More from the homestead

[aadler]

Good news but not great: good, after years of pursuing it in a desultory fashion (I just wasn’t in any kind of hurry), I finally got a letter acknowledging that I had 20 good years of military service and was entitled to apply for retirement pay; not great, because I still have to put in the application, and basically I’ll need to find someone to walk me through the process because there’s a lot of crap needed and I don’t actually know how to begin. Still, the first hurdle is past.

In coronavirus news (yes, there’s always something), there was a waiver allowing retired VA nurses to come back in and help out until the immediate crisis was past. Susan gave it thought and exploration before deciding that with her age and fundamental health, getting back out there was more likely to result in her being a drain on the system than in her being able to make a substantial contribution. She checked it out, though, and it really was a coin-toss for a while there as to whether she’d stay home or jump back into clinical service.

In her current work-from-home setup, she’s run into a vexing obstacle. The class grading system operates almost exclusively through a program called Blackboard, which she has a great deal of trouble getting to connect, stay connected, and accept her inputs. Some of the messages she’s received indicate a possibility that our current internet simply is an older setup than the system requires, so we may have to get a new home router (single large expense) or even upgrade our current service (continuing smaller expense).

In China, my granddaughter is clearly using more English during our periodic Skype calls; in the past, it was more a matter of occasional phrases when prompted, then she’d go back to Chinese and have our son translate for her. Our hope, of course, is that eventually they’ll be living in America — she is, after all, legally an American citizen, along with her father — so being able to communicate might prove useful.

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The funny thing is, during the time Susan was in California, I spent most of my time at home anyway. It’s amazing how quickly that became boring under the new Social Isolation regime.