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

Sunday, June 21, 2026

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

I did better last night. I put on the Tapping Solutions to assure a calm mind. When I first put on the app, there was no sound. I thought it might be the app's fault. I called Kona Vet not to speak to them but to check whether my earphones were connected. They were. I switched the phone to the speaker mode. Still no sound. I tried another call to Kona Vet. Again, the phone was in headphone mode. I switched it off, but it still got no sound. I got up, found the nearest headset, and turned it off. Still no sound from my phone. I found the other headset and turned it off. Finally, I had sound from my phone.

When I want the earphones connected to my phone, it's erratic. The earphones are on my head, the phone is on an end table at my elbow or in my pocket as I walk, and the earphones will disconnect. It will take me a minute to figure out what happened. It's most annoying. Then, I have the opposite problem of needing help disconnecting them when I want to. Grrr!

I had Mama K's twins this morning at 7:30 a.m. I work with them for a few minutes every morning. Research shows short, frequent sessions work better than long, infrequent ones. That's my experience too. With Twin A, the goal is to get more fluent reading. She doesn't process the words automatically but pauses before each word. She self-corrects when she reads, which is a good sign of automatic processing. She had difficulty with one sentence because the syntax was awkward. I thought it was a poorly constructed sentence, too. However, I didn't have trouble reading it. A is doing very well analyzing the phonemic structure of each word. She hears the sounds and identifies which letters make those sounds accurately.

While Twin E is still behind Twin A in decoding unfamiliar words, her reading is more fluent on the words she recognizes easily. There's been an improvement in her comprehension, too. However, she repeats details instead of summarizing or expressing her thoughts in her own words. I started modeling summarizing.

Today was Elsa's follow-up appointment. Two weeks ago, she had ten teeth removed. Some spots required sutures because holes were opening into her sinus cavities. Her sutures were healing nicely. She didn't have to wear the Elizabethan collar, and she could resume her long walks. Still, I should continue grinding up her food. Hard kibble might get stuck in one of the holes, interfering with healing. I didn't ask but assumed I no longer had to hand-feed her.

The first few days, I hand-fed her with ground-up kibble. I ground it up in the blender and then put one tablespoon at a time in my hand. I quickly figured out I could use two bowls and scoop out a tablespoon at a time from one bowl into the other. That was much easier. I also tried the coffee grinder instead of the blender. That worked better, too. No, I don't grind up fresh coffee every day. I haven't had a cup of coffee since 1975. I had a reaction to the caffeine.

An old problem cropped up. Elsa's lesions were back. She used to have a miserable case. The doctor said it was an allergic response and put her on steroid medication and Science Diet for digestive allergies. None of that worked. One of the vets finally recommended Royal Canin Ultimo. Wow! That worked like a charm. Her skin problems cleared up completely. She had a setback due to the stress of the dental procedure and the anesthesia. I've been treating the lesions locally. They clear up quickly. The vet recommended bathing her with medicinal soap. I still had plenty. She is recovering her lovely, clear skin quickly.

I had a twenty-six-year-old SL today after she returned from her trip to Las Vegas. She still does no reading, not even labels or road signs. She is unresponsive to print and makes no effort. While she can read at a low level, she makes no effort alone. While I appreciate why she is the way she is, I have limited tolerance for her passivity. When I see it in children, I work on it with them. They're young and deserve every chance. SL is twenty-six. I told her I would eventually quit if she didn't try.

Adolescent D continues to make minor improvements. He catches most of his errors automatically and tries to correct himself. Whatever it is, it is progress, however slow and painful it may be.

I finally made it to the skin care store to pick up my monthly supply. What!! The only thing I was entitled to for two hundred dollars was a jar of night cream and a body lotion. I was furious and demanded my money back. I was told the owner, Giovani, was away for two months. Apparently, the two hundred covers a facial. Giovani told me he had sent a skin sample to the Mayo Clinic. He heard back that I had severe eczema. I went to my doctor. She told me I had no signs of eczema. I know Giovani never took a sample of skin to send for testing. That changed him from a hustler, which I accepted, to a scammer, which makes me sick. I don't want anyone there touching me.

I am distraught because I want the 'loving' attention only a sociopath or a loving mate can provide. These folks with the skincare company are good. I knew what was going on at the time. I recognized my vulnerability. I 'played' along. I don't mind the substantial loss of money as much as I mind the reminder of my tremendous loss since Mike's death. He loved me. He liked me. I loved him. I liked him. His foibles were cute even when they sometimes made me good and angry. But the good outweighed the bad by a country mile. This incident triggered my grief. Is the only place I can get that quality of attention now from a sociopath? How tragic is that! Boy, I miss that man!

After I was through with the skin care store, I drove to the Humane Society to drop off a 14 lb. bag of Royal Canin dog food I had ordered incorrectly and couldn't return. I tried to sell it through various sites for half price, but I had no takers. I took a long, winding road with a low-speed limit to get there, not realizing there was a much faster way. I took the quicker way to go home.

There were two deeply upsetting pieces of news on HPR today. One was about the decision to close the schools during Covid. Apparently, there was plenty of evidence that it was not passing quickly through the schools. So much damage was done by closing the schools. The response to Covid was hysteria, mass hysteria. Those who resisted saw the government in evil terms regardless of what they did- not exactly rationally based either.

While not all government is evil, a single governing agency over a larger and larger population is a problem. We were designed to live in small groups of under one hundred fifty people. A few leaders would emerge, but the rest of the group carefully monitored them. Their proximity made it easy to do. Their behavior had to serve others, not themselves.

They think the small bands of hunter-gatherers lived lives with complete equality among the group members. Even men and women were considered equal. I don't know how much of this a wishful fantasy that humanity is even capable of such a thing and how much of this is an accurate assessment based on anthropological analysis of the few remaining hunter-gatherer groups. We are not designed to live in large groups under a single leader or leadership agency. The voice of the individual gets lost. While I see the problem. I don't see a solution. I think some feel that if each individual had more freedom, that would solve the problem. Here comes anarchy.

The primitive solution is unavailable because too many of us are in too small a space. The original hunter-gatherer groups lived with plenty of open land between groups. They didn't run into each other at Target. The government is there to negotiate rights between people when they can no longer do it face-to-face. The ability to do so ends when we don't know each other and aren't forced, by circumstances, to settle differences directly with the support of the other group members—or not.

Modern religions developed to deal with the expanding population. Judaism and Islam are both religions designed to unite warring tribes under a single head. The purpose was to eliminate open conflict and find a peaceful way to live together. Both religions proposed rules of behavior that everyone agreed upon. With those agreed-upon rules, there could be peace.

The second piece of upsetting news was a proposal that proof of citizenship should be a requirement for voting. The rule is not inappropriate. Still, suppose it's enforced in the November election. In that case, they estimate only 10% of the population will have the necessary documentation to vote. I have a birth certificate, but my passport has expired. I bet only the rich who regularly jet-set from one country to another are guaranteed a current passport.

Monday, June 10, 2024

This was my third night of agitation. I went to bed late, exhausted from a day of emotional turmoil. I was so tired that I asked Isaac to drive us home from the Thai restaurant last night. I wasn’t fit to do it. I went to bed at 10 and woke up two hours later. On a good night, I sleep through to 4 a.m. Not last night. I slept fitfully the whole night. I didn’t know if I could teach.

Twenty-six-year-old S canceled. She was recovering from her return flight from Las Vegas, where she visited her family. Folks in Hawaii have a thing for Las Vegas.

Isaac accompanied me to the Chi Qigong class on the beach at Old A. I focused on myself while we did the exercises. I caught Isaac from the corner of my eye; he was into it. He said he enjoyed it. He loved being at Old A. He said he had regular outings with his students two years ago when he was here.

We went home to work on my closet area. There’s a heavy table with several leaves blocking access to the window; Isaac said he would help me move. I couldn’t move it on my own. The two of us worked hard to get the job done. Isaac removed half the window and the screen. He cleaned the one fixed in the frame, leaning out the window to reach the far end, while I cleaned the screen and the removed side of the window out in the yard. We got the job done in time. Isaac commented on my mobility. I love working hard and fast. It lifts my spirits. My mom was that way. She thrived on hard work. I get down when I’m not active enough. It’s not just keeping busy; it’s the adrenalin boost.

I was disappointed in the way the windows turned out. The stains were still there. One section was covered with connected hexagons like a bee hive. I have no idea how that happened. I thought it was because I hadn’t cleaned the windows. I was concerned all my windows would be vulnerable to that staining. When I looked it up on the Internet, it said that staining was due to moisture getting between the two panes of glass. It had nothing to do with my negligence.

Isaac and I got to the airport in plenty of time. He was off for the next phase of his life. This was a brief vacation between his graduation from college and his entry into med school.

It was a Ulu Wini day. I worked with going into second grade KS. I forgot to work on his serious handwriting problems. Everything about his hand grip is wrong. How do I describe it? He holds the pencil far up on the shaft with straight fingers. He flicks the point across the surface of the paper. He has no control. Today, having forgotten to check my notes before I started working with him, I went right into practicing the sight words. At the end of first grade, students should have the first 100 words memorized; KS is still struggling with words 1 through 50. Today, I noticed how he slowed down more and more as he progressed. I asked if it felt as if his mind was getting stuck. Did he wrestle with a spinning sensation in his head? Yes. I did a spin release with him. While this procedure is unusual, I’m delighted to say I’ve never had a student react badly. I am careful to have them not do it if it frightens them. I would be concerned if they did this while frightened. It might deepen a trauma rather than lessen it. When he reread the list of words, it went more smoothly.

Going into 6th grade RN also needed help with handwriting. He asked to work on cursive. I did guided activities with him. He rested his hand on top of mine as he wrote. His hand and arm moved with mine. Then we changed, and my hand rested on top of his. I can exercise some guidance in this position, making minor adjustments in his strokes. I also get to feel how their hand and arm move when writing. It’s a beneficial exercise.

I tried to go to the cosmetics store again today. I drove down to the church after Ulu Wini. I was so tired that I napped in the church parking lot while Fr. Lio broke up the cement on the walkway. The man is so hands-on. I didn’t have the energy to take on the hustlers at the cosmetics shop, so I just went home.

I had my fifth session with third-grade LG. He told me he had started reading signs. I was shocked. Reading signs is something an emergent reader does. It took a year before Adolescent D started doing it. But LG could read a third-grade passage well enough to know what it said. D was reading at a low first-grade level when we started.

LG read a low third-grade passage with accuracy. Today, I started him on making the best guess when decoding unfamiliar words and using context to figure out the correct pronunciation. Dehaene, a French neuroscientist, said that figuring out a word in context is something all English readers have to do. What does the word ‘cook’ mean? Is it a noun, a verb, or an adjective in context? English is complex. That’s what makes it fun.

Sunday, June 9, 2024

A second night of bad agitation.

After church, I went to the cosmetics place to pick up my monthly supply of goods. The people there had no idea what I was talking about. They finally said they were a new crew; I should return when the bosses were there tomorrow.

This was Isaac’s last full day in Hawaii. He was flying out tomorrow. He spent the day with another friend. We planned for me to meet him at his Turo drop-off location at 4:30 pm when the car was due. He had to take a series of photos of the car, as he had when he picked it up. I thought he did that for his own sake as a precaution. He wasn’t doing it for himself; the Turo owner required it. I suggested he take one shot of the car showing the location in the background so he had time-stamped proof of when he dropped it off.

We went out for dinner again. Again, we talked endlessly. It was a good thing we could amuse ourselves; it took forever for us to be served. We placed our order right after the dinner rush for take-out came in. We ordered some spring rolls to tide us over. That meal was half the price of our meal at Huggo’s. Good thing I don’t have too many guests. I’d go broke eating out this much. Of course, most of my guests come knowing they’ll be doing the cooking. Isaac’s culinary skills were about at the same level as mine.

When we came home, Isaac and I watched some videos. I showed him the work of CDK, particularly their dance to “Someone I Used to Know,” which is my favorite. The choreography has an absurdist touch, and I love the absurd. I looked for other work by the CDK dance group on YouTube. CDK Jr. danced to Beethoven’s Fifth, which is also remarkable.

A CDK group auditioned for one of the competitions that Jennifer Lopez judged. She commented on the quality of their synchronization, knowing how difficult it was to achieve. She tried to get her dance group to do it and couldn’t. Some of their routines use just synchronization; they’re not to my taste. They’re more than not to my taste. When percussive movement dominates, and it has a Brave New World feel, I don’t like it at all. The routine to “Someone I Used to Know” blends synchronization with idiosyncrasy. It’s fantastic.

Isaac realized Hit Man was a movie rather than a series. I checked the plot on Wiki. Oh, boy! This is not for me, even if it is a comedy.

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Something happened that threw me off my pins. I didn’t sleep well. I fell asleep okay, but two hours later, I woke up in an agitated state that became worse as the night wore on. I was glad when the night was over.

Isaac and I continued our discussion on whatever came to mind. We think alike. We both like to analyze and bat around ideas. It’s fun.

I took on the large lawn in front of Yvette and Josh’s door with my new lawnmower-mowing therapy for my shattered nerves. I hit a few bumps. One was hard enough to shut down the lawnmower. Had I broken a second one? Hawaii has an abundance of rocks, and they shift around. Isaac came to say something to me. I told him I thought I had broken a second lawnmower. He stayed calm and walked the periphery, picking up loose rocks. Then he went on his way, and I happily finished mowing the lawn. I love mowing with the EGO battery-powered mower. What a difference from a gas mower! I got the lawn mowed despite concerns that the mower was broken. If it was, it was damaged in the same place the other one had.

Casey came by to chop down the unsightly dead fan palm at the top of my driveway. I was on the lanai, listening for the sound of the chainsaw and wondering when he’d get started. He called me. What was the problem now? The other day, he didn’t have the tools. He was done. The tree was in slices. The top piece had the dead palm fronds attached. I got to work separating the fronds from the trunk. I used the four-inch pruning chainsaw B, which had just been fixed. This time, I oiled the blade and the chain before using it. I stuffed the trash barrel with the fronds and the branches I had cut off from one of the shrubs and wheeled it down to Darby’s.

I called Sears again on Lutz’s advice. I complained about the serviceman’s social skills and his evaluation of the dishwasher. She asked me if water was coming out of the front of the dishwasher. If the water wasn’t coming out of it, it was a plumbing problem. I have to call a handyman.

Tonight, I got to see what Royal saw at the bottom of the hole on Outer Range. Hmm! Maye not. And then Amy was kidnapped. I turned it off immediately. I don’t need that aggravation before I go to bed. I switched to watching Hit Man on Netflix. It looked like a fun comedy – until I checked out the plot on Wiki. I don’t think so.

Friday, June 7, 2024

The acupuncturist came at 10 am. She worked on my upper back and sore wrists from typing and playing endless games of Free Cell.

I continued contracting my chest muscles and reaching my arms forward to straighten my thoracic spine and realign my neck. Maybe I don't use the nonexistent muscles on the ventral side of my cervical spine. It's the muscles on either side of the front of my neck. It eliminates my double chin but adds folds at the base of my neck. I don't think I will fool anyone into thinking I'm under forty.

I worked with Mama K's Twins today. While reading the updates from last year, I saw the girls hadn't made that much progress. I was anticipating they would be reading at a third-grade level then. They do- sort of. A's comprehension is good. But she lacks fluency. She reads slowly. Today, I got what the problem was. She couldn't relax and allow automatic processing to take over. She has that tight, conscious grip on the reading process from over-reliance on phonics. I don't know if she had a choice. It was hard to get anything into her long-term memory. It required endless repetition. Both girls had terrible memory problems.

I started working with Twin E on comprehension. She has already made some progress, inferring the correct word from a well-decoded word that resulted in a different pronunciation. This is a significant step. I started giving her three choices:

The real word.
One that sounded somewhat like it but made no sense in context.
One that neither sounded anything close to what those letters might represent nor made sense in the context of the text.

Yay!! Adolescent D is beginning to pay attention to the syllables in a word rather than try to decode a multi-syllabic word one phoneme at a time. That doesn't work. We always read one-syllable units and figure out how they fit together. The phrase "It is a…" are three single-syllable words. However, they are said as a single word. As I said, we're always reading one syllable at a time and figuring out how to connect them.

I had my third appointment with third-grade LG. His mom was off to the side now. She's too anxious to be helpful when LG is working with me. I continued with the phonemic analysis. I don't have to do much. LG has picked up the ball and is running with it. At the end of the session, he declared, "This is fun!" He is having more fun than me at this point. I feel restless in the sessions. I don't know why. LG will be leaving soon for a 10-day vacation. I asked him if he would be willing to fit in a third session with me before his vacation. He said yes. Wow! This is an impressive turnaround.

After the session, I spoke briefly with his mom, who readily agreed to a third session. I told her getting him to read better shouldn't take long unless there was a glitch I hadn't detected yet. LG loves the process. That means he'll do it on his own. From my perspective, I've done my job already. What's left is saving him time by telling him what I know about phonics. That will be a time saver, but he will learn it all more quickly if he learns it on his own.

I went to Ulu Wini today. I called fifth grade RM, who I discovered couldn't do subtraction with regrouping, to work with me. Without any additional effort on any adult's part, Fifth-grade LY and ML joined us. They all needed help with subtraction with regrouping. Fifth-grade ML blew my mind, getting me to see something differently. I gave her 306-165=. Her answer was zero when she subtracted six from zero (0-6) in the tens place. Wow! Of course, she's right. If you ask someone to give you six candies, and they have none to give you, you wind up with none or zero. How to explain the concept of the negative number. It's the first leap from the concrete to the abstract. Sticking to the concrete perspective, if I have 5-6, the answer is 5. If I go to someone and ask for six candies, and they only have five to give me, I wind up with five. Therefore, the answer to 5-6 is 5. Wow! The book" Is Math Real?" opened my mind to this perspective. I love it!

Isaac and I had another long conversation. We do that well. He's working to figure out what he wants in a life partner. He evaluates his parents' marriage and says it's not perfect. He must have used the word perfect in the negative over five times in our conversation. He's struggling to define his own needs. I told him not to judge his parents' marriage for their sake but only to use it as a guide to help him determine what he wants for himself. Facing his constant use of the word perfect, I said if he used it one more time, I'd wash out his mouth with lye soap. The word perfect should be used only in one context -when declaring something is perfect as is. The search for perfection is doomed to failure. Perfection is unfattenable. If that's your goal, you will fail almost by definition.

I started watching Outer Range on my friend Jean's recommendation. The actors are fantastic, the dialogue is good, and the plot is interesting so far.

Thursday, June 6, 2024

B was at my door at 6 a.m. with five eggs. He warned me they were dirty. They had grass stuck to them. I told him about my chainsaw. I don't qualify as a master mechanic. He offered to take the tool to see if he could fix it.

Isaac used the eggs B brought up. They were fertile with blood spots and fetuses. Isaac picked them out. Eating something with eyes was too much for him despite the additional protein.

I had a dental appointment for a cleaning. I asked Roxie about her kids. Her oldest, a boy I worked with briefly when he was still in elementary school, had just graduated from high school and went to work with his dad's construction company. They were currently working on a major project in the southern part of the island. They stayed there during the week and came home on weekends. One of her daughters has a problem with reading. The school was providing tutoring.

I told Roxie about my dishwasher problem. I wanted to hire a handyman at $50 an hour before I called a plumber at over $100 an hour. She had the name of someone. She also mentioned that her son could do it. I may ask for her son if I can't get a handyman in.

I finally made arrangements to have the dead fan palm at the top of my driveway cut down. It's hard to find a gardener around here. Everyone is booked. There's more work than there are gardeners. I asked Casey, a friend of Yvette's who participates in driveway yoga and Yvette's classes at the studio. He stopped by around 1:30 but hadn't brought any necessary tools. He said he'd be back tomorrow.

I noticed I had scheduled an acupuncture treatment for 10 a.m. on Friday, the same time as the Hula class. I didn't enjoy the Hula classes that much, but I went because they were good for me. I'd forget to put them on my calendar and then schedule something else for that time slot.

Edward Slingerland, author of Trying Not to Try, talked about conscious effort versus unconscious effortlessness tonight on Hidden Brain tonight. Which is better, the spontaneously moral man who does kind deeds because it feels good, or the one who acts out of a moral imperative, as per Kant? The loving shopkeeper who treats his customers well for the sheer pleasure of it, or the emotionless shopkeeper who hates his customers but treats them fairly because it's the moral thing to do.

I remembered my dad saying the man who threw himself on a hand grenade without thinking was not a brave hero. True courage requires conscious consideration of the consequences and doing it anyway. Pure Kant.

I showed Isaac my new discovery. I could get the spine of my upper back stretched out on the vertical by reaching my arms forward and pulling my chest back. Gokhale taught me to pull my head back at the neck, like backing a car into a garage. Engaging the upper back put the apex of the contraction further down my spine. It felt more satisfying. I said something about using the muscles on the ventral side of my cervical spine. Isaac took an anatomy course in anticipation of his stint in med school. He did a complete autopsy. He said there are no muscles on the ventral side of the cervical spine. Ok. Back to the drawing board. I have to explore further.

B stopped by and returned my 4" pruning chainsaw in working order.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

I had a session with Shelly, my therapist/ life coach. She had already told me she had been bumped off a guided tour in Morocco, but not all the details. OMG! What they did should be illegal.

When Shelly’s friend went to the tour guides and showed them the result of her Covid test, they called for a cab, put her in it, and sent her on her way. I learned today that she had a day-long cab ride before her. They were out in the middle of the desert when she got sick. There was nowhere for her to go.

The tour guides did try to find a hotel for her in the town/city they sent her to. They identified one but told her not to tell them she had Covid. They wouldn’t let her stay. The hotel cost $500 USA dollars a night. Shelly remained there until she recovered and did more touring independently. The touring company didn’t reimburse her a single penny or make any effort to cover the cost of the cab or the hotel.

I can’t believe what they did wasn’t illegal. They abandoned Shelly in a foreign country with very different attitudes toward women traveling alone and some built-in antagonism toward Americans. Shelly said she’s just grateful this illness hit while she was in Morocco rather than Egypt. I don’t know why she thought Egypt would be worse.

Her abandonment was not just a problem for Shelly; the touring company unleashed someone carrying Covid on the rest of the Moroccan population. The government must have some feelings on this subject.

Today is my half birthday. Lutz asks, “Who thinks about half birthdays?” I do because my sister’s birthday is on June 13. She is four and a half years younger than me, which means she’s five years younger from December to June 13 and only four years younger for the rest of the year.

I had the Twins and Adolescent D. They’re moving on slowly and steadily. Most sessions are just more of the same. I had my third session with third-grade LG. His mom was off to the side. I think it would be best if she were out of the room. Her anxiety gets in the way. I continued with the phonemic analysis of every word in a third-grade-level text. He discovered that all the A letters don’t represent the same sound as we went along. The letter A represents six different sounds “regularly” in English, which means it happens often enough to be considered an official pattern. Then, there are a few outliers. It’s English. The complexity of the relationship between the English sound system and its spelling surprised him. He had clung to the notion that each letter should make one and only one sound. I told him he had to move to Italy if he wanted that. At the end, LG declared, “This is fun! I spoke to LG’s mom after the session. I could hear the relief in her voice.

I spent most of the day cleaning despite my statement to my anticipated house guest that he would do all the cleaning. I started where any sane person would when expecting a guest that evening, with the windows. I washed all the screens and the inside of each window. The days when I can clean the outside are behind me.

It was a good thing I did some cleaning. The bed linens were unsightly. They were the ones Scott used for one year. They were a pale blue when they started. Now, they were green with blue around the edges. The southern sun in the windows above the bed leached out every bit of blue.

For my finishing touch, I turned on my Shark Navigator vacuum to quickly sweep the carpet in the guest room. The container needed to be emptied. It was filthy, and it smelled. I struggled to clean it from the top hatch. I couldn’t get all the dirt out. I struggled to open the bottom hatch. While that released all the waste stuck there, it also ripped out the seal. I got online to see if I could buy a replacement seal. Forget it. Also, the vacuum was purchased in 2011. It’s over ten years old. I may have underwear that old, but I can’t expect to have an electric appliance last that long. I ordered a new one through Amazon. I’m secure in my three, no four now, vacuum status. I have a Rainbow, a Bissel Cross wave, a hand vacuum that I just bought for quick spot jobs, and my new Shark Navigator coming in the mail. I bought the Bissell Crosswave when I thought my Rainbow had died. I love washing floors with a wet/dry vacuum. It gets them clean. Without it, you leave a film of evenly distributed mud on the floor’s surface.

It was a busy day. Rick, the electrician Darby recommended, came. He changed the outlet at the side of the house and showed me the burnt plug on the 12-gauge extension cord I used to charge the car. He recommended I get a 25’ cord instead of the 50’ I had. I couldn’t find a 25’ cord at Home Depot. Issac was going to look for one at Lowes when he went out. I doubted he would find it at Lowes or Ace. I ordered a 10 gauge online through Amazon. God bless, Amazon.

While Rick was dealing with the outlet, the Sears truck pulled up. The serviceman was here to diagnose the cause of the leak from my dishwasher. He was the most sullen Sears repairman I’d ever seen. He didn’t greet me. He wasn’t interested in hearing me say anything. He ran the dishwasher when I told him there was a leak. Yvette called to say the water was coming through the ceiling. The guy pulled a rag out from under the front edge of the dishwasher and declared the dishwasher was fine. Good-bye. Huh?

At four pm, I picked up Issac from the airport. We picked up his Turo. Then, we went home. We decided to eat out on his first night. I thought of Huggo’s, a restaurant Mike and I loved, although we didn’t eat out much. Issac and I both ordered poke towers from the appetizers menu and salads. It took forever for our food to come because Isaac told the waitress he was allergic to nuts. We were so engrossed in conversation that we wouldn’t have noticed the delay, but a server came over to apologize. They were being extra cautious against any contamination. We had a table by the rail overlooking the water, crashing on the rocks below. For dessert, we shared a sherbert. We split the bill, dropping $50 each for the food. I offered to pay the $20 tip.

Lutz knocked at the door for our evening walk. I told him to come in. I wanted him to discover Isaac in my kitchen. Lutz, Issac, and I used to walk together when Issac lived here for a year two years ago. He was teaching in a Seventh-Day Adventist School for his missionary year. Poor kid was totally alone here. He and I became friends as a result. Lutz’s response was disappointing. I thought he would be enthusiastic. He wasn’t. I suspect he may have been a bit bummed. He was used to being the rooster with his three hens, Darby, Gayle, and me. Now there was a competing cock in the picture.

Lutz noticed the 4” chain saw sitting on my kitchen counter. I explained it was broken. He took a look at it and told me why. The chain was rusted. Had I oiled it before each use? No, did I have to? Yes!!! Oh!!! He told me to get motor oil and work the chain loose. Really??? I hoped I could get Steve to do that. He fixed my regular chain saw, which I never used and will never use. I’m not totally insane.

I told him about my dishwasher problem. He said he’d stop by and pull the dishwasher out to determine the problem. Then, he headed out to continue his walk. I would join him after another round after I walked and fed Elsa.

B stopped by to say hello. I had texted him earlier to see if the chickens on the property had recently dropped any eggs. He doubted there were any fresh eggs, but he would look.

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

On a Ten Percent Happier podcast, Dr. Bruce Perry discussed resolving underlying issues that cause negative behaviors. The question shouldn't be, "What's wrong with that person?" but, "What happened to them?" Duh! I took that path while still in high school in the 1950s. I remember figuring if there was a way into this mess, there had to be a way out, and I was going to find it and show everyone else how to fix it for themselves.

I understood that there were 'clear' emotions that prompt certain behaviors while other behaviors are driven by twisted feelings. In not using the words clear versus twisted in any moral sense, I mean they represent two different physical sensations. Anger and hatred can arise out of 'clear' feelings. That doesn't mean they're always right.

I developed my ideas around the same time L. Ron Howard developed his. There were a few differences between my theories and his. Mine resembled current theories underlying trauma therapy while his . . . . involve extraterrestrials. There were other differences right from the start. While his resembles naked ambition, mine were rooted in a moral basis. My intent was to promote peace on earth and goodwill toward men. My messianic bent was curbed by my father's reminder that a prophet is never recognized in his own land" and to look at what happened to Jesus Christ. That life lesson is enough to curb anyone's enthusiasm for leadership. I developed an absolute dread of being a recognized leader. How do you disseminate ideas without taking a leadership role? I still fear the consequences. Recognition, like everything else, has to be in moderation to be manageable. Moderation is defined by one's current circumstances. Suppose you're a resident of a small island in the Pacific with a population of 50 to 500 people. In that case, recognition should be limited to . . . . . I'll bet there is a mathematical formula that works. We can tolerate only so much, whether it's classified as good or bad. People are speaking out about the negative consequences of fame and wealth, whereas once people thought there could be no harmful consequences from either one.

I planned to use my new 6" pruning chain saw but couldn't find the battery. I looked all over the house. No one would have come in and stolen a Ryobi battery and nothing else. It had to be here somewhere. What did I do with it? Ah, then I remembered. I stored it in the oven.

My niece had a fire in her house because a battery caught fire. That's a scary thought. I hadn't had a chance to ask her for details. I only knew a battery started the fire in her kitchen. The smoke alarm went off around midnight. She got her seven-year-old son, herself, and her cell phone out of the house. The fire department responded promptly. It wasn't a big fire. They put it out with a fire extinguisher. There isn't much fire damage, but the smoke damage was extensive. They will be out of their house until September.

Their unfortunate experience taught me a cautionary tale: Batteries can cause fires. When I told others the story, many already knew of the potential danger. However, it only happened when the battery was charging, not when the battery was lying around. That's good information.

Something good came out of the missing battery incident: fear energized me. What had I done with that battery? Yerkes and Dodson did an experiment in 1908 demonstrating the relationship between performance and stress/excitation. If stress levels are too low or too high, it negatively impacts performance. There is some variation in the optimal stress level depending on the task. I live with too little external stress and too much internally generated stress. A little external stress is good for me. It helps me regulate my internal noise.

My retired friends and I comment on how little we get done. The saying is, "If you want someone to do something for you, ask a busy person." They'll get it done. When we have too much time on our hands, everything gets put off until tomorrow, and then the task drags on and on. There is such a thing as good stress.

Having identified my stinking thinking as an addiction has been helpful. I can stop it now. I can say "No" to my limbic system, listen to a podcast, write, or do some gardening. What I can't do is lie in bed and fight with my mind. It will win every time.

It was a Ulu Wini day. Despite it being summer vacation and no school, two kids came to work with me on their own. Remarkable.

I drove to town after tutoring at Ulu Wini to get to the cosmetics shop. I stopped at Petco first to see if I could donate a 14 lbs. bag of dog food I ordered by mistake a while ago. I tried to get someone to buy it at half price on the Next Door app. There were no takers. The clerk at Petco said they no longer had their donation program. Perhaps an animal shelter would take it. The other clerk had the number of a woman who would be happy to deliver it. She worked in a shop in the same strip as the cosmetics shop. She gave me the woman's name and number. Perfect.

Monday, June 3, 2024

It was only Clyde and me at Chi Qigong today. We stood side by side, meditating on the impressively rough waves and taking in the ozone-rich air. Clyde pointed out how far up the bluff the high tide had come. It was higher every week. Was this the result of climate change? Hawaii hadn’t been hit too hard. We weren’t experiencing radical changes in temperature. It was still moderate during the day and cool at night, which was really lovely.

My first stop on my in-town chores was Target. I needed to make a pit stop. Then, I headed to the UPS store to see if they could use the formed cardboard used to pack the lawnmower. They couldn’t, but they assured me they could always use Styrofoam popcorn and air-filled bags. I always bring it to them; they know me by now. I rarely go in for any other reason except the occasional Amazon return.

I went to the bank. I had two checks to deposit, one from third-grade M’s father and the second from Saint Gobain, a warranty company, as compensation for my dysfunctional solar panels. It was a large check. The bank line was long and slow even though there were four tellers and no one with a bag of cash from a business. The wait wasn’t too bad. The checks would clear by Thursday. I planned to stop by Friday after the Hula class to arrange an electronic transfer to my main bank.

I went to Office Depot to Xerox my receipt from the shop in the Kona Inn strip mall that sold Truffoire cosmetics. I dropped a small fortune on these products. I’ve been someone who won’t spend $10 on cosmetics. Now, I’ve dropped several thousand dollars for a two-year supply. Truth is, they are remarkable. I look years younger—not necessarily better, just younger. Even more remarkable is that I’m using them, some daily and some twice a week.

However, the salesperson in the shop tried to convince me not only that I had eczema but that the Mayo Clinic confirmed the diagnosis when he sent in a skin sample. It all sounded fishy. I was comfortable with the hustle, but dealing with an outright lie was sickening. I was due for my second installment of the products out 24. I’d been putting off contacting them. I was repelled enough to consider walking away from the situation and writing off the loss. The repulsion I felt was so strong that it took me over a month to feel I could even approach the people in the shop.

I called Giovani, my ’handler,’ and told him I wanted to come in and pick up my second round of supplies. He said come on; they’re open till 6. I planned to stop by today. Now, I had a Xerox copy of the credit card receipt. I had envisioned them asking to see my receipt and then disappearing it. I don’t have a good feeling about this company.

However, this shop is not a fly-by-night operation. Paulette said she and Judy had seen it there over a year ago. If they were a scam, someone would have outed them by now. When I spoke to Giovani last month, when I canceled Paulette’s and mine facial appointments, he told me I could get the full two-year supply right now. I didn’t want to do that because the products would go stale.

After Xeroxing the credit card receipt, I felt ready to go to the shop and pick up my month’s supply of new cosmetic products. I planned to park in the church parking lot and walk there. The church driveway entrance was blocked with orange cones, and the gate was closed. The paving company that had done work on parking areas last week was working on the driveway now. I turned around and went to Target to pick up some items.

On my way home, I took the formed cardboard, rejected by UPS, to the transfer station. I needed to put it in refuse instead of recycling, as our recycling is limited to corrugated cardboard and glass.

I had my second session with third-grade LG. He remembered nothing about our last session, the phonemic analysis I modeled on a sentence, his voluntary participation, or my question about his ability to follow what others had to say. Did he really not remember, or is he gaslighting me? I continued with the slowed production of the phonemic analysis of all the words in a sentence. He said he liked it when it was slowed down and not when it was faster. However, he tolerated a faster speed today than he did in our first session. I thought he might be ready for the 5 Stories YouTube video. He said he didn’t want something to keep him awake. I told him it should be low enough, so it didn’t do that. If it did, we have to make an adjustment.

I spoke to LG’s mom after the session. I told her I wanted her in sessions to provide him protection from me, not protection for me from his bad behavior. I had to deal with that. She told me he cried for an hour before the session, not wanting to do it. He’d already had several tutors, and none had been effective. The poor kid. While I can’t guarantee I can fix his reading problem, I can guarantee I won’t blame him if I fail. It will be my failure to solve the problem.

I continued with Dash leading the phonemic analysis. He had to tell me where to put the slashes in the printed word, delineating the syllables with slashes and identifying the phonemes with dashes. I love the work. He still hadn’t identified the syllables before doing the phonemic analysis. That causes his problem when he reads muti-syllable words. I am optimistic that this process will clear up whatever problems he still has with reading.

I asked D if he would be willing to speak to LG. He proposed telling him to stick with it. I don’t think that will wash, given LG’s experience with other tutors. I wanted him to tell him that he could trust me. D was not aware that it was an issue worth discussing. Of course, D was not aware of my perspective.

My Carfax app said I needed to rotate my tires. My car was in the Kia shop for about a month while they were trying to figure out how to repair my charging unit. They said they did an oil change but said nothing about a tire rotation. The recommendation is to get service every 5,000 miles or every six months. The customer service agent told me to come in after six months or 5,000 miles, whichever came first. I told him I had the car for five years and didn’t have 14,000 miles on it yet. He said, “Oh, bring it in for a tire rotation when you hit 15,000 miles.” That made sense.

I finally called the electrician Darby recommended. She’d been on the island for about forty years and had a list of the best service providers. He said he would come over on Wednesday. What?!!! I had never heard of anything like that here in Hawaii. Quick responses are not the norm.

Sunday, June 2, 2024

A friend responded with horror the other day when I told her Elsa would have to wear an Elizabethan collar for two weeks to prevent her from rubbing her jaw against something. Doing so could pull out the sutures or get dirt in the wound. She said she never put it on her dogs, no matter what the vet said. Elsa doesn't look that uncomfortable with it. It took her a day or so to adapt, but after that, it was fine. Not only did she look okay, she didn't run away when I put it on her. I took it off when we went for a walk so she could freely smell the ground to find the perfect spot to pee or poop. When it came time to put it back on, she came and stood still while I slipped it over her head.

When I parked in the church parking lot on Friday across the street from my Hula class, I saw a crew laying new macadam. All the grassy parking spots were being paved. Those spots were still not available for parking today. A good quarter of the church parking spots were unavailable. I was there early enough and found a spot at the back of the church.

I kept falling asleep during mass today, even though I wasn't tired when I arrived. I think the problem is psychological. I often fall asleep when I meditate; it's a common problem for meditators. The sleep feels different from the way it usually does. I once had a meditation leader comment on my sleep. He made it sound like a particular spiritual experience. I don't know; I do know I like the feeling, even if it is embarrassing in church. Today, I felt downright narcoleptic.

I was going home right after church to sleep, but then had enough energy to stop off at the transfer station to dump the accumulated cardboard, including the giant box the new lawnmower came in.

While hanging up my clothes after church, my eye fell on the basket where I kept the programs from Mike's funeral. The earphones I'd misplaced at least a month ago hung on the edge of the basket. I knew they had to be somewhere in the house. I checked that area when I lost them, but not that spot. I figured they'd show up eventually.

I had a session with third-grade M. We hadn't met in the last two weeks. She wanted to continue working on Stuart Little. Kindle holds the place for me. We were in the middle of a chapter, and I couldn't remember much about it. She remembered more than I did. It's the chapter where Stuart decides to go out into the world to look for Margalo, the bird. His first stop is Dr. Carey's office. He was the dentist who owned the model sloop Stuart sailed in the Central Park pond.

The work did not feel particularly productive. There were a few moments where I could have moved the needle forward. Today, I showed M how to skim for information. I used the trick my niece Shivani taught me: read a paragraph's first and last sentences. In today's case, the sentence that explicitly held the information didn't appear in the first and last sentences of several paragraphs. However, the first sentence of the following paragraph referred to the doctor. That suggested we go back and check the preceding paragraph. Indeed, that's where the critical information was.

My work with her had not substantially contributed to her improved reading for quite a while. She must be securely on grade level, if not above. I hung on because I thought she still needed the emotional support. Her father told me how much more confident M was after working with me. He credits me with the change. I know I have that impact on the kids I work with. It's reasonable to assume I made a substantial contribution to her well-being. In today's session, she was subdued but not overly withdrawn. I asked her a while ago if she wanted to continue the session with me. She said yes. Maybe I should make a point of asking her regularly. If she says no, I'll check with her dad and mom to see if they would prefer I continue.

I had Adolescent D half an hour later. I was concentrating on decoding skills. He has to tell me where to divide the written word into syllables and phonemes. For a while, we worked on third-grade-level material. When I asked him if he saw improvement, he said no. He always says no, even when everyone else sees gains. But I thought about it. He was doing well with the third-grade material. However, these were mostly single-syllable words. Since he was doing well at this level, it was time to up the ante. I found a fourth-grade passage with a good number of multisyllabic words. Whoa! This was a whole different game.

I was optimistic this would make a significant difference to his reading. D remained skeptical, but he always has been. Me? I was very excited about the work. Many errors showed up when decoding multisyllabic words. That was great. The work was a challenge for him. It also clearly revealed all the problems he was still having. Here was a surprise. He didn't recognize that the vowel sound was separate from the following letters. What!!?? I think he's confusing the need to memorize the vowel patterns as a unit, with the vowel being a separate sound for the following consonant. Hopefully, this work will make the difference clear. It's an important distinction when decoding. If you have the vowel unit securely memorized, you don't need to decode it. But if you don't have it securely memorized, you must identify each phoneme before blending the word.

Saturday, June 1, 2024

I made a video the other day about my point of view on reading, particularly on learning to read English. McMurtrey uses some of my techniques, but her method is nothing like mine. She teaches a strict Orton-Gillingham approach. Letters and sounds are all taught in a rigid sequence, and the teacher dictates the pronunciation of each phoneme; regional and cultural differences are discouraged. She also uses structured texts so the student never sees letter/sound combinations that have not been taught. She argues that doing it that way teaches students they can trust phonics to produce reliable results and prevents them from guessing.

There's one huge problem with her approach. The relationship between English spelling and pronunciation is unreliable; it's highly variable. Students have to be taught how to deal with that. They have to learn what to do when they follow a basic decoding procedure and wind up with something resembling the actual pronunciation. Then, they have to figure out what the word really is. There is no way anyone can figure out the pronunciation of a word if it is not already part of their listening vocabulary.

Elsa tried to get into bed last night using the stairs. She'd gained more confidence in navigating space with the Elizabethan collar. She did a great job getting to the top of the stairs. Only then she couldn't make it to the bed. Instead, she jumped off the top step. I think it was a surprise to her. It certainly was a surprise to me. I think we agree: for now, she should rely on me to get her on and off the bed.

Okay, the stinking thinking started around 3 a.m. I got up at 3:30 rather than stay in bed and suffer. The delight of retirement is that I can sleep as much as I like during the day. I wanted to call Ego first thing in the morning anyway. When I mowed the lawn last week, I hit something. At first, everything looked okay. However, when I checked the bottom of the mower as I put it back in the shed, I noticed a crack in the shield. When I took it out yesterday, I touched the shield to the left of the crack. The piece shifted under my hand. This did not look good. I wanted to know if the shield can be replaced? And if it can, can I get it repaired somewhere on the island. I can imagine there is a repair place on Oahu. It's hard for mainlanders to understand that getting from one island to another is not like driving to the next town. When ferries ran, it might have been somewhat more manageable. But nowadays, the only way to get around is by plane.

While up, I continued working on the updates. I reviewed Josephine's request that I teach English to the children. I hate teaching ESL. It doesn't resonate with me. The Waldorf method for teaching children reading comprehension and language skills at an early age came to mind. They tell stories. The teachers don't read the stories; they tell them. I checked online to find out more about the process. Yes, this is perfect. Teach language by modeling it. I use modeling a lot in my teaching. It works like a charm. It doesn't put the student in the hot spot, constantly subjecting them to evaluation. They can absorb the information from the comfort of their own minds. I don't have to know if they learned what I taught then and there. If I can keep them engaged with an open mind free from fear of judgment, I have a better chance of getting them to learn the material.

My mind was on fire with ideas. Storytelling could be used at all grade levels to teach English. Have the 'teacher' read the story and ask for responses from the kids. What did they like about the story, not like? What was their favorite part.? What do they wish would have been different? How would they have changed the story if they had written it? The 'teacher' can restate what they say in 'correct' English.

But then I had an even better idea inspired by Waldorf. The teacher reads the story and then tries to retell it, not just as a summary, but literally retelling it with all the details, asking the kids to tell them if they leave something out or get something wrong. What better way to get kids to pay attention! Hopefully, this will inspire the kids to do their own retelling of the story. Waldorf says repetition is valuable. A set of three to five stories can be retold in sequence.

Yvette's mother did something like that. She read a chapter to her every night from a stack of books by Yvette's bedside. When she finished going through the stack, she'd start again. It wasn't a constant search for something novel. Yvette could become familiar with the language.

The readings could be scheduled, like on Thursday at 2 p.m. or Stories for Kindergarteners. Friday at 2 for first and second graders. However, it must include all are welcome, including parents. Getting people engaged might take a while, but teaching English through storytelling sounds like a wonderful idea.

One source of stories could be school texts. These would not only serve as good materials for English language learning but also prepare students for the next school year. Surely, Josephine could get copies of the schoolbooks.

I had a session with Mama K's twin girls. Twin A has been resisting the sessions. Twin ed de

Twin A told me she was sad about her poor reading a week ago or so. If someone does poorly in reading and fights getting extra help, one has to wonder why. Third-grade L resented the tutoring until I correctly identified his problem. I suspect that, in the past, teachers have said he wasn't making progress because of a lack of effort, but they never told him what to do to overcome his problem. They gave him more of the same, but it didn't work and drove the kid crazy. Why did Twin A resist the tutoring?

She attended today. I asked her if working with me made her sad. She said no, but I suspect she wasn't comfortable telling me the truth. She may be used to taking care of the adults in her life. often, when kids get that I really want the truth about their feelings, they say, "You're so nice!" I tell them I'm not nice; I'm smart. I want to be successful. I want them to be good readers. How they feel about themselves as readers and the tutoring experience are as important as what they can and cannot do academically.

She read a passage on a middle-third-grade level reasonably well. Then, she came across the word edges. She didn't recognize it and proceeded to decode it. She read ed as /de/. I asked if the letters moved around. No. Then why would she read ed as /de/? I asked her if she saw that the E came before the D? Yes. Did she think she could read the letters in either order? Yes. Huh? I wrote her name with the letters mixed up. Was that okay? No. You can't change the order of the letters when saying the words. Oh! I could see her taking in this information. I asked her if that helped. She wrote, "A LOT."

I have never encountered this before in my over fifty years of teaching reading. Does that mean no other student has had this problem, or does it mean that I've never asked the right questions? I know most teachers assume A is stupid. I consider that maybe she is. But no! She can express a passage's main idea and supporting details. If she could learn that, she can't be cognitively impaired. What would create an inability to see that the order of the letters matches the order of the sounds? Maybe she doesn't hear the sounds. But she does. She can decode unfamiliar words in sequence. She often does. Why does she mix up the letter order when she does? I still have more questions than I have answers.

I speculate she only applies what she knows to be true if the situation is familiar -enough. Then, she assumes the rules she knows do not apply. This has affected all her learning situations. Holy cow! I'll keep you posted, dear reader.

Friday, May 31, 2024

I had an appointment with Shelly, my life coach/therapist. I struggle with anxiety and a lifelong fear of doing things for fear of failure, the very thing I help my students with. I don't fear failing at the same things they do.

Sometimes, my fears are trivial, like whether I will make a mess of a bush when I trim it. I keep Darby's words about her gardening efforts in mind: "We're not so much good gardeners as persistent." I can do persistent. I have to think about it like I do about my hair: a bad haircut will grow out. The same holds for the plants. However, plants can get out of hand, and it's so much work to get them under control again.

As the session with Shelly progressed, I came across a feeling I hadn't dealt with before a desire for revenge against my mom for how she treated me. It wasn't overpowering, but I could sense it lurking in the background. It's not that I wasn't aware of my anger, just not my need for revenge. My love for her was strong enough to keep that impulse in check. It wasn't just my love for her that kept it in check, but also my love for myself. Who wants to be a hateful person? It's not my best look.

My mom acted out her frustrations on her mother. When my grandmother hadn't cleaned something well, my mom humiliated her. When I noticed my mom failing to clean something well, I thought she didn't deserve kindness and tolerance. She didn't give it; she didn't deserve it. I had a friend who wisely said, "No, she doesn't deserve it, but you do!" I deserved to be a patient, kind, and loving person. If this revengeful sentiment is coming to my attention, I'd better deal with it. There are people I don't love as much as I did my mom. I might find a release for my cruel streak with them. I deserve better. I'm not prepared to live with that order of pure nasty in myself.

This morning, I made it to the Hula class at 10 am before the class started. While it's not complete torture, neither is it soul-satisfying. I can only do so much because my arms get tired. It will be one year on June 13 since I crushed my left elbow and shoulder joints. On June 15, it will be one year since I had the elbow reconstruction. On June 22, it will be the one-year anniversary of my reverse shoulder replacement. I did a bang-up job with that fall. I am recovering remarkably well – for my age. My PT said my body heals at the rate of someone twenty years younger, and my recovery of movement is that of someone forty years younger. That's because my mother bequeathed me her "you and who else" attitude. Whatever she took from me, she gave me that. It was a gift of hope and self-agency. It was how she lived. She took on major life problems with stunning grit. She was one brave lady.

While the Hula class is hard on me, it is also good for me. It forces me to use my arms in ways I wouldn't usually. Also, because I have to learn new patterns, it's good for my brain. I want to go down with my boots on.

When I read last year's blog entry for this date, I discovered Adolescent D moved up a grade level in reading from fifth grade to sixth. It took three years to get him up to fifth grade. Not bad if I do say so myself. D would never say it.

I checked out the guest room in preparation for Issac's visit. It didn't look or smell too bad. It's been almost year since Scott left and someone has entered that room. I opened windows to air it out. I'll do some dusting; the window sills are covered with Kona dirt, mostly soil blown in. despite the closed windows. I will let Issac vacuum and clean the bathroom.

I heard Simon Sinek's interview with Steve Bartlett on Diary of a CEO. He said people co-create a relationship. This skill is essential in long-term intimate couple relationships. Mike and I described our relationship that way. We responded to each other. We built something unique to us.

Traditionally, relationships were determined by preexisting rules for the roles of women and men in marriage. Entering into the marriage partnership was primarily a process of assuming a role. The degree of intimacy varied.

Nowadays, everyone has to co-create their relationship in a long-term situation. All relationships have elements of co-creation if they are to progress. There are ways to avoid it. If you confine a relationship to a specific interaction, like playing golf or watching football, you can stick to a script without much variation. You can only speak about things other than yourselves, not anything involving life's joys and sorrows. Certainly, never providing emotional support. That would be much too invasive, much too intimate.

These days, we run into trouble because there isn't a single set of relationship rules we all follow. While it is possible to find someone who will operate on a set of rules compatible with your own, the relationship is bound to wind up with a hitch if contact is frequent enough. That is the real test of a relationship: how to resolve a difference.

One solution is to ignore the irritation. It is viable as is denial. I had to learn the skill of denial. Believe me, it is valuable. It can get you through another day. As the AA's Serenity prayer says, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Let's add here the wisdom to know when it is me who should change versus the external circumstances.