Day 4080

I had a rare Zoom meeting today. I still don't understand people's fascination with Zoom. In most cases, a simple phone call would suffice. I've participated in a multitude of conference calls during my working years and I can't ever remember a need to actually see the other people. I somehow lost the shared screen during today's call, but I pretended to follow along. I guess my main problem with Zoom is that I can't slouch and stare off into space. I have to look at the camera and appear interested. I guess this is kind of like a real meeting around a conference table. I didn't like those either.

Since rain is in the forecast for tomorrow,  I reluctantly started raking leaves today. I didn't actually spend a lot of time raking. Most of my time was spent with the leaf blower, trying to get all the leaves out of the Liriope and Asian Jasmine ground cover. I thought all the leaves were dry, but there were many layers and the bottom layers were still soggy and wet. When we were younger, cleaning up the yard in the Spring was a routine event. Then for a while, we had a lawn care service do this chore for us. After we retired, we started pinching pennies and returned to doing the annual cleanup ourselves.  I doubt that all the leaves will be gone before it rains again, but at least we've started. For me at least, starting a chore is always the hardest part.

I'm still wondering what has happened to our mail. Deliveries have resumed, but we certainly haven't received a week's worth of accumulated mail. I have a feeling that some of this mail is gone forever. Most of the junk we get I would never miss, but I do hope that my copies of SpaceFlight Magazine turn up eventually. I'm old school. It doesn't really feel like I've been published unless I can hold the magazine in my hand.

I received a message from my new Air Force contact saying that I would soon be receiving instructions on the re-credentialing process and that I should be good to go well before the upcoming Starliner launch. I took this as a good sign that life will eventually return to normal. It's important to me to start covering launches again. In the grand scheme of things, whatever I write is not very important, but it does make me feel like I've got a job. I'd like to feel like I'm entirely self-motivated, but having deadlines and an editor does make me a lot more productive.

Janet was gone this afternoon, so I tried to see if Dawn would do some simple things with me. She likes to lie in the sun on nice days, but she wouldn't leave the bedroom on her own. Oddly, she's happy to follow me outdoors on a leash. When I take the leash off, she will go lie in the grass like she normally does. We did this several times this afternoon. She didn't appear scared when I led her outside on a leash. She just wouldn't leave the bedroom on her own. It's all very weird. Maybe Dawn thinks I'm a kennel attendant.

My foot hurt again today on my long walk. It's baffling why this varies from day to day. Actually, my foot hurt when I woke up this morning, so maybe I'm doing something wrong when I sleep. I'm tired of seeing doctors. I've seen four doctors about this over the years and nothing has changed. There are no fractures or bone damage. Other than some obvious arthritis, the foot is fine. I don't want to take strong pain medication, so I guess I'm stuck. I've seen people get addicted to pain pills and it's not a pretty sight. I'm a born complainer, so I'll live with the discomfort and just complain a lot.

The forecast says that it should start raining tomorrow afternoon. It looks like I'll be bagging leaves as fast as I can tomorrow morning.

Nora is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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