My first official day as a kept man

We were back in Spanish class this morning. This was our hardest class yet. We spent much of the day on the verbs “ser” and “estar.” Jill is ahead of me on this front. I’m constantly mixing up “soy” and “estoy”. According to our profesora, “ser” is for things that are permanent and “estar” is for things that are temporal. There are, of course, categorical exceptions.

For now all I know is:

• Yo soy un hombre.
• Yo estoy feliz.

One of the key premises that made our trip to Costa Rica possible is that, while I’m on sabbatical, Jill is able to maintain her therapy practice via the Internet. She has spent the last several months experimenting with that mode of therapy and making sure that her clients are comfortable with it. The plan, as currently conceived, is that we will take Spanish lessons from 8AM-11AM Monday through Thursday mornings and Jill will see a few clients via video in the afternoons of those days. That will leave us Friday-Sunday each week to explore Costa Rica. My role in that scheme is IT support, head chef, chauffeur, and other duties not explicitly listed.

Because preserving Jill’s practice during this adventure is the prime directive, I take my IT duties seriously. Since we hit the ground, I’ve been obsessing over connectivity, bandwidth, and WiFi coverage at our house. I’ve got triple-redundant Internet (wired fiber, mobile hotspot, and phone hotspot) and have WiFi coverage improvements en route from Estados Unidos.

Today was the payoff on the IT front. Jill had her first for-real clients in Costa Rica today (she had an intern last week as a dry run). Modulo an audio issue that we think is now sorted, the speed, latency, and stability of the primary Internet connection have been perfectly acceptable for the first two clients. Jill has two more later. If those go well technically, I will be comfortable that our setup is sufficient for Jill and her clients.

Given that I am currently without portfolio and that Jill’s practice is now up and running at Southern HQ, I am officially a kept man. I’m already feeling the pressure to keep up my appearance in case Jill starts looking to trade up.

This update feels kind of light compared to my previous posts, but I’m exhausted. I think that’s because I’ve been so focused on ensuring Jill’s first day as an expatriate therapist goes smoothly.