Day 4078

Clyde got adopted this week, so only Cooper and Charlie remain at the kennel. We weren't able to visit the dogs last week because of the snow and ice, but they survived the cold pretty well. The kennel never lost power, but they were well prepared in case they did. One of the kennel managers stayed overnight with the dogs on the coldest days to make sure they were OK and plenty of water was set aside in case the kennel lost running water. There still seems to be no rhyme or reason to who had electricity during the storm and who didn't. There were people near us who lost power and there were people near the kennel who lost power. I guess the Dalmatians got lucky, just like we did.

The temperature got up to seventy degrees again today. If you didn't have a plumbing problem, there is very little evidence that the storm even existed. The snow and ice are completely gone and it feels like Spring is around the corner. I hope that last week was our Winter. Enough is enough. We really don't need any more cold weather this year.

I went up to the post office to see if I could pick up our accumulated mail this morning and the postmaster said that most of the mail for our area hadn't even arrived yet. Evidently, many post offices in the vicinity were without power during the storm, including the main Dallas sorting facility. Mail is still scattered all over the place and could take up to a week to arrive. We did get a little mail today at the house, but it was all junk.

I looked up what bills usually arrive around this time of the month and paid them online. I think we're good, although I do hope that my copies of SpaceFlight Magazine don't get lost. Trash service has resumed in our neighborhood and hopefully vaccine distribution will get back on schedule as well. We've got another week before we're due for our second shot, so everything should be back to normal by then.

I don't know what I'm going to do about my foot. I used the Voltaren gel today, but my foot was still very painful after about four miles. I'm probably not using enough of the gel to be effective, but I've always been a little suspicious of NSAID anti-inflammatory medicine. This stuff is probably safer than Ibuprofen, but long term use of any NSAID is not recommended. I wonder why the shoes don't work anymore. They really helped a lot for the first three weeks.

I'm thinking about applying for press credentials to attend the Boeing Starliner launch in April. This launch takes place almost a month after my second Covid vaccination, so I should have as much immunity as I'm going to get. At some point we all need to pick up where we left off in life last March. Lockdowns weren't meant to become a way of life or a permanent condition. I"m not even sure I can get NASA accreditation again. Somehow, I got lucky with the Crew 1 launch, but I have a feeling that I have fallen to the back of the line again. It's really hard to get established when your magazine isn't widely known and you can only afford several trips a year.

Dawn took two walks again today, but she is still nervous around me when Janet is away from the house. I don't know if this is ever going to change. Dawn is nervous about many things. I'm just one of a long list of phobias she has. Hopefully, we can work this out in the next several months, because Janet is even more eager to travel than I am.

The weather has been so nice for the past two days that I almost failed to notice that there is an entire week of rain in the forecast starting this Thursday. Oh, well. Rain isn't great, but it's a lot better than ice. Maybe if it rains a lot, I will be forced to stay inside and my foot will finally heal.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day