Saturday, January 14, 2017

Day 2588

Every time I run my Saturday errands, I'm reminded of how much I dislike living in a large city. I still have fantasies about living in the middle of nowhere with a deep artesian water well and an acre of solar panels, but living comfortably off the grid like this is never going to happen. The older people get, the more they need to be near doctors. I doubt that I'd be lonely living off the grid, but if I ever had a heart attack or a serious fall, I'd be dead before the EMT's arrived. I was talking to a friend of mine last week who has enjoyed living in a small town in Arkansas for over 40 years. He and his wife are thinking of moving to Little Rock, because that's where their doctors are. That's what happened to my sister too. She and her husband sold a beautiful forest home in rural Ohio and moved to Florida for better medical care. This the bleak reality of modern life. There are fewer and fewer rural doctors and absolutely no state of the art rural research hospitals.

I watched the Falcon 9 launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base this morning on the Internet. I was glad to see that Space X had a big success today, after the devastating explosion they experienced last year. It's amazing that they have live video cameras inside these rockets now. The return of the first stage booster to the floating barge in the Pacific was all shown live in real time. If I was young, I'd love to work for a company like Space X. I think going to Mars would be a lot more inspiring mission in life than getting people to eat more burgers and drink more soda. That being said, I don't really regret spending most of my life in advertising. I'm a shallow person, so advertising is a perfect fit.

I'm glad the big ice storm in Oklahoma and Kansas is well north of us. Our weather wasn't great today, but at least nothing was freezing. Although it never actually rained, there was a mist in the air that left my jacket wet after I walked the dogs. I wonder how long our roller coaster weather is going to continue? I think constantly alternating between warm and cold days is making me sick. I feel like I'm coming down with a cold again. The humidity keeps changing too. It was over 90% this morning, but less than 20% a few days ago. We've certainly had colder winters, but I can't recall such sudden changes before.

I cooked French Toast for Janet this morning. My cooking repertoire is very limited, but I do make good French Toast. Bread is kind of the forbidden fruit in my current diet. I try to avoid bread and seldom eat pizza anymore because the starches in bread break down quickly and enter the bloodstream as glucose. Bread spikes blood sugar levels faster than many candy bars. It's too bad the stuff is so delicious. I could live on bread if it didn't put me on a fast track toward becoming a diabetic.

The dogs kept me busy today, but there were no messy accidents. Knock on wood, I guess. The day isn't over yet. I've discovered that Dot can easily sleep an extra hour on weekends without needing to get up to pee. As long as everyone else is asleep too, she's fine. The day officially starts at our house whenever Janet gets up. Hopefully, we'll all sleep in late tomorrow as well. I always enjoy an extra hour of sleep. I'll go to the gym unless it's raining and then I'll end the day by watching British comedies on PBS that I've already seen a hundred times. It's not all that exciting, but you wouldn't be reading this if you were looking for excitement.

Kasey is today's Dalmatian of the Day
 
Watch of the Day