Summer continues

July 22, 2007

This past week has been another one with the kids here three days. The other two we punt. On Tuesday I had a hair appointment and then two appointments addressing pre-surgery issues for cataract surgery to be performed on the 24th. On Thursday I did my usual stint at the Carnegie Library and grocery shopping.

In the meantime Robert has gotten the solar system monitor to talk to his computer and has written a program to give us a read out at our computers so that we may monitor the system without having to go to the actual instrument. YEA! It is really cool. The next step is to graph the information for easy reading and after that, eventually, to be able to control the system from the computer! That will be really fantastic.

Ariel discovered Julie Luckey's cat this week and we visited with it Monday and Wednesday, but on Friday it was missing and Julie said it had been out all night and not come back. I don't understand why, in this area, anyone would let their pet stay out all night. Hopefully, it will come home, but the chances are unlikely.

This week Russell was to have his open heart surgery. The whole community has been struggling to convince him that he won't be able to come home after only 5 or 6 days in the hospital. He was determined that we would take care of him and drive him daily to his therapy sessions. It was a struggle to get through to him that the community couldn't do that and wouldn't do that. He seems reconciled. His surgery was set for last Tuesday and Eric was taking him in to St. Joseph's in Denver, leaving here at 5 AM. At 3 AM Russell got a call saying an emergency heart surgery had occurred and his surgery would have to be postponed. That's a tough one. It must be difficult enough to get ready for such extreme surgery, but to then have to wait another week is really hard.

Russell has been out and about all week and stated that he feels good; perhaps he shouldn't have the surgery. But he is going through with it.

Russell lives in the little cabin that Robert owns. It is called "Miner's Rest." It is on Eric's land, but has squatter's rights. Robert has rented it to Russell for more than thirty years and never raised the rent. Russell pays $45.00 a month to live there. At one time he was fed up with the commute to Longmont and said he was going to move. He went looking for housing and after that we never heard another thing about him planning to move.