Day 2575 - New Year's Day

I had no desire to get up this morning. My body reminded me that I don't drink anymore. Just the small amount of champagne I had last night to celebrate the New Year slowed me down considerably. Dot kept us on schedule though. She always does. When I saw her trying to get up, I instantly jumped out of bed and raced to open the back door. To celebrate our success at peeing outside, we all went back to bed for another hour.

Eventually, we all got up and started our morning routine, but the New Year definitely got off to a slow start. Dot peed on my house slippers yesterday, so I thought I'd throw them in the washing machine. This just revealed how poorly they were constructed. One of the shoes fell apart and appeared to be made of some sort of compressed paper. This was definitely a job for superglue. I didn't have enough superglue left, but found a bottle of Gorilla Glue in the utility room. The stuff doesn't dry very fast, so the jury is still out on this experiment.

I finally found the receipt for the candelabra base LED bulbs that wouldn't fit in my floor lamps and took them back to Home Depot to exchange for some more of the old fashioned halogen bulbs I was trying to avoid. The guy in the electrical department didn't realize that there were several sizes of candelabra screw threads either. Apparently, I was the first person who had purchased this style of LED bulb. Maybe someday I'll be able to abandon incandescent bulbs entirely, but it wasn't going to be today.

I had high hopes of seeing Neptune this evening, but it wasn't meant to be. The faint planets are almost impossible for someone like me to find in the sky, unless they happen to be located very close to something familiar. Tonight there was a conjunction of Neptune and Mars. I could definitely find Mars. Neptune is supposed to be easily visible through a pair of decent binoculars, but you can't see it through clouds. Like the candelabra base LED bulbs, I will have to wait until some other time.

I wish I had some sort of game plan for 2017. If I had a goal, I probably could accomplish quite a bit. I've had long term goals before. I worked really hard to build my business back in the early 1990's. I worked hard to get healthier when I discovered I had Hepatitis C. I need to remember that keeping Dot alive is not really a realistic goal. I can do my best to keep her happy while she's here, but I have little control over how long she's with us on this earth. Just getting from one day to the next is not a very ambitious goal. I know I can do that. What could I realistically achieve that would actually make me happier if I was successful? I'm stumped.

Goals are a lot like the sailboats I see out on the lake. From a distance they look so peaceful and serene. When I'm out on the water, it all looks different and I almost instantly wish I was back on dry land. I have a feeling that I don't understand sailing any better than I understand goals.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day