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

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Dan was scheduled to take out the large Shefferlara tree that damaged our cement driveway today and a second tree that shot up from an unwelcomed seed that was now blocking my view of the Pacific. He called around 9 a.m. He was at the vet with one of his dogs. He has something like five. He takes in rescues. The Humane Society has him on speed dial. He dog has some fatty lumps.

He didn't show up or call. I called him. Most of the lumps were lipomas. There was one at the neck the vet wasn't sure about. He said he wanted to stay home with his dog.

We had to negotiate a new time. Sunday was out. It was Josh's day off, and he needed peace and quiet. I wouldn't be home Monday or Tuesday morning to care for Little, and Yvette would also be out. We rescheduled for Wednesday.

Darby had returned the large trash barrel, and it was available for another load of fronds. Fronds are the huge 'leaves' that fall off palm trees. I had loaded up the last of the ones the gardener had dumped on the property for years. Now, I was ready to clean up others lying elsewhere on the property. I found a few freshly fallen ones. Then, I grabbed those lying at the top of the driveway just below the lower gate. I had gotten good about stuffing them into the barrel. I walked the trash barrel over to Darby's for delivery. Her house is about a block away from mine.

As usual, Darby came out to spend time with me when I dropped off a load of green waste. We walked on her lawn barefoot. It is supposed to be good to have direct contact with nature. Anything to do with nature, and I'm there.

Darby talked about the Amish today. I have no idea why this was on her mind. She lived near a community and became interested in them. They don't advocate their lifestyle for moral reasons, meaning it isn't evil to live otherwise. They live a simple life because it is a slower one; living a slower one means it's easier to be close to God.

While the community rejected most 'conveniences,' they did accept the washing machine. I wondered how you operate a washing machine without electricity, so I looked it up on the Internet. A washing machine can be foo or crank-powered.

The machines we've brought into our homes and lives are considered labor-saving devices. I once asked my mom why we were busier these days than when she was young. For context, my mom was born in 1903 in Berlin, Germany. She said something so interesting. She said they didn't have telephones or washing machines. Without telephones, communication was all in person or in writing. That slowed things down a bit.

As for the washing machine, everything was handwashed. My mom changed her underwear once a week. She had a dress for school, a dress for play, and a dress for church for each season. That was it. Besides not producing a lot of laundry, she didn't have to spend time selecting clothes every morning and shopping for a fashionable selection.

Needless to say, there was no television to occupy anyone's time. The first television ever seen by the public was at the 1939 World's Fair. My mom saw it in 1940 when her mom came to visit. She was pregnant with me at the time. I got my first computer in the 1980s. Again, I checked the Internet. The first personal computer was available in 1975. These beasts occupy much of our time.

Back to the lives of the Amish, Darby said only seventy-five people have joined the larger Amish community. While some have left the community, it continues to grow. Every time a given community grows bigger than forty families, it splits. Half the group leaves the area and sets up life somewhere else. This number roughly conforms to a functional community's magic number of one hundred fifty. Anything bigger than that requires an overseer, i.e. a government.

A problem that plagues the Amish community is inbreeding. They make every effort to avoid it. They search for mates from different Amish communities. They keep genealogical records. They allow the adoption of children from outside the community, which brings in new genetic strains. When someone is inflicted by the consequences of inbreeding, they accept this as a consequence of keeping their communities and lifestyles. They are committed to caring for those afflicted.

On the other hand, the Amish are free from many of the diseases that plague the modern world. If I remember correctly, Darby said they are free from cancer and heart disease.

Since Covid, loneliness has finally received the attention it deserves. We need to belong to secure communities. Isolating ourselves in our nuclear families and, even worse, living alone is deadly. We have turned ourselves into zoo animals. We live with a degree of physical safety our ancestors never knew, and it is killing us. I watched another of the Gokhale Online University videos. They're terrible. The guy leading it needed his posture corrected. His ribs were too far forward. The ideas behind Gokhale are spectacular. I believe in the process, but the teaching sucks. I can't say that for the group teacher, Lisa. She was wonderful. She had a background as a dancer and had a deeper understanding of the body.

When I met with Adolescent D today, I asked him to read his poem to me. I couldn't believe it. It was really good, clever. I was suspicious. Had he copied it off the Internet? I looked for modern poems written alluding to the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. I could find nothing. I would ask him to send me a copy of the poem and run through a plagiarism check on Gokhale. If I did find he cheated, I would only share that information with his mother. This was a moral issue that called for family guidance. It was up to his parents to respond, not me. I planned to ask for a written copy.

Friday, April 19, 2024

The plan was to walk on Ali’i Drive, the first commercial street in Kona and the center of tourist traffic now. I had no idea what this walk was going to look like. I imagined wandering in and out of gift shops and artist galleries.

Paulette had a clearer idea. We wandered through the Kona Inn center. First, we went back into the area that once must have been the Kona Inn. It looked shabby and unused. A visiting friend once peered back there and commented on the low-income housing. When it told him it was the rooms for the inn, he said he would never stay there. It seems he was right; no one does. While the rooms didn't look good, the heavily shaded area with plants was enchanting.

Paulette and I continued walking along checking out the shops. Paulette looked into empty ones and remembered what used to be there. She was familiar with the walk. I had never been here before.

We passed a shop selling skin care. A saleswoman gave me a sample of something from a dish sitting on a table by the entrance. I noticed a large, white, shiny machine inside. What could that have to do with skincare? I asked. It was a full-body infrared machine. I have no idea how it worked. I was familiar with the positive effect of that light. It's used to reduce inflammation. While the machine was interesting, the real lure was the view out the back window.

It was a standard double-hung window with a view of the waves lapping on the ocean's shore. I'm a sucker for nature and for framed views. I love Magritte's work. The saleswoman was warm and engaging. I'm not usually a sucker for sales pitches, but the combination of her personality, the mysterious, beautiful white machine in the middle of an otherwise bare store, and that view out the back of the building was too much; I was overcome. I wasn't planning to buy anything. I'm not a compulsive buyer. I was enjoying the ambiance. The only downside was I'd lost Paulette, who continued down the strip checking out shops. Then she appeared by my side.

The saleswoman invited us in. She asked me to bare the inside of my right arm. She applied an exfoliant. She rubbed it in. I could see the skin peel off. Little nubs of dead skin appeared as she rubbed. It reminded me of when I would get the same t effect on my knees or feet as a kid. The buildup of dead skin wasn't an issue then. At eighty-three, it is. The skin on my face always felt soft and silky until recently.

The saleswoman asked if she could apply something to under my eyes to reduce puffiness and redness. Sure. I couldn't see much difference in my eyes. I don't have puffy eyes. Paulette has had them since birth. The treatment made a big difference to her eyes.

The saleswoman gave us the price for the three items she used on us, the exfoliant, the stuff that reduced the puffiness and wrinkles around our eyes, and something supplying nutrients for the skin, telling us that the products would last a year. She told us the original price, $800, $1250, and $400, and what she was offering it for. We were not good customers.

"You know I can give it to you for less. The cruise ship that was supposed to come in today never arrived." We were still reluctant. We weren't putting on an act. We were genuinely reluctant. I was more susceptible than Paulette, although I don't think the saleswoman realized that. I was without a shred of makeup up, wearing my usual ragtag outfit. Not a good candidate for a beauty treatment. The saleswoman took off another $100 because we were Kamaaina, which means children of the land; in other words, we weren't visitors but residents. I bought first. Paulette gave in, too.

Besides the products, we were each entitled to a free red light facial treatment. We scheduled it for next Friday. Paulette and I will have another day out. The saleswoman told us we would pass another of their shops further down the strip and to tell the person there we were scheduled for red light treatments. I didn't quite understand why we had to do this until we arrived.

As we approached the shop, a man came out to greet us. We were recognizable by the shopping bags we were carrying emblazoned with the brand's logo. He invited us into the shop to show us where we would get the treatment. I was disappointed it wasn't in the first shop. This one was dark, with no view of the ocean. Boy, am I a sucker for a good view!

Paulette and I continued on our way. She was looking for a specific shop, a quilt store. She wasn't sure of the name. I looked it up on the Internet. Quilt Passion. But how to find it. I turned on my GPS. A woman came up and asked if we needed help. She knew where the quilt shop was and pointed us in the right direction. From her demeanor, I thought she took us for tourists. I looked at her, smiled, and said, "We're Kamaaina (island residents.)" She looked a bit confused and said, "I'm Kamaaina." I chuckled and said, "I know." The confusion was funny since Paulette and I have lived here for over 10 years a piece.

We finally found the shop after we asked in a nearby shop. It was tucked back from the road. The store carried local fabric patterns and skeins of wool in luscious colors. It was a treat to be in the store. Paulette was looking for it to knit herself a sweater or shawl. She didn't find anything she wanted.

Afterward, we went looking for a place to grab lunch. We looked at menus as we passed one restaurant after another. Paulette couldn't find anything she wanted. I pushed for Papa Kona's. I love the view and have had good food there before. I ordered a vegetarian something. It didn't say it was an omelet. I was disappointed when it arrived. The taste was worse. It was oversalted.

I was home in time for the Twins. Twin E. chose to work on the sight word list, which means working on memory. As usual, she had problems with the word even, but this time, she didn't read it as every. She stopped herself. That's a big step. Twin A wasn't available. She was already asleep. These kids get up super early and come home from school exhausted.

I have been watching the daily videos on Gokhale. Good god. They aren't very good- at least not for me. Several have talked about turnout. The emphasis is on the feet. Only one presenter focused on the position of the knees in relation to the feet, which is vital. She showed a picture of her mother climbing a step with lines drawn on her foot, shin bone, and upper leg bone. You could see they were not aligned. After training, her mother aligned them. I still haven't heard anyone refer to the hip turnout as necessary to get that alignment or when walking.

Thursday, April 18, 2024

I filled another trash can with fronds to take to Darby. After one or two more loads, I should be finished with the pile the gardener dumped over several years.

I had a session with twenty-six-year-old S. Last time, she refused to do the crossbody blending exercise I wanted her to do to teach blending. It helps students with difficulty hold on to sounds when they blend, keep them in the correct order, and blend the sounds into one sound unit. For example, the student must blend a vowel sound with the following consonant, like an. They touch their left shoulder with their right hand and say the short /a/; then they touch their right shoulder and make the /n/ sound. They repeat both actions until they can consistently make the correct sounds. If a student has no trouble with this activity, you move on quickly.

The next step is to blend the two sounds. They touch their left shoulder with their right hand, sustain the short /a/ sound until they touch the right shoulder and make the /n/ sound. The trick to blending is anticipating the second sound, which slightly alters the first sound. That's how the two blend together.

If the /an/ sound has been produced effectively, the next step is adding another sound. In the word slant, I recommend adding the final /t/ before adding the preceding sounds. Touch the left shoulder and say /an/; touch the right shoulder and make the /t/ sound.

Then, add on the preceding sounds, one letter/sound at a time: left/l/; right /ant/. Then left /lant/; right /s/.

This procedure is suitable for students who have trouble blending sounds. There are other procedures. One is touching spots on the left arm with the right hand to accomplish the same objective. I recommend crossbody blending because it more accurately represents the movement from left to right of English orthography and crosses the neurological midline.

Today, S decoded more consciously. We use the conscious mind to train the unconscious. The more conscious or engaged we are when learning, the more likely it is to stick. This is an easy strategy students can use on their own.

I went to Ulu Wini later in the day. I asked Chantel if 2nd grade MI was available. No, she wasn't there. After I worked with two other students, I caught a glimpse of her. I asked Chantel to send her over. Chantel said something like, "She did it already." She did what? Had she mastered subtraction with regrouping? "Oh? No. She completed her homework." She didn't understand subtraction with regrouping.

I called her over. She came reluctantly. She correctly named the place values for all the 4s in 4444. Then, I switched out the numerals. Did she know the value of these numbers? 2453? No problem. Then I wrote 734

-416

She couldn't give the correct place values for the 416. Not a clue. I had no idea why she might be confused. As I write this, it occurred to me that she may always see problems written as 734-416= on the horizontal, and she had no idea what it meant if the numbers were written vertically.

I proceeded with subtraction with regrouping. I can't believe what M did. Let's see: She knew she needed the quantity in the ones place to be higher if she was going to subtract the 6 from 4. She knew she needed three more. She borrowed 3 from the 7 in the hundreds place and added it to the 4 in the ones place. Interesting! At least she didn't shut down on me.

With second-grade TC, she read Reading Roots #10. She read it reasonably well, but something was off. It looked like she wasn't decoding at all. I wrote -at and wrote the possibilities in that word family: bat, cat, dat, fat, etc. I prefer to do nonsense and meaningful ones because most syllables in multisyllabic words are nonsense when read in isolation. She did extremely well,; found it fun. She said no one had ever done anything like this with her before.

I hadn't worked with first-grade KJ for a while, but she has been rocking it for a while. I took her through the sight word lists. She read up to #150, which puts her above grade level. When she didn't know the word, she decoded it. She'd get it close enough so I could give her the word in a sentence using her pronunciation. She did an excellent job. She is off and running.

I worked with 3rd grade SP. He was a mess today. He couldn't pay attention for two seconds. I did the bull's eye attention exercise. He concentrated while we worked on it. I teach students to select what they want to focus on, not to just focus on me. He was attentive while we did this work.

Interestingly, later in the day, I listened to a podcast on the importance of breathing correctly, primarily through our noses rather than our mouths. Mouth breathing is associated with many health problems, including dementia and ADD. Many cases of ADD have cleared up when the breathing problem is resolved. I can imagine SE is a significant mouth breather.

I am usually a nose breather; Mike was a mouth breather. I knew he would die before me because of his breathing problems. Besides being a mouth breather, he took one and a half to two breaths to my one. Everything said stress- a killer. I couldn't get him to change anything. He was not in the driver's seat when managing his body. He thought my ideas and how I approached my physical care were bizarre. Well, now I'm a widow. My breathing is more like Mike's used to be because of my increased anxiety. The podcast reminded me to return to the breathing exercises I used to do.

I have been watching the daily videos on Gokhale. Good god. They aren't very good- at least not for me. Several have talked about turnout. The emphasis is on the feet. Only one presenter focused on the position of the knees in relation to the feet. She did an excellent job. She showed her mother climbing a step and drew lines on her foot, shin bone and upper leg bone. You could see they were not aligned. After training, her mother could align them. I still haven't heard anyone refer to the hip turnout as necessary to get that alignment or to use it when walking.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Another great night’s sleep! If this continues, I’ll stop commenting on it. Wouldn’t that be nice!

I’ve been a good sleeper since I left my mother’s house for college when I was seventeen. I had a bad bout of insomnia for two and a half years after my dad died in March of 1956 before I left. It was pure hell.

When I got up shortly after five a.m., I put the lawn mower battery into the charger. I wanted it fully loaded so I could mow the strip along the street first thing in the morning and then move the lawnmower into the shed.

Last night, at the end of the walk, Darby told me she was

upset that I had left the lawnmower on the front walk instead of in the shed. She had told me to shelter it. It was sheltered there -from rain. But that wasn’t her concern. Her concern was the impact of the sunshine on the plastic.

It never occurred to me. She assumed I understood the problem. She has lived in Hawaii for forty years. She has seen the damage of our intense sun on plastic.

I was a mere novice. I’ve only lived here ten years. When I finished mowing the strip, I immediately put the mower in the shed and called Darby to let her know.

I had an appointment with Shelly at 9 a.m. I continued working on my resistance to doing more to promote my teaching methods. While I don’t like being ignored, I’m terrified of being attacked. People can go crazy when you present something other than what they’re used to.

I gave a talk on a reasonably benign topic at a conference, demonstrating how all facial muscles are involved in pronouncing speech sounds and how to use that information to teach students. The room was packed, standing room only, and that barely. One man became agitated and thought to tell me off. Really? I wasn’t too invested in the topic and could let it slide. But some of my approaches are quite different.

A supervisor once observed me and screamed, “I’ve never seen that before. It could never work!” I’m still recovering from that one.

Because the references to past life stories were meaningful in my session with the clairvoyant, I chose to continue with that. A story I hadn’t focused on in a while came up.

An aside on past life stories: I have no investment in their being true or not. I’m not one of those people who go around proudly claiming to have been Cleopatra in a past life. Any past life stories I generate are full of unresolved trauma, not great glory. The one that came up today was about being an oracle in ancient Greece. Believe me! There is no glamour here. The stories only have value because they have meaning for a person.

I don’t know how much of this conforms to what is known about the lives of the women who performed those roles, but this is what I got.

In ancient Greece, ‘talent’ scouts would visit small towns looking for young girls who might be suitable for the role of an oracle. I was chosen at the age of ten. I was so proud. Being chosen was considered an honor for the girl, her family, and the village. The life was pure abuse.

I was kept in a large basement area with other women. The ceiling must have been two to three stories high, which means the basement was that far underground. There were no amenities. By that, I mean no beds, toilet accommodations, or heat. We lived in filth. We were raped regularly by the priests who came down to relieve themselves. On the occasions when we were required to oraculate, we were cleaned up, clothed in rich robes, drugged, and presented to the public. The priests ‘interpreted’ the nonsense that came out of our mouths.

Why did they use women? Because women were considered to have the power. All men could do was translate. When I was no longer useful, I was returned to the village.

For the first time, I saw parallels between my relationship with my father and the Greek women’s relationships with the priests. My dad thought women had some special connection to wisdom, creativity, and imagination. He envied that connection. He wanted whatever pearls of wisdom came from my feminine child brain. I did my best. I never was able to generate a totally original idea. Christ, Buddha, or some scientist had thought of it before. I think my dad was looking for a solution to man’s hostility to his fellow man. As a survivor of two world wars and his personal survival of the holocaust, I can understand his need. As a Jew, he hoped for a messiah. He was open-minded enough to consider that it might be his daughter inside of a son. You may have noticed. I failed in solving that problem. In my early twenties, I called myself a ‘dropout messiah.” I put that burden down- as best I could. At least, I limited my ambition to more reasonable expectations. I think I have made many lives better with my teaching. My dad did help me develop that gift. It wasn’t all bad.

The electrician from Provision Solar came to check my system. Unlike the sales rep, he talked to me at length and gave me no information. Nick assured me I would be dealing with the supervisor from now on. I’ve been doing some research on my own.

To qualify for the tax rebate, I will have to replace the whole system, but I will still save money. A generous warranty covers the old system. The 300 panels in the old system are no longer made, so broken ones can’t be replaced. I will get 400 panels with the new set. They will be good for about five years before they’re no longer replaceable. With the warranty, I won’t be putting out additional money. I may even make a profit.

Mike objected to the system, saying it would never be amortized in our lifetime. He was wrong. It will amortize in two more years.

I had a Zoom appointment with the Twins after school. Her mom wasn’t home. She had her high school daughter set up the Zoom session. It hit admit, but no one was there. The older sister, S, must have set it up and called one of the girls to come. They didn’t. I called their mom. Twin A appeared. She moved from one spot to another. When I finally got her to sit still, I asked her how she felt about the sessions and how she felt about her reading problem. She said, “Sad.” I asked her how long she felt that way. “Since I was five.” She has been aware of her difference since Kindergarten. This is good news.

I can hear someone reading this and asking how this could possibly be good news. So far, the girls have given no indication of being troubled by their disability. This lack suggests a serious cognitive problem. If she’s been aware and aware of her awareness since she was five, it gives evidence of intelligence. I teach how to learn. I think she assumes she can’t. I assume she doesn’t know how.

We all have varying strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know why we develop that way. We have to deal with our weaknesses calmly and figure out compensating strategies. There are only a few people who can look at something once and remember it perfectly. People who experience failure assume they can’t learn and resist using strategies because they think it’s proof they’re stupid. Twin A insists on making guesses using the first letter. As long as she does that, she’s working against herself.

I did the underlining exercise with Adolescent D for the second time. Wow! We color-coded every syllable pattern we encountered it in the paragraph, even in the ‘irregular’ words. An, ef, ib, oc, ud, etc. are all VC patterns.

Then ane, efe, ibe, oce, and ude, are all VCe pattern syllalbes. The full list are V, VC, VCe, VV, Vr, and final stable syllables. I created one other syllable pattern: Vh, as in ah, Vw as in ow, and Vy as in ay as a single category. Then I broke up the Final Stable Syllable caterory into different groups, -ion, -ious, and all the Cle syllables. We categorized every syllable, whether regular or not.

I argue that you can figure it out if you get a pronunciation close enough. English requires the reader to figure out the words from context. What does the word ‘cook’ or ‘sign’ mean in a sentence? (He is a good cook. 2. I like to cook. 3. I have new cookware.)You must infer meaning from context in English; it is a must. Students have to be trained to do that.

I categorized said as a VV word. If you read it phonetically, you get /sayd/. If you pronounce the word with the long /a/ in context and can’t figure out the word is /sed/, that problem must be resolved.

D told me he wouldn’t be available on Thursday. His mom called me to tell me he wouldn’t be available Thursday or Friday; he was going on a field trip. Later in the day, she texted me to ask if I had helped him write a poem he presented to the class, Humpty Dumpty. He wrote it, and read it to the class. The teacher was so impressed that she wrote to his mom immediately. D is very hidden. That he would write the poem no less get up and read it in class is amazing. Given that he cheated on the reading test he took on the computer and had the test read to him, I am a little concerned he got this poem off the internet.

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

I woke up around 4 a.m., which was a good time. I had a negative thought, which turned on the shame mechanism. I'm not sure what it was, but it was something trivial, like Elsa's new harness not working. My unconscious mind took that 'personally.' It reminded me of an event with my mom.

At 81, she had a desperately needed cataract operation. Shortly after that, she got up on a ladder to get a roll of paper towels she had stored there.

Because of the eye operation, she had trouble seeing. The new lenses are not adjustable; they're fixed. The focal point for her vision was set at three feet. She had to lean away to see what was on the shelf, which caused her to fall backward. On the way down, she hit a table, which broke her fall.

I took her to my chiropractor to get checked. He said she was uninjured and suggested I would eventually have to take her out behind the barn and shoot her. (For those not familiar with the idiom, it means she is so resilient she would never die of natural causes.) (For those who wonder why I need to explain the idiom: I have over 95,000 hits on my public blog. Most of the viewers are from other countries, and most of those are from Asia.) in response to all this, my mom moaned that God didn't love her because he allowed her to fall. I reframed it for her. "Are you kidding?! "You're 81, fell backward off a ladder, and have no injuries. God must be madly in love with you." She smiled.

I worked on my letter of complaint to Gokhale about the teacher I had for the personal sessions in the Elements Course. I love the method. Esther looked around the world for communities that didn't have backaches. She observed their posture and the way they sat, stood, walked, carried things, and performed actions with their hands. She put this information into a book and developed methods for teaching it. She is a good teacher. I got a dud.

I signed up for individual online classes, thinking I would get personal attention. I got a private viewing of a canned presentation with some observations of my attempts to execute the postural model.

I learned almost nothing at the cost of $234 an hour. At a rate like that, it should be a top-of-the-line service. It wasn't even fair.

I got 18 13-minute sessions for $234 an hour or $3 a minute. It wasn't even worth $1 a minute.

It took me a while to extricate myself from this situation. I wasn't comfortable confronting the instructor, telling her I thought she was a terrible teacher and wanted out. It finally dawned on me I could call the customer service line and do it without directly confronting her. She is possibly effective with people who are new to the method, new to postural changes in general, and have never paid much attention to body movement, no less had training. I had to write a letter of complaint. I doubted it would do much good.

I mowed the large lawn today. I saw how overgrown it was yesterday when I went down to pick up the last of the fronds the gardener had thrown in a corner of the property without my permission. I take those large fronds down to Darby's. She considers all green waste gold. It is when it breaks down to fertile soil.

When I arrived at Ulu Wini, fifth-grade M sat in the student's chair at the table set up for me, anxious to work. I asked if she wanted to work on comprehension or decoding multi-syllable words. She chose to work on the multisyllabic words. I gave her a few. She aced them. I packed her off with paper, a pen, and my Kindle to find words. She returned everything with three names decoded. That's it. It finally occurred to me she couldn't figure out how to turn on the Kindle.

Last Thursday, Chantel told me she had problems getting one girl to understand subtraction with regrouping. I meditated on her and got she didn't understand place value. When I asked Chantel about it, she said I was right. Second-grade M had no idea what the place values were. When it displayed place value, 1 has no zeros, and 10 has one zero; how many zeroes will the next number have? Blank. She didn't understand patterns. She finally got it and understood that the next number had two zeroes and the one after it had 1,000, etc.

Then, I displayed a number up to the 1,000th with all the numerals being the same. The student has to discern the difference between the values of the 4 in all its locations. I didn't confuse the student by introducing other numerals since she was confused about place value.

She still had problems identifying the value of each numeral. I had to write the place value above each number, 1,000, 100, 10, 1. I told her to write the numeral in place of the one numeral. She could do it correctly at the end of the session, but I had to push.

When I finished working with M, she joined the children at the large table while I worked with other children. As I left, I rechecked her, on 4, 444. She nailed it. I wouldn't have been surprised if she hadn't retained it. Next time, I will vary the numbers.

With third-grade LA, I worked on comprehension. Oh, boy. She had no idea how to glean information from a single sentence. Now she may not have understood the exercise because she had never seen anything like it before. I give the students a single sentence and then ask questions about the sentence.

For example, The ball ran down the hill. 1) What ran down the hill? 2) What did the ball do? 3) What did the ball run down? Linguists refer to this relationship of words within a sentence as the 'algebraics of syntax.' It's sentence diagramming with questions. Since students are never required to look at language this way, it is a huge leap. However, I have found that doing this exercise, even once, makes a difference in their comprehension. We'll see how it impacts LA. It teaches how to look at sentences, something they can explore further.

Her sister, first-grade JA, asked to go next. I worked with her once before. She was still struggling with the first 25 words of the Sight Word List. I used Fernald's VAKT with words she missed.

Sunday, June 7, 2026

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Last night, as I was preparing for bed, I heard a super loud coqui right outside my bedroom. I went out to see if I could locate him. Yes, it was a him. Only the males make that incredible racket. I had planned to leave the sliding door to the yard open as it was getting warmer. That noise made it out of the question. I thought to do something about it.

I went to the closet to look for the gadget I bought to spread the baking soda, which kills the frogs. It wasn't in the closet. I went out to the shed. I couldn't find it there, either. I got the bag of baking soda from the closet, chopped it into the compacted powder, scooped it out, and threw it where I thought the coqui was perched. I don't know if I got it, but I wasn't disturbed for the rest of the night. I slept peacefully until the alarm went off.

I experienced no negative thoughts upon waking about the coqui or anything else. Wow! This is a first since Mike died. I don't know how much I did this while he was alive. I know I wasn't free of it, but I don't think I did it as much. I felt safe, nestled in the protective embrace of the relationship.

I had a session with third-grade M. We continued reading Stuart Little. She is doing very well. I asked her if she was doing better in school. She said yes. I asked her if she understood what others said better. Also, yes. I suspect she doesn't need my help academically anymore. I asked her how much she enjoyed our sessions. She gave it a 7 out of 10. I'm more concerned about her psychologically now than academically. Her older sister has turned into a superstar, getting straight As in a challenging private school. Her mother is a very critical person. Her dad is an insecure bundle of nerves. It won't initiate the termination of our relationship. I'll wait till her mom or dad does so.

I heard Steve Peters talk on Steve Bartletts's podcast. I ordered his book, The Chimp Paradox, on Audible. I was interested because he talks about the different 'minds' in our brains. He's interested from a psychiatric point of view. I am, too, but I am also interested in it from a cognitive point of view. How do we learn? What is the role of the different parts of our brain? How do we remember? How much is the conscious mind, and how much is the unconscious.

I find his interpretation of the brain and our identity unsatisfactory. He calls our rational mind the human one, the one that accurately represents the person as they truly are. The 'chimp' mind, the emotional mind, is an intrusion.

I don't agree with him. His interpretation makes Spock the only true human on the Enterprise. My emotional mind is mine just as much as the rational mind of the prefrontal lobe. He does say while the chimp mind isn't 'our' true mind, we are responsible for its actions. He speaks of it as something not us, more like a dog we own or a child we're raising. We are responsible for the actions driven by the 'chimp' mind, but not the thoughts it produces. I see my emotional mind as just as much of me as my rational prefrontal lobe mind. The various parts of my mind work together to create 'me.' They are all parts of me, devoted to my survival and/or the survival of my genes. Saying the emotional brain is 'not the real me' is like saying if two authors co-write a book, only one can be the 'real' writer. The various aspects of my mind need to negotiate a relationship that works clearly for my benefit. Everything I do impacts others to some degree or another.

My dad raised me with that notion; I was responsible to some limited degree for everything on the planet. We all were. We impact everything. Nowadays, people talk about connecting with everyone as a spiritual realization. Most view it as just beneficial for themselves. They feel connected. I don't hear many talk about it as my dad did. With that connection was responsibility. If everything I do affects others, everything I become is for others as well as myself. They say people who live feeling connected to the larger universe are happier. I don't know if that is true. It certainly wasn't for me as I was growing up.

As I grew up, I felt the weight of that responsibility. I wasn't raised in a culture where that philosophical position was the norm. No, I was pretty much alone with it. I didn't have a good perspective. I had to develop that.

My dad also taught me that everyone does things for 'selfish' reasons. That was a hard one to digest, too. But I understand it now. While everyone does things to benefit themselves, 'good' people value the well-being of others as well as themselves. I venture even those who die for another do it for themselves. It is what they need to do. They couldn't live with themselves if they did otherwise. Some people couldn't care less about the wellbeing of others. I pity them. It can't be a happy way to live.

I hear all human beings need a purpose in life; benefitting others and having children are the most common ones. There are other objectives, like climbing Everest. Not my thing.

In another podcast, Stephen Bartlett interviewed someone who argued most heart conditions are caused by eating processed food. I hear that a lot. It's not that I disagree; I'm not sure what constitutes processed food. The speaker said anything that does not come to the table as it came from nature. The speaker said the rise of heart disease dates from the introduction of processed food. But what is it? Isn't cooking and seasoning a form of processing? I'm sure the speaker didn't mean that, but what does he mean? Spaghetti has been around forever. Bread? Neither offers the ingredients the way they came out of the ground. Of course, hot dogs, Doritos, and soda are all clearly no-nos. There must be a continuum.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

I had an appointment with Shelly at 9 am. Last week, I dealt with the unconscious rage someone felt for me.

I believe our primitive brains do feel a need to 'kill' people who are a threat to us. We feel easily threatened in our modern lives. Our primitive brains see contradiction as a threat. We are designed to live in small, highly regulated groups. They needn't be hierarchical. No, they can be non-hierarchical. However, the social rules are the same throughout the structure and are accepted by all. The pathway for all social interactions is laid out, and everyone understands them. If someone doesn't, they have to leave the group. Leaving the group in primitive times meant death. No human could survive on their own for long. You were either in and a valued group member or a future valued member (a child), or you were not. Nowadays, we have no single social structure; there are no rules we all accept.

Currently, we don't live in a well-regulated world. The rules are different from home to home and even within a home. Parents come from different cultural backgrounds and often move to a location with an unfamiliar culture to both parents. This applies to immigrants and people who move from one part of a country to another. We all stand on shifting sands, unsure of the rules. Some can live with the confusion. Those who can't insist their rules are right and judge others. It is nerve-wracking for one and all.

We casually throw around the phrase 'I could kill you,' meaning no harm. Most of us never acknowledge the impulse. However, the impulse is in there. It scares us all. We know the depth of our anger. It haunts us if we haven't acknowledged this impulse and made our peace with it.

When I did healing professionally, I led many clients through visualization to free them from fear and to help them recognize that the impulse doesn't make them killers, not even potential killers. I never did it with myself, even though I know how freeing it can be. Last week, I faced someone's anger at me. For the purpose of love and healing (an essential frame for the visualization to be healing). I allowed them to 'kill' me. I can't remember the details of the image, but I know it relieved some tension in our relationship. I saw differences.

Over the week, I thought it wasn't only the other person who wanted to 'kill' me; it Was also me who wanted to 'kill' them. I had to face that. I was sure that some of my anger at this other person had nothing to do with them. it was misplaced anger at my mother. I adored her. She was also lethal. She became enraged when she didn't get things her way. She needed total agreement with everything. I had to know 'what to do,' whatever she thought should be done. It was maddening. I have never dealt with the depth of my anger toward her. I still hadn't after this session. But I was able to deal with my anger for the other person. While I'm comfortable with my experience, I'm not comfortable sharing it in this format. Some may take the impulse literally. Many thoughts and impulses arise from the depths of our unconscious minds and don't result in action. Thank God. But those forces can be unleashed.

The massacres in Rwanda in 1994 is a frightening example. That impulse was unleashed. We all need to be on the alert. We can't take it literally. We can't make that part of our brains our masters. Neither can we assume it's not there. It's there in all animals. We have to surrender it to God in the Christian tradition or sit with it with equanimity in the Buddhist tradition. If we don't acknowledge it, we leave ourselves open for disaster. Those poor Hutus who woke up from that dream to discover what they had done. Many still soothe themselves by believing their hands on violence was justified. That's one way of dealing with the horror, but it doesn't lead to peace; it only leads to more horror. We are the most dangerous animal on the planet.

My image; it was violent and relieving, not because it 'destroyed' the other person, but because I observed the anger calmly, trusting it would do no harm to the other person. These images always have to be done for the purpose of love and healing of both parties. They may, in fact, be dangerous if they are taken too literally, even in our imaginations. I faced my anger calmly. I didn't have to fight it anymore. I didn't have to deny it to protect myself from seeing it in myself. Again, I saw an immediate change in myself and the other person.

At 10:15, I had an appointment with twenty-six-year-old S. No, she had done no reading since our meeting on Tuesday. Today, she ran into a problem. She couldn't remember words she had been reading with ease. This is common in the learning process. It could be a reversion to an old pattern or the mind fighting back. Her brain was changing with the new learning. I wasn't concerned about the 'setback.' But I was concerned about her emotional reaction to it. I worried she would take it as a bad sign.

S particularly struggled with the name Deena. Not only couldn't she remember the name, which she read repeadtedly every time we met, she couldn't remember the double ee stood for the long /e/ sound. Then she couldn't for the life of her sound the na in the right order. She kept switching it to an. She allowed me to push her through. She got it. But I'm not sure what was going on in her brain. She couldn't tell me. I assured her we could fix it.`

I called the supervisor at the solar company I engaged to replace the solar panels I got from Hawaiian Solar in 2017. Those panels wound up being a bad batch. Many have given out already. They were replaced one at a time- but it took forever. There are only seven Hawaiian solar customers affected by this problem. Beth, the office administrator, is one of them. The company decided to give these customers the choice of continuing with them or accepting a warranty payment. I chose the payment, not knowing all the implications.

Provision Solar assigned a young man to my case. He asked me basic questions. He called me again to say he needed the Enphase report on my current panel production. He encouraged me to go with the complete replacement, using 400 kw panels instead of the 300 I have now. That was the last I heard from him. On March 14, I had Beth send him a diagram of my existing panels, showing which had already been replaced. I never heard from him again. I didn't even receive the proposal for the partial replacement. I called him; he said he had sent it out last week; he was on the road now and would send it out when he returned to the office. Nothing. Today, I asked to speak to his supervisor. He said I would have the proposals in the next 35 minutes. I received an email containing only one proposal. I called the supervisor to report that I received the complete replacement proposal but not the partial one. I received both within the next 35 minutes.

The supervisor advised me against replacing the defunct 300 panels with more of the same. They were hard to find. Was he telling the truth? I called Beth at Hawaiian Solar. Beth confirmed that the 300 panels were hard to come by. They weren't making them anymore. She had to search in the back rooms of warehouses. I trust Beth completely.

The other question I had was about the tax rebate. According to the proposals the young man sent me, I am entitled to a tax rebate with both proposals. I checked this with Beth, too. She said no. If I just replace the panels that had never given out, I would not be eligible for the tax rebate. I will check this information with my accountant.

I was home all day because I had the fifth appointment with the Sears repairman. Two of them were canceled at the end of the day to say they didn't have a repairman available. On the third one, the problem was diagnosed. On the fourth visit, the repairmen discovered the wrong parts had been sent, and he had to reorder. The fifth visit was a successful one. My refrigerator ice maker worked again.

I am making changes in response to what I'm learning. I've stopped drinking orange juice. after my shoulder and elbow surgeries, my caretakers fed me orange juice daily and oatmeal. I continued after they left. On one of the podcasts, orange juice was condemned for containing too much sugar. I substituted green tea for the o.j. Green tea is considered a superfood.

I also learned the importance of having contact with the Earth on one of the Huberman podcasts. Everything on my property is rocky. Darby and Patrick have a lovely, thick lawn. I asked her if I could walk there once a day. Of course. I could feel the difference immediately. I don't know if it is as healing as it claims to be, but it feels good.

These podcasts also discuss diets, such as sixteen-hour fasts and sugar-free diets. In response, I ate more and gulped down sugar. I panicked.

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

I called first-grade BZ's mom this morning to say I didn't think she required more tutoring. I recommended we meet once for a half-hour session and the following week for fifteen minutes so she didn't feel abandoned because she did well. That would be a damaging association. First, her mom said okay. Then, I asked her if she agreed with me. She said she would prefer to stop cold turkey and continue if BZ asks about it.

I have fallen into a Steve Bartlett podcast sinkhole. From what I've heard, his is the most popular podcast on YouTube. He interviews people on human development and improvement. It does me good to hear about the struggles of all human beings to be better people. I don't know if it will help me improve or just be comforting to know I'm not alone. Either way, it isn't a total loss.

Bartlett interviewed Steve Peters, a psychiatrist. Peters talks about improving our social/emotional life. He talks about the three parts of the brain from that perspective. I was interested in understanding it from a cognitive perspective. Many of my students are resistant to using their conscious minds to learn. They want it all to come easily without effort. I tell them I'm on their side; I share their goal. However, we need to use our conscious minds to train our unconscious minds. Once our unconscious minds have learned, there's no stopping us. Peters said the unconscious mind, which he called the computer, is a huge storehouse of information, operating 20 times faster than the conscious mind, which he calls the human mind, and 4x faster than the emotional mind, which he calls the chimp mind.

Research shows that most of what we do every day is dictated by our unconscious minds. Those neurons in the back of our brain and those involved in firing muscles are in play before our conscious minds start to stir. The role of our conscious minds is to observe and judge the efficacy of the plan our unconscious minds have already put into action. Our conscious minds have the role of putting on the brakes. The conscious mind is occasionally involved in evaluating choices and making decisions long before an action is set into motion. This is a cognitive view of these three parts of our brain.

I went to Ulu Wini again today. I go twice a week. As I approached the table where the students sat, Ipo asked who wanted to work with me. No one responded. Then, she told third-grade BR she was it. BR made a face. I imitated her face and told her to come. She smiled and came. We continued working on her automatic recall of words. She went through all the sight word lists I had on hand, words 1-200, whereas last time, she only took on the first 50 words. I need to print out lists through 400.

I called on 3rd grade AR next. I noticed yesterday she didn't understand the concepts of before and after. I called in 3rd grade BER to help. I formed a line with the three of us.

Then, I went through who was before AR and who was after AR, etc. Then we turned around and did the same exercise. I had AR list everything she did in the morning when getting ready for school.

She listed eight activities listed. I then went through her. She brushed her teeth before washing her face and her face after brushing her teeth. Yesterday, I asked her the words before and after in her parent's language. She had no idea. Today, she identified those words. This is a significant step in language awareness. It might have been possible there were no words for before and after in her native language. If not, there would have been another to express the concepts, but not two words.

When I worked with Adolescent D today, he delivered an amazing surprise. He now thinks figuring out words is fun!!!! Halleluiah!!! If he keeps playing with it, the sky's the limit. He also follows my directions, looking for the familiar parts of the word. He identified the suffix -tion before the rest of the word. For those of you who think all words should be read from left to right as they are written, know the eye movements when we read constantly jerk back and forth. We collect the familiar parts and assemble the word on the fly. Even Orton Gillingham teaches that. Identify the suffixes and prefixes first. Suffixes come at the end of the word. Those of us who process lines of print in a single glance know the unconscious brain, the part that processes information 20x faster than the conscious mind, does the work. We don't know exactly what it does and does not do.

No one else wanted to work with me after that. I was packing up when 3rd grade SE sat down with an eager look. I asked if he wanted to work with me. Yesterday, I worked with automatic processing. He only made it through the first 25 words but was amazed to discover that his mind gave him those words without struggling. He repeated that performance today. He was thrilled. So was I.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

I finally got around to trimming the shrubs that had gotten out of hand along the driveway. I reached many of the branches in the front with ease. Since I was cutting a nine-foot shrub down to six feet, branches at the top and back were hard to reach, even with a three-step ladder. I thought I would have to ask someone to help me, but I figured out a way. I feared using the step ladder on the uneven ground by the fence. Then I calculated that I would be safe between the stability of the six-foot wire fence and the dense shrub. I was.

I filled one 5-gallon Home Depot orange bucket with the shrub cuttings. Darby carried it home after we walked together in the evening. I will fill it up again when she returns it until the driveway is clear. Then, I’ll start on the next shrub.

I didn’t weed the mulch patch where the Ficus trees had been removed. I was waiting for my short-handled pick axe to arrive on the 15th because this rocky ground is hard to dig in.

I went to Ulu Wini today instead of Thursday. Sears was scheduled for the third attempt to fix my ice dispenser. So far, all the parts delivered were the wrong ones.

I started with 3rd grade SE. Ipo called him several times to work with me, but he refused to come. I finally walked across the yard and ordered him to work with me. I can appreciate his reluctance. The last time I worked with him, it was nothing but frustration and failure. Today, I started with the first 50 words on the Fry Sight Word List. I don’t know if I had already showed him how to draw on automatic recall. If I did, he hadn’t remembered it. Today, he got it. He went through the first 25. He was surprised every time his mind produced the correct response. I tell the kids to say what their mind says, even if it’s the wrong answer. All the mind’s responses give me information on how their mind works. Then, I can diagnose the problem.

SE did better the first time he read through the first 25 words than the second time. I asked him if there was movement in his brain. He first told me no. Then he told me there was, but it was in a different place than last time. I guided him through a spin release. Where last time, the spin increased in speed before it stopped; today, it decreased in speed before it stopped. He also told me the ugly brown mass at the top of his head was gone. Looks like we’re moving in the right direction.

Fifth-grade RC asked to work with me. Before, I read the text from Hatch and asked comprehension questions. RC asked if she could read it herself. Her word recognition is weaker than her comprehension. I stopped the work on comprehension and concentrated on decoding multisyllabic words. Fifth-grade MA heard what we were working on and asked to join. They both caught on to the six-step procedure for decoding multisyllabic words I teach. I gave them paper, pencils, and my Kindle and told them to work on their own. Now they saw this as a game, nothing could stop them.

In my second session this week with first-grade BZ. Yesterday, we worked on her discomfort when things don’t go her way. Her mom confirmed this was a problem in all aspects of her life. Today, I continued working on related problems besides her need to have everything her way; she needs everything to be easy, too. She doesn’t feel good putting in effort. She reported that her reading was better, although she was still in a group of underperformers. I assured her she was way ahead of her grade level in other ways and she would be fine, better than fine. Her memory of a story and comprehension are off the charts.

Today, something unexpected came out. She was scared of a shooter attacking her school. Wow! These poor kids are sitting trapped in the classroom with that specter hanging over their heads. They do regular sniper attack drills. When I was in elementary school in the late forties, we dove under our desks in anticipation of a nuclear attack from Russia. Really!!?? Did anyone think being under our desks would protect us?

Back to BZ. I taught her statistical likelihood. I drew two rectangles. For the first, I asked her if her mom had given her dinner the night before and whether she would give her dinner again tonight. She said yes. For the 100%, I filled in one of the rectangles. When I asked how much of the rectangle I should fill in for the chance of a shooter attacking her school, she also said the whole thing. I drew a comparison between her mom giving her dinner and the likelihood of a shooter hitting her school. Did one come yesterday? Does she think there is a good chance one would come tomorrow? No, on both counts. I colored in a small portion of the second rectangle. She said it relieved her fears.

Monday, April 8th, 2024

I made it to the Chi Qigong class by 8 a.m. Roger, who led the class last week, was there, but Clyde was leading it now. He barely knew what he was doing. He knew the moves, but he couldn't execute them. Roger took over after Clyde finished one sequence.

That made a huge difference. Clyde will take over the class in May when Roger and Janeen leave for six months in Colorado. At the end of the class, Roger said he was amazed at how well I caught on. I told him I was a dancer.

I was never a professional dancer, just an amateur. As a child, I did improvisational dance daily. My paternal grandfather sat in our living room every day from early morning until after dinner. , My mother said the other residents in the apartment building thought he lived there. He might as well have. He wasn't beloved, only tolerated, but he was my savior. He asked me to dance to the classical music that was constantly on the radio. I danced my heart out. I vented my fear, loneliness, and general sorrow. I don't think I would have made it without that release. I was jumping out of my skin.

One of the Chi Qigong class participants, a professional Hulu dancer, led us through a foundational exercise. I learned that the Hulu's bent knees demonstrate humility. We were instructed to imagine a five-inch nail into our belly button toward the spine with a glowing red tip. We were to see the red tip getting brighter. I didn't feel the image. More instructions would have been helpful.

Janeen was one of the most naturally beautiful women I have ever seen. I saw a twenty-something restaurant hostess that might have her beat. However, she was in her twenties; Janine was in her late 50's or early 60s.

I had an appointment with twenty-six-year-old SE. Each time I meet with her, I ask her if she did some reading on her own. She would tell me she didn't have the time. I pushed her to answer the question with words like "No," or "I thought about the words," or" I glanced at one of the stories you emailed me,", . . . . anything. "

Darby texted me that she had returned the large trash barrel that I wheeled down to her house with palm fronds. She uses them for compost. Last time, it had been sitting there for days before I noticed it. I could load up another container of green waste to deliver to her house. As I came up from the yard after putting another load together, Elaine was in my driveway with a good-sized slice of her homemade vegetarian lasagna. Her son had visited, and it was one of his favorite dishes. I said, "Ooh! I'd love a slice," just making joyful conversation, expressing appreciation for her cooking skills. She took me literally, which I didn't object to, but I also hadn't expected her to remember. Yet, here she was delivering it. I reminded her I was delighted, but she didn't have to. She said she knew that. Most people understand I don't expect people to give me what I ask for. By the way, it was delicious. I always appreciate someone else's cooking.

Later in the day, I got around to vacuuming up the spot where Elsa peed the other morning. When I turned around after cleaning up that spot, I found she peed somewhere else.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

I had a terrible night. I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to start the day. When I checked the time, it was 12:30 a.m. I spent the rest of the night in a light doze, haunted by sadness and disappointment. I really have very little to complain about.

Today, I played the gentle yoga video on YouTube but didn’t make all the moves. I preferred to err on the side of caution until my back pain cleared up. I did complete 4,000+ steps on my morning walk with Elsa. I ran into Dean and Nina, who updated me on their new baby chicks.

They ordered 17 baby chicks by mail. Only ten survived. Dean thinks they died because they were kept at the Minneapolis airport for two nights instead of being shipped out immediately.

I had a good time in church, falling into a delicious sleep every now and then. This happens when I meditate, too. I went to Petco after church to change my appointment for Elsa’s grooming -again. I changed it from Monday to Wednesday to attend the Chi Qigong class at the Ole A(the old airport) park on Monday between 8 and 8:45 a.m.

I’ve been watching This Is Us on Netflix. I got up to Season 3 Episode 3 before I got worn out. Is the show a serial frustrater like Lost was? I hope they conclude it with a resolution instead of leaving us in suspension. We need a coda. Real life leaves us in suspense. My niece Shivani said one of the benefits of reading is escape. I have never been able to use it that way. I suspect I never felt safe enough in my childhood home to take my eye off my immediate environment. No, I was not physically attacked- never, but the verbal attacks were loud and percussive. I consider my inability to find comfort in books a loss.