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

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Thursday, November 14, 2024

I was scheduled for medical tests in Honolulu today. I had asked my primary physician for an electrocardiogram. I felt pressure in my chest and was less energetic than I thought I should be. She found something on the read-out that concerned her and asked me to get a stress test and an echocardiogram. I wasn't too worried. Several weeks before the scheduled test date, my PCP emailed me to say she had a cardiologist check my ECG, and he concluded there were no signs of a heart attack. Oh, boy. Was that her concern? She said she wanted me to go through with the test anyway. I was scheduled to fly to Oahu for the day leaving on a 7 am flight and returning on the 5:59. The travel department called with my flight information on Tuesday and gave me a reservation number.

I was wide awake by 3:30 am. I decided to get up and start my day. Elsa and I started our morning walk by 4 am. When I got home, I made my breakfast. I was told to eat something before 5:30 and to have no food after that. I did some morning exercises while waiting for Darby to pick me up.

She called about six am and said she couldn't get her gate open. Could I pick her up in my car, and then she would drive it back? We were at the airport by twenty after the latest put my reservation code into the computer. It didn't work. I asked for help. The attendant said I was missing numbers. I had gone over the number with the travel agent repeatedly. Instead of telling me to try another method, the attendant told me to go to guest check-in.

I waited a good five minutes in line, if not more before I saw a clerk. He asked for my driver's license and found me information. He returned my driver's license to me, saying, "You missed your flight. They closed the door five minutes ago." I was shocked. While this is an international airport, it is small. It takes less than 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other. They close the doors early at large airports because planes line up for take-off. This was the first flight in the morning, and I had never encountered a line of planes on the tarmac. I was shocked.

I called Darby to ask her to pick me up. She didn't answer. I called again a few minutes later. She picked up, saying she had just returned after dropping off the car at my house and walking home. She would be a while. I told her, no hurry. I was sitting on a retaining wall. I had an Audible book to entertain me. I called the hospital, hoping to get through to someone. Could I take the next flight and still be accommodated? The operator said they weren't open till 8:30. He connected me to the one department, surgery. They were no help. While this was an upsetting loss for me, it was thousands of dollars of loss for the hospital.

I called the hospital the moment I could get through. No, they couldn't reschedule someone else in that slot. The earliest they could get me in was December 26. Okay, here we go again.

I told several people the story of my missed flight. They were all shocked. Half an hour early should be plenty of time to make an inter-island flight. I don't know if there has been some change. The more I thought about it, the more bizarre it became. If they closed the doors at 6:30, that plane would have just sat there for at least 15 minutes before pulling away from the dock. Where was it going to go? It wouldn't have been a 7 am flight if it took off early. I'm going to check the procedure when I fly on the 26th. If this agent gave me false information, I will report him. If this had been a serious medical problem, he would have put me at risk. Yes, it is possible to have a serious medical problem and to have to get yourself to the airport and on that flight.

A friend of Yvette's had ankle surgery. When she reported to her doctor, she complained of pain under the bandage. He dismissed her concerns. When she went back to have the bandages changed, he found puss oozing from the wound. He told her to go home, pack, and take the next flight to Oahu. She had to get herself there.

For those who don't understand why I had to fly to Oahu, Kaiser has one main hospital. It's in Honolulu. While we can get emergency services in the outer islands, they're limited. For all major problems, we are flown to the main hospital at Kaiser's expense.

I texted Shauntel to say I would come in today to tutor the kids at Ulu Wini. I worked with three students: first-grade PY, second-grade JY, and sixth-grade ML. I found a satisfying way to work with PV. She and her sister, second-grade NV, have severe memory problems. Neither sister can remember even the first 25 words on the Fry Sight Word List. The only one they have confidence in is the word THE.

I resolved to use my method in the strictest sense. Even with the sight words, I would sound out each phoneme and associate it with the letter. Even that was tough for PY. I backed that off and just modeled. I asked her if she was scared if she got the wrong answer. Yes. Was she scared if she didn't tell me the answer? No. Great. She could come up with a response in her head. She would know if she was right or wrong. There is no need for me to know. It is more important the student approach the learning situation with comfort instead of fear. Fear kills the mind's ability to learn- except where applied to physical safety.

I conducted the rest of the session by saying the word and then asking, "What is the first sound in the word? "She said nothing- as we agreed. I gave the answer. "What letter makes that sound?" I paused and gave the answer. I modeled 'discovering' the sounds. As I said the word, I modeled the mouth positions for each phoneme. In AND, I went to say the word, stopped in the first mouth position, and sustained the sound. To discover the second sound, I started with the first sound,/a/, sustained that sound, and then moved to the next mouth position. Then, I made that sound and identified the letter(s) that represented that sound. I had to remind her to focus on my mouth when I made the sounds and on the screen when I identified the letter that made the sound. She said this was better than when I asked her to give the answers.

For those of you who might be skeptical that a strategy like that can work, I have used it with great success. When I first developed this method, I worked with a group of three inner-city kids in Trenton, NJ. I met with them three times a week for approximately twenty minutes each time. They were always uncooperative. I spent each session using words from a sentence. What is the first sound in the word? What letter(s) represent that sound? one sound at a time. The classroom teacher told me she was seeing improvement. Since they didn't cooperate, I didn't see it.

A year later, I ran into the mother of one of the girls. She had been fourteen years old at the time. Her mother told me the public school told her her daughter would never learn to read. She was taking GED courses at the time. I remembered her working on a book she was writing. I assumed she could read before she came to my class. All the kids improved.

Hopefully, this approach will be as successful with PV and her sister as it was with those children.

Next, a scrawny little girl with greasy hair and a runny nose asked for help. I learned later she wasn't even in the program. Shauntel is limited by who she can work with; I don't believe I am. when I asked second-grade JY if she could read, she said yes. She also claimed to be a good reader. I had her read the lowest reading material I had. She couldn't read the word THE. When I asked her to write her name, I noticed the care she took. Did she like to draw? Yes. Would she draw something for me? She drew a fish. I asked her to draw a different kind of fish. She drew the same fish facing in the opposite direction. Oh, boy. I asked her to try again. She drew the same fish, a bit smaller than the other two. She understood which was the smallest and the biggest of the three.

I drew a fish like hers but with a different tail. She couldn't duplicate that. I told her to trace the tail I made. She could do that, but it was distorted when she did it on her own. I tried to guide her in copying mine. it was hard for her. Instead of using sharp lines like a triangle, she curved her lines. Was this a physical problem with her hand position locking her arm in place, preventing her from forming angles, or was it a perceptual problem? She started to cry. It didn't look like defiance. It looked like sadness. I have no idea what her problem is. Is it a perceptual problem? Is it a motor problem affecting not just her arm movements but also her speech? She had trouble annunciating the J and the Y letter names. Is it a cognitive disorder previously known as mental retardation? Or is it an oppositional disorder? The last sounds like a stretch. I don't usually conclude something like that with a child. But I have a funny feeling about her.

This case made me wonder how much poor learning is because of a discomfort with the unfamiliar and a refusal to learn anything new. We're all that way in areas of our lives. At this age, I say 'I don't need to learn this." What a delight to walk away. Why do we cling to the familiar? Being well-balanced means we cling to the familiar where appropriate and are open to change where it is appropriate. Being one extreme or another is not a good idea. Like Benjamin Franklin, I advocate moderation in everything. Possibly, also somewhat like Benjamín Franklin, I find it easier to advocate moderation in all things than to live it.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Today was a big day for the solar system, the one on my roof with panels. The tech came back again today. He planned to be here around 9 am in the company of another man to help him check out the installed panels for the ones that were not correctly connected. He didn't leave before 10 am, arrived alone, and assured me he could fix the problem and turn on the solar system.

He was up and down off the roof doing something for several hours. At one point, he came in to tell me that half the system was on, but the other half needed more sun to get started. They would try to trigger it from the main office. They were successful.

The tech came in and explained the Tesler app to me. I was familiar with it. I've been checking it for years. I asked how I could see the array to check if all the panels were functioning. I can't do that with the Tesler app. With My Solar Edge, I could view each panel and see how each one performed in relationship to the other panels. I knew how each panel was performing. I have to check the energy generated against the potential maximum energy. The engineering department would monitor my system for a week and give me an estimate of how much energy I could expect my system to generate. I could compare that total to my actual. It seems like a dicey way to calculate how well my system works. The engineer will observe how much it does produce in a week.

Because my system is 'split,' it is more difficult for the company to determine its performance. It's split because some of the panels face east and some west. That makes it more beneficial for me and more complex for the company. I'm supposed to compare the performance of my system with their calculations. Does anyone see a problem here? I can never know if the system has been properly installed in the first place if the gold standard is what it is now, whether that has been correctly installed or not. Fortunately, I have another standard, seven years of collecting data on my old system, with less power than my new one. I paid extra for them to add on two new panels. The old system covered 75% of the electric usage. If this system should cover more. If it doesn't, there is something wrong.

Let's see if the engineering department can hear my point of view. The tech who turned on my solar today had a devil of a time with it. He told me the maximum output for my whole system was 10,000 watts. He didn't know how many kilowatts per hour that made. Once he told me that, he panicked, thinking he had told me I should expect that every day. I tried to assure him no, that was not the case. I understood it depended on the amount of sunlight hitting the panels at any time. I understood it could be full sunlight one moment with maximum kws, and then a little white fluffy cloud would pass before the sun, and it would be less.

Then we got into my old system. I told the tech it had to be replaced because the original panels were a bad batch, failing one at a time. He said they should have replaced them free of charge. I told him they did. The company gave up and honored the warranty for the system because it was costing more to replace them one at a time. Bulk is always cheaper. Then, we debated how the super savings system Heco initiated worked.5 We pay 20 cents a kwh from 9 am to 5 pm, then 60 cents an hour from 5 pm to 9 pm. He insisted he ran on input from the sun all day. I monitor the app. We run on grid energy until the batteries are fully loaded. Once the batteries are full, then we get energy from the sun on the panels instead of the grid. He insisted his system didn't work that way. He finally understood when I showed him how much energy this system has to provide for our three households. He went OMG! Looking forward to dealing with the engineering department.

According to my calculations, the maximum I can expect my system to produce at any moment is 10 kws. It can't do that every minute of the day for several reasons. First is the split arrangement, where some face east, some southeast, and some west. The only time they could possibly receive an equal amount of sun is at noon. Second, the angle of the sun's rays varies according to the time of day. The ideal angle is 450. But the angle can vary between 600 and 00. I want to know how much energy I should expect from each set at noon.

I did my bit of gardening today. Ten or fifteen minutes a day would be good. I also gave Elsa a bath. I missed my planned Sunday commitment. Her skin looked so good that I didn't think about treating it. The problem now is with her ears.

Yvette helped me move the original, faulty panels Jim had stacked on top of the replacements. I needed easy access to the good ones. Jim decided to stack them there. I learned within the first five minutes of meeting him that he was a man who marched to his own drum and thought anyone who didn't join him was a fool, particularly his wife.

I received one response to the tutoring ad I posted on Next Door and Facebook. It was from a boy's grandmother, concerned with his poor reading and spelling skills. She had to check with her daughter. She didn't call for a day. I figured the delay meant her daughter had said no. How long could it take her to get hold of her daughter, who lives here on the island? She told me today that her daughter was thrilled with the idea.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

I was awake by 3:30. I got up and worked on updates. I checked the Grief Recovery Method online. It looks like it won't address my issues, but who knows. It talks about regret and guilt. While I was surprised by how I behaved those last 5 weeks around Mike, I've formulated an understanding and forgiven myself. It may be a rationalization, but I think it worked. When I weep about him, it is when I think he may not have what he wants now. I want him happy in his death. I always wanted him happy. It was one of my greatest joys.

I ran into trouble with the grief counselor at the hospice center because my focus was on my loss instead of Mike's. Huh? Isn't it my grief I'm dealing with?

People are often disconcerted by my point of view. For me, everything every human being does is selfish and self-centered. It doesn't matter what the act is. Whether we die for our loved ones or make every effort to live for them, either way, it's grounded in selfishness. That's tough for many people to take. They would prefer a more magnanimous image of themselves. They like the idea of sacrifice.

Sacrifice is part of any relationship if you view any form of change as self-sacrifice. You can say you are allowing part of you to die when you make an accommodation for someone else. Some people have a very rigid view of who they are. Doing anything differently than they have always done is a significant compromise and a loss of self. The other way of viewing it is you become a bigger self. You don't lose something you were; that part of you becomes a smaller aspect of you.

Many people prefer to define their personality by only their best traits and ignore or minimize the negative ones. 'Me' is always something positive. We have to learn to accept the whole package; otherwise, we deny reality. That's a tough order.

Are there situations where you can become someone you don't want to be? I'm sure there are. If you are in an abusive company, accommodating to that can have disastrous results. However, you do not stop being you, an impossibility, I argue, but it will be a very unhappy version. Being true to ourselves is knowing what we want and what we don't want. Then, we have to explore how permeable we can be. We have to choose wisely who we adapt to.

I washed Joseph's bathroom floor. It wasn't that dirty. I also washed the living room floor. That was dirtier. I did a bit of weeding until my back complained. Then I needed a rest. I'm unsure how much I needed that nap because I was tired versus bored.

I finished the second Kristen Hannah book, The Things We Do For Love. Eh! She's a formulaic writer, and the language is mundane. The outcome was obvious. This book got more stars on Audible than Magic Hour, but I found the latter much more interesting.

I started listening to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine on Jean's recommendation. Uh-uh. No way I was going to listen to that book. It's supposed to have an upbeat ending. The details of Eleanor's mental and emotional dysfunction are detailed and realistic. The positive outcome is pure fantasy. Recovering from her traumas is twenty years of work, not one positive experience. I couldn't stand it.

Monday, November 11, 2024

This morning at Chi Qigong, there was a third person. Gail was back in town. She sold her share of the house she lived in in our neighborhood and moved to Waimea to live with her daughter and great-granddaughter. She was back, living in a condo she owned off Ali’I Drive. Her grandson used to live there. She threw him out. He was too destructive. She moved bak to Kona because Waimea was too cold and now found living so close to the water too hot. She wanted to find a small house higher up on the mountain, where it was cooler but not as cold as Waimea. It was good to see her. She was one-quarter of our walking team: Gail, Darby, Lutz, and me. We celebrated her 80th birthday together. We hugged and talked, waiting for Clyde to tell us it was time to start.

The next thing I knew, Clyde was walking toward the parking lot. I wondered why he might be doing that when I noticed he had the wicker basket in his hand for collecting donations. “Hey, Clyde. What’s going on? Why are you leaving?” He said something about it being too late. It was already ten after eight.

I asked, “Are you in a hurry today?” No, he wasn’t. I was confused. “Well, come back. Let’s do the session.” He did, and we did all six moves.

Afterward, he explained he was a bit discombobulated. Roger, who was supposed to lead the session for the next six months, texted Clyde that morning to say he wasn’t coming. He wanted to lead a Chi Qigong class with 100 moves instead of our more relaxed five- or six-move version. Roger said Clyde was better for this session because he was heart-centered. Either way, I was proud of the way I handled the situation. I was totally calm, completely unreactive. Wow!

Yesterday, I saw a video that said massaging the upper chest and arm muscles, the pecs and deltoids, stimulates the brain. That made no sense until I thought about it. Of course, if those muscles are tight, it limits blood flow to the brain. We restrict our oxygen supply if we walk stooped over, clamping our shoulders together in the front.

After the Chi Qigong session, I stopped at Target and bought bread and two frozen dinners. I also checked if Haagen Das was still on sale. It wasn’t, but that didn’t stop me from buying a pint of Vanilla chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. The vanilla in the cookie dough reminded me of the way Haagen Das vanilla ice cream used to taste. Oh, boy! Am I ever in trouble! The good news is I had the good sense to not buy the blueberry white chocolate scones. I can eat a whole package in one sitting. They are that tasty. I did pick up a package of mini cinnamon rolls. Those I can eat one at a time.

I was home by 10:30. I had an 11 a.m. tutoring session with fourth-grade MH. I usually meet with her on Sunday, but she had Monday off, which was more convenient for her family. We continued working on The Trumpet of Swan by E.B. White.

MH was in one of her off moods. She became sullen and removed. She was there but not there. She didn’t fully invest.

The language in the book is rich and complex. MH did somewhat better today on following the language. I finally concluded today that her problem is she is too dependent on her own perceptions of what should be instead of the flow of the language. I see this in many students.

I napped till 1:30. Jean, my friend, called just as I woke up to do our water meditation and catch up for the day. Then, I got a text from Paulette; she was home, waiting for us, Elsa and me. I went up there to visit with Paulette and get water. Elsa was there to visit with Paulette and have her throw a stuffed mouse meant for Paulette’s cat over and over again. This dog has endless energy. When I got home, I discovered Elsa had the mouse in her mouth. Usually, we get it away from her. Today, the mouse’s tail was tucked in her mouth, and we didn’t catch it. Paulette noticed that Elsa’s ears were dirty. She thought they might be infected. When we got home, I checked them. They didn’t have that sweet smell that comes with an infection, and she never shook her head or scratched her ears. They’re probably just dirty.

I got home just in time for my 4:30 with fourth-grade LG. He spent the last two days with his dad at South Point. I didn’t ask what they were doing there. We worked first on subtraction with regrouping. He aced it. This was not his problem. He had trouble with the basic subtraction he tried to count down from the higher number. I showed him how to count up. I always used that as a kid; I found it easier. I no longer need it because all my addition/subtraction and multiplication/division facts are memorized. That’s what happens when you practice your arithmetic facts for 74 years.

I posted my ad for tutoring on Next Door and Facebook. I got an almost immediate response from a grandmother wanting help for her grandson, an eleven-year-old in fifth grade who had trouble with reading and spelling. She had to contact her daughter to check if she would welcome the sessions for her son.

Darby and Xia accompanied Elsa and me on our evening walk. She usually walks with Mei, who is Chinese and speaks Mandarin, as Xia does.

I finally registered the date before I went to bed. I gave Elsa her heartworm, tick, and flea protection pill today when I was supposed to do it on the 10th. Well, better late than never.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

I walked into the library yesterday afternoon to get Elsa's harness and retractable leash; I was surprised when I saw the pile of solar panels Jim and Sherry had stacked. Damn! They didn't put them where I asked. It hit me hard. I have no idea why I took it badly.

I knew in my heart that this was Jim's doing. I had stood in the library, pointed to the carpet, and said to stack the panels there. Sherry made sure that Jim heard what I said. He has a hearing problem, and she knew he would never listen to her. He concluded it would be better to place the old panels on top of those sitting on the blanket instead of where I asked him to put them.

As I lay in bed this morning, I was devastated by the misplacement of the panels. The four new ones I wanted to sell first were buried under fourteen of questionable quality. Why was my response so intense? It didn't make sense to me. I tried to resolve it with meditation. I made some progress, but the best was getting up and moving. That means the response was still embedded in me. There's a time for denial and resolving an issue. His actions triggered something in me. perhaps it's dealing with people who see themselves as always right. I feel so helpless around people like that. Jim's wife seemed accepting of his disposition but was neither cowed by it nor contemptuous of him. They were in their late 60s or early 70s. Sherry wasn't an easily intimidated youngster. I would love to know how she resolved this for herself. She seemed to accept her husband's contempt for her as a woman without feeling demeaned.

My friend Linda from England, the first wife of an old tutoring client and a regular reader of my updates, asked if I would benefit from seeing a grief counselor. I had been writing a lot about grief.

I had tried to participate in a grief group. The leader and I were as incompatible as two humans can be. Her idea of the appropriate response and mine were on the opposite ends of the pole. One of us had to leave. Since she was being paid in her capacity, it had to be me. The church had been advertising an eight-week upcoming grief recovery workshop. I considered going until I saw the name of the leader. It was that woman from the hospice center. No way, Jose.

Today, after Mass, the Knights of Columbus served a fundraising pancake breakfast, and the ministries advertised their missions with posterboard displays. The woman who was leading the grief recovery workshop was there—it wasn't the woman I knew from the hospice center. I want to try the workshop. Suzanne made it clear it wasn't a support group; this was an eight-week class with a program on how to deal with grief. It starts in January.

When I got home, I read the leaflet the woman handed out. This was how to deal with all sorts of grief, basically any form of disappointment. My one consideration is that I don't think my problem is primarily with grief; it's loneliness. The loneliness is caused by not being number one in anyone's life. it was the complaint that Maggie Smith articulated. No matter how many friends and relatives you have in your life, without a partner, you are no one's number one. The partner needn't be a mate. It's a buddy, preferably one you live with and get along with. There is a sense of safety in that. You will never be without a seat when they play musical chairs. As long as you have a partner, there will always be a place for you at the table. It's a primitive feeling. It's not the loss of an individual person; it's the loss of position in life relative to the rest of the group.

I also found Anita manning the Hula ministry board. I embraced her and expressed appreciation again for all the Hula ministry did for me when Mike died. Judy recommended that I do a Hula for Mike's funeral. He had always wanted me to join the ministry. He loved that I had a dance background. Judy recommended I ask to learn the Hula to You Raise Me Up. Anita said great. They already had choreographed a dance to that song. Participants of the ministry met with me on the north lanai in the afternoon and started teaching me the steps. They met with me every day for a week on the north lanai to teach me the dance, and then one member, Judy Shifley, came to my home daily for the next week to practice.

Looking back on it, I can't imagine what I was thinking. Oh, I wasn't. I was a 78-year-old with a severely arthritic hip who had never danced Hula before in her life, planning to learn a dance in two weeks to perform before close to four hundred people. The Hula group was meeting with me daily. I thought nothing of that. There's such a thing as baby-brain and such a thing as widow-brain. Two and two don't even exist, no less add up to four. I managed to pull it off without making a complete fool of myself. Only two people commented on my performance. A friend who had stopped by and given me some pointers said, "You weren't half bad." Given she was native and learned Hula as a child, I thought that was pretty high praise. A friend from the mainland was the second voice. He said, "You made a mistake and weren't as good as the woman next to you." I don't know how he meant it, but there were great compliments. I made only one mistake! The woman next to me had been studying Hula for ten years. That I could even be compared to her was amazing.

Today, Anita said I had done a great job. The funeral was in February 2020, and the statute of limitations had run out on the need to keep one's opinion to oneself.

Damon called. The project he brought to DreamWorks is now in movie theaters and wowing audiences. He sent me an article on the author of the Wild Robot books. IT mentioned Damon as the one who picked up on the potential of this story. The movie sounds like something I will enjoy.

Damon also told me they have tentative plans to come here in January. Because August, his son, couldn't come at the last minute in July, they have an extra ticket they have to use for a year. Great! I would love to see them.

We also talked about their friends who recently lost their teenage son to suicide. The mother found him hanging in his closet. They are struggling. I can't imagine their grief. How do you recover from something like that? They concluded it was spontaneous; he hadn't been planning it. His mom had noticed that he came home from school feeling sad, but being miserable is part of being a teenager. They avoid friends they made through school and the parents of their son's peers. They plan activities to keep themselves busy. Busy helps, particularly in the beginning. It doesn't fix the long-term problem.

Saturday, November 9, 2024

I was awake by 3:30. I could have gotten out of bed and worked on updates and prepared material for the videos I want to make, but I didn’t. I played insomniac. I tried some meditation. I didn’t feel fear vibrations as I have in the past. I just felt the movement of the blood surging through my body when I focused on a part long enough. My feet felt great.

When I focused on my ankles, that was another matter. I could feel the tension. I sprained my left ankle about 15 years ago. I released anything negative about the tension, kept anything positive or anything I still needed, and could feel some release. When I did my ankle stretch later, I could feel a difference.

As I lay in my insomniac state, Elsa moved restlessly from one spot to another. She’d move, settle, and move again in a minute. The last time I saw someone in that state was the night my mother died. She’d get out of bed, go to her chair, and quickly return to the bed, etc. She was running from death. I couldn’t afford to lose Elsa. She is my love rug. I get to kiss her and say, “I love you. I love you,” as much as I like. At one point, she lay on top of me. She never does that. Finally, she moved to the other side of the bed and threw up. Ah, an upset stomach. I got up to wipe up what I could before it seeped through the mattress. It wasn’t too bad. I finally identified the cause for her upset stomach- a piece of undigested grass. It would be a heavy laundry day.

As I made breakfast, I heard someone calling from the side door. I knew it was a woman’s voice, but not which one. It was Darby with a small jar in hand. She was here to get a MakesNoClaims (Intrasound) refill. Several months ago, I gave Darby a sample jar of MakesNoClaims (or Intrasound). She and Patrick love it. The stuff lasts forever because you need so little of it for it to do its thing.

Darby had told me they would need a new jar soon. I thought I could fill up the almost empty one, but Patrick was uncomfortable with that. He had to prepare an empty container. I washed my hands, wiped down a butter knife with alcohol, and filled the small jar Darby brought with the gel.

The man who answered my Craig’s List ad for the panels came from Hilo. He told me he would leave his house at 10. I was surprised to see him in my driveway at 10:30. He said I sent you a message we would leave at 8. I still haven’t received that.

His wife said something to me, I don’t remember what, but I sure remember what he said. “My wife gets emotional. Ignore her. You know how women are.”

Jim brought a voltage meter. We agreed he could have one panel free in exchange for testing all my originally installed panels to find the duds. I had an 11 am appointment with fourth-grade LG. I told them my plan. Take the panels in my living room out the front door one at a time, test them with the voltage meter in the sun, write the result on the back of the panel, then go in the side door and stack the panels on the carpet in the library. I scrambled to get Yvette’s and Joseph’s car out of the driveway so they had room to do their work.

I worked with the Twins. Twin E, who has been lagging behind Twin A, started moving ahead because she is following my decoding procedures. Twin A is having more trouble remembering the steps in the procedure. She is beginning to recognize when she doesn’t know a word. For some reason, her mind throws up words with little to nothing to do with the letters. Today, it wasn’t that bad; she read pests as pets. The other day, she read Australia as Russia. How does she do that? I started using strict PDS. I developed this method. You would think I would use it more than I do. Even I fall back on using old-fashioned methods when I am stymied. E is moving along well on her own now. She says she’s seeing improvement in her reading.

Friday, November 8, 2024

I tried out the new drill bit on an African tulip tree. It worked like a charm. I texted Mike to tell him how thrilled I was with my new toy.

Spencer from Provision Solar called to say the county Inspector would be at my house between nine and ten to check the electrical system. I had Hula at 10 and was leaving the house at nine-thirty. As I left, I found a tall man, six feet seven inches, in my driveway. He was from Provision Solar and was here to meet the inspector. I showed him where the attic access was and left.

Hula was surprisingly easy today. I usually get worn out halfway through, particularly when the dances require me to lift my left arm above my head. Sweetie had us perform all the dances we learned today. She split the class into two groups and had half perform the dances while the other half watched.

On my way home, I stopped off at Costco to pick up a package of lox and a bag of Mandarin oranges. I impulsively picked up a tray of California sushi rolls. I'm never happy with what I get at Costco. They may have been made that morning, as advertised, but they don't taste fresh.

When I got home, the Provision Solar guy was gone. I called Spencer, excited, asking when they would remove the ladder leaning against my house, there for the convenience of the inspector, and turn on the electricity. Jaymie answered this call. So sorry. It wasn't going to be turned on today. The fellow whose job it was was out sick. Monday was a holiday, and he had other people on his list. Maybe she could expedite it. I didn't expect that, but I didn't object either.

I needed to organize the panels. Beth, from Hawaiian Solar, had given me the number and dates of the replacements. Thirty-five panels were Installed in July of 2017. Four were replaced in 2019, 8 in 2021, and 7 in 2023. I had checked for a date on the labels but found nothing. The installers from Provision recognized that seven had smooth instead of scored edges. Those they knew were new. They tried to figure out the rest from the degree of moss growing on the panels. I discovered there was more information on the label than I thought. While every panel ended in 11-2, there were other distinguishing numbers.

Yvette helped me sort them out. I hoped we would wind up with four piles: one of the 16 originals and three more from the three replacements. That's what happened. I wound up with a pile of 16, 4, 8, and 7. Now, I knew which ones I could sell, assured they would not fail like the panels from the original batch. I could sell the nineteen for $100 a piece.

I had a call from someone who responded to my Next Door/Facebook ad. He wanted four panels. He lived right around the corner. Could he come over and check? I gave him the address and directions. Turn left out of your side street; at the stop sign, turn left onto Hiolani; make your next right. My driveway is the first one on your right after the side street. He couldn't find it. He asked me to spell the street name. I did, with keywords, to make sure he got it right. He checked out what I had, went home to check the information on the Internet, returned, and took eight panels.

Larry understood what the numbers on the label meant. Some panels were marked 300, some 305, and some 310. That was the wattage. He said the newer ones would have a lower wattage because they were more efficient. I didn't get it, but okay.

I had a session with sixth-grade RH. I'm trying to teach her phonics. I have gone over the syllable patterns repeatedly. V stands for vowel; C stands for consonant. She has trouble remembering that. Another one with memory problems. They are the most difficult to deal with. I worked on teaching her how to use partial memory. We continued working on the multiplication fact 6 x7=42. Did she remember any of it? she remember 6 x something = 47. The six and the forty were right. She had transposed the 7 from one spot to another, but she had recalled that. That's a good partial memory. Now, she had to correct the partial memory and embed the correct image.

I had a session with fourth-grade LG. He showed me how to find the partial product of a multiplication problem using boxes. I gave him another example using a two-digit top number. He said he couldn't do that; he could only do it with big numbers. I walked him through several problems with two-, three-, and four-digit top numbers. Ah, he finally said. You use expanded notation.

I had tried to participate in a grief group sponsored by the hospice center. The leader and I were as incompatible as two humans can be. Her idea of the appropriate response and mine were on the opposite ends of the pole. One of us had to leave. Since she was being paid in her capacity, it had to be me. The church had been advertising an upcoming grief recovery eight-week workshop. I considered going until I saw the name of the leader. It was that woman from the hospice center. No way, Jose,

Today, after Mass, the Knights of Columbus served a pancake breakfast, and the ministries advertised their missions. The woman leading the grief recovery workshop was there—it wasn't the woman I knew from the hospice center. I would like to try the workshop. Suzanne made it clear it wasn't a support group; this was an eight-week class with a program on how to deal with grief. It starts in January.

When I got home, I read the leaflet the woman handed out. This was how to deal with all sorts of grief, basically any form of disappointment. My one consideration is that I don't think my problem is primarily grief; it's loneliness. The loneliness is caused by not being number one in anyone's life. It was the complaint that Maggie Smith articulated. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, without a partner, you are no one's number one. There is a sense of safety in that. You will never be without a seat when they play musical chairs. As long as you have a partner, there will always be a place for you at the table. It's a primitive feeling. It's not the loss of an individual person; it's the loss of position relative to the rest of the group. I don't mean it in the old-fashioned sense; true when I was a child. A widow was a third wheel, considered a danger to all marriages. The widow would be after the husbands. Really??!! This not belonging is more primative. It's a basic human need to be part of a unit where someone has your back.

Thursday, November 7, 2024

I woke up feeling like I had a good night’s sleep. It felt like it must have been at least 3:30. I fell back asleep without getting up to pee or check the time. When I woke up again, I checked the time. It was 1:30. The first time, it must have been midnight at best, possibly earlier. I finally woke up at 3:30 and dozed for the rest of the night.

As I lay in bed, I felt a sciatic pain in my right buttock and down my leg. I hadn’t felt that kind of pain in at least a year. I had a trusty tennis ball under my pillow. I keep it there at all times. I spent most of my life with one muscle or another seizing. I feared I’d backed myself into a corner with all my hard work. I had been warned that my bones had reformed around my bad posture. I’ve had a spinal curvature all my life. Straightening it out at this late date could have negative consequences. Was that what I was experiencing now?

The tennis ball digging into my glutes didn’t do much good. I moved the ball up my spine. That helped a bit more. I moved it up further. Finally, I found a spot in line with my armpit that provided complete relief. There was no pain in that area; that was all in my hip and leg. However, that was the magic spot that provided the release.

While on my morning walk, I tried to call Jean, my Hanai sister. The call dropped four times without ever going through. I have no idea why that happens.

When I was young, AT&T was the only carrier in the nation. While you had to pay for long-distance phone calls, the service was impeccable. There were no dropped calls, and the sound was always crystal clear. I experienced poor telephone service when traveling in Europe. We made fun of their phone service. Now, we all have the same problems with our cell phones.

On my morning walk, I ran into Mike, an Englishman living in San Francisco and visiting friends in Hawaii. Mike visits his friends here several times a year. I’ve run into him on and off for years. He was trained as a stone mason as a young man in England. There’s not much work for him in the USA. I learned today that he has a sixth-floor apartment on Market Street. I asked Mike to help me figure out what I was doing wrong when I drilled holes into the trees to kill them. When I drilled, the bit only made a pressure dent, but not a hole I could pour a teaspoon of Round Up into to kill the plant.

Mike took one look and told me I needed a different bit. I need a speed feed augur, wood drill, and wood drilling bit. It has a screw point with a fanned-out drill blade. I tried one this morning. It worked like a charm.

When I met with Shelly this morning, I talked about how fear stopped me from doing things both trivial and profound. Sometimes, it is something I’ve done before with success, but now I’m afraid I won’t succeed. Shelly told me that the fears and behaviors that stop us from accomplishing things are expected. The irony is that most of the tasks I fear failing are those I’ve succeeded at before.

I heard a famous performance artist talk about his fears. As excellent as each past performance had been, he fears he won’t be able to do it again. Interesting. Why were we plagued with this fear? How did it help us survive on the plains 10,000 to 2 million years ago? if many people suffer from this fear, it must be built into our psyches. I finally screwed my courage to the sticking point and posted an ad for the used solar panels on Next Door and Craig’s List. It would be what it would be. I wasn’t optimistic. I would deal with no response to my ads. What was hard was sticking my neck out? If I can deal with the lack of success, why can’t I deal with the challenge of posting the ad?

Last week, the gardener, Eli, came to help me figure out how many hibiscus plants I needed to cover a large area. He measured the area at 54 feet long and about 10 feet wide. I would need three rows of plants with fourteen plants in each row.

I also needed a watering system for the plants. New shrubs need a lot of water. Eli recommended I check the Diamond Irrigation in town.

Lynette, the company manager, helped lay out the plan. The woman is amazing. She loves her work, and her pride and joy in her work were a delight to witness. The equipment is surprisingly inexpensive, and it sounds easy to install. There is a standing spigot nearby that works. Hooking up the drip system to the faucet will be easy. I will put it on a remote control timer. That way, I can turn it on from my lanai.

I was listening to another Kristen Hannah book, The Things We Do for Love. It got higher ratings on Audible than her Magic Hour. I found the book predictable and uninspiring. Magic Hour had a significant impact on my psyche. The main character is a psychiatrist caring for a wild child, a seven-year-old who is without speech. It was a fantastic story of poetic quality transcending the quotidian human existence. The wild child represented the wild child in all of us. That primitive, uncivilized aspect of us is closer to the surface than any of us are comfortable with today. We are all running scared. Our world is coming to an end -one way or another.

While Darby and I did our evening walk, she commented on my haircut. She said I had a mullet. Damn! That I wouldn’t like. Did I really have a mullet? I have to remember to tell Randee next time that’s out. I did like it when she left a little snippet of hair right at the base of my head, but not a whole mullet.

Monday, September 7, 2026

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

I didn't get much done this morning. I was down in the dumps. I didn't have enough to do. Like my mother, I need to be busy to feel okay. Sitting around, reading, and listening to music leaves me feeling wasted. Also, I'm energized by social contact. Spending a lot of time alone isn't good for me.

Before my morning walk, I moved Jospeh's and my cars out of the driveway onto the strip in front of the house. I was expecting the county inspector today; I wasn't sure if Provision Solar was arriving to start installing the panels or if they would wait until after the inspection. It was a good thing I moved the cars. They were here. The Inspector also slipped in and out during the day.

My alarm went off at 10:50. Thank God I remembered to set it. I had an 11:30 hair appointment. If the alarm hadn't sounded, I would have forgotten about it completely. The lack of activity leaves me lost in time.

Jean, my Hanai sister, had an appointment with a neurologist coming up. She made it because of a tremor in her hand. The medical staff at the retirement community asked her to get a check on her mental functioning. I warned her to make sure she checked the day and the date before she met with the doctor. My lack of activity leaves me disoriented. I have no idea of the day, the date, or the time, even though I have Zoom tutoring sessions, and I write these updates. I get lost in the lack of activity.

I made it to my haircut appointment in plenty of time. Being in the presence of someone I hadn't seen in a while brought home how terrible I felt. I was in deep grief. It keeps getting worse instead of better over time. I'm not an embedded member of any social group. That hurts like hell. It rings the loneliness bells loud and clear.

Randee had dyed half her bangs and forelocks orange. I loved the way she looked before. Her hair was dark and shorter. She looked like Micelle Dockery, Lady Mary from Downtown Abbey. It was a great look for her. I told her I preferred her natural hair color. I don't think Randee took that well. Of course, my delivery may have reflected my terrible mental state and sounded particularly harsh. I explained I was in bad shape. She had an unusually indifferent to the annoyed response. Something might have been amiss in her life, too. She didn't look as cheery as the last time I saw her. She seemed on edge. I couldn't figure out if it was triggered by my mood or if I just made it worse.

One of the Provision installers warned me he would have to turn off the electricity for two hours to do rewiring. When I came home after my hair appointment, he told me the electricity was still off when he finished. He turned the electricity back on, but nothing happened. He said it looked like the grid was down. I called Paulette, who lives up the street, to check if she had electricity. I wanted to make sure it was the grid and not something the workers did. The electricity was down in the whole neighborhood. It was off for four hours today, from 10 am to 2 pm.

The crew was a delight to have around. One of the men told me I could sell the old panels. The cost for new ones was one dollar per kwh. These were 310 panels, worth $310 new. I could sell them for $100 each. It would be better than nothing.

I was only sure about the quality of seven of the panels. Their border design was different from the rest. Beth from Hawaiian Solar, the original installers, gave me the dates of the replacements and the number that were replaced at that time. Seven had been replaced in 2023. The edging on those seven panels was different from the edging on

That left me with 28 panels I couldn't be sure of. All the panels with the scored borders had the same final digits on their serial number: 11-02. Was that a date? Of the 28, six were already failing, and one was dead as a doornail. The men carried all the panels into my house. We tried to sort them from moss built up on the edge. It wasn't an effective way to tell the difference. They found seven with unscored borders they were sure were replacements. I posted them for sale at $100 a panel. That would be a good saving for someone and an unexpected profit for me.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Presidential Election Day 2024. I didn't listen to the news. No matter who won, I wasn't expecting a good outcome for the country.

I slept well last night. Even if I do think of issues that trouble me, I haven't been falling into virulent ruminating. The first order of the day was getting my car and Joseph's out of the driveway. Provision Solar was coming today to start work on dismantling the solar panels Hawaiian Solar installed in July of 2017. The panels that were installed were lemons. They started breaking down by 2019. The company was reliable and replaced them when necessary. Nineteen out of the original 34 were replaced. The company gave up as they continued to break down, and the 310s were getting hard to replace. They had an excellent warranty plan. I could continue with the original company, getting replacements for defuncted panels, keep the money for a college fund, or get the panels replaced. I chose option C. It's been a long process. I was hoping to have it all completed before the election. I was expecting chaos, the end of life as I had known it. they missed that date.

The installation team from Provision Solar arrived early in the morning. There was some minor confusion over the racks. Were they going to be replaced or used for the new set of solar panels? The old ones were 310s, and the new ones were 400s. When they called the company, that got straightened out. As I thought they were going to use the existing racks. Only one set had to be dismantled and used in a different configuration.

I learned today that I could resell my old solar panels. The going price is one dollar per kwh. My 310s were originally worth $310. I wasn't expecting that kind of money. It's too bad I hadn't been told that before they shut down the system. I could have determined which panels were defuncted and which were still functional using the online app. No, I couldn't put them in the usual trash. I would have to go to the electronic recycling center. I might have to pay something for them to take it.

I met with fourth-grade LG today. I see problems with his thought process. He keeps on insisting the 2-5=3. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get it through to him that that was impossible. He doesn't see a connection between the abstract and the concrete. He gets it when I tell him he can't give someone more than he has. He's confused when I write that as an algorithm, 2-5=, and tell him it can't be done.

The algorithm is a story written with mathematical symbols instead of words. It is another language. I wrote several stories to illustrate the principle in words:

LG went to school with two candies in his pocket. The class bully approached him and said, "Hey, man. I know you have candy in your pocket. Give me six on them, or else."

LG said, "Hey. I only have two candies. I can't give you six."

The bully said, "Tough man. Give me the two you have, and you owe me the other four."

LG wants to buy a soda from Costco. The soda costs $6. He looks in his pocket and finds he only has $2. He needs four more.

He got the story when written in words but was still confused as to why 2-6 didn't equal four. I asked him to explain why he didn't get it. He said, "When I put 2-8 in the calculator, the answer is 6." Holy cow! The answer is -6, which means something different from 6. How long has this been going on? Given his intelligence, probably since first grade when subtraction was introduced. I showed him negative numbers on a number line. He finally got it. It took an hour and a half to break through his misunderstanding. While LG is a remarkable young man, he may have given me a clue about what may be confusing a lot of kids.

I ran into Josh in the driveway. I had told him last week that we would be without solar energy until the county planning department had inspected the job. That could be one day or two months. That would be a pretty penny since we run 45 to 60 kWh daily. I told him I would help cover the immediate bill. We could settle the difference when we did our annual reconciliation in April.

Monday, November 4, 2024

I’ve been sleeping well. I might wake up around 4:30, but that’s an acceptable time. I can always nap during the day. Napping is a favorite activity of mine. If I don’t get enough sleep during the night, I can make it up with a delicious nap during the day.

As I doze in the morning, I continue observing the vibrations in my body. I may be feeling them more because of the bodywork I’ve been doing. I’ve been correcting my posture with the Gokhale method. As a result, I’ve been releasing tension in my upper back, shoulders, and upper arms. When I was a child, I dealt with my fear by tensing my body, clamping down on those pesky sensations.

Lauren Bacall explains how she got her sexy look. She clamped her chin down to control the shaking in her body. Fear can make us look good, really good, given Bacall’s looks.

Eli, the gardener, finally came over to plan what we would do with the area where I had the Ficus trees dug up at great expense. I had several feet of mulch dumped on top to suffocate the remaining roots. I had to wait several months for the mulch to process. It’s time now. Eli calculated I would need three rows of plants with fourteen in each row. I planned to plant Hawaiian hibiscus, a shrub with a white flower. He gave me the name of the company that sells the black drip system. I will buy the hoses on my own and lay them down. There’s a faucet right nearby that works. I’ll hook the drip system up to that.

I worked with Twins. Twin E is progressing better than twin A, although she is still half a year behind her sister. The school repeatedly says they need more phonics. They don’t absorb what they hear. The more I encounter memory problems, the more I believe the problem is with the attention system rather than memory. Students have no idea how to pay attention to get the information sufficiently embedded in their minds to be remembered in the first place. Steve, who served as a principal in UN schools in Asia and South America, said he’d seen an increase in memory problems.

Telling the twins something repeatedly doesn’t work. It goes in one ear and out the other. I don’t know how often I’ve told them, “When you don’t know a word, you first find the vowel letters. Then you figure out which ones make a sound and what the most logical sound might be.” Then, when I ask them what is the first thing you do, they don’t have a clue. it seems to help when I tell them to repeat my words. I have to remember to do that. So many of these kids have memory problems. They remember little of what they see or hear that wasn’t triggered by a strong emotional response.

I usually work with fourth-grade MH on Sunday. She took off from school on Monday because her mother had to do work on the Big Island. There was no one to take care of her on Ohau, so she had to accompany her mother to the Big Island today. I agreed to a Zoom session at 11. I put it in my calendar, but I didn’t set my alarm for 10:50, giving me plenty of time to set up.

I incidentally checked my phone. There were two calls from MH’s father. OMG! I had forgotten about the session. I continued with E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan when we connected. The language is much more complex than Stuart Little and the story is more engaging. Working on this book exposed her cognitive weakness. She doesn’t use the information provided in a sensible way. She picks out isolated bits of information. Other students do that, but hers feels different. I think this problem plagues her in interactions with friends and family as well as in reading.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Church was interesting today, or should I say watching a family interact was interesting. A woman sat with two of her children and a man I had never seen before. The kids looked a little like him and seemed very comfortable with him. I suspected he was their father. The mother looked subdued.

The first time I saw the woman was in church when I attended Mass at a small church that held no more than 75 people. She came with a different man than the one she was with today. She sat toward the front of this small church where she was easily seen. She couldn’t keep her hands off him while he sat there stoically. I was struck that she behaved that way in front of her child. That compelling attraction was a sign of a new love. He was not the father of her children.

One day, while walking through the neighborhood, I saw her coming out of a driveway. “ Do you live here?” No, she lived somewhere else. I assumed with the hunk from church. This is where her children lived. I subsequently ran into her ex-husband’s grandmother, who lived with him. I mentioned the woman’s name; Grandma had a few choice words. I concluded the woman had left her husband for a new lover.

Today, she stood with the man I assumed to be the father of the children. He kissed her lightly on the lips and held her hand during the Our Father. He looked joyful. I could feel his love for her. She looked depressed. I can’t begin to imagine how the other relationship panned out. She left him because while he was sexually exciting, that was it. Or he left her for whatever reason. Either way, she’s back with her husband, recovering from a failed adventure.

The sermon today was on love and forgiveness. Love in today’s sermon was wishing someone well for their sake, not ours, wishing our worst enemy a good life, and being happy for someone you have nothing to do with and wants nothing to do with you. That pretty much eliminates wishing our kids well. We’re too invested.

I generally wish others well. However, I have trouble when I resent them for having something I don’t have. In my case, that’s always the nerve to pursue something I want. I want to broadcast the information on the reading methods I have developed. If I did that, I would be okay. It is possible I would be okay even if no one paid attention. At least, I would be there for me.

When I think of self-centeredness, I remember an ad for the Yellow Pages, which ran in the 80s or 90s. It could never be run today. The ad was for the Yellow Pages, illustrating some items in the phone book. This ad illustrated vanity cases, a heading in the directory. It featured an effeminate gay man saying, “Well, enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of my outfit?” I roar with laughter whenever I think of that ad. It was clever and spot-on- but it had nothing to do with the vanity cases in the phone book.

One slight misunderstanding between me and another person, and I’m off and running. As I write this, I don’t even remember who the contretemps was with. I don’t see people as judgmental unless they tell me they are. I see people as not responding well to something I said or did. I don’t like to make people uncomfortable, but I do things meaning to be funny. Sometimes, people don’t find what I do funny. Mike would sometimes say, “You’re not funny,” when the reality was that he hadn’t found something I said not funny. Otherwise, he often found me amusing. Like any comedian, I must adjust my behavior to my audience’s taste or find another audience. That’s what compatibility is about.

I’m willing to make adjustments, but some people find that abhorrent. Most people like that I have known have trouble in intimate relationships. Relationships either work or they don’t work. When they work, all’s good; when they don’t, they’re out of there like a shot or prepared to stick with it unhappily. I had a happy marriage. I loved it.

I met Mike in a therapy group. It was my first day in the group. Mike came rushing in late, wearing a jacket and carrying a briefcase. I thought he was cute. He apologized for being late. He was visiting his girlfriend in the hospital, who just had a hysterectomy. I thought, “Forget him. He’s in a committed relationship.” That day was the Wednesday after the 4th of July 1973. Our first date was November 8. The rest is history.

Mike might not have been quite as satisfied as I was. The more controlling someone is, the less likely they are to be happy with life circumstances. They have difficulty adjusting. Where I’m brittle, I am unhappy. Ah, it comes back to craving and aversion. Being controlling is another way of categorizing people who crave having things go their way and have an aversion to things not going their way.

It would be hard to know where I fit on the scale of reactivity. I think we all feel discord, literally two chords that don’t harmonize. No two people can be in constant accordance. What are the variables? There’s our internal one; some people are hyperreactive in all situations because they’re controlling. Some people are selectively reactive. I think I fit into that category. I have worked hard in therapy to be less sensitive. There are external causes; some situations are more injurious than others. The death of a family member probably gets a pass. If someone laughs at us rather than with us, that gets high points for being a cause of distress. If someone shuns us, good luck with not reacting to that. We’re wired to be sensitive to shunning. When someone does something that triggers rejection, that’s a tough one for all of us.

Trust is a significant factor in our reactivity. How much can we trust the other person to be committed to our well-being. I trusted Mike to want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him. Our dependence on each other, mutual respect, and caring made the relationship work. Others saw him put me down. I heard it, too, at the beginning of our relationship. I assumed he was venting a bit but never assumed he could possibly mean the things he said. My blindness got us through the first few years, maybe the first ten.

Mike was arrogant when I met him. I saw that in his expressed opinions of others. I didn’t like it. But I trusted his attachment to me. Sometimes, a dependence like that can make a person horrible. The dependent person hates their dependency and seeks to destroy their partner, so it’s clear they’re the one lucky to be in this relationship in the first place. Mike may have felt that way at times, but he didn’t push it to the point where he made his position clear to me. I was shielded by a positive set of assumptions. He eventually became the man I thought he was. He never betrayed me or put me down in ways that were irreparable. Lucky me.

I wasn’t with Mike because I trusted him to agree with me, but I did expect him to respect my point of view. As it turned out, he admitted he thought he was right about everything at the beginning of our relationship. Really. That’s crazy. Not that he disagreed with me, but that he actually believed he was the only one capable of being right. He couldn’t have been as happy in the relationship as I was if that was his point of view. He had to see himself as someone who gave in to me even though he knew better. He was right about many things, but assuming you’re right about everything is pure hubris. Holy cow!

I went to Petco after Mass to look for a new brush for Elsa. The one I had broke. It has a plate at the bottom of the metal bristles. When I was through brushing Elsa, I pushed a knob at the back of the head of the brush. The plate slid down the bristles. The hair sat on the plate, free from the bristles. The one I had broke because I pushed the plate too far. It passed the tips of the bristles. There was no coming back from that.

I was going to Costco to pick up some items. I was nearly there when I decided that having the food sit in the car or even in a bag while I did the sound bath in air-conditioned Unity wouldn’t work. I turned around. I arrived at Unity at 11:30. I shared some food the members brought after the service. It’s always a potluck.

Sadly, I was still in rumination mode during the sound bath. I never got my mind under control. However, later in the day, I could remember some of the sounds and feel the impact on my body.

I drove Joseph to the airport. He’s off visiting a friend on the mainland for ten days.