As my wife and I move towards (potentially) being "digital nomads,” which is a term I just learned a matter of weeks ago, a few things have come up. Now, you must understand our current situation to fully appreciate the level of weirdness we are currently in, so a bit of background first. Both of us are in our mid-forties, have one or more college degrees, live in the middle of nowhere, and we have a house full of kids of varying ages.
After a lay-off last summer, I have had to learn some new things. Tasks such as “cooking” and “getting the kids to school on time” have become commonplace in my life. For my wife, who is an online English teacher for young students in China, tasks like “get up at strange hours” and “understand the head-scratching motivational efforts of a Chinese language services company” are regularly completed. For a former sales guy and an engineer-mom, these tasks cause, at a minimum, the need for greater caffeine consumption as well as increased naps. We usually get the caffeine.
Helping each other with caffeine takes two different forms. For my wife, she goes to health food stores and buys me good coffee, so as I try to figure out how to put a podcast together I don’t have to drink swill. From my side, I have learned how to make tea in complicated ways. Amounts, steeping time, proper vessels all come into play. Delivery of high-quality tea to my wife, while she teaches a Chinese child whose parents have chosen an inanimate object as the Anglo name of their child, has led to queries that border on the unanswerable.
While stealthily depositing a (glass) travel (tea-only!) mug to the “online classroom” in our basement, I recently overheard the title question: “Do scorpions eat apples?”
Why? Why would you ask? Why would you as a child on the other side of the globe such a question? Why would you ask anyone such a question? What possible purpose could the answer have to anyone?
The explanation was somewhat sensible, but not really. For some reason, scorpions were a topic in the curriculum. Perhaps they are a common problem in China, like black flies in Maine, or New Yorkers moving into Vermont. In that case, fine, but why not just teach the kid what the arachnid eats, and then move on? Why cause me, in my sleep deprived brain, to pause in my soundless chai conveyance and ask, “Just what on earth is my wife teaching Gumdrop this morning?”
Well, the questions continue, and life gets stranger. No doubt as we transition to a portion of the economy where we have limited experience there will be even greater things to ponder, and I’ll be sure to mention them here or on the podcast. Have a great week everyone!
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