Day 1658

I looked at my calendar for July and it was already filled with vet appointments and doctor visits. When you add trips to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, this is pretty much how I spend my time. In any given month, at least three of these appointments will need to be rescheduled because I'd forgotten that I already had another medical appointment at the same time. So far, the only non-medical things I see for July are a day of jury duty and a visit with my financial adviser to discover why I feel so poor.

It's frustrating to see so many of my investments doing poorly at a time when the market is near an all-time high. I have nobody to blame but myself, unfortunately. Nobody forced me to invest in these losers. One of the worst things I did was get excited about the natural gas industry after making a documentary about a pioneering shale gas producer. Natural gas seemed like a sure thing at the time. It wasn't. I discovered that investing in small energy companies can be a very risky business. Live and learn has always been my motto, but this was a very expensive lesson.

I discovered today that one of the first bloggers I ever started reading regularly passed away this weekend. If I hadn't seen some other bloggers talking about the woman's obituary on Facebook, I never would have known. This certainly wasn't the first time I got the news about someone's death on Facebook. I've learned about the passing of high school friends, former co-workers, distant relatives, and several other bloggers all in the course of reading my Facebook wall. I guess it's a sign of the times. I was trying to explain social media to a friend about my age a few weeks ago and when I got to Facebook I just said "Facebook is where you go to see who died this week."

I've got to come up with a better plan for defending myself from biting bugs. Every time I walk the dogs, I'm eaten alive by mosquitoes and chiggers. It's too hot to bundle up these days, so when you wear shorts or go shirtless, you become a target for the biting bugs. I hate to use insecticides around the dogs, and few of the home remedies actually work. Last year at this time, the city was already aggressively spraying to control mosquitoes. This year, the mosquitoes are even worse and the city is doing nothing. The aerial spraying was so controversial last Summer that I suspect the city just gave up and decided to let the citizens itch. I thought the spraying program made a lot more sense than Lyme Disease, but a lot of people disagreed. You just can't keep everybody happy these days.

Dot did really well in the underwater treadmill this afternoon. It's amazing how strong and confident she is, considering her age. I hope the car continues to do well as we go back and forth to these physical therapy sessions. It was over 100 degrees on our drive home today.

Tucker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day