Day 2818 - 9/11

With each passing year the world seems to pay a little less attention to 9/11. I was surprised to learn that almost 20% of the US population wasn't even born when the twin towers fell. Do these people even understand how much the world changed that day? It's been sixteen years now. I wonder who will remember when another sixteen years has passed.

I will remember, but I doubt that it matters much. My generation is no longer in charge. If you are my age, you may think you are still relevant, but the torch has already been passed. I hope that future generations will eventually develop an appreciation for history. From what I see, they don't care much about history any more. History is important and you can't just re-write the past because some of it might embarrass you. I will always remember when John Kennedy was shot, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and when the twin towers fell. These weren't dry events in a history book for me. I was there.

I wonder how long it will take the media to forget about Hurricane Irma? They've already forgotten about Harvey. It's astonishing what a short attention span we have these days. It's almost like the evening news has become a circus. Every Channel had a reporter in a raincoat standing out in the middle of the hurricane, but nobody is reporting about the wildfires on the West Coast at all. I didn't hear much about that huge earthquake in Mexico either. Maybe this is normal, but it seems strange to me.

I have time to think about such things because all I do these days is make pathetic attempts to repair things around the house. Today I got up on the roof with a pole saw and trimmed a lot of low hanging branches. The next time we get bad weather, some of these branches were sure to fall. I probably saved about $300 by doing the work myself, but I'd much rather be busy writing or designing websites, so I could pay someone else to do these dirty jobs.

I wonder how long it is going to take for Dash's dewclaw to start growing back. Every time I take his cone off, he starts licking his paw. It doesn't help that he always used to lick his paws anyway. It's just a habit, but it's a very bad habit right now. The wound needs to heal and scab over. This will take a while. I hope it doesn't take as long as it took my dog bite wounds to heal. Dash and I will both go crazy if that is the case. For the time being, I've resigned myself to taking his cone on and off a dozen times a day.

I guess I need to resign myself to losing work to millennials. Another website I created is being redesigned by a team of millennials. It hurts my feelings, but I would have done the same thing when I was younger. I wasn't shy about taking work from older creatives back in the day. Oh, well. What goes around comes around and time just keeps on marching on.

Shadow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2816

Traveling with Dash in the car is usually a disaster. Today was no exception. We made it to our appointment with the photographer this morning without incident. I think she even got some good pictures. The trip home was the problem. We had almost made it back to the house when Janet noticed that there was blood everywhere. Dash had ripped out one of his dew claws. Don't ask me how it happened. I don't know. He was fine when we got him in the car. He was fairly calm on the way home and didn't appear to get his nail caught on anything. He didn't even yelp or appear in pain. One minute he was sitting on his bed and the next minute there was blood everywhere.

We took him to the vet to stop the bleeding and see if he needed stitches. They were really busy, so we had to drop him off and pick him up later in the afternoon. When he returned, he had a bandage on his paw and was wearing a cone. The vet thinks he will be fine, but we need to keep him from chewing the bandage or getting it wet. Hopefully, the dewclaw will grow back. Dot lost a nail once when she got it caught in a crack in the pavement while on a walk. Her nail eventually did grow back, but it grew in crooked for some reason.

Dash hates wearing the cone and bumps into everything. Hopefully, we can take it off tomorrow. The bandage needs to come off pretty soon as well. There will be less risk of infection if the wound is exposed to the air. To be safe, he is taking antibiotics, but a damp or wet bandage is not what we want right now.

Taking Dash to have his portrait made and then taking him to the vet to get treated used up a big chunk of the day. I feel bad. Maybe if we had trimmed his nails a little sooner, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. I'm really nervous about taking Dash in the car now. Bad things seem to happen whenever Dash rides in the car.

I ran my Saturday errands while Dash was at the vet and when he returned, I spent the rest of the afternoon with him to keep him calm. It wasn't that hard to keep Dash calm. He was really tired and pretty soon both of us were asleep on the bed.

Janet thought the refrigerator was broken again, but I thought she just left the door open too long while loading in new groceries. It still seems to be working to me. At any rate, the appliance repairmen will be returning next week anyway to install the new thermostats they ordered. I'm more worried about the shower. I had to use the wet/dry vacuum again today to clear away the water that had collected under the tiles. I think the shower pan will prevent the water from getting into the rest of the house, but it still shouldn't be getting under the tiles.

I hope Dash is back to normal soon. One problem after another is wearing me down. I feel vaguely guilty being bothered about trivial problems, because every time I turn on the TV, it seems like the rest of the world is dealing with huge, almost apocalyptic problems. A torn nail is nothing compared to a hurricane. I'm sure it's a big deal to Dash though. The little guy seemed pitiful today.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2815

Sometimes little things make all the difference. Nothing really happened today, but there were some little things that made it feel like a good day. The weather was beautiful. This is the one time of year when the weather is actually nice in Dallas. After a brisk morning walk with Dash, I had an enjoyable and surprisingly quiet breakfast at a place that is often crowded and noisy.

When I got home, I was amazed that I'd gotten a reply to the plea for help I'd sent the roofer a few days ago. Hopefully, he can figure out how to fix some of the mistakes his crew made earlier. My repairs actually look pretty good. When I went up on the roof today to clear away my equipment, it seemed like all my patches were solid. I'm sure there's still some water trapped under the elastomer, but the roof looks better than it did a few weeks ago.

Dash is still moody, but he's eating better now. We're back to eating two regular meals a day now, instead of dividing his food into a bunch of little meals. He hasn't thrown up in several weeks, so that's good too. Now if I could just get him to take normal walks again. For some reason he doesn't want to leave the house. Once we're down in the park, he's fine, but getting him to leave the house is often next to impossible.

You'd think Dash would be eager to leave the house. The place is pretty quiet these days. Dot is gone. Janet is back at work again. My office is no longer a beehive of activity. As a result, we both spend too much time thinking about food. I spend forever fiddling around with breakfast and since Dash never learned to eat slowly and savor his food, he's constantly begging for treats. I usually save some of the banana I put in my morning smoothie for him, but he eats the banana so quickly that I wonder if he even tastes it.

I did get a few things done today, but there was nothing that couldn't have waited until tomorrow. Actually tomorrow will be fairly busy. We need to take Dash downtown to get his picture taken. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the upcoming Dalmatian Rescue Golf Tournament. I could have taken Dash's picture myself since I'm a photographer, but that wasn't apparently the plan. I just hope that Dash is good in the car. I definitely don't want to be cleaning up poop again.

I'm mesmerized by reports of the slowly approaching hurricane. I hope everybody stays safe. I have a sister who lives in Florida and I never could figure out why she moved there. In addition to alligators, snakes, and huge cockroaches, they have to deal with hurricanes over and over again. I still think Wyoming is a better place to live.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2814

It was chilly this morning. I wore a jacket on our morning walk for the first time since early Spring. It's hard to believe that in other parts of the country people are dealing with raging wildfires, flooded homes, and an approaching hurricane that is even larger than Harvey. In our little corner of the world the weather is perfect. This weather won't last long, so we'd better enjoy it while we can.

It's been nice having the weather cooperate while I work on the roof. I didn't finish today, but I'm done for a while. I've completely used up the five gallon drum of elastomer material the roofers sent me. I would guess that it's going to take at least ten more gallons to complete the repairs. I wasn't really expecting the repairs to be so extensive, but that's what I get for trusting the roofing crew to do their job properly. It really makes me mad that they simply poured the new coating right on top of the old damaged coating. They should have pulled all the damaged material off and let the water that had gotten underneath dry. It would have taken a little longer to do their repairs properly, but it would have avoided the mess I'm dealing with now. There is water underneath many of the patches that the roofers have made previously because they didn't make sure the surface was dry under the damaged areas they were fixing.  I always wondered how they could do their work so quickly. Now I know.

Janet has a niece living in Florida who decided to ride out the storm. This seemed like a mistake until I looked at the lines of cars trying to evacuate Miami and the Florida keys. These cars are just inching along as far as the eye can see and there's no gas available in many parts of Florida. What happens when all these cars run out of gas? I'd rather be inside a well constructed home when the hurricane struck than out on a freeway in a car that's out of gas. I mentioned yesterday that these were starting to seem like the end times. Nothing has happened today that would change my opinion.

Dash is not adjusting well to Janet returning to work. He liked having everyone home with him. I think he's trying to be the alpha dog now that Dot is gone, but he doesn't really know how. Dash has always been insecure and depended on Dot for leadership. Instead of being strong and confident, he just throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way. Maybe he'll eventually grow into the role of  being a proper alpha dog, but he has a long way to go.

After I finished working on the roof, I washed the car. For once this didn't seem like a chore. It was nice to be working with fresh, clean water instead of stick white goo. I'm tired of working on the roof, but I've still got to finish the job before our Fall rainy season starts. If history is any guide, it's going to be pretty wet around here by the time Halloween arrives.

It's not going to be wet tomorrow. I think our nice weather is going to continue for another week. I'll get up early, take Dash on a walk, and then go out for breakfast. After that, who knows.

Dalmatian of the Day

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