounds ridiculous, no? I was as shocked as most of my readers must be, but she proved it to me.

My mother moved into my home with Mike and me when she was 81. She lived with us for the rest of her life, another 18 years. A few months after she moved in, she said, "I know I shouldn't tell you this. It isn't good for you, but I can't resist. I've been telling everyone what a good daughter you are." Yeah, you read that right. Expressing any positive feedback would be dangerous for me. It's the polar opposite of parents who believe saying anything negative is bad for children. Too much of anything is harmful. Too much poverty or too much wealth. Both are out of the sweet spot for mentally healthy living. As I said, we do harm in the name of caring.

There are different levels of care based on circumstances. We care about the people we are bonded to. We are responsible for their well-being. The impulse to fix a problem is biologically driven. When we see a comrade fall, we feel compelled to pick them up. When we see someone not of our tribe fall, we feel nothing. It's not our problem.

Again, here I am, viewing this from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. 10,00 to 200,000 years ago, the primary concern for ourselves and those we were bonded to was physical. If someone fell, we had to rush and help them up. If someone was injured, we had to find a way to fix the wound. If someone was attacked by an animal or another person, we had to give aid. The impulse to help was and still is embedded in our nervous system. We're social animals. Maintaining the social body is as important as maintaining our individual bodies. The well-being of others is intimately linked to our own well-being.

Therefore, the need to calm our anxiety drives the impulse to fix someone else's problem. But that was then; this is now.

How do then and now differ? Then, most of the problems were physical, much like a military combat unit is concerned about the physical well-being of all participants. The concern for the other dimension of human existence, the psychological, is trivial by comparison. The closer people live to the threat of physical survival, the less focus there is on the psychological well-being of others or ourselves. The stress of living another day overrides all other concerns. There's no room for that sort of self-indulgence.

But we've taken care of that for some people, at least in some parts of the world. I'm one of those people. I have not been without food, clothing, shelter, or physical safety for a single day of my life. My parents weren't wealthy, but we had plenty of what we needed to survive. Survival was never an issue, except in our heads.

My mom had faced a life-threatening illness in the first six months of her life that left her permanently traumatized, with a sense of danger hovering over her and her children. She also went through WWI in Berlin. That added to it. And, oh yes, she had to flee Germany in fear for her life because she was romantically involved with a Jew. My mom faced several life-threatening situations. While none of those were active as she raised me and my sister, they loomed over us nonetheless.

But there is the other type of caring that isn't driven by concern for everyone's physical well-being. Our lack of physical threat allows us to be more aware of our mental and emotional states. Yay, at one level, and OMG, what did I wish for on the other hand? We weren't designed for the good life. Like zoo animals, denied the stresses of the life they were designed to deal with, we've become neurotic, concerned about relatively trivial things, seeing threats where there are none- at least none to our physical well-being. No lions, tigers, or bears are waiting to make us their next tasty meal. More to the point, there are no pressures to conform to the exact standards created by life-threatening situations. Back in the bad old days, an inability to conform to group standards could lead to a death sentence. It was physically threatening. In the depth of our psyches, we don't know the difference between physical and psychological threats, and we're not aware of what our deep unconscious minds are projecting onto this relatively benign world.