Day 1595

Every time I see the devastation that tornadoes can create, I am grateful that Dallas has been spared. We live in an area where tornadoes are common. There have been many occasions where I have sat huddled with the dogs in a small hallway listening to the sirens wailing outside. So far we have been lucky. I don't think a tornado has actually touched down inside the city limits of Dallas since I moved here many years ago. Sometimes I wonder were you could live where tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, flash floods, and giant sinkholes weren't a danger. Unfortunately, the only places that come to mind have extremely cold winters. At any rate, my heart goes out to the people of Mayflower, Arkansas. They certainly didn't deserve what hit them last night.

Dash's oncologist didn't seem nearly as worried about the nasty red spot on his neck as I was this weekend. Evidently, this oozing sore, which the doctors euphemistically call "sunburn" is an almost inevitable side effect of the radiation. Over time, radiation breaks down normal tissue and makes wounds much harder to heal. As a result, humans and animals often have problems with moist dermatitis and even open sores during the latter stages of radiation therapy. Dash's nurse told me not to worry and said that the damaged tissue should heal within two weeks after the radiation therapy is finished. Luckily, Dash only has three more sessions to go. There isn't much we can do at this point. We are just supposed to keep the affected area as clean and dry as we can.

Work was busy today. I carefully followed a developer's instructions on how to add a new function to one of my client's websites. The instructions were quite detailed and I followed them exactly, but the site crashed anyway. Oops. This just proves that even detailed instructions with lots of notes aren't always right. I spent the next hour undoing the damage and returning the site to the way it was before. Hopefully, nobody noticed. I have a meeting with my client tomorrow, and I'll need to tell her that this new feature might not be a good idea.

The weather has been perfect for the past several days. I wish I knew of a place that had this kind of weather all year long. Seattle had nice mild weather when I lived there, but it rained all the time. California coastal cities are all delightful, but there's been a terrible drouth recently and of course there are all those forest fires. Arizona is too hot and Montana is too cold. I guess my favorite climate is indoors.

My teeth are telling me that it's time to see the dentist. My hair is telling me that it's way past time for a haircut. My car needs an oil change. It's been hard to deal with even simple tasks like these with the dogs complicated schedules. I'm hoping that I'll have more time when the radiation portion of Dash's cancer treatment concludes next week. Chemotherapy will continue much longer, but I can give the chemo pills myself at home.

My Baidu stock dropped 7% today, just because the Chinese government won't let them stream The Big Bang Theory, The Good Wife, NCIS, and The Practice anymore. Why should this even matter? And why do the Chinese want to watch these shows anyway? Personally, I don't need any of them, but apparently the market thinks otherwise. Market volatility. Cancer conundrums. Website mysteries. The world has definitely become too complicated for me to understand.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day