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

Monday, May 25, 2026

Thursday, February 8, 2024

' It was a bad night. I was wide awake by 2, drowning in annoying thoughts. Unfortunately, as bad as ruminating is, it can also be productive.

A friend jumped all over me for saying that the Marshallese had trouble thinking through the consequences of decisions. She argued the Marshallese were perfectly capable of going to college. I can understand how she might have interpreted my comment as a generalization applying to everyone in that group. However, I am always thinking in contexts.

The Marshall Islands consist of 29 islands or atolls. The total area is 72.05 square miles, with a population of 42,500. Many of the Marshallese live in a small, contained area with an equally small number of fellow residents. All the problems one could encounter have been resolved. 'If this' is the problem, 'that' is the solution. They don't encounter unique situations that require a great deal of thought. Any Marshallese raised in an urban culture with people from all different islands will already be dealing with a more complex cultural system requiring more thoughtfulness.

Generalizations about a population often carry some truth unless they are an ethical value judgment- like everyone from that group is evil.

Today, I had a session with Shelly, my therapist/life coach. We talked about hysteria. I'm prone to it. My mother was more than prone; it was her lifestyle. Hysteria was her response to a great many things.

Shelly said it is a misunderstood problem. I know in the case of my mother and me, it is a result of post-traumatic stress; I live with an underlying terror. Mike lived that way, too. Mike and I both believed following the dictates of fear was not a good way to live. Neither of our mothers did. They both embraced it, seeing it as an appropriate form of self-protection. Mike had his behavior under control. I've learned to control mine much better than I could when I was younger. It is why I have been in therapy all these years- to gain control over the fear I live with every day. It's been unleashed again with Mike's death. It's not a nice way to live.

I went to Ulu Wini. The kids were all the K-3rd graders working on a craft project for Valentine's Day. I only got to work with third-grade S. Last time I saw him, he dramatically improved. Today, it was like he was back at square one. He couldn't remember the letters of the alphabet, and he couldn't focus. It was frustrating and disappointing. Perhaps I'm burning out.

A little boy approached me and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?" I wondered if he was confused because my hair was short. He nodded. In the Ulu Wini community, all the women wear their hair long.

His question reminded me of other funny incidents. While teaching in Columbus, Ohio, a little boy approached me and said, "You shouldn't be teaching. You should be home with a candy cane!" He was from an immigrant Somali family. Women in their seventies had no business working. He had only heard the word cane in English in the context of Christmas.

When I taught in Trenton, two Chinese boys thought I was 92. I was in my late 50s. They didn't speak English well at the time and were forgiven. However, they said the same thing two years later when their English was fine. They were confused because no self-respecting Chinese woman would walk around with grey hair before her nineties.

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

I ran into Dean and Nina on my morning walk. Dean said they knew they had to get up early on Wednesday to run into me because I had driveway yoga. Then, when I got home, there was a text message from Yvette saying she canceled because no one else showed up.

When I arrived at Ulu Wini, the road sign warning of construction ahead hadn’t been moved. I had spoken to the construction workers, asking them to move the sign. When it wasn’t, I called the police. The sign blocked the view of the oncoming traffic and made getting on to Hina Lani very dangerous.

I spoke to Ipo about the sign. She said it made no difference to her. She never crossed that road. She always made a right turn coming out of the driveway and drove around to be on the same side of the driveway entrance when she came home. Visiting and exiting is generally very dangerous. They can’t put a light there. The traffic isn’t high enough.

When I exited Ulu Wini, it looked like my visibility was greater. I could see the oncoming traffic below the sign. They must have shifted it.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

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I slept till 4 am and dozed after that. On my morning walk, I ran into Dean and Nina. The other day, I gave Nina a jar of Intrasound gel, known as Makes No Claims by my family. Nina has this large, puffy scar across her chest. Ten years ago, she had a few pimples that became infected, resulting in this incredible scar. It itches.

Every three months, she gets a cortisone shot into the scar. It relieves the itching and does something to the tissue, reducing it. A new scar grows over time. She had the shot a few days before I gave her the gel. She said the gel reduced the itching, and one section of the scar seemed less inflamed. I asked if she was pleased. She said, “It’s okay.” She’d be excited when the scar was gone entirely. I asked her to rate her satisfaction with the gel on a scale of 1-10. She gave it an 8. That was a surprise, given the neutrality of her tone.

Dean said she is never enthusiastic. He will prepare a special meal. When he asks her how she liked it, she says, “It was edible.” We’ll see if this truly makes a difference. Let’s see if something is different before the next shot is due. She will be thrilled if it does something so she doesn’t have to be a pincushion.

Monday, February 5, 2024

I had my first session with twenty-six-year-old S. I started working with her when she was seventeen. She was very disabled. She looked cognitively disabled. After her grandmother told me her story, I asked her how she felt. She said sad. I knew she then she wasn’t ‘retarded.’ Nonetheless, she was a nonreader. I got her reading at a low second-grade level.

I observed a ‘petite mal’ seizure; at least, that’s what it used to be called. Once I pushed the pediatric neurologist to get her off the Adderall she had been on since she was four, her seizures stopped, and the muscle pain she had suffered for years that prevented her from playing with other children was gone.

S’s mother called me the other day, asking if I would work with her again. S’s three-year-old daughter was asking her to read books to her; she couldn’t do it. She was depressed. When I asked her if she had more of a problem decoding words or remembering them, she said decoding them. It quickly became apparent she had issues with memory as well. She was counting on decoding to compensate for her poor memory. It is hard to know if there was in-utero damage from the crystal meth her mother was on at the time of her birth or if she just never learned to memorize. The seizures wiped out opportunities to encode information into long-term memory.

The stats on my blog have shot up, 100-250 views a day. Someone in China is assigning my blog to their English language students. Still no comments. I had trouble downloading the last entry onto the blog site. Sometimes, when I download, the format is different. Instead of the text filling the entire space, I get a small text box. Not only does that change the format, it limits the amount of text. I don’t know how to control it. Trying to find another way, I used Safari instead of Chrome to access the Blogger app. I found an alternate version of my blog. The first entry was January 15, 2019, and the last was June 22, 2022. It has its own readership. The blog I accessed through Safari had a total of 59,906 hits, and it lists current ones. The one I can access through Chrome is up to date and has a total of 76,942 hits. I have no idea how I wound up with two blogs under the same title.

I met with Mama K’s Twins. All I’m working on these days is polishing their memory skills.

I met with first-grade B for the first time. She turned out to be a better reader than I expected. Her decoding was good. She had a small problem discerning the difference between d and b. She read from an AR book. She has issues with her reading speed. I asked her mom to send me a copy of the text the teacher had her read. She reads slowly because she has some recall problems. I’m not sure why yet.

Rene Lemus finally stopped by to appraise my yard and give me an estimate for cleaning up the dropping palm fronds and disposing of them. He promised to come by over and over. I suspect he only is considering the job because I’m the deacon’s widow. Gardeners can pick and choose. It is hard to find someone.

I watched a video on the Carpenters. Her brother and manager talk matter-of-factly about how they pushed her out front from behind her drum kit. They spoke openly about how she hated being out front. They made her life a misery. They believed she had to do it to make the band viable. Unbelievable. They speak openly about taking advantage of her vulnerability. They had an option. They could have moved the whole drum kit out front. She loved the drums. She loved hiding behind them. The videos are old. I can’t imagine someone hasn’t pointed this out to them.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

It was another sleepless night, but not as bad as last night. I was preoccupied with the same issues but wasn’t as disturbed as the night before. I wound up dozing a lot, which I hadn’t done the night before. When the alarm went off at five, I stayed in bed till six. I didn’t have time to do my seated yoga. I walked Elsa and got my initial 4,000 steps in before I showered and went to church.

Oddly, I was wide awake in church today. Usually, I doze off at some point. I was a bright-eyed and bushy tail for the whole service.

I drove myself to church today. Paulette called me yesterday to say she had to stay late after mass. She was meeting with someone interested in assisting her in her wedding ministry through the church. She didn’t know if Judy wanted to ride with me or drive herself. I called Judy. She had a big shopping to do at Costco and would drive herself. I had to be home by 11:15 for my tutoring session with second-grade M.

M continued with her work on reading comprehension with Stuart Little. After the session, I called her dad to ask what he knew about the teacher’s impression of her work. She got the same grades as last term on her report card. The teacher had nothing positive to say. Since her parents have seen a big change in M (more self-confidence, more verbal skills, improved vocabulary, and better reasoning), they didn’t hold the teacher’s feedback in high regard. M told me the teacher yells at the kids when they make mistakes. While I understand the frustration, sometimes I want to scream, too; it promotes fear and poor performance in the children.

Saturday, February 3 2024

Unlike last night's deep, long sleep, tonight's was a nightmare. I was consumed with thoughts of things going wrong that I didn't know how to fix. Most of my problems involve interpersonal relationships- issues that can't be worked out easily. I didn't have that problem with Mike. It's not that we didn't have differences. It was generally thought he was the more controlling of the two of us. I was more flexible and found it easier to do things his way than he found it to do mine. Some issues remained unresolved, and we had to live with differences in each other. I found that doable.

When I first considered Mike my long-term partner, I thought, "I can live with this man the way he is." Truth be told, if that thirty-three-year-old man walked back into my life now, there is no way I would be able to accept him – I think. Perhaps something more profound would have made it doable- the way he loved me. The way he looked at me when he greeted me and the way he let me love him. Maybe that would still be enough.

The wind was strong this morning, and it was freezing cold. I managed to walk with Elsa but was afraid that something would blow into her eyes.

I had an appointment with Doreen for a private Gokhale session. I dreaded getting into a bathing suit in this freezing weather. I wondered where I could set up the warmer Zoom meeting. The open-air lanai was out. I set up in the small bedroom on the east side of the house. It was always warm in there, uncomfortably warm on hot days. I turned over a storage container Jean had brought over, set the computer on it, and pulled in the metal folding chair. The setup worked better than the one I had used the last two weeks.

The Twins of Mama K's crew were not up at 8 am when I signed on to Zoom. This is a recent change. They used to get up in the wee hours of the morning. They're becoming pre-teens and need their sleep. I worked with both of them on memory. With Twin E, it is just getting her to trust her own mind.

Judy called while I was setting up for the Zoom meeting. She worked a shift at Costco yesterday. Her doctor prescribed a painkiller for the nerve pain in her back, made worse by standing and cooking food for the Costco customers. Patients were advised to build up a tolerance for the medication, taking one pill at a time for a while before taking two. Hoping it would resolve her acute back pain, Judy took two pills. Before her shift was over, she was high without any good feelings. She was disoriented and unfit to drive home. She got off work early before she threw up. Her husband and sister went down to pick her up.

This Gokhale session was on the neck position. I am disappointed with the 'private' Gokhale sessions. They're not personal. They are the standard group presentations. She even tells me to remember to do something when I am doing it. I have to ask if I am doing it wrong. "Oh, no. I'm just reminding you to do it." It reminds me of when I would refer to my mother as Mommy and his mother as Mommy when Damon was young. He would have to say, 'Which mommy?" I knew I was in the wrong. I don't think my personal trainer does. The Gokhale method is amazing. I'm sure Doreen knows a great deal about it. However, she doesn't have a clue how to teach a private where she has to address individual needs. I would have gotten more from a group session at half the price.

I had Dash go back to letter naming, hoping he would at least see if the word he said couldn't be right because the letters were wrong. This poor boy struggles with anything to do with memory. He will miss a word he decoded in the previous sentence. It's hard for me. I have to remember he's stuck with this problem.

Friday, February 2, 2024

I slept straight through from 9:30 till 4:30. I don’t think I’ve done that since I turned thirty. It was pouring at 6 when I usually head out for my morning walk. So much for getting my 1000 steps in today. It rained until 10 am. Ah, but I was undaunted. I got them in.

Today, it was six weeks since I brought my car into Kia to be serviced. My car was in serious trouble. It’s an electric car that wouldn’t charge. No charge, no power. Tyler called me at the end of week four, telling me he would call me next week. That would have been week five. Now, it was at the end of week six. I called. “I was just looking at your paperwork and was about to call you.” Yeah.

We tried a second fix; it didn’t work either. A field representative will have to look at the car. Okay. I’m happy with my loaner. I like it much better than my car.

I spent most of the day reading a draft of Cylin’s new book before she sent it off to her agent for editing. It’s her first adult book. It’s a romance wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a romance. I got hooked.

I had Mama K’s crew this afternoon. I concentrated on automaticity. With Twin E, I worked on Fry’s sight word list 1-50. E had done well enough to make it on List 151-200. I chose to go back to the earlier list work because I wanted to concentrate on the process of automaticity, not the words. My objective is to get her to trust her mind to remember. We’re working on the speed of recall.

Twin A can call most of the words through list 300-350. However, there are words she still can’t get- like the word area. She gets it wrong every time, saying around or other. She doesn’t apply the study strategy I taught her. She reverts to assuming if she just looks at the word without making a special effort, she’ll get it.

I was disappointed with all of Mama K’s kids’ report cards. Fifth grade K’s report card did show a small improvement in narrative comprehension but none in informational reading. I downloaded a nonfictional piece on a fifth-grade level from the internet. He could answer the questions, but not on the first go around. I had to tell them his answers were wrong and sometimes direct him where to look before he got the answer. He just floats in indifference. His mom cleaned the house. She found six missing bowls in his room, tucked in drawers and under the bed. He skates through life.

Jean, my friend, and I have been consistent in doing our water meditation almost every night. It helps us both to deal with our lives.

I use the word negotiation to refer to reconciling differences. Darby said that for her, negotiation means business people duking things out. She says that’s what it means to people of her generation. To me, it means reconciling differences. Mike and I would discuss differences to find a common point of view. Some people think our discussions were bickering. Bickering to me means each person fights to have it their way. Our discussions/negotiations were a way to find a solution that would be good for both of us. We didn’t consider it compromising. We thought of it as co-creation. We looked for a third possibility that was better than either of our own. We were happy with our way of operating. We loved considering each other’s needs and making choices neither of us had considered.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

I stayed in bed till six thirty. When I got up, I saw a new wet spot on the lanai carpet. Elsa peed indoors when she was perfectly capable of using the doggy dog. I checked, and nothing was blocking it. I have to get up and push her out that door every morning.

God, I was cold on my morning walk. The chill penetrated my heavy sweatshirt. For the first time, Nina wore a jacket for her morning walk. February is colder than December or January. Our seasons run on a different schedule than they do on the mainland.

I gave Nina a jar of MakesNoClaims I had in my sweatshirt pouch. She has a large, puffy keloid scar on her chest as a result of a simple pimple that became infected ten years ago. She goes for a cortisone shot every six months to subdue the itching. Nothing has helped. I explained what MNC was: an edible clay exposed to a particular sound frequency stirred into a surgical gel. There was a possibility she wouldn't be open to trying it. Dean assured me she was willing to try anything.

The members of my family consider MNCs a joke. In fact, that's how it got its name. Damon, my stepson, looked at a jar of Intrasound Gel (its real name) and said, "Betty, it says it makes no claims." He thought it was a big joke. From that day on, it was known in the family as MakesNoClaims.

My sister complained of an annoying skin tag. I told her I had gotten rid of some of them with MNCs. She agreed to try it. After several days, she called. "Betts, I'm sorry. It's not working." The next day, she called to say, "It fell off." I don't know how it works, but it does incredible stuff. Even I forget to use it when I need it most. I didn't use it after my shoulder and elbow surgeries. It would have sped up the healing process.

I was badly depressed today. I wondered if I should even go to Ulu Wini. I didn't see how I could be helpful to the kids in that state of mind. To my surprise, the contact pulled me out of my funk, my loneliness.

It was as much being in the real-time presence of a community of people connected to each other as the direct contact with the kids. The social workers seem to like each other and care deeply about the members of the community, particularly the children.

When I arrived, the children sat around long tables doing their homework. Today, several children in 5th and 6th grade asked for help. M could read well at a third-grade level and understood the story but had problems articulating her thoughts because of her lack of fluency in English.

I used co-writing with M. I wrote her thoughts. She really did pretty well, but she sounded terrible. Her awkwardness made her sound inarticulate, more so than she was.

Sixth grade Ch asked for help again. Josephine and Ipo approached me when I started volunteering, telling me about Ch. The story they knew was her parents had never sent her to school. Only when she moved to Ulu Wini and fell under the social workers' scrutiny did she start school. Ch told me a different story at one point, saying she had gone to school.

She evaded me and my instructions the first time I worked with her. I asked if she was frightened. That got her attention. I could do some work with her after that. It made an immediate difference. The social workers who read with her said she was doing better. This time, she was off the charts. I must have worked with her for at least 20 minutes. She devoured the instruction. She is proving to be an excellent student. She should be reading on grade level by the end of the summer.

I had a voicemail from the mother of a girl I worked with eight years ago. I only worked with her for a few months before she turned eighteen. Her mother did Bikram yoga as I did. I heard someone ask her how her daughter was doing. It didn't sound good. I was desperate to work with someone. I approached the mother and said, "I'm going to make you an offer you can refuse."

The girl had a tragic story. The mother was on crystal meth at the time of her birth. The baby had to go through detox. At four, she was diagnosed as hyperactive and put on Adderall. At some point, I noticed she had seizures. She would go into a fixed stare and be completely unresponsive. I pushed to get her to see a child neurologist. My research showed seizures were a possible negative side effect of the drug. The neurologist tested her for epilepsy and insisted it couldn't be the result of the drug. She tested negative for epilepsy. I managed to bully the neurologist into okaying her getting off the drug while she wore the monitor. Her seizures stopped immediately.

I found out afterward she lived with so much muscular pain she couldn't walk half a block. She never ran and played with her cousins. Her face was frozen, making her look stupid. All that and more was remedied by getting her off the drug. She was in a vocational training program at school. The teacher reported she was transformed from a sluggish girl to someone who took the lead in work situations.

The doctors who prescribed the drug were legally required to meet with her once a month before renewing the prescription. They never did that. The family just accepted the doctor's word. When I mentioned the seizures to the mom. She said, "Oh, those. She has those all the time." Those seizures made it impossible for her to succeed in school. Each seizure resets the brain, erasing any information that hadn't already made it into long-term memory. That transfer process only happens during sleep. If a seizure occurred before she could sleep, goodbye to anything she had learned during the day.

The 'girl' was now twenty-six years old with a three-year-old child. She was very depressed. She couldn't read a book when her child asked her to. She couldn't drive. She was a prisoner in her home. She struggled with the limitations.

I agree to meet with adult S to teach her reading. We had made a lot of progress when I worked with her eight years ago. She went from zero to

a second-grade level. I wondered if she had retained anything. We would see.

I got an emergency text from Mama K. One of the girls had a math homework assignment she couldn't figure out. She sent me a photo of the worksheet. I looked up partial quotient strategies using rectangles to represent division long. Okay, that was a mouthful. I figured out how to do it. I knew the mom probably did something like that in her head. 365 divided by 5: 300 divided by 5= 60; Sixty divided by 5= 12, and five divided by 5=1.

Therefore, 60+12+1=. To make it easy, add 12 +1= 13. And then 60+13= 73. They teach more mental math these days, but they don't make it fun. It's just another way to torture kids and parents.

When I met with them, I explained the division stuff to Mama K so she could help Twin E. Then, I worked with both girls on automatic processing. I have abandoned decoding and comprehension for the time being until their automatic processing is secure. It will produce a dramatic difference in their reading performance. It already had. Twin A does very well with words she is already familiar with stored in her long-term memory. However, she did not use the process I taught her to embed unfamiliar words. The word area stumped her. I led her through the process. First, make all the sounds in the word in the order they appear. Then, say the whole word. Repeat those two steps at least four more times for five. Then, she closes her eyes, 'sees' the word in her mind, says the letters, and then says the word. Do that five times. The process teaches the individual sounds in the word, the orthography, and word naming.

With twin E, the session is devoted to getting her to rely on automatic processing. She's so afraid it won't work she's reluctant to use it. We have to practice it together until she has enough success so she will have the confidence to do it on her own.

Thursday, May 21, 2026

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

I was exhausted and depressed. I spent most of the day sleeping. I skipped the kapuna mahjong gathering. It was too much for the day. I had driveway yoga in the morning, a mammogram at eleven, tutoring at Ulu Wini at midday, and a session with Adolescent D later.

When I arrived at the mammogram appointment, I asked the woman what extra precautions they take for my dense breast tissue, which I have because I never had kids. The other day, I just heard about the problems getting an accurate reading on dense breast tissue.

She told me they used 3D imaging designed to deal with the issue. They had just got it in August. I thought, “God bless, Kaiser. Right on top of the issue. How lucky am I to have them as my health care provider.” While it is true that both Mike and I thought we got the best health care we ever got right here in Hawaii through Kaiser, they were not the first in town to get a 3D imaging machine. My friend Jean said her provider has used 3D imaging for the last three years. Now, that was a disappointment.

At Ulu Wini today, 6th grade Ch asked me for help. This is the girl Josephine asked me to work with in the beginning. She believed she had never been to school. Ch told me a different story. Either way, she had trouble reading. This was only the third time I worked with her. The first time, she was avoidant. I talked about her fear directly. She calmed down. She made progress in her reading after two sessions. Ipo and Josephine reported the success. Today, she was fully focused, downright demanding- hungry for more. I usually meet with a child for ten to twenty minutes. She pushed me for at least half an hour. I wanted to give up before she did.

I worked with third-grade K on comprehension. She did very well. I don’t know why she had problems the other day. She must have been tired or just not in the mood and blew me off. First-grade K was still not using automatic recall. I spoke to his father and encouraged him to focus on the process of remembering rather than the list of words. He is supposed to use the words to practice how to memorize. The same was true with second-grade T.

Today was Pantry Day. The adults came down to collect bags of free food. I loved sitting there. While the parents didn’t relate much to each other, I loved the sense of community. I understand there are tribal conflicts among the families who live in the Ulu Wini community.

Monday, January 29, 2024

I was awake by 3 am but got up at 4, following advice for good sleep habits: ‘Don’t stay in bed when you can’t sleep.’

My stats on my blog have shot up again, over one hundred as high as two hundred fifty. The bulk of the hits come from China. There must be someone with a large class of students learning English.

I tried to print something. The printer wouldn’t work; it was out of toner. I hadn’t printed 100 pages yet on my new printer. I suspected the cartridge was underloaded. I went to OfficeMax to see if they could help. The first question was, “Do you have the receipt?” No, I did not. She said she couldn’t help me. Huh? Then she fessed up. Printer manufacturers will frequently underfill the cartridge. There was nothing I could do about that. I bought another. Henceforth, I will have all receipts sent by email.

I went to the church to meet Sharmaine. She wasn’t there. I had to complete the security Virtus check I needed if I represented the church at Ulu Wini. Carolyn was at the front desk. She called her. She had forgotten about it; she would be right over. I had tried on my own but had no success. I couldn’t figure out how to work the site. With Sharmaine’s help, I had no problems. Done.

Sharmaine spoke about her family, her six kids, and various grandkids. They are her life. She is involved with them daily. She had a full life that deeply satisfied her. One of her reasons for being involved with her grandkids was because “You can’t trust people these days.”

I doubt there is much more danger these days than there once was. In the past, news items about kidnappings and rapes were out. Child abuse was just taken for granted. All children were vulnerable. It was tragic if something happened to them, but that was life.

Mama K’s crew and Adolescent D both canceled for the day. I almost missed my 5 pm appointment with a new client. Holy cow! I forgot about it. Am I losing my marbles along with many of my peers, or is this a result of lack of stimulation? I find myself forgetting more than I used to. I’m not as sharp. It might be age, but I noticed after the fall last June, resulting in eight hours of surgery, two weeks in the hospital, and another three weeks with limited movement and drugs at home. My brain has something to recover from.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

I was wide awake by 3 am. I tried to go back to sleep but had no luck. I got up, did my morning gentle seated yoga routine, and wrote. I sat down to meditate when the alarm went off at five-thirty.

I used to love my home. It's lost its shine since Mike died. That loss was a slow process, the same way the loss of my energetic connection to Mike was slow. It was our shared loving energy that made the house shine. I thought of how I could sustain that energy on my own. I sat down to meditate and thought to draw Christ's energy into my body. Something changed. That's all I'm willing to attest to. I do not know if it is Christ's energy or even if there is any reality to channeled energy. I just know what I experience. I don't assume knowledge of any other reality. The knowledge I have about channeling this energy made me feel better. When I went to get into the car with Judy and Paulette to go to church, Paulette commented on how pretty I looked. I suspect it was a response to the energy. Loving energy and healing energy are always beautiful in our eyes.

When Damon called later, I told him what happened when we sold our house in Columbus, Ohio. We lived in a development. There were various designs; the houses weren't all exactly the same. Our house was one of many designs. We made some changes. We put on a new roof, siding, and windows, and I painted the front door red for Feng Shui benefits. Shortly before we moved, Mike had some work done on the front walk, replacing the cement with paving blocks. We weren't great gardeners but had a gorgeous tree in our front yard. The house was well cared for, but nothing spectacular. Two hundred people showed up for our open house. Of those two hundred, we had only two offers. One was rescinded before the evening ended when the person went home and consulted his partner. The other couple went through with the purchase. This house had been on the market for nearly two hundred days before we bought it. The realtor said she had only seen a turnout like that once before when she sold a Stickley home. Stickley designed homes with wood interiors. They are historic.

When we lived there, there were several occasions when people would pass by and comment how much they loved our house. The loving energy that Mike and I shared made it look spectacular. I'm not claiming that we had the best marriage on the planet. I doubt anyone can make that claim. Every good marriage has its weak spots; sharing loving energy was one of our strengths. We both needed that quality in a partner.

3rd grade M's father never contacted me to schedule our Sunday appointment. I guessed she was doing well enough, so she didn't need more tutoring. I have asked the parents what the teacher thinks about her performance. Still, it would have been nice if they let me know. The father is usually respectful and appreciative when dealing with me. I assume it just wasn't a priority, and I hope nothing happened to them. That latter is always a possibility.

Saturday, January 27, 2024

It was a wonderfully peaceful day. I did garden work, continuing the weeding and trimming one of the shrubs with my handy four-inch chain saw. Love this gadget.

I called to work with Mama K's crew. I had forgotten it was the twins' birthday. Mama K had it on speakerphone. I sang Mike's and my version of Happy Birthday to them. They giggled.

Dash has a fantastic visual recall. He recalled all the letters in the word essential without effort. His problem is auditory recall: remembering the sound of the word. I reviewed the memorization procedure I developed.

I was very excited by the realization that D's visual recall was that good. It is a strength we could use. I saw improvement in his word recognition when he said the letters before reading the word. I saw a significant improvement when we reviewed 'seeing' the letters. He applied that strategy when he read. I felt long ago that he didn't embed the words visually in his mind when he read. He left the letters on the page. Why would you expect it to be remembered if you don't give your mind the information it needs to trigger a memory? Later in the day, my excitement dimmed when I remembered he would not do this alone. He won't make any effort to practice it to make it habitual. I thought for a moment I could get him up to grade level, 10th grade.

Last spring, he took an online reading test to evaluate his progress. He tested at the tenth-grade level. His teachers were ecstatic. He jumped five grade levels in a year. Only one problem: he had the computer read the text for him. He didn't even read along. D could do that because his comprehension is just fine. If he takes the test correctly, reading the material independently, he will be outed as a cheat.

Today starts the sixth week I have been without my car and driving the loaner. Tyler told me they would have my car for me last week. Last week was over yesterday. I brought the car into the shop on December 22. It was scheduled for service on that day. I was supposed to get it back that afternoon. They called me to say the one mechanic they had to work on electric cars would be off-island for two weeks, taking a professional development course at Kia headquarters.

When I didn't hear from them the week he was supposed to have returned, I called several times, leaving messages. I was never called back. I called the sales department and spoke to the woman who got me a loaner when the service manager refused me one. She said she would get back to me later that day. She didn't call then. I never heard from her.

In week four, Tyler called to tell me they had fired the service manager. They had tried to repair my car, but it didn't work. They would have the car for me in the next week. Well, that's past now, and still no word. I have the loaner; I'm not inconvenienced. I want to trade in my car for the loaner. It's a used car with five thousand miles and a dent in the driver's side back door. Let's see what happens next week.

Friday, January 26, 2024

It was a Ulu Wini day. I met with third-grade S. I continued seeing a dramatic difference. He knew the alphabet, which he hadn't known when I started working with him. I spoke to Ipo. She calmly said, "Oh, yes. He's reading now." What? He's actually reading! I had met with S only three times. The first time, he didn't know the alphabet, even the song, no less read any words. The second time I met with him, I worked on phonemic awareness. I said a word and then sounded each phoneme, blending those phonemes. I was expecting just to model it. I didn't think he would participate. He was fascinated by what I did and made the sounds with me.

Third-grade K is also showing a dramatic improvement. I asked her if her teacher said anything. "Yes. You're doing a good job." That's a standard response to any effort. I asked her if her mom saw a difference. When she said yes, I wondered what her mom said. "My eyes are popping."

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Steve arrived for instructions on my method for teaching phonics. It only takes two minutes to teach it. It's primarily examples after that.

I didn't do that with him; I didn't do a very convincing job proving its worth. The teachers in India probably would be traditional and not open to a method involving the risk of making mistakes. With this method, the teacher has to figure out the phonemes in any word, whether regular or not. The English language is full of surprises. That's why students need to learn how to figure it out independently. There are too many variations to be taught in a regular classroom. There are too many variations to be taught in an Orton Gillingham program, covering at least some 99 variables.

While working with Steve, I got a Facebook message from a distant cousin through marriage saying she would be in Kona for the day and would love to get together.

She was on a cruise ship with her sister and their 96-year-old mother. I saw a Facebook post about traveling with her mother and sister. I assumed it was Leslie traveling with her daughters. I knew her mother, Marga, was very, very old. I couldn't imagine she was traveling to see sights. Boy, was I ever wrong!

I offered to drive Leslie wherever they wanted to go. But no. They would be available at 11:45. I would only have enough time to say hello to her mom, but she and her sister would be available for lunch.

I drove to town, parked in one of the commercial-free parking lots, and walked down to the pier. I had never been there before. This is no flimsy dock; it is a large cement platform servicing small boat docking for cruise ships and touring services.

When they arrived, I could pick out Marga at a distance in her dyed-to-match pink pantsuit. Wonderful! She approached and kissed me, telling me she didn't have much time before she boarded a glass-bottomed boat moored at the dock. Marga, Leslie, and Leslie's best friend from middle school had just completed a tour of another part of the island- something I had never heard of. Leslie's sister, Debby, didn't go on that tour because she had a bad migraine. We waited on the dock for Debby to disembark one of the boat taxis ferrying people back and forth from the mothership. Leslie walked her mom to the glass bottom tour boat. T

Leslie, Missy, her friend, and I went to find a restaurant instead of waiting for Debby to arrive at the dock after watching several taxis come in and no Debby. Leslie called her. She was waiting in line to board. She would be coming soon. Leslie, Missy Missy's husband, and I walked to Ali'I Street to find a restaurant. We selected the Fish Hopper. Leslie called Deb to let her know where we were, the green and orange building.

We slid into a booth. When a server came, Leslie said she had a scheduled tour and had limited time. What could she order? Debby did join us. I would have recognized Leslie anywhere but not Debby. For some reason, I thought she was taller. I did see Leslie more over the years; she lived in Brooklyn while Debby lived on the West Coast.

We had a lovely, light-hearted lunch. We didn't even talk about other family members. I didn't ask Leslie about her husband and children, and she didn't ask about my life here or my sister and her kids. I have seen photos of Leslie's two grown girls now and then on Facebook. They look like lovely young women.

I met with Mama K's crew. Twin E reported that the letters had stopped moving in her head after we did a spin release. She read the words on the Fry list 101-150. She showed immediate improvement. I hope this continues.

I lectured D on his efforts to avoid using the methods I teach for decoding the words. He argues they won't work. I tell him what I teach him to do may or may not work. What we do know is that the methods he uses do not work. You were reading at a first-grade level when we started working together when you were thirteen. Last spring, you tested at a fifth-grade level, with you only practicing reading when you were with me and me dragging you through the procedures. Isn't it worthwhile investing in my procedures? Can't you approach it as a scientific experiment? The kid drives me wild.

Today, the second company came by to give me an estimate for excavating the Ficus trees. We were standing in the driveway. The fellow said he would email me an estimate when Darby called. I automatically put it on speakerphone because I don't like to hold the phone by my ear. Darby asked if I got the second estimate. She also said something about Dan's estimate of $1600. The guy standing in the driveway heard the other offer. He immediately said his price would be $5000. He didn't know how the other guy made a living at that price. He advised me to take his offer.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

I was up by 5, completed my online Gentle Seated yoga exercise following a YouTube video, and completed 4,000 steps for my morning walk. I followed all that with Yvette's driveway yoga at 7 am. Yvette only did 45 minutes instead of the full hour because I wanted to leave to make it to the old folks' mahjong meeting at church, which was supposed to start at 8 am. When I arrived, the door to the parish center was locked, and no one was there. I texted Paulette to let her know. I figured she had known, but no. As I headed back to the parking lot, there she was. She had no idea it had been canceled. Fr. Lio announced it at Sunday mass. Kathy, the main organizer, had been incapacitated because of knee surgery. She thought people would meet without her. Everyone thought Kathy supplied the mahjong sets. We found out there were sets in the parish office.

Since I had free time, I took care of some chores. I went to the police station to get fingerprinted for my security check for the church for my work at Ulu Wini. I only got instructions: make an appointment and have a cashier's check for $25. I went back to town to go to the bank to deposit a check and get the cashier's check. The bank charged me $10 for it.

Once I had the check, I called the church to get their OR number. "A what? We don't have an OR number." I told them I was informed I would need a security check. In every job I've had in education, I needed an FBI report. The church has its own system for checking people, Virtus. I was stuck with a $25 cashier's check made out to the police department I couldn't use. Nothing worse should happen. I went home for a nap.

I saw third-grade S today, who didn't know the alphabet when I started with him and was considered a total non-reader. Wow! He must have had some knowledge already; otherwise, this is just magic. He had a log jam in his brain. Now that that's removed, he's learning swiftly. Anything could be responsible for that. I have thirty years of experience with my methods and many such experiences to suggest that it may have been what I did. I remember his rapt attention as I made the phonemic sounds of a word. I didn't just make phonemic sounds in isolation as they do in phonics training. I made them in the context of a word- any word.

It was clear that second-grade T was terrified. Did her teacher yell at her? Yes. I assured her I wouldn't yell at her, but I can sympathize with the teacher. Several of the children are paralyzed by fear. That fear is an accusation. It tells the teacher or parent, in the case of one child, they're a terrible person who frightens children. I don't know anyone comfortable with that. That level of fear is annoying and triggers fear and anger in the 'accused.' T hugged me at the end of the session.

I had D work on letter naming in the text. He knows the letters of the alphabet and can name them rapidly. The purpose of this exercise is to enhance rapid letter perception. He often misreads words because he ignores most of the letters. For the exercise, I read letters in one sentence; he does in the second. We continue taking turns.

He argues reading the letters doesn't help; working on the sight word list helped. He only believes in automatic recall but thinks it should happen automatically. He doesn't think he should have to work for it. He may not know that automatic recall is my goal for him, too. We disagree on how to achieve it. He thinks it just happens. He has to make an effort, study. I have also given him an explanation of the relationship between automatic recall and studying. He doesn't buy it.

While there are sight word lists. In the Fry list, words are listed in the order of their frequency of appearance in text. Many teachers believe the words are phonically irregular. Some are; most aren't. All the words are partially phonetically regular.

More significantly, we read most words by sight; we do not consciously figure out the words. Competent readers have embedded most of the words they read in memory and retrieve them automatically. Memory isn't just of the whole word; memory includes memory for common letter sets, like -at, -it, -ane, and ine. They are elements of many words. What needs to be clarified is how much of the automatic processing includes rapid decoding in alphabetic languages in the unconscious mind. Relying on memory does not mean just memorizing an image.

It was pouring at night. No walking, I didn't make my 10000 steps.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

I had a terrible night’s sleep. I dealt with hateful messages from that lovely inner voice.

The good news is that now that it’s surfaced again, I have a chance to heal it.

I have friends whose husbands rail at them, saying terrible things. I can imagine their hateful inner voice confirming a realistic appraisal of the self. It’s too painful to bear. They use others as a scapegoat to drown out the self-accusatory voice.

Today, Adolescent D couldn’t remember the word ‘they.’ That was a shock. Something goes on in his brain; it jumps the track. How do we deal with that

Monday, January 22, 2024

Steve said he was coming by to learn about my approach to reading at 9 am. He hadn't arrived by 10. I called him. He was so sorry. He had forgotten about it. He was in town. Could he reschedule?

I called Jean to wish her a happy 82nd birthday. Jean and her husband chose to retire in a high-end retirement community. They love their apartment and the services, well, most of the services. It's like living in a gated community; their behavior is carefully monitored.

Elsa peed on the lanai carpet again. Why is she doing this? I hadn't told her she had a Petco grooming appointment today. Did she figure it out on her own? Was that what was bothering her? Later in the day, I discovered the folding drying rack had been blown in front of the doggy dog. No wonder Elsa was reluctant to go out that way.

After dropping Elsa off at Petco, I went to the post office to send my reply to the solar warranty company. Beth told me they would give 90% of everything I paid for the original equipment and installation, or I could continue with the company and have my existing solar panels replaced when they got their replacements. I chose the cashback option. I sent my reply by certified mail.

I also stopped to pick up the vacuum cleaner. They told me there was nothing wrong with it. I anticipated a diagnostic fee, but no. There was no charge. Very nice.

I connected with Mama K's crew, but only Twin E was available. The other two were already dead to the world. They come home from school exhausted every day. I'm burning out with the slow progress E is making. How do I fix this? There's figuring out and fixing her problem, and then there's fixing my mental state. With some kids, the slog is necessary.

I had the same burned-out feeling with Adolescent D. His decoding is better. Still, he won't remember seeing a word from two lines before and tries to decode it again. How do I help this boy? I can't get his mom to take him to a neurologist. He might benefit. He may have a mild form of epilepsy that wipes his short-term memory clean. Sometimes, he reads smoothly, and it all flows- and then there are the times when he can't remember a word he's seen hundreds of times. If he read on his own, it would be thousands of times- but he doesn't.

Dan stopped by to give me an estimate for removing the Ficus trees. Big roots are growing across the lawn. I dread to think what they are doing to the rock wall.

I lost internet access at one point during the day. I felt a moment of panic when I couldn't access FreeCell. I guess I am addicted. I do use it to calm me down.

I watched the Sister Boniface Mysteries series on BritBox. Eh. It's silly but vaguely enjoyable.

I had a hamburger for dinner tonight. I set the plastic packaging on the floor for Elsa to enjoy. Okay, maybe I do have encroaching dementia. I didn't learn from my last experience doing something like that. She didn't just lick the meat juice; she ate some packing. I went to bed that night wondering what I had done to my beloved dog.

Saturday, January 20, 2024

I was exhausted and went to bed at 8 last night. I woke up in the early morning hours, overwhelmed with anxiety. I put on the tapping app. It calmed me.

After completing my Gentle Yoga exercise, I took a quick walk

in the freezing cold- well, freezing cold for Hawaii at this altitude. I had a leftover bagel with lox and cream cheese for breakfast. I was expecting Steve at 7:30 to load the green waste and take it to the transfer station.

I didn’t hear him arrive. I got anxious, wondering if he would be late. I looked out the front door and saw his truck in the driveway. Yvette and Steve were loading the fallen palm fronds I laid on the side of the driveway. I said there’s more down in the lower yard. Yvette said she would have Casey take care of them. I chose to go with Steve to help him unload at the transfer station. He had to give me a push to help me get into the passenger seat.

I used the time as we were driving to talk about my reading instruction success stories in prep for our Monday meeting. He seemed open. He visited several schools on the island to see what kind of work they were doing.

Steve stopped at Home Depot. I had some items to pick up myself. I looked for copper nails; Home Depot doesn’t carry big ones that will kill trees. Steve’s shopping took a while because the employee couldn’t find where it had been stored. I walked up and down in front of the store while waiting for him to get in my steps.

Once at home, I took a nap. I napped most of the day. Mama K’s crew wasn’t available. She was on Ohau and couldn’t get hold of anyone at home to get them to connect. While the kids are generally cooperative and don’t misbehave while I work with them, they may not be crazy about having to meet with me.

When I got home, I got two five-gallon buckets loaded with green waste and walked them down to Darby’s house. The buckets were surprisingly heavy and put some strain on my left shoulder, the one with the reverse shoulder replacement. I left them without saying anything. On a walk later in the day, I checked. Yes, one was gone. She found them.

Darby returned the empty orange buckets carrying a brightly patterned umbrella. What a sight! I took a picture. We stood in the driveway talking. I proposed I walk her home and get in more steps. We’re delightfully playful together.

Yvette wanted to walk earlier today because she had a dinner date with a girlfriend and her two children.

I watched the end of McDonald and Dodd. It got better as it progressed. I found the main characters, in fact, all the characters, annoying. The writers toned down the absurd personalities in the later episodes. When I was through with McDonald and Dodd, I started watching Sister Boniface Mysteries. I wanted to watch Criminal Report on Apple but can’t get my password to work. Need to call Apple support to figure it out.