Monday, July 11

Up at 6:30 this morning, so I could get ready to go to water aerobics. The water at the pool was pleasant, but quite a bit cooler than it was last Wednesday. It was a good session, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Story from the pool: the lady who stands next to me said that her grandson, who is a paramedic in a large city in another state, and encounters all sorts of odd emergencies, told her that his crew was recently called to a hotel, where a 25-year-old man had to have a private part of his body extracted from the suction filter of a hot tub. To use a modern expression: I'll bet it sucked to be him.

I was home from water aerobics around 10 a.m., and after I was ready for the day, Hubbie and I went to the WDCS to shop for groceries and incidentals for ourselves and Mother.

Back home, as we were having lunch, Daughter called to let me know she was having problems with her car. She doesn't have a regular mechanic to turn to, so I suggested she come to our town, so we could take her car to our auto shop.

After I finished talking with her, I went over my lesson plan for a meeting with my Literacy Council student at 2:30. Daughter arrived just after I left to go to the college library.

Today, the student practiced reading a story and then responding to questions about what she had read. She also learned how to use "a lot of," "many," "much," "a little," etc., in sentences.

We covered weights and measures: how many cups in a pint; how many pints in a quart; how many eggs in a dozen; how much a person weighs.

Part of the lesson was learning to pronounce words with "ed" added: thanked pronounced as "thankt," cooked pronounced as "cookt," brushed pronounced as "brusht," as opposed to hunted pronounced as "huntud," and opened pronounced as "openud." When presented this way, the student could properly pronounce the words, rather than saying thanked as "thank-ed," or cooked as "cook-ed."

Thanked was a real tongue-twister for her. Most words that require moving the tongue from the front of the mouth to the palette give her trouble, and we have to repeatedly practice until she manages it.

It was about 4:45 when I got back home. Mother had prepared a supper of leftover Swiss steak that had been in the freezer, baked potatoes, mixed vegetables, and tomatoes topped with cottage cheese.

Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie, Daughter, and I watched the 1996 Lifetime Movie Network feature, "Murder at my Door," starring Judith Light. A disturbed young man returns home from college, and soon a young woman is found dead. His parents begin finding evidence of his involvement.

Then we watched the 2002 movie, "Hypersonic," starring Antonio Sabato Jr. Daredevil pilots enter a contest to win $25 million.