new problems

 *For a long time I added Si not teaching us Yiddish to my list of grievances but now I forgive him everything when I look at my life and hope my children will forgive me.

I should be more cheerful this holiday season and look at all I'm grateful for.

It's hard though when another age-related problem appears. I now have age-related macular degeneration.  It's funny Mother had glaucoma so I faithfully have used eye drops every night to prevent peripheral vision loss so instead I'm losing central vision. The eye dr is doing shots and lasers to delay progression. Bright lights and a magnifying glass are helpful. 

Then there's Eliot and all his problems. It all started when the generic water pills he took to keep his congestive heart failure under control were changed. The new ones didn't work. Finally the dr gave him new pills and also gave him oxegen to use at night.

corona virus

I joined a Zoom meeting this morning but didn't really get to say something relevant. I have been thinking about comparing the present situation with WWII since I'm the only one who remembers that far back (being the oldest one alive in my family),  Hitler vs the corona virus - hmm?  Somehow I guess it was more understandable how to win the war which of course involved the enormous loss of lives and the atom bomb. I guess it would be more like polio vs the corona virus. We didn't have social media and even television news back then so our concern about polio was very individual.  Some parents were more concerned than others. Sharing a lollypop got me into trouble with my friend's mother. I have no idea how parents are now altering their children's interaction with other children. Or maybe they have no choice since orders about daily life now comes from the government

sex, first installment

I've been reading about all this sexual harassment and wonder why I never got any. Ha, I was overweight as a teenager and lacked any attention from the opposite sex. After I lost weight, one day I was walking along a street in a not too great a neighborhood and somebody whistled at me. I was thrilled. It had been a pretty sad adolescence with no experience with dating of any kind and no understanding of how to react to attention from boys when I finally became attractive to them. As a result I was hungry for any kind of interaction and allowed intercourse to happen easily although I never got pleasure from it.
I had masturbated ever since I could remember although I had no idea what it was. I just knew If I put my fists between my legs I would get this pleasure or release that would allow me to fall asleep. After I got married and didn't have this happen during intercourse and tried to talk to my husband about it. He just said he couldn't talk about "feelings."  Finally one night it happened that I came with him. All I knew was this overwhelming feeling of love and thought now it would happen all the time. But it didn't. I didn't understand the mechanism or how I could talk to him about it. I guess I just cried which enforced his not being able to talk about it. I guess we both didn't understand and at that time female orgasms was not something talked or written about.

teacher senility

I had a terrible time in school starting with kindergarten but I want first to write about the worst experience which is an indictment of the Teachers Union. When I was a sophomore in High School I had an English teacher who was senile. I didn't know there was anything I could do about it. I don't think I even told my Mother, Apparently some of the other kids told their parents who must have gone to the department head but nothing was done about it. You couldn't fire a teacher for being senile apparently. No adult ever sat in the class to witness that the teacher started each class with the same text to be read every day

purpose

My main problems are the result of the auto accident. And moving back to Chino Valley which was financially necessary I found out after I left.. When I was at Las Fuentes I got regular exercise, went down to the fitness room every day and participated in group exercises and did chair yoga once a week. Here it's possible to go to the gym. Eliot is very willing to drive me and when it warms up I could actually walk. I have exercises I should do here at home. But all I do regularly is walk every morning with Star and Gail. That's not enough. I am going now to Physical Therapy twice a week and yesterday did the exercises they told me to do at home.which is only for my legs. I probably could get down on the floor and do some stretching. I can get up using the downward dog pose.

I suppose I have to find a purpose maybe. The only mitzvot I do is petting Star.   

Phoenix trip

A rotten day in Phoenix with Eliot's family and their friends. It was Eliot's great grandson's 7th birthday. Eliot's granddaughter is a really great mother and her kids are terrific, 7, 6 and a baby. It was just that there were all these younger people, I guess friends of everybody who I didn't know and I ended up sitting most of the day in this one chair on the patio and they didn't even let me hold the baby. Did they think I was going to drop it?

And they spent so much time talking about hunting and the deer that his other granddaughter's boyfriend had shot and there just wasn't anybody I could talk to or anything I could do to help out in the kitchen since I don't navigate well and I just think if there's another such occasion I just won't go. I can't imagine Eliot had a good time either. And the worst thing is that there was a pinata filled with candy that they put in a bowl on the table right in front of me and I ate probably a dozen little bars of something chocolate.  

frustration

This whole dispute with eTeacherBiblical or whatever it's called is very upsetting. I keep on getting new charges on my Discover Card even after I spoke with someone at Discover who said they wouldn't accept any new charges from  them but these are dated previous to when I spoke to them but didn't appear until today. I also can't find the letter I wrote to Discover on Word. I probably didn't specifically save it. Calling Discover is being put on hold. I think I should send a check to Discover to pay for all the other charges but that I'm not going to pay for any of the eTeacher charges and  ask them to close the account.
My other frustration is with Eliot. We saw a movie today which evoked all kind of emotions in me but all he says is "It was kinda cute" That expression is his usual statement about most stuff. His other expressions are "I have no idea" and a similar expression which I can't think of now. And of course it's impossible to have any political discussion because everything he says mimics Rush Limbaugh or IBD. And then I end up thinking that's what I deserve because I got into this relationship selfishly. He has money although he's stingy about most things and the sex used to be good. Now there's no sex and we can't really travel much because of his health.