One challenge after another but today’s challenge(s) did not involve The Commander all that much. They involved a baggy old kayak woman business systems analyst’s ordeal to connect her loverly Windows work laptop to the internet! We do not use wi-fi at the office. Yes, I do have a job! And I can even “work from home” and that includes this squatter’s paradise. I left my office rather suddenly a week ago and today it was time to get back to it.

I won’t go through the whole ordeal. I just know that I was about ready to give up when suddenly I was connected to The Commander’s wifi. Since I don’t know exactly what I did to get there, I hope I can duplicate it tomorrow. And then I need to get connected to the VPN. Are we having fun yet?

What *was* fun was… I dialed in to a work meeting this afternoon. From the Yooperland! It was so good to hear everyone’s voices, the Long Suffering, Cat Herding Person in particular. Of course somebody had to make a joke about pigeon-dropped packets.

The Commander? Well. I checked in on her in the morning and I had lunch with her in the dining room, her first meal outside her room, and I visited this evening. Walking a fine balance here. She wants to be independent again. That means she doesn’t want me to be taking care of her, although I think she has accepted that I will be helping out with some things, at least behind the scenes. To be independent involves successfully completing rehab. She is doing very well with rehab but successfully completing rehab will mean more than just hanging out doing exercises and walking around with a therapist and a walker. It will also mean participating in the community in which she lives and not sitting around in her room. I think she is very nervous about joining her new temporary community but I think she will do okay. But, as much as possible, I left her to her own devices. I will be returning to The Planet Ann Arbor some day. She wants me to. But this has been a difficult transition and the last thing I want to happen is for her to slide slowly over into becoming dependent on me. At least not any more than she needs to be. Not at this time. I don’t really think they want me hanging around there all day either. So today, I focused on my own life and career. The Comm wants me to do that.

She seemed to be doing well tonight. She had just enough visitors today to feel like she hasn’t lost her network but not so many that she got tired out. Rehab stuff with PT and OT and the evening meal in the dining room. Without me. Onward. Always knocking wood, of course.

And what a day. As much as I love my loverly, dog poopy cube and my own special parking place right next to the Admiral’s Pond, it will be hard to give up working at this Squatter’s Paradise. Perks? Can you say perks? After my late afternoon meeting today, I. drove. out. to. the. beach. The Moominbeach! I walked “my” beautiful beach. Perfect end to a work day.

The top photoooo is from the back yard here at Squatter’s Paradise this morning. It snowed all day yesterday but nothing stuck until it got dark. I woke up to a couple inches. It melted quickly under a bright, warm sun. The bottom photoooo is from my beach walk. I think we are going to have *very* low water this summer… But. Anyway. As I was about to get into the Mean Green Frog-hoppin’ Machine after walking the beach, between the brilliantly warm sunshine and the seagulls calling out at the island and the pines susurrating in a wee bit of breeze, I could almost feel summer. Except for the diminishing piles of snow, that is.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.