Day 2652

We got lucky. There was a horrendous storm last night with 70 mile per hour straight line winds. Our power was out for about five hours, but the electricity was restored around breakfast time so we hardly even noticed the outage. At some point during the storm I heard the heavy thump of a tree limb hitting the roof, but when I looked this morning there was no damage. The limb was small enough that I was able to remove it without much difficulty. For the most part, Dot and Dash slept through the storm, so we didn't have the usual thunder and lightning issues.

I didn't really realize how bad the storm was until we took our morning walk. There were dozens of large trees that had been blown over in the park. Some looked like a giant had pulled them out of the ground by their roots.  There were sticks and twigs everywhere. Some of the tree limbs were in fields where there were no trees, so the wind must have blown them there. Even the birdhouses for the Purple Martins had been blown over.

When I turned on the television I saw that entire houses had been demolished in some parts of town. Thousands of people were without power this morning. Often our electricity is the last to be restored after a major power outage, but this time it looked like they got to us first. As I said, we got lucky last night.

I really need to remember to always keep all my devices charged. My first thought when the power went out was that I hadn't charged my phone or laptop. When the company was busy and I had lots of deadlines, having a working computer available at all times was a top priority. Now the computers aren't as much of an issue. What I worry about these days is losing the washing machine. A day without a washing machine with Dot peeing all over the place would be a disaster.

The refrigerator was looking kind of empty, so I went back to Central Market and got another one of those bowls for dinner. These tasty one-dish meals are great. It would be difficult to make something like this myself. The shredded beef was braised in soy sauce. The kale and mushrooms were roasted and had kind of a smoky flavor. The carrots and cucumbers appeared to be marinated. Even the barley that everything was piled on top of was delicious. I'm not even going to pretend to cook things anymore. It's so much easier and fun to buy something like this.

Dot had a good day, but Dash was moody again. The first two times I tried to walk him this afternoon, he wouldn't leave the back yard. I gave up and walked Dot instead. After dinner this evening, Dash decided that he wanted to walk after all and we had a nice sunset stroll. I have no idea what goes through this dog's mind. Why would he refuse to walk at 4 PM, but be eager to walk at sunset? I have to stay flexible because Dot is not very predictable either. Some days she wants to walk first. Other days she is tired and doesn't want to walk at all.

I hope the nasty weather is over for a while. I know we'll have more storms, because Spring is all about stormy weather here in Texas. I'm glad I had the trees trimmed a few weeks ago, because I'm sure that some of the limbs they trimmed would have fallen last night. Actually, I need to get the tree guy to come back. I saw several more dead limbs when I was up on the roof this morning.

I need to get the water off the roof tomorrow. The car is dirty and the grass needs to be mowed as well. I guess it all depends on how well I sleep tonight.

Elliot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2648

Janet went downtown to the auto show today to look at new cars. It seemed like a smart idea to me. It would take forever to go from dealership to dealership, especially if you had to listen to a sales pitch from each one. I asked her if she'd found a favorite when she returned and she told me that most of the cars in her price range just looked the same. I'd have to agree. Most cars look like they were designed by a focus group these days. I remember when cars had a distinct personality. It was easy to identify each brand from a great distance. One of my favorite games on childhood car trips was to identify as many different cars as I could. It was easy to tell the difference between a Plymouth and a Chevy. They don't even make a Plymouth anymore and I couldn't even begin to tell you what a modern Chevy looks like. Sure, cars can drive themselves these days, but I still don't think they are fun anymore.

Dot had diarrhea last night. Lord knows why. She wasn't sick and nothing has changed in her diet. At any rate, it was a mess. Diarrhea makes normal incontinence seem like child's play. We cleaned everything up and hoped that this was just an isolated event. So far, so good. We made it through the day without further incident. I even managed to get my Saturday errands done without a mess to clean up when I returned.

Last week I made a mental note to start doing my grocery shopping on Sunday because the produce looked so much better. Of course, mental notes are worthless with me. I completely forgot about the nicer looking fresh fruit and went shopping on Saturday just like I have for years. As soon as I arrived at the store, I realized my mistake. There were no blueberries again.

Janet brought home one of those one-bowl meals I was telling you about yesterday. I still think these things are a bit overpriced, but they are actually delicious. The version we tried today was called Soy braised beef with Kale. There were also lots of mushrooms, barley, cucumbers and other unidentified stuff. Nice presentation too. I'll have to try some of the other varieties when I run out of food during the week. An interesting meal is usually the high point of my day.

Somebody is spreading nails on certain streets in our neighborhood. These don't seems to be nails that fell off a roofer's truck. They seem to be placed on purpose to puncture tires. WTF? Who would do something like this. Now, in addition to coyotes, loose dogs, and snakes, I've got to worry about nails in the street.

I was daydreaming about Questar telescopes today. Several times in my life I almost bought one of these things. I did a Google search and discovered that a fifty year old Questar costs more today on eBay than a brand new model did when I was in college. Of course, I could say the same thing for a vintage Ferrari or a 1963 Stratocaster. Even if I had the money, I'm not sure that I'd buy a vintage Questar. My experience with vintage watches is that old stuff is nothing but trouble.

The only old stuff I'll be worrying about tomorrow is me. I'll eat a healthy breakfast and go to the gym. The grass looks like it's time to mow again, but I think I'll wait until next week. Enough is enough. Maybe I'll just be lazy. I heard about a new Sci-Fi show called The Expanse that I might like. Maybe it's streaming on Netflix or Hulu. The show is already in Season 2, so I wonder why I only heard about it today?

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2647

The rain didn't begin when it was supposed to, but it was still a cold, rainy day. I stayed home and made French Toast this morning instead of going out to eat. I make French Toast better than most restaurants, but that still doesn't make me a good cook. The dogs seemed glad that I changed my plans, although I probably could have left the house anyway. This was a fairly quiet rain without the lightning and thunder that typically upsets Dot and Dash.

Rain wasn't the only thing that slowed me down this morning. We tried a new plan to get Dot out of the house without peeing on the rugs and it didn't work very well. We removed all the rugs before waking Dot up, but as it turned out, cleaning pee off the bricks was just as much trouble as washing the rugs. Actually, some of the rugs got wet anyway when we mopped the floor. I think the only solution is to get a sleeping bag and sleep next to Dot near the back door. Even that might not work, since Dot likes to sleep with the entire family nearby. You might think the obvious solution would be to waterproof her bed well and just let her pee before we even attempt to move her. I've tried that and it doesn't work. Apparently it is motion that causes Dot to start peeing. If I just stand her up in her bed, she doesn't do anything.

Dot and I both ran out of pills today. I had a prescription for me to pick up in one part of town and a prescription for Dot in another. Dot's pills were cheaper than mine. Dogs and people share a lot of the same medications, but when they are prescribed by a human doctor they are almost always more expensive. This just shows how horribly broken our health care system is. I'm convinced that my dogs get better care than I do. Veterinary care is reasonably priced and the veterinarians are highly trained. The specialty vets Dot and Dash see at the cancer center are as good as any human doctor I've ever seen. Nobody expects veterinary care to be free and yet people still take good care of their dogs and cats. I've never really understood why human medicine couldn't be the same.

On my way home from running errands I stopped at Central Market to pick up something for dinner. I was intrigued by a new section of the store that encouraged customers to "build your own bowl." These bowls seemed to be a cross between the trendy Buddah Bowls favored by vegans and hipsters and the meaty Mongolian fare found at Genghis Grill. How did these bowls get to be so popular? Basically, both the meat and meat-free varieties are just a bunch of food served in a bowl. I didn't build a bowl today, but I'll probably try this later. One dish meals have always appealed to me.

I don't know why I'm worried about the coyotes. It's the loose dogs in the neighborhood that are really the problem. A loose dog came after Dot this afternoon while we walking down the street. Luckily, the dog was well behaved, because when I called for the owner and yelled at the dog to stay, it actually did stop and went into a sit/stay. I don't understand people. The owners of this dog have a nice big fenced back yard, but they let their dog out front where there is a busy street and no fence at all. Even if there weren't injured dogs walking nearby, the dog could have easily been run over by a car.

It's been a long week. I'd like to do something besides wash rugs and clean up dog poop this weekend, but that will depend on Dot. She's been keeping me pretty busy.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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