Friday, October 23, 2020

            I had a session with D. today.  He asked to work on the math instead of the reading. Memorizing the multiplication facts is very hard for him. He has severe memory problems. I wrote the problems we had studied on the whiteboard. He wrote in the answers. He got 9x4, 6x7, and 9x7 correct. They came up correctly. He was shocked. I was pleasantly surprised. Could we be making some inroads on memory? That would be fantastic.  Then I wrote 2x3; he said 9. 

            There was only one other event worth mentioning for the day. I got myself a water storage cage.  What is a water storage cage? It is a roughly 4'x4'x4' plastic container wrapped in wire, which holds 275 gallons of water. I'm in the process of preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. To that end, I went to Home Depot to look for another rain barrel.  I already have one sitting in the backyard with 50 gallons of water. I figure always be ready for the worst.  I used that rain barrel water to flush my toilet the other day after having our water shut off because I  ran over a standing garden pipe. Home Depot didn't have a 50-gallon rain barrel, but the woman pointed to a water storage cage sitting at the store's front.  I thought no. That's not a rain barrel. That's what my neighbor used to do his aquaponics farming. 

            I spoke to Scott when I got home. Yes, indeed, people use those water cages to collect rain run-off.  I told him to look for one when he was out shopping for materials to replace the subflooring.  He called and told me everyone was out of the cages.  Apparently, Lowe's had them stacked up, and they're all gone. I'm not the only one preparing for the worst.  I must remember to buy more toilet paper. 

            I got on Craig's List to find one. I found one- and on this island for $50 less than Lowe's was selling it for.  B. went down to pick it up.  He said the guy was destroyed by something, probably drugs. I had checked that it wasn't unusable because of previous chemical storage. The guy told me he had a water softener in it, cleaned it with soap, and blasted it with a firehose. Now, that monstrosity is sitting in my front yard, empty. 

            My original plan was to put it in the yard off my bedroom and fill it with the garden hose.  Scott said it could, in fact, be used to collect rain from roof run-off.  Now we have to find a place to put it.  It will require doing something with the ground, which has to be leveled.  This will be his next project right after the flooring is finished. 

______-______-______

            Musings:

            Some see the anti-abortion movement as an attack on women.  The emphasis on reproduction is historic; it was established long before the concept of any human being having an individual right was even a twinkle in someone's eye, no less a woman having any rights.  The emphasis was on making more babies, so 'our group' would outnumber 'their group.' There's strength in numbers. 

            When I was in grad school in Wisconsin, I had lunch with Elliott and his wife. He told the story of having premarital counseling with a rabbi. The rabbi asked them what their family plans were.  Elliot spoke about their plans to complete their Ph.Ds. before having children. The rabbi said, "What about the six million?" Being the comedian he was, Elliot replied," I think we can handle one or two, but six million is probably beyond us." I laugh every time I think of that poor rabbi. That rabbi was not trying to control Elliot's wife. He gave no thought to her one way or another.  He was thinking of the six million.  Reproduction became a moral imperative of religious groups.  It just so happens that it leaves women more hamstrung than men. 

            Taken out of the religious context, one can argue about the morality of killing a human in any form. Women whose children die as a result of their drug use can be charged with something or another.  Their drug use did kill their unborn child.  

            I personally find the idea of having an abortion tragic. It is hard on the woman. I prefer that we teach safe sexual practices and pass out free contraceptives than push abortion as a solution. In this country, many groups are opposed to any mention of s-e-x in the schools, no less passing out contraception. These become moral issues too.

            If we follow the principles advocated by religious organizations, arguing that abortion destroys a human soul, to their logical extreme -OW! Conservative religious organizations argue for contraceptive free sex between married persons only.  Well, for now.  But the concern for providing safe transfer of a soul into a human body can take an extreme form.  

            I haven't either read or seen Handmaid's tale; I understand it is concerned with controlling women for the purpose of reproduction. I don't know how my extreme vision compares but here goes.  If the concern is for a soul, a religious belief, all women of childbearing age should be pregnant, breastfeeding, or working on becoming pregnant again.  In our age of technology, we can invent a way to determine when a woman is fertile and make it illegal for her not to be impregnated whether her husband is available or not, whether she has a partner or not; the state can provide a stand-in.   All this in pursuit of a moral principle. 

            Jeffry Dahmer's father spoke about having a bad mental habit attach itself to the sexual engine.  I think it is just as dangerous when some idea becomes attached to a moral judgment, particularly in the case of a religious principle. It shuts down all discussion, all other considerations.    

Thursday, October 22, 2020

      The telephone rang at 3:45am.  I was dozed, lying there thinking about the two more hours to go before I wanted to get up.  It was my Microsoft customer service.  I told him the time; he apologized and hung up.  I immediately regretted not getting up and dealing with the problem.  He said he would call back later in the morning. I got up at 4, leashed Elsa, and headed out to get my 6,000-step morning walk done so I wouldn't be on the road when he called.  I was prepared to walk out of the morning yoga class when he called. Solving the Zoom problem was my top priority.

       I needed to download iCloud to the tablet so I could send recordings to other Internet sites.  Microsoft store asked for Mike's email password.  Sadly, he didn't make telling me his passwords on his death bed a priority. Someone I spoke to said Microsoft Customer support could reset that password.  Not being able to get iCloud on the tablet has been a significant frustration. 

I have iCloud on my Apple Computer; I can get Zoom on my apple computer, but it does not have a touch screen, so I can't use the whiteboard. The tablet has a touch screen in Zoom, but I didn't have the iCloud option, so I can't make the recordings available to others. Geez, Louise. 

      My computer support person helped me download the iCloud to the tablet.  However, I don't think he realized he had been successful. He directed me to go to Microsoft Store. It asked for Mike's email password. The wall. The agent asked me for Mike's email: mross@pcj.edu.  He searched for it and said it didn't exist. Huh? I'm sure the seminary that issued Mike that email address has deleted his account. They knew he was dead, and there was a good chance he would not use it again.

     The agent told me that my only option was to have the computer hard drive stripped and start afresh. I caught a glimpse of this picture of Mike he took by accident one day as he was focused on the computer screen. I'm sure he didn't mean to. There's interest in his eyes and a softness to his face. His hair is also a total mess. It's a great shot.  I started to cry at the thought of losing it and maybe other stuff he had on the tablet. Mind you, I doubt there is much. I don't think he used it for word files. He used it for the NY Times crossword puzzle and Zooming with a spiritual director from the mainland.

After I got off the phone with Microsoft customer service, I signed into Zoom on the tablet. Ah, iCloud was available.  It worked. I don't have to strip Mike's tablet with his wonderful picture, his name, and my name as the password.  

       Scott went shopping for the materials he needed at Lowe's today. He spoke to Tom from Acoustical Surfaces. Tom was a bubbe.  He was willing to give Scott advice even though we weren't buying anything from his company. Of course, they did make money off of me- the restocking fee.

Scott said Tom said that the rubber acoustic under layering was not damaged by the screws.  Huh?  I called Mike from the QT company, the manufacturer. Oh, boy. I didn't ask the right questions. No, the material has not been degraded by having screws driven through it. The holes just close up when the screws are removed. The material's effectiveness is compromised with screws and staples driven through it because they transfer the sound from floor to floor.  I called Floor Coverings Hawaii immediately to cancel my order.  Angela told me that my order was already on the boat coming from Honolulu.  I will have to pay a reshelving fee- and the shipping fee. It's an expensive mistake. 

Tom advised Scott about the best way to insulate the space between the floor and the ceiling from above.  Scott had left some space.  It may not make a lot of difference, but I will know that we have done everything we can.

       Yvette put out an APB on Facebook, looking for someone to help me with my computer problems. Lo and behold, someone who works at Island Health Care with her responded.  Hawaii is an amazing place. We don't all know each other, but it is still small enough that someone I know knows someone I just ran into. And it is a place of kindness and consideration. So lucky to be living in Hawaii!!! That's the bumper sticker, but it's hard not to say it for real after living here for a while- if you belong.

There is a story that the island, meaning the rock we stand on, not the people, chooses who gets to stay.  If you don't belong, life is made unpleasant.  If you do belong, the island does what it can to hang on to you. Mike and I felt the island saying, "What the hell took you so long," when we arrived. Things went so well for us. 

      I can't imagine a better place to be now that I've lost Mike.  Before it was, everything would be all right because no matter what, we would be together. Well, guess that doesn't work anymore. Here I have so much that makes life more bearable – even with this pandemic and the untenable political situation.

      I've been complaining about how stressed I feel.  My tolerance for not getting what I want is lower.  It shows up with the kids I work with. I don't mean I yell, but I'm not as internally calm.  Their difficulties are getting on my nerves.  I miss Mike beyond words. I miss his hugs that soothed me.  I could curl up there and feel all was right with the world. My stress would dissolve.  I feel unnerved as I do when I am overtired or painfully hungry. Frazzled.  At the end of the day, I finally cried.  Crying doesn't come easily to me.  I wish I could do more.  My body needs the release. Grief is a bitch. It is so exhausting.

       I had two appointments during the day. One was with Et. I wanted to record it but couldn't get back to record option once I had put up the whiteboard.  I wanted to do the whiteboard first, so my face was just in a little square on the side of the screen instead of filling it.  I hate the way I look. I don't know if I ever looked at pictures taken at the time and saw something I liked.  Of course, I look at the same pictures ten years later and think," Gee, I wasn't that bad looking."  I can imagine people, particularly women, chuckling in recognition as they read the above words.

      Et., D's sister, was even more enthusiastic about the impact of our work. We've only done five sessions now, working on a total of eleven words; we worked on three the other day.  The first session was just the taking-the-words-apart activity.  In the second session, I introduced how to decode unfamiliar words.  

Today, some of her problems showed up. After we analyzed one word, she asked to read a passage from a book.  I discovered two issues. She intrudes sounds: today, she read popped as plopped and made a similar error with another word.  I recommended that she name all the letters in a sentence without working on reading the words. This is again a way of heightening awareness of what is. 

     She told me she had a problem because she read in a monotone. Well yeah, she doesn't stop at periods.  I read a few sentences to her, modeling what I sounded like when I did that.  She was able to read it correctly when she read out loud with me. 

       I also had an appointment with adolescent El later in the afternoon. He gets straight As; his problem was creeping depression.  I did five 15-minute sessions with him, and his mood turned around.  (Will this last forever? I don't know.  Is he good for now? Yes.)  I have persuaded him to continue working with me. 

        This session led to his feeling of loneliness.  This boy was born to two very young people who were not together (a one-night stand at a drunken party) and were not ready to be parents.  While his dad is no longer in the picture, his paternal grandfather and his mother are both committed adults at this point in his life. 

      The work I do with him goes very quickly.  Of course, I have known him since he was six, and I helped him learn to read, as I have his sister and his younger brother.  I am a trusted member of that family at a distance. I assume my long-term role in his life has made my work with him easier.  

        Yvette's friend D. from Hawaii Heart Care came over around 5pm to help me with my computer problems.  I had solved a major one, but I still couldn't play the videos I had recorded.  They came through to my email address, but I couldn't download them.  D. said, "Forget yahoo; use Gmail." I sent the Zoom emails with the videos over to my Gmail address. He was right. I could download them from that site.  D. also solved several other problems I had. First, I could not figure out how to get the virtual keyboard up on Mike's tablet.  Now, that was easy. 

       The second problem was more serious.  It seems that my Quiet Queen playlists have been emptied. My Microsoft customer service guy noticed that.  I was shocked. I had no idea.  I certainly hadn't emptied them. How did it get that way? Ah, August reformatted the files so they could be posted on Bandcamp.  What a nightmare. D. was able to do something to send the files for two of the stories to others to use. No one has complained to me. Of course, no one knew what they were supposed to look like.

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Musings:

      I am for democracy. I'm in agreement with the old saw, "Democracy is a lousy political system, but it's the best we got." Can we get a crazy at the helm? Absolutely. Apparently, the ancient Greeks who formulated the idea of democracy realized that flaw. A demagogue could gain power. 

       The alternatives are monarchies and oligarchies.  As far as I can see, that doesn't guarantee protection from a rogue ruler who only advocates from a limited perspective instead of being concerned about all the people in the realm. 

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." That line stands on its own.  We always have to be on the alert for elites.

    As an advocate for democracy, I support the idea of multiple sources of power that pull in different directions, where everyone can have a voice.  In the push and pull, we wind up with the best that is possible at that time. If we get a dictatorship, a single point of view can dominate. 

       I don't agree with most of Trump's political positions.  While I didn't vote for him, I was interested to see what he would accomplish. 'Good 'changes come from surprising sources. There's always the law of unintended consequences.  Who knows what will happen?  

    As I see it, the problem comes when opposing voices are no longer respected, whether that dismissal comes from the right or the left.  Contempt! Oh, boy, it's not just deadly for marriages.  

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

   I started walking differently- again. With each step, I try to engage my psoas muscles.  The ones on the left are weak.  I think I have had a problem with them all my life. When I was nineteen, after joining the Dance Club at college, I remember having pain there. The doctor thought it might be a digestive problem, but nothing showed up.  

     I had an appointment with my life coach today.  Most pressing on my mind was the pain of a woman I had never met.  She is the sister of a friend. Every time I see the friend, I hear horror stories about her sister's behavior.  The other day I heard that the mother of the two girls believed that she couldn't love the sister. She told the father that she had to be his favorite. 

      These girls had a very loving mother. My best guess is that she did indeed love both her girls. In terms of treating them fairly, my guess is the sister who the mother thought she couldn't love completely got more in compensation. 

      But here comes the dark side of demanding that we be loving to all in the same way.  When we're not, we feel guilty, even ashamed.  I suspect the sister didn't really get less of anything; she just got a distorted lens to see it through. The mother's guilt/shame colored the sister's perception of the situation. 

       The sister's claim that she always got less has validity. It's her story. It isn't even the story she wrote. It is the story her mother wrote. Whether it is objectively true or not, that poor woman was in terrible pain.  I had asked permission to pray for her.  I felt interpsychically connected; I felt her pain.  The first thing I did was communicate to her that she had a reason for her pain. I didn't make the distinction between the objective truth and the subjective truth. For her purpose, it didn't make much difference.  I had the image of her being on a flat plane like a prairie. Then a single head popped up, like a gopher coming out of its hole. This was the first time this woman had received acknowledgment of her truth. She had reason to be in pain. 

       I told Shelly, the therapist, this story primarily because I was struck by the dark side of the excessive demands we place on ourselves. My mom was a holy terror, constantly criticizing me, constantly telling me I could do nothing right – but I never questioned her love for me – or her hate.  My mom felt zero guilt about her behavior. She thought she was doing something good for us by being that critical. Go figure. 

     I didn't have anything in mind that I wanted to work on in the therapy session. I've been scheduling them once a week because I feel so stressed and get so much out of them.  I was preoccupied with this woman's pain.  Shelly and I spent the whole session focused on that sending her reassurances and healing.  I had no idea if it made a difference. I do know that it made Shelly and me feel better. We both had gurgling stomachs, which I consider a sure sign that something good had gone on.  When I hear that in my healing sessions, I call it applause for my work.  It is relaxation that I look for, signaled by that gurgling, to assure me that I am doing beneficial work.

        I had two tutoring clients today, D. and M.  They are both frustrating.  They have problems way beyond the quick fixes I've developed.  I can look at it as an opportunity to develop something new.  I suppose I do, but I don't seem to have the patience.  I can only hope that I can control myself enough not to do outright damage to these kids.  I don't know who can do a better job than me. 

      D. was tired today, and getting through a paragraph was a struggle.  I always have to remind him of the strategies I taught him to decode words.  He has made improvements in his inferencing skills when he decodes the words' correctly.' Correctly is in quotes because correct decoding never guarantees the word's standard pronunciation. Reading English requires strong inferencing skills.  Those out there who had to learn it, take heart; Hebrew is much, much worse. Theirs is an alphabetic language without letters to represent the vowels. Yikes!

     M's problem is that she does not use background knowledge appropriately. Ah, as I type this, I think I have to do more modeling with M.  I have to tell her my thinking, how I arrive at the understanding of the material using the words in the story, and my background knowledge. 

What I did work on with M. was releasing some fear. First, the fear of getting it wrong, and then the fear she felt when she was younger and had a slight speech problem.  I don't think her problem was particularly severe, but I suspect that her parents' reaction to it was intense.  At least, that's the impression I got when I had my interview with them. After working with the fear of making a mistake, M. said she felt better. She felt much better after working on the fear she felt as a young child with a speech problem.  Those two releases took all of 5 minutes.  The rest of the session was a conference between the mom and me while M. was there and some work on the story we had worked on last week. 

       Darby called around 5:45 pm and said she was up for joining me for a walk. As she approached me, she commented on my stride. She said I didn't look like an old woman.  That was from using my psoas muscles more as I walked. Yay!

      I watched more of Hinterland.  It is gloomy, but the acting is spectacular. I also love the Welsh names Gwilliam, Gweneth, Alun and the way they pronounce them. Yum. 

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

            This was a frustrating day.  I worked on making the Zoom video. Not much luck.  It was one obstacle after another. My first goal was figuring out how to record a Zoom meeting on the iCloud versus just locally, available only on my computer.  

            Since I had no success on Mike's tablet. I knew I had iCloud on my Apple, so I tried it on there. Yeah, that was the problem. On my Apple, I could record it for my iCloud, but then I couldn't retrieve it. 

            Yvette suggested that it might not be recorded unless I was meeting with someone else. She had me invite her, then she just left her phone on and let me do my thing. I still couldn't retrieve the videos. 

            The next challenge was downloading iCloud on the tablet. I went to the Microsoft App store. I was instructed to sign in – under Mike's email address. Sadly, he didn't think to give me his passwords while he was dying in the hospital. How inconsiderate! Oh, well.  

            I suppose I could strip the tablet and start from scratch, but I don't want to. 

That way, it will always be Mike's tablet that I'm just using, borrowing – from him.  Little games to help me pretend he's still a part of my life.

            I also called Amazon to see why my subscription for the crossword puzzle wasn't respected. The subscription wasn't through Amazon. I had to call the New York Times. 

            I got this great agent; besides being helpful, she found me a scream.  I think some of her laughter was a nervous release. We're all at our wit's end.  I hoped I did something to lighten her load for the day.

            The problem was Mike's NY Times Crossword icon was dead. The agent told me to Google the puzzle. It came up perfectly.

            While all this was going on, Scott started working on ripping up the carpeting. He rolled it all up onto the lanai area. We decided to do the whole room instead of just where we could anticipate someone would walk on to the bathroom at night. Yvette also thought that if someone lived in that room permanently, they might rearrange the furniture. 

             Once the subflooring was exposed, you could see where some of it was delaminated. Scott said he could feel dips in the flooring. I remembered feeling that right through the carpeting. Scott estimated that it would take eight 8 by 4 sheets of plywood to lay the new subflooring.  Once he started pulling up the old plywood sheets, the source of the problems became apparent.  First, the sheets are roofing sheets only 3/5" rather than 1" sheets.  No wonder there was noise. Those sheets weren't thick enough to resist bending as they were walked on.

       The second problem was the nails that were used. They were not the right ones; they were too short and only applied around the sheets' edges. It was an all-around lousy job. 

            Scott will lay down 1' plywood sheets; start gluing them down with liquid nails, and then drill in screws. This should make a great deal of difference.

            I went out to do some chores. I started with the Post Office. I had never seen a line that long. I went to the bank across the parking lot to cash a check. When I came back, the line was much shorter. The woman in front of me had six (6) kids with her, all hers. They were an amazing bunch, stepping-stones from four to ten. The four-year-old remained in the mother's grasp. The older five played a game. They were holding three boxes, which mom was going to mail. The game was," Do you want the box?" They passed it to the next person. Someone else had a cap on, and that was passed around similarly.  I suspect they were homeschooled. Mom never said a word to one of the older five, not one word. We were online for a long time. Amazing.

Monday, October 19, 2020

            I woke up around 3am. I was able to doze on and off till shortly before 5.  During that time, I resolved a few problems.  First, I decided I would check if subscribing to Zoom would give me access to that video. (By the way, I had my student’s mother’s permission to record the session. I blocked her face during the recording, and we used her brother’s name instead of hers.  Before I send this out via email to anyone, including my sister, I will get her permission in writing to transmit it over the Internet.  I want to be very careful to respect everyone’s need for privacy.)

            In my morning musings, I realized that I could describe that session with the girl in my introductory explanatory video even if I couldn’t retrieve it and use it as is.

            The other thing I did in my morning musing was plan for Armageddon.  I have one rain barrel with 50 gallons of water, but we will need more.  I had already bought about a dozen LifeStraw Water filters. I knew where they were.  I wanted to count them again and order more.  I’m planning for the needs of everyone on the block. 

            I got up and checked the closet for the box of green tea, where I had stored the water filters.  I couldn’t find it in the forever closet. I checked all through the house. I couldn’t find it anywhere. There is no way I would have thrown it out.  I had to be in the house. In the meantime, I ordered twenty more.

            When I spoke to Dorothy, I told her to expect a package and take two of them for herself before sending them on to me.  Why do I go through Dorothy? The shipping cost was $75 from the company to me in Hawaii. The shipping cost to Dorothy in New Jersey was $0.  When she gets them, she will send them on to me through USPS for something like $6 to $12. 

            I finally started vacuuming my lanai.  I started with the Shark vacuum cleaner. After doing the area once, I emptied the container. I went over the site again with the Shark.  I only got a little dirt up on the second pass. Then I went over it with my Rainbow vacuum.  When I cleaned out the collection tank the first time, it was filthy.  The second time there was dirt in it still, but not nearly as bad. I moved the furniture back into the clean area and vacuumed that furniture.  I’m doing a thorough fall cleaning. 

            I called the Board of Elections to ask about my ballot. I thought maybe it had never been mailed out because I hadn’t voted in the last election. I didn’t find my misplaced ballot until the election was over.  No, they had mailed one. They were mailing another. Trump’s voice echoed in my ears.  “Will the first ballot be voided?” Yes. Ah!!!! They assured me it would be.

            I also called Island Naturals. I had ordered a gallon of Dr. Bronner’s Rose Castile soap a while ago. It should have arrived already. They told me their order hadn’t been shipped. They had to start from scratch. It would be in on the 28th.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

            I went to bed late last night because I watched the end of the movie Manchester by the Sea. I didn't call Dorothy immediately. I enjoyed walking in silence for a while. 

            When we did speak, I told her I had watched the movie. She said she heard it was good but very depressing. Yes and no. It has nothing to do with politics or violence.  It has to do with several tragedies and how people cope and don't cope with them.  The main character, played by Casey Affleck, doesn't find a way to make peace with his demons.  He used avoidance before the tragedies to deal with life, and it was his only strategy afterward.  

            I think there is a role for denial.  I had to learn how to use it. Too much awareness, being so flooded that you can't focus on much else, isn't a good system either.  A balance, yay! For balance.

            I found the zoom video I recorded yesterday with one of my students was still downloading. While I'm sure it's safe somewhere on the computer, I have no idea how to access it.  I was in tears. 

            The video had some interesting twists.  I let the girl pick the first word, and I chose the second. In both cases, the method was demonstrated. I'm sure some will be critical.  It demonstrates how you can wind up with a pronunciation that is not 'correct' even though it was correctly decoded.  That happened with one of the words.  The student chose to divide the syllables for the word democracy in the following manner: dem/o/crac/y.  That is a perfectly acceptable way to divide that word: there is a vowel in each syllable, and each syllable looks like it could be an English word.  For those who are curious, here's a syllable division that wouldn't work: dem/ocr/ ac/y.  While every syllable has a vowel sound, no English word ends with a cr;  therefore, that division can't be correct. 

            Dorothy made some modifications to the PowerPoint I created to introduce my system for teaching reading. I included my personal email address in the PowerPoint so people who were interested could request a copy of the transcription of the audio file or ask me for clarification of the technique. I think that's not the best idea.  I wanted to set a contact through a blog.  I looked up my daughter-in-law's blog; she's an author with her own wiki entry.  I couldn't find her blog. How do you find blog topics you might be interested in?   I asked Cylin how I could find her blog

            She said she hadn't used one for ten years. She uses Instagram. People have told me that Instagram is only suitable for still pictures. That's all I see on it. Cylin says I can post videos, articles, dialogue with visitors, and post material to be downloaded. Okay. Maybe that's the way for me to go. 

            I did some more work trying to retrieve that video I made on Zoom. I knew I had retrieved two before; they were on my desktop. I couldn't figure it out for love nor money.  

            I texted August, telling him I was on the verge of tears. Three problems: 1) I couldn't get jam board on Google Meet; 2) I couldn't download the aforementioned video, 3) I was told that blogs, which I was planning to use to post information on the reading method, were out.  

            Dorothy came through, and she dealt with my near hysteria. Yay, Dorothy! She got on Zoom with me, displayed her computer screen, and showed me how to get jam board on Google Meet.  No sooner had I accomplished than I discovered a problem with this site.  When Dorothy hosted the Meeting, she could write on the jam board, but I couldn't.  I need something where my students can write on it as well as me.  

            I search the Google Meet page for the record icon.  I couldn't find it. I finally asked a direct question. It doesn't provide this service. I bet this is one of the reasons the public schools block Zoom from their computers. They don't want to have to worry about teachers recording and posting sessions with their kids. I can't say I blame them.   

            I started watching a Welsh mystery series Mike and I watched together Hinterland.  It was satisfying, even though I remembered the episode, well, I partially remembered it. There were details I had forgotten.  I certainly couldn't anticipate every line.

_____-_____-_____

Musings:

            The President of the USA didn't criticize 'fans' of his who planned to kidnap, try and kill an elected official.  Instead, he publicly criticized the official. Then at a rally had his followers chant, "Lock her up."

            Let me see, I think it is illegal to advocate the overthrow of our constitutional government.  Oh, right. Trump was just having fun.

            When kids do things like that, we remind them that while something might be fun for them, it can be hurtful for others.  We can expect eight and nine-year-olds do not understand this concept, but not the president of the USA, really?

            One year two third-grade girls hung together who were bullies. They would say things just to upset people, including teachers. One day I asked one of them, 'Why are you so mean?" She protested, "I'm not mean." I said, "You enjoy upsetting people and frightening them." "Yeah" "That's the definition of mean." 

            The following year I heard that she had become a nice person. The next year, one of her cousins was in the 3rdgrade.  She asked me if I remembered her cousin. She told me that it was my words that had caused the change. Wow!  I can't begin to tell you how that makes me feel, then and now.  

            Sadly, the other girl, who had been her bullying buddy, didn't change.  She shunned me.  Her power was in hurting others. How sad.  

Saturday, October 17, 2020

            Instead of being out the door for my morning walk shortly after 5:30, I started out at 6:15.  That wasn’t going to give me much time to get my steps in.  

            As I entered the driveway on my return home, I saw Scott chasing a chicken.  One of the yogis caught the chase on videotape.  The chicken has an unusual headdress; She’s a black chicken with a fan of white flowers on top of her head.  Scott couldn’t catch the bird, but he did manage to chase it out of the driveway. He closed the gate immediately.  Since we do our yoga with four dogs, why not one chicken.

            I sent Judy the video because I had seen that chicken in her driveway.  Yes, this chicken had just arrived one day and joined the chickens in their compound. 

            It was a dull day.  I did a lot of writing. At the end of the day, I finally composed my introductory words for the video, demonstrating word recognition and phonics.  

            When it came time to do my before-dinner walk, I called Darby to join me. I was starved for in-person contact.  I can’t imagine what it must be for those confined in apartments, going out only to shop -if that, with no personal contacts accessible.  OMG! 

            I set out on my walk. I planned to make it longer than usual because I hadn’t met my quota on my morning walk.  I had become obsessed with reaching the 10,000 steps and see the column for the day on the pedometer turn green.  I have done this successfully for seven days straight. There are some days when I have done more than 10,000. I fulfilled more than 100% of my weekly objective. Hmm!

            I watched Manchester by the Sea with Casey Affleck. He is actually a good actor who doesn’t get the hype his brother does.  I looked up his biography on Wiki. He was an alcoholic; it runs in his family.  His addiction is less spectacular than his brother’s—what a burden for people to bear.

            _________-______-______

Musings:

            I am reading the Twilight of Democracy.    The ancient Greeks understood that democracies were vulnerable to demagogues. Is there any system that avoids it? 

            Applebaum, the author, sees our current surge for populism as a result of meritocracy.  She sees those who failed wanting a system that is based on loyalty, not competence.  I see that as happening in our national government now. 

Trump appoints people based on their loyalty to him, not their competence. 

            I have heard people say, “Trump has a right to choose who he wants.” Yes. I can’t imagine a president putting someone in a position of power who strongly opposed him/her.  The question is, what percentage is loyalty, and what percentage is competence.  When people who have no background for a job are assigned based only on their loyalty, that’s a problem.

            The question is, how large a part does the loyalty factor play.  If a leader is off enough, only sycophants may apply. If someone never wants to hear criticism or a contradictory word, we have a problem. -and we do have a problem.     

Friday, October 16, 2020

            I found my old dorsal brace. The doctor had told me to wear one to help with my plantar fasciitis.  When I got up in the morning, it was easier to walk in a balanced way.  Having the brace on my right foot made my right leg longer.  Ah, if I want to balance my hips, it makes sense to make my right leg longer and force my left leg to reach for the ground. To do that, I had to bring my right hip back further and my left hip forward. I switched the heel insert from my left shoe to my right.

            The insert had been in my left shoe because the PT and everyone else believed my left leg was shorter than my right.  My left leg may or may not be shorter than my right. What I do know is my hips and back are twisted.  Until I fix those two problems, there is no way I can know what is going on with my left leg.

            I had an appointment with D. this morning. We have been working on comprehension for quite a while. Sometimes, he initiates reading several pages out loud. However, he continues to make the same mistakes.  I don’t know how to help him.

            I started back to the beginning.  I had D. read the sentences slowly. He confuses reading quickly with reading well. He confuses quantity with quality; he races through the words.

  We haven’t made it through chapter one yet. Every word is work with this child. Fortunately, his mother sees that he is improving. She doesn’t understand the process, but she does see the effect.

            When he made an error in a sentence, I transcribed the whole sentence phonemically. I did the writing. Then I had him read the transcribed sentence. He made the same error.  I pointed out his mistake and had him reread the sentence. He read it correctly. 

            He spoke about having to do everything right.  I told him that wasn’t the objective. The objective is to develop strategies, so everything can get better.   I’ve had variations of this talk before. Hopefully, some of it will get through. 

            At four, I had a Zoom appointment with Et. and his parents. This session was more with the dad than with Et.   Unlike our first appointment, I couldn’t engage the child. I asked dad if he had tried any of my suggestions.  Yes, he had tried stepping up when he saw the confusion on an adult face when his son spoke to them, announcing he was the boy’s translator.  He said it made his son feel better.  I asked him if it made him feel better. He said yes. I told him that was just as important. Children are very keyed to their parents. If a parent shows stress, the children become stressed.

            The dad told me that the boy has been listening to the audio file with phonemic awareness.  He said he listens, sometimes makes the sounds along with the tape, and then asks to have it played again when it’s over. Wow!  Okay.

            I had noticed that the boy had problems enunciating the phonemes pronounced in the back of the mouth. Dad said those used to be his go-to sounds. Huh?  

            I suggested that he touch places on his son’s tongue and some other part of the mouth and challenge his son to get those two points together. This is to develop body awareness of his mouth, not to pronounce any particular speech sound. 

            I talked about how this exercise will relate to producing speech sounds.  I talked about how different sounds are formed.  Dad had the necessary background to get this easily.  He had speech problems as a child and had therapy.  The mouth formation was discussed then.  I was providing a refresher course.

Thursday, October 15, 2020

     Today I called Tom from Acoustical Surroundings to get numbers to figure out how much it would cost me to ship his product versus get it locally. The only mediating factor was how soon I could get it.  If I got it through Tom, it would be out of the warehouse in a day or two, off to Dorothy, and then another few days to get here through USPS.  

         I calculated that it would cost an additional $100 per roll to go through AS and the US mail. When I called the local company, Floor Coverings Hawaii, they said they could it have here in a week.  Theirs is a branch of a company, and there's a warehouse in Honolulu.  Also, I can order one roll, which may be enough to cover half the room and know that it won't be a long wait if I have to order more. 

            I finally got around to spraying my front yard and the yard off my bedroom with vinegar. Once done with a gallon of vinegar, I filled up the sprayer with a gallon of water and continued a job I started several weeks ago, washing my six-foot by four-foot lanai screens. This method works well.  I spray the water across the screen, assuring the maximum amount of water on the screen. Rags catch the water. I ring them out into a bucket. I do that until the water runs clear down the screen. It's the easiest method and also the most effective.

            I heard about the documentary My Octopus Teacher on NPR.  Ah, what a delight! I don't want to watch anything edgy. Life is edgy enough; thank you.

            I was set to do the Zoom video with my 5th-grade student today.  I thought to provide some explanation of what we were doing before presenting the work.  In the half-hour, before 10 am, I put something together and recorded two practice runs.  I was able to make some changes in the camera placement and my Gerry-rigged teleprompter, my second computer.  I have written about this process so many times working up a script at the 11th hour wasn't that hard. I was satisfied with my words, but not with me saying them.  When I see the video of myself talking, I am appalled at how bad my bottom teeth look.  I give Steve Buscemi a run for the money. 

            There I was sitting at the computer, all gussied up, and the student was a no-show. I texted the mom, telling her I was ready. Maybe mom or the girl decided to back out, but it was unusual for the mom not to be straightforward and use ghosting instead.  My first thought was more time to practice. My second thought was, 'I think I can do a better job demonstrating the process without a student to model it.  I can do that in a later video.'

            Later in the day, the mom texted me to tell me that she had misplaced her phone. In the vein of, there are no accidents. I chose to believe that the missed opportunity helped me think of the other option.  I feel more comfortable doing this without a student.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

     The event of the day was a session with my therapist/ life coach. I have never been in better shape in my life and am amazed by each session how much more there is to do. This session was about fear. So much to be afraid of, a major national crisis with the coming of the election. I can't see how it won't be bad one way or another. The country is so split in such extreme ways. 

          I'm also facing all this alone. I've had some talks with Mike about this recently. He would always say, "It will be okay." He was the perennial optimist. Me, I prepare for the worst and hope for the best when I'm in good shape. When I'm not, I get overwhelmed by fear contemplating all that can go wrong. When I reminded him that things could indeed go south, he would say, "It will be okay because we will be together." We would face the problem as a team. Neither of us would be alone.  Just thinking those words were comforting, even though we will not face the future together. Despite all that is going on and my being alone, my bout of grief seems to have passed.  I assume it will come back again sometime. I'll deal with it then.

       In the vein of the political divide, I heard one man on NPR, someone who was called to share his opinion, that he believed the Biden would become a dictator. He is convinced that he is a 'socialist' and all socialists establish dictatorships.  The idea that this country could become a socialist dictatorship is as likely as the idea that this country could become a theocracy where abortion is illegal and the use of contraception. I suppose both are possible, but not immediately likely, although we have someone in the white house who advocates for the theocracy. 

       In dealing with my emotions, I use imagery.  When my therapist asked where I was experiencing my fear in my body, I found it sitting in the pit of my abdomen,  looking a little like an upside-down heart.  

When I released it, the image took the form of a creature looking a little like the cat from The Cat in the Hat, running like all get out, dragging me behind. That's sure how it felt. 

        I have been working on extending love to those I disagree with, foes, and friends. I dread being overwhelmed by fear and hatred if I find myself under attack because I'm on the 'other' side. That's the worst for me.  I want to go down as a loving person, not to be a good person but because it feels good to be loving, and it feels absolutely terrible not to be. 

        I realized that the only way to calm this fear was to love it.  When I sat and sent love to this creature pulling me all over the places, it shrank, deflated in effect.  I don't want it to go away.   When working with clients, I compare fear to a barking dog: it barks at everything. It is for me to discern what requires a response.  Really, the mailman doesn't. Just because Elsa barks indiscriminatingly doesn't mean I shouldn't love her. I can tell her to quiet her bark, but I count on her to warn me if something untoward is going on.

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

             Dorothy was working with a high school student who I believed was suffering from an auditory processing problem. We talked about him periodically. She had made remarkable progress with him. She had also given him a copy of my audio file, but he hadn't listened to it yet.  I could appreciate that. I recommended something unfamiliar to both of them.

            Dorothy was uncomfortable using my phonemic awareness method. It was so frustrating. I felt like Cassandra. Dorothy said she felt uncomfortable because a) it was unfamiliar, and b) she felt like I represented it as a miracle cure.  I do share success stories, but I suspected her resistance to getting involved was because of my tone of voice.

            I could sympathize with her.  I had a friend who talked about religious and political matters in a tone that sounded like she tried to convince me to see it her way. I know her intensity made me uncomfortable.  I also know it would be much better to describe what I do in a balanced way, offering it clearly instead of being pushy or messing up my explanation. Thirty years ago, I had a friend who commented on my presentation style. I agreed with her evaluation then. Sad that I have made so little progress. I can't find a middle ground, a sane place.

            Dorothy had a fantastic suggestion. She suggested I make a video with a student demonstrating what I do. She said when she looks for directions on doing something, she skips the written directions and looks for a demonstration.  I had an ideal student for this purpose, one who just needs a little bit of help rather than one who can't read at all or is three years below grade level.  

            I couldn't believe her mom would agree, but I screwed my courage to the sticking point and asked her. The mom said, okay. Wow! I didn't know if she had asked her daughter yet. 

            She asked me if it was just for limited distribution to people who might have an interest. I realized that I couldn't control what those people would do with the video. I told her to think about it. Since we were doing this on Zoom, I could block her image and her name.  All that would be available to viewers would be her voice and the work, as displayed on the whiteboard. 

            I spent a good part of the day looking for and formulating a consent/release form for the mom to sign.  Hopefully, it will be enough. 

            I got hold of Tom from Acoustic Surroundings during the morning to ask him if the acoustical padding I had put down had been destroyed when Scott top screwed in 500 + screws through the carpeting to secure the subflooring. Yep. It has been destroyed.  I would have to replace it.   

            I told Tom our plans to pull up the carpeting and underpadding and then rip up the replace the subflooring. The theory is a) the plywood had delaminated, and/or b) the joists were of uneven height, causing the subflooring to dip and squeak in those spots. He recommended that Scott use both liquid nails and then screw the subflooring down on top of that. 

            Tom told me that my product was 5 mm thick. He recommended their 9mm padding. It was more expensive, naturally. I called the local company to determine how much it would cost to replace the padding through them. He also recommended that the acoustical padding be glued down. They sell that glue comes in 5-gallon buckets. Can you imagine shipping that mother to Hawaii? OMG! I hope I can find something that will work.

            I also called Kaiser. Yesterday I got a flyer telling me of changes to Medicare Part B.  It only affected me in relatively minor ways.  The prescription cost was going up by a few pennies, and then out-of-pocket is going up from $3400 to $5,000.  Yep! Mike's five-week hospital stay with two visits to the ICU and a personal watcher for about a week to make sure he didn't pull out the ventilator tube only cost $3400.  Hopefully, I will never be in a hospital that long- ever.

            I had two students today.  I worked with D. He planned the lesson. He wanted to read Socks from the first page again. We still hadn't finished chapter one. I believe in the benefit of chewing language. Each paragraph, each sentence provides an opportunity to learn how language works. 

            D forgot a very big point.  A group of three loud quarreling siblings approached Debbie and George, saying they wanted Socks. I asked him how Debbie felt about these kids. He got it dead wrong. This poor kid. He has endless memory problems. He gets in information in; he can't retrieve it. 

            He made mistakes as he went along with his word recognition. I decided to make notes on words he missed and use the phonemic awareness strategy I developed to reinforce accuracy. However, every time he came across a word that required work, I reminded him of the strategy that I taught him that he knew worked for him. If this was driving me nuts, imagine how it affected him. 

            I also worked with M. Her mother sent me the text on the Montgomery Boycott.  I hate to tell you how many details I missed, allowing assumption to carry me. There were no fatal errors, but I did make assumptions that blocked my reading a passage accurately.  I told her what mistakes I had made. 

            I passed the Verbal GRE with a score of 760 out of 800 and got straight As in grad school. I'm no slouch.  I am sure some readers would not make the mistakes I made, but I can say that my reading is good enough. I try to teach the students if I catch some information that contradicts my assumption, I need to go back and change my interpretation.  I share information about my errors with students and the strategy for correcting those errors. 

            I directed the lesson to get her to think of herself in situations similar to the characters and make inferences.  The first sentence is about the 'bright bedroom light' going on.  I asked her how the light went on. She talked about a fan going on turning on the light. I had to pull a sensible answer out of her even though it wound up that her mother did when she got her up; she flipped on her bedroom light and told her to get up.

            M. does a remarkable job working from words, but she can't use her background knowledge even when easily available.  I spoke to her directly about this observation after listing all her strengths.  She said she noticed that problem too. 

            In the middle of the lesson, she said, "I'm going to guess . . . "I have never heard her say that before. I wonder if her real problem is that she is afraid to make inferences because she is afraid of being wrong.  That would be easy to fix. I asked her how her reading in school was going. She says they haven't done any reading. Ow!

Monday, October 12, 2020

                  I wanted to write down what I did today because it helps me remember that I did something with my life other than stare at a wall.  I got up late. I had switched off the alarm for some reason.  Then there was driveway yoga.  I worked on the article. I wrote some about why I think my reading method works.  I have managed to reduce the article from 14 pages to 7. 

            Mike, the carpet guy, finally came by. He said he could re-lay it after Scott pulled it up and rolled it tightly.  We had been waiting for him for several days so we could get the process started.  I wanted it done before election day. I expect the end of the world to arrive on that date: the whole economy to collapse for one reason or another.

            I found the books I have ordered through Amazon on my Kindle. The customer service agent just had me shut the Kindle down, reboot it, and go to the library. There they were.

            The gardeners were here today. I am more proactive with them than Mike was. Mike would be so proud of me. 

            I participated in a half-hour workshop on something called Book Nook, which makes books available digitally. It allows me to work with students online using leveled material. I won’t have access to it until I am officially a Step Up Tutor. 

            Laura, one of the administrators for Step Up, told me they had received my second fingerprint form.  It was currently being checked to see that it was filled out correctly. Oh, boy.  I’m beginning to feel hopeless. But that’s okay because I have students coming in from other sources.

            Yesterday, Yvette moved a four-drawer bureau to retrieve a ball for Elsa. Wow! I have trouble opening the drawers in this piece of furniture. She left thinking I might like to clean behind it before it was moved back.  After I wiped up the dirt back there, I tried to move it. I discovered that the bureau was easier to move than the individual drawers.  Here I had been so impressed with Yvette’s strength.

            I called Darby to ask her if she wanted to join me for my before-dinner walk.  I giggle with her. What a gift! She is the person I can do that with. Laughter, light giggles, big and small smiles were the bedrock of my relationship with Mike. Boy, I miss it.

            Darby and I went all around the block. This Is the first time I’ve done that in months. My leg was in great shape tonight.

_____-_____-_____

Musings:

            I learned about attention residue.  

            I think I was listening to a TED talk on attention. It talked about two negative aspects of attention switching or multitasking.  As I remember, it was specifically about responding to emails while at work.  One negative effect was attention segmenting.

            That’s not too hard to understand. You switch attention from one task to another, not because it is time to stop but in response to the pull of an extra call.  It means you never get to build up a head of steam when working on a project.

            The second aspect was even more interesting to me: attention residue.  This means that while you’ve returned to the main task, your mind is still processing, mulling over whatever the distraction was about. Even without a heavy emotional load to deal with, the mind does not let go of something that easily.  I think PTSD can be viewed as a heavily loaded attention residue.  It continues to command our attention and does not allow us to focus on the task before us.