Day 2160

We went to a rescue event today. Dash was an ambassador for Dalmatian Rescue at Pet Fair. We told him he need to be on his best behavior. This meant no excessive loud barking, no knocking over other vendors booths, and no pooping in front of a crowd of little children. Generally, Dash was pretty good. He was a little too eager to sample the treats at the Hills Science Diet booth, but he let everyone pet him and was very friendly with all the other dogs.

Dot used to go to rescue events like this all the time. Sadly, she had to stay home today. These type of public events are simply too tiring for her. I drove home midway through the event to check on her and she was sleeping peacefully. I took her out to pee and she immediately thought it was dinner time. It was actually only 2:30 in the afternoon, but how was Dot to know? When she wakes up from a nap, she usually eats.

It was good to give Dash an opportunity to do something social today. It has become so difficult and time consuming to care for Dot, that we don't get out much anymore. He was still a little timid, but he seemed to have fun, making friends with other dogs and begging for treats from anyone who would feed him. When the days start to get longer again, we should probably start taking him back to our Wednesday training class. He was never that wild about the training exercises themselves, but he loved seeing the other dogs.

Now that I've had a chance to look around, I realize that we've got quite a mess to clean up in the back yard. Although the tunneling crew did a good job of backfilling their tunnel, there is still leftover dirt and mud all over the yard. I naively thought that the cleanup would be so good that there wouldn't be a trace that anything had happened. They did lay a bunch of 4x8 plywood sheets on the ground to protect the grass, but a lot of the excavated dirt seemed to land elsewhere. I'm probably going to spend the rest of the Winter cleaning mud off my shoes. When I take Dot outside to pee at night, I inevitably step in mud now. I guess stepping in mud is better than stepping in poop.

If I have time tomorrow, I'm going to reassemble the screened in porch that I had taken apart to give the tunneling crew access to the leak. I had thought about replacing the aluminum screen panels and buying some new wood for the finishing trim. In theory this would have been a simple task, but nothing is simple with this house. The extra wide screen material is not generally available in hardware stores anymore and standard dimensions for lumber have changed over the years. To exactly match the existing trim, I would have to buy lumber and have it milled to the proper size. It's not an ideal solution, but I think I'll just reuse the old aluminum screen wire and try my best to replace the old wood trim without cracking or splintering the wood.

I looked at the dehumidifiers they had on display in the store at Lowes and most of them were crap. You could never use one of these smaller machines to dehumidify an entire house and since they were all made of plastic, they probably wouldn't last a year anyway. Commercial dehumidifiers cost well over $1000 and are generally made in the USA. The machines at Lowes cost around $200 and were all made in China. Like everything in life, you get what you pay for.

I doubt that I'll make it to the gym tomorrow. I've still got lots of website work to catch up on and the house is filthy. My shower stall repairs didn't really work either. I'd prefer to take a long nap, but it looks like wall-to-wall chores tomorrow.

Puppies are today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day