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

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Friday, October 13, 2023

I often speak about all the traumas my mom suffered in her life. She had an unusually high number. There are people I know who had it worse. A cousin came home one day to discover her parents were gone. The neighbors told her the Nazis came and took them. Later, she was taken, too. Her parents died in Auschwitz; she survived Theresienstadt. But my mom's list is impressive. Each trauma has traumas within. For context, my mom was born on November 1, 1903, in Berlin, Germany.

1. She was born with a benign tumor in her upper back. If it grew at the rate she did, it would have crushed her organs, and she would have died. It was 1903. The doctors improvised.

a. Her mother took her to the hospital every other day.

They injected some form of alcohol in and around the tumor.

b. The site was infected. She couldn't lie on her back. She

was surely breastfed. How did her mother hold her? Burp

her? How did she lie? It's unimaginable.

c. When she was six months old, they surgically removed the

tumor was surgically removed in May of 1904. Nowadays,

d. Her parents took her home that day. Possibly, the hospital

didn't have a pediatric ward, or my grandparents didn't have the money.

She was driven home in a horse-drawn carriage over cobblestone streets. She screamed the whole way. Imagine the pain.

2. WWI broke out when she was eleven.

a. Her father dutifully signed up and spent the next four years on the Russian front.

b. Anticipating food shortage during the war, he put down my mother's beloved nine-year-old Doberman, Lord. This was difficult for everyone in the family. He didn't tell my mom he was going to do it. She didn't get a chance to say goodbye. She was sick for two weeks. My mother's grief was so profound that my sister and I carry it. I once told a therapy group my uncle was a dog. Everyone jumped on me until I explained he was a Doberman. Lord was a presence in our home.

c. During the war, my mother and grandmother participated in a soup kitchen. People

donated their coupons and got nutritious food. The main starch was turnips. My mother never ate one again. I tasted one in college.

d. She once found a coupon for white bread. The owners were wealthy people. My mother dutifully returned it. A maid answered, snatched the coupon from the hungry girl, and shut the door in her face.

e. When she was twelve, during the war, she lugged a heavy bucket of coal across town. She put it down to rest for a minute. She had trouble picking it up. A soldier in a dress uniform offered to help. The woman with him told him not to and looked at my mom with disgust.

f. While we move a great deal these days, that wasn't true in those days. My grandfather returned to a different world than the one he had left. His vocation as a livery chauffeur, driving a horse-drawn carriage for a wealthy banker, was over. The banker drove his own car. Feeling responsible for my grandfather's well-being, he offered him two job opportunities. He would buy him a car, and he could become a cab driver or take a position as a janitor in his bank. That position came with an apartment. The apartment was in the basement. The loss of sunlit quarters affected my mother and grandmother for the rest of their lives.

3. After twenty years of relative stability and peace, the Nazis took over Germany. My mother was in love with a Jew.

a. My father was doing his law apprenticeship in the courts when the Nazis came and marched out all the Jews. My dad knew he couldn't stay in Germany. He asked my mom if she would come to America and marry him if he could find a way to support a family. ( She came over a year and a half after he left. The rest is history.)

b. While still in Berlin, she had a few disturbing moments.

(1) she saw at least one man dragged through the streets behind a motorcycle. It took me years to realize what that meant.

(2) The Nazis raided her parents' apartment for Communist material. My mother was on the periphery of that social group. My dad and she met at a New Year's Eve/engagement party of a man who edited a local communist newspaper. My parents were sympathizers, parlor pinks.

(3) While my father was in America, his father met with my mother and told her she wasn't good enough for his son. My dad was a true Jewish prince, the oldest in his generation, and all the cousins were close. He was much admired. My grandfather sat in my mother's living room every day of the week for eleven years, as long as we lived near him. She never told my dad what he had done. My grandfather never apologized to my mom.

4. My mom immigrated to America at the age of 34. They couldn't live in an ethnic community. The Germans in Yorkville would have rejected my Jewish dad. The Jews in Washington Heights, where they lived, probably rejected my mom. She was so antisocial she didn't notice.

a. My dad died after eighteen years of marriage, leaving my mom with a ten-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, and her mother to support. She did a magnificent job.

I heard a lecture on self-compassion. It was one of the HPR Sunday morning shows on spirituality. In meditation, I came up with the need for self-forgiveness, not for a major or even anything that could be considered a minor sin. We all need to forgive ourselves for the smallest social faux pas. When I mentioned it to a friend, she asked why not radical self-acceptance. Self-forgiveness implies we've done something wrong. Self-acceptance assumes we did the best we could and we did nothing wrong. Unfortunately, our psyches are programmed to take responsibility, which is interpreted as blame accompanied by shame.

I successfully attended the monthly 80s Club Zoom meeting with about a dozen others this month. I was surprised to see Fr. Joe Badding there. He is in Buffalo now. He used to spend his winters here on the Big Island and cover Masses in our church. What a lovely man. His health has him confined now with a regular caregiver. He recognized me immediately and made a comment about dinners on my lanai. I assured him those meals were a thing of the past. It was Mike who hosted them and did all the cooking.

Sharing information about retirement communities was on the agenda. Two participants were already in such a community, one in the USA and another in Australia. Both loved it. The woman living in the USA talked about a lively community with many clubs, some organized by the employees for the residents, some by the residents. She had so many new friends she was neglecting her old ones. The man who lived in Australia was renting a house on the property. He and his wife also loved the living arrangement. They were making friends with their next-door neighbors.

I told about my experience touring a retirement community in Kona. This one boasted independent living and assisted living apartments on the same floors. They didn't have a separate section for those needing assisted living. I see why that would be to the advantage of those in assisted living. It means they don't have to move when their need for support increases, and they don't feel isolated. However, I wondered if that arrangement contributed to the lack of social interaction between the residents I observed. It seemed everyone was locked in their own little world. I advised people to check the social nature of their community carefully and not just look at the facility and the staff. In this case, both of them were good.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

I didn't attend church on Sunday because I attended a free Gokhale workshop. Esther Gokhale teaches basic body mechanics: how to sit, stand, lie, and change from one position to another. I learned about her years ago and love her work and her approach to body mechanics.

Esther had a serious back problem. After two failed surgeries, she went into the world to find communities free of back problems.

Her search took her to primitive cultures where people depended on good body health to survive.

I remember hearing an educator say we didn't need remedial reading any more than we needed remedial walking. My ears perked up on that. Many people would do well to take remedial walking, even children. Esther discovered that walking is taught in the groups free from back pain.

Walking is their primary means of transportation. The best walker goes first and models good walking. Everyone in the group strives to walk the same way, not to 'conform' but to be most efficient.

Esther developed her theories after observing the posture and movement of these groups of people. I was thrilled to discover her. I had already realized our daily moves were of greater importance than the few hours we devoted to exercise. Esther also evaluated many of the exercises we do. She concluded that they were misguided, putting strain on the body rather than strengthening it.

Besides liking Esther's theories, I like her business model.

She tells you what she has learned without being didactic. She's not an ideolog. She has formalized her teaching method and trained practitioners. They charge a healthy sum, but she also offers free online videos and free online workshops. Yes, they are a form of advertising, but she doesn't push it too far. There are other biomechanics practitioners out there. All their emails are about buying something. Esther is committed to helping people as well as making money. The other practitioner seems more developed to promoting her ideas. Some of them are in conflict with Gokhale. I hear the two points of view, one from Bowmen and one from Gokhale. Gokhale is softer in her presentation. I consider both, try them on my body, and come to my own conclusions.

I spent Sunday afternoon meditating with a friend. I can't sit on the floor anymore. She gave me a folding chair. It was perfect for my height. I did Gokhale's sit stretch for most of the time. I sat for a good four hours with two or three interruptions. It was amazing. My rear end didn't even get numb.

Katie showed me how to use the TENS machine the orthopedic PA recommended. I left it with Katie last week so she could figure out how to use it and try it on herself. I got a complicated one; there aren't preset settings; I must adjust it myself. I used it on Monday night and plan to use it every night.

I had some excitement after I left the Rehab. I lost my phone. I realized it was missing when I was at the redemption center dropping of glass and soda cans. As I got back in the car, I couldn't find it. I drove back to the Rehab. I knew I had it when I checked out because I recorded future appointments. It wasn't at the reception desk or in the parking lot. I remembered I had dropped some packing peanuts at UPS. I headed there, checking in the store and the parking lot. Mike's words, "It's a problem to be solved," echoed in my head, helping me to stay calm. I went home.

As I exited my car, I heard Judy next door vacuuming a Turo car. I walked over and asked to borrow her phone. If calling the number didn't work, I would have to get hold of her to tell her I didn't have a phone anyway. A man answered. He said he had called one of my emergency numbers, Josh's phone.

He found the phone in the UPS parking lot. He was in the Vietnamese restaurant in the shopping center. As I was talking to him, I saw Yvette waving to me in our driveway next door. I yelled, "I'm on the phone with him now." I told him I would be there in half an hour.

When I got to the restaurant, I asked the folks outside if they had my phone. No one responded. I went inside and called out. I couldn't go in too far because I had Elsa with me. She loves riding in the car, although she was disappointed we didn't go to Auntie P's.

One friend said it was amazing how he had gone out of his way to get my phone back to me. I would do the same in a shot. It's not because I'm such a good person; it's an adventure, an entry into someone's life you would never typically meet. Such fun.

Yvette walked with me this evening for the first time in days. Her back seized up the other day. Scary. As a massage therapist and yoga teacher, she depends on her body.

The Hawaiian schools are on winter break this week. Adolescent D allowed me to work on completing past-due assignments before the quarter's end last Friday. I returned to heavy-duty phonics work using Phase I and Phase II of the Phonics Discovery System. He was responsive. I had him analyze each word in a sentence, whether it was one he could already read or not. In fact, it is better if they are words he already knows. That way, he can compare his analysis of the word with what he already knows. He was more responsive than he was in the past. This is a big step in the right direction.

Because the kids were on break, I worked with Mama K's Twins every morning at 8:30. On the first day, Twin A was in bed with a bad cold. I only worked with Twin E. I could work on automatic recall for the first time in a year. She guesses the word from the first letter, if she uses it at all. I got her to the point where she could clearly read the letter in a word from the image in her mind. "What's the last letter? The third letter?" She could correctly identify the letter every time. People have problems with memory because they don't embed the perception in their working memories. They let it float. If the stimulus is strong enough, it embeds. If not, it doesn't. It is all dependent on the stimulus. The learner takes no responsibility; they don't respond appropriately. She had made enough progress that additional instruction might payoff.

In the past, I've described this process as listening to an-other, as if someone whispers the word in your ear from behind you. I got a fourth-grade girl with fetal alcohol syndrome to use it. after her first experience with it, she said, "I feel like I'm psychic!" Ain't that the truth?! What a miracle! We ask for information, and it just appears in our minds. Alexa has nothing on the power of our minds. I just started calling the two parts of the brain, Part A and Part B. Each part is important. They work in tandem. We need both to be fully functional.

It takes courage for someone unfamiliar with the process to get it to work. Even those with the weakest memories automatically recall the names of their family members. However, when learning something new, they don't have endless repetition in an emotionally charged environment. Three times two does not carry an emotional charge, nor is it repeated at the same rate as a sibling's name. It takes effort, conscious effort. What does that conscious effort look like? It requires conscious sensory input to the short-term or working memory. In the process of learning to use it, it requires patience and courage. Patience because, initially, one has to wait for the information to come up. Waiting in a state of unknowing requires courage and trust; trust the teacher will not condemn you for stupidity or lack of effort. It requires strength of will, too. One has to refrain from using any method that has provided even occasional success. It's like giving up a lifelong habit. It's tough.

The girls made an effort. When a word came up, I asked if it just came up (from B)or if they figured it out (Part A). I couldn't tell which process they used. I have no idea if they were doing what I wanted them to do the way I wanted them to do it. I saw a difference in both girl's reading, particularly in Twin E's. Their rate of recall improved. E was the one who had fallen way behind while Twin A moved ahead.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Visiting the retirement community positively impacted my feelings about my current situation. While I live alone and sorely miss domestic companionship, I realized the retirement community would not provide it. I saw all the things available in my current life. I felt energized and renewed. I organized the things I could do. To start with, weeding my yard with boiling water. I fill an electric kettle with water. While it comes to a boil, I do something on the computer. I can hear the water roiling from where I sit. When I hear the click, I pour the water on the weeds. Now, I've organized the procedure. I've designated Thursday to treat the strip by the fence, Sunday for the strip along the driveway, and Monday for the section under the silver blue palm. I also have made a list of things I have to do. Wow! What an improvement in my frame of mind.

I know multi-tasking has a bad name. However, I love it. It energizes me. It requires heightened attention and mental flexibility. Anyone with young children needs to multi-task. Without it, the human species would have been extinct long ago. As with everything, moderation is the key. Too little multitasking is just as bad too much.

I've been telling everyone that the sprinkler head caught between my foot and my shoe on June 13, the day I fell and crushed my shoulder and elbow joints, was four inches high. I decided to measure it. Given the additional height of the PVC pipe feeding the sprinkler head, it's nine inches high. That means my trapped foot was nine inches above the ground when I fell. Is it any wonder why I crushed two joints? I landed with my entire body weight on that poor arm, which had been pulled taut under my body by Elsa, who panicked as I fell.

Poor girl. She hid under Yvette's car until Scott noticed her and pulled her out.

On the way home, I stopped at Island Naturals to pick up a tuna salad. Theirs is the best. Sadly, they didn't have any prepared.

Jean, my friend, and I have been meditating daily for the past month. Jean mentioned it one day and proposed doing it together. We both liked it and wanted to continue it. We knew we were unlikely to continue it on our own. One of us proposed we do it together every day. It's been wonderful.

The meditation is based on the power of water. Jean reads, "Both science and spirituality have proven that water listens to you.; water is alive." Holding the glass with both hands, smile, and take a drink. Tell the water something you want to manifest this week. (We both think of qualities in ourselves we want to change, not in the world at large. Jean asked for physical health. I have been asking for patience, relief from fear, and a calmer demeanor so I don't sound like a verbal machine gun when distressed. It isn't good for me or for others. ) We thank water for all it does for us and take another gulp. We open our eyes and allow our bodies to be transformed. Then Jean reads a short story, usually from a children's book or a poem from Where the Sidewalk Ends. We share a bit about our lives each day, too. I think I am seeing a difference. Jean knows she is. She is feeling much better.

i don't know if the water has an impact, but i do know it is beneficial to ask to be a better person daily. It feels great.

Thursday, October 5, 2023

On the advice of a friend and a reminder that there are waiting lists for retirement communities, I took a tour of the high-end retirement community in Kailua Kona. When my mom moved in with Mike and me, the overt commitment was to allow her to die at home. Concerned there might come a time when she needed more medical support than we could arrange there, I researched nursing homes. I found a highly recommended one run by the Johnson Foundation. I signed her up. I got an annual renewal letter sent to a friend's address, so my mom never saw it. She would have freaked out, thinking I intended to drop her there immediately. For seventeen years, I returned the letter. In the eighteenth year, I reported her as dead. She must have been on the top of the list for the last ten years of her life.

My tour guide was the same young woman I had met the day before when I made the appointment. When I told her my age, she was appropriately surprised. The eighty-two-year-olds in the community were in much worse shape. The environment seemed pleasant enough. The staff was very friendly to me and to the residents. I thought maybe I would be happier here than at home alone. When I got home, I realized my situation, as isolated as it may be I was much better than there. While the staff offered friendly greetings to the residents, the residents didn't greet each other. They all walked past silently. I get more greetings from people who drive by on my street on my walks. I often have long conversations with fellow walkers. While I don't have Bingo or movie night, I have contact with groups of people at church and at the community center, where I tutor. I could organize Bingo nights in my house with the neighbors. I have options that are closed to the residents of that community.

A significant factor for me is the physical environment. In my home, I have intimate contact with nature. I can't even close off large sections of my house. In the residency, I would have a housekeeper come in once a week and get my meals in the dining room. Now, I have to tend to the property. There are weeds to be killed and plants to be trimmed. In the residency, that would be tended to by staff. However little I have to do now, there would be that much less.

There's been an interesting development with Adolescent D. His mother forwarded an email to me from his special ed teacher. He took a reading test and tested on grade level, 10th grade. Last spring, he tested on the fifth-grade level in reading. That meant he made a five years growth. We were all excited. Then I checked the test, MAP. The test was taken online instead of with pencil and paper. I smelled a rat.

I started to compliment D about his success. He hemmed and hawed. He hadn't read a word on the test; he used the audio function. When I asked why he did that, he said, "They didn't tell me not to." I asked him if he told his mom. Yes, he had.

When I spoke to her, she told me he told her, "I cheated." The moment she told him how well he had done. His mom thinks he demeans his achievements is because he doesn't deserve success. He doesn't want people to know he can do the work. He doesn't want to deal with their expectations. This fits in with the rest of his behavior. He hides. I have been working with him for two and a half years; I still have yet to see his face in our Zoom meetings. He hides everything about himself.

However, he tricked himself. These test results reveal he is on grade level in his auditory processing. He has good comprehension. I don't think he could have done this well two years ago.

He would often zone out when working with me when he didn't understand what I said. He still has to tell the teachers the truth. They will base the upcoming IEP on the results of this test.

I told him he has to tell his teachers what he did on that reading test, have the computer read the words to him. He had to do it because he is a moral person who doesn't want to lie to people and because it would skew his IEP. He may lose the considerations he relies on now. He gets extra time to complete the work.

I tutored at Ulu Wini Community Center on Friday. When I arrived there, less than ten children were attending. I had a few children work with me. Most are very low functioning, one to three years behind their grade level. I had two or three who couldn't name all the letters in the alphabet. I had one third grader read correctly up through first grade, but she decoded every word. There was no automatic processing. These kids do not know how to use memory. They have no sight words. Sight words are high-frequency words, some of which do not follow the phonics rules. Come and some are examples of those words. By the phonics rule, the o in both words should be a long /o/. In both words that o is pronounced like the short relaxed /u/, as the a in the word ahead. There are rules that determine this. Learning all the possible rules of English phonics is a Ph.D. course. We need to rely on students figuring it out independently and memorizing the words.

Some students at the community center have speech problems; some just follow the teacher's instructions and figure out each word. That slows down their word recognition and makes them sound like bad readers.

One little girl looked like a preschooler. She wanted me to help her. After two minutes, I could see she was cognitively damaged. She was the worst case I've ever seen. The other kids in the class pointed to bruises on her. She gets bullied at school. I can believe it. I think of her as weird. When I spoke to Josephine, the social worker at the center, she said this child was medically fragile at birth. I don't know if she was a premie or had other problems. She spent most of her early years in and out of the hospital. I'm not sure there is much I can do with her. She needs much special attention from someone who knows what they're doing. Wait a minute! Luke, Judy's very disabled grandson, got treatment from a service in town. The wife of the church music director works for that program. I'll look into it.

I saw ninth-grade L again. She seeks me out the moment she gets off the bus. She reported that she understood more about the characters in something she read in school that day. I love it when the kids respond quickly. I'm good for the long, dragged-out process; I have the patience. But I do love it when there's a quick fix.

I finally have satisfaction with one of the Twins, Twin A. She is reading independently on a second-grade level and on an instructional level on a third-grade level. This puts her one year behind her grade level, fourth. Twin E is not doing as well. She is struggling at a high first-grade level. Mama K reports Twin A is doing her homework independently while Twin E requires constant help. When I started working with the girls, they struggled to learn the alphabet. Twin E was way ahead of Twin A. Now, she is way behind. I asked Twin A about the reading instruction she is getting in school. She reported their reading class consists of them getting a book and reading it independently. Both girls are special ed. So sad. Most teachers don't have a clue how to teach reading.

Sunday, September 30, 2023

My PT said I have fulfilled my range of motion expectations. Katie had me working on strengthening exercises now. I started on the hand bike for six minutes, three minutes in one direction and three in the other. The PT measured my range of motion on a finger step. With my right arm, I got to level 31; with my left, 26. This is not as far as I will be able to get. PTs have limited objectives. Reaching the full range of motion takes time, effort, and money. My visits to the PT have been reduced from two times a week to once a week. The final goal is up to me.

I had the same situation when I fell down a flight of stairs when I was 35 and tore my rotator cuff. I iced my shoulder every night and exercised for several years. I achieved a range of motion greater than most people with uninjured arms.

I saw an orthopedic physician's assistant right after I saw the PT on Friday. My instructions were to get information on my limitations. She told me there would be no limitations. I asked what about reaching behind my back. She said I would be able to do that. It might be a good idea to wait for six months. The only time she had seen reaching behind be a problem was when someone refused to wear a sling and did that reach behind his back two weeks after the surgery.

She told me a story of her own experience. She had a shoulder injury that left her arm limp. A doctor told her she would have to live with it. She continued lifting weights and using a TENS machine nightly. She regained her full range of motion. It took time and effort, more than any insurance company is willing to pay. Their acceptable goal is basic functionality. It's up to the patient to achieve anything greater than that. I was good for that at 35 and will do the same now. I understand the position of the insurance companies. However, I resent the position that the patient can't move on independently. Most people would not think to achieve more or be willing to do the work. I enjoy the challenge.

The orthopedic PA recommended I get a TENS machine. She marked the spots on my forearm and shoulder where to apply the pads. When I got out to the waiting area, I took pictures of the X marks. One I couldn't reach on my own. I asked a woman waiting to take the shot.

As I left Kaiser after my orthopedic appointment, I stopped by to check if I could get my latest Covid vaccine. Today was the first day Kaiser had the latest vaccine available. The line wasn't bad at that point. I learned the line had been out into the parking lot earlier when they opened at 8:30 a.m. However, It was almost the nurses lunch hour. I decided to get in first thing on Monday morning rather than wait.

When I arrived at Ula Wini, the supervisor had a list of names of kids who wanted to work with me, four names of kids in first through fifth grade. Two were emergent readers; they couldn't recognize any words. B can decode words, but she can't remember the words they or there from one minute to the next. A reads on a high first-grade level and is responding well. A little girl I hadn't seen before who looked like she could be A's sister, whose name was not on the list, asked for help. She wrote her name. Oh, dear. I wondered about her education. I found out; she had none. She had never gone to school. B and A claimed her as sister. C didn't look a bit like B. Either way, I had to let Josephine know she had one that hadn't been to school yet.

I couldn't find Josephine. I walked away. I assumed Josephine was in charge and the other employees were ineffective. One of the women pursued me when she heard what I wanted to tell Josephine. I showed her how C wrote her name. The woman walked out with me to find the girl. I told her C was A and B's sister. She knew better. She asked all three girls what house they lived in. If they were all sisters, I was one of their sisters, too. The woman would track down C's story and find out why she wasn't in school. Josephine had uncovered a child who wasn't sent to school for eight years. The parents' explanation was they couldn't fill out the application form. They were probably telling it the way it was. They couldn't read or write and were uncomfortable asking for help.

L, the ninth-grade student who asked for help, arrived. The older children's bus drops them off an hour later than the younger kids. I promised to help her with comprehension today. I started the WbyW process with material on a third-grade level.

WbyW resembles sentence diagramming using questions. After I did two sentences with that process, I asked if she had any grade-level material in her backpack. No, she did not. What?!!! I remember lugging books back and forth from school daily. I found a sixth-grade book I had used with another student on my Kindle. It was in a poetic form. Ninth-grade L told me she had problems with vocabulary and comprehension. English was her second language. Of course, she didn't use a sophisticated version of her native language. She just used it for domestic conversation and when speaking to her peers. She didn't know the words peel or apron. As we worked, I encouraged her to use the two new vocabulary words as we talked about what happened in the story. I had lots of fun doing this work. L did, too. Once I get kids to see language as a puzzle, something to figure out rather than something transparent, it frees them to take on the challenge of comprehension.

Thursday, September 28, 2023

I was dozing on and off one night when I heard the doggy door flap. My first thought was the rats had found it. I waited, hoping it was Elsa. Yes, indeed. A few minutes later, the door flapped again, and then Elsa climbed back on the bed. I had proof positive Elsa knew how to use the doggy door. There hadn't been an accident in weeks.

I went to the Ula Wini Community Center yesterday. It was my second time there. I was expecting to be flooded by kids asking for help. Nope. One little girl told me she had worked with me once already; she didn't need more. Another little girl made a lot of progress, from the pre primer level to the low first grade.

I finally met the girl Josephine told me about; she came to the US two years ago. Her parents had never registered her in school while living in the Marshall Islands. Josephine, the community social worker, asked how they never managed to register her in eight years. Good question. I suspect they are illiterate and too ashamed to ask for help. I thought C would be a non-reader. I was surprised by how well she read. She could recognize words on a pre-primer level. However, she had problems identifying the sounds in words. This may be a result of inexperience or an auditory processing problem.

Another girl was sitting across the table, watching me work with C. She asked if I could help her. L was in ninth grade and reading on a third-grade level. She understands she has problems with comprehension as well as word recognition. I did some work on decoding and promised to work with her on comprehension in our next session.

I do Wordle every morning. My wordle statistics have improved since I switched my cue words around. Initially, I did ready, stomp, and quick, in that order. When I put quick in the second place. It meant only one vowel letter was missing; Things improved. I frequently got the answer quickly. When I had four out of six tries, I would check Tom's Wordle Hints. If I drew a blank, I would cheat and check Tom's answer. I argue that I didn't hurt anyone by cheating, but that's not quite true. People who are heavily invested in their statistics might be hurt by my skewing the numbers. I can't say I don't care; I do, but I care more about my mood. It's a problem now.

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Good news! My typing is getting better. I am hitting those As and Ss with more accuracy. While my ring finger and pinky are still numb, the improvement in my typing tells me that I am making progress. On closer examination, I discovered I don’t use my pinky finger. I compensate by using the ring finger to hit the A key, and the S. Katie, my PT, encouraged me to get authorization for OT as well. The OT at Hawaiian Rehab is an expert on the hand.

When I posted an update from last year to the blog site, I read that I had some numbness in my pinky last year, too. That was due to a problem in my neck. My current problem may also be due to my neck. It must have been impacted during the three-hour shoulder surgery. It is also true I still have swelling at both surgical sites.

Where I wrote long accounts of my day for the four years before the surgery, I can’t imagine what I would say now. Judy used to comment on how busy I was. I knew I just looked busy because I detailed all the moments of my day. I’m not doing much less than before; I’m just not writing about it. Years ago, I learned that detailing what I do during the day leaves me feeling like I accomplished something. This afternoon, I folded a dozen blue microclothes. What an accomplishment! Every bit counts!

There is a change. I started tutoring at the Ula Wini Community Center. God, that was fun! Josephine told me they started at 2 p.m. Well, sort of. I arrived at 2:30 because I was supposed to have Adolescent D at 2. The kids were eating snacks and reading preprimer material. I introduced myself to the guy who was running the program. There were no other tutors there. He said they hadn’t evaluated the kids’ reading yet. I told him not to worry. I would ask who wanted help in reading. After over fifty years in this business, my diagnostic skills are off the chart. I was concerned because the kids looked like they were kindergarteners and first graders. I hoped to work with kids in third and fourth. He asked the kids their grades. Most were in third and fourth. The Marshallese are small people. Most adults are much taller than five feet.

Two kids raised their hands, saying they wanted help with reading. I managed to work with five kids in a little over an hour. I spent about ten minutes with each one. That was all the kids were good for.

We worked outdoors under an overhang. I was offered t a place to work indoors. I said no. Indoors, the risk of exposure to whatever germs the kids carry is greater. While I worked, the other children ran about, playing ball in the field before us. The students weren’t disturbed by the activity, and neither was I. If the student looked up, I knew they were cooked. They had taken in as much as they could.

I started by asking each student their grade and if they were a good or bad reader. I had graded material on my computer in a single file. I could access what I needed quickly. I guessed right on all but one. She said she was in fourth grade and a good reader. I started her on second-grade material. After one or two sentences, I could see she was on a higher level. I moved her up to third-grade material. That was it. With this child and another, I worked on reading fluency at their reading accuracy level. I had just refined my method for teaching this. It was an opportunity to try it out.

Getting the kids so they can sound like good readers makes a big difference to their self-confidence. Two kids in third grade were still on the pre-primer level. One had only come from the Marshall Islands before entering second grade; he was now in third. He had missed preschool and first grade. He would be fine once I showed him how to teach himself to read.

I love working this way, timing my sessions for the student’s needs instead of a set time. I also love the variety. The kids come with all sorts of problems. One girl asked me for help in math. The kids may have been reluctant to ask for help when I first asked, but once they observed me teaching, they quickly lined up for help. My greatest compliment was when one student told another coming for his first session with me, “She’s okay. You can trust her.” I have deep respect for a student coming to me for help. There’s a huge difference between someone coming to a teacher for help when they are behind their peer group and instruction in an area they want to learn more about.

Lutz’s lecture last night was on the downside of an all-vegan diet. He said vegans die earlier than omnivores. I checked; the internet says vegans die less frequently of our leading killers, heart disease and cancer. The statistics on earlier death of old age than omnivores are more ambiguous. Lutz has his favorite theories about everything. However, he did say the blue zone diet is distinguished by a few things: low meat, high fish, and frequent inclusion of beans and other legumes. He planned to include more beans in his diet. He said a can of minestrone soup would do the trick. I used to eat a can of Progressive minestrone soup every day when I came home from high school. Loved it. Our Safeway carries Progressive, but not their minestrone.

I checked online. Amazon carries it, but it’s not on Prime. Shipping to Hawaii costs a fortune; it can double the cost. When I order items not covered by Amazon Prime, I ship them to my sister in NJ, who then ships them by USPS, the cheapest way possible. Amazon did carry some minestrone under other brands covered by Prime Shipping. I ordered some of those. They’re worthwhile tasting.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

It’s been two weeks since my last entry. Some of my hesitance is because it’s hard to type with two numb fingers on my left hand, my rinf finger and pinky.. It is three months now since my shoulder operation, and my arm is still swollen. I thought it was due to inflammation. Katie, my wonderful PT at Hawaiian Rehab, told bm it’s blocked lymph fluid, edema. She showed me exercises to break up the congestion. They were the same exercisers Amanda, the OT who came to my home, gave me. I thought they were strengthening exercises. She didn’t explain their objective. Katie does that. It is one of the reasons she’s worth her weight in gold. If I understand the reason for an exercise, it makes a huge difference to me.

I won’t make 10,000 steps today. It was raining a six p.m. I only had 5, 500 by that time. I got 3, 500 in on my morning walk and additional steps when I poured boiling water repeatedly on the weeds lining the street side of the fence.

I don’t have much to do these days. I’m concerned about sinking into inactivity. The less I have to do, the less I get done. It’s a truism: if you want someone to do something for you, ask a busy person. I find I get more done on days where I have more to do. All I do now is the

Wordle puzzle, the NY Times Mini puzzle, post my public blog entry from a year ago, and record my stats for the blog and for my YouTube videos. I’m close to 67,000 views on the blog on Bloggeer.com. I don’t advertise the site. I have no idea how people find it or why they’re interested in it. At one point, I was getting close to 100 views a day. I was sure a teacher assigned it to his class. Whenever my daily numbers are into the double digits, I’m sure a teacher is behind it.

The views on my YouTube videos keeps climbing one or two hits at a time. If there is no change in the number of views from one day to the next, I know it’s time to post them again on Facebook. I have two pages: my personal one and one for the reading program I developed, The Phonics Discovery System. While people will download the videos, I doesn’t look like anyone shares them with friends on Facebook. Oh, well. At least it’s something.

I was working on another video on Reading Fluency. When I look up how to teach it on the internet, most just say to provide an opportunity to practice it with instructions to read faster or make it sound like you say it in conversation. That helps some students. The biggest help is hearing competent reader read to the child. My video will include ways to give explicit instruction on teaching fluency.

I’ve been having fun with my car. I had a problem for a while with the door to the electric port getting stuck. Then none of the tricks t open it worked. I drove it down to Kia to see what they could do. The mechanic couldn’t get any of the tricks to work either. He forced the door open. I left it ajar. When I got it home, I tried to charge it, nothing happened. I made an appointment with the service department. I drove there with only two white bars. I crawled on the shoulder at 20 mph.

I did some chores while the car was serviced. I dropped so packing matterials at ups, at Long’s I bought metal dental picks and I went to the bank to cash to checks. I thought it woudd be a while so I stopped at the Rasrws Toasted Café to pick up a Greek salad sandwich. I assumed I would have time to eat it there but I got a call while I was waiting for this delicious Greek Salad sandwich . The car was ready; they unlocked it and were charging it. They would show me what how to unlock it. They were indeed charging it. The hood was open. The mechanic showed me how to pull the emergency release. I told him I had tried that; their mechanic had tried that and it hadn’t worked. The guy who worked on reception said, “The car’s a hybrid. You don’t need the battery.”

I told them the story of my first trip to Hilo. I ran out of bars as I started up that long hill on Saddle Road. The car died. I made a U-turn and charged the car by doing 10 mph on the shoulder of that long steep hill. I managed to get home. The car won’t run at all without a battery charge. Dead aa a door nail.

I fell somewhat better for writing this new entry. I’ve been working on amother project for the last two weeks.

Saturday, September 2, 2023.

Yvette led a driveway yoga class for the first time since my accident. Casey, one of our participants and Jared’s husband, wanted to attend. It was wonderful. The range of motion of my left arm was limited. However, the full body stretch while lying on my back on the cement was a revelation. I need to do that every day to maximize the full range of motion of my shoulder.

It also became clear that my spinal curvature has been corrected. I felt it and Yvette saw it. I had argued the problem in my back resulted from a problem with my left shoulder. I don’t know what made the greatest change: having all the muscles and bone ripped apart when I crushed the shoulder or the shoulder blade or the move the acupuncturist did.. While sitting she pushed the shoulder blade up and did something complementary to the front of my chest. Because of the shoulder blade raise, I get Gokhale’s stretch sit. You raise the shoulder blades and relax the shoulder bones on top. You hold your upper body up with the sit stretch. I’m using it in all sitting contexts now.

Damon and Cylin called me yesterday to report on their trip to Princeton to visit with his mom Jean, and step-dad, john.. Damon was surprised to see how frail she looked. She has lost 20 lbs. since April. She wasn’t eating. She was mentally confused. Neither she nor john were taking their medication. John wasn’t taking his because he was dependent on her to organize his. She was taking hers because she was confused. She had told both Damon and me if the nerve deadening treatment didn’t relieve her of pain, she would give up.

Damon met with the head of the medical division of the retirement community. Aids are going to administer their meds from now on. They collected all their medications. They re going to cll the doctors to check on how the prescriptions shuld be administered before they start giving them to them. Someone is coming to make sure jean showers every three days. She is too weak to do this on her own.

Damon bought her some sushi. She happy ate that. She had stopped eating because she is in constant pain from her constipation supposedly caused by her pain medications. I believe her fraility affects she ability to move her bowel. Nothing is pushing it out.

Damon and Cylin learned there was a cocktail hour for the community. Damon and John went. Someone came up to ask him if he was Jean Ross’s son. The man was head of the community Democratic party and very liberal leaning.. he knew about Jean’s interest in politics. I wonder if he is left enough so for jean.

John met a couple where the husband was from London and the wife from Ireland. John is from England. John and he couple sank into enjoyable conversation. Afterward damon and cylin took jean and john out to a Chinese restaurant. Again, jean hungrily scarfed down food. Jean was up for walking back to the car instead of having Damon pull it around to her. When 25 feet from the csr, she fell. While she was using her beloved roll aider, she probably tripped on some uneven pavement. She hit her head and skinned her knee. Damon took her for medical treatment when they got back to senior living community. They bandaged her wounds. They wanted her to go to the ER. Their policy is that sll head injuries should get further attention. Jean said she felt fine and refused to go. She signed a waiver and went home. I remember severs stories of people with head injuries much younger than jean who felt just fine and when died because of slow bleed.

I kept calling this morning until someone answererd. It was possible that jean was doubled over in pain after eating so much food given her constipation problem,. It was also possible that she was dead from the head injury. When I john finally answer she refused to come to the phone because she was napping. She seemed fine.

I asked Damon why the medical staff at the community wasn’t monitoring people. He said you had to advocate for yourself. What happens to that lone person who has no close relatives? Who checks on them? He saw my point.

I finally got the door to the port for my electric car open. I had tried the double click with the fob several times. That didn’t work. I opened the hood and tried the emergency orange button. That didn’t work. The plan was to stop at Kia between my appointment with doctor Reed and my appointment with my PT Katie. I was concerned there was a difficult problem. How was I going to make it home if I couldn’t charge the car? I was making my peace with taking an Uber to the PT and then home. I tried again. The fob still didn’t work. I opened the hood. I finally had the strength to pull the cord. I heard the click. Ah!!! I plugged the car in to recharge it, because I don’t have a dedicated line, it takes 8 hours to fully charge.

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Jean, my friend in Arizona, and I have started doing a daily water meditation. We each have a glass of water, hold it in two hands, and express an affirmation. We then tell the water all the ways we appreciate it and watch for a change in our vibration. I don’t know if it will help, but I’m sure it can’t hurt. It is also good to share a few moments with Jean each day as we share our hopes and dreams, trials and tribulations. She also reads me poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends to help calm my screaming nerves.

I suffer from PTSD. It is easy for me to lapse into a state of terror. Living with my mother was like living in a field of land mines. Even when I tried to please her, which I often did, she took offense if it wasn’t exactly right. She also had PTSD; she passed it on to her children. She lived in an era where trauma wasn’t considered for anyone other than soldiers returning from the front with ‘shell shock.’

In the bad ole days 200,00 years ago, there were ritualized ways of dealing with trauma, usually limited to life-threatening encounters with nature or members of a warring tribe.

If someone was experiencing trauma because of social interactions within the tribe, their life was at risk. They were on the verge of exile. If a child had an unusually harsh parent, no worries; there was the rest of the tribe to make things right. Now, we don’t fear natural threats. While some threats still come from society at large, particularly for minority groups, most of our threats come from within our own enclosed families. Mine certainly did. The world outside my home was much safer than the one inside my home. My parents were loving and caring. They were devoted to their children. They genuinely did their best. Sadly, my mom was like the barbed ‘mother’ in Harlow’s experiments, who attacked when asked for affection. The only time she was good with us was when we were sick. My sister commented it was amazing we didn’t grow up to be hypochondriacs. Neither of us did.

Some of my mom’s problems came from her traumas, and some came from cultural values at the time. The Nazis advocated showing children no affection to make them strong soldiers. Similar ideas were floating around in the US. Mike’s mom was told not to comfort him when he cried. What a world!

Lutz’s recent lecture was on survival rates for the elderly in case of a catastrophic event. If someone is physically weakened, too fat or thin, their survival chances are diminished. I am amazed at my recovery. I fell on June 13; I am approaching the three-month mark, and I can take on steep hills as well, if not better than I could before the fall. I was in good shape before the accident and a good weight. However, I was flat on my back for three weeks. Thank God I didn’t go into a skilled nursing facility. I think they would have pushed me to stay still longer than I did at home to avoid the risk of a fall.

Elsa’s skin looks remarkably good. I’ve found only a few small lesions on her neck and upper chest. I finally got around to bathing her. I was afraid to, fearing I couldn’t carry her outside after the bath for her to pee or dropping water on the floor that I could slip on and fall. It all went well.

Saturday, April 11, 2026

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Damn! I'm in bad shape: depression or just grief? The losses have piled up, and they keep coming. I'm so vulnerable that Lutz's plans to leave for Asia next week and be gone for six months hurts. Lutz had become a regular walking and talking partner. He can be difficult. He corners people and talks their heads off. There have been some funny scenes where I've stepped in to save the hapless listener. I learned I could tell him to stop talking or stop talking about a particular topic. I can be myself. I also find much of what he talks about interesting.

One of the traits I object to is his contempt for the people of Hawaii: he says they're unfriendly and not very bright. He likes people from other countries, such as South America and Asia. I suspect they're friendly because he's a tourista. They're interested because they don't understand what he's saying, and their culture prevents them from escaping the situation. Lutz doesn't mean to be rude. He really doesn't get it. He may be on the spectrum.

On the other hand, he has a current of sweet energy running through him. I've only seen him manifest it once. Shivani, my niece, visited with her five-year-old son. He broke out in a rash. Shivani was concerned it might be monkeypox. Sidney accompanied me on an evening walk with Elsa. I shared Shivani's concern. Lutz asked Sid if he could check. He was so gentle. He asked if he could look and knelt down. The stream of kindness is not evident when he walks and talks. His arrogant stance dominates. But he likes me and enjoys my company- a winning combination.

I miss this tender connection. Scott offered a little. It was part of his personality. He didn't spend much time with me, but the little he did slightly relieved my loneliness.

After church last Sunday, I spent some time talking to people. Shirley had another meal for me. She, Paulette, and I stood there talking together. As Shirley's husband came to join us, he brushed her shoulder with his hand. It nearly ripped me apart. Boy, do I miss those hardly noticeable exchanges of affection!

Adolescent D handed in the work we did together. This is amazing. He often doesn't hand in work he has completed. Did he forget, or did he want to avoid a humiliating low grade? I emailed the completed work to his mom with instructions. She said she would look it over and help him edit it. I was afraid she would change some of his tender honesty about his failings as a student. He was amazingly vulnerable.

She said she put it into Google Docs and emailed it to him. He was going to edit it. Oh, dear. I was afraid he'd change his message. But no. he didn't do that. He corrected some spelling. While I had run the part where he talked about his failings and what he would do to fix his bad habits through Grammarly, I had yet to do that with the first part of the piece where he summarized chapters one through five.

One of his suggestions was asking for help from others. When we discussed it, he said getting help makes him look weak. Did he enjoy the work he did with me? Yeah, a little. Were you surprised? Yes. I suggested he tell me immediately whenever he gets an assignment. He doesn't have to do the work with me; he has to tell me it exists. It would be a start.

I worked with Mama K's twins. With Twin E, I'm still working on word recognition. She was showing much improvement. She always makes an effort to pay attention to the letters. She can only read a passage accurately with a lot of support on a first-grade level.

I worked on fluency with Twin A. Her word recognition is better than it is for Twin E, but she still reads word by word. I have her reading pre-primer material to teach fluency.

Mama K met with her kids' teachers on open school night. She said the special ed teachers see improvement in both girls. Most impressive is the news about Twin A. Last year, she would cry because she couldn't do the work, but now she works to figure out the word. This is what I work for. I teach strategies for decoding and remembering.

I contacted Josephine at Ula Wini to see how her tutoring program is developing. She has different people coming in on different days to tutor. They were trying to repair two computers so that I could work with some children. I fear they're too old to support Zoom.

I was interested in doing a psychedelic trip to heal my PTSD. My mom was like the barbed 'mother' in Harlow's monkey experiments. It was terrifying.

My friend Darby found a psychologist who had just completed two years of training. Once the use of psychedelics becomes legal in Hawaii, she's in business. The woman came to my home to interview me. She wanted to ensure I was physically and mentally up to the experience. She decided I probably was okay. I liked the woman but found her flaky and inconsistent. She talked about monitoring me through the trip and then not doing it. It's not legal in Hawaii yet. Doing so might put her psychologist's license in jeopardy.

I texted her asking if she would or would not be willing to monitor me or if she would do the pre and post-sessions. She told me that she charged $200 an hour and a half. Now, she said the conversations we had fulfilled the pre-trip requirement, and she was not charging me. Huh? I have to ask Darby if she is this way usually or if she is this way because she's recovering from the death of her wife of forty years. Either way, she was sending out ambiguous messages. I told her I only wanted to do it with her if she was clear. If not, it wouldn't be suitable for either one of us.