Day 2892

On television, Black Friday looked like a madhouse, but from my vantage point it just seemed like another normal day. Janet and I went out for breakfast this morning and there wasn't even much traffic on the road. I don't know what made us think we even needed breakfast. We were still full from yesterday. We should have just ordered one item and split it. Neither of us could finish our meal and ended up taking the rest home for tomorrow.

On the way home, Janet wanted to stop at Old Navy and get a coat she'd seen on sale. No mob of Black Friday shoppers here. Everything is already so cheap at Old Navy that I wondered why they even bother with giant sales. The clothes aren't made in China here. The labels come from places like Haiti, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Who would have thought you'd have to go to stores like Bloomingdales or Nordstrom to find clothes from China? Made in China is reserved for upscale retail now. So where do you go to find clothes that are actually made in the United States? You'd probably need a time machine.

I think a lot of people must have gone out of town for Thanksgiving. The roads weren't really crowded. The park was virtually empty yesterday and wasn't very crowded today either. That's fine by me. Any day that I can walk Dash without worries about being attacked by a loose dog is a good day. I am going to have to worry about coyotes this winter. When we were walking Dash this afternoon, a firetruck went by and the siren caused our local pack of coyote pups to all begin howling at once. From the sound of things, this is a large litter. I haven't seen these coyotes yet, but it's pretty easy to tell where they live. We had a bad problem with coyotes several years ago until they ate all the small animals and moved on. I have a feeling that it is going to be a bad year for bunnies this Winter.

I took advantage of the warmer weather today to continue my work on the roof. This is one of the more discouraging projects I've undertaken yet. There was a small tear in an area I had patched last month and when I began peeling away the damaged elastomer coating, I discovered that water had seeped under a much wider area than it looked like on the surface. The roof really needs to be fixed in July when it is hot and dry. Unfortunately, it always becomes damaged during the Fall and Winter months when the weather is cold and damp. I didn't re-coat anything today. All I managed to do was remove about a square yard of elastomer in hopes that the asphalt underneath will completely dry out before it rains again.

Dash must have known it was a holiday today. He didn't want me to walk him alone like I normally do on Friday and insisted that Janet and I both go with him. This wasn't a problem in the morning, but he could have made life easier if he'd taken his normal walk this afternoon. By the time Janet returned from running errands, it was almost dark. It's hard to explain these things to a stubborn dog though. Dash knew that Janet hadn't gone to work because she wasn't wearing work clothes when she left the house.

It seemed like Saturday today, so it will probably seem like Sunday tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow, but I won't be able to ignore everything. I got a new writing assignment today. There is a big website project to work on. And sometime very soon I am going to have to test all my ancient equipment prior to next week's first Santa Paws photo shoot. I sure hope everything works. One of these years it won't.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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