Friday, September 20, 2019

Day 3557

Every once in a while I go to a restaurant that I thought was terrible just to see if it got any better. Today I went to a place that I remembered as being dirty with rude waiters. The place was very clean and everyone was extremely friendly. I ordered the one thing on the menu that I used to like and it was terrible. What was going on here? Did this place get bought by someone else? It was all very disorienting.

It rained a lot last night, but the rain didn't cool things down. It was still hot and muggy. I knew I would need to go up on the roof and clear the standing water away, but I decided to get my morning walk out of the way first. By the time I returned, I was too tired to go up on the roof and took a nap instead. I kept trying to postpone this task by taking some mail to the post office and updating my phone to IOS 13. Eventually, I turned on both pumps and water came gushing out of the attached hoses. Damn. There was a lot of water up there. I had to deal with it.

I hate going up on the roof these days. It seems like I've been clearing away water forever. Every time it rains, the damaged areas get a little worse. There really isn't a good solution. Since the house is old and has settled, there would still be standing water even with a new roof. To reengineer the roof so it still looked the same but had just enough of a pitch to reliably drain water away is ridiculously expensive. I guess I'll just keep patching things. I'll probably have to go buy a five gallon can of the silicon coating material myself since the roofer still hasn't brought me the coating he promised. Residential roofers don't know how to do a flat roof and commercial roofers aren't interested in doing small jobs like this. They'd rather do a shopping center instead. It's all very tiring. I've gotten bids on a new roof, but nothing seems realistic. This is why I hate rain. If it would just quit raining, I wouldn't have a problem.

Every time I update my phone I get all these messages asking if various apps can connect to Bluetooth or operate in the background. My instinct is always to say no to everything and then the apps quit working. I think I've got everything I use working again, but I keep wishing that people would quit constantly updating everything. I was happy with the way my computer and phone worked five years ago. I really don't care about Dark Mode or a host of new Emojis. As long as I can check the weather and take pictures on my walks, I'm good.

With my five mile walk, a trip to the post office and grocery store, and a lot of manual labor on the roof, I got in quite a few steps today. It will be interesting to see what my regular doctor thinks when I go in for my annual physical soon. I feel healthier than I did last year. I also feel older. Maybe I'm just treading water. Janet and I both think it's important to keep moving. It's amazing how sedentary some people our age have become. It would be nice if I actually liked exercising like Janet does, but I can't complain. Staying active keeps me from wondering about my purpose in life. You don't need a purpose when you are walking. You just walk.

The backyard security light stayed on twice as long as it usually does last night. It was a lot cooler yesterday. Maybe the problem with the photoelectric sensor is temperature related. Maybe the rain washed away some of the spider webs. Who knows. If we still had dogs, I would have replaced this light by now. Some things just don't seem to matter as much anymore.

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