Day 3539 - Labor Day

It didn't really seems like a holiday today. It did seem like a Monday though. After a week of eating restaurant meals, I returned to my familiar fruit smoothie. As I sipped my drink, I watched the news about the approaching hurricane. It certainly wasn't approaching very fast. At this rate the storm will still be approaching next week.

After breakfast I attached the 2020 vehicle registration sticker I'd purchased weeks ago to my windshield. I never like to do this because I'm obsessive about getting things positioned correctly and if I put the sticker on crooked, I'm stuck with it all year. I carefully peeled off the old sticker with a razor blade, cleaned the sticky residue away with an alcohol soaked rag, and then attached the new sticker. Now I'm in compliance again. The sticker looks reasonably straight too.

Before I took my morning walk, I sent an e-mail to the roofer asking where the silicon coating he promised was. I don't really expect a reply, but I've got to make the effort. If I don't hear from him soon, I'll be forced to go buy a big drum of this stuff myself. I've done this once before and it was a huge hassle transferring the stuff to smaller buckets that I could lift to the roof. I'm really trying to avoid making a huge mess.

For the past several days I've been combining the morning and afternoon segments of my daily walks into one long walk. This way I don't have to take two showers and change clothes as often. I had hoped to walk early so I could write later in the day, but as usual I got a late start. I remember when I was in college I used to hike all day in the Rockies during the summer. I doubt that I could do that anymore. Five miles seems to be my limit.

Hank has gotten sick again. After seeming perfectly normal for about a month, his bloody stools have returned again. He's on fluids at the emergency vet now and is scheduled to have an ultrasound scan in the morning. Hank has already had extensive x-rays to look for foreign objects in his digestive tract and any obvious tumors or growths. So far we have found nothing abnormal. His blood work looks good too. We all thought a change in diet might solve Hanks problems, but clearly that hasn't worked. Hopefully we will learn something after the ultrasound scan. We've got to get this boy healthy again so he can find his forever home.

I started writing my Sky and Telescope article this afternoon. I didn't make a lot of progress. I am taking a completely different approach than I'd originally planned, so I made several false starts. This would have been a lot easier if the skies were clear last Tuesday. My challenge is to turn a rainy day at the observatory into something compelling. Luckily, this isn't a time sensitive article. I've got time for quite a few false starts.

I'm not sure how long Hank will need to stay at the emergency vet, but we may need to transport him back to the kennel tomorrow. We'll see. Other than that, tomorrow will be very similar to today. I'll take a long walk and probably go to the post office. It's a new month and there are bills to pay.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day