Day 3498

I noticed a big brown blotch on my arm today that wasn't there yesterday. It didn't hurt and it didn't look like a bite or infection. At first I thought the blotch was just grease but it didn't wash off. Was this an age spot? I recall that my Dad had blotches like this all over his arms and face when he got old. Was it melanoma? I doubt it, but melanoma is very common. Was it just some minor internal bleeding? Maybe I shouldn't be taking low-dose aspirin anymore. The weird thing is that this just happened overnight. I swear the blotch wasn't there yesterday. Getting old is full of surprises.

I kept switching between the morning news and an old rerun of Independence Day on TV as I was eating breakfast this morning. It became apparent after just a few minutes that just about the only thing that could ever unite humanity would be aliens. Humans have been fighting each other over ridiculous differences for centuries. It's impossible to turn on the TV these days without being bombarded with news about some sort of conflict. If only aliens would invade us. That would probably be the only thing that might actually bring people together.

To be fair, I don't think animals are much nicer than we are. Mockingbirds are horrible. They are always fighting with other birds. I've been dive bombed by angry Mockingbirds several times and poor Dash suffered a direct hit once. Raptors and Owls look magnificent but whenever I see them they always seem to be grabbing smaller animals with their talons and eating them. Don't even get me started about ducks. I've seen ducks do things during nesting season that should land them in jail.

Today was pretty uneventful. I paid a few bills and wrote a letter to my sister. While I was at the post office I asked the postmaster if they had any of the new Apollo 11 commemorative stamps. He said that local post offices didn't sell commemorative stamps anymore. You had to buy them online. This kind of sucks. I'm not a stamp collector, but I always liked to pick up some interesting new stamps while I was at the post office.

I sent friendly reminder messages to several of the repair people who have been ignoring me. So far none of them have replied. I don't know why this always has to be a battle. The first battle is finding someone good in the first place. The second battle is getting them to show up. And the third battle is getting them to come back when you discover that they didn't do the job properly.

I'll bug a few more people tomorrow but I don't really expect anything dramatic to happen. These are the dog days of summer. Nobody wants to deal with problems. I don't want to deal with problems either but I sure would like to get the torn spots in the roof fixed before it rains again.

Jewel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 788

Janet and I got up early this morning to pick up the new Dalmatian Rescue dog at our rendezvous point in Grand Prairie. Our job was to take her the rest of the way to the vet. When we met the volunteers who pulled the dog from the Burleson, Texas pound, they told us they had named her Lady Gogh because she had lost a bit of one ear, like Vincent Van Gogh. Lady was scared, so I rode in the back seat with her on our way to the vet. She was a friendly little thing and immediately sat on my lap. As soon as we got on the freeway back to Dallas and couldn't easily stop again, she proceed to poop all over me. It wasn't her fault, but it did give me another of my frequent Rodney Dangerfield moments. As I told Janet, I'm always getting shit on for one thing or another. Lady is a wonderful little dog though and I bet it won't take her long to find a home.

It was really cold today. The temperature hovered around the freezing mark all day long. I don't know why February is the worst month of the year here in Texas, but it almost always is. It is supposed to get down in the low twenties tonight. I need to remember to go out to the greenhouse and turn the faucets on so they drip a bit. Occasionally, I forget to do this and the result is a big plumbing problem as soon as it warms up a bit.

I'm finding that I'm taking more pictures of birds than animals lately. The dogs scare all the critters away as we approach. Birds seem to know that dogs can't fly though. Mockingbirds seem particularly fearless. You can walk right up to a Mockingbird and it won't fly away. Right now they seem nice enough, but when they nest in the Spring these birds can become aggressive and a bit annoying. If you get anywhere near their nest, they will dive bomb you and even peck at you. A Mockingbird landed on Dash's back last Spring and scared the daylights out of him. No wonder that dog is jumpy.

I hope it warms up a bit tomorrow. We're going to freeze at the dog park. We'll still go though. We always do.

Lady is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day