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

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

I did those upper body exercises right before bed again. I didn't sleep as well as I had the night before, but I slept soundly through to 3:30. I spent the time writing and doing exercises. The first thing I did after completing my morning routine was go to my neighbor's empty lot with a bucket and pick up softball-sized stones. I planned to place them around the base of the new shrubs I planted so the chickens couldn't dig up the plants.

After feeding Elsa, I went down to water my forty-two newly planted shrubs with the bucket of rocks. As I watered, I looked for plants the chickens had attacked. They create depressions in the ground for their dry baths. They love the freshly dug ground around the plants. In some cases, the roots were already laid bare. I pushed dirt back into the depressions and laid rocks on top. Will the chickens move the rocks? Are they strong enough?

After I watered the shrubs, I wanted to do more work but needed a nap. Two hours later, I got up. I texted Dr. Salassa to make an appointment for my second hip replacement. I had scheduled the surgery for June 15, 2022, but I fell and crushed my shoulder and elbow. Fortunately, I remembered to call to tell them I had to cancel. I hoped they could put someone else in that slot. I got an appointment for March 13.

While I have experienced mild discomfort in my right hip, which reminds me of the type of pain I had with my left hip, my reason for scheduling it now is that I'm concerned about Medicare coming to an end. Musk has promised to cut back federal expenditures. He says there will be a time of great suffering. The national debt is a huge problem. I agree with that. I don't know how to solve it. Under Trump and Republicans, the merit system is valued. Those who haven't secured enough money to live without support will suffer; the super-wealthy will do just fine.

I was too tired to go pick up the medication prescribed for my UTI. I had mild symptoms. I learned that older women don't get the symptoms we did when we were younger. We have to be on the alert. Jean said the caretakers at her mother's elder care facility always checked for a UTI whenever she seemed vague. I had trouble focusing. Wouldn't it be great if an antibiotic cleared that up?

I finally got to visit Paulette. Between my schedule and hers, we couldn't find a convenient time. We talked about Mother Mary's Tea and the people we sat with.

When I got home, I worked on preparing the soil for the kua gardenia I had to plant. I got a small gardenia from Margo a while ago, but it died. It had a blight that I couldn't address. When Eli planted the 42 shrubs before Margo delivered the new one I ordered, I had him dig a hole for the new plant. It was larger than the original. I needed to dig a bigger hole than Eli had. Because small rocks are used as ground cover in that area, they fell into the hole as it was dug. I put the soil into a bucket and sifted out the large stones.

In the afternoon, I went to Ulu Wini. Second-grade JM came to work with me. Her word recognition and reading fluency are at least at a high third-grade level. However, her comprehension was at a low kindergarten level. Last time, I worked with a low-level picture book. Well, the first part of the book was low-level. The second half was very complex-way over her head. I needed to find an appropriate book.

Second-grade NV did better remembering words on the sight word list. However, she still decoded them instead of using automatic recall. I worked on that a bit. For students to develop that skill, they need the patience to wait until the mind delivers the name of the word. This is especially tough if the system works inconsistently at best.

I had planned to stop at Kaiser to pick up the antibiotics for my UTI and at Home Depot to pick up one or two items. I was barely going to make it home for my 4:30 tutoring session.

I made it home in time for my session with seventh-grade RC. She often blocks my view of her face the way Adolescent D did. Today, she didn't do that. She didn't have that sullen expression on her face she has had to this point. In our last session, I confronted her on her passive-aggressive behavior. I told her the story of my experience when I learned it's worthwhile investing in what I do unless it's dangerous for me. Today, she was completely different. She wasn't defensive or antagonist. She had a writing assignment, comparing the adolescent mind to Phineas Gage after his accident when a tamping iron went through his head. I knew about Gage's situation through my neuroscience courses. I read the Wiki entry about him and was quite surprised. I had been fed the myths about him.

While his behavior was radically changed immediately after the accident and at the end of his life when he suffered from epileptic seizures, he regained his ability to be a well-regulated and disciplined person. He spent years driving a stagecoach in Chile. That required meeting a timetable, responding to the unexpected, and relating to people. He must have regained his prefrontal lobe control if he could perform these tasks.

I finally got Elsa bathed. Her skin was so good I didn't feel pressured to do it.

Monday, December 9, 2024

This was the second night I slept straight through till 4:30. Wow! That hadn't happened for years. I started a new before-bed exercise I came across on the internet, maybe one of Facebook's shorts. I crossed my arms, grabbing the upper arm with the opposite hand and twisting my upper body back and forth to the count of 50. Next, I do fifty cross-body punches. I knew it was worthwhile trying because I found doing upper body exercises exhausting. I was always ready to nap. I had no idea why upper body movement has that effect, but I wasn't complaining about it.

I was in quite a state this morning, deep grief over the loss of Mike and other family problems. My emotional state was profound and disturbed my thinking skills. I tried to nap when I completed my morning yoga exercises and walk. That didn't work. I got up.

Today was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a celebration of the Virgin Mary. Suzanne B., a professional baker, set up a 'tea' in her honor. The tea is quite a project. I've participated in two others.

I went to the noon mass and then the tea. The mass couldn't have taken more than half an hour. We were in line for the tea well before 1. It was almost two before the food had been blessed, and we could help ourselves.

Everyone lined up shortly after the mass. It was a very slow-moving line. Suzanne had assigned seats. She made a gingerbread cookie with our names on it for everyone who signed up, which was placed at our assigned seat. Suzanne wanted to force people to sit with people they didn't know.

The problem was there was only one person at a desk with a handwritten, unalphabetized list of everyone who had signed up ahead and had an assigned seat. Suzanne's intentions were beyond admirable. Her method of getting us seated was poor. I pushed ahead to talk to the person with the list and recommended they Xerox it, so we had four copies with four people checking the names. I wasn't pushing ahead, but Suzanne gave the checker my name, and the next thing I knew, I had my table assignment, and my advice was ignored. If Suzanne wants to do something comparable next year, I plan to volunteer to develop a better system.

I conversed with four people at my table. Evita and Gene were a couple. I asked where Evita was from. She was not from Argentina but from the former Soviet Union, specifically Lithuania. She said it's a common name there. Did the famous Argentinian Evita have a Lithuanian name, or did Lithuanians name their children after the Argentinian Evita?

The Evita, sharing a table with me, came to the US in the 1990s. I asked how the couple wound up in Hawaii. It's a common question asked of haoles, white people from the mainland. Few white people were born here, particularly of the over-fifty set. I wondered how they met.

Gene, Evita's partner, immigrated to the US from Canada. He hired Evita as his immigration lawyer in 2000. They maintained contact for work reasons. And then the contact became for pleasure. They moved to Hawaii. I saw Gene on Sundays. He said he attended the 7 am mass. He hung around afterward.

Claudia sat to my immediate left. We introduced ourselves. I explained I was Deacon Mike's widow. She explained that she had spoken with me on the phone. She had volunteered to donate her kidney to Mike. She was the only total stranger to do so. I told her I had volunteered but had qualified. My kidney function was already too low. Nothing serious, just age-related, but it was still below the cut-off. Claudia asked me what he died of. Pancreatis. Paulette's husband also had kidney failure and died of pancreatitis. I suspect there's a causal relationship.

A young woman sat at the table, moving someone's gingerbread cookie and sitting in their spot. I told her seats were reserved. She told me the woman told her to sit in her assigned seat. Her face looked vaguely familiar, her facial mannerisms even more so. I asked her who her dad was. Sure enough. Her dad had taken Mike and me out to dinner several times with his two daughters. She was now twenty years old. I hadn't seen her since before Mike died five and a half years ago. She was in college studying philosophy and something else. I asked about her younger sister, who was three years younger. The girls didn't have much to do with each other. I sympathized. I had similar problems with my sister. She asked me if my sister was a jerk, too. I said we were both jerks. Children who come from difficult backgrounds tend to have problems. She nodded in agreement.

Her family situation was unique. Her dad was 61 when she was born, and she was the oldest. Her mother came here from the Philippines for an arranged marriage. Her father always put her down when he spoke to us. On one occasion, she was included in our dinner. She displayed genuine concern and affection for her husband, who was a difficult man.

Finally, Deacon Sandor blessed the food, and people lined up. I was involved in a conversation and didn't get in line until everyone else had. I looked at the time. I needed to leave in fifteen minutes. It would take more than fifteen minutes before I got to the food. I sat down, resigned. I said something about the time problem. Fern, who sat at my table, grabbed me and marched me to the table. That was something I would have done for someone else. It was something I would usually have done for myself. I was subdued by the weight of my grief; I didn't have the energy to be that brazen. I loved that someone else did that for me. I know many people cringed when I did things like that, sometimes the people I did it for. I loved it. it was like a breath of fresh air.

I got some food: a tuna fish sandwich with cranberries, a lilikoi bar, pumpkin crunch, an oatmeal scone, and a mochi bar. Judy and Paulette made everything except the scone and mochi. They provided most of the food and spent time helping Suzanne lay out the table. Amazing work.

I had a session with fourth-grade GV. He saw a little bit of difference in his reading- he thought. I asked what he wanted to work on. He said spelling. About half a year ago, I developed Phase III of the Phonics Development system. I thought of it primarily as a method of teaching writing skills, the most complex of the neurological literacy tasks.

First, we compose a sentence (I won't address its relationship to the rest of the paragraph/whole text). Next, we isolate the first word, recall its spelling through auditory and visual recall, and write it. We need to remember the sentence we were writing and go through the same three steps while suspending the complete sentence somewhere in our minds.

As I dictated the words to GV, I only gave him a phrase at a time instead of a complete sentence. It became clear that he spelled everything by sounding it out. He had no automatic visual recall, so I led him through the BrainManagementSkills exercise for visual recall.

I asked him the color of his blanket. When he had that in mind, I asked him where he held that image; I pointed to several places on the skull, starting with the forehead. GV pointed to the forehead. In my experience, this spot works best for visual recall. (There is no scientific evidence to support my finding.) Then, I asked him to write a five-letter word on his blanket, using his imagination. Borrowing from Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I then ask the student to name the first letter, the second, etc. Doing it deliberately forces the student to concentrate on each letter. The next step is to ask the student to name the fifth letter, the first, and the third. The purpose is to force them to 'read' the letters, holding them all in his mind for easy viewing. He had never done that before. Clearly, he didn't have a neurological problem; he just never thought to turn on his short-term visual memory. I will have to observe how his long-term memory works. He may just need additional instruction on how to use that.

Then, I had fourth-grade LG. We reviewed rounding to all digits 10-100,000. He did well, but I think he needed to do this exercise several times. Then, I switched to counting by 10s. He had no problem counting 10, 20, 30, etc. I told him to start with the number 2. He didn't know what I meant. I modeled, and he caught on quickly: 2, 12, 22, etc.

I asked if he was doing better in math. He laughed. Yes, he was doing e much better. His last report card showed he had problems with writing. When I said I wanted to work on that, he said he was doing much better since I showed him how to form the letters. He was referring to his handwriting. he formed them from the bottom up; I showed him how to form them from the top down. I told him I wanted to work on storywriting. LG groaned. I reminded him that everything I did with him wound up being fun. He couldn't imagine writing being fun.

I asked LG to pick a color. Red. Name something that is red. A rose. Where was the rose? In his backyard. He wondered if the story had to be true. I told him it could be whatever he wanted it to be. It could be fiction or nonfiction. The story could be entirely made up or based on a personal experience. He seemed stuck. I modeled writing a story based on the details he shared with me. I love doing things like that. I explained I followed the movie my mind revealed to me. I love writing in general and writing stories using a cowriting method. So fun!

My internet kept failing while I worked with the two boys. I'd been having problems with it for quite a while. I complained to Brian S., who set up the system. He kept telling me I didn't have a problem. Today, I finally got through. I asked him if he could recommend someone who could if he couldn't.

He said there were 46 devices in the immediate vicinity. That much electronic activity slows down the internet. He had me try speedtest.net on my phone. It came out as a one, a very low level. He finally got it that I had a problem. He came over. He concluded there was a problem with the 'tunnel' or the access device. If it was with the access device, he would have to replace it. I connected to Josh and Yvette's internet for my 4:30 session with LG. it was faster and more stable. When I was through, I ran speedtest.net on Brian's instructions. The speed was much quicker. He had fixed it.

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Oops! I forgot to water the shrubs today. They must be watered daily for several months until they're firmly rooted. I have to battle the chickens and the lack of rain. The chickens love digging up loose soil for their dry baths. Besides watering each plant individually with a hose, I need to make sure the roots aren't exposed.

The charger I used yesterday, the one Kia provided when I bought the car, to charge it didn't work. Was it the car or the charger? Since I had a second charger, it was worth trying. It worked. Bingo!

At church, I saw a familiar child's face. She smiled at me, and I nodded hello. Confused at first, I thought I knew her from when I volunteered at Kealakehe, but she was too young to be one of those kids. I realized I knew her from Ulu Wini when I saw a handicapped child in a stroller.

After Mass, I walked over to say hello. Instead of greeting me, the girl avoided my gaze and turned grey. She looked like she was in agony when I went over to greet her. I asked her if she was okay. She said fine. I walked away. I realized afterward that she was probably embarrassed about her parents, who didn't speak English. I couldn't remember her name. I would have to ask Shauntel when I saw her on Tuesday. If I identified the girl by the handicapped child in the stroller, she would know who I was talking about.

Paulette sat down to talk to me. Courtney came over to speak to me briefly. This was a first on both counts. I guess when I'm feeling lousy and would prefer to be left alone, others see me as approachable. Will someone please explain this to me. I have learned I don't have to put out maximum energy with every connection. I can remain quiet and mumble something.

I arrived at the Unity church before 11 am for the noon crystal healing event. Getting there early assures me of a parking space. I pushed my car seat back to relax while I listened to Hidden Brain on HPR. Today's talk was about the Milgram and Zimbardo studies, which asked why people blindly follow the directions of authority figures. I was familiar with both studies. It's not only the results of these studies that are horrifying; it's the cruelty needed to put the experiment's subjects through those exercises in the first place. The Uni Bomber was one of Milgram's subjects. Milgram systematically humiliated him.

When the Zimbardo prison study rapidly degenerated to brutality, Zimbardo stopped it only because his girlfriend came to observe, was appropriately horrified, and told him he had to stop it. A priest had already observed the subjects' behavior and said nothing. Holy cow!

I ran the car and the air conditioning while I sat in the parking lot, listening to the radio. I was shocked to see I had lost 8 miles of battery in the half hour I had spent there. That's more energy than I need to get up, Kaimiani.

It was a heavy grief day. That's what impacted my subdued demeanor at church. I felt the same at Unity. I wanted little contact. Clyde called me earlier and asked if I was coming. He was going to tell me why he canceled the Monday morning Chi Qigong sessions. It was usually just the two of us. I enjoyed our conversations after we completed the routine. As I left today, he asked for a hug. I told him I wasn't up for contact today, and he walked away. He's an insecure man, needy. He's told me his wife complains about it. I never experienced it. I'm concerned about the repercussions of my 'rejection.' I'll deal with it directly.

I had my usual Sunday session with fourth-grade MH. We continued working on E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. Working with this material has taught me how much unfamiliar syntax and vocabulary can throw a reader. I continued with the procedure I set up last time: I read a paragraph, ensuring she understood all the vocabulary and the relationship of one sentence to the others before she read it aloud. The difference in her reading fluency was substantial. I learned the prereading approach from a Whole Language workshop.

Saturday, December 7, 2024

I check my Tesla app regularly to see how much of our electrical usage the solar covers. I had a shock this morning. Our overnight battery coverage was low. Had the electricians from Regis Electric done something when piggybacking the dedicated line on the solar panel? I texted Yvette, Josh, and B to ask if anyone had used a lot of electricity. Everyone reported no. I called the company to report a possible problem. Now, I had three electrical problems: my car didn't charge when I plugged it in using the Kia charging cord with the undamaged plug, the solar system was underperforming, and my Internet was unstable to downright intermittent. I temporarily fixed the car problem. I tried the other charger, the one with the slightly burnt plug. That worked just fine.

I weeded the vines growing on the rock wall on my neighbor's side more. It's a vacant lot.

Dean and Nina came over for our regular game of Sorry and conversation. I remember it being tense today. I wasn't in a very good mood, still recovering from my birthday upset. Perhaps Dean got into pushing some point about man's interference with nature. While I agree with him that we've been disastrous for this lovely planet, I still feel duty-bound to battle nature, killing off the plants I don't want.

Before we started playing, Nina's phone rang. It was Dean's sister calling to wish him a happy birthday. Neither one of us knew about the other's. I had the Tuxedo cake from Judy, and we all had a slice. I offered to sing Happy Birthday. Dean, having heard my version once, declined. Tensions dissolved as we played. I always feel renewed and refreshed after our time together.

I had no students today. I might have had a chance to work with the Twins, but they were out and about for the day.

We, meaning all of us, often do things to 'help' others that, in the best case, aren't helpful and, in the worst case, are harmful. My mother did that a lot. It was a crazy-making situation. She actually believed she would do me harm if she said anything positive. Sounds ridiculous, no? I was as shocked as most of my readers must be, but she proved it to me.

My mother moved into my home with Mike and me when she was 81. She lived with us for the rest of her life, another 18 years. A few months after she moved in, she said, "I know I shouldn't tell you this. It isn't good for you, but I can't resist. I've been telling everyone what a good daughter you are." Yeah, you read that right. Expressing any positive feedback would be dangerous for me. It's the polar opposite of parents who believe saying anything negative is bad for children. Too much of anything is harmful. Too much poverty or too much wealth. Both are out of the sweet spot for mentally healthy living. As I said, we do harm in the name of caring.

There are different levels of care based on circumstances. We care about the people we are bonded to. We are responsible for their well-being. The impulse to fix a problem is biologically driven. When we see a comrade fall, we feel compelled to pick them up. When we see someone not of our tribe fall, we feel nothing. It's not our problem.

Again, here I am, viewing this from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. 10,00 to 200,000 years ago, the primary concern for ourselves and those we were bonded to was physical. If someone fell, we had to rush and help them up. If someone was injured, we had to find a way to fix the wound. If someone was attacked by an animal or another person, we had to give aid. The impulse to help was and still is embedded in our nervous system. We're social animals. Maintaining the social body is as important as maintaining our individual bodies. The well-being of others is intimately linked to our own well-being.

Therefore, the need to calm our anxiety drives the impulse to fix someone else's problem. But that was then; this is now.

How do then and now differ? Then, most of the problems were physical, much like a military combat unit is concerned about the physical well-being of all participants. The concern for the other dimension of human existence, the psychological, is trivial by comparison. The closer people live to the threat of physical survival, the less focus there is on the psychological well-being of others or ourselves. The stress of living another day overrides all other concerns. There's no room for that sort of self-indulgence.

But we've taken care of that for some people, at least in some parts of the world. I'm one of those people. I have not been without food, clothing, shelter, or physical safety for a single day of my life. My parents weren't wealthy, but we had plenty of what we needed to survive. Survival was never an issue, except in our heads.

My mom had faced a life-threatening illness in the first six months of her life that left her permanently traumatized, with a sense of danger hovering over her and her children. She also went through WWI in Berlin. That added to it. And, oh yes, she had to flee Germany in fear for her life because she was romantically involved with a Jew. My mom faced several life-threatening situations. While none of those were active as she raised me and my sister, they loomed over us nonetheless.

But there is the other type of caring that isn't driven by concern for everyone's physical well-being. Our lack of physical threat allows us to be more aware of our mental and emotional states. Yay, at one level, and OMG, what did I wish for on the other hand? We weren't designed for the good life. Like zoo animals, denied the stresses of the life they were designed to deal with, we've become neurotic, concerned about relatively trivial things, seeing threats where there are none- at least none to our physical well-being. No lions, tigers, or bears are waiting to make us their next tasty meal. More to the point, there are no pressures to conform to the exact standards created by life-threatening situations. Back in the bad old days, an inability to conform to group standards could lead to a death sentence. It was physically threatening. In the depth of our psyches, we don't know the difference between physical and psychological threats, and we're not aware of what our deep unconscious minds are projecting onto this relatively benign world.

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Friday, December 6, 2024

I got up late this morning, at 6 a.m. Usually, I'm awake by 3:30/4 and up no later than 5. I skipped my morning yoga exercises to get out and walk with Elsa before sunrise. I watered the shrubs, 10 seconds per plant for each one. I also did a bit of weeding while I was out there.

I was exhausted. I was hard hit with grief since my birthday. Too much loss. My mind was dulled. I tried napping to fix the problem. That didn't work. A good cry might have helped, but I was too well-trained to cry. I have to be pushed over a pretty steep cliff before I surrender to weeping. Then, I sob loudly. It sounds like I'm laughing.

I set out to town. I nearly made a fatal mistake turning onto Hiolani, and I nearly made a left turn into oncoming traffic. But I didn't. A miss is as good as a mile. I don't know how close I came, but my perception of the situation was weird.

Since it was clear I wasn't feeling well, I called Darby to cancel our birthday celebration lunch appointment for today. She proposed we reschedule.

Today was the last Hula session before the next session in January. I made it to the church parking lot and decided I didn't have the energy. Given I had attended every session so far, I was concerned that someone might be worried about me. I look out for others, so I anticipate that others may look out for me.

I had some chores to do in town, so I went to Lowes to return the 10 gauge 25 ft. extension cord. Besides not needing it because I got the dedicated line put in, it had a four-prong plug instead of a three-prong, so it was useless.

Then I went to Office Max to hand in the used toner cartridge, get my $2 credit, and have the 404-page 2019 update entries bound.

I walked down the strip mall to Island Naturals to pick up their tuna salad. On my way there, I had a weird experience. A young woman walking in the other direction said, "What a great smile you have!" I wasn't feeling well and thought I was grimacing instead of smiling. She made another friendly comment, and I turned to talk to her. She had the demeanor of a Mormon, a young person who looked like they were just bathed with ivory soap. She made some other comments. I asked her if she was new to the island. Aloha is one thing, but this was something else. She was in her missionary year with the University of Nations. Ah! She may not have been a Mormon but was cut from the same cloth. She asked me my name and gave me hers. She went on her way.

Afterward, it occurred to me that she may have thought I was homeless or mentally ill. I wore a sweatshirt and wasn't feeling well. I wear a sweatshirt most of the time. It's cool at my elevation but can also be very unpleasant and humid, especially when the trade winds take a break. By wearing warm clothes, I set my thermostat to have a high tolerance for heat.

I learned that trick from my friend David when I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He told me that if I wanted to tolerate the extremes of temperature there, I had to avoid wearing warm clothing as winter came on and keep as much clothing on as I could tolerate as summer came in.

Then I went to Kia. The service manager, Joe, called this morning to say the parts were in, and he needed the car for two hours. When the plans for lunch with Darby were still in place, she would pick me up at the garage and drop me off after lunch. Now, I would spend the two hours in the lounge.

I drove to Kia. Joe greeted me warmly with open arms. "I feel like we're old friends." He is an amazingly warm, open, honest person. He offered me a ride home. I took the blanket from a car that I had stored there for the monthly sound bath and crystal healing and curled up on the couch in the waiting room. I didn't sleep. My troubled mental state interfered. When I sat up planning to work, Joe came in to tell me the job was done. However, he suspected a continuing problem. he said he sent the digital information to corporate. The information wouldn't be back till Monday. Before I left, I took a pit stop. When I returned the bathroom key to the parts manager. I talked about how great Joe was. She agreed. She said the change in the shop started six months ago when the new GM started. He made all the difference. He's the one who hired Joe. He cared about the clients.

I only had 6th-grade RC today. She was her usual withholding self. Whenever I asked her if she saw an improvement or how she felt about the lesson, she gave me noncommittal responses. She drove me nuts.

When I asked her about today's session, she admitted she didn't want to be there. She wanted to clean her room so she could visit a friend—a reasonable way to feel, especially for an adolescent. But she always behaves this way.

I asked her if she ever heard about passive-aggressive behavior. She sure did. I told her it was a good strategy when used appropriately. The slaves in the American South used it to thwart their masters. They pretended they were slow and incompetent to frustrate them. it was a way to take some control over their lives and regain their dignity.

My first question was, did she feel the tutoring sessions were potentially harmful to her. No. It was up to her mother if the sessions were to continue. Her behavior wasn't going to change that. All she was accomplishing was making all three of us, her mother, her, and me, uncomfortable.

I told her a story of a realization I had when I was her age. I faced a chore my mother thought was so horrible that she didn't want to do it. In those days, in the early 1950s, girls had to wear gym uniforms to physical education classes. They were jumpsuits with baby doll sleeves and shorts, baby doll pant legs. They were a nightmare to iron; we were required to wash and iron them every week. My mom took one look at that uniform and said, no way. So, I had to learn how to iron. I figured if she dreaded doing it, it would be worse for me, as I had never ironed anything before in her life. But once I got going, I discovered I could find a way to enjoy the task. I discovered the blue color of the uniform changed when I applied the heat of the iron. I enjoyed the color show. I learned there's always a way to figure out how to get something positive out of every situation. Since she wasn't going to get out of these tutoring sessions with her behavior, she might as well figure out a way to invest. She wasn't going to get to her friend's house faster with her negative behavior.

Thursday, December 5, 2024

Today was my 84th birthday. I felt no need to celebrate birthdays when Mike was alive. I was grateful for Mike every day of the year. A while ago, my niece asked me if Mike and I were as happy as we looked. Yes, we were, but that doesn't mean everything was perfect. Our relationship was a combination of a good-enough match and dumb luck. I had the image of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Is that a good metaphor for a perfect match? My guess is a good marriage match doesn't fit together as well as two puzzle pieces. We were both crazy in so many ways. We had the good fortune of not encountering stresses that would have pushed us over the edge.

I watered the shrubs with the handheld hose, which will work while the plants are still small. I have the materials to set up the drip hoses but lack the confidence to do the extensive work. I have to lay three lines, one for each row of plants. Then, I have to insert forty-two drip vents and the connectors.

Regis Electric responded quickly. They would be here at 10 to install a dedicated line. They called me twice to say they were running late. Wow! I was super impressed. Two young men in their twenties arrived to install my dedicated line. They looked competent. I was very impressed. And did I mention they were cute?

My breaker box was full. The electricians couldn't use that. Knowing I had a solar system, they checked out some equipment associated and said something about piggybacking on it. I had complete confidence in their knowledge and a complete lack of confidence in mine. They asked for access to the attic. They complimented the electric work Provision Solar did. It was neat. They criticized the workmanship of the solar water heater: the timing mechanism was mismatched with its case, making it impossible to close. They also discovered the installer had used a 12 gauge wire when he should have used a 10 gauge. They would come back to fix those two issues. I would love to have them do any work for me. I had such confidence in them.

One of the objects they had to move was the chifforobe my mother designed, made, and brought with her from Germany when she came to America to marry my dad. My dad loved well-designed objects. He loved my mom's chest. He had a mate made. I grew up with a twin set. She brought them with her when she moved from Great Neck to Princeton to live with Mike and me in 1983.

Mike didn't want to take the chifforobes with us when we moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 2003. I agreed. Then, I started falling asleep at the wheel on my commute to and from New Brunswick. When I meditated on the subject, I got I was distraught because I was going to lose my mom's chest. I told Mike we couldn't get rid of it. My well-being depended on it. It sat in the Columbus house garage until we moved to Hawaii. Then, we took it with us and parked it in front of the garage, which was converted to Mike's library, covered by the moving blankets that came with it in 2015.

When my niece Shivani visited, she talked about some of her behavior after her husband died after a few years of marriage. She said she held on to his cell phone, expecting me to think her behavior was weird. I showed her mom's cabinet. Oh!

Besides the chifforobe, there were several other miscellaneous pieces of gardening equipment. I used the front of the house as a dumping ground for miscellaneous objects I didn't know what to do with. You can imagine the look.

When the workmen moved the chest to run a wire and its protective tubing from the side of the house, they removed one of the moving blankets. It disintegrated in my hand, shedding blue flakes. I stuffed it into the trash barrel without placing it in a plastic bag first. Hopefully, these little blue particles won't wind up all over the neighborhood. I swept the exposed area and moved some of the miscellaneous objects I had stored there to the shed.

I did some more work on my neighbor's yard along the outside of my rock wall. Her weed-infested yard threatened everything mine.

I planned to go to Ulu Wini but was too tired. I was happy for the excuse; going there doesn't make me happy. Few kids want to work with me. It's probably not personal. I ask only those kids who want to work with me. I don't like to force people.

Yvette planned to come up for dinner for my birthday. She texted to say she was sick. She had started out feeling well that morning and then took a serious turn for the worse.

Judy called on her way shopping. Toward the end of the conversation, I reminded her it was my birthday. I didn't want her to realize it later and feel bad. She stopped by on her way home and dropped off a great birthday card and a two-foot Tuxedo cake from Costco. It's the favorite cake in her family.

Damon called. After, he sang a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday in the Ross mode. Damon said he had sent me a gift certificate from Huggo's, our favorite restaurant. Theoretically, I can use it alone, but I think he's counting on my not using it until he arrives. This way, he's killed two birds with one $100 gift certificate. I'll take it, especially since he's planning a visit in January. Yay! Again.

For the rest of the call, we argued over whether he could do more to help his mom recover her husband's medicare B health care insurance. She had neglected to pay while she was ill and refused to go on automatic payment. His insurance lapsed. It's been a while since the problem was discovered. I guess a provider discovered that his insurance policy was no longer active. Jean insisted she could take care of it on her own. I'm sure she could have written a brief for a lawsuit. Jean was a lawyer. But, I don't think she had the necessary skills to deal with the Social Security department and insurance company on her own. She finally agreed to accept help from John's daughter and Damon. Yay!

I was nodding off by 8:30 again. I think I'm responding to the change in sunset.

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

I was up at four this morning, working on the updates. I get the most done in the early morning hour.

I took an early morning nap. The distress caused by what the healer said hit me. I had to wonder why she framed my directness in negative terms. It triggered sadness and shame. This is what my mother always said to me. ‘No one likes you. I’m the only person who does, and that’s because I’m your mother. I’m the only person you can trust to love you enough to tell you the truth.” That ‘truth’ was never anything positive.

I can handle negative feedback from someone who is generally positive about me. I don’t expect people to like everything about me all the time. People who hang with me have to enjoy my directness, but that doesn’t mean they will like every direct comment I make.

Mike enjoyed my sense of humor, but there were moments he didn’t think I was funny when I meant it to be. He would say, “You’re not funny.” I would say, “ What I said wasn’t funny.” The best professional comedian has duds.

Eli, the gardener, came today. His son wasn’t with him. I anticipated communication problems because his English is weak. When he arrived, I asked him if he read Spanish. I brought him to the lanai, where I had my computer set up with a Spanish-to-English translation program. I wanted to ask him about the soil amendment.

Four large containers of product were sitting in my car trunk. Mixing the soil with that much product seemed like a lot of work. I wanted to know what Eli had in mind when he said he would bring what he needed with him. He smiled and said I didn’t need anything. We walked down to the plot, and he showed me why. He picked up a handful of the soil, let it fall through his fingers, and offered it to me to smell. “See how loose and how rich it is? You don’t need anything more.”

The area had been covered by large Ficus trees with massive roots, threatening the nearby rock wall and concrete driveway. Those trees had to go. I spent several thousand dollars to have them removed with a backhoe, removing roots as well as trunks, and the area covered with mulch several feet deep. Then I had to wait 8 months while the mulch broke down, creating this rich soil. When October arrived, I wasn’t prepared. I had to decide what to plant and how to get them planted. All overwhelming decisions.

Eli said the first thing he had to do was flatten the area. The chickens had created holes, making the surface irregular. Chickens dig holes to ‘bathe,’ not to find food. Eli got the job in a stunningly short period of time. I was expecting him to take the whole day. It was a few hours, and all the plants were in the ground and watered. He had dug an additional hole for me at the side of the house where I wanted to plant another Kua Gardenia for the one that died. Some bug got into it. I didn’t catch it in time, and the bug won.

While Eli planted the shrubs, I went to my neighbor’s yard to pull vines and baby haole koas before the roots became stronger than me. These trees grow deep roots, making it almost impossible to get out. My neighbor did it with chains and a truck. I did two weeding sessions with a break in between. I stopped when my back or legs started complaining. I didn’t want to be out there in a weakened condition. Between sessions, I napped.

I had a session with 4th grade GV. I asked him if he enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. He did. I told him the English orthographic system was like a jigsaw puzzle. It was big and confusing, but there was a pattern that could be figured out. I spoke about short and long vowels. He said he had never heard of them before. Could that be possible? Could he really have had three, almost four years of school and never heard a reference to long and short vowels? It might be possible if his teachers were devoted to the Whole Language method. I pulled up the vowel chart. He saw the pattern on his own: the sound of the short vowels is different from the name of the letter, and the sound of the long vowel is the same as the name of the letter.

I also had a session with fourth-grade LG. His recall of the odd and even numbers was perfect, and he could apply his knowledge to larger numbers. I continued working on rounding. Given 768, he could round to the nearest 100s; given 78, he could round to the nearest 10s place, but given 768, he couldn’t round to the nearest 10s place. He didn’t understand the relationship between rounding and place value. I made a chart with instructions. I created an exercise I hoped would help him see the pattern.

Round to the nearest:

10s 100s 1000s 10,000s 100,000s

176,542 176,542 176,542 176,542 176,542

He dropped out of the session. Huh? Afterward, I found out his mother’s phone had died. We had to use his phone because the Internet connection in his area was inconsistent. Let’s see if this works. I’m prepared to do several rounds.

I haven’t been working on reading with LG because he’s been improving nicely on his own. My methods teach students how to learn. I’ve only had one student fall behind after a break, and it was a shock.

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

I went to bed around 10 and was wide awake by 1:30. I got up at two. There was no point staying in bed and practicing insomnia. The political situation was weighing on me. Musk openly declared there would be a period of hardship brought on by the cutbacks in government spending planned by Trump. Many people voted for Trump, hoping he would improve the economic situation. I anticipate the opposite. I got up and ordered more rice and beans in plastic twenty-five-pound containers. Then, I worked on the updates. I had fallen behind.

I had been up and sitting in the living room chair since two, wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a light shawl. At 5:30, I felt a chill. The sun was moving in our direction, pushing the cold air off the mountain.

Once I had completed my morning exercises and walk, fed Elsa, and watered the forty-two Eldorados sitting in pots waiting to be planted, I took a two-hour nap. I had been up since 1:30; no wonder I was tired.

One thought that tormented me in the early hours was how to prepare the soil for the planting. I looked it up on the Internet. I came across two articles advising against soil amendments when planting, arguing that doing so creates more problems than it solves. I texted Margo, who is considered the best expert on gardening in the area. She said she had never heard of that and came back with suggestions. While Eli, the gardener, said he would prepare the soil for planting, he had canceled so many times that I no longer trusted he could come prepared. I thought having the products here when he arrived would be better.

My first stop was Farm and Garden. The wonderfully groomed lady was at the counter today. She's a pleasure to deal with. Her makeup and outfits are a work of art. I don't see her as vain. She uses herself as a canvas for her pleasure and the pleasure of others. I told her I was looking for soil amendments for forty-two shrubs. She asked me which ones. I told her Eldorado. She suggested Thrive. I pulled up Margo's text and told her what she recommended. How much did I need? I said I was hoping she could tell me. I didn't have a clue. She figured it out. I had four large, heavy bales, two of Garden N Bloom and two of black cinder.

I continued on into town after Farm and Garden to Office Max. I ran out of toner for my printer. After my scare when I couldn't find the 2019 and 2020 Blog Book files, I printed out the completed books. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. Maybe I'll publish them on Amazon, as Judy suggested. I can't imagine anyone reading them. But who knows. The 2019 book was over six hundred pages. I was going to need a lot of toner. I bought the largest cartridge available, TN 770, promising to print 4,500 pages. I reduced the font size from 12 to 9 to save on ink and paper. It was still over 404 pages.

I had one more stop, Target. I had forgotten to buy eggs. After that I headed home and got a bit of gardening done in the yard off my bedroom. I clipped back the bougainvillea. I planned to continue clipping the vines off the side of the rock wall facing my neighbor's property. Darby had pointed out this insidious vine was climbing up the wall. Anything that grows on a rock wall threatens its integrity. Plants can destroy cement driveways once they get a foothold. These rock walls don't last forever.

In order to access the vines, I have to walk over uneven, slanted terrain. I did okay doing it the other day. The rock wall was low enough that I could hold on to the top of it. As I go further down the slope, the rock wall rises a good two stories. Well, out of my reach. I planned to move slowly. I take the tools I need in a bucket since I can't rest them on the top of the rock wall. I put the bucket down a few paces before me, then carefully take the few steps to be beside the bucket. I will work my way down the slope in this way. I'm still scared. I will text Yvette and Darby to let them know where I am in case something happens. I had no trouble the other day when I worked on the vines. I probably won't encounter any problems when I go down again. It's this old-age crap. I am vulnerable because of osteoporosis and the metal holding my left hip, elbow, and shoulder together. If I fall and impact one of those joints with that brittle material in them, all the surrounding bone will shatter. Sounds like fun, no?

I had a session with sixth-grade RC today. I've been very nervous about working with her. She is reluctant to share her true thoughts. I don't want a total reveal of her deepest thoughts; I want to trust she can set her boundaries instead of relying on me to know what she thinks and feels. This was the third session since she told me she 'lied' when she said she didn't know something. I struggled to find a better word to describe what she did. She withheld information as to her own thoughts. I'm not talking about withholding her feelings on some profound personal matter; I'm talking about her saying she didn't remember anything when asked if she remembered a math fact. It is possible she doesn't remember. I see increased memory problems with all my students.

I asked my friend Steve about it. He worked as a school principal in UN-sponsored schools in Asia and Latin America. Yes, he also saw increasing problems with memory over the years. From what I can see, students don't know what to do If they don't get the correct answer instantly. The problem isn't neurological; it's a missing skill. My best guess it comes from not having to rely on their memories anymore. They can always get the answer from the Internet, which provides immediate and correct feedback. They conclude this is how their minds are supposed to work.

Our minds are more complex and powerful than any computer. But just as we have to learn how to get information from the WWW, we have to learn how to encode and decode information from our brains. This is not being taught. In the past, we learned it by observing our parents. But most parents of school-age children grew up in the information age, with access to computers and the web. The children I work with are now second-generation web users. The internet models memory; it always gets the answer right. It's a machine, and most users are not programmers. We are the programmers of our brains. We decide what information goes in. Much of the encoding is automatic, mainly when we are young. In a nonacademic environment, information can be learned through repetition; most of what they need to know is encoded by the time they are six or seven. The rest is details. In the academic world, we are subjected to the unfamiliar daily. Much of which we have to cram into our minds.

When I started with RC today, I asked if she recalled having told me in the two previous sessions that she deliberately didn't reveal what she did know when asked. She did. I would have taken it as a signal to drop the subject if she hadn't. I felt I had to be super cautious with this child because I couldn't rely on her to set her boundaries. I spent some time sharing my concerns with her. She acknowledged it was tough for her to do so. Great! How do I proceed?

I returned to some work we had done with memory. Did RC remember the multiplication fact we had worked on, 6 x 7=42? Her recall was flawless after at least two weeks. Did she remember the spelling word we had worked on in September? She remembered the word, people, but spelled it peple. That was better than her original spelling. I showed her the strategy of noticing what was correct rather than dismissing the whole word as wrong because of a mistake. The goal was to build on what she did right.

Given how well she did. I told her I thought it unlikely she had a neurologically driven memory problem. She needed to learn how to get information in and out. She was missing a skill. Memory, like a muscle, must be exercised to be strong. I drew a rough picture of two neurons. I showed her how each time she encountered the word, no less worked on learning it, she laid down another connecting strand between the neurons. Of course, the network connections are much more complex than the ones I drew. But she got the point.

Monday, December 2, 2024

I watched Facebook shorts until 11 p.m. Good God, they're addictive. However, I slept very well, waking up at 5:30. That's six hours of sleep straight. I probably got up to pee sometime during the night, but I fell right back to sleep when my head hit the pillow.

This morning, I weighed 135.5 lbs. The weight was coming on as fast as it went off. The trick was to only eat when I felt I needed to. Of course, I still felt the impact of a daily Haagen Das ice cream container for five days. I blame Joseph for my lapse. He lives on daily products. He will drink a gallon of milk and call it dinner. He follows some guru who argues for the value of dairy and sugar.

While the extra ice cream wasn't doing me any good, drinking more water was. Darby reminded me to drink water when my mind felt fuzzy. Boy, that works! How much memory loss in old people is caused by dehydration? We don't drink as much because of our peeing problems.

I took an early morning nap. The distress caused by what the healer said to me yesterday hit. I had to wonder why she framed my directness in negative terms. It triggered great sadness and shame. This is what my mother always said to me. 'No one likes you. I'm the only person who does, and that's because I'm your mother. I'm the only person you can trust to love you enough to tell you the truth." That 'truth' was always negative.

I can handle negative feedback from someone who is generally positive about me. I don't expect people to like everything about me all the time. People who hang with me must enjoy my directness, but that doesn't mean they will like every direct comment I make.

Mike enjoyed my sense of humor, but there were moments he didn't think I was funny when I meant it to be. He would say, "You're not funny." I would say, "What I said wasn't funny." The best professional comedian has duds.

I called Kia customer service to get confirmation that the hybrid motor wouldn't work if the high-voltage battery was down. She assured me the car would run. I've had two experiences that contradicted that.

Aloha Kia called me a little later in the day. The Kia corporate tech had contacted them. They approved the repair. Joe told me the previous local Kia management hadn't done what the corporate recommended. The notes said the tech had argued for doing it. They cheated me. Joe said that they would do everything corporate recommended this time. There was nothing more to be done until the parts arrived. He put in a rush order, and they should be here the following week. He would call me when they came in.

Joe sent a shuttle to pick me up. When I checked my car, it was only charged to 17 miles, when the maximum is 24. I asked if he could fully charge the car before I left, as I was concerned about losing all power.

Again, Joe assured me that wouldn't happen. I told him of my experiences. He said the gas motor without the electric-only has the power of a four-cylinder motor. With the electric, a floor-to-gas pedal start could snap your head back.

Ironically, just last Sunday, when I got a ride home from the sound bath at Unity, I got to drive in a four-cylinder car. As Diane drove up Kaiminani, she felt compelled to explain her speed; her car was only a four-cylinder car. It got us up the hill and me home safe and sound. It was a reassuring experience.

I told Joe I had some shopping to do. I would walk. Fortunately, he offered me a ride. My first stop was at Lowes. Since I was still determining when I could get an electrician to come and install a dedicated line, I needed another 10-gauge extension cord. When we got there, I asked the driver if he could wait 10 minutes.

I found an associate immediately and asked him to show me where the extension cords were. He knew less about them than I did. He was looking at thin cords that couldn't possibly be 10 gauge. The thicker cords are usually on the lowest shelf. I found a boxed 10 gauge 25-foot cord. I grabbed it and was out of there in five minutes. It was a good thing he waited. The cord was too heavy to carry in one hand. Using both hands down the steep hill on my way back to the garage would have been a misery if not downright dangerous.

As we headed back to the garage, the driver was in the wrong lane to make the left turn. I pointed out the problem. He said he was heading to Target. He had called his boss to ask if he could wait for me at Lowes, and Joe told him to wait and to drive me to the store. I told him that wasn't necessary. I could take care of those purchases on my way home in my car.

At Target, I picked up three cans of lentil soup and five frozen meals on sale, a loaf of bread, and a jar of Smucker's raspberry jam for $35. That's eight meals, not including the salad I eat every night.

Frustrated with one of my students, I shared my concerns with my friend Jean about people who don't care about their interests. One of my students is always vague about her feelings. "I don't know." "I don't care." "It's ok." She always said five if I asked her to rate something on a scale of one to ten. I encourage students to share how they feel about the work. I'm looking for the sweet spot for learning. I can modify the lesson to suit their needs if they have some control and active input. In doing so, I believe I am encouraging them to be aware of their own needs and teach them to speak up respectfully, knowing they can expect me to care and do my best, which does not mean I will succeed. I also hope I'm teaching them to find a way to get what they want in the world while respecting the needs of others in general. When I work with children who deliberately withhold information, I'm shooting blind. I'm uncomfortable using a formulaic approach and expecting the student to conform to a program that has passed an evidence-based standard. No human being conforms to a standard. Students who have not learned well in the school setting certainly don't fit that description.

I had another session with fourth-grade GV. He was still confused about the letter/sound relationship. In his case, he felt confused to discover that words were made of individual sounds. It sounded like he never had a single phonics lesson. Either that, or he didn't apply what he learned to all words. He may be very literal-minded, assuming only the words the teacher talked about were made of individual sounds and not others. If that's the case. Wow!

Since GV liked to draw, I asked him if he understood that every drawing was made up of individual lines, either curved or straight, and everything was a variation. I may have to rethink how I work with this boy. Suppose he depends on what people tell him and cannot apply what he learns from one context to another. In that case, he has a serious learning problem. I continued working with low-level material, a story with only single-syllable words. I noticed a significant improvement in his ability to hear the individual sounds of words, even if he doesn't understand what he is doing.

Eli, the gardener, canceled for the third time. Today's excuse was someone ran over this water pipe. That is a serious problem. I hope he gets it quickly. I also hope he gets here soon. I have forty-two plants sitting in pots waiting to be planted. I don't have the strength or the stamina to do it myself. I decided to have the soil amendment on hand instead of relying on him to provide it. I may have it in the shed already. I remember doing something for the ulu tree. I provided it, and Rodney and his man planted it. That tree is doing beautifully, by the way.

Sunday, December 1, 2024

I left the house for my morning walk shortly after 5, finishing my morning exercises. I texted Joseph, saying I would be ready to leave for church by 8 a.m. I laid out my clothes and organized the things I would need to attend the sound bath event at the Unity Church.

I originally planned to hitch a ride with Paulette to Unity in the old industrial area, but I decided to walk. I had a hat and thought I should be fine, but it was more taxing than I thought.

It was 10:30 when I set out. The sun was already bearing down. I wore the shawl I brought over my shoulders for some protection. I sought shaded areas as much as I could. I found some shortcuts. It was still stressful. My right thigh started hurting the way the left leg used to before the hip replacement. It didn't usually bother me. I think it was in response to the stress I felt rather than it being a turning point signaling it was time to get my second hip replacement. I completed over 5,000 steps getting there, a good two-mile walk. It took about an hour.

I made it there in time to get something to eat as Diane was clearing up from the potluck contributions. I had two servings of a homemade salad and one good-sized slice of guava cake from Costco. It was all delicious.

I caught sight of Clyde and asked if he was still prepared to give me a lift home. He said yes. When Diane learned I lived in the Palisades, she said she would drive me home. It was on her way. She was the last one out the door. She spent time after everyone else left, moving a few things. She explained she was preparing the space for the Marshallese church service. Attendance to the Unity Church had dropped. They welcomed the additional income their church brought in. It meant Diane had to return at four to open the church and then close it after they were through. Sometimes, she stayed during the service. She said it was a lively event.

While I waited for Diane, I asked one of the women who served as a volunteer healer during the sound bath event to do some healing on me. Her energy was good. While she worked on me, she spoke to a young woman, telling her she had good healing energy, and she provided healing wherever she went, whatever she did. She apologized to me for the distraction. I was okay with it.

Given that I am a trained healer who has charged money for it, I was pleased with myself that I had no reaction when she praised someone else's gift and didn't acknowledge mine. So far, I had said nothing to anyone about being a trained healer. However, the woman working on me possibly sensed my energy. People in the field often do.

Not only did she say nothing about it, she wound up slamming me. She said I was really cool, did I know I was? Yes. I've been told often enough in my close to 84 years that I was different. Sometimes, it's a compliment, and sometimes, not so much. Cool and unique are positive comments; excentric is neutral, and weird is negative. Being outstanding, for either good or bad reasons, has its downside. I thought she was referring to my strengths. Ha! Not at all. She was referring to the ease with which I say what's on my mind. She made it clear that while some took offense, some liked this trait in me. it seemed pretty clear to me she wasn't one of my fans. The irony was I had plenty of thoughts I didn't share with her.

The weird thing was I felt comfortable with a low profile in this community. I was comfortable with the most mundane of exchanges. I had a few moments where I stood out. The first time I participated in the Chi Qigong session, Roger, the dedicated Chi Qigong instructor, introduced a more complicated set of moves than he had done before. I focused on doing them. He came up to me afterward and commented on how well I did. With my dance background, it would come more easily.

Then, I did a reading session with his wife. She was also a healer. I do not know what she thought of me, but it was more intimate contact than others. Then, there were the conversations I had with Clyde. We were usually the only two at the beach for the Chi Qigong and spent some time chatting. He often lavished me with praise. I wasn't particularly invested in it. Instead, it made me somewhat uncomfortable. I like it when people enjoy what I am. They can even state they like this or that about me. But I don't care for it when that evaluation sounds like a comparison to others. That's where judgment comes in.

I wondered why that healer picked up on my directness. I had only once manifested that trait with this group of people. I was in conversation with one of the participants, who was a massage therapist. I told her about my shoulder replacement. She assured me she could get the full range of motion. That alarmed me. I've been told by the doctor and the PT that would never happen. The mechanism could shift if the arm was forced, and I'd be in big trouble. I told her I didn't feel comfortable being forced. She said she never pushed. I told her she was pushing me right now. She finally backed off. Others would have found a way to escape or tolerate that situation without being direct. Maybe someday, I'll learn how to do it, too. That was the only occasion where my directness showed up. It is possible the healer actually sensed something in me. I don't know what it is that people see in me that alerts them to this trait when I've done nothing yet. I had never had a conversation with that woman. Did she overhear something? Worse yet, had Clyde been singing my praises, alienating me from everyone.

Clyde is vulnerable to admiration. I can imagine he thinks it's a good thing when people admire you. A modicum of admiration is nice. But when it's more than mild seasoning in a relationship, I have only had bad experiences with it. it stirs up envy and negative self-evaluation in others. Someone who induces that feeling is not someone anyone likes. We all like to hang with people who are merely human like the rest of us. Fr. Boyle says the greatest gift we can give to someone is kinship, knowing we are all in it together, each with his strengths and weaknesses.

While I felt okay during the healing session with everything, I felt very sad later on, not only did the healer not recognize my gifts, she only saw me in a negative light. However, I did get benefits from the session. She fixed my discomfort in my right leg. I observed myself as unreactive when she lavishly praised someone else and ignored my similar gifts. I felt good about that.