Gotta Love Skype

 

We Skype to the US sometimes when we're on the boat, but we never appreciate Skype as much as when we're geographically separated and we want to keep in touch … frequently. When David and I first met (at a medical convention in Las Vegas, no less), he lived in Denver and I lived in New Hampshire. There was no Skype then … nor e-mail, come to think about it. We wrote letters and put stamps on them and mailed them. Our phone bills were so gigantic, we finally decided it was cheaper for me to move to Denver than to continue to support AT&T in such a fashion.

With David in Adelaide, South Australia and me on the other side of the world in Boston, it's tough enough with the time difference (15-1/2 hours) to keep in touch, never mind incurring huge phone bills to do so. E-mails suffice when we have lists of stuff to exchange or things to add to the “to-do” list, but hearing a voice and actually talking about our days makes all the difference. Yes, we could also do live video, but we prefer to conjure up beautiful images of each and just do voice to voice rather than see raggy morning hair or dirt and sweat … or the galley.

We've worked out a three time per day sched for chatting. I get up around 0600 and call … it's bedtime for David. He gets up at around the same time the next morning and it's afternoon for me. I go to bed around 10pm and it's afternoon for him. There's always something to talk about.

Since David's computer hibernates when he's not using it, I usually give him a 3-ring warning on his Australian mobile phone and he knows that I'm trying to Skype him. (Look at that...Skype has become a “verb”.) I hear that familiar Skype ring-tone on my iPad, press the Accept button and I hear his voice saying “Hi, sweetie”. The connections have been consistently clear and being in such close contact makes the separation much more bearable. More to the original point … it's all free. (How can that be?) Free or not, I'm still moving to Adelaide in January. Of course, that might have been my original plan. I'm pretty devious.

Speaking of David …

On the Second Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me...

Two bigger duffels

And a Christmas morning greeting on Skype