Day 224

Do you ever feel like a car that's stuck in first gear? Things do move along, but ever so slowly. Today was like that. I had to take Dash to the vet for another ultrasound exam. Our appointment was at 2 PM, but we sat waiting in the lobby until almost 3 PM. Waiting for doctors almost seems to be one of those inviolable laws of nature. It doesn't matter when they tell you to come; you're always going to wait. Considering how bad Dash can be for something as simple as a bath, he was actually extremely well behaved for the ultrasound exam. He's got a weak heart valve that leaks a little bit when it closes. We're still trying to determine if this is serious or not. I have a feeling he'll be just fine. If you've ever had a stress test or echocardiogram done yourself, you quickly realize that nobody's heart is perfect.

When we got home from the vet, I decided to finish the Dalmatian Rescue banner I've been working on. This moved along ever so slowly as well. Ordinarily, I could design something like this in less than an hour. Unfortunately, the banner's 10 foot by 3 foot size made it impossible to create the monster PDF file I needed using my ancient copy of Quark Express. Rats! I had to use Adobe InDesign instead. I don't use InDesign very often and of course I have never bothered to read the manual. I prefer to use the trial and error method. In this case, it was mostly errors I encountered. I eventually figured out how to get the huge PDF file to print correctly though, so this is one item I can finally cross off my "to do" list.

More rain today. We were doing fine on our evening walk until a bolt of lightning landed right across from us on the other side of the lake. Both dogs immediately turned around and headed for home as fast as they could. It was a good thing the dogs were in a hurry to get home. As soon as we reached the front door, the rain started coming down in buckets. I know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning: sweeping water off the roof again with my big push broom.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day