Day 2302

The landscapers were here all day. Dot barked a lot, but it really wasn't as bad as I expected. We go through this ritual every year. The landscapers don't add anything new. They just replace the stuff that died during the Winter. This year we lost quite a few Liriope plants and of course all of our St. Augustine grass. I've become resigned to the fact that the grass is going to die, no matter what we do to take care of it. One year I thought seriously about putting in artificial turf, but I've see a few installations and they all look cheesy. Artificial turf also starts to smell after dogs pee on it for several years.

So here we are again. I feel like I'm paying way too much to have a small yard look nice for eight months out of the year. What's the alternative though? Years ago, I filled up my car with heavy squares of St. Augustine turf every Spring and installed the grass myself. It's just not worth the trouble anymore. I really didn't save that much money anyway. The landscaper gets a much better wholesale price on grass and plants than I could and this savings pays for a big chunk of his labor. I guess it's worth it.

Since I had to stay home all day, I actually got quite a bit of work done. I finished two new articles today and shipped them off to the client. There was even time left over to complete some minor website updates. The dogs were surprisingly good today. I was expecting total chaos, but Dash largely ignored the landscapers and Dot couldn't even hear them. It's sad that Dot is growing deaf, but it can be a blessing on days like this. She would bark whenever she saw the guys working out the living room window, but when I turned her around so she was facing the kitchen, she would immediately forget what she was barking about and start thinking about food again.

Since I upgraded the operating on my phone yesterday, I thought I'd upgrade the operating system on my watch today. The procedure took over an hour and the only difference I've noticed so far is that my maps app doesn't work anymore. This is par for the course with Apple upgrades. They add a bunch of features I'll never ever use, while quietly wrecking essential things I use everyday. You should never upgrade a computer operating system just because you're bored. It never ends well.

Now that there's new grass in the yard, I'll have to remember to water it everyday. For the next month or so the yard will be damp and soggy and the dogs will have muddy paws every time they go out to pee. Maybe that artificial grass wasn't such a bad idea after all. Even though it will involve some extra work on my part, I think today was a success. The yard looks great now. The lush green grass, trimmed hedges, and healthy ground cover probably won't last long, but at least we made an effort.

I took my evening meds this morning again. Now I need to remember to take my morning meds this evening before I go to bed. One of these days I'm going to end up taking the dogs pills by mistake and then I'll really be in trouble.

Dottie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2273

I'm not sure that going to the gym made much of a difference. You can't get in shape with once a month workouts. Today's visit was more of a symbolic gesture. Maybe it was my way of saying "don't count me out yet." I did all my routines faithfully, elevated my heart rate, and worked up a sweat, but I'm still going to have to do this three times a week to make any real difference.

All I could think about today was the weather forecast. There are supposed to be thunderstorms every day next week. I really hope this isn't true. The combination of rain on the roof, mud in the yard, and dealing with a storm phobic crippled dog will test my sanity. It takes forever to get Dot to pee in the yard on a good day. In stormy weather, it's hopeless.

It's getting warm enough to call the landscapers to come back and replace the grass, ground cover, and bedding plants that died during the winter. We do this every year. Apparently neither Janet or I have anything remotely resembling a green thumb. This year, the yard looks even worse than usual because months of walking behind Dot and holding up her rear legs while she smells things and looks for a place to pee has killed a a significant percentage of the Asian Jasmine and Liriope. This happened once before when an earlier Dalmatian grew old and required assistance. It took at least three years for the ground cover to recover and start looking decent again. Apparently, dogs, cats, possums, and raccoons can walk through ground cover with impunity, but when people start tramping through the stuff, it dies.

I always listen to Ted Talks on the radio while I'm driving to and from the gym. The Ted Radio Hour on Sunday afternoon is probably the best thing on PBS. Today's subject was laughter and after listening for about five minutes, I turned the show off. I just couldn't relate to it. This is probably not a good sign. I can't recall that I've ever turned off a Ted Talk before. If the subject was sadness, the vastness of the universe, or preparing for the day the robots take over, I probably would have been fascinated.

The house smelled good today. Janet was preparing pulled pork in the slow cooker and the pork roast she was cooking gave the house the aroma of a nice barbecue joint. Pork has always been my favorite meat, but I am very conflicted about it now. I love bacon, ribs, and center cut pork chops, but every time I see a picture of a cute little pig on Facebook, I feel vaguely guilty. Damn you Facebook. All you do is destroy my faith in humanity with an endless stream of mindless memes, political rants, and cute pictures of piglets.

After I took that one watch to the watch repairman last week, I've been noticing that many other watches are running slow, are hard to wind, or have simply stopped running. What was I thinking when I thought it would be fun to collect watches? If I'd given the matter any thought at all, I would have realized that my compulsion to repair things and the inevitable nature of mechanical things to break would soon be at odds with each other. It has become impossible to keep all these old watches running, and even if I had the time and money to keep fixing them, it would just be another quixotic gesture.

I vacuumed and cleaned the house today, so this virtually guarantees that Dot will poop in the house tonight. I've tried again and again to get her to do her business outside this afternoon, but she isn't ready yet. Such is life.

Anne is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2035

I should sleep well tonight. For one reason or another, I managed to keep moving all day long. We got up early because Dot had another accident in bed. She managed to get herself stuck in an awkward position when she repositioned herself during the night and I think struggling to stand up caused her to poop. There is no real way to prevent this. Like most dogs, Dot gets up, circles around, and then lies down in a different position several times a night. Sometimes she doesn't land quite where she expected to. Since she only pooped a little bit, we got up early and took the dogs on a walk so she could finish the job outside.

When we returned, I threw the dog blankets in the washer and we sat down for breakfast. It was actually a fairly normal morning. After breakfast, I went to the gym. I usually don't go this early, but why not? If I had stayed home, all I would have done was vacuum or work on another website. I can do those things any day of the week. I think all the activity trackers I'm using now are shaming me into having a more effective workout.

I really like the Apple Health app. It aggregates information it receives from my watch and the Jawbone UP band and presents it all on an easy to read dashboard. Even though I'm basically a lazy person, I got my heart pumping this morning and burned a respectable number of calories. I'm thinking of adding a WiFi scale to the mix. It certainly isn't necessary, but I just like tracking things.

On the way home from the gym I stopped at a nearby nursery and bought some Liriope plants to replace the ones that had died in the back yard. When I was replanting the Monkey Grass, it became clear why the plants had died. The soil in this part of the yard was just too dry. Actually, we should have planted grass instead of ground cover in this section of the yard, because it is one of the few areas that receives direct sunlight during the day. The combination of sunlight and tons of small roots from a nearby Oak tree had caused the ground to dry out twice as fast as the rest of the yard. Large, mature trees can really suck the water out of the soil. I love the trees though, so it will always be difficult to keep the grass and landscaping looking nice. It looks nice again now though. We'll see how long this lasts.

Dash got a trip to the dog park as a reward for helping Dot with her walks all week. He has become timid again after we quit going to training class when Dot had her spinal injury. Now, just about anything scares him. Today, a basically friendly dog wanted to play a little too rough and it spooked Dash. He was ready to go home way earlier than he should have. It's a shame that dogs are scaring him again, because going to the dog park used to be one of his favorite things. Dot used to love the dog park too. She will probably never go again though. She is just too fragile.

Since it was such a hot day, we had a great  dinner of sushi and cold salads. Cold food on a hot day is really satisfying to me. The only thing that would have made the meal better would have been a couple of glasses of wine. I can probably drink wine again in moderation, but I an scared to tempt fate after making such tremendous progress recovering from Hepatitis C. I feel extremely lucky to have a fully functioning liver again and foregoing alcohol seems a very small price to pay for staying healthy. That being said, I still think a good wine makes a great meal even better.

It has been a pleasant weekend, but it's back to work tomorrow. I will begin development on my latest website project and I expect the flow of writing assignments to begin again soon. Hopefully, I can find the right balance of exercise and rest with Dot. The Summer heat is tough on her, but she still needs to keep active to prevent her leg muscles from atrophying further. One way or another we'll all make it though the remainder of the Summer and then you can listen to me complain about Winter again.

Winston is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2033

I got the go ahead to begin another new website project. It is a small project, but aren't they all these days. I'm just happy to have the work. I'm not motivated enough to look for challenges outside of work, so I depend on new projects to keep my brain in gear. This project will keep me thinking for a little while, and then I'll have to find another one.

Without projects and deadlines, I tend to obsess about little things around the house. I wonder why the ice-maker is filling up with ice too fast. Is it broken, or are we just not putting ice in our drinks anymore? Where do all the little ants in the bathroom come from?  I spray and plug up all the cracks that might let them in from the outside, but they are always there. Lately, I've been spending way too much time wondering when Dot is going to poop next. She doesn't give you much warning anymore and if you don't read the tea leaves exactly right, there's a mess to clean up in the house. I think I'm getting better at reading the subtle signs. I've gotten her outside just in time for three days in a row.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and noticed that I could only see out of one eye. The sensation only lasted a moment or two, but it was very odd and a bit alarming. It was almost as if one eye had see a very bright light, causing the pupil to contract. By morning, I was wondering if I had dreamed the whole thing, because my vision was completely normal. Assuming the momentary blindness was real and not a dream, I'm wondering if it was caused by the Apple Watch. The display turns on and off when you look at it and it is fairly bright. This feature works great when you are awake and standing up, but I've noticed that the display seems to flash on and off randomly when you are tossing and turning in bed at night. Often my hands wind up near my face when I'm asleep and maybe the watch was directly in front of my eye while the display was on in my sleep. Just a thought. I'm beginning to think this was just a dream though. If it happens again, I'll need to see an eye doctor.

I mowed the grass this afternoon. I usually do this on Saturday, but I thought I'd get the chore out of the way early and save Saturday for other things. I have no idea what I'm actually saving the time for, because I certainly don't have any plans for the weekend. The time will get used up though. It always does. Maybe I ought to go out and buy a flat of Monkey Grass at a garden store. The Liriope in one section of the back yard is starting to die. You'd think that with all the rain we've had this year that all the plants would be doing wonderfully, but that's not the case. Janet and I apparently do not have a green thumb. It is a constant struggle to keep the yard looking nice.

Dot's limp is a little better today. I still haven't heard anything from the oncologist at the cancer center, but since Dot has an appointment next week for a re-check, maybe I'll just ask all my questions again in person. I wonder if the receptionist didn't relay my message to the doctor. They are usually very good about returning my calls. Hopefully, Dot's condition will continue to improve. We need to keep her strong, but it's getting harder and harder.

Keller is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1629

I saw a dead possum in the neighbor's yard while I was mowing the grass this morning. I wonder what killed it? It didn't look like it had gotten run over by a car, so I began to suspect poison. I'm always worried about the dogs getting into something poisonous. Lots of the neighbors put out rat poison and insecticide. Others use powerful herbicides to control weeds. The park maintenance crews often use herbicides themselves. The park has its share of crazy people as well. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that someone had put out poison just to harm animals. At any rate, I try my best to make sure the dogs don't eat anything in the park. I can keep them away from most things, but I'm having trouble with all the horse poop in the park. Horse poop is disgusting, but I guess it's pretty safe. Especially if you see it come out of the horse. Dash loves to eat horse poop. It is a never ending battle to keep him away from the stuff.

The yard looks nice now. I mowed both the front and the back today. I've been postponing mowing the back yard until the roots on the new St. Augustine grass got fully established. The grass needed to be mowed however, since it had already grown taller than the Liriope ground cover. If the roots aren't firmly established by now, they probably never will be. After the grass was looking nice, I tried to find the remaining creeping vines that almost strangled the trees last summer. These vines are everywhere and wrap around tree trunks and branches, creeping up the tree until they have totally taken over. I think I've ripped up most of the vines, but they'll all be back by July.

Today turned out to be a good day to go to the gym. Most of the machines I typically use were empty and there was nobody using the basketball court. I think there were only five other people in the entire gym. I've gotten back to the point where where I can do my full workout again. Next step is to try and do this more than once a week. Three times a week would be ideal, but I'm still too busy for that. Work has slowed down a bit though, so twice a week ought to be pretty easy now. Maybe this Wednesday would be a good day to start.

I got gas today and noticed that the price had gone up again. I got a letter yesterday telling me that the rent on my storage warehouse will be going up again when my contract comes up for renewal. Prices for everything keep going up and up, but I get nothing but grief when I try to raise my own prices. Probably this just proves that people need gasoline for their cars and warehouse space a lot more than they need writing. The storage warehouse folks could probably charge whatever they want. I think I'm the only long term customer they have. Just about everyone else rents for a month or two when they're desperate for space. People that just moved to town or just got divorced seemed to like storage warehouses. I've had my space forever though. There have been five different managers of the warehouse since I first started storing stuff away that I couldn't bear to part with.

It's hard to believe that it's June already. The dogs got their monthly heartworm pill this morning. The air has started to turn hot and muggy and insects abound. The Summer heat is brutal and lots of things break. You always hope that your air conditioner keeps working during the Summer months though. The air conditioner is essential.

Charlie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1559

Weekends come with a bonus these days. There are no complicated cancer protocols to follow on weekends. Dash gets a little rest and the dogs can just be normal dogs. Even though it was a normal weekend filled with the usual weekend chores, it seemed much easier to deal with than the previous week.

Since the weather was nice, I thought I'd do some gardening and finish up what the landscaping guys forgot. I went to Home Depot and bought a couple of flats of Liriope to fill in a few bare areas. I thought the landscape guys were going to do this themselves, but apparently we weren't on the same wavelength. They did have extra Monkey Grass in their bid, but when I told them to fill in the bare areas, they started on the East side of the yard and methodically worked their way West. I thought they'd start with the worst looking areas and proceed to slightly less shabby areas until the Liriope ran out. There would have been plenty of ground cover to go around if they'd done this. Instead, they just told me that they ran out of Liriope before they even reached the big bare spot on the West side of the yard.

I should never do gardening. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist and I hate mud and dirt. Gardening is all about mud and dirt, so I always make a bigger mess than I anticipate. It took a while, but the yard now looks the way I imagined it would. I also took some of the white pea gravel I had the guys add to the path and moved it to the small decorative circles that serve as sculpture bases. Just like the Liriope, there was already plenty of pea gravel to accomplish what I wanted. The landscapers just didn't seem to know what I wanted to do with it.  I found the extra gravel I needed under the garbage cans behind the back fence. It wasn't doing much good there, so I shoveled it into buckets and moved it to the two circular areas on either side of the curving path. After I was finished, there was still plenty of left-over gravel.

Everything looks great now, but my gardening efforts took so much longer than I anticipated that I didn't make it to the gym after all. By the way my shoulder feels now, I probably got more exercise gardening than I would have at the gym anyway.

I'll be real glad when my Hepatitis C treatments are finished. Now that my Hemoglobin levels are low, I find that I'm frequently getting nosebleeds in addition to waking up with a cold every morning. When I was making the bed this morning, I leaned over to straighten the sheets and noticed little drops of blood on the pillows. "What the hell," I thought. "Where is this blood coming from?" Then I realized that it was dripping from my nose. It's a nuisance, but a very minor nuisance compared to getting a liver transplant sometime later in life.

Janet and I tried to attach our little bird scarecrows to small suction cups to make them easier to place on the cars. It was an idea that should have worked, since the suction cups seemed to stick easily to a variety of things around the house. They wouldn't stick to the cars though. I don't know why. Oh, well. This was a minor failure. The yard looks nice. The dogs are relaxed and happy. It was a nice weekend.

Ariel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1551

The landscaping guy came over this morning and gave me an estimate for cleaning up the back yard. The price seemed reasonable, so I told him to go ahead. The inside of our house is still messy, but as least the outside will look nice for a few months. I don't know why grass dies so quickly in our yard. We care for it well and it gets plenty of water. I think we just don't get enough direct sun. I should have planted the entire yard in Liriope. We call the stuff Monkey Grass, and it's just about the only thing that grows well in our yard.

As soon as the landscaping guys left, the rain started. It was one of those all-day rains. As the day progressed, the air continued to get colder and the skies got greyer. The dogs hate this kind of weather. They want to go outside, but they hate to get wet. They won't even go off the porch when it's actually raining. To get them to do their business, I have to constantly watch the weather radar and look for little windows where the rain stops for a few minutes. I did manage to find a couple of five minute windows so Dot and Dash could take a short walk behind the house and pee and poop, but that was about it. For the most part, it just rained and rained.

Today would have been a good day to clean the house or watch a movie, but I wasn't that ambitious. Mostly I just took naps with the dogs. I did change the sheets, pay some bills, do a couple of loads of laundry, and make a call to find out why the NTTA had charged me too much for toll-road usage. Then I ran out of energy. I could have done a lot more today.

I'm not at my best during cold rainy days. I definitely grateful that the roof doesn't leak anymore though. At least the house was warm and dry. The weather report says that the rain will continue through tomorrow, so I need to come with a way to avoid cabin fever. I'm not one one of those folks who can watch an entire season of Breaking Bad in one sitting, so I tend to go stir-crazy. Dot and Dash certainly don't help matters during long downpours. They both think that I somehow can control the rain. I'm continually letting them in and out, but they are convinced that I can make the rain stop the same way I can open refrigerator doors and fill their food bowls. They keep giving me this "make it stop" look. Dalmatians are not very patient.

You'd think that there would be tons of room in the bed when Janet is gone, but the dogs always discover ways to stretch out even further than usual to soak up the extra space. I had no room at all last night. Maybe nature will surprise me with a nice day in the morning. Maybe I'll surprise myself and cook a fancy breakfast. Who knows? Dash seems to like his new "rescue dog" harness and wants to wear it around the house. That certainly surprised me. Maybe it makes him feel secure.

Carmine is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1224

I tried, with very limited success, to tie up some loose ends today. Everyone I called seemed to have a good excuse for why they were either late or had forgotten what I was asking about. The roofer was swamped with repair requests after a series of recent rains. The Land Rover dealer said they had left me a message. The insurance agent said my check was made out wrong. The accountant said the disk copy of my tax return wasn't ready yet. It was always something.

Of course, I'm not much better myself. I apologized to my vet for completely forgetting Dot's acupuncture appointment last Monday and then she regaled me with a long list of things she had forgotten during the same week.  I think life is too busy and too stressful for just about everyone. We are all being asked to do too much and given too little time to do it in.

I was just about ready to call the plumber this morning to come out and fix the toilet when I noticed that it wasn't the only thing that wasn't working. The water was turned off for the entire house. This seemed kind of odd, so I looked up the number for the water department and was preparing to give them a call when the water came back on again. I never found out what was going on until I took Dot to the vet later in the day and noticed a big pile of dirt in the front yard where the city had dug up and replaced the water meter. What was that all about? To the best of my knowledge, there was nothing wrong with the water meter. At least the city could have given me a call and told me what was going on. If I knew they were digging in the front yard this morning, I never would have wasted so much time trying to figure out what the problem was.

After we went to all this trouble to put in nice green grass in the back yard, Dot has decided that she would rather take her afternoon nap in the ground cover. I guess there's no accounting for taste. She can lie down wherever she wants, but I wish she liked the grass more. She's squashing the young Liriope plants the landscapers planted.

Dash has his annual physical exam tomorrow. I'm supposed to bring a stool sample to the exam with me. Hopefully I won't forget what's in the zip lock bag in my pocket like I did last year. There nothing like going to the grocery store and realizing that you've got a bag of poop in your pocket.

Mindy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day