Day 4734

Another wet day. The roof is leaking again and I've had to dry out my shoes several times. Today's heavy rain kind of surprised me, since the day started out normally enough. We had a nice early morning walk with Dawn, ate a big weekend breakfast, and then I did my grocery shopping. I stayed dry the entire time. I even had time to take a long walk in the park before the rain started. I walked pretty slow today and my feet hurt towards the end, but I did manage to see both of our resident bald eagles. All in all it was a pretty good morning even though grocery prices continue to creep upwards.

Everything changed around mid-afternoon when the rain started. It was a heavy driving rain, so I knew the roof was going to leak. I pre-positioned buckets, but I guessed wrong and the leak started in a place where I didn't have a bucket. No problem. That's what towels are for. These leaks are frustrating because there's not much I can do about them at the moment. This is the worst time of year to replace a flat roof. At least the pumps are working today. I need a few more pumps, but they are high wattage gizmos and even two of them running at the same time tends to throw circuit breakers. 

Dawn is really starting to relax. When I took an afternoon nap today, she stayed on the bed with me and didn't appear nervous or alarmed. She still has good day and bad days, but I'm starting to see a real improvement. This is happening just in the nick of time, because Janet will be visiting her family over Christmas and Dawn and I will be alone together for a while. That's always interesting, but somehow we manage.

This evening Janet and I went to the annual Christmas party for Dawn's weekly training class. I haven't been to one of these events since we used to take Dot and Dash to training class quite a few years ago. The party was held in a park event building just down the hill from our house. I offered to drive, but Janet said we should just walk since it was so close. We got a little wet, but there was plenty of time to dry out once we arrived.

It was an enjoyable evening. We had a great dinner with some exceptionally good brisket and then there was a gift exchange. Everyone had a number and when your number was called you could pick from a large pile of wrapped gifts on a table or steal a gift from someone who had picked out a gift previously. After a gift had been stolen twice, it was retired and couldn't be stolen again. The most popular gifts always seems to be dog beds, but dog blankets seem desirable as well. Gift cards are very desirable, but don't turn up all that often. I've you happen to pick a package containing a gift card, you can expect that it will be stolen. There is a name for this kind of humorous gift exchange, but I've forgotten what it is.

Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow. There is no rain in the forecast anyway. I don't know how I managed to get 23,000 steps today with all the nasty weather. I must have been pretty busy this morning. Tomorrow I'll go mall walking and weather permitting, we'll take Dawn on her Sunday outing. If this sounds like exactly what I did last week, you'd be wrong. Last week I was taking Santa Paws pictures.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day