Day 2137

It's weird to see rain again. It's been dry for almost two months here in Dallas and I'd almost forgotten all the little rituals we go through whenever it rains. It's always been difficult to get the dogs to go outside and pee when it rains. Now, it's even hard to find a comfortable place for them in the house. Dot's primary dog bed has a clear view of the windows, so she can easily see any approaching storm. Since she can't hear very well anymore, I could just turn her around so she was facing a wall if it weren't for the fact that Dash is scared of storms too and likes to huddle up with Dot. I had a hard time today finding a place where both dogs felt comfortable and I still haven't been able to get Dot to go outside and poop.

One hidden benefit of Dot's new morning therapy schedule is that I was able to get her to the vet and back again before the rain even started. Dot actually did quite well in the underwater treadmill today. She was able to walk in the tank for a full seventeen minutes and even had two short intervals where we raised the treadmill speed a bit. Dot's resilience and tenacity are really pretty amazing. When we got home, it looked like the approaching storm was imminent, so I immediately went up on the roof and swept away a huge accumulation of pecan shells and acorns. The squirrels had already eaten most of the pecans, but there were an enormous amount of acorns on the roof. Now that the roof is clean, it will be a lot easier to remove the water when the rain stops. I probably did the squirrels a favor too. All the acorns are on the ground now and it will be much easier for them to dig unsightly holes in my St. Augustine grass when they bury their nuts for the Winter.

I sent in my application to NASA to attend the Orbital ATK CRS-4 launch. I have no idea if or when I'll hear back from them. The last time I applied to cover a launch, I thought they had totally forgotten about me until I received a surprise e-mail out of the blue telling me that my application had been accepted. We'll see what happens this time. I hope my Klout score and blog readership numbers don't influence their decision. Both these numbers are trending down. It's kind of ironic. I think my blog posts have improved over the years, but I actually had more readers in the early days when my posts were crap. It's all being in the right place at the right time. Any way you slice it, blogs just aren't as popular as they used to be.

It's raining hard now. There's no way we're going to get the dogs outside during this downpour. If Dot poops in the house in nice weather, she's certainly not going to make the effort to go outside during a storm. Hopefully, most of these storms will pass through the area tonight and we'll be able to take our regular walk tomorrow morning. If Dot and Dash don't get their walk, tomorrow is going to be miserable.

The world continues to change around me while I stay the same. One of Dot's favorite nurses has unexpectedly moved on to a new opportunity at another hospital. We didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. I certainly can't fault young people for taking advantage of every opportunity that comes their way. I worked at 17 different ad agencies before I finally realized that the only way to avoid having problems with my boss was to be the boss. So far it has worked out pretty well. Nobody can fire me now and my little company will celebrate its 26th Anniversary at the end of the year. That should impress NASA, but it probably won't.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day