[jyl]

Man this is a weird year. In many ways. Did you know that a higher percent of young adults are living at home than any time since the Great Depression?

Daughter graduated from college in June. No job. Moved home. She hasn’t lived at home in six years. Fortunately she found a stopgap job, teaching French to two 1st graders in a French immersion school that has gone online. You can’t learn a language from a couple hours of Zoom a day, and they have to reach a certain level of proficiency to be able to move on to 2nd grade. And their respective parents make good money. So, hire my French-fluent daughter for 40 hours/week at $24/hr with benefits. I’m telling her, save your money, if this continues for the whole school year you’ll have $30K! Thanks to full room and board chez Dad.

Son went off to start his sophmore year at University of Oregon. Classes are online, but he needs to be living away from home, and anyway he and his buddies rented a house and we’re stuck with the lease, so whatever. He left Saturday. Then big fires broke out east of Eugene and Salem, the air is full of smoke, the eastern sky is glowing, communities not far to the east are under evacuation order, so he packed his valuables in his trusty Toyota Corolla station wagon and drove home.

I thought we’d be empty nesters. We’re a full house. Well, I’ll just enjoy having them around. Their mom, feels, differently.