Mike's death; Betty's life...

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

I woke to find a text from Dorothy telling me that Nancy, Dorothy’s daughter’s mother-in-law, had died at 7 am. It was expected. It was just a question of when. Sunday, her middle child got married in her backyard. They spent eight days putting together flowers, caterers, etc. A lovely gift to his mom, her children all settled in marriages. She had only one grandchild—my niece’s two-year-old son. Nancy’s husband caught a shot of her looking at Sam and smiling.

I ran into one of my neighborhood contacts, Mike, with his dog Sweet Pea on my morning walk. We had a long talk today. He told me a story about his sister-in-law, who died of heatstroke. She and her husband were driving through Nevada. Their air conditioning gave out. They continued driving with the windows open. She seemed to be sleeping. At one point, her husband tried to wake her. When she didn’t respond, he called 911. The EMT workers felt how hot she was and took her temperature- 1090. I didn’t know that was even possible. They tried to revive her. I imagine her brain had been fried, and it wasn’t worth being brought back to life. She died. That body temperature of 1090 gets me! Can that be accurate?

Scott led the yoga class this morning. Joe showed up to participate too. I was concerned that no one would. Scott did a wonderful job. He followed the basic format that Yvette uses. He promised us some stuff that he was learning in his Kundalini training.

I had K’s crew at 8:30. Twin A still has trouble consistently identifying some letters in the alphabet. Today, I started talking about the name of the letter versus the sound it makes. She already has most of that under her belt from what she learned at school. The big problem is having her read from left to right instead of whatever direction suits her fancy at any time.

With Twin E, I started working on the -ap family in contrast to the -at family. While she can pronounce the sounds individually, she can’t blend the words correctly. The sounds seem to slip and slide around for her. How am I going to solve this problem?

With K, I continued working on handwriting. I reviewed the vertical alignment of the downies, g, g, p, q, and y. He wrote his first and last names and the words the fox jumps over. We’re heading for the complete sentence. His handwriting looks gorgeous. If you didn’t count the lowercase j and s is. He did more sounding out of the words as he wrote them.

I was very down today, feeling very alone and lonely. My mother always told me that no one liked me. When I get down, that’s what I dwell on. Otherwise, I focus more on how much I like others, not how much people please me, but on how I allow myself to be pleased and delighted by them.

I do find liking others somewhat more difficult now. When Mike was here, he was my go-to human. Everyone else was just gravy. Now I find myself looking for characteristics in others that can make them a Mike substitute. They don’t hold up well. I suspect Mike wouldn’t either if I just met him now. The solidity and safety of our relationship resulted from forty-five years of perfecting the system, honing the relationship. We were better and better for each other as the years progressed. How do you find a substitute for that?

Adolescent D’s mom texted me to ask if I could see him at 5:30 instead of 1 pm. Sure. I had the day to get myself together and video the final slide for the reading instruction video. I have been putting it off for days. I finally asked Dorothy if she had any ideas of what to say. She had the perfect words. They just rolled off her tongue.

I had plans to shower and dress appropriately to do the Zoom video with that last slide. I was walking toward the bathroom when my phone rang. A friend who was down needed a little solace. She’s in the middle of clearing out the house she’s lived in for over thirty-five years and moving into a retirement community. I try to tell her how tough this move is; any move is. She was dealing with it on a strictly material level- so much junk to take care of. She didn’t appreciate that her soul and her husband’s soul had seeped into the walls of that house. They were moving to a newly renovated apartment where the walls didn’t even know what they smelled. It’s a huge change.

Once I was off the phone with her, my friend Darby from down the street called. I saw her husband out in the yard trimming a tree yesterday. I told him I wanted to call her. I’m reluctant to because they are generally out working in the yard and don’t use their cell phone; yes, just one cell phone for the two of them. How do you get hold of people like that? At 3:20, my alarm went off, and I had gotten in the shower yet. I texted J in California, telling him I was running late.

I was in and out of that shower and ready for my session with J shortly after 3:30. I spent the weekend preparing work for him. I noticed that he couldn’t make generalizations or categorize things. We worked on the Getting the Main Idea series of Barnell Loft on the 3rd and 4th-grade level and started the fifth. He had some problems yesterday on the third-grade level, but then he got it and sailed through to the 5th. That’s where we started today.

I asked J if he saw a difference in his reading. It was the first time he gave a clear, unambiguous yes. He said it was a big difference. Again, he sailed through the material I had prepared. He went right through to the end of the sixth-grade material. In the last unit, some questions about vocabulary came up. It was quickly resolved. We moved on to the seventh grade. Here he got stuck. The sentence structures were more complex, and the vocabulary unfamiliar:

I was pushing for longer sessions with J making sure he got sessions completed the StepUp Program requirements so he could get a restaurant gift card to take his family out for dinner. I prefer doing shorter sessions with J. The Step Up program requires each session to be at least 45 minutes. I would rather do several twenty-minute sessions, but they won’t count those. Working with J as long as I do is too much for us.

At 5:30, adolescent D signed on to our zoom session. His reading seemed to go back to what it was before our breakout yesterday. I was disappointed, back to the drawing board. Then he announced he was nauseous. I asked if he always got nauseous when he read. No, he was reading in the car. Oh, boy. He has enough trouble reading when the image isn’t moving around and the world around him isn’t whizzing past him. I told him to call me when he got home.

He canceled because a friend asked him if he wanted to go to the movies. He had a play date. Love it! I’m a great supporter of playdates. Once he was settled, I asked him, as I always do, if he saw a difference in his reading today in the summer school program. First, he said no, and then he said a little bit. It was the first time he had acknowledged any improvement. It was huge. I was concerned about his working with the teacher in the school. Rewiring takes attention, careful attention, and not rushing. How would he do that with this teacher working for reading fluency? Somehow, he got something in. Again, he was able to go back to the process we started the other day. See the word on the ‘blanket,’ visual working memory, ask your ‘mind’ for the word, and wait until you can ‘hear’ what it has to say. He could do the work he did yesterday in his familiar home environment.

Monday, July 12, 2021

I slept beautifully. I wasn’t in any discomfort until early in the morning. It has been bad of late, mainly when I sit. The muscles in the back of my left leg seized up. I have been concerned about my prospects for the future. Will I be an old woman, confined to a chair in constant pain? I took acetaminophen yesterday., just one during the day. It cleared up the problem immediately. I can live with taking an anti-inflammatory a couple of times a day. Mind, I only took one pill. Before I went to bed, I took another and drank some of the magnesium powder-mix to help soothe muscles. Things were so bad yesterday that I thought I would have to try Total Hip Replacement. I’m not optimistic that the surgery will fix my problem. It will make it easier for me to stand up after sitting for a while. That I will do.

I had an appointment with my primary doctor at Kaiser on Friday for my foot. Last night, I thought it might be a good idea to schedule a surgery appointment, just in case. It will be a good three to four months out, so I will have time to change my mind.

I spent the morning going down a Quora rabbit hole. I can spend hours reading their blurbs. I particularly like the ones about the British royal family and celebrities. What the hell is wrong with me?

I had Mama K’s crew at 8:30, but they didn’t sign on. I called. Mama K was still asleep. She jumped up and got the kids on in minutes. I started with E, one of the twins. We have been working on reading words that end in-at, using all the single letters in the alphabet for an initial sound. Last time, I started her on finding those words in a story. She does reasonably well, but not 100%. She read fat for hat and had this weird pronunciation for cat, pronouncing the /k/ sound as /kee/. I asked her if she says she has a /kee-at/ or /cat/. She corrected herself.

As we went through the story, she said there was another word she knew -tap. She misread the word. She confused tap with pat. I wondered if she even understood that the order of the letters made a difference. It isn’t clear yet that she understands that the letters represent sounds. She made the individual sounds and blended them into words -but it wasn’t clear that she understood the principle. However, she has given me a new activity. I have been struggling with what direction to go next. I planned to work with words ending with -ap, as well as words ending in-at.

Then Twin A came on. She could now remember some of the letters she had problems with. But she still had problems remembering the name of the letter i. I told her to instruct her mind to remember it. Why not? She said the words out loud, “Mind, I want you to remember the name of this letter is i.” She did better for the rest of the exercise. I would have to do more BrainManagementSkills with her and twin A.

Their brother K came on last. I had noticed that he had trouble with the vertical placement of the lowercase j last time. I reviewed that and then had him write the word jump in his lined notebook. He formed the letter well but confined it to one space. I went over the spacing with him. He easily corrected his error. I only had him write his last name again. Last time he had reversed two of the letters. If you’re wondering how all this is supposed to help him, know that sometimes I do, too.

I know that he concentrates as he does this work. This is the only activity other than video games- that commanded his attention this way. I knew he enjoyed this work. His mother said he never objects to attending our sessions. I knew from what I learned from another teacher that handwriting is linked to attention. I know that holding the letters in the correct order is important for reading and writing. I know that writing the letters in the right order is preparation for writing words in a sentence correctly. I convinced myself I was on the right track.

I went for a quick walk before I had 6th grade D at 9:30. Something about his reading has been troubling me. His jerkiness is not just from the inference of the Spanish intonation pattern. Today I had him read simple sentences, one I prepared for 2nd grade A and adolescent D to help them learn missing basic sight words. He read the as a and read showed as should. These are mistakes he made in the first two sentences. There was a processing problem. I began working with him on BrainManagementSkills.

I asked him to remember his blanket. He thought about it for a while and announced it was green. I asked him where in his brain he saw the blanket. His first response was he didn’t know. I showed him what I have learned is the best place to use for visual working memory, right behind the forehead. He couldn’t see it there. He tried, and the image slid toward the back of his brain. I drew a picture of the top of his head with a line down the middle, marking one half left and the other right. He said the image slid from the front of his brain toward the back on the left side. I made a mark showing where it stopped. He corrected me, saying it was further back. I assumed this would be a spin pattern. He said it was a curved line but did recognize it as a spin. I stopped there with BMS and went back to reading the sentences.

I had him write the words on the green blanket where it was in his brain. This helped somewhat. He continued misreading here for there and vice versa. He also added on letters where they didn’t belong. He was a great student to work with. He found the activity fun. He is learning about how his mind works along with me. He can laugh about what his mind does. What a contrast to 2nd grade A, who fought anything that looked unusual. He limited me. Poor kid, his priority was being normal. I couldn’t convince him that his only hope was this somewhat unusual path or some other unusual path. The easy, fall-off-the-log path was not an option for him.

At 11, I had my Reading support session. I had advertised it on the StepUp and my personal Facebook pages by accident. I still only had one person attend. The volunteer tutors in this program are amazing. Many are students working on advanced degrees. That was the case with the young man today. He said his student had trouble pronouncing words. It sounded more like his student hadn’t heard the words before and didn’t know how they were pronounced. In English, you have to have a word in your listening vocabulary, if not your speaking vocabulary, to know how to pronounce it. The tutor had already turned his student on to looking for repeated patterns. I may have added something to his bag of tricks. However, if you have a student that doesn’t have basic processing problems, it doesn’t take much to push them over the line.

I had a session with adolescent D at1 pm. I continued working with the sentence I had created for drilling the basic sight words. I did some more with the BrainManagementSkills. I had him identify the color of his blanket. His visual working memory was where I think it should be, right behind the forehead. I had him ‘write’ a word on his ‘blanket’ and wait for his mind to tell him what the word was. This made a big difference. Wow! He saw it too. Now, we have to continue with the activity until the neurological circuit is secure. The problem was the difference between how he had been doing it and this ‘new’ way was subtle. It was a small difference in ‘mental depth,’ concentration, and attention. How do you describe that switch in the mental state? How do I keep him aware of the difference and keep him searching for the one that works?

At 4:30, I had an appointment with my acupuncturist. My foot was still swollen. She said it was edema. She said she didn’t think it was my kidneys because it was only on one side of the body. Kidney problems show up bilaterally. I see my chiropractor tomorrow and my primary doctor at Kaiser on Friday.

I asked the acupuncturist if she saw a difference in my body alignment. She said definitely. She is very understated. I would be announcing every improvement I see, jumping up and down. She says nothing. I don’t get it. I believe giving feedback helps move things along. People respond when they know what they’re doing is working. Maybe she thought it was all due to her work. Nonsense. Her work was undoubtedly part of the picture, but there was also the yoga and what I did with body mechanics. I’m not an inanimate object to be manipulated.

Sunday, July 11, 2021

The sky was cloudy by 7 am today. Usually, it's clear in the early morning, and clouds over by 10. Yesterday was bad. We were on the grid by 6 pm. The solar batteries were at 0%.

I used my glutes to initiate every step as I walked this morning. I always come back to something a dancer said to me when I was in my twenties. Beth was a dance major and became a professional dancer. She was a nasty piece of work. Her answers, at least to me, were always snide. I asked her if she used her turn-out muscles in some context. She replied, "I use my turn-out muscles when I walk." I sure as hell didn't. Over and over, the opportunity to learn to use them more when I was younger. I always thought turn out started at the top of the thigh. Now, I see they start with the glutes. Maybe I'll yet discover another set of muscles is involved. I always think I've finally understood, and I'm doing it correctly, only to learn otherwise. Using my glutes felt right because when I use my glutes, the movement goes down my leg to my foot and up my back to the opposite shoulder.

Between the two long naps I took, I got some work done in the house. I polished all the stainless steel in my kitchen. It's a little more labor-intensive here in Hawaii. Stainless steel rusts. I don't just have to polish the surface; I have to rub off the rust spots gently. It all looks good. I also cleaned the silverware drawer, washed all the utensils, and cleaned the inside drawer and the organizer.

I feel consistently sad and weighted. While I'm in better shape than I was after having someone I rely on telling me they were concerned about my mental condition because I didn't remember something they did that triggered a historical trauma. Of course, there's also Britany Spears's dilemma. People do like to take control of your life. Having someone build a case for my mental incompetence doesn't make me feel safe.

I called Dorothy to get advice about what to say on the final slide of my reading video. She had a great suggestion. When I first called, her phone was turned off. Dorothy remotely attended a wedding today. Her daughter's mother-in-law has had a resurgence of her cancer and wasn't expected to last long. David's brother Alex had a quickly put-together wedding in his parents' backyard. He was already engaged; it was just the wedding that was a rush job. They were probably planning to wait until all Covid restrictions were dropped. They got engaged last year.

Alex and his girlfriend were walking through the NYC streets when everyone banged pots and pans out of their windows, thanking first responders. Alex was a doctor working in an NYC hospital during the worst of the crisis. In the middle of this chaos, Alex dropped to his knees and asked her to marry him.

Dorothy said there were about twenty people at the wedding. David, Karin, Sam, their two-year-old son, and Alex's sister were already there. Her husband flew in from Texas. Of course, there was the bride's family. Friends of the bride and groom were there too. They threw the whole event together in eight days. There were flowers, and it was catered. There were two videographers. The whole shebang. It's wonderful that Nancy saw her kids settle before she took her last breath. Now, the question is how much longer she will last. She will be surrounded by family when she goes. I hope she goes peacefully.

Saturday, July 10, 2021

I sleep really, really well for the first several hours. It was the same as when I napped. I have this wonderful sleep that lasts an hour or two, and then I’m up. When my nap ends, I’m refreshed and good to go. I’m not prepared to do that at night. I usually fall asleep again after getting up to pee. Then, it’s more like dozing in the early morning hours, with lots of interruptions to pee. At 5:30, I’m up and ready to go, with or without the alarm.

The sky was a beautiful blue, with the sun shining brightly until about 9:30 or 10:00 am. Then the dark clouds came over the mountain, and we had another day of little sunshine and some rain. I can’t complain about the rain. Other islands have a water shortage.

I had some face-to-face contact on my morning walk. Also, Judy came to pick up three folding chairs. Her son Matthew was visiting with his wife, Keri, and their two children. I was welcome for dinner, but none of the family that lives here is vaccinated. I don’t know about Matthew and his family. Worse yet, Judy’s son, who lives here, and his wife had a bad flu. Was it Covid? No one knows. They didn’t go to get it checked. They’re young, in their early thirties. Hopefully, they will be fine.

I can concede that we don’t know the long-term effects of the vaccine. However, we do know the immediate effects of the disease. Everyone has to take their chances. From what I heard in the news, there was a dramatic uptick in the number of cases; they were all among the unvaccinated. I could imagine that some people believe those numbers are lies. Could I believe the government lies to us? Absolutely. I did the best I could, as everyone else did.

I worked on the updates and blogs but spent most of my date copying material for J in California. He has trouble getting a general idea. I used the Barnell Loft material on Getting the Main Idea. I started working with him on a third-grade level. I could move through all the material I had prepared up through fifth grade. Today I worked on preparing sixth-grade material. We’ll see if this helps.

I noticed that J made small mistakes when reading out loud. I didn’t correct it. He seemed to grasp the meaning of what he read. With his Spanish background, it was hard to read English out loud. The rhythm of Spanish is very different from English. Spanish is regular; English is syncopated. If someone maintains the Spanish rhythm, it makes it difficult to fit in the English words.

I checked the final slide. I did okay until the very end. I wanted to say goodbye and wish folks well in using this method. I flubbed the last part. I texted Tommy just to cut it off where I flubbed. I think I can create an additional slide wishing folks well on their efforts to use the method.

Dorothy called. She got the acupuncture pen I sent her. She opened it despite my instructions not to. I also sent her a text telling her we didn’t have to return it. Maybe I tried the wrong one. I would have to check. I knew I didn’t have to return the one I got with nothing in it. I would have to check again. I ordered Dorothy a more elaborate one. She could give the other one to her friend Susan.

I bought the pen for Dorothy because the muscles in her right leg were bothering her. She had a total hip replacement in that hip. I told her to have a physical therapist check out her body mechanics. Her hip became a problem because of her bad body mechanics; the THR didn’t change her physical habits. I told her she should get herself checked, so she didn’t recreate the problem. Today Dorothy got back to me and told me she had solved the problem. She hadn’t been using her right glute muscles enough. She had to do more bridges. My problem was with my left hip and left leg. I looked at what I was doing with my left glute muscles. I changed my walk pattern immediately. I’d only been practicing today, and I already felt a difference.

I planned to work on the article about the reading method. I wanted to compare what was in it to what I included in the video. I got as far as to print it out.

I got around to picking up the poop or vomit Elsa had deposited on the lanai rug. By the time I found it originally, it was already dry. I wasn’t up to cleaning it up. Today I got down there and scraped it up with a knife. It was bone dry. I found ants busy harvesting what they could from the deposit. I wondered if they would do the clean-up job for me. I would haul out my Rainbow vacuum cleaner to thoroughly clean that spot.

I thrive on interaction. It makes me feel sluggish when I don’t have it.

I watched Inside Out last night. I didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I did. The representation of the mind was fascinating. From what I read in Wiki, they had neuroscientists advising them. They must have had a blast.

Friday, July 9, 2021

I had a busy morning, no yoga, but one appointment after another. I got up a little after the alarm went off. Once Elsa was fed and watered, I tucked her under my arm and headed for my car. We were going to the groomer. She sat comfortably in the passenger's seat on the way there. Dick came out to the car to pick her up. I told him I would be back shortly after 10.

At 8:20, I had my appointment with Mana K's crew. I started with the seven-year-old K. I instructed him on how to form the lowercase s before he began to write. He did a good job writing his first name. The letters were well-formed in both his first and last name. There was only one problem. He reversed the vowel letters in his last name. I had him say his name, spell it out loud, and then compare that with what he had written. He was able to correct it easily.

I wrote the lowercase letters that dropped below the baseline, g, j, p, q, and y. We talked about which ones had the curled fishhook. He can distinguish left from right easily. (This is something Mike could not do. I would have to direct him to move using external clues; move toward the sofa or the chair.) K wrote the fox jump(s). He wrote jump as jup. However, he could hear the sound of the m when I asked him to and could change the spelling. He formed the hook of the j correctly; only he had the letter fill the top two lines instead of the bottom two. We will have to start again on that.

At 9 am, I had an appointment with Shelly, my therapist/life coach. While I felt desperate earlier in the week, I felt fine today. Something shifted. I remember thinking I wasn't a helpless child at this point in my life. However, I anticipated that I would be equally as vulnerable at the end of my life. Laws protect the elderly as there are children for a reason. For better or worse, I anticipate a long, long life, maybe 106. My mother died two weeks before her 98th birthday, and I am in way better health than she was at the same age. Of course, I can always be hit by a bus or some miscellaneous virus no one anticipated.

I did what I could with the therapy session since I had scheduled it. I always advise my clients to focus on what is most annoying for them at the time. I use the word annoying instead of troubling because it should be something trivial. I felt sad. Four of the nine people I am working with have serious memory problems. I never made any inroads with sixth-grade D's memory problems. Now I have the twins, A & E, who are about to start 2nd grade and still can't remember all the letters in the alphabet, and adolescent D, whose mind slips around the way my aging mind does. While BrainManagementSkills often makes a considerable difference, nothing helps everyone.

Shelly sneezed. She asked how it impacted me. She, like me, believes that everything has significance. I didn't feel a difference, and then I started to yawn. I had a session like this before. I yawned over and over during the session. Shelly and I just observed the yawns.

This woman is fantastic for me. She feels as I do; if something comes up, follow it – unless you think it could be damaging. Shelly said one reason we got along well is that we both can sit with not knowing at the moment. Neither of us had any idea what was going on with the repeated yawning, and we were happy to observe it without having to know. We thought it could do no harm- the only limit we set. Everything else is a go. I yawned and yawned for the entire session. My jaw muscles relaxed, and I experienced a significant adjustment in the cervical spine. I have no idea what the psychological impact was, if there was one.

I should have had an appointment at 10:30, but sixth-grade D's mother emailed me to cancel; D had a dental appointment. I went down to pick up Elsa from the groomer. Dick passed Elsa to me right through the open car window. He said she never took her eyes off him, but she was looking for her mommy. Once in the car, she was in my lap the whole ride home. Typically, she prefers riding in the passenger seat.

Tommy called. Did I get his text? There was a problem with the last slide. I had cut it off too soon. I had to redo it. Tommy said just wear the same shirt, and no one will know the difference. I told him I had a radical haircut; people would think I had a sex change. He laughed. Since it was the last slide and only provides information on getting more information, I can redo it without my image. No problem.

I felt blah for most of the day. I took a long nap. I worked on the updates and the blog. At night, I watched more of Manifest. I'm getting worn out by the drama. I checked Wiki; there are three seasons with over a dozen episodes in each. I read some of the summaries. It's endless. It's a nighttime soap opera on steroids. I told Judy about it. She had heard of it and said it sounded like the series Lost. She was a devoted follower. Then the series just ended -without a resolution. She said the fans were beside themselves. She is not willing to follow this show if it's like Lost. Looking through the episodes, I believe it is. There is a difference when you have the main characters solving a crime someone has committed against someone else versus against the main characters. We need to know how it works out for the show's protagonists.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Mama K canceled for her crew today. Her family was off on an adventure.

I watched the sample of the sliced and spliced video Tommy put together for me. It looked good, not choppy in any way. I discovered I like listening to myself. I can’t imagine everyone will agree with me. Judy says she likes the way I present myself. I’m animated and spontaneous.

I had adolescent D at 1. He said he had a good day at school but couldn’t tell me why. I asked if the reading went well. He said no, it was terrible. He made endless mistakes. It’s hard to know if his evaluation of the situation is accurate. His mother heard him read one day and thought he could read 60% of the words now, whereas before, he would only read 10%. Why do I ask? I want him to learn to evaluate his work accurately. He is still too hard on himself.

We worked with some three-syllable words because that’s where the trouble comes in big time. D can’t keep those syllables separate. He mushes them together, reducing the word to one or two syllables. He loses sounds; he doesn’t say anything resembling the word on the page.

I was using a two-pronged approach: 1) forcing his mind to decode a multi-syllable word one syllable at a time, hold on to those distinct sounds, and blend them. 2) trying the BrainManagementtSkills, which aims to change how his brain works by directly manipulating his brain.

He is so much more cooperative than he was initially. He is a working partner now. What a change! I suspect this change is more important than anything he can accomplish with the reading. We worked on one or two words and then returned to the BMS. The white block was still there. He still wanted it to go away. I said his negative reaction was important; it was like a smoke alarm. It warned that something was wrong. However, once the alarm sounded, screaming at it to make a change wouldn’t have any positive effect. We must turn off or ignore the alarm and turn our attention to the fire. He finally agreed there was spinning involved. When the spin was released, he announced he had a backache. Then he told me he had had it for a long time. He did a release from the base of his spin up through the top of his head, where he released it. This is the first time I’d come across a full-body spin release. They were usually just in the head.

I suspected an old insult or injury. I told D it wasn’t essential to know what it was. Our mind holds on to old injuries, as it is designed to. We only burn our hands on hot stoves once; after that, our unconscious minds hold on to that information forever. However, there are injuries we want to let go of. I told him to have his forebrain tell the rest of his brain that whatever caused an upset, he had survived it. When he did this, he experienced relaxation. I always look for relaxation as a sign that the work is going in the right direction. If the client experiences increased tension, it signals back off. The body is going into a defensive posture. I always assume there is a reason for that. Pushing against it is never a good idea. It has to be respected.

I had J scheduled for 3:30. He didn’t respond. I called. Why can’t I convince him just to text me when something comes up and not make me have to call him? His mom had to babysit. I assumed he had to go with her.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

I had sixth grade D at 10:30. I worked with him on reading smoothly. His reading sounded percussive, jerky. In our last session, I showed him how to collect several words before saying any of them. Today, I modeled the reading phrase by phrase and had him repeat it. Then he read a sentence on his own. I asked him if he thought he sounded better. He said no and explained why not with words that had no meaning to me. He said, “never mind.” I said no. Please, do what you have to communicate what you feel. You have information about yourself I do not have. I must understand what you think and feel. He finally got through to me.

D said he hit this very high note. (Not his words but what he meant.) Then I got it. His family is Mexican. Spanish speakers use a narrower pitch range than English speakers. To Spanish speakers, Americans always sound overly excited or angry. Each language has its own musical pattern, just as it has its own phonemic system.

He agreed that he was uncomfortable using the English intonation, the musical pattern of the language. The difference between the two languages isn’t apparent in conversational speech, but it is more so when using the ‘reading’ voice. We enunciate our words more clearly when we read than we do in conversation and use a more emphatic voice if we are reading well. The Spanish intonation (musical pattern) is choppier than English. English sounds like the ocean waves. D didn’t sound different in conversation. His English was perfect. It only showed up when he read. We’d see how this played out. He was doing the exercises I asked him to: he is practicing saying all the letters in sequencing in continuous text, and his mother had him listen to the audio file as he slept.

I headed to town after my session with sixth-grade D. I had to cash a check. The bank line was the longest I’ve ever seen it. I wondered what was going on. Fortunately, I had my Kindle on me. I was in the middle of Blueprint, Nicholas Christakis’s book about the social suite, the essential elements of a functional human society, one that survives and promotes the survival of its members.

I thought of going to the shore to enjoy the ocean view before I went home, but it was late already. I had adolescent D at 1. In my conversation with Judy yesterday, I told her that D preferred to work with a word list than continuous text, where he could use context clues to help him figure out the words. She said that was odd. Most students find reading words embedded in text easier because they can use the surrounding words to help them figure out the target word. It made me wonder. I thought- when he sees a word in isolation, he could focus on it. He gets confused when he sees a word in the middle of a field of words. It would be a visual perception problem.

When I told D about my thinking. He chose to work with the word list instead of a story. He did very well until we hit anyone, transcribe a/n-y/w-one. It reinforces my belief that something shifts in his head, creating confusion. He could read short words. He couldn’t contain each syllable separately. His mind wants to mush everything together.

Back to BMS. Was there any change in his head? Was there movement somewhere in his brain right now? Yes, in the front. As I understand it, that would be the visual working memory; the letters get tossed here and there. When reading, you need them to hold their place. I asked him what it looked like in the front of his brain. He said there was a white block. It was large. I asked him how he felt about it. He said he hated it. While that was an understandable reaction, I said it had the effect of defeating his efforts to get rid of it. We did the complimentary releases: Release anything bad about your hatred for the white block and keep anything positive or anything you still need. And then, release anything bad about your love for the white block and keep anything good or anything you still need. I find it is important to do both; one of them always holds a surprise.

In the evening, I watched This is Where I Leave You with Jane Fonda, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver, and Tina Fey. I thought it was wonderful. It’s the coming of age of a forty-year-old.

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

I had a good night’s sleep. No troubling thoughts at all until it was almost time to get up. Yoga was delicious. I did most of it lying down while others did parts standing and sitting. There was a breeze blowing around my bare legs. So peaceful.

At 8:30, I was supposed to have Mama K’s crew. When she hadn’t signed on by 8:35, I called. She apologized; she slept in. I told her to call me when she was ready. I was free till 10:15 when I had to get ready to leave for my haircut appointment. By 9 am, I needed a nap. Despite the untroubled night’s sleep, I was exhausted. I think I am processing grief. It is a tiring job.

I called Deb at Raymond James this morning. I wanted to check how my money would be distributed after my death. One note stated that August, Mike’s grandson, was to collect 100% of the trust when he turned 25. Yikes! The trust is the money I have left for myself and to bequeath others. How does August get to collect 100% of that money? Does he get to collect it when he is 25, seven years from now, even if I’m still alive? It’s coming out that Mike made some financial agreements with people he didn’t tell me about. He should have known better.

Mike was a wonderful caring guy. He was also somewhat neurotic. If he thought that person suffered the way he had as a child, he was driven to give them way more than was appropriate. He would also deny someone money if he didn’t think they had suffered as he had. As I said, somewhat neurotic. He was lucky I loved him. I’m learning about some of this behavior now. No, I don’t feel betrayed. I felt sad for him that he suffered from this compulsion. Fortunately, we had enough money that his behavior did no serious damage to our finances or our relationship. He didn’t drink, gamble, or spend money on other women. I’m good, so we were still good. But now I had to wonder what he did with August. Travis from Raymond James did quite get the facts down as it wound up.

Mike had left the benefit from a Life Insurance policy to August. It was that he was entitled to collect at the age of 25. Because it isn’t in trust, his parents can use it as they wish. It will be paying for a costly college—at least part of the cost of an expensive college.

I am feeling weird today. I cried at the drop of a hat yesterday after a tortured night. Now, I am calm again. I shouldn’t complain that I switch back and forth. The switches go between deep grief and calm, not deep depression and hyperness. That would be a worry.

I finally hooked up with Mama K’s crew at 9:30. I only had time to work with A and E because I had to leave for a hairdresser appointment. A keeps on calling the letter i, e. Because I learned yesterday that E doesn’t know all the letters of the alphabet either, I checked that. She knows more than A but has the same confusion between i and e. I worked on the -at words with E too. We hadn’t worked on them for three days now. She did better than usual. She started confusing the letter name with the sound it represents in a word. Ah, she probably was confused because I asked her the names of the letters in the alphabet. That set her up to think in those terms.

I left the house at 10:30 for my haircut appointment. The traffic was at a standstill on Mamalahoa Hwy. They were mowing the verges on a two-lane highway. I made it in time. I am always greeted warmly at the Salon. I get these fantastic haircuts with Randee. Yvette recommended her when I first arrived. There are two other operators. Susan lost her husband to pancreatic cancer 14 years ago, leaving her alone with a one-year-old child. I know Meagan from Bikram. It’s a small town. Love it.

I drove home via Alii drive. I wanted to see the ocean up close. If I had more time, I might have stopped a while to soak in the view. While I can see the ocean from my lanai, I never go down to the waterfront. I really must. It would be so good for me.

I had adolescent D at 1 pm. I checked how he was after our work yesterday. He said he didn’t have a headache. I was concerned because he had one due to our work yesterday. However, he remembered nothing about the work. I was concerned that it might have been too deep for him. He seems to be okay. He said he thought his memory was better. He couldn’t give me specific examples of something he remembered that he might not normally have. Given this kid is one of the most withholding on the planet, his clear, “Yes, it’s better,” is a good sign.

I had him read the sentences with the sight words. He did better. But there were three words he had trouble with today. Two he hadn’t had a problem with yesterday; he read comes instead of came twice. However, there were several incidents where he read the wrong word and caught himself. I’m not sure why that is; has he memorized the sentences, or did his mind tell him the letters in the word were different than in the word he read?

I asked him if he wanted to work on a word list or a paragraph. He said a word list. Hmm! When I spoke to Judy about it, she said reading a word list is more difficult. Yes and no. Reading words in context is easier because you can use the words you know to help you infer the word you don’t know. However, if attending to the letters is your problem, reading a word in isolation would be easier. I think this is his problem.

I’ve instructed him to work on saying all the letters in words on his own. I don’t think he does it, and I don’t think his mother pushes him to do it. I will have to have him do this before he reads every sentence. I may have to push him to write the letters in shaving cream or clay if saying all the letters in a word doesn’t refine his visual attentional system

Monday, July 5, 2021

I had a terrible night's sleep. I woke up in terror. Someone in my life attributes my disagreement with them to a mental deficit. Unfortunately, that's what my mother did when I was a child. How I survived, I don't know. Now, that trauma has been triggered again. I feel the way I did when I was young- terrible. I am constantly scared and lonely. Mike was a buffer against the world for me. I've lost that; someone delivered one hell of a trigger. This, too, will pass. I remember Mike's words, "It's a problem to be solved."

When I started my morning walk, the sky was a clear blue, as it has been every morning at six. By nine, the sky was overcast, as it had been of late. It remained that way until late afternoon. This was a joke. It foiled my new solar system. Someone was saying, "Ha! Ha!"

I had Mama K's kids this morning. I was surprised to see they were still on their camping trip. They were at a great site that Mike and I liked to visit. We didn't camp, but we loved the rugged shoreline there. People swim in an area created by a cement boat ramp where the water is calm.

The first was Twin A., or I thought it was her. The twins' names differ by a single letter, a single sound, and it's a vowel. One's name has a short a, the other a short e. Yikes! So I worked with E thinking she was A. E had looked like she knew the alphabet when I first worked with her. Today it became clear that I had overestimated her. As I covered the letters of the alphabet, A had trouble with several of the letters. It could just as easily have been A.

I knew I had the wrong one because when A came on, she started spelling her name. I worked on the missing letters with her too. She did better than her sister, who had first appeared ahead of her -back to the drawing board.

I had short sessions with all three. With K, I classified every letter in the lowercase alphabet as an uppy, downy or regular. The uppies are the b, l, etc., the downies are the g, p, y, etc. And the regulars are the ones that occupy only one space.

I had 6th grade D at 9:30. Between the sessions, I did one short walk and cut down the spent heliconia. I had D work with 4th-grade material, moving him up from the third grade. I had him work on making the basic sounds as represented by the letters. He said it created pressure in his head. That's good. It means his brain is doing something different. One the first passage he read, he made mistakes reading saw as was, on as no, a as the, and the as a. After he worked on producing the basic sound units of one sentence, he read a new passage for the first time and read every word correctly. The only problem was his reading sounds jerky and labored. I read the passage for him, leaving long pauses between clauses and phrases. I told him I was collecting the words before I spoke them. When he tried this, he sounded completely different.

I had him answer the comprehension question in the first passage. He gave the wrong answer. I was confused. When I asked him to explain his answer, he changed it to the correct one. I asked him why he gave the wrong answer first. He said he thought I wanted him to change his answer. Oh, boy. What a laugh!

Julia didn't announce my reading help office hours today. I posted the information on the Step Up Tutoring Facebook site. I had a response. Then we had a problem connecting because I hadn't posted a meeting id. A little back and forth, and we connected. John was working with a boy who had trouble with reading fluency. The boy skipped a lot of words. I suggested that he read all the letters in the words in sequence to develop his visual perception. I also suggested that John, the tutor, teach him to chunk phrases and clauses in his mind before he says the words out loud.

I had adolescent D at 1 pm. He didn't sign on. I called. I suspect he just woke up. I started with the BrainManagementSkills, asking him to check the state of his two hemispheres. His left hemisphere was a blurry white. It was white last time but lacked that detail. His right hemisphere was a weird, bad black. This was a change. In the past, it's been a pretty red or pinkish red. I asked him if he was okay with the black color. He read the sight word sentences, working on paying attention to every letter. He did much better. He got words correct that he had missed before.

I continued to work on BMS after we did this exercise. I asked about what his brain did to block his memory. I drew a line from the back of his head, moving forward, asking if it never got started or if it got started, and then stopped suddenly. The third choice was that it got started and then rolled over to the right. He chose the third example. Then I asked about the direction of the roll, clockwise or counterclockwise. It moved to the right in a clockwise direction. I explained the spin release to him.

My first question was if he wanted to know the theory behind it. I believe the movement inside the cells is spiral. There is the idling speed, the default brain that hums away thinking thoughts about social structure. It spins faster when we get excited or work on something that requires mental energy. However, there are upsetting moments when the spiraling gets stuck in the head, and the brain never returns to the calm default mode.

I instructed him on the release, telling him he should find the process interesting. If it became 'freaky' or scary in any way to stop it. I told him I had never seen anyone injured by the process, but if he got scared, it wouldn't work; he would be reluctant to try it again. Since this is the biggest ace I have up my sleeve to help kids with learning disabilities, that would be a drag. I told him not to control the movement but just to observe it. His spiral grew larger and larger. I asked if it was spiraling from in to out or from out to in. His spiral was moving from the outer ring toward the center. This is unusual. I associate that direction with lower intelligence. D does not suffer from that. He was able just to observe and see where it went. I forgot to ask him the speed of movement. For some kids, it speeds up; for others, it slows down.

I could feel the spiral filled his head now and was pushing against his skull. He confirmed that image. I told him to let the spiral pass through his skull and move away. He did that. He reported a headache. I did a pull-out. That worked; his headache subsided. We'll see what he's like tomorrow.

One good thing, I got him to stop saying, "I don't know," to all questions. I told him whatever his answer was, it was a good one. It gives us both information.

Sunday. July 4, 2021

I told Dorothy about the problem I had with my right foot, specifically the right half of my right foot. My acupuncturist said it didn’t look like an infection but rather an edema. The liquid is gathering in this area. The acupuncturist said it was on the gall bladder meridian. Dorothy had two suggestions. She strongly recommended that I see a medical doctor. This problem had already persisted for two weeks. I thought it was a good idea and made an immediate appointment. The earliest one I could get was July 16. My foot may be better by then, hopefully. Dorothy also had information on how to deal with lymph drainage. She said to start working at a point furthermost from the site of the pain. I started using the meridian energy acupuncture pen for this purpose. The swelling went down, as did the pain.

Judy called after church. Adam fully recovered from unidentified flu. Jazzy was still struggling. She seems to recover from illness more slowly than Adam. Leon, their six-year-old, had a mild case of the flu, but Luke, the disabled child, and Zion, the one-year-old, dodged the bullet.

I spent the day recovering. Things are not going well on a personal level. I have been distressed. I did get some yard work done. I sprayed the yard with vinegar killing weeds in the front yard and along the fence in the front of the house, but I spent most of the day napping and reading. In the evening, Elsa and I hid in the library, where I could close off the outside world. I also turned on the air conditioner and watched TV. While I didn’t get to see the firecracker show, Elsa was unaffected. She rested calmly on the floor while I watched The Great Britain Baking Show. What a delight! Everyone is nice to everyone. Ah!!!

Saturday, July 3, 2021

I had told Tommy, my tech, to use the video as it was recorded. He was planning to use my Zoom audio and visual and screenshots of the slides. I asked him not to do that because I made changes to some slides as I presented them. This morning it occurred to me this wasn't true for all the slides. I emailed him offering to indicate the slides that could not be simply screenshots. He acknowledged getting my email but didn't respond.

Adolescent D's mother arranged for me to do an extra session this week. We have been doing M-Th skipping Friday and the weekend. I signed on at 10:am. There was no response. I called his mom. She didn't answer. I called D. After a short delay, he answered. I suspected he had just woken up. No, his mother hadn't told him she scheduled this extra session. I asked him what he wanted to do; it was okay if he wanted to cancel. He responded, "I don't know," his default response to everything. I told him, "I don't know," was not a choice. He could cancel, he could do it immediately, or he could do it in half an hour. He chose to do it at 10:30.

I started with the BrainManagementSkills (BMS). I asked him about the colors on both sides of his brain. The left was white- a pretty white. The right side was red – a pretty red. Pretty is good. It means the person is comfortable with that state of his mind.

I taught him the Neurolinguistic Programming activity, holding a word in his head and saying the letters forward and backward. He did this activity with ease. We read the sight word sentences, the ones I created comparing two words the student confuses. "Her book is over here," I told him to focus on the letters and ask his unconscious mind to do this. Also, to wait until his mind told him what the word was. He did it and declared, "This is weird!" Great!!! Could you want a better response? Weird means it is unfamiliar. His brain was doing something it hadn't done before. If he continued doing it, the sensation would become so familiar that he wouldn't be aware of it anymore. Today was the first time I felt adolescent D was working with me as a teammate. Up to now, my role has been more like a slave driver, forcing him to do things. I made modifications to accommodate his ego, but I always had to deal with resistance or passivity. Today, he was working on simple sentences with repeated words, and he wasn't complaining. I told him he was not working on learning the words right now. He was working on building up the parts of the brain he needed to recognize words easily.

I got an email from Step Up Tutoring tutors. Step Up Tutoring is an online tutoring program in LA, CA. Damon, my step-son, came across an ad; they were looking for volunteer tutors. I am only working with one student, a sixth-grade boy whose parents speak no English. I put together a video demonstrating my method of teaching phonics. Teaching traditional phonics, an Orton-Gillingham program, requires a lot of training. As teachers teach phonics in classrooms, they present prepared lessons. Unfortunately, very few have any idea of what it's about. Yes, they understand that the letters sh represent the /sh/ sound, and that's worthwhile knowing, but little beyond that. The method I use allows students and teachers to discover the phonics of the English language, actually any alphabetic language. It's so much fun, but it involves intellectual risk-taking. Intellectual risking taking is something students have to learn, and traditional teaching avoids.

Besides tutoring this one student, I volunteered to offer help to the tutors who wanted help in teaching reading. I have reading office hours one day a week. The following email is from a tutor who participated in one of those sessions. I have shared my methods with others, but this is the first person who ever gave me feedback, telling me not only that she used it but that it worked. Yikes!

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021, at 2:21 pm, R C <rc@stepuptutoring.org> wrote:

Hi Betty,

Thank you so much for speed-coaching us newbies on reading instruction. This is truly a trial-by-fire kind of situation for me!

My rising 4th grader is doing great. It's been awkward for her to think in terms of phonemes, but I do think it's working. She's getting the hang of spelling first, then sounding out challenging words. Today I asked her to spell phonemes (e.g., in Martian or Egyptian), and I could tell a light went on suddenly when she figured out ti = sh. That took almost the entire session...

I take so much for granted!

Anyway, I appreciate your help very much. It made all the difference. She's improved from N to O to P reading level as of today!

All the best,

Rachel

At 2 pm, I had a facial with Collen Porter scheduled. I have one once every six months or so. She is amazing. I think she is something like a medical cosmetologist, or is it an aesthetician? Whatever her label, she gives the best facials ever.

Collen used to own a house in my neighborhood. She and her husband built it. She told stories about the old neighborhood. They had block parties. They also had problems with the folks that lived next door to us.

When we bought our property, the property next door was a mess. Yvette and Josh were living here already while someone was living there. There were major fights, and the guy yelled at the kids nonstop. Then the mother of the children left, and he moved into town with a girlfriend.

The history of the house is something else. The property belonged to a Hawaiian family, L and M. M had another family on Maui and traveled back and forth. Someone's 300 lbs. sister lived in the house, bedridden. She died because she choked on something like a nut. L and M either adopted J or gave the house to M's sister, who adopted J. J as a piece of work. Collen said she would find him in their hot tub or jumping on their trampoline without permission. Worse yet, J would wander the neighborhood, check out who was out, and rob the house. He did it to several people. People came to the adults and said that they would kill him if he came on their property again. That seemed to do the trick. J argued he had a right to take what he wanted because he was a native Hawaiian, and everything on the island belonged to him. Good try, no cigar. He wandered in and out of jail. Colleen didn't know his fate.

Eventually, the house ended with the last owner in that line, the abusive J. He sold it to Elizabeth and Ronan, who cleaned the place up. Ronan turned it into a working farm. He sold 150 lbs. of lettuce to the restaurants in town every week. Then Covid hit. He let the land go fallow and sold. Our new neighbors are a delight. We are so lucky. My home would be easy to break into. It's never completely locked. Even if it were, all someone would have to do is cut a screen, and they would be in like Flynn.

Friday, July 2, 2021

Last night, I had no pain or discomfort in my left hip. Go figure! I did make another change in my walk. I made sure that I fully opened the right hip joint as I walked. My right inner thigh and abdominal muscles are tight. Walking this way puts less strain on my left leg.

Mana K canceled. Her family left early for a weekend of camping.

I had a Saturday session with 6th grade D. We started with two weekly sessions. I thought three would be better. Research shows that frequent short lessons work better than long, infrequent ones. I offered his mom three twenty-minute sessions, which would cost the same as two half-hour sessions. She chose three half-hour sessions. D did the exercise of naming the letters in words in a text in sequence on his own. The more he does that, the more quickly his reading will improve. Perception was his main problem because his reading improved dramatically when he read the transcribed text, which forced his attention. I told him to instruct his mind to 'see' every letter in every word. This made a difference. I could feel the change in his mind and hear the change in his reading. He only made two errors in the transcribed passage; he read no as on and misread the word it.

I have noticed this phenomenon in other students. Students' reading improves, and they still make mistakes with the first words they learn, the words on the first sight word list. I have always assumed they were words they either memorized incorrectly or stored in the wrong part of the brain. As a result of what I read in Dehaene" s book, Consciousness, and the Brain, I have developed a different theory. Dehaene writes that we 'don't see' what we don't focus on. The mind believes those first words are old familiars and don't require attention. The student focuses on the longer words that require more effort and doesn't attend to those familiar sight words. When teachers scream, "Just pay attention," they are on the right track. The problem is the student doesn't know what that means. What is it they have to do differently? The teachers have no idea how to help those students. Ron Del Davis's exercise forming those little words in clay makes sense. It forces the student to become aware of the letters in the word. I see improvement with just naming the letters in words, but I can see that some students need more.

I had an appointment with my acupuncturist. Two weeks ago, I told her I was having a problem with my right foot. The problem had not only persisted, but it had also gotten worse. I wondered if she could help. At first, I thought I had Morton's neuroma. Then I thought I had plantar fasciitis. Neither problem accurately matched what I was experiencing. The discomfort was in the ball of my foot, but it wasn't like a pebble between my metatarsals, symptomatic of a neuroma. While the muscles in my foot seemed tight, there was no heel pain, a clear marker of plantar fasciitis. She said the problem was on the gall bladder meridian. I was concerned that I had a gall bladder problem. I asked if there was a possible psychological cause. She said the gall bladder meridian is associated with decision-making. I am having some regrets about my retirement plans now that I'm all alone. I am lonely.

I drove down to Safeway before I went home. I am no longer a Honeycrisp fan. Judy brought me a bag of small pink ladies. They were delicious. Safeway had large ones. I know small fruit holds more flavor. Hopefully, they are as good.

I had an appointment with Tommy, my tech when I got home. I was ready for him to slice and splice my video on my reading method. I emailed him my chart showing which slides to use from each Zoom recording, a copy of the original PowerPoint so he could use the numbers to determine the slide, and my Zoom username and password to access the videos.

Manifest has taken a dark turn. One of the people the protagonists are 'helping' is part of the larger plot. Given that she was on the original flight, it sounds like this was planned by the organization, which is now running these brutal experiments on some passengers. They could also have snuck her in once the plane was on the ground. Hmmm! A mystery within a mystery. Yuck! I have enough stress in my life.

Thursday, July 1, 2021

I slept very well. I felt zero discomfort the whole night. The muscles around the hip bothered me when I walked but not when I slept. Again, I am at that junction: is this a transition or the end? Whatever else may be going on, I know I have a large bone spur in my left hip.

There was a text on my phone when I woke up. Jean’s daughter was all right. She texted me yesterday saying she was taken to the emergency room. While her condition isn’t joyful, it is also not serious in any immediate sense.

I called Dorothy this morning to tell her something I forgot the other day. Grammarly offers in-person editing- for a price. Dorothy is an incredible editor. She has been so helpful to me, invaluable, head and shoulders above anyone else. Others have changed a comma here or there, including Mike. Dorothy was the only one who thinks about the meaning of a sentence or how the sentence fits into the rest of the paragraph, the order of the paragraphs, etc. Invaluable. I encouraged her to do this professionally in the past. I tried again this morning. She could earn a fortune, not to mention also have so much fun.

Scott led the yoga class today. He was so nervous. We kept assuring him he was fine. If he forgot the order, we could remind him. We just needed someone to be the leader. Yvette did something very different today. At 7:30, she asked us to sit up and passed out Dove chocolate bits. The other day she had read a passage advising us to meditate on chocolate. We were to place it in our mouths and observe it melting and feel the difference in texture and taste as it does. She ended the class shortly after because Deb, one of the participants, had an announcement to make. She will be moving to Seattle. Her husband is one of the big wigs in one of the hotels, and he is the district manager of over 14 hotels covering Hawaii, Bora Bora, and all of California. Their son is going to college in California in September, her husband wants to take on less responsibility, and they feel they can get better health care in Seattle than they can here. I’m not sure that is the case. Hawaii has a bad reputation. I don’t think the locals know what health care is on the mainland. Not only do I not see a difference, Mike and I thought we got the best service here.

Deb has lived on the island now for fourteen years. She says she will be coming back to visit regularly. She is a lovely warm woman. I have been thinking about that quality in others of late. I have encountered people who are friendly, and outgoing but not warm- by my lights. So what makes someone warm? As I think of it, it has to be that they are fully accepting of themselves. I think it means being in touch with the less pleasant aspects of ourselves, our fear, our anger, our sadness, and finally, our capacity for causing injury to others, as well as the best, most loving aspects of ourselves. My best guess is that the warmest people are those who understand they can harm others, are vigilant against it, and are self-forgiving for this flaw. The flaw is not an individual failure. It is a problem for all human beings. All religions address the issue of our dark side one way or another. My uncle told me the family motto was “Don’t call lack of opportunity virtue.” Some say, “If I had been there, I would never have . . . . .” But they are untested. Such a person is more in danger of doing precisely what they say they would never do because they won’t recognize the impulse and the seductive forces when the opportunity arrives.

I had K’s crew this morning. E. was making the least progress now. It was hard on her. I told her she just had to keep her eyes on the screen. I wouldn’t ask her to answer anything. I would just model. I continued working with the word family -at, changing the initial letter/sound, bat, cat, etc. I said the sounds and waited a brief period. Then I blended the sounds, using cross-body blending, giving her a chance to come up with the answer in her mind without having to say what it was. I planned to continue this until she was comfortable beating me to the punch.

I had third grade K first. I asked him if he wanted to write the letters or say them forward and backward. He rattled off his first name with eight letters. He did well with his last name. While it has only four letters, he couldn’t do it with the same ease he had done with his first. We continued working on writing the sentence, “The fox jumps over the dog.” The whole sentence is, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” This sentence includes all the letters in the alphabet. He didn’t want to write today. I just reviewed the sizing and placement of the letters relative to each other. I introduced the j and the p today. It was time to work on the vertical placement of all the letters, classifying them as uppies, downies or regulars.

E. knocked my socks off today. She quickly identified n without any cueing from me. It was a letter she had struggled with last week. I introduced her mother’s and her older sister’s names. She rattled off the letters in those names except for one. I decided to check her on the whole alphabet. I wrote out each letter. She was able to identify all except for six quickly.

I called her mom after the session. Had she been able to do this before and only got stuck on the letter n? No. This is all new. I presume that the work we did on Friday when I had her look at the movement in her brain did the trick. I never got to do the spin release with her. However, I did use the word spin release. I have seen this before. Once I introduce the idea of the spin release to students, they make changes on their own. Sometimes, that’s the best.

I went to Julia’s zoom office hours today, screaming about the BookNook app. Today, we were able to show me how to get back to the reading selection we were working on last time. It was a big deal. The woman from the company who made the original presentation probably showed us what to do, but I didn’t remember.

When I had adolescent D today, I pointed out that he had an easier time remembering whole words than the patterns. I don’t know how often I went over the sound of -er, cueing it with the word her, or how many times I covered the most common sound of ea, the long e sound. Nothing stuck. I said it seemed he had an easier time remembering words when meaning was involved. That signals right-brain dominance. He agreed.

Today, I followed up on the BrainManagementSkills I had started yesterday. Adolescent D said there was a bright red color on the left side and white on the right. He said the red on the left was pretty. I said that was good because it meant he was comfortable with it. I didn’t do anything else with the images. I always wait until something feels right to me. Today, he remembered ea as long /e/ and the rule for pronouncing the c as either the /k/or the /s/. He enjoyed figuring out the sounds. We worked on a list of alphabetized words from a third-grade passage. However, he says he is still not looking for patterns as he reads.

When I started working with adolescent D, I allowed him to select the material I used: a book on 3rd grade, 5th grade, a book with Hawaiian Pigeon, or a book on philosophy. He chose the philosophy book. This warned me that I would have to deal with his ego. I started with the philosophy book. For our regular work, I began with fourth-grade material. Then I switched to seventh-grade material. When he mastered a seventh-grade passage, he started to relax. He learned he could learn. Then I could work with material that might suit his learning needs.

I went through several words on the third-grade list with adolescent D. He was able to identify ‘the pattern’ in each syllable. I led him through an exercise where he changed the initial sound for each word. We ran over time. I told him I had had fun. He said he did too. Wow! This is great.

At 3:30, 6:30 pm California time, I worked with J. We could get back Tamitha and the Troll. It introduced some new vocabulary words. I reviewed each sentence carefully, ensuring he understood the language at that level. The question at the end was, why was the troll disappointed. J. said the troll didn’t like the object Tamitha brought her even though it was what she had asked for. I had to make a comparison to his own life.

His mother promised me homemade tamales if her son didn’t learn to read. He learned to read. I didn’t get the tamales. Why was I disappointed? ( I know it sounds backward, but it worked.)

The troll asked Tamitha to fulfill impossible challenges. If she failed, she would turn her into an animal from Australia. Tamitha fulfilled the challenges. Therefore, the troll couldn’t turn her into an animal from Australia. The troll was disappointed. He got it.

I was exhausted. Naps didn’t help. Yesterday, I was full of energy all day. What was going on? I didn’t figure it out till the end of the day. I had been procrastinating. That is the most exhausting activity I know.

Friday, my tech was coming over. The plan was to work on the final copy of my video introducing my approach to teaching reading. The other day I compared my presentation between 7 versions of the video slide by slide. There were several that I decided to redo. I had to review those redone slides to see if they were satisfactory. It was this I was putting off. I finally started on the task in the late afternoon. As usual, it was easy and fun to do. I only completed about five of the 22 before switching to watching the Netflix series Manifest.

While watching the show, I felt pulled to continue the work on my video. This time I listened to the call. I completed the task so I would have nothing to do the next day. Rather than feeling exhausted, I was full of energy. Before, I had been yearning for bed and sleep; now, it was the last thing on my mind. When I went to bed, I had trouble falling asleep.