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Ah spring! And it is very spring-like here. I had a lovely walk
this morning. It is sunny and in the 70s.
Our plumbing problems persist. The basic problem is a cracked
sewer pipe underneath the kitchen floor. Robert has removed
buckets and buckets of yukky, very yukky stuff and more
buckets of dirt. The latter to try and make the area such that
he or hopefully, soon, a plumber can stand down there and fix
the cracked pipe. It is still not clear whether or not the kitchen
floor will have to come up. He has determined that the pipe
that goes to the septic, outside the house, is also plugged up.
He plans to call the plumber soon and make a date for next
week. The plumber is currently working on a large house in
Boulder, but his truck needs work so he is hoping to work on
our project while Vernon works on his truck. In the meantime,
on my walk this morning I stopped to talk with a neighbor and
she said that she had a guy staying with her for a while (I gather
he is out of work and is currently homeless except for her taking
him in). He does plumbing and carpentry, a general handy man.
He may be of help if we have to dig up the line from the house
to the septic and/or have to cut into the kitchen floor.
Robert and I have been sleeping and taking many of our meals in
the motor home. It is very pleasant out there and it has the
only working plumbing at this time.
Stuart, my supervisor at Jared's office, and I went for a meeting
with the staff at Craig Hospital. Members of other legislative
districts were also in attendance. The purpose of the meeting
was to ask the congresspeople to remember to think about
rehabilitation when working on health care reform. Almost no
current health insurance covers rehabilitation and with proper
rehab many people who would otherwise be dependent on the State
may become viable, productive citizens if given the proper
physical and mental rehabilitation. With the coming onslaught of
Vets this problem is going to be exacerbated. They were very
convincing.
When I got home I checked our insurance and they are correct no
rehab is mentioned. Likewise true with our long term health
care. There is "care" with skilled nurses, but rehab as such is
not mentioned. I expect they would provide a certain amount of
physically therapy after a stroke, but the whole body care that
the Craig folks were talking about isn't covered anywhere except
by private philanthropic agencies.
It was a very interesting day.
This week, as many others has flown by, but
not without its trials.
We have an odor problem that persists. We
assume it is plumbing, but on the off chance
that it may be a critter and it may just
desiccate and go away..we are waiting. We've
stopped using the upstairs bathroom also.
If it is plumbing we are at least not adding
to the problem. When/if the odor goes away
we'll flush a couple of times and see if it
returns. If it doesn't then I guess we
assume it is/was a dead critter. We are
sleeping in the RV and fortunately the
weather is such that it is very pleasant
out there even without using the furnace.
Last Monday I took our tax information to
our accountant. It is always a relief to
dump that problem on someone else. In
the evening we went to Viki's for dinner.
Liza was home for spring break. It is
always fun to see Liza and Keegan. They
are such busy people. Of course it is
nice to see Viki, too. I always feel a
bit uncomfortable there because she makes
it so clear that it is really a chore to
have us.
On Tuesday we went to the VA and the news
from there was good. He isn't getting
better, but at least he's not getting
worse. The museum had a wonderful exhibit
on violent storms. The exhibit I enjoyed
the most was of a tornado. The researcher
had built a triangular box with three
video recorders in it, each facing a different
direction. I don't know how many times he
had tried, but this time the tornado went
right over the box. We were standing in
a room with video pictures on three walls.
We watched the tornado approach, hit and
pass over us and on its way. It was
quite a spectacular exhibit.
On Wednesday I went to book club at Julie's.
We discussed a book of short stories by
Booy (sp). For the most part these stories
were very sad and depressing. They portrayed
people in dire conditions and living with
little or no hope. I did enjoy one; an elderly
man and a young boy became friends and the
boy was recounting to the man how excited he
was about a festival coming up. We then
learn that years ago the man leaves his
native home and his family and comes away
with only an apple. Year after year, it
turns out, he has planted an apple seedling
in a nearby vacant lot. Now, the man and
the boy go to attend the festival which
turns out to be an apple festival and the
city has made the vacant lot into a city-
owned and cherished orchard where everyone
is free to take home as many apples as they
like. That was the happiest story of the
lot.
