Day 1987

I'm running out of ways to describe a rainy day. Rain has become the new normal. Once again it was raining when we woke up and the dogs had to wait for their morning walk. We ate breakfast while waiting for the skies to clear and kept checking the weather radar until we found our opportunity. The ground is so saturated with water that everything is soft and spongy. Dot and Dash normally like to smell things in the grass, but even they prefer walking on the roads lately. It's amazing how green and lush the park looks this Spring. All the neighbors lawns look great and Spring flowers are blooming everywhere. I imagine that water bills all over the city will be lower this month.I haven't seen anyone using their sprinkler system all month. I was amused listening to an interview with a local car wash owner on TV this morning. He said that business was way down and that only ten people had washed their car today. I kept wondering how even ten people could think it would be a good idea to take their car to a carwash on a day like this.

I'm easily amused on a rainy day, so I spent the afternoon trying out all the attachments on the new Dyson vacuum cleaner. I had already vacuumed the office yesterday and was astounded to pick up just as much dust as I did yesterday in the supposedly clean office when I vacuumed the shelves and hard to reach corners with the special attachments. The shelves above eye level were exceptionally dusty, but luckily the clever Dyson people made a special tool to clean areas about your head that you can't see. The best thing about the Dyson is that it is relatively quiet and it doesn't scare the dogs. Our old Hoover always sent them into a panic, but they both just ignored me while I was cleaning today.

I keep thinking of ways to improve the mobile sites I'm building, so I went back and fixed some mistakes I'd made earlier in the week. I'm definitely a late bloomer when it comes to responsive design, but I'm starting to get enthusiastic about the possibilities it presents. As I continue to become more familiar with CSS and structured HTML, I doubt that I'll ever build a static site in Dreamweaver again.

I've started wearing a plastic Essix retainer at night that one of my dentists created for me just before I had my wisdom tooth removed. Since some of my upper teeth are unopposed by lower teeth anymore, this retainer is supposed to keep the upper teeth from continuing to grow downward. I thought only rodents had teeth that continued to grow, but apparently ours do as well if they are not held in check by another tooth directly above or below. I thought I'd hate the retainer, but it is strangely comforting. It fits perfectly and is not unpleasant to wear at all. Putting it on, taking it off, and cleaning it, will add one more element to an already lengthy  set of morning rituals.

The rain finally stopped around 6:30 PM. There was just enough time to give Dot and Dash their evening walks and take a quick photo of a surprisingly beautiful sunset. There will be more rain tomorrow, but we're getting used to it.

Ranger s today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day