Timelines

Time off
My working-from-home saga began on March 18. I took my first time off the afternoon of 4/21. I had a sore throat and ear ache and felt sad and low energy. Napping, soup and an early bedtime was a good use of my time. I felt better  the next day if not all the way to shiny. Weird to take sick leave (at home) from my job (working at home).

Surges past
I read this on twitter: 'in 1918 the second wave of the Spanish Flu reportedly killed 20-50 million. The first wave only killed 3-5 million' and wondered about the accuracy and the cause and effect. This page gave me more on the initial emergence of the illness in the spring and then the hammer down wave in the fall of 1918. It helped to have a war and troops traveling internationally. There's still a lot that we don't know about that disease. Viruses are so small they could not be perceived before the 1930s when a microscope powerful enough was developed. This CDC page has a nice graphic on the three waves - there was a third spike in late winter/early spring before the disease went away. More history links on the left menu of the CDC page.

Predicting the future
We are trying to help our oldest daughter decide between a college in Chicago and one in Los Angeles. She is an absolute hard-working star and is able to choose between two excellent scholarships to quality schools. My priorities are my own and I'm trying not to play devil's advocate at her too much. I think she's leaning toward Chicago which pleases my parental radius of control - we could drive out and go get her in less than a day if needed. But the school in LA is offering a January start which seems more reasonable to me than having to 'attend' remote 'classes' in the fall. Fall in-person classes would be a risk to the faculty and staff as well as students. In my opinion the state of CA has its shit together more than IL (healthcare, public welfare). 

Limitless
I decided that I like referring to the divine as the Infinite. I use 'gods' sometimes but can't say that I am drawn to polytheism transactions - what a lot of work keeping track of who needs supplication now! I can't warm up to the Void and thinking of the Universe has worked for me in the past but it conjures a star field image for me in a distracting way. The word 'infinite' sidesteps my brain's picture-generating labeler and leaves me contemplative. The Infinite accepts my love and allows me to believe that it loves me back.