Day 2719

I stayed busy today. There were several more trips to the storage warehouse. I don't know why I saved all the rugs, but they will be useful to someone. Janet packed up a box of stuff to donate to a local rescue group. Dot's wheelchair joined another wheelchair that was custom made for Spot. Unfortunately Spot's chair was not adjustable so it probably will never fit another dog. We've tried to let friends use it, but the fit has to be exact or these things just don't work. Dash will inherit Dot's adjustable chair at some point. I'm in no hurry to bring it home again. We hope that Dash remains healthy for a long time.

Yesterday, I discovered that we've got a large rat living in our atrium. The rat startled me and almost jumped into the house when I opened the sliding glass door. This is the first rat I've seen around the house in a long time. We used to have a huge rat problem until our neighbors got several large outdoor cats. These cats, along with the existing feral cats in the neighborhood, did a good job of controlling the rats. Unfortunately, coyotes started eating the cats and the rats eventually returned. This isn't a good place to be an outdoor cat. The rabbits haven't fared so well either.

I hate to use poison to kill the rats, so I've always trapped them with a Havahart trap. Yesterday, I baited one of these traps with cheese and set it in the atrium. This morning, the cheese was gone, but the trap was still open. I was either dealing with a very smart rat, or my old trap had gotten rusty. I know these traps work, so I went to the hardware store on the way home from the storage warehouse and bought another one. This new trap worked like gangbusters. I baited it with cheese again and an hour later a large black rat was sitting inside. I usually take these rats down to the park and turn them loose, but this one will have to sit in the cage overnight. It's dark already and it's raining outside. Oh, well. The rat has plenty of cheese to eat.

After I finished my chores this afternoon, I went to the gym. I need to start going several times a week. I haven't been working out regularly since Dot started requiring additional attention and it shows. I did my usual routine today and I was exhausted. Getting in shape shouldn't be this hard. Cleaning the house shouldn't be this hard either, but what are you going to do. I don't burn calories sleeping and the house doesn't clean itself.

Janet bought a pressure washer recently to clean away all the spider webs on the porch. I sure wish things like came assembled and ready to use. When I tried to put the pressure washer together this afternoon, I could have sworn it was made by Ikea. Simple instructions like "press with your thumb until you hear a click" just didn't work. I wasn't going to press too hard, because there is nothing worse than getting your thumb out of joint. After failing to install the wheels using a hammer and a crescent wrench, I finally discovered that the tool I use to open the water meter in the front yard worked perfectly. The pressure washer is now ready to go. Spiders beware.

After taking all the rugs to the storage warehouse, I went back and brought one of them back home again. Dash liked to sit on one of these rugs in the kitchen while we ate dinner and he seemed irritated when it wasn't there today. When a Dalmatian gets irritated, they start barking, so I went and got the rug. I hope he didn't become too attached to the other things I put away. It had to be done. Our house was a mess.

It's weird not having a time limit when I leave the house. For over a year, I've been very careful to never leave the house for any length of time when Janet wasn't there. I learned quickly that it didn't take long for Dot to get in trouble. Dash is fine on his own, but I still think he's lonely.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1914

3 steps forward, 2 steps back. That's kind of how life has become these days. We found the perfect pen to secure Dot while we are away. It was durable, easy to assemble, and just the right size. The picture in the catalog showed a six sided hexagon. When I opened the box, there were only five panels and there was no way to connect all the panels together to make a self-contained pen. This contraption was meant to attach to a wall. The instructions said that if you wanted a self-contained pen, you had to buy an additional panel and remove the wall hinges. When we looked for the additional panel on the Internet, we discovered that the company had been sold and the new company now markets the pen with all six panels. We had apparently bought old stock at the pet store.

Everybody has become like Ikea. Pet stores seldom have assembled dog crates on display anymore. You just buy something sealed in a box and find out what you've actually got when you get home. It's been an uphill battle to find the equipment we need for Dot's rehabilitation. Half the stuff we've bought had to be returned because it wasn't right when we got it out of the box. We ordered another pen with all six sides off a veterinary website and will return the five sided one to the pet store tomorrow.

On a positive note, we now have a working dryer. The repairman wasn't sure how long the dryer will continue working, but said the part was warrantied for 90 days. At least I don't have to go to the laundromat this weekend. Since the neurologist said it was bad for Dot to become overly agitated during her recovery, we gave Dot a doggie Xanax about 30 minutes before the repairman arrived. It seemed to do the trick. Dot didn't even know the repairman was there until she had to go out and poop midway through the repair. She did a little "stranger danger" barking and then Janet took her back to the bedroom, where she went to sleep again. I'm not a big fan of mood altering medications, but the vet insists that mild sedation is much better for Dot at this point in time than stress and undue agitation. Hopefully, nothing else will break in the house for the next couple of months. Dot is completely calm until a stranger arrives. Janet and I are the only people who seem to have her seal of approval.

The weather forecasting app on my phone is worthless. It's been wrong almost every day this week. Last night it said that it would be dry and overcast today. but when I woke up it was raining again. Luckily, I managed to find a few breaks in the rain to walk Dash, but for the most part, it was a very wet and dreary day.  I must have a bad case of cabin fever, because I went out for breakfast despite the rain. Ordinarily, I would have just eaten a bowl of cereal at home on a day like this, but I needed to get away for a while. I can clean the car later. I never did get a chance to patch the roof before today's rain, but I don't see any leaks. Maybe we're OK.

A small group of Wood Ducks have taken up residence in the park recently. They make the much more numerous Mallards look rather ordinary. I finally got a chance to photograph one of these colorful ducks today. I'll have to admit that the picture brightened up a pretty dreary day.

Wyatt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1813

If anything happened today, I certainly wasn't aware of it. It's been so chilly lately that I think my brain has gone into hibernation. I haven't even bothered to cook breakfast for the past few days and have been eating a bowl of Swedish Muesli that Janet picked up at the Ikea store instead. Even though the stuff has the consistency of sawdust and is basically uncooked oatmeal, it is surprisingly good when mixed with fruit. I suspect that I'll revert to my old habits as soon as the bag runs out. I'm definitely not driving all the way up to the Ikea store for a bag of cold cereal.

Whenever the weather turns cold, the air in our neighborhood is thick with the smell of wood smoke. So many people are burning a fire in their largely unused fireplaces that it is often hard to breathe. I've never understood the fascination with fireplaces. They're drafty, dirty, and unless the chimney is properly screened, they provide an open invitation for critters to come into your house. I can smell all types of wood burning when we take our morning walks. Since this is a city, people buy "designer logs" at the supermarket. Pinyon Pine is popular. So is Mesquite. All these exotic smells just make the dogs sneeze. I find it ironic that the people who like to burn a fire are typically the same ones who hate coal fired power plants and automobile exhausts. They certainly don't mind turning logs into charcoal and soot though. Fireplaces are just a more romantic kind of air pollution.

I had to fill out a bunch of new patient paperwork in preparation for my dental appointment tomorrow. I don't understand why there isn't a central repository for this information where doctors, dentists, surgeons, and other medical folk could just download your medical history whenever they needed it. I've seen a lot of doctors and I'm convinced that I've filled out this same information at least a hundred times. Sometime you have to fill out the information multiple times for the same doctor, because they want to update your file every year, or more commonly because they lost the paperwork you filled out the last time you saw them. I've gotten so tired of filling in the list of medications I take, that I've pre-printed a list of all my meds and just staple it to the patient information form. Some parts of today's form were embarrassing. Especially the part that asked "When was the last time you saw the dentist?" I left the entire Dental Insurance page of the form blank because I don't have any dental insurance. Maybe I'll get some later. It's always easy to get dental insurance because it doesn't really cover that much.

Work was slow today. Or maybe work was normal and the entire day was slow. Cold Winter days can be disorienting. I'm hoping that my brain returns to normal tomorrow. I'm also hoping that my teeth turn out to be normal as well. New x-rays and a cleaning is OK. A root canal, not so much.

Greta is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1811

I had forgotten how much I hate to assemble Ikea furniture. This stuff is extremely well designed, using extremely shoddy materials. I think the cabinet I built for Janet today was made from compressed cardboard boxes. You learn quickly when assembling Ikea products to follow the instructions exactly. If you put even a single screw in the wrong hole, you can quickly ruin your entire project. Don't lose any of the tiny parts either. Ikea never gives you any extra screws, bolts, or fasteners.

I am always surprised when I open one of those big, flat Ikea boxes and discover that there are twice as many parts as I was expecting. I admire Ikea's desire to make a single instruction manual that the entire world can use, but sometimes a few words might be helpful. Today's thirty page instruction book made it seem like I was assembling a nuclear submarine. I took my time and counted all the parts before I started. By taking things slow and never trying to skip ahead in the instruction book, I was eventually able to assemble the entire multi-drawer cabinet without swearing or putting an important component together upside down. Personally, I would rather buy my furniture already assembled at Design Within Reach, but you certainly can't beat Ikea's prices.

When I finished building furniture, I went to the gym. The TED Talk on the car radio today was about pushing yourself to extremes. A young man described descending 8,000 feet under the earth to explore the world's deepest cave. Then a woman described how she decided to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean after she became bored with her desk job. My own body felt like it had been pushed to extremes just by sitting cross legged on the brick floor for three hours while building my little Ikea cabinet. I think I needed a proper workout just to get my creaky knee joints working again. I used to be fairly handy with tools, but carpal tunnel in my wrists, a dislocated shoulder, and worn out knees can certainly cramp your style.

It's almost time to put the Christmas tree up again. It's unbelievable how quickly time goes by these days. Wasn't it just Christmas a few months ago? Now it's time to do the Santa Paws pet photos again. I hope I'm up to the challenge. At least there aren't many Christmas presents to buy anymore. Even with a small Christmas list, I still manage to postpone my shopping till the last possible minute. There are so many things to do this month. I need to remember to get my photo equipment out of the storage warehouse tomorrow. I was going to do this today, but I spent too much time building the Ikea furniture.

Next week is my dreaded trip to the dentist. I'm hoping that something good happens next week as well.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1810

I'm having trouble remembering what day it is. Did we wash the dogs today or yesterday? Both days certainly started out the same. We've been blessed with wonderful weather this holiday weekend. We take a long early walk with the dogs, followed by a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs. It's usually almost noon by the time we finish the breakfast dishes, so it seems appropriate to spend the rest of the day doing something useful.

Today, I thought I'd fix the broken storage drawer on the pedestal under the washing machine in the utility room. The front-loader washing machine sits on this raised pedestal to make it easier to load and unload. There is a handy drawer in this pedestal where you can store your detergent, plastic trash bags, or in our case, tons of Tupperware containers that we never use anymore. For some reason, this drawer won't close anymore and I always have to find something heavy to prop in front of it when I do laundry.

You'd think the drawer would just slide out, so I could see if there was anything jammed underneath. Nope! I had to spend twenty minutes on Google, looking for instructions on how to disassemble the thing. I empty all the crap out of the big metal drawer, find the right tools, take the drawer apart, and try to find the problem. Other than a thick layer of dust on the brick floor under the washer, everything looked fine.

I cleaned the drawer and its contents. I scrubbed the dirty floor underneath. Then I put everything back together again. After all this work, the drawer still slid forward. I had accomplished nothing. The problem was that the pedestal wasn't level anymore. Over the years, the vibrations from too many heavy towel loads had caused the leveling screws to shift and tilt the entire pedestal slightly downhill. The technicians who installed the washer and dryer had leveled the pedestal very precisely before they placed the very heavy front-loader on top of it. In order to level things again, I would have to remove the washing machine, which was impossible. This is why you should be very careful before you attempt to make a simple repair. Simple things can turn difficult very quickly.

After wasting hours messing around with the washing machine, I barely had time to go to the grocery store and pharmacy before it was time to walk the dogs again. We did have a very nice walk as the sun set behind us and then returned home to enjoy a nice dinner. I suppose that I could have made better use of this beautiful day, but at least I won't wonder why that drawer isn't working anymore. Janet bought something at Ikea today, so I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1445

We thought today might be a good day to go see the new presidential library here in Dallas. How wrong we were! When we arrived, there was already a long line of people snaking around the building. The line wasn't moving either. We decided to come back another day. I guess this library has replaced the city zoo and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza as the go-to place to take visiting relatives on the day after Thanksgiving.

I'm still interested in seeing the library. I've never been to a presidential library before. I've driven past LBJ's library in Austin several times, but I've never gone inside. I should have seen Clinton's library by now, since I grew up in Arkansas, but I haven't been there either. I did visit Dwight Eisenhower's home near Gettysburg once and found it very interesting. Presidents lived pretty simple lives in the 1950's.

Since the library was so crowded and it was already too late to go to an afternoon movie, Janet and I both went to the gym instead. Her gym was crowded and mine was nearly empty. I don't understand why young people don't go to my gym. It is the easily best equipped facility in the city. There is a heated Olympic size pool, a regulation size basketball court, a huge, well equipped weight room, a boxing area, and every type of resistance machine and treadmill ever created. I suspect that the young people who keep all those trendy new LA Fitness Centers busy just don't want to be seen with the old geezers who frequent my gym. I see an older gentleman almost every time I'm working out wearing a t-shirt that says "I wish I was 88." He is actually 94.

My missing UPS package mysteriously appeared on my doorstep this afternoon. Nobody knocked on the door and there was no explanation. I still don't know whether the UPS driver found the missing package and re-delivered it, or whether the person who actually received the package last Tuesday  finally decided to drive it over to my house. I'll probably never know what really happened, but at least I now have what I need. Hopefully, these new supplies will revive my hopelessly clogged printer and get it working again.

Although we didn't do any of the fun things we had planned, Janet and I both got a lot done today. She braved the Black Friday crowds and got a new Winter coat, while I found a replacement for the blinking, non-functional overhead light in my office. I'm sure I could have found a cheaper light fixture at IKEA, but it was worth paying almost any amount just to be able to avoid going to IKEA.

When I went to my regular breakfast restaurant today, I noticed that the other customers looked like hell. Actually, they just looked very similar to what I look like every day. I figured that most of these  people must still be on vacation. I guess this proves that without a dress code to conform to, almost everyone will immediately sink to the lowest common denominator. Personally, I don't know why I bother to get dressed anymore. The dogs don't care what I look like and my Internet-based clients will never know the difference. Wearing a suit on Wednesday mornings is still a novelty, but I'm sure this will wear off soon enough. The day I show up at one of these networking meetings wearing a Nirvana t-shirt and sweat pants is probably the day they'll kick me out of their club.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1444 - Thanksgiving

All days should be like this. I got up late. I spent most of the day eating. I walked the dogs in a vain effort to to burn off my gargantuan meal. Then I watched TV for the rest of the day. We gave up entertaining on Thanksgiving years ago when the dogs embarrassed us by eating the guests dinner. We gave up on cooking a few years later when we realized it just wasn't worth the effort for two people.

Ever since, we've been going out to eat on Thanksgiving. We pick a nice restaurant and enjoy having someone else serve us dinner. Some years, we have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, sweet potatoes, green been casserole and pumpkin pie. Other years we are more adventurous. This year we went to The Mercury. They have a great Thanksgiving buffet. The food is fresh and varied. As always, I ate way too much.

Although it was chilly this morning, the day ended up being quite nice. Since there were no time constraints, the dogs got some bonus time on their walks. Janet walked them in the morning and I walked them in the evening. I was in such a good mood after my fabulous dinner that I though I'd take a decent camera along with me. That was a mistake. I used to take a DSLR with me frequently when I walked Dot and Dash, but I think they were better behaved then. Lately, I have trouble even getting the scene in focus before one of the dogs knocks me off balance chasing a squirrel or trying to eat something nasty they've spotted on the trail. Once the leashes get tangled around my camera strap, it's hopeless. I snapped a few sunset shots, but failed to capture anything spectacular. The shot you see above shows what happened after Dash flushed a covey of birds out of some bulrushes along the shoreline.

Although Thursday is one of my regular days to go to the gym, it seemed wise to postpone any sort of a workout until tomorrow. After the monster meal I ate this afternoon, I don't think my workout would have lasted long. Probably, the gym wasn't open today anyway. I never bothered to check.

Few things seem less appealing to me than fighting crowds of shoppers on Black Friday. That being said, I'll probably end up going to Home Depot tomorrow anyway. The blinking overhead light in my office is driving me nuts. I've got to find a new fixture soon. I hope I can find what I need at Home Depot. I would dread having to go to IKEA tomorrow.

Scooter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1133

After meeting with my financial adviser and confirming that I was not a rich man, I went up to Ikea and bought a cheap floor lamp. I'm sure that some of you have shopped at Ikea before. The stores are enormous and I always get lost in them. I usually get lost right after I pick up something heavy and then spend the next fifteen minutes looking for the check out aisles. Things are incredibly cheap at Ikea. That's why the stores are always crowded. People don't even care that most of the stuff is pure crap and will probably break before you figure out how to assemble it. It's just incredibly cheap, so you fill your buggies like everyone else. Ikea doesn't miss a trick. If you get hungry while you're lost in the store, they'll sell you some lunch. If you need something to carry your heavy purchases out to the car, they'll sell you a shopping bag at the check out counter. Everything is cheap, but nothing is free. I think you could furnish your entire house at Ikea for the same price as a single dining room chair at Design Within Reach.

When I got my floor lamp home, I had to assemble it. You have to assemble everything you buy at Ikea. My fully assembled lamp seemed to lean a bit to the left, but you can't expect perfection from a $29 floor lamp. The high-tech LED bulb I screwed into the socket to complete things actually cost more than the lamp. I still can't figure out why the lamps I was looking at a few weeks ago at the ritzy lighting studio cost $1500 and up, while this somewhat similar lamp cost $29.

Although today was a holiday, Janet and I certainly didn't take advantage of it. She cleaned the house and went to a Zumba class at the gym, while I got lost in the crowds of people buying baby furniture at Ikea. Tomorrow, it's back to work again. I've got a lot of website revisions to make this week, but none of them will make me much money. I was trying to explain to my financial adviser today why designing websites is no longer a winning proposition for me. I'm not sure he understood. He asked why I couldn't start offering cheap template driven sites myself.

I think the garage that did my safety inspection screwed up my car. It's been making an odd rattling noise ever since I got it inspected last week. This is a different kind of rattling noise than the rattling catalytic converter, so now I've got two rattling noises. I guess I'll have to stop by the Land Rover dealer later this week. It's always something.

Myles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day