Sunday, May 10, 2020

    I talked to my friend Carol in Ohio while I walked this morning. We have known each other for years but have not spent many contact hours together relative to the time we have known each other. We connected when she had the classroom across the hall from me during my first year of teaching at Licking heights. She has been a wonderful friend, and sister, since then. We talked for about an hour. It's one of those relationships when you can always think of something else to talk about of mutual interest. Besides being a friend, she is a great supporter of my work. She has been one of my first readers from the beginning. I look forward to sending her my revised version of the book.

    At home, after feeding Elsa, I sprayed two gallons of vinegar on the front yard. The weeds really aren't too bad. It is amazing what a job vinegar can do and do without poisoning the land.

    As I sent out the May 10 blog from last year, I listened to The New Yorker Radio Hour on HRP. They had a recorded conversation between two fiction writers. They were out fishing. Their conversation veered back and forth between what was going on in the water and the writing process. One of the authors spoke about how hard it was to get back to work on a piece after abandoning it for a while.  How great it felt when a book wrote itself.  How that was the best but waiting for that to happen was just a form of procrastination.  Their comments all made me feel better about my own procrastination.  It is scary to put my ideas on paper.  There are two parts to the fear: one is the fear that my ideas will be rejected, attacked. The other is that I won't find the words to communicate the ideas in the first place.  

    I texted Cylin and Karin, wishing them Happy Mother's Day. Karin called me back, and we spoke for a while. She was on Sam-patrol.  He is up and moving, which means she is up and running after him.  He can't be left on his own for a moment.  He wants to sit in the adult chair. He threw the play remote he had in his hand on the floor. He cried because he wanted it picked up. Karin told him to get down from the chair and get it himself. He did. Then he needed help getting back up in the chair. Then the sequence started again.

    I told Karin about my eye problem, referring to my puckered macular. She said, yes, your left eyelid looks like it's drooping." Another problem, only to be solved by cosmetic surgery. Yep. I will need an eye lift, and it will be covered by insurance.  Meanwhile, a good part of my vision is obscured by the defective eyelid. I am anxious to resolve both problems, particularly the macular pucker since it threatens me with possible blindness.

    I put Elsa on Facetime. That entertained Sam for a while, particularly when I played peek-a-boo with her. But then it was snack time and nap time.  I love watching Karin and David, her husband, with him. 

    I just found out that Sam is going to daycare during the workweek. David and Karin have been working from home since March 4. Karin said if he wasn't in daycare, they would have had to quit their jobs.  If that's how they feel, can you imagine all the parents who don't have a daycare option?  Karin said, sending him to daycare is a calculated risk. They're all young. They have a good chance of being okay.

    However, I have been hearing about the impacts of the virus on younger people.  I heard the virus has already mutated. Do these mutations result in different symptoms? Is it more aggressive? Less aggressive? As it mutates, will it affect different parts of the population? 

    Yvette came up and left me a handmade Mother's Day Card on my front walk.  She is a wonderful artist with simple materials. She made a birthday wall poster for me five years ago, which stayed up until I had to slide a mattress against that wall for storage while working on the guest room. I looked at it regularly and enjoyed the details. 

    Damon called to wish me Happy Mother's Day. We spent time talking about a friend of his who was adopted who has had some contact with his birth mother and aunt. His poor birth mother wants to be in touch with him but is afraid to tell her husband about her past.  No one is sure what her considerations are.  Is she truly afraid of her husband's reaction, or is she afraid to make this situation real for herself? It can never be easy to give up a child.  The boy, who is now in his late 40s, is happy to go along with whatever she chooses to do.  He is patient. He is even willing to never have their connection go any further. The' boy' has a wonderful family of his own now, a great wife and three boys. 

    Judy called while I was on the phone with Damon. I called her back. She is still struggling with losing her sense of taste because of her bout with the virus. Her sense of smell has returned, but not her taste. She has read all sorts of reports about this.  With some people, their sense of taste returns within a week; with others, it is six weeks.  For Judy, it has been two months now.  This is very hard for anyone, but particularly so for Judy, who is a foodie.  I wish I could help.  

    Judy's on team open-the-world-back-up-now before the economy is destroyed. As far as I'm concerned, no one knows what's best. All we can do is root for a team. As far as I'm concerned, I'm grateful that I'm not in a position of having to make these fateful decisions.

    While I was talking to Judy, I Swiffered the walls, particularly the juncture of the wall and the ceiling.  It didn't take much for the walls to look brighter.  I also put away the pillows I had washed a few weeks ago and took out one of the quilts that had been sitting in the closet forever and smelled musty for a wash.  All this is by way of putting off doing any work on the book, should there is any question in anyone's mind.

    Yvette pulled out of the driveway, and shortly after, I got a text asking if I wanted anything from town.  She said she could go wherever I wanted.  She will stop at Costco for vinegar and salad.  I have vinegared half the backyard and about a third of the front one.  I need several more gallons.  I have finally opened the two-gallon spray bottle.  I avoided it because two gallons would be too heavy for me, but I just put one gallon of vinegar in it at a time. It is a much better machine than the one-gallon HD product. Of course, I bruised my thumb, holding the sprayer open.

    When Yvette returned, I asked her to help me get my new vacuum cleaner out of the box. Damon convinced me to open it immediately. He advised me to leave the packing box outside; whatever was inside would be fine. The vacuum wasn't heavy; the packing material caused it to be jammed in the box.  I had the strength to get it out, but I was concerned about straining myself because of my eye. Sandor had warned me: no bending down from the waist and no heavy lifting. Both of these activities could make it worse.

    Dorothy and I both have this weird genetic defect; the capillaries in our fingers burst easily.  A friend once observed this and expressed alarm—that's reasonable. One would think this indicated something about the whole circulatory system, but it doesn't.  My mother had this problem and died at 98.  Whatever this problem was about, it clearly wasn't life-threatening. Dorothy finally found some information about it on the internet. It's a genetic condition that is considered rare. Dorothy pointed out that the people who do have it aren't inclined to mention it to their doctors because it is so trivial, so who knows how common it is?

    I was determined not to watch any TV or go to bed before working on the book. I read what I had already written on the new version of the Introduction and inserted sections from the new Introduction from the old one.  Now I have to figure out if all these extra words improve the chapter or just make it wordy. 

    I was able to watch some TV. The Blue Rose has turned into a vigilante group comprised of an unlikely assortment of people.  Unlike the series Hunters, The Blue Rose has a lighter tone.

  

Saturday, May 9, 2020

    I was wide awake at 3 am. The roosters started in at 4.  I put one of Mike's old pillows over my head.  I still heard the damn things.  That high-pitched sound gets on my last nerve.

    I finally got up at 8 am.  I wanted to do my long morning walk before anything else. Elsa had a different idea.  She is so smart. She remembers that I fed her the last time I got up late before the walk.  Okay. She was right.  I decided I would do some spraying of the backyard before we went on our walk. I spray weeds with vinegar, nothing more toxic.  

    After I had sprayed two gallons on the weeds and Elsa had finished her breakfast, we did our walk.  I called my friend Carol who lives in Maryland.  I had tried to call her twice yesterday. When I got through, she told me she was on a phone call.  I wondered who she was on the phone with that long. She was on zoom at a virtual cocktail party. She has a group of friends she met through yoga, with whom she and her husband, John, socialize regularly.

    To organize the conversation, the organizer proposed people submit pictures. The organizer posted them on her computer, and the person who submitted it shared the background story for the photo. At a typical cocktail party, there might be five or six conversations going on simultaneously. This isn't possible with zoom. Interesting adaptation.

    I have been missing Mike something fierce. There was no one I was comfortable with as I was with him. We just hung out together in life. There were some intense conversations and some conflicts and some shared activities, but most of it was that comfortable parallel play.  We were just there and not a danger to each other.  With my mom, I had to worry about unexpected explosions. With Mike, there were so few of those that I never worried about it.  If anything, I was the exploding one. I know that that behavior was challenging for him because of his history.  I worked hard to modify my responses.  I didn't want to be an unsafe part of his environment.  

    Many people could come to stay here that I could feel comfortable just hanging out with.  Jean and John, Carol and John, Damon, Cylin and August. These are all people with whom I have shared space on vacations over the last thirty years. Obviously, that doesn't apply to Cylin or August, who are have come late to the table. But they're family. Dorothy is also someone I could share space with quietly. 

    Yvette and I spent some great time together talking.  She wanted to do that more often, but I don't want prolonged conversations. I had asked her to come up and just spend time here, meditating, reading, or doing something silently in the same space with me. She said yes, but it has never happened.  I think it has come to the point where I need this to happen, and I will push to see if she can find a way to be comfortable with it.

    Carol told me that several doctors wrote about the relationship between environments and the risk level of contracting the coronavirus. In open settings, the likelihood of getting enough of a viral load is low. If, on the other hand, if you work in a closed environment, like an office, the possibility of getting high exposure to the virus is increased. As a customer in a grocery store, the ceilings are high enough, and you're there for a short period, that you will probably have low exposure to the virus. However, if you are an employee at that same grocery store, your risk level is elevated because you're exposed to the recycled air over a longer period and more people.

    Judy called. She meant to call me yesterday, she said, "But I was too busy doing nothing." For those of us experiencing the shut-down due to the virus, we know what she means. Well, maybe not everyone. Parents working on getting their kids through the academic years or just dealing with their kids every day are probably not experiencing the problem of having too little to do.  

    She said she read my new Introduction to my book on reading and LOVED it. She said it made her want to read it. This is great!  I have sent Dorothy additional material. She hasn't gotten back to me, not even to tell me she has received it. I'm not too worried because I figure one of her kids will contact me if something goes wrong. 

    I asked Judy if I could have her old Bissell wet/dry if she was determined not to use it.  I want it for Yvette assuming that mine will arrive soon.  In a spurt of excitement, I checked the tracking information on Amazon.  It said that it arrived today and was handed over to the recipient. No!  I went out to check. Nothing. How's that for a twist in the pantyhose?

    I did some reading and napped. I put off working on the book. I need someone to stand over me and make me work, maybe threatening me with something.  When I asked Cylin what made her work on her books, she said, "My editor." I don't have one, at least not one who is willing to bully me. Of course, I wouldn't have anything to do with them if they did bully me.

    Elsa and I went for our before-dinner walk. Josh passed us on the way home from work at the Post Office. It made me remember the problem I was having with my package from Amazon.  I envisioned calling Amazon and trying to convince them that I didn't get the parcel, especially since it said that it was hand-delivered to a recipient. I heard myself saying that my neighbors are all trustworthy, and one of the members of the household actually worked for the post office. Ah! A light went on. Was it possible that Doug, our usual mailman, gave the package to Josh to bring home? Sure enough, there it was at the front walk.  Now, it has to sit for three days in quarantine before I open it.

    I have been suffering from the absence of Mike's hugs and kisses. Whenever I needed a hug, all I had to do is say, "Okay,' and I got the greatest hug in the world. Mike and I had good energy together from the first. I meditated when I got home. That helped somewhat.  I just sat with the horrible way my body felt. That gave me some relief. I recalled a woman from our church in Princeton who lost her husband. She said her grief was like martyrdom. 

    I'm concerned that I will miss Mike even more if I'm around people we hung out with together. Will I be even more aware of his absence? Of all the folks Mike and I hung out with for extended periods on vacation, I've only been with Damon, Cylin, and August, and then only for two periods of three days at a time. One occasion was Mike's funeral, and the other was his internment. They were short, jam-packed periods. I don't think I was up to feeling Mike's loss yet. Some say the first year is the worst; some say the second. 

    I keep worrying if I could have done more for him when he was in the hospital to help him feel less lonely.  What I need now is the feel of his touch.  I was there, but I don't think I spent a lot of time touching him. It hurts to think that I didn't do all I could have done.    

    Having finished the artichoke B. gave me yesterday, tonight, my hands were free, so I could continue reading the A Very Short Introduction to Plato. I learned there are two traditions of Platonic thought.  One emphasizes his discussion style, which he presents through the voice of Socrates.  He always asks questions and never offers his own point of view. The second, which came later, is a systemic analysis of Plato's thoughts and opinions on philosophical and metaphysical issues. As I read about him, I know what religion I was raised in, the church of Plato. Much of what I'm reading about reminds me of our dinner table conversation, as led by my dad. 

    My father used the Socratic debate method on me from the beginning. That means whatever I said, he questioned my thinking. I was in elementary school, if not younger; I think it was a form of child abuse. He believed, as did Plato, that I knew the truth and had to have the layers of enculturation peeled back. Here's the problem: no preschooler has years of enculturation to be peel back. It left me on shaky ground. Do I think he meant me harm? No.  But I do think he was experimenting with me without regard to the effect on me.  In those days, they believed children could recover from anything; ergo, it was impossible to do harm.  It has only been within my lifetime that we recognize that grave harm can be done to children that have life-long repercussions. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

    After dinner, I forced myself to sit down and do some work on the book before watching TV.  It was satisfying.  I made a few changes and went through my original Introduction to see what I want to include in the new one. Ah.

    I found a new TV show.  I think it is a mini-series, "The Blue Rose." It's pretty good, but it has this one super tough female character who makes me feel like I'm watching some chick flick station. She's a police officer; she's not just tough with the 'bad guys.' She's tough with anyone who gets in the way of what she wants. It verges on the unpleasant. 

Friday, May 8, 2020

    If the roosters crowed at 4:30 am, I didn’t hear it.  I only got up close to 8 am.  I didn’t put on a sweatshirt this morning, but I did put on a T-shirt over a sleeveless shirt. I was planning to take off the T if it got too hot. Good thing I didn’t. When I got home and peeled off the top shirt, the sleeveless was stuck right to the T. 

    I fed Elsa before we started the walk because it was already late. I completed my 6,000 steps. The moment I got home, I finally picked up the Ziploc bag Yvette had dropped off three days ago with the money for me from the bank and looked for my driver’s license.  Ah! It was there. Then I threw Elsa over my shoulder, grabbed my car key, and headed for my car.  Was the car still going to work after sitting for all this time? Yep! No problem. I drove up the hill on Kukuna, the route I had been using before I experienced challenging changes in my left foot.  I wanted to check the progress of a house that was under construction.

    The last time I walked passed it, they were still moving dirt and rocks from one spot to another to level the ground. While I was walking alternate route #2, I saw several cement trucks pass.  I assumed they were heading for that lot to pour the foundation.  Indeed, the foundation had been laid.  The land movers were there with their large equipment still moving land from one spot to another. 

    At home, I  played FreeCell until it was time to shower and get ready for my appointment with Sandor, my optometrist. When I arrived, the parking lot was empty.  I wonder if Meaali’inani, Sandor’s wife and partner in the busines,  was even there. She was, as was one of their assistants.  The assistant took pictures of my retina, and then I met with Meaali’inani for the evaluation of my condition.  The good news is that my optical nerves are in A1 condition, not just for my age but for any age. The bad news was that the macular pucker was larger.  Meaali’inani again expressed concern about the delay in treating the problem. 

    She proposed asking a colleague of hers who is not associated with Kaiser if he would do a stop-gap measure. Apparently, there is an injection that can be administered.  She contacted me later in the day to tell me that he thought my pucker was severe enough to require surgery.  I won’t be able to even get an appointment for an evaluation with the optical surgeon until June.  I mean, I won’t be able to speak to someone about making that appointment until June 1. Who knows when I will be able to see the ophthalmic surgeon? Who knows when surgery will be scheduled? Who knows if he hasn’t been hit with the virus? Is he even alive?  So many questions, so few answers.

    Someone had sent time a video from YouTube.  He said he didn’t know if it was valid.  When I went to check it, YouTube had deleted it. I was able to find out what it was about. It said that Facuci’s lab, not Facuci himself, was working with the Chinese to find a vaccine.  I thought great.  It took me several hours to realize that this was meant as a condemnation of Fauci and his lab.  

    Where I saw cooperation, others see collusion.  What is the difference? Intent, I would say.  I think it would be great if everyone was working together to develop a vaccine for the virus.  That would be cooperation. Collusion means someone is working to corner the market for their own profit. That frame of mind is just too sad for me to consider. When I learned what the tobacco industry knew about the effect of the product was and hid the information, it made me sad.  Evil makes me sad. It breaks my heart.  I learned that there is no evidence to support what was reported in the video. It was a purely malicious rumor. Very upsetting.

    When I got home, I was going to spray the backyard with vinegar using my new two-gallon spray mechanism.  As I approached the house, it started to rain. By the time I pulled into the driveway, it was pouring. As I sat in the car waiting, it started raining harder.  Then it rained harder.  It wasn’t the worst it could be, but it was bad. I sat for a while and decided to run for the door.  I was damp, but not soaked. Gardening was out.  I took a nap.  I seem to be set for two and a half-hour naps.  I got home around one and woke up around 4:30. Wait, that was 3:30 hours.  A long nap for today.

    The rain had stopped in time for my before-dinner walk with Elsa. When I picked up the mail, it contained my monthly financial statement. I’ve lost some money, but I’m certainly not at zero. The question is going to be what is going to happen to my entitlement payments from social security and the retirement benefits from the schools I worked for.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

    On my walk this morning, I saw a hen with a brood of 9 chicks and a turkey hen with a clutch of 7. There was one maverick in the turkey group.  Mama was trying to watch out for him, but he won't be long for this world if he doesn't learn to keep up on his own.  

    The other day, I learned that there are people who have the gift of telling the difference between male and female chickens shortly after birth with as high as 90% accuracy. This is not an easy task. My question is, how many of the baby chicks  I saw are male? How many of them will wind up adding to the noise in the neighborhood?

    The other thing I saw this morning was regular traffic. The state opened up.  I had an appointment with my hairdresser yesterday. I had called her earlier this week to check. She said, no, she was not open yet. I would say I should not be first on the list. Some people lost their appointment in March and are seriously overdue.  Some clients need to go back to work and would prefer not to look like they've been living in a cave for the last month. I have no place to go until Bikram opens up until school starts up next August.

    I texted Sandor to tell him I was getting flashes of ultraviolet blue.  At first, I thought I was actually seeing something in my neighbor's yard. However, a few repeats of those flashes convinced me that it might be unlikely.  Sandor told me to come in at noon on Friday.  

    Today I had several chores. First, I had to find my driver's license.  I gave it to Yvette to confirm my identity when she went to the bank to cash some checks I'd received. The bag with the license, checkbook, and cash were sitting on the library floor for its three-day quarantine. Next, I  will check if the car still works after sitting for a while.  

    It rained moderately hard but briefly just before Elsa and I went on our before-dinner walk. By the time we got out, there were dry spots in the driveway.  While I felt nothing, I could see fine droplets illuminated by the setting sun.  It 'rained' like that during our whole walk.  It was rainbow rain.  I saw a faint one through the cloud. I was ever so slightly damp when I got home, but I never felt a single drop hit my skin.

    As I watched TV, I finally opened the two-gallon spray bottle I bought several months ago.  

    I went to bed late.  I had to watch the end of the last session of Unforgotten.  Few shows hold my attention these days.  This show did it. Not violent, very civilized. Much to my taste.

  

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

    OMG!  The roosters were crowing all night. One of the big attractions to my spot in Hawaii is the silence. There are places were this is disturbed by the coqui frogs. These came to us courtesy of Puerto Rico, I believe. What I do know they are valued there for their chirping. There must be a natural enemy there; there isn't one here.  In Hilo, it is hard to hear Mass becomes the noise is so overwhelming. We had some on our property when we planted a  row of bromeliads.  We had to pull those plants out to get rid of them.  But now it is the roosters.

    This all started recently. I thought maybe I was just becoming more aware of the noise because I was confined at home, and I was listening less to the radio.  I asked Yvette. No, indeed, the amount of rooster noise had increased, and it was at all odd hours.

    Last night they woke me up at 4:30 in the morning. Rooster crowing is very different from the lovely sound of bird song, even if the function is the same.  Each bird is declaring, "This is my territory." I did some research. Someone wrote that the sound of a rooster crowing is the same as a dog barking. I find dog's barking less annoying because it doesn't go on all day. Right at this moment, there all the roosters are silent. Ah!!! 

    Yvette had me send my neighbor who has a commercial farmer, on how to silence a rooster. He wrote back that he was planning on culling his flock. He was raising the roosters for their meat.  He said the man who lived right below them had nine roosters. Yikes! Someone speculated that he was raising them for their meat like my neighbor.  I doubt that. Around here, they like cockfights. The man is on the police force. Good luck getting him to obey the sound ordinances or the laws against cockfighting.

    I have heard from various sources that our police force isn't the best.  I had thought to ask the police to keep an eye on our house during Mike's funeral.  Yvette said that wasn't the best idea. Someone else told me this incredible story about police inaction if not downright collusion. The niece of one of his employees stopped to help a woman on the road. When she got out, she saw a man crouched behind the car with a rope in his hand.  He tried to grab her, but she got away. (Note: We have problems here with young women being kidnapped and trafficked.)  The car involved was a blue corvette. The police were unable to locate the car.  Now, remember, this is an island. While it is the biggest one in Hawaii, it is still limited.  No one drove from three states away.  No one even brought their car over for the day from another island. Locating a blue Corvette through the DMV should be a piece of cake.  If it's unregistered, just asking around should have yielded results.   All this to say, I have little hope of getting relief from my neighbor's nine roosters.  

    I was feeling somewhat down this morning from a variety of causes.  Working on the book is hard. I am basically starting from scratch. I don't know what I'm going to do with the three hundred pages I've already written.

    The conversation with Dorothy resulted in several good insights. One related to the book.  My book talks about learning to read by becoming aware of the relationship between the basic sounds of English and its spelling, consciously, explicitly aware. For those of you not involved with teaching reading, you are probably unaware of the 'reading wars.' Yeah, that's what they're called, and they can be fierce.  One branch says to teach phonics, another says just give students interesting books to read, and viola they will learn to read.  

    Dorothy talked about a similar war in the field of foreign languages. Apparently, now the preference is not to teach grammar explicitly.  Yes, that's how young children learn to speak a language, and yes, we can all learn something about a language at any age without learning grammar. However, if someone wants to become better at what they do, they'd better see the grammatical pattern on their own if they're going to master the language, even those of us who are good readers and well-educated.

    I talked about this conflict as an argument about metacognitive skills: how much should the conscious mind be involved in the learning process versus the nonconscious.  Which one works better to foster learning? My position is both are important.  I teach children to become aware of these two aspects of their minds, how to use them, and when to use them.  These are the objectives behind all my teaching. I am rarely, if ever, just passing along bits of information. Everything I do is intended for teaching metacognitive skills and how to apply them to learning – anything. 

    Dorothy said she finally got what I am trying to communicate. She planned to reread the chapters I had already sent her from that perspective and see how they could be revised to make that clear.  Even I have not been clear what my primary objectives have been.  As I changed the introduction the other day, I added on the use of conscious and nonconscious mind as the last item, almost an afterthought. It is certainly should not be an afterthought.

    I spoke to Judy. I told her about the vacuum cleaner I ordered. Judy said she bought one five years ago and never liked the way it worked. She said it left the floor streaked. Oh, how sad. I'll see how I feel about it.  So far, I am so excited about this machine.  If it has decent suction, it sounds like it will be better for me than the Rainbow. On the video demonstrations, it looked good. 

    I also talked to Judy about the changes I was making in the book.  I told her I was making the metacognitive principles more explicit. Judy said she had inferred that from what I said. Of course, something being obvious to Judy doesn't mean it would be that way for anyone else.  Her thinking is a lot like mine to start out with.

    My Microsoft customer service provider called.  I got involved with this company, which is subcontracted by the central Microsoft company.  I think they're okay.    I suppose I could call the main customer service company to see if this is for real or if I've been taken for a ride.  They seem to be okay. I'm just too overwhelmed by the whole system to be bothered taking any action.

    As I type, I can hear a rooster crowing nonstop. I found out when speaking to Judy, she has a cock on her property.  Her son has a coop of hens. This rooster has discovered them and is wooing away.  Adam, Judy's son, is considering allowing the rooster access so they can increase their flock.  They are already collecting eggs from the girls. The boys would be raised for their meat.  Judy is freaked out about killing these animals. But as Adam pointed out to them, at least they're free-range; they just wander around the neighborhood and would have had a happier life than any commercially raised animal. I hate the sound of these roosters.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

    I think I am forgetting how to smile. I come face to face with others so rarely, I have few occasions to flash a warm smile of greeting and appreciation. Besides B. calling from town to offer to pick up something and a text from Yvette asking me to print some address labels for Amazon returns. I haven't had any contact with people around me today. Oh, yes. Yvette did come up and drop off the money I asked her to get from the bank.  I was napping. I didn't have an actual conversation with her. I am also having problems with my eyes, mostly from an allergic reaction, which makes my eyes itch, which makes smiling even less lightly.

    I made spaghetti and meatballs tonight with the artichoke that B. gave me the other day. Making meatballs was stepping into a whole new world.  I found a package of ground organic turkey in the freezer.  I have no idea how long it's been there.  I took it out, hoping to break off a chunk of the meat and put the rest in the freezer.  I put one end of the package in a bowl of water, hoping it would defrost enough for me to break off that chunk. When I got around to checking it, the whole package of meat had defrosted. Oh, well. Plan B. 

    I checked the Internet for a recipe for meatballs. Betty Crocker offered a simple recipe.  I didn't have a lot of ingredients. First off, I was working with turkey meat, not ground beef. Second, I didn't have Worcestershire sauce, bread crumbs, or milk.  I seasoned the meat with my own spices. I put three slices of whole wheat bread in the toaster oven at a low temperature and waited until they were toasted through and though. When they were done, I put the well-toasted bread in a plastic bag and smashed them to bits with a meat mallet.  I had some shredded cheese that I used instead of half a cup of milk.  I put in two eggs instead of one because I had more breadcrumbs than the recipe called for. I cooked them in the toaster oven.

    I had opened the package of meat before I checked the weight. I pulled the package out of the trash, but I couldn't find the weight on it. I'm pretty sure I had something closer to three to five pounds of meat.  Needless, to say I had lots leftover.  The meatballs were tasty even if they were a little crispier than one would like. I'm becoming a cook. 

    I was speaking to Jean M. in Arizona while preparing my meatballs. She recommended I add a small container of apple juice to the mix to assure soft juicy meatballs. I'll do that with the rest of the mix. Ah, yes. There is plenty left over.  I planned to cook all of it tomorrow when the sun was high, and the solar panels were doing their job.  Then I will freeze the meatballs in small batches to be defrosted whenever.  I will have enough to last for quite a few meals. 

    I sat down to work on the book after dinner and caught Elsa peeing on my Persian rug right in front of me. I jumped up to grab her. She jumped and moved to a different spot and continued peeing there. Huh? I picked her up and threw her out.  I don't get it.  She had just been walked an hour ago.  I think I'm going to have to think of throwing her out right after a meal. Dr. Marty's dog food calls for adding water. Elsa must have a bladder that's even smaller than mine.  

    I watched Late Night with Emma Thompson. I like anything she does. The scenes showing the relationship between Thompson's character and her husband, played by John Lithgow were worth the whole movie. The rest was delightful.  

Monday, May 4, 2020

      Both B. and Paulette called to tell me they were out and about and ask if I wanted them to pick up anything. Have I told you how lucky I am? 

    By 11 am, I was getting tired. By noon I need to go down for my 2-hour nap. How am I going to be able to function once this is over?  I should be okay getting to Bikram every morning. The problem is going to be tutoring at school.  I usually work there between 12:30 and 2 pm when school closes.

    Elsa has figured out that she doesn't get her treat until she jumps up on my lap. It only took four or five days for her to get the picture.  I thought I was never going to train her to do this.  She would sit on the floor, giving me the stink eye as I sat in the chair, patting my lap and waving a treat in my hand. Then she would walk away. Boy, did I ever feel blown off!  She doesn't stay long when she does get on my lap. She snatches the treat and is off. That's okay. I want her to learn to do this so I can be sure I can easily reach her as I get older. Bending down and picking her up will only get more difficult, particularly since she rolls over on her back when I reach for her.  She never misses an opportunity to welcome someone to rub her belly.

    Yesterday, I sent out the new start of the book to Dorothy, Shivani, and Sandor.  When I spoke to Dorothy this morning, she said she hadn't found it in her email file.  We were both walking as we talked. When I got home, I checked if I had used her right address. Yes, I had. Then I called. She had found the email in her trash.  

    She said this looked like a much better start, although there were still problems with it. I included information that shouldn't be there and left out information that should.  The theme of my method is that I am teaching students how to learn, not what to learn. Dorothy said the original chapter one emphasized what to learn.  She didn't see the relationship between it and what I claim I am trying to communicate. 

    Hearing her say this is somewhat of a relief.  Both she and Shivani were saying I wasn't defining my terms clearly enough.  I felt they were emphasizing the what rather than the how.  While Dorothy and I are not on the same page, we are at least in the same book. I think I'm going to have to rewrite everything I have already written.

    The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the challenge I have set for myself. How do I communicate what I mean by the difference between 'the what' to be learned versus 'how to learn it?'  Dorothy already saw that I had a lot of 'what' details in my writing. Here's the problem: probably everything we learn has a  what and a how aspect to it. It's like explaining what a fraction is versus a whole. In the abstract, that distinction is easy, but not so in real life.  My right arm is a whole arm and also a fractional part of my body in real life.  I am a whole me and simultaneously a fractional part of any number of things. I was one half of the unit that Mike, and I formed.  I was one-quarter of the group that my family of origin. Actually, I was only one-third of that unit until my sister was born when I was four and a half.  Life is full of slipping and sliding definitions of self and everything else. It all depends upon the context or the point of view. How do I communicate that effectively?  I know that I think in terms of teaching students how to learn versus what to learn.  I know that students who were completely dependent on teacher input become more independent with this approach. I think the old term for it is 'study skills," only this is a somewhat more expanded version of the discipline.  

    Today, I heard about the 4-second exercise on Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me. They were laughing about a 4-second exercise that could be enough.  I Googled the topic, looking for an article that explained the research.  The research showed that a little bit of exercise throughout the day does more to set a good metabolism rate than one session of prolonged exercise. Trained athletes could reach an optimal level of something or another in two seconds while working on some sort of specialized stationary bike.  They arbitrarily decided if trained athletes could reach this optimal level in two seconds, they'd double it for us couch potatoes. 

    The exercise involves working vigorously for 4 seconds, resting for 45, and repeating that sequence five times; that sequence should be repeated eight times a day. I have started doing this.  I have set my alarm clock several times to make sure that I get up and move at least every hour instead of sitting straight through the day.

    The difference with this exercise is working for intensity, not just any old movement will do.  I have done three of these sequences today. Am I getting the right level of intensity? Who knows? I doubt it. But I am sure it's better than sitting all day or just sweeping the floor.

    Judy just stopped by to drop off a two-pack of vinegar. B. had called earlier in the day and dropped off another two-pack.  Good thing, I asked both of them to do it. Judy explained that the Costco limit was one per customer at this point.  The good news was that she found a package of 24 servings of Miko's miso soup. When I looked up the product online, they said they were out.  Costco had been out anytime any of my shoppers had looked for it too.  I had ordered some substitute online, some other brand of miso soup. I had some today. Yuck! It tastes like dishwasher with a touch of bacon, a taste I also don't like. I'm going to have to find some way to doctor that stuff so I can eat it. It's more expensive than Miko's and has less tofu and greens in it. What a waste!

    I have been reading The Short Introduction to Plato with my dinner.  I think I finally understand the difference between Mike's idea of how to discuss Plato versus mine. He wanted to explicate the text. Me not so much.  I want to see how Plato's ideas relate and illuminate neuroscience and how neuroscience illuminates Plato.   Too late now. Too bad.  I keep learning. It amazes me that there is a new understanding to learn every day. Sometimes, it's something small, like if I rinse my hand deep in the bathroom sink, the water won't collect on the counter. Who would have thought? 

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Musings:

   

    In The Short Introduction to Plato, there is a discussion over the difference between knowledge and belief.  It sounds like an epistemological debate. In the strictest sense, knowledge is only something you have experienced through your own senses. Everything else is belief.

    The example they use is a case of assault brought up before a court of law.  Is the only true knowledge that of the assailant and the assaulted? Is the jury only capable of belief? Which man (I assure you they were both men.) will they believe?  

    Is all we learn from other than our direct experience belief?  I have never been to China; does that mean that I only believe China exists? It is a question raised by Plato and his buddies too. 

    If I understood it correctly, they introduced a different way of knowing. When we integrate knowledge into our systems, we can know, even if we had no direct experience.  I have a sense of what this might mean.  It means figuring out how a piece of information fits into the existing framework of my understanding of the world. I can see where this holds true for abstract ideas, for example, defining love. Love means something different to everyone. I can accept that I can only believe in love until I have experienced something I consider love. 

    Jung made a statement that he doesn't believe God exists;  instead, he knows. I know, from what I have read in his letters in his own words, he did not think anyone could make a definitive statement as to the existence or nonexistence of God;  he was not talking about the existence of God in the absolute sense in the way it is defined by religions.  However, he knew God through his own experience, whatever it was he considered God to be.

Sunday, May 3, 2020

    I completed 6,000 steps with a good hip swing to each side just on my morning walk. 

    I worked on the book today. Shivani and Dorothy read the Introduction and Chapter one, and they were all over me because of the disorganization of my presentation.  While this was very disheartening, it was also what I wanted. Everyone else has read what I have written and told me it was great. Some inserted a few missing commas; some wouldn't read it at all. Mike was good at catching words with unclear antecedents.  He must have seen the structural problems with my writing. Maybe he was afraid to get into it with me.  I suppose I would have jumped sky-high and defended myself. It wasn't worth it to him. He hated conflict.  Maybe he assumed that a professional editor would catch what he chose to ignore.  I will never know now. Either way, I am grateful for Dorothy and Shivani for feeling up to taking me on.  

    I rewrote the introduction section, which I'm going to recategorize as Chapter 1 because it lays out the foundation for understanding the rest of the book.  I want to see if what I've already written hangs together before I continue.  

    Damon called. I told him that Cylin said he was proud of me for keeping the house neat. He said he doesn't think he said that but knows that Cylin knows him well enough to know he would think that way.  I told him his being proud of me means a lot. We talked over some financial matters, which I think are pretty well resolved now, and the loss of my beloved Rainbow vacuum. 

    Damon said, "Buy another one." The Rainbows run over $1000.  He said they make perfectly good wet/dry vacuum cleaners for must less.  He checked the Internet while we were talking and came up with the Bissell Cross Wave.  It only costs $250.  It looks pretty good. I'll think about it.  I checked out some of the video recommendations on the Internet.  It gets good reviews. Of course, these folks aren't comparing it to the Rainbow, but I can see where the Bissell would be better for me.  It looks less complicated to work, for one.  With the Rainbow, I have to bend down to clean out the collection tank.  With the Bissell, it is at the knee level. I also think this tank holds less.  I may have to empty it more often, but it will be easier to reach and lighter weight.  All considerations as I age.  The whole machine is much lighter than the Rainbow.  However, it doesn't have attachments to clean the furniture. I have another vacuum already that can do that.  Yvette bought us a Shark ten years ago after we bought the house and before we moved here with our own vacuum.  I'm seriously considering this move to the Bissell.  Now, I have to wonder if I can sell the Rainbow as is and get some money for it. 

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Musings:

    I had cause to think of some people I knew many years ago that I wrote off.  I believe some of them were actually involved in trying to split up Mike and me at the beginning of our relationship. 

    They reported me as a VD contact. I think they assumed Mike was so conventional that he would have left me when he was given cause to believe I had been unfaithful. He just laughed.  He said if I had been unfaithful, there would have been no way that I wouldn't have come clean with him.  I was a compulsively honest person. I am still honest, but I am a little less compulsive.  

    I initially thought they took this action as revenge for a mistake I made.  One of our old commune mates moved back into the commune while her husband worked in California for the year. She stayed in a closed-in porch area.  It was a small space with a kitchen stove in it and all windows on two sides.  I don't know what that type of window is called. They were sort of like louvered windows, but each slate was large and open and closed separately.  I had spent time in that space and found it quite comfortable.  Jenny found the room freezing cold.  She asked me if I knew what was going on. I checked and couldn't find anything wrong.

    When spring arrived, I was there when she opened the windows.  She hadn't latched them. After closing them, there was a device for snapping them shut securely.  She hadn't done that, letting in the cold air.  I laughed.  I laugh at absurd situations, and this was one of those. I assumed her husband, who worked for the board of health in the VD department, had reported me as revenge for the discomfort I caused his wife. 

    I have also considered the possibility that they did it to force Mike to break it off because Mike was such a bastard. I don't think they did it for my sake. They just wanted to get him out of their lives. And yes, he was. He was contemptuous of everyone in the house except me and sometimes me.  Only, I thought he was just being funny, ironic. I had no idea that anyone would speak to another human being the way he talked to them and often to me.  As I have written, it was quite a while before I realized that he was expressing genuine contempt. He was calm and ironic in his presentation. Once I realized what he was doing, I was on his case like white on rice to get him to change his evil behavior.  As many of you know, he spoke about how he used to be arrogant and regretted it.

    I cut the culprits out of my life permanently and wouldn't want any more to do with them.  It is perfectly possible that they became completely different people who never would have done anything like that again. Still, I didn't have enough good experiences with them versus bad to make it worth finding out.

    I am the type that always feels badly about unresolved relationships. I have heard it is more difficult to lose someone you have difficulty getting along with than someone you love and enjoy and have a good relationship with.  I think I'm doing well without Mike because I loved my relationship with him.  He died in a period of our life when it was all good. Really, all good. Nah, there were a few hangnails, but we were both working on trimming those. 

        Why do we find it easy to forgive some people for unpleasant moments and not others? There are two variables: the number of good moments we have shared with the person versus bad, and the other is how much unpleasantness the bad actions have caused.  Ah, I can think of a third: how dependent we are on the other person. 

    Mike did several unpleasant things to me, created uncomfortable moments as I did for him.  I always found it easy to forgive him.  I even found some of the things he did funny because I couldn't imagine he would deliberately disrespect me.  It was so easy to see his flaws as almost adorable. Whatever he did 'wrong,' he never pushed the 'end of the relationship' button in me.  I never considered leaving him because of something he did. But, as I have written before, I did consider leaving him during a period when our relationship went painfully dead. But, fortunately, we came out on the other side and went back to being a loving couple. God, I loved that man; I still do. 

Saturday, May 2, 2020

    Elsa and I did our long walk, completing 6,000 steps before we got home. Well, I completed 6,000 steps. I think Elsa does three steps to my one. I have working on training her to jump on my lap to get a treat. I need her to do this when I asked her to because bending down to pick her up is already tricky. It will only get worse over time. 

    I edited and sent out one blog and one update. Saturday is my day for listening to NPR shows. While I often have the radio on in the background to keep me company, Saturday is my day to pay attention. There’s “ Wait, Wait . .  Don’t Tell me, The Moth Radio Hour, The TED Radio hour and Selected Shorts,” all must hear shows. I swept the floor while I listened to one of the shows.  

    Then Dorothy called. We talked about our childhoods. We experienced our mother very differently. All children have different mothers; that’s inevitable. They are different people for each of us.  I was the firstborn; that’s always a challenging role. Our parents cut their teeth on parenthood with us. While I was on the phone with Dorothy, I got a text from Paulette. She said she was heading down to deliver a piece of lemon cake. Judy’s birthday was on the 30th. This was the cake they made for the occasion. 

    Jean R. called. While speaking to her, I did some house cleaning. I washed the kitchen and hallway floors in my new way.  I dampen a cloth and wipe a section of the floor by dragging the cloth around with my foot, rinse it out and wipe the same part of the floor again. It does a reasonably good job, and it gives me exercise and saves electricity. Before, I always used the Rainbow vacuum cleaner to wash the floor.  I also did some dusting, using my new approach to it. I don’t just wipe; I polish surfaces.  In the past, I would spray and wipe.  It got it clean enough, but that surface acted as a magnet for dirt.  By polishing without spraying, I get a great shine, and it lasts- for a while.

    On Wait, Wait. . . , I heard something about a new exercise program: 4 seconds of vigorous movement eight times a day.  I think I can handle that. Of course, it is now hours since I heard about it, and I haven’t done even one four-second session.

    The only thing that hurts when I walked was my left foot. Everything else is okay.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Musings:

   

    I finished Brooks’ book The Social Animal. I enjoyed most of it. Now I’m reading A Very Short Introduction to Plato.  Mike has a good-sized collection of the A Very Short Introduction series.  I pulled a few of them out when I reorganized each shelf alphabetically, so it would be easier to locate a book when I started searching to fulfill the request list from the seminaries. 

    The book opens by discussing the effort to distinguish the difference between knowledge and belief. It uses a situation where has someone has to distinguish the truth in a report of an assault.  The man who was assaulted has the knowledge, but no one who hasn’t witnessed it does. They only have belief. They can believe what the victim reports, but they won’t have knowledge. However, as the author points out, this theory creates a problem. If the only way to acquire knowledge is through witnessing something with your own senses, it means everything we learn from someone else or through someone else is only belief.

 

Friday, May 1, 2020

    It was still cool when Elsa and I started our walk at 7.  I wore a sweatshirt until it became too warm.  I put my hat and my glasses on the top of a rock wall, dropped Elsa's leash so I could pull off my sweatshirt about ½ of the way into the circuit. Elsa is good. I can rely on her not to move if I drop her leash.  It freaks her out as it hits the ground; she jumps, but she doesn't take the opportunity to go wandering off.  Of course, I wouldn't do that if I saw another dog.  I prefer to have a grip on her then.  The one time she did get away from me and ran into the neighbor's yard, the four dogs there nearly killed her. 

    I had completed over 6,000 steps by the time I got home.  I used alternate route #2.  My left foot was bothering me. I felt as if a chiropractor could help and adjust the alignment of the bones in my foot. I have told practitioners that I think there is just as much trouble coming from my left calf, ankle, and foot as from the left hip.  They all insist that the problem is only in the left hip. I can accept that the left hip is a problem, but not that it is the only one.  

    Who knows how the problem I am having evolved? It could have started with my fractured coccyx, which caused me to shift my weight to the right hip, which caused my left hip to lean too far to the right, causing the misalignment of the lower left leg, ankle, and foot.  It is a cascading effect.  Why then can't I correct the problem by reversing the cascade? I work on the body part that says, "I'm ready to shift." When it has gone as far as it can, then the next body part says, "Work with me in mind now." It's an unwinding requiring all the body parts involved to shift in sequence. It's not that the problem is located in one spot, and when that's fixed, everything else will miraculously fall into place. 

    That's the theory behind total hip replacement; one procedure fixes everything. None of the medical professionals talks about all the muscles, tendons, and ligaments realigned during surgery. Come to think of it, I do know a woman who had exactly that kind of procedure done.  The doctor surgically realigned all the body parts around her hips. I called that doctor to ask if I could have a similar procedure. At the time, they didn't do it on anyone over forty. She could tell from the sound of my voice that I didn't qualify.

    I called ColinColin to wish her a happy birthday. She was ready for my caterwauling version of the song, which I developed with Mike because he couldn't sing to save his life. She's already planning a big party for next year when she turns fifty.  

    We talked about her hot flashes. She's just had them for two weeks.  They sound pretty trivial to me, one or two a day with some cold sweats. Cold sweats? Now that's interesting. I clearly turn hot, hot, hot when I have one. If Mike was in physical contact with me when I was having one, he could tell I was having one by the rise in my skin temperature. 

    My hot flashes started at 5 pm on April 18, 1991, on the front lawn of our house in Princeton as I was walking to the car so Mike and I could drive into NYC for my friend's fiftieth birthday party.  It is a moment frozen in my mind.  

    I thought I wouldn't have any problems with hot flashes. After all, you can get very warm when doing healing work. This was nothing like those warm flushes. This was an alarm going off in my body. This was a panic attack. This was shock. It felt terrible. Then I had one every fifteen minutes for I don't know how long.  I think that frequency finally stopped when I got on hormone replacements. That helped somewhat, but nothing brought them to a halt.  I was one of the lucky ones who got to have them for the rest of her life.

    When I was sixty-two, my GYN took me off the hormone replacement pills. The Women's Health Initiative Project determined the pills caused serious health problems. I can't remember now if it was with cancer or with heart disease.  I was a participant in the WHI.  I had seen an advertisement and went up to the hospital in New Brunswick to sign up. They had some women who were making dietary changes.  I didn't volunteer for that because Mike did all the cooking, and I didn't think he would be up for it. When I heard that the WHI detected this problem, I was immediately on board with stopping the pills.

    I didn't realize that the cohort of women in whom they detected this problem was very different from me.  I was in my early fifties when I went on HRT. I didn't smoke, drink alcohol; I had a decent diet, all homemade food, and exercised. The women in whom WHI detected these problems only started HRT in their sixties, smoked, drank, and had lousy diets.  These were Appalachian women who, among other problems, lived in poverty.  Whatever, when the problem with the results came to light, no doctor would put me back on the hormones.  I just had to suffer. And I did. Yes, I still have them now at 79, but they are not as bad.

    Yvette directed me to an acupuncturist who also worked with Chinese herbs.  Due to some misunderstandings, if not downright misrepresentations, I stopped working with her.  Nothing criminal, just different assumptions and she didn't do well with it.  While I never completed the treatments, I do find I have fewer hot flashes.  Shortly after I got off the herbs, when I started having a hot flash,  I just said, "No!" the way you might say no to a dog that is doing something inappropriate. The flash subsided.  I have to catch it before it gets to a certain tipping point. Otherwise, I have lost control. Wouldn't that be great? Cyclin said she had already intuitively started with self-talk, calming herself, reminding herself that there is nothing wrong; it is only a hot flash.  I notice that a hot flash can be triggered by an upsetting thought as much as a hot flash can create an unsettling feeling.

    I worked on the blog and the update. Last night I worked on running the old Introduction to my book on reading and chapter 1 through Grammarly before sending it off to Sandor.  I want to finish at least that chapter today. I am having problems with the suggestions that Dorothy and Shivani both made. If I follow their line of reasoning, I think my book will be very different from what I want it to be.   Some of the criticisms are worthwhile listening to. They said that I wander from topic to topic; my writing was unstructured.  I think some of this is because I don't show the relationship between two ideas. To me, that relationship between all these ideas is clear.  I have been thinking about this topic for fifty years now. I can't expect others to see connections the way I do.  I have to show how one topic relates to another.  

    Judy called. We chatted, mostly sharing stories of our youth and about our parents and grandparents.  I told her that I am having a lot of those conversations with my friends and family. I was beginning to wonder if this was just happening to me.  Judy said no, she was experiencing it with other people. 

    I am reading the short stories by an old commune member of mine from the seventies who died two years ago.  I had lost touch after the commune experience. So far, her stories are about positive memories. I'm thinking if I were to write something similar most of mine would be about trauma.  I hated my childhood.  I do have some positive memories, but mostly they are overwhelmed by the constant fear I had to live with.  I think I will try to think of memories that are not darkened by fear. There were some, but just thinking about my youth stirs fear in me. 

-    - - - - - - - - - 

Musings:

    Which is worse: not being loved or not loving? Neither is great, but I think I  can live more with not being loved than not loving.  I can escape a person who doesn't love me, but I can never escape myself. 

    I have started to wonder if my standard is a little too high.  I think I have a high standard for myself because of the hatred I had to carry for my mother when I was a child. That experience left me with a fear of my own rage. My relationship with my mother was a disaster, at least for me.  

    In her eighties, I made some comment about her hating motherhood. She was shocked that I would think such a thing. She said she loved being a mom. How could someone enjoy a life role in which they are always screaming at someone? I guess some people don't mind living that way.  I hate it. That doesn't mean I don't do it. Unfortunately, I am somewhat like my mother. It was for that reason that I resolved never to have children of my own. At the age of eighteen, I swore that this behavior would stop with me; I would not pass it on to anyone else. 

    I thought at first that I made that commitment for the sake of the children I would never have.  I have since realized that I did it as much for my own sake.  I could never have lived with myself behaving like that. I have known this fact most of my life. I have worked and worked to get control over my anger impulse.  I don't mean just control my behavior, but actually, heal the part of me that responds with that type of intolerance for the behavior of others. 

    I'm beginning to think that my standard may be a little too high, and it's the absolute perfection that I demand of myself that is a very thing that triggers my anger.  I have learned through Buddhism that aversion to something creates problems.  

    Believe it or not, this is actually a somewhat new thought for me.

    I want to make it plain, I am not talking about my straightforward way of expressing myself and making some people angry at me. I like those qualities in myself—it's anger that upsets me, not honesty.