Day 2041

People give me Starbucks gift cards from time to time. I always used to use these cards for having coffee with friends. Today I used my gift card  to get more Keurig pods. I had no desire to chat with anyone over coffee. That pretty much says it all. I've gone from drinking alcohol alone to drinking coffee alone.

Dot still does OK on her early morning assisted walks. She's not getting any stronger though and it worries me. It's going to be a really tough choice if it comes down to continuing her chemotherapy and facing increasing lameness, or stopping it and watching the cancer become more aggressive. I have to remember that the Palladia may have nothing to do with Dot's recent difficulties, but my gut feeling is that there is a connection. She started having problems with her legs again about the same time she started chemotherapy.

It was a busy day. I took a small check to the bank and then paid the utility and cable company bills for July. A lot more money went out the door than came in. I picked up some more prescriptions on my way back from the post office. It's seems like I am always renewing prescriptions. All of the pharmacists know me by name. I filled the car up with gas, got Stevia at the health food store, and picked up trash bags and other staples at Sam's Club. Instead of mowing the grass, I watered it. Things are starting to look pretty dry.

There wasn't much point in doing yard work today. It was just too hot. After finishing my Saturday errands, I spent the rest of the afternoon inside. There are always websites to update, so I added some new dogs and cats to a rescue website I manage and then took a short nap with the dogs. I should have taken a much longer nap, because I've not been sleeping well lately. My Jawbone UP band says I'm only getting about five hours a night. Most of this isn't deep sleep either. If Dot starts breathing irregularly, I wake up. If her leg gets stuck, I get up and reposition her. If the temperature goes up two degrees, I wake up. Sometimes I wake up remembering that I forgot to wear my Essix retainer before I went to bed and I get up and put in in my mouth. I often wake up with a dry mouth and go to the kitchen for a drink of water. Sometimes I wonder why I bother to sleep at all.

We had Cowboy Burgers from Central Market again tonight. If you haven't tried these, they are the best hamburger patties ever. I don't know what kind of beef or spices they use, but to me, this is what a burger was meant to be. It doesn't matter whether you grill them or pan fry them on the stove, they always come out great. Having a big meal like this tonight almost guarantees that I will have to go to the gym tomorrow. With the complexities of my current life, I think once a week on Sunday afternoon is the only workout I'm going to be able to manage. It's hard to get Dash to the dog park too, but that's on the schedule for tomorrow as well. For now, it's about time go call it a day. Everyone else in the house has already gone to bed. I've still got to brush my teeth and take my evening meds, but I'll be joining them soon. Maybe watching some really old Dr. Who episodes on TV will help me get to sleep.

Beemer is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1417

It was a busy day. After walking the dogs and eating breakfast at my favorite restaurant, I went to help a friend get a website set up. We accomplished everything we needed to do over a cup of coffee at Starbucks while using public WiFi. Before I finished my coffee, we were done. It was that easy. In a nutshell, this is why there is no money in website design anymore. Well, there's no money in designing private websites anyway. As we've all learned recently, there's apparently still plenty of money available to design websites for the government. Maybe I should have bid on designing HealthCare.gov myself. My site might have crashed too, but the cost would have been way lower than the reported $112 million that the government has already paid the main contractor.

I found a moth hole in the suit I wore to last Wednesday's networking breakfast. I went to a tailor in the neighborhood to see if they could fix the suit. They said that they probably could, but that the cost for reweaving would be $70 per moth hole. Jeez, it's tiny little moth hole. I hope I don't have a lot of moth holes. I'd better check the rest of my suits to make sure that they aren't riddled with $70 holes. It's been ten years since I've worn some of these suits, so the moths have had a long time to do their dirty work. The odd thing about these old suits is that they are back in style again. Lapels, pleats, and fabrics have changed quite a bit over the years, but now they are right back where they started from. I kind of lucked out, since my weight is right back where it started from as well.

As an experiment, I've been submitting some of the same photos to both Shutterstock and iStockphoto. As you might expect, some get accepted and some get rejected, but there is no consistency between these two stock photo sites. Since both sites are incredibly picky about the images they accept, you'd think they'd reject the same images. Nope! An image that has too much grain for Shutterstock might be just fine for iStockphoto. An image that iStockphoto considers out of focus might be perfect for Shutterstock. There is no rhyme or reason to the process. I've had pictures taken with an iPhone accepted and pictures taken with a Hasselblad rejected. Go figure!

I'm not really looking forward to the change back to Standard Time this weekend. I can always get up a little later to walk the dogs in the morning, but there's no escaping sunset anymore when I walk the dogs in the evening. I try my best to avoid walking the dogs after dark. The coyotes start coming out around dusk and I'd hate to be attacked by a pack of them. I know that some people say coyotes aren't a threat to anybody, but it is well documented that urban coyotes are losing their fear of humans. I just don't trust them.

It looks like we're going to have another beautiful weekend. Since the grass is still growing in the front yard, I might have to drag out the lawn mower one last time.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 752

Today was a little different. I actually saw someone face-to-face. After I walked the dogs this morning, I went and had coffee with an advertising buddy I hadn't seen in years. You can't really catch up on fifteen years over a cup of coffee, but we both had an enjoyable time talking about watches, horrendously high property taxes, and how much the the industry has changed since we last got together. After finishing our coffee, we agreed that it was important to see each other at least every ten years and we both went back to work.

Walking back to my car, I realized that there was a shoe store right near the Starbucks and stopped in to buy a new pair of dog walking shoes. I have enough nice shoes to last a lifetime, but I'm continually burning through dog walking shoes. I guess it makes sense. Walking dogs is my life.

When I got back to the office, there was an e-mail that said thirteen new dogs needed to be added to an animal rescue site asap. There was also a new watch article to write and some correspondence that needed to be dealt with before everyone disappeared for the weekend. By the end of the day I had everything finished except for the new web pages I promised I'd make for the thirteen rescue dogs. I guess that means I didn't actually finish very much. Maybe I'll get these web pages done this weekend. There's always the weekend.

It's time to start gathering tax information again. Usually, I've got everything gathered into tabbed ring binders by now. This year, I'm beyond caring. I've got all the information in a big pile of paper, but I don't even want to look at it. Money comes in. Money goes out. Very little money sticks around very long.

Nellie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day