Day 1078

It's pretty clear who calls the shots in this house. I was just a little off schedule with walks and feeding times today and the dogs wouldn't let me hear the end of it. There is a time for everything, and when I'm late they both start barking and nudging me with their snouts to get me back on schedule. It's futile to resist, so I usually just go along with the program. If I'm late, you'd think the earth was coming to an end. On the other hand, if I'm early it just establishes a new benchmark and I'm expected to be early all the time

I don't know why Dot and Dash were so eager to go out today. It was cold outside. Another cold front must have swept through last night, because it was 70 degrees on Sunday. This morning, it was in the mid 30's. Too cold for me!

Every Winter I have reservations about our plan to move North when we retire. I don't like the cold. Even though I went to high school in Alaska and spent a few winters in Idaho and Washington, I never really got used to snow. After thirty years in Texas, I've totally forgotten how to deal with it. Nevertheless, Dallas is no place to grow old. When the time comes, I'll easily trade this city's problems for someplace cold and very quiet.

The only thing I'd miss about leaving Dallas are the city's great veterinarians. There isn't a better place in the entire country if you have a sick dog. The Veterinary Referral Center of North Texas is the Mayo Clinic for dogs. It's amazing what the doctors and surgeons at that place can do. They've saved the lives of several of our dogs and many of our friends dogs. It would be hard to go back to a little rural vet clinic after getting used to the idea that dogs can actually get better care than humans.

The cold weather seemed to cool everything else down as well. Business was slow today. I ended up having time to watch the Joss Whedon "Serenity" DVD after I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot. It was a good movie, but the dogs didn't like it at all. It was what got me off schedule.

Spots is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1076

The dogs got an unexpected treat today. The weather was so nice that they got to visit two dog parks in a single day. After visiting the first park, it just didn't seem right to go home just yet. Dot and Dash seemed to agree, so we paid a visit to a second dog park about five miles further North. With double the number of trees to pee on and an abundance of friendly dogs to sniff, a good time was had by all. Although we don't get New England style Fall colors here in Texas, we did see quite a bit of red and orange today. This is undoubtedly my favorite time of year.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. When we returned from our dog park expedition, I mowed the grass and raked leaves. Raking leaves is just as much a part of the Fall experience as photographing them.

My old answering machine hasn't been recording any messages lately. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that messaging technology has changed and my ancient machine is obsolete. Today seemed as good a day as any to retire the ancient machine and set up the voice-mail account that came with my U-verse service. When I finally got the U-verse voice-mail working, I was amazed at how many options I had. I could selectively prioritize and block calls. I could forward them anywhere I wanted. Best of all, I could even keep those annoying anonymous telemarketing calls from coming through at all. I could even program things so the voice-mail messages showed up on my television screen. Pretty fancy for a guy who never gets calls in the first place. If I was smart, I would have done what many of my friends have done and dropped the land line entirely. Old habits die hard though. For the time being, I'll keep the land line around just to keep the telemarketers happy.

I finished watching the Firefly series on DVD today. The show was actually pretty good. I'm surprised that I completely missed the series when it was on the air ten years ago. I've heard that after the short lived 14 episode series ended, Joss Whedon made a feature length movie called Serenity in hopes of getting the series extended. It didn't happen. I'll have to look for a copy of this movie now. I want to see what happens next.

I have an appointment for my annual physical exam tomorrow afternoon. I dread these exams, because nothing good seems to come of them. Usually something suspicious but largely inconclusive is discovered and I have to go thorough even more tests to determine what is really going on. What is the point of all these tests? I can tell you what is going on right now. I'm getting older.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1065

When I woke up this morning, I felt like I was going to explode. I take Simcor and one of the side effects of this drug is that it dilates the tiny capillaries near the surface of your skin, resulting in severe flushing. Usually this happens while you are asleep, because you are supposed to take the big blue pill just before you go to bed. Unfortunately, depending on what you eat for dinner, it can occasionally take a lot longer than expected for the medication to enter your bloodstream. I must have eaten something that really slowed down the process yesterday because my blood vessels didn't begin to dilate until I got up this morning. Yikes! My skin was red as a beet and I felt like I'd stumbled into a cactus patch. The discomfort only lasted a few hours, but it did remind me that some of my meds are pretty powerful.

I finished my website assignments earlier than expected today, so I decided to watch the first episode of the Firefly series. I only had time to watch the initial Serenity episode, but it was enough to make me a fan of Joss Whedon. I doubt that I'll start going to Comic-Con conventions or become a fanboy, but I'll be the first to admit that this short lived Sci-Fi Western is special and unique.

The weather is still brisk and cool, but it was warm enough for the dogs to lie out in the sun after lunch. They like that. While Dot and Dash lounged, I swept leaves off the porch and cleaned spiderwebs off the windows. I don't know what makes our house so attractive for bugs, but it seems to be a popular destination for them. As the weather grows cooler, they are renewing their efforts to come inside for the Winter. Since I refuse to use anything that could be toxic to the dogs to control the pests, it is always an uphill battle to have a bug free house. There are good things and bad things about living next to a park that is a nature preserve. One of the bad things is facing a continual invasion of bugs. At least the rats are gone. An influx of feral cats in the neighborhood has pretty well taken care of the rats. What the cats don't eat, the coyotes do.

The pretty sunsets have returned for another year. Just about every day this week we have encountered a spectacular sunset on our evening walks. The sunsets are just in time too. I had just about run out of wildflowers to photograph. I'll try to have something new for you tomorrow. It would be nice to have something new for me as well.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

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