Day 2695

I'm running on empty. Dot has become nocturnal. She sleeps during the day and becomes restless at night when I'm trying to sleep. I sleep on the floor with her now, so I'm nearby when she needs to get up. Last night she went outside three times in the middle of the night to pee. I guess this is better than peeing in her bed, but I sure am tired. Dot didn't throw up last night, so I guess the Cerenia pill helped. I should have given her a full dose instead of the half dose I usually give Dash. I could tell she still had an upset stomach, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the previous night. I"ll give her the full dose tonight and hopefully she'll sleep better.

When I woke up this morning Janet had already walked Dash and was almost ready for work. I didn't think I slept at all last night, but I must have dozed off, because I wasn't even aware of Janet and Dash leaving the house. Dot was sleeping soundly too. Finally. I delayed giving her morning pills so she could sleep longer and get some rest.

Dot worried me today. She was too tired to take her regular morning walk. Basically, she slept all day except when it was necessary to take her medications. Dot wouldn't even drink water this morning which was troubling. After one of her vets warned me about dehydration, I've become very conscious of how much water she drinks during the day. I thought I was going to have to learn how to use a syringe to hydrate Dot, but around 4 PM this afternoon, she woke up hungry and thirsty. I held her up by her water bowl for over fifteen minutes as she took tiny sips. Eventually, I saw the water level in the bowl go down a bit and I felt comfortable that she was getting enough water.

I never know what Dot is going to eat. The only thing I could get her to eat with her morning pills were thinly sliced pieces of turkey. I asked Janet to pick up more of this turkey on her way home from work because it seemed like our only remaining option. Dot slept soundly for most of the day. When I woke her up to take her afternoon pills, I was pleased to see that her appetite had returned. I was feeding Dash at the time and she went over to his bowl and started eating his food. Both dogs were eating out of the same bowl for a while, so I kind of lost track of how much food Dot actually consumed.

I'm going to have to do something about the bugs in our yard. When I'm holding Dot's harness and waiting for her to pee, it doesn't take long for the chiggers and mosquitoes to find me. I've already been bitten more times than I was all last summer. Chiggers are much worse than mosquitoes. The bites quickly become big red welts that take almost a week to subside. I'm still looking for that idyllic, imaginary place with no bugs, no snakes, and mild rain free weather.

My Friday morning breakfast outings are on hiatus for a while. Dot has simply become too frail to leave alone for any length of time. That's OK. I think I'll learn how to make pancakes and waffles again. I already can make a pretty decent omelette and my French Toast recipe is delicious. I'm in the mood for pancakes though. We'll see if I can make pancakes and sausages without making a huge mess in the kitchen.

If Dot doesn't sleep wall tonight, I'm going to have to become nocturnal myself. Sleeping during the day with the dogs never used to be an option, but work has gotten so slow lately that it probably doesn't matter when I sleep. The way I feel now, I might sleep for the entire weekend.

Dixie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2654

The bugs are going to be terrible this Summer. I've already been bitten by mosquitoes and chiggers and its only March. I'm a magnet for bug bites while guiding Dot slowly through the back yard while waiting for her to pee. Long pants and socks provide more protection, but it sure gets hot in the Summer. So far, I've found fire ants in the front yard, little sweet ants in the bathrooms, crane flies lining up to get in the back door when I leave it open for Dot, and lots of mosquitoes every time it rains. I haven't seen any cockroaches yet, but they can't be far behind. Dot and Dash are both on a flea and tick preventative, but I found a tick on Dash's face just yesterday. The battle against bugs is relentless in Texas.

The back door is really going to be a problem this Summer. I have to open the door ahead of time before I attempt to take Dot out to pee. If I can't keep her moving swiftly from her bed to the door, she pees immediately. This morning, I stopped just for a second to open the door and she peed all over a large rug next to the door. Jeez, I just washed this rug yesterday. It's a mess. I kept a fly swatter nearby while I was eating breakfast this morning to kill the crane flies that had wandered inside while I had Dot out in the back yard.

Today was surprisingly busy. I had several websites to update, including one that required me to brush up on some tricky code designed to automatically resize the site for mobile devices. It's a shame that I learned to create mobile-ready websites just as my business was starting to wind down. Mobile sites are complex and I don't do enough of them to keep my skills in tip top shape. Every time I get a request to modify a mobile site, I inevitably have to relearn something.

I have no idea what made Dot throw up yesterday. She seemed fine today. Surprisingly, she seemed to have more energy as well, even though the weather was still quite warm. We only walk Dot at sunrise and sunset now. It seems to help. This new schedule has messed up my own eating habits though. I now have to eat my dinner very early.

My accountant wants me to pay online now. I called and asked if I could just write him a check like I have for the past twenty five years and he told me that their office was trying to go paperless. Jeez, could it really be that hard to take a check to the bank? I'm having the same problem with everybody. When AT&T lost my check recently, they tried to get me to switch to online payments too. I get a notice in all my utility bills urging me to go paperless. Paper checks are apparently a thing of the past.

I was an innovator and somewhat of a trend setter for most of my career. Now, I've become a Luddite. I can't stop change from happening, but I sure can complain about it. I liked cars a lot better before they became computers on wheels. I liked it when software was packaged in fancy boxes with detailed printed manuals. I liked shoes better when you could take them to a shoe repairman and have them resoled forever. I liked electronics with soldered components instead of integrated circuits. Everything is ruthlessly efficient and disposable now. It's hard to fix anything. Paper checks may mean nothing to you, but they represent a better world to me.

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. I decided to go early in the morning, in hopes that Dot would stay asleep while I was gone. It's hard to predict what Dot is going to do though and the dentist doesn't make house calls. Hopefully, I won't have any cavities and Dot won't make a huge mess while I'm gone.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2008

It was definitely Monday this morning. Monday is always the day when things get off to a slow and often rocky start. When I woke up this morning, Janet was already on the phone, having trouble getting an appointment to get her car in for service. Both dogs were barking at me because I wasn't fast enough getting their breakfast. After a fairly peaceful walk, I turned on the computer and discovered even more problems. Somebody must have gotten up even earlier than me. There were short, ambiguous e-mail questions that required long, detailed answers. There was confusion about who was in charge of certain projects. Was I ahead of schedule, or falling behind? I still don't know.

It took a while to get everything sorted out, but after I did, I noticed a letter in yesterday's mail offering me a two month free trial of satellite radio in my car. Since the was no obligation to continue the service after the two months were up, I decided to give it a try. I signed up, and of course when I started the car later in the day, the satellite radio didn't work. It took two more calls to tech support before the satellite found me. "You have to turn off Bluetooth before you can acquire the signal," someone in a far away call center told me. "But I'm talking to you right now using Bluetooth," I said. "If I turn it off, this call will go dead." That's kind of how it went. Eventually the satellite did find my car and I discovered that SiriusXM was just as boring as regular radio. I tuned into a live traffic report channel and found that it only monitored traffic conditions in Boston and Philadelphia. The Rock and Roll channel was just playing very old Elvis Presley tunes. I'll still probably continue listing to NPR instead. National Public Radio does have some good programming, but I wish they quit talking about the Middle East. I'm tired of hearing about problems in the Middle East. I wish there was a channel that just played Ted Talks. A veterinarian channel would be nice too. I'm always interested in learning how to keep the dogs healthy.

Summer has definitely arrived. Every morning I wake up with a new batch of mosquito and chigger bites. I don't know how all these mosquitoes got inside, but they're very hard to get rid of. The air has turned hot and muggy and the fire ants have returned. The birds that poop on my car have returned as well. I don't know where these irritating birds go in the Winter, but our house has definitely become their permanent Summer home. At least we are in no danger of a drought. There is more heavy rain in the forecast for tomorrow, as a big tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico heads inland. I'm glad I don't live in Houston. We'll get wet, but Houston is in danger of flooding again.

I need to get up early tomorrow because I've got a dental appointment in the morning. I hope there are no complications and I can get home again before the rain arrives. I hate leaving storm phobic dogs alone in the rain. I don't like being out in the rain myself, but I want to put this dental work behind me. There's no point in postponing things anymore. The only thing I'd like to postpone is my upcoming birthday. I used to look forward to birthdays, but the years go by too fast. We need to slow these birthdays down.

Shadow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1658

I looked at my calendar for July and it was already filled with vet appointments and doctor visits. When you add trips to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, this is pretty much how I spend my time. In any given month, at least three of these appointments will need to be rescheduled because I'd forgotten that I already had another medical appointment at the same time. So far, the only non-medical things I see for July are a day of jury duty and a visit with my financial adviser to discover why I feel so poor.

It's frustrating to see so many of my investments doing poorly at a time when the market is near an all-time high. I have nobody to blame but myself, unfortunately. Nobody forced me to invest in these losers. One of the worst things I did was get excited about the natural gas industry after making a documentary about a pioneering shale gas producer. Natural gas seemed like a sure thing at the time. It wasn't. I discovered that investing in small energy companies can be a very risky business. Live and learn has always been my motto, but this was a very expensive lesson.

I discovered today that one of the first bloggers I ever started reading regularly passed away this weekend. If I hadn't seen some other bloggers talking about the woman's obituary on Facebook, I never would have known. This certainly wasn't the first time I got the news about someone's death on Facebook. I've learned about the passing of high school friends, former co-workers, distant relatives, and several other bloggers all in the course of reading my Facebook wall. I guess it's a sign of the times. I was trying to explain social media to a friend about my age a few weeks ago and when I got to Facebook I just said "Facebook is where you go to see who died this week."

I've got to come up with a better plan for defending myself from biting bugs. Every time I walk the dogs, I'm eaten alive by mosquitoes and chiggers. It's too hot to bundle up these days, so when you wear shorts or go shirtless, you become a target for the biting bugs. I hate to use insecticides around the dogs, and few of the home remedies actually work. Last year at this time, the city was already aggressively spraying to control mosquitoes. This year, the mosquitoes are even worse and the city is doing nothing. The aerial spraying was so controversial last Summer that I suspect the city just gave up and decided to let the citizens itch. I thought the spraying program made a lot more sense than Lyme Disease, but a lot of people disagreed. You just can't keep everybody happy these days.

Dot did really well in the underwater treadmill this afternoon. It's amazing how strong and confident she is, considering her age. I hope the car continues to do well as we go back and forth to these physical therapy sessions. It was over 100 degrees on our drive home today.

Tucker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1299

Today evaporated in a sea of small chores. I didn't do anything important, but whatever I did seemed to occupy the entire day. As proof that all tasks get completed eventually, I hooked up a mechanical timer to the sprinkler in the front yard. I bought the timer over a year ago and promptly forgot about it. I like the idea of a clockwork mechanical water timer, because water and batteries don't seem to go together well. The first of these timers I bought broke immediately, but this one appears to be working. I bought some clear nail polish for my Chigger bites and some Visine for my eyes while I was at the pharmacy. I picked up a sack of Tangerines at the grocery store while I was stocking up on vitamins. Tangerines are so much easier to peel than large Oranges that I thought they would be a quick and easy way to make juice.

When I was putting away the groceries at home, I turned on the television and heard that a plane had crashed in San Francisco. I've flown into that airport a number of times and it always seemed strange to be over open water until the last possible second. Now I'll be even more nervous if I fly there again. I need to remind myself to actually listen to those safety instructions the flight attendants give right before you take off. It's weird. I'm very conscious of the dangers of driving on Dallas freeways, but I tend to just take flying for granted. It's kind of like riding in elevators. They're very safe, but every once in a while they break.

There's something dead in the back yard, but we can't find it. The smell leads us directly to a patch of ground cover, but after inspecting things with a fine tooth comb, there was not a mouse, or rat, or even a bird to be found. Even the dogs couldn't find the source of the offending smell, and they're the experts about rotten things. I suspect one of the feral cats in the neighborhood has the answer to this mystery, but they're not talking.

I had the best of intentions to start on the Sheetrock repairs today, but too many trivial things got in the way. One of these days I'll get the damaged ceiling fixed, just like I finally got the mechanical water timer working. It's a good thing I bought the clear nail polish today. I got a host of new Chigger bites looking for the illusive dead thing in our yard. All is not lost however. I noticed that Red Dwarf has returned to TV this evening. Lister, Rimmer, and Kryten were some of my favorite oddball TV characters from the 1980's. Re-watching an old episode of Red Dwarf seems like a good way to end the day.

Cisco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1298

If there's a fancy looking egg on my plate, it must be Friday. I'm simple minded this way. I'd like some clearly defined event to differentiate each day of the week. Friday is the day I can stray from my diet a bit. Sunday is the day we go to the dog park. Now what am I going to do with all those other days?

Today, my plan was to get a haircut and an oil change for the Defender. The haircut went smoothly enough, but it looks like I'm going to have to come back another day for the oil change. Oddly, the price for both of these services is exactly the same.

While I was at the mall, I stopped by the new, much larger Apple store. The place was huge. There were no new products in the new store. Just more tables filled with the same iPhones, iPads, laptops, and desktops. I guess there is only one reason to have a huge store to sell four things. They probably couldn't fit all the customers in their old store.

I don't even have to open my eyes to know what time of year it is. You can hear it is July. In the morning, the dominant sound is the lawn mowers and leaf blowers of the landscapers and yard crews. As the day progresses, the raucous sounds of lawn care diminish and are replaced by the song of the Cicadas. How these small bugs can make such a loud noise is a mystery to me. The hotter it gets, the louder the Cicadas seem to sing. It is kind of the quintessential sound of Summer here in Texas.

I'm going to have to go look for something to get rid of Chigger bites tomorrow. There used to be a product called Chigarid that worked great, but I don't think they make it anymore. Maybe the reason they don't make Chigarid anymore is that it was basically just clear nail polish in a different bottle. Probably the only people who bought the stuff were people like me who didn't like to buy their insect repellants in the cosmetics department. Clear nail polish works though, so maybe I'll have to get some.

I hope it cools down a bit this weekend. We'll go to the dog park whatever the weather, but it would be so much more enjoyable if it wasn't like a furnace outside.

Isabella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day