Day 2777

Did today even happen? I'll have to admit that I've succumbed to binge watching. At least I started out with good intentions. We took a nice sunrise walk with Dash. He seemed to have lots of energy this morning and the weather was surprisingly cool. As a result, we walked a lot longer than we expected. When we got home, I made my usual breakfast smoothie packed with peaches, strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. It takes me forever to drink this concoction, since I make over a quart of the stuff every morning. I'm never in a hurry to finish breakfast. As I alternate between several cups of dark roast coffee and the endless smoothie, I watch the morning news.

Usually, after this relaxing interlude, I spend the rest of the day writing or designing websites. It's been kind of hard to follow this schedule since there's no work lately. I paid a few bills and sent out a late notice on an invoice the hasn't been paid yet, but that was about it. That's where the binge watching comes in. Without a deadline to meet, there is nothing to prevent me from watching episode after episode of my favorite shows. I downloaded Season Two of The Expanse yesterday. I was only going to watch one or two episodes today, but ended up watching five. Without the irritating commercials, each episode is only about forty three minutes. After forty three minutes, you've usually got time for forty three more.

The show is kind of a cross between Battlestar Galactica and Firefly. Each episode ends with the crew of the Rocinante in some kind of dire circumstances, so you naturally want to see what happens next. The last time I did something like this, iTunes and Netflix didn't even exist. I watched all four seasons of Farscape back to back. There was no downloading back then. I would buy a boxed set of each season at Fry's and then watch the DVD's on my computer. I wonder how I had the time. I was quite busy then and had a lot of work to do when I became obsessed with Farscape.

Janet is going back to work tomorrow. She'll have to take some time off again at the end of the month to complete her reconstruction surgery, but this is a big milestone. She seems excited to get out of the house again. Dash is going to be heartbroken. He's been at Janet's side ever since she started her recovery. It's obvious that this is what Dash has been wanting for a long time. It's OK that I'm home, but he really likes it when Janet is home. Dash seems to be adjusting well to Dot's absence. Hopefully, he'll adjust to this too.

I think Dash has the easy job. I'm still trying to figure out what to do next. Most of my clients are gone. I've lost interest in collecting things. I could spend the next five years methodically downsizing, but I'm not interested in that either. It's really a bit of a quandary. The whole concept of retirement seems foreign to me, and yet I have no interest in looking for new business either. Perhaps I've stayed alone in a small room for too long.

Not to worry though. The stock market is doing great. I've still got some more shows to binge watch tomorrow. And most importantly, the weather is getting cooler. It's supposed to rain in the morning, but with any luck I'll be able to walk Dash before it starts. If Dash gets lonely, I'll just take a long nap with him. That's something we're both good at.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1063

One of my assignments today was writing about a contest where the prize was a flight on one of those planes that lets you experience weightlessness for a few minutes while the aircraft follows a parabolic flight path that temporarily negates the effects of gravity. This seemed like a cool and somewhat original contest prize. I almost thought of entering the contest myself until I started remembering my own flying experiences.

Years ago, I was one of the lead writers on the Cessna account. The aircraft manufacturer thought it would be nice if their creative team were pilots, so the agency told us they would pay for flight training. I sailed through ground school with flying colors. It was only when I stepped into the cockpit of the little Cessna 152 training aircraft that I realized there might be a problem. I had severe motion sickness. Every time I banked the little plane into a turn, I threw up all over the instrument panel. I literally could only fly the plane in a straight line. I thought of trying some strong anti-nausea medications but my instructor said it wasn't wise to fly an airplane on drugs. I finally gave up my quest to fly when I overheard one of the flight instructors tell another instructor "You take him up today. I cleaned up the plane last time."

Since that time, I have preferred flights of fancy. Over the years, I've tended to spend my idle time watching science fiction TV series. I've progressed from Babylon 5, to Farscape, Lexx, and finally Dr. Who. Somewhere along the line, I completely forgot about Firefly. I happened to catch a few episodes on a tenth anniversary retrospective of the short lived series this weekend. Pretty darn good show. While I was running errands this afternoon, I popped over to Fry's and got a DVD containing the entire 14 episode series. If November is as dead as it usually is, I'll have something to watch now on the dull days.

Actually last November I was extremely busy, so you never know what is going to happen. I'm always ready and willing to work. I'm just not that interested in marketing myself. Instead of making cold calls, I'd really prefer that people would become fascinated with the blog and decide to hire me on that basis. What the hell, it happened once. Maybe it will happen again.

It's getting dark on our evening walks again. This is the time of year that I start to worry we'll come face-to-face with a pack of coyotes in the park. I don't think Dot and Dash have learned their coyote etiquette yet. Coyote etiquette dictates that you steer well clear of the critters and by all means don't start barking at them.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day