Day 3263

I think we're ready to go. I've finished testing the photo equipment and it all works. I located the battery I need. Everything is packed in bags and waiting to be loaded into the car. The only missing link is me. I'm still tired, but I guess I passed my test as well. I made it through the day.

Pooping in the bed has become a nightly occurrence. Dash has lost control of his bowels. Since he is pooping in his sleep more frequently now, there is hope that we'll be able to slide a puppy training pad under his butt at some point. If he would sleep soundly and stay in one place, cleanup would be easy.

I thought that I got up early this morning, but tomorrow I'll need to get up even earlier. The photo event starts at 9 AM and it takes me about an hour to set things up. Add in the drive to the location and I'll need to leave the house around 7 AM. I'm not sure how Dash is going to get his walk tomorrow. We need to wait until it is light to walk because of the coyotes. I'm nervous about the coyotes this year because there is an aggressive coyote in a town just North of here that has already bitten several people. No giant earthquakes down here, but we do have a mean coyote.

The earthquake in Alaska today seems pretty major. It reminded me of the big quake in 1964 when I was in high school in Fairbanks. We weren't even close to the epicenter but the pine trees in our yard were waving around like matchsticks and all the water sloshed out of the kitchen sink. Earthquakes are weird and kind of frightening. If you've ever experienced one, you won't forget it.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find the lithium battery I needed today. I had to go to four different stores. The battery store, which usually stocks every type of battery known to man, was out of stock.  The store manager told me that a man came in last week and bought 600 of these things. Jeez. All I needed were two.

I'll probably regret having pizza for dinner. Pizza almost always gives me heartburn. It tastes good though and neither Janet or I felt like cooking this evening. I didn't feel like cooking this morning either. As soon as I finished walking Dash, I went out for breakfast and ordered the Brioche French Toast and bacon that has become my Friday morning favorite.

None of my model trains sold in November. Damn. I was hoping that November would be a good month. December is bound to be better. Surely somebody will want a train for Christmas. I'm hoping that interest will pick up for the online Prints and Multiples auction I'm currently participating in. My consignments are bargains. They'd make good Christmas presents too. It's weird that I've become so interested in selling things these days. I'm not interested in buying stuff at all. That's definitely a first for me.

I hope I survive tomorrow's photo shoot. Just kneeling to put on Dash's socks and boots in the morning makes my knees hurt. The thought of doing this all day makes me cringe. I'm going to look on the bright side. After this weekend it's all downhill. I have no plans whatsoever for the rest of the year.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3255 - Thanksgiving

Even when the world is sliding toward the abyss there is always plenty to be thankful for. Dash is still with us and still appears to be enjoying life despite his many problems. Janet and I have both successfully navigated the world of work and arrived at retirement in one piece. Knock on wood, but my doctors still think I'm relatively healthy. Janet has survived cancer. We're not rich, but we're not going to starve. Basically, life is pretty good.

I hope I can remember this in the years ahead. It's not always easy for a grumpy curmudgeon to be thankful. Complaining is easy. Realizing that you are surrounded by good things takes a little practice. Sometimes it takes a relaxing day like today to put things in perspective.

The weather was beautiful today and Dash was in good spirits. His paws are finally starting to heal. The combination of special slip-in bandages and some medication recommended by a Facebook friend is helping us turn the corner. I'm sure there will be more bleeding as long as Dash is taking Plavix, but we know what we need to do now.

We went out for Thanksgiving Dinner again. We found a place that has a wonderful Thanksgiving  Brunch several years ago and have been going back ever since. As usual, I ate way too much. I think it's just fine to drink champagne and eat too much food ocassionally. I'll get back to normal tomorrow. Over indulging is always part of the fun on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving doesn't typically fall on November 22, but when it does I always remember where I was when Kennedy was shot. It seems such a long time ago now. I was in high school in Alaska at the time. There was no live network television in Alaska in 1963, so we didn't see the tapes of Kennedy's funeral until several weeks later. I never thought I'd end up living in Dallas back then, but here I am. I've visited Dealey Plaza several times on November 22 but I didn't go today. There used to be large crowds, but the day is slowly being forgotten. I didn't hear a single thing about Kennedy on the news today. Someday 9/11 will be the same way. You only remember history if you've lived it.

I don't think I'll go out for breakfast tomorrow. I'm way too full. Right now, a piece of toast and a cup of coffee seems like all I'll need. I will need a walk in the morning. So will Dash. I can't imagine living in a place where you can't walk along the shoreline of a pretty lake every day. This is one more thing to be thankful for.

I hope I get some sleep tonight, but if I don't I can always take naps. Dash sleeps right next to me and when he moves I wake up. It's OK. I'm glad the little guy is still with us even if he does poop in the bed. I'm hoping that he'll still be here with us next Thanksgiving, although I know that's a long way away. We can't make long range plans anymore, but each additional day is something to be thankful for.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2722

I'm thinking about going to see the solar eclipse this August. There's really no reason not to anymore. It's probably a little late to be planning something like this, since motels and even campsites in the path of totality have probably been booked for months now. We'll see. At least this is worth thinking about. The last time I experienced a total eclipse of the sun was in 1963 when I was going to high school in Alaska. My Dad and a few of his friends took me with them to view the eclipse. All went well until a few minutes before totality when a large cloud covered the sun. I guess technically I still haven't seen a total eclipse.

Although seeing the eclipse is the big thing on my Summer to-do list, there are other things I need to do as well. I've been avoiding making a doctor's appointment for months because I didn't want to worry about Dot while I was enduring the inevitable long wait in the doctor's lobby. I don't have an excuse now.  I also need to renew my passport soon. I certainly haven't used it much during the past ten years, but there was a time when my passport was filled with visa stamps. Who knows? Maybe I'll travel again.

The pressure washer works fine. It's a bit messy to use and there is no convenient place to store the hoses and cords, but other than that, it does exactly what it is supposed to do. I cleaned the bricks on the front porch and the wheels on my car and then put the thing away. Removing the spiderwebs from the windows and eaves will have to wait until later. I'm sure the windows will leak when they are sprayed, so this will be a two person job. One person will have to use the pressure washer and the other will have to quickly mop up any water that gets inside.

I wish I could convince Dash to take long walks again. He used to love taking long walks. We're only walking half as far as we should this week. I don't think anything is wrong with Dash. He just doesn't seem to be in the mood. This is the perfect time of year for long morning walks. A month or so from now it will be too hot. We'll see. Maybe he'll snap out of this moodiness soon. Dash did share a banana with me this morning. That's a start, I guess.

I got an e-mail from Apple with information about the new products they introduced at the developer's conference. I think I'd like the get the new iMac Pro. There's no earthly reason I need a super fast computer anymore, but this thing sure looks cool. I've had my current desktop computer since 2010. That's much longer than I used to keep them. It was easy to justify new computers when I was doing large scale video editing projects every week, but those days are gone. If I get an iMac Pro, it will just be an indulgence.

I put out some new traps for the rat, but so far he has avoided all of them. Maybe I should just make my peace with the rodent and let him stay in the atrium. He's a smart little devil. Maybe he'd like to be my financial adviser. I wish rats weren't so destructive. They've already chewed up everything in the greenhouse. I don't want rats to ruin the atrium too. I have a feeling that this battle will continue for a while.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1649 - Summer Solstice

It doesn't really seem like the longest day of the year. The sun should be setting right about now, but since it's cloudy outside, it seems like sunset occurred quite a while ago. Solstice is a big deal to some people I know, but it's just another Saturday to me. The only Summer Solstice that seemed very memorable to me was years ago when I was going to high school in Alaska. My family was living in Fairbanks at the time and on June 20, we got in the car and drove north as far as we could. We almost had 24-hour daylight in Fairbanks during the Summer, but not quite. On this particular Solstice I remember climbing up a hill just above the Arctic Circle near midnight with my Dad and watching the sun still shining, low on the northern horizon. Winter skies were pretty cool as well. There were lots and lots of auroras to be seen.

There was nothing that exciting today. I saw a rabbit and a couple of ducks in the park. That was about it. It's amazing how quickly we can go from too much rain to not enough. We're gone a couple weeks without significant rain and the ground is already getting parched and dry. I made sure to water both the front and back lawn today. I'm determined to keep the grass growing as long as I can this year. We don't have an automatic sprinkler system, but I did put mechanical timers on the little oscillating sprinklers attached to the garden hose. I like these timers. There are no batteries or electricity required. The entire thing is just a simple clockwork mechanism that you wind up and then it turns the water off thirty minutes to an hour later.

I called in some prescription renewals this morning and the pharmacist told me that some of them needed doctor approval again. My GP has been renewing these things one month at a time until I go in and have another physical exam. I already made an appointment for an exam next month, but I guess I've actually got to have the exam before my doctor will go back to renewing my meds for a year at a time. I really liked my team of liver doctors. They really believed that a good diet and lots of exercise were the keys to good health. I don't think my general practitioner has ever met a pill he didn't like. He's always trying to prescribe something new for me. I'd really like to find a reputable doctor who could find a way to ween me off of all my meds. I'm tired of taking pills. I guess I shouldn't be too disparaging about the pharmaceutical industry though. As much as I hate pills, I need to remember that it was a pill that cured my Hepatitis C.

I took some stuff over to the storage warehouse today and spent a few minutes looking around. There are a lot of things I should probably just get rid of. It's just not useful anymore. I don't imagine that people are going to start using tape machines again. I still have tape machines from the days when I did a lot of video editing. Everything is file based now though. The tape machines are museum pieces.  Old software is pretty useless too. I have tons of software still in the original boxes from the days when you installed it using floppy disks. Some of this software was pretty cool, but absolutely none of it runs on modern computers. Framed photographs that never sold at gallery shows are taking up a lot of space too. Lord only knows why I have so many electric trains.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. There's an animal rescue website to update. I need to do some cleaning around the house. Maybe I'll go to the gym. One of these days, I'm sure the dogs would like to go to the dog park again as well.

Barley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1483

It was cold enough to dress in layers this morning. I wore two warm coats, and so did Dot and Dash. One coat is usually plenty for the dogs, but when the temperature is in the single digits, you don't want to take chances. It's still hard for me to believe that Dallas is actually warm, compared with other parts of the country, but that's what I'm hearing on the news.

I've experienced much colder temperatures in my lifetime. I went to high school in Fairbanks, Alaska where it would often remain twenty degrees below zero for weeks at a time. It didn't seem colder though, because everyone was prepared. The windows in our house were all double glazed and there was a huge coal-fired furnace in the basement that kept the house toasty warm even in a blizzard. The cars all had electric crankcase heaters that you plugged into parking meters whenever you went out. When I went to school, I wore an Eddie Bauer parka that looked like it would keep you warm at the South Pole. The lesson I learned was that if you took the cold seriously, you were almost always warm. It's hard to take the cold seriously in Texas. As a result, I've experienced more dead batteries on cold mornings and more malfunctioning furnaces here in Dallas than my parents ever did in Alaska.

Today was one of those doctor appointment days that makes it difficult to get anything done. By the time you drive to the appointment, find a parking place, sit in the waiting room for an interminable amount of time, and take all the tests the doctor wants, you've wasted half the day. Luckily, today's tests went well, and this particular doctor gave me the green light for another six months.

Tomorrow, it's Dash's turn to go to the doctor. I'm worried that something might be wrong with his kidneys, since he's peeing all the time now. I've seen a noticeable change in the past six months. He also has some bad looking rear molars and his teeth need to be cleaned. I worry about this too, since Dash doesn't react well to anesthesia. The vets call his response "waking up hard" and it doesn't sound pretty. I'm hoping that his vet can come up with a more gentle way to bring him out of the anesthesia after his dental procedure is complete.

With Dot's physical therapy, Dash's seizures, and my own multiple medical problems, it often seems like life is just one extended doctor visit. If you count the trips to the gym and the pharmacy as health related outings, there is something medical going on just about every day. I guess it's worth the effort though. They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and I'm all about prevention these days. The dogs are both still very active, and when I'm sitting in the doctor's waiting room, I still seem to be in a lot better shape than most of the other patients. I must be doing something right.

That stupid bird is still pooping on my car every night. I wish there was an accessory I could buy that would electrify the entire car whenever I turned on the car alarm. Birds that used the car as a pooping post would get fried. Of  course, knowing me, I'd probably forget to turn the thing off one morning and fry myself instead. Better leave things the way they are.

Nellie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1078

It's pretty clear who calls the shots in this house. I was just a little off schedule with walks and feeding times today and the dogs wouldn't let me hear the end of it. There is a time for everything, and when I'm late they both start barking and nudging me with their snouts to get me back on schedule. It's futile to resist, so I usually just go along with the program. If I'm late, you'd think the earth was coming to an end. On the other hand, if I'm early it just establishes a new benchmark and I'm expected to be early all the time

I don't know why Dot and Dash were so eager to go out today. It was cold outside. Another cold front must have swept through last night, because it was 70 degrees on Sunday. This morning, it was in the mid 30's. Too cold for me!

Every Winter I have reservations about our plan to move North when we retire. I don't like the cold. Even though I went to high school in Alaska and spent a few winters in Idaho and Washington, I never really got used to snow. After thirty years in Texas, I've totally forgotten how to deal with it. Nevertheless, Dallas is no place to grow old. When the time comes, I'll easily trade this city's problems for someplace cold and very quiet.

The only thing I'd miss about leaving Dallas are the city's great veterinarians. There isn't a better place in the entire country if you have a sick dog. The Veterinary Referral Center of North Texas is the Mayo Clinic for dogs. It's amazing what the doctors and surgeons at that place can do. They've saved the lives of several of our dogs and many of our friends dogs. It would be hard to go back to a little rural vet clinic after getting used to the idea that dogs can actually get better care than humans.

The cold weather seemed to cool everything else down as well. Business was slow today. I ended up having time to watch the Joss Whedon "Serenity" DVD after I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot. It was a good movie, but the dogs didn't like it at all. It was what got me off schedule.

Spots is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 722

I paid my real estate taxes today. Somehow, even though I successfully presented my case to the county appraisal board this Summer and they reduced my property valuation by 15%, I still ended up paying more than I did last year. I think it is futile to expect lower taxes. Government agencies at all levels have such an insatiable demand for tax revenue that even when rates are lowered, they figure out some way to make up the difference. Since property values have decreased significantly in Dallas County and virtually everybody has already protested their property valuation with the appraisal board, the county simply raised the taxation rate a few percentage points to make up the shortfall. Homeowners are totally on the short end of the stick. Their homes are worth less, but they still end up paying higher property taxes.

Winter is here with a vengeance. The furnace runs almost constantly now and the car has started to make funny noises when I start it up on cold mornings. Winter weather seems to put more wear and tear on everything. Somehow, a lot more things tend to break around our house during the Winter months. Hopefully, we'll get lucky this year. I think the entire rainy day fund went out the window this year when I paid those real estate taxes this afternoon.

I don't think the Dot and Dash like the Winter weather any more than I do. They both seem to spend most of their day curled up under a pile of dog blankets. When we do go outside, I have to put Winter coats on them, before I bundle up under several layers myself. I do have one really warm parka that I used to wear when I lived in Alaska. It's in the storage warehouse though, and it is often easier to just put on several layers of sweaters than drive across town to get yet another coat.

If it wasn't for the bitterly cold weather and the coyotes, I'd love our evening walks this week. The sky is beautiful at this time of year. The days are even shorter now. We tend to take our walks right after sunset and get to watch each evening as darkness overtakes the park. It's hard to take pictures though. I have to take off my gloves every time every time I try to use the iPhone touch screen.

Humphrey is our Dalmatian of the Day

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