Friday, June 24, 2022

Day 4565

Our first vacation day has gone pretty well. Dawn is never a happy camper when Janet isn't around, but she did all the important things today. She ate her dinner, took her meds, and went down to the meadow behind our house to do her business. I think she knew what was going on as soon as she saw Janet's suitcase. Dawn is a very smart dog.

We thought we'd try to make the day as normal as possible by still giving Dawn her normal sunrise walk before Janet left for the airport. We had to leave well before sunrise this morning and were a little worried about encountering coyotes in the park. Everything went well though and the sky brightened quickly. When we left the house we got to see the rare alignment of the planets that I've been hearing about recently. Mercury was too near the horizon to see, but Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were all clearly visible. There was also a nice crescent moon between Venus and Mars.

I'm glad I wasn't the one traveling today. Travel has become very stressful with all the flight delays and cancelations. Almost every day I read sad stories about people who missed a wedding or a cruise because of an unexpected flight cancelation. Luckily, Janet did reach her destination. Even Southwest Airlines, which I have always thought was the most trouble free way to fly, has pilots picketing Love Field now. Flying has become a giant mess for a multitude of reasons. What else is new. Everything these days is a giant mess for a multitude of reasons.

I took a long walk this morning instead of going to the gym. Since we got up so early, I was able to leave the house before 8 AM. This helped, but it still got hot alarmingly quickly. I had to change my route because a construction crew was working on one of the bridges I always cross. They were putting up barricades as I arrived and I asked one of the workers if I would be able to return over this same bridge in about an hour. Nope. It was going to be completely closed to all traffic for at least four hours. Since crossing this bridge was the only way home, I wisely decided to turn around and continue my walk on the other side of the lake. I walked the same number of miles today. Just in a different direction.

I didn't use the car today because I'm always nervous about driving when Janet is away. Who would I call if I had car problems? This is probably irrational thinking because I'll still need to go to the grocery store this weekend. I need orange juice, milk, beer, and some more fresh fruit. The pot roast Janet made will probably last me most of the week.

Since the only thing I had to do today was fret about Dawn, I decided to update the star tracker again. The last firmware update went well, but this new one had problems. Now my camera randomly disconnects from the tracker again, just like it did in the very beginning. It's frustrating being a Beta tester. I documented the problem the best I could and sent all the information to Benro customer support. Since they fixed the problem before, I'm sure they'll eventually fix it again. I wish they'd just decide that the project was done when I had the tracker working. We're a long way away from that unfortunately.

Dawn has to go outside and pee one more time before we call it a day. I hope she decides to sleep normally tonight. When Dawn is too nervous to sleep, I have trouble sleeping as well. I'm going to be optimistic though. Dawn has done pretty well today. She was eager to eat her dinner tonight which was a very good sign. The last time Janet was gone, it took several days to get Dawn to eat normally.