Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Reconnected

After more than a week I am finally reconnected to the world again. Before we headed to the US for furlough our internet was not working very well. We wanted to discontinue service with our provider at that time, but you must sign a one year contract for services such as the internet and it was automatically renewed and so we were stuck for another year with not so great service. My Dutch friend, Elly, helped us getting it working before we left with calls to the support staff for the internet and trying some of this and some of that. I thought we needed a new modem at the time since rebooting it would get the internet going again, at least for a few minutes at a time. However, the tech folks were reluctant to send out a new modem and since we did get it working a bit better we were stuck as we were unless we wanted to foot the bill for the new modem. Yet another occasion when Jon and I would say to each other, " We aren't in Kansas any more, Toto." We hated the idea of throwing money out the window while we were gone, so we asked whether we could suspend our contract for the six months we were gone and start it up again when we returned. Turns out we would have to pay a penalty for that and then pay to reconnect when we returned. Wasn't going to really save us any money. Unfortunately. we return to an internet that will not work, no matter how our friend, Elly, and the tech support people worked and fiddled with our modem. Then they finally relented and sent a new one. Sharp and snazzy looking too. I did have to wait around the house without leaving for days, lest I miss the delivery guy. So now I am reconnected again and in someways really missed the internet. Wanted to look up something. Nope, cant do that. Wanted to check on something. Nope cant do that either. And I knew the emails were stacking up. And stacking up. And that was on top of the ones that had piled up during furlough. I did spend a few hours this afternoon getting the emails down a bit, but I know it will be many days before they are all answered. We have found our transition back to have gone amazingly smoothly. We had minimal jet lag. Thanks, I think, to our taking sleeping medications to help reset our biological clocks. It has been sunny quite a bit, which is always good for my disposition. Our little cat traveled very well on the return flight and made nary a peep through the long day confined to a small cat carrier without food or water. She seemed quite content and even now likes to go into the carrier and take her afternoon nap. (In fact she is resting in there as I write this.) She seems to remember the rules of the house and we have had to add a few more tricks to keep her off of counter and table tops now that she is big enough to jump up onto them. Our coworkers welcomed us home with a personal taxi service from the airport, thus saving us the hauling of our four heavy bags from train to train as well as Jon's computer, a carry-on and the cat. That was a huge help! We found our fridge stocked with food for a few days and the house in good order so we didnt have to do much the first few days except rest and get unpacked. We are fortunate to have a very thoughtful and caring group of folks to work along side. And to put the cherry on top, we found that the family with the whiny child had moved away in our absence. No idea why they moved after less than two years in the house and after so many renovations and improvements to the property, but gone they are. It has been incredibly quiet and we have enjoyed the peace. Now that we are back home and the internet as flowing freely, I expect to be much more regular with my blog so check back often.