Day 3432

It doesn't seem to take much to knock out our power. Lately, every time a big storm passes through, the electricity goes out. We definitely got a lot of rain today. At least the tornadoes we were warned about never materialized. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get both the fiber optic network and the pumps on the roof running again using various backup power supplies. A small gasoline generator powered the pumps and a solar powered generator took care of the WiFi and computers. When the power eventually returned, nothing important was disrupted at all.

Even though we had quite a storm today, I was still able to take both my walks and do the Saturday grocery shopping without getting wet. Accuweather's Minute-by-Minute  weather forecasting service is pretty amazing. Type in your street and zip code and you know exactly when the rain is going to start and stop within a two hour window. I knew how long it takes to walk three miles and the forecast said I was OK, so off I went. The sky looked a little menacing and I heard thunder off in the distance but the rain didn't start until five minutes after I returned. I love when technology works.

The storm had already passed when it was time for my evening walk. There must have been some high winds. Several large trees were down in the park and smaller limbs were scattered everywhere. One of the creeks feeding the lake was a rushing torrent. Even though the rain had subsided, the water level was still rising. Several piers along the shoreline were under water and the dock for a local rowing club seemed to have floated away. None of this deterred the fishermen. After a big rain fishermen are always attracted to the lake. I saw ten this evening. Are fish more likely to bite after a rain? There must be a reason for this.

There seems to be a reason for everything. I've been noticing that the wildflowers always bloom in a very specific order. The grape hyacinths seem to bloom first followed by lots of showy and evening primrose flowers. Next I'll start to see the bluebonnets. Next a variety of different daisies arrive. I see lots of cowpen daisies, shasta daisies, engelmann daisies, and blackfoot daisies on my walks. The firewheels are blooming now and I'm starting to see milkweed, coneflowers and mexican hat. There are always lots of tiny flowers like crow poison and blue eyed grass. I like to learn to identify the plants and animals I see. Jimson weed is blooming now. I learned to identify this poisonous plant a long time ago because I didn't want the dogs eating it. I learned to identify poison ivy, oak, and sumac a long time ago too.

It's still raining, but it's just a gentle shower and both pumps are working. All is well. Janet fixed chili tonight which is the perfect antidote to a dismal day. I'm recharging all my backup batteries and looking at dog pictures on my Facebook feed. I think I am ready for tomorrow.

Skippy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3124

Friday the 13th. arrived a day late. Dash woke me up around 5 AM heading for the back door. He didn't make it and pooped all over the living room. After breakfast, he drank too much water, started coughing, and ended up throwing up everything he ate on the bedroom carpet. We were out of Nature's Miracle, so I went to the pet store to get some more to help clean up the mess. The bottle leaked in my car. That was enough bad luck for me, but later when I went to get groceries, the lids to both the blueberry and strawberry containers popped open, spilling the fruit all over the back of my car. All this happened before noon. The afternoon was actually pretty normal.

I don't think it was the vestibular disease that made Dash throw up today. He wasn't disoriented and didn't seem to have vertigo. He just burped and all his food came out. Accidents like these are becoming our new normal. Often, I will take him outside to pee and after wandering around aimlessly for a while, he will come back inside and immediately poop on the floor. Actually, he did this right after dinner this evening, making it two for two in the indoor pooping sweepstakes. It's hard to be mad at the little guy. He's trying his best to be a normal dog. Age is a bitch though. The body just doesn't cooperate anymore.

I definitely sympathize with Dash. Age hasn't been kind to me either. I went up on the roof this afternoon to prepare things for the roofers and my shoulder hurt for the rest of the day. An hour of pushing water off the roof with a push broom was all it took. I was going to mow the grass today as well, but I'll save that for another time. Enough is enough.

We must have got a lot or rain last week. The water level in the lake was about two feet lower than usual earlier this month, but this morning I noticed that everything was back to normal. Flowers have started blooming again as well. I spotted some Jimson Weed this morning. The blooms are pretty, but they are poisonous. I never want to let the dogs get too close to these plants.

I went to pick up a prescription yesterday and the pharmacist told me it wouldn't be ready until Monday. This morning, the same pharmacy called me and asked why I hadn't picked the pills up yet. Go figure. I suspect the pills were actually there yesterday but just didn't show up in the computer. It's getting harder to have faith in the pharmacy. Like anyone else these days, they make mistakes from time to time. I'm always looking up pills on Pill Finder to make sure I'm taking the right drug. Same thing for Dash. There are so many generic versions of most drugs that the pills often don't look the same. Dash had some odd looking Enalapril today. The pills were oval instead of round. They turned out to be the correct medication. These just happened to come from a different manufacturer.

I wish life hadn't become so complex. I didn't used to look up all my meds on Pill Finder to make sure I wasn't taking something that was going to kill me. I didn't used to look suspiciously at the Caller ID every time the phone rang. I remember when it was still OK to click on the links that appeared in e-mail messages and open your door when someone knocked. Not anymore.

I've decided that the best thing to do in a dystopian world is mind your own business. There is craziness everywhere, but you don't have to go looking for it. I try to walk Dash when the park is empty. I do most of my shopping when other people are at work. I never talk about politics with anyone.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2769

We had a terrible storm last night. The lights flickered on and off for twenty minutes and I kept hearing the thump of small branches hitting the roof. For a while I thought I smelled something burning, but I must have been imagining things. I looked everywhere and couldn't find a problem. We lost our internet connection for a while, but never did lose power. The storm was kind of a surprise after a succession of hot dry days, but at least I didn't have to worry about watering the grass today.

The overnight rain brought cooler temperatures along with it, so our morning walk with Dash was actually very pleasant. I noticed that Jimson Weed is blooming in the park again. I'm always surprised that the city doesn't destroy these beautiful plants, because they are very poisonous.

After breakfast, I wasted way too much time trying to figure out how we had become victims of a gift card fraud. I guess I'm still surprised that nobody was in any particular hurry to refund our money. It turns out that the kind of fraud we experienced is fairly common. It often originates at the facility where the cards are manufactured. An employee copies the numbers off the cards before they are packaged and shipped to a retail outlet. After an unsuspecting person purchases the card at a grocery store and has it activated, the person who copied the numbers at the manufacturing facility is able to receive a notification that the card is activated and then uses the card to make online purchases. There is an entire Consumer Reports website devoted to warning people about this scam. Scammers also sometimes steal batches of cards from a retail outlet, remove the cards from the packaging, copy all the card information, and them replace the cards in counterfeit packaging and return them to the retail outlet where they are purchased by unsuspecting customers. According to the Consumer Reports website, the only way to protect yourself from this kind of crime is to never buy a gift card at a grocery store or other retail outlet where the cards are displayed on an unsecured rack.  Live and learn. I suppose that we'll eventually get our money back, but I'll never buy a gift card again.

I wonder how long it's going to take for my legs to completely heal. I'm taking normal walks with Dash everyday now and the swelling hasn't returned. That's the good news. The bad news is that my left leg is still very sore. I still feel a hard knot in my calf that might take months to disappear. The slow progress is frustrating even though my doctor says that everything is proceeding normally. I'm ready to put this whole unfortunate episode behind me.

Maybe I'll go renew my passport tomorrow. My current passport expires next month and I've heard that the renewal process sometimes takes longer if you wait to renew until after your passport has expired. When did the cost of renewing a passport become so high? I remember paying somewhere around $25 to renew my passport. Now the cost is well over $100. Sign of the times, I guess. There is no place I particularly want to visit right now, but experience tells me that if I let my passport expire, I will need it almost immediately. I used to need a passport frequently when I worked overseas a lot, but somehow I don't expect that I'm going to get many jobs in Germany these days.

The closer we get to the solar eclipse, the more I'm reading that travelers must prepare as if they are entering a disaster zone. You are encouraged to bring your own food, arrive several days ahead of time, and make sure to bring your own toilet paper. It is anticipated that there won't be nearly enough porta-potties available to accommodate the huge influx of visitors. If huge traffic jams, no food, and and absence of toilets is what I've got to look forward to, seeing this "once in a lifetime" event is becoming less appealing every day.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2405

Things didn't go exactly as planned today. My blood test took forever. The clinic wanted me to fill out new paperwork. Why? "I've been coming to see you guys for over fifteen years," I said. "And nothing has changed. "Oh, we're just updating our records," a nurse told me. I guess she didn't understand. As I said, nothing has changed.

I asked the guy drawing my blood what my blood type was. I've had hundreds of blood tests, and I still don't know what my blood type is.  "Oh, we don't normally do this test," he told me, "because insurance won't pay for it." You've got to be kidding me. I find it hard to believe that insurance will routinely pay for dozens of weird esoteric tests that might not have any real value, but they won't even tell you what your blood type is.

The weather looked fine when I arrived at the clinic early this morning. By the time I left, there were dark, ominous looking storm clouds to the North of me. I checked the weather radar on my phone and they were definitely headed my way. Since my storm phobic dogs were home alone, I decided not to go out for breakfast this morning and headed straight home. Five minutes after I pulled into the driveway, the wind picked up and a major downpour started. It's been a long time since we've had this much rain in July.

The refrigerator is always pretty empty at the end of the week, but I did manage to find a package of toaster waffles in the freezer. I would have preferred Eggs Benedict, but frozen waffles will have to do this week. Breakfast wasn't all that great, but the dogs were glad to have me around. Dot and Dash both stayed calm and by noon the unexpected rain was over.

It's seems like there's a new catastrophe every day. Today there was a military coup in Turkey. This is so confusing. The Turkish army wants to preserve the country's secular heritage, destroy ISIS, and restore democracy, which is something you'd think we'd approve of. The current elected president is well on his way to becoming a dictator and is doing his best to turn Turkey into an Islamic state. So, who does our president support? Well it isn't the army. It wouldn't be the first time we picked the wrong side. It's almost impossible to tell who the good guys are in the Middle East anyway. Maybe there aren't any good guys.

I'm starting to see Jimson Weed flowers in the park. This plant always makes me nervous because it is so toxic. All parts of the plant are highly poisonous and you definitely don't want your dogs to be eating them. People have died from mistakenly using Jimson Weed leaves to brew tea, or from eating the roots. It's odd that the flowers are so pretty. Nature can be deadly, but I'm still more worried about people.

Lots of poop to clean up today. I guess with everything I've been seeing on TV lately, this is a very minor problem.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1721 - Labor Day

Since it was Labor Day, I thought I'd undertake a laborious task. I got out the the toxic bottle of cleaning fluid, moved the teak lawn furniture to a dog-free zone on the side of the house, and set about making the wood look new again. The job wasn't as bad as I anticipated when I initially read the warning label on the bottle. Nothing caught on fire and the wood didn't boil or bubble as I applied the cleaner with thick rubber gloves. I was surprised that the stuff actually worked, since it had been sitting on a shelf for over ten years. After much scrubbing with an abrasive cloth, I rinsed the chairs off and was delighted to discover that they did look like new. After spending the past year giving Dash his chemotherapy drugs, I've gotten pretty good at handling hazardous materials. Cleaning the teak chairs was a piece of cake.

I discovered today that my iPhone is eligible for Apple's battery replacement program. Evidently, my phone was part of a small batch that received defective batteries when they were manufactured. The battery has never held a charge well, but I always though that I had just installed too many battery draining apps on my phone. I thought I'd investigate how hard it was to actually obtain my free new battery and got nowhere. The Apple stores are completely automated now and it is impossible to talk to a real person on the phone. I hit a dead end with the automated system. I couldn't even find out if the stores were open on Labor Day. I thought about just driving over to Northpark to see for myself, but then I remembered all the Labor Day sales at the mall and decided to wait until a quieter day. If experience is any guide, I will have to make an appointment to see someone at the Genius Bar online and then when I go to my appointment I will be told that I have to make another appointment to actually get the battery replaced. When I go to this second appointment, I will be told that the store ran out of batteries at 10:30 AM and that they will call me as soon they arrive. Then I won't hear from anyone for another month. That's the way it works at the Apple store now.

When we were having dinner last night, Janet asked me if I considered myself retired now. This seemed like a strange question, since I still fire up the computer every day and go to work. Sealander & Company is still open for business. I guess it was a fair question though. Much of the work I do these days pays very little and is largely meaningless. I've been losing the high-end jobs to younger, hipper companies for at least five years now. Maybe I just can't see the forest for the trees.

Since I didn't feel like fighting the holiday crowds at the shopping malls, there was very little to do after I finished cleaning the lawn furniture. After walking the dogs this morning, Janet set up a production line and began sewing dog bandannas for the upcoming Dalmatian Rescue golf tournament. She does a different design each year and this year's seems the best ever. I wasn't so productive and eventually wound up watching old Top Gear episodes on the BBC channel.

In keeping with today's toxic theme, I found another patch of Jimson Weed to photograph. It's amazing to me that these pretty flowers are poison. They look just like Easter Lilies to me.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1697

I got to go out for breakfast this morning. It was nice to get away for a while and breakfast was delicious, but by the time I got home, Dot had already peed on the floor. I think her incontinence is actually getting worse instead of better. Maybe it was just the heat. It was over 103 today and the hotter it gets, the more water Dot drinks. I wish there was an easy solution to this, but there doesn't appear to be. Diapers immobilize Dot's weak rear legs. Waterproof pads are all made in China now and are so flimsy they are virtually worthless.

The only good pads we have are three old ones we purchased over fifteen years ago when our first Dalmatian began to get old and feeble. They don't make these things like they used to. The FedEx man delivered a new larger waterproof pad today that was meant to be used in the back of a station wagon or SUV. It was large enough and very waterproof. It was not absorbent though. If a dog peed on this thing, the pee would just roll to the edge and soak whatever was underneath. It's frustrating. I can envision exactly what I need for Dot to sleep on, but nobody seems to make it. We'll investigate the estrogen therapy this weekend. Both Janet and I are a little wary of the Incurin drug, but it might be the only option we've got.

It was good that I got out for breakfast this morning, because the rest of the day was spent working on a new website and doing laundry. The website is coming along nicely and I can probably have it ready to launch sometime next week. I'm not to optimistic about the laundry though. I may be doing laundry forever. I sure hope the washing machine and the air conditioner don't break. They are the most essential machines in the house right now.

When I was walking Dash this morning, I spotted some Jimson Weed. What on earth is Jimson Weed doing in a popular public park full of kids and dogs? The large white flowers are pretty but the stuff is highly poisonous. I made a note not to go near this plant again. If the dogs ate it, it could kill them.

It's hot enough now that the standing water on the roof is starting to evaporate fairly quickly. When I went to clean up the remaining water this afternoon, I discovered that falling pecan shells had stained the water a deep brown. It's hard to keep a pretty white roof when the water that's standing on it is already stained a dark brown. It's looks like we're going to have a good pecan crop this Fall. There would be enough for dozens of pecan pies, if the squirrels didn't get the nuts first. These pesky squirrels apparently can't wait for the nuts to ripen and mature. They're eating immature nuts right now and making a huge mess on the roof in the process. I wish the squirrels would eat the Jimson Weed instead.

Lilly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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