Frybabe, I am certain your studies will pay off in one way or another. As pedln mentioned, you may even et up shop for yourself. You are acquiring further knowledge and expertise in a field for which you have a natural affinity which bodes well for the future, I believe. More power to you !
Steph, there's no doubt your regular walking is beneficial to your health and wellbeing. It is worth being emulated by those who are able. And those who cannot have to compensate in one form or another, where possible aided by a center for the elderly like our Council on Aging. No effort is spared by a competent staff to create a haven the elderly (now mostly female) population - in short, there's something for everybody. In my opinion, there is virtue in doing something that fits society, and I fail to understand why people have such an av ersion to the adjective social
.
Annie, your post detailing the difficult journey following your husband's heart attack shows that lightning make strike out of a clear blue sky, and certain provisions would be of immense help, for instance health insurance,not only for the neediest, but also for the middle class. In my opinion, Social security and Medicare are godsends.
I was born in Germany and spent 1/3 of my life in Europe. After the war I married and worked in Frankfurt. According to the contract, six weeks notice were required for employer and employee. I had 6 weeks paid maternity leave and returned to the job afterward. Both my huband and I had full health insurance. My widowed mother, who had never worked out of the home, received a pension and was comfortable. We took it for granted - we knew nothing else.
My husband's re-entry into civilian life was neither easy nor smooth. He was attracted by this country's "unlimited possibilities". Friends of my sister introduced us to an American military family who became our sponsors. The process took five years. At the end of that period we were called to the American Consulate in Frankfurt and (after X-rays showed neither of us had TB), issued a visa.
By then our sponsors were back living in Arlington, the husband stationed at the Pentagon but with new orders for Florida. The left in a few weeks' time. But it was our sole contact and so we stayed in the area for twenty years. Later we learned that New York would have provided a wider range of possibilities for my husband's engineering background, as well as for me because of the foreign languages I speak.
In Washington our sponsors told us that "health insurance in this country was different from what we were used to and we should contact an insurance company asap", warning us also to be cautious "because some companies make a contract and, when claims come in, choose to cancel it." I was stunned and will never forget the name of the company that had allegedly done that.
I will not extol the virtues of the health system(s) abroad, but I will say that ours needs improvement.
The beginning was proverbially difficult. My small daughter caught whoooping cough and had to be boarded for some time way out in Maryland. We had no car and had to beg one of my colleagues at work to take us out there on Fridays and back on Sundays (with tearful goodbyes). I found a job at a patent law firm as a translator of foreign patent applications wih the inventor or, more often the assignee, wa seeking to get a U.S. patent. The job was fascinating and I loved it.
When my daughter 13 I had my son and decided, right then and there, that I would not go back to work full time. Instead I became a freelancer for the same atorneys I had worked for, and others. Frybabe, gake it from me, nothing is more satisfying than working for oneself in whatever it may be. I was able to drive my son to a Montessori School in Springfield, Va. where the director asked if I would teah the children French (would I !!!) and, later, German. It was as total an immersion as I could manage wit flashcards and lots of songs - Frère Jacques and Sur le pont d'Avignon. The greatest fun was a sketch built around the then popular "I can't believe I ate the whole thing", which we presented to parents.
After twenty yeas, my husband's company closed its Virginia affiliate and transferred him and a few others to Massachusetts. Once again I followed, nolens volens. My son's family is local, my California daughter and her husband have moved to Texas, whence she just visited for a few precious days.As I said earlier, I have explored independent living facilities at the behest of a neighbor who, deep down, doesn't want to leave her home either. Even so I'm able to write objectively about what I saw, should that be of interest.
