Day 4966

Another insanely hot day. This is getting old. At least our sunrise walks are tolerable. It's never really cool though. Even when we leave before sunrise it already feels like the high for the day in a normal world. Oh, well. At least our air conditioner still works well.

No big weekend breakfast today. Janet had a meeting to go to, so I had my shredded wheat and fruit again. The hydroponically grown strawberries are actually quite good. I'll have to get these again. I'm going mall walking earlier now. The mall opens for walkers at 9 AM and there is no reason to sit around the house. There was nothing new this week, but the place was pleasantly cool and it's still more enjoyable to walk there than at the gym. The hotter is gets outside, the more people I see mall walking. There are very few middle aged people mall walking. It's mostly young couples pushing kids in strollers and old people like me. Some of the restaurants open early for the walkers, but the stores don't open until noon. I'm gone by then. I like going to the mall, but have no interest in doing any real shopping.

Dawn was eager to go on her Sunday outing as soon as I returned home. We let her get outside a bit at her Sunday park, but it is too hot now for much of a walk. After she pees and does a little sniffing, we return to the car and head for the ice cream store. Sometimes our cones are piled high with ice cream and other times we feel cheated.  It just depends on who is serving. Dawn loves ice cream but she is a messy eater. She always seems to spill some of her cone on the back seat.

Afternoons are always slow. I seem to have run out of energy and enthusiasm. There are so many things that I could be doing and probably should be doing, but I do my best to avoid starting something that will be difficult to finish. I'm not going to paint the house and probably won't fix the sheetrock either. I could hire someone to do these things, but I hate having strangers around the house. I used to spend time writing and recording songs but I haven't picked up a guitar in over a year. After several gallery shows I totally lost interest in making fine art prints. What does this all mean? It probably means I should go to Florida more. I still have more than a passing interest in chasing rockets.

It's getting to be where I hate to look at Facebook anymore. There is an endless parade of people trying to re-home their dogs, along with desperate pleas from other people to save dogs that will be euthanized at the pound tomorrow. I don't understand animal control. Why don't they just stop intake until they can find homes for their current dogs. They keep taking in more and just killing them. Jeez. What is wrong with people? Why get a dog if you aren't willing to treat it as a member of the family for as long as it lives. The older I get, the less tolerance I have. I guess there are still good people out there, but there seems to be a huge number of totally worthless people.

It's going to be a long summer. There is no rain in sight and a seemingly endless string of triple digit days. I'm sure I'll be back at the gym tomorrow. It gets me out of the house and it's a lot cheaper than a trip to Florida.

Penny is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4919

It was hard to stay ahead of the weather today. It would rain for a while, but never stop for long enough to get anything done. Dawn missed her early walk this morning because of a sudden storm. I almost missed my long walk as well. I actually did get rained on for a while, but it wasn't bad. Basically, the word of the day was wet.

I tried to call the roofer about the standing water on the roof but my contact person wasn't available. I just left a text message. The roof isn't leaking and I doubt the roofers can do anything, but I'm still unhappy. Getting a roof that drained properly was one of my main objectives when this whole roof saga began.

When I was walking this morning I noticed that there was a lot of interest in a loose dog. The dog seemed friendly, but the local park ranger and several police officers both seemed interested. They must have called animal control because when I was returning home I saw an animal control officer trying to catch the dog. I felt sorry for the dog since it probably won't last long in the pound. The animal control officer didn't seem to know what he was doing. Instead of using a catch pole, he was trying to catch the dog using a large net. It kind of looked like a huge butterfly net. With a little cheese, this dog would have probably come right over and let you put a leash on him. Maybe there was more to this story. The dog might have bitten someone or maybe there were worries about rabies. Who knows. I see loose dogs in the park all the time, but seldom see this kind of drama.

I shouldn't have been so industrious yesterday, because I had nothing to do today. I did a load of laundry because that's what I always do when I can't think of anything else. The good news was that the water from the machine didn't overflow the drain today. There were other problems though. Our phones went dead for a while which was strange because the Internet still worked. I eventually discovered that if I disconnected an old wall phone in the kitchen, the phones worked again. This means that there is a bad connection in the wiring somewhere. It's almost not worth trying to fix this though. We still have plenty of phones without the problematic kitchen phone.

I don't know why I bothered taking a walk today. There was a light mist when I started and intermittent showers throughout the walk. I was pretty wet by the time I returned home. I never even considered not walking though. These long walks have become an integral part of my day. At least it was cool outside. The ducks seemed to love the weather. I saw lots more ducks today than I usually do.

Dawn seem bothered by the storms today. This was odd because she usually totally ignores the weather. I'm worthless at calming Dawn down when Janet is away. If I come in the bedroom when she's upset, she'll just go to the opposite side of the house. Dawn needs to get serious about bonding with me. Eventually Janet is going to take a vacation again.

I have no plans for tomorrow. This means it will probably be exactly like today. I think there is more rain in the forecast tomorrow as well. Oh, well. The rainy season will be over soon enough. 

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2753

Janet and I have to do all our errands together now. She can drive, but her doctors don't want her to lift things. I've got one good hand for lifting things, but I can't drive. Together, we make a pretty decent team, although I still don't understand why we are doing our shopping on busy weekends. When we were out today, I saw a couple of old people who had personal assistants. "We need one of those," I said.

I'll be glad when I don't have to wear the splint on my wrist anymore. I wish I had the forethought to fall on my right wrist instead of my left. I am so totally left handed that it's hard to even write my name or hold a fork these days. I am getting better though. The swelling is starting to subside on my left leg and I find it easier to sleep now. I'm going to have to revise my position on pain pills a bit. They do have their uses. When I took a Tylenol-Codeine pill before I went to sleep last night, it really helped dull the pain in my wrist. I may not even need a pill tonight. The pain is not as bad today.

Dash is a lazy dog and loves to nap, but I think even he is becoming bored with us. Janet and I both get tired so easily now. After we finished our shopping today, we both went back to bed and went to sleep for two hours. Although it is becoming easier to walk, I still can't be on my feet for too long. Moving around a bit is good for circulation, but moving around too much is bad. You really have to stay focused on healing. You can't pretend that everything is fine when it isn't.

This whole incident has made me realize that you have to start taking falls seriously as you get older. I've fallen many times before. I've even landed on my wrists before. It's kind of natural to try to break a fall with your hands. Although I've fallen hundreds of times for dozens of reasons, I've never put myself out of commission like this before. I'm going to have to be real careful when I go up on the roof. Old, brittle bones aren't very forgiving.

The animal control people were back in the neighborhood today. They were still looking for the owners of the dog who bit me. Janet and I have told them several times that the owners are out of town, but that doesn't seem to make any difference. When the guy knocked on my door again this morning, I gave him the owners cell phone numbers and asked him to please call them directly. Just knocking randomly on neighbor's doors and asking people if they'd seen the owners isn't going to prove anything. It's weird that animal control is ruthlessly efficient, but I can't get the sanitation people to empty my trash. When I look at how city government functions, it's no surprise that our national government doesn't work very well either.

My newly upgraded computer seems to be working well. Even though the cloned hard drive was supposed to be absolutely identical to the old drive, I'm noticing all sorts of little differences. The computer seems to know that there's been an organ transplant. Some icons look different now and the computer seems to want to go into hibernation and disconnect from WiFi when it has been sitting idle for more than thirty minutes. Maybe this is a good thing. The computer is idle quite a bit. Lord knows how much electricity I've wasted over the years.

I'll be glad when I can get back to walking Dash again. I miss our early morning walks. One of the best signs that I've been totally out of it lately is that the battery on my fitness tracker has been dead for three days and I only noticed this morning. I'll try to keep the battery charged, but it's going to take a while to get back to taking 10,000 steps a day.

Trevor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2752

I spent most of the morning at the emergency room. I've had painful wrists for years, but yesterday I noticed that the pain was getting worse. It was excruciating last night and I couldn't even sleep. When I fell after the dog bit me, I must have either sprained or broken my wrist. Even though I rarely take pain pills, I took one of Janet's powerful after surgery pills in hopes that it might help me get some sleep. This morning, I still felt miserable, so I decided to go to the emergency room and get some x-rays.

Yesterday, I was driving Janet to the doctor. Today, she was driving me. Luckily, she got the OK to drive again just this morning. Amazingly, the emergency room wasn't very full. I got admitted within fifteen minutes and my whole exam from start to finish was less than three hours. All things considered, I felt like I was treated very well. I didn't have any broken bones, but I did have a severe sprain along with clear signs that I have osteoarthritis in my hands. I was fitted for a splint, given a few ice packs, a pain killer prescription and sent on my way. The doctor who examined me referred me to an orthopedic specialist to confirm the arthritis diagnosis.

Basically I'm a mess right now. My left hand is in splint, I can't raise my right hand very high because of my dislocated shoulder, and both legs are still very swollen and painful from the dog bites. Poor Dash isn't going to get a walk for a while. He doesn't seem very upset though. Actually, I think he likes hanging around the house with us. It's been a long time since Janet and I both spent all day in the house for weeks at a time. We may be going stir crazy, but Dash approves of this arrangement. He likes having the whole family together.

Despite all my problems, I still managed to get my computer upgraded. the employees at the repair place loaded the computer in and out of the car for me. Somehow, I managed to carry it from the driveway to the house with one hand. Amazingly, everything still works. The technicians told me that I prepared the clone drive correctly and I now have a working 4 terabyte internal drive. Probably my computer will be obsolete before I run out of space again.

Animal control didn't waste any time investigating the dog bite. They interviewed Janet while I was in the emergency room and I think they tried to interview the dog sitter as well. I told the owners to expect this when I talked with them yesterday. Physicians are required by law to report all dog bites. The dog will have to be quarantined while he is evaluated. If the owners are lucky, they will be allowed to quarantine him at home. Even though this dog bit me, I'd still hate to see him have to go to the pound.

The doctor sent me home with an ice pack and a splint. Unfortunately, I can't use the ice pack while I'm wearing the splint. You'd think somebody would have designed these things a little better. I've got to decide whether to use the ice pack or take a pain pill tonight. I think I'll opt for the Codeine. The ice I used last night didn't really do much.

Just so you know, it wasn't very easy to type this. I'm not going to let a bum wrist slow me down though. This is Day 2752 and it needs to be documented.

Delaney is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 960

There are few things more frustrating than dealing with a bureaucracy. Case in point. I've been getting letters from the city for several months now, saying that Dash wasn't registered and threatening me with a big fine. Each time I get one of these letters, I call animal control and tell them that Dash is indeed properly registered and read them his current tag number. Usually, I just leave a voice mail message because it's hard to get through to city employees. Today I got lucky and ended up talking to a real animal control officer. I read her the identification number on the registration tag on Dash's collar and she said she would look it up and call me back. About twenty minutes later I got a call informing me that the tag Dash was wearing really belonged to Dot. I told the lady that this was impossible, since the dogs get their city tags at their annual exam and Dot hadn't even had her exam for 2012. The woman insisted that the tag belonged to Dot and that I needed to get another tag for Dash. I told her to call my vet and they would straighten things out. After a while I got another call from animal control. "Everything has been straightened out," the lady said. "Just put Dash's tag on Dot's collar and we'll send you another tag for Dash." "Can't you just change your records to show that the tag you currently have listed as Dot's really belongs to Dash?" "No, we can't do that," said the lady. "Dot is already registered." This conversation could have gone on all day. I just couldn't seem to get through to animal control that Dot hadn't even had her 2012 annual exam yet and couldn't possibly be registered. Oh, and the city says that Dot has already had her rabies shot too. Nope. That's not true either. The bottom line is that the city is happy now, even though things are hopelessly confused.  At least I won't get hit with a $2000 fine.

I wish our yard attracted nice little critters like hummingbirds. This year, all it seems to be attracting are wasps and spiders. There are so many spiderwebs on the hedge at the back of our yard that it looks like one of those white flocked Christmas trees. Hopefully, these spiders serve some useful purpose, because there seems to be more of them every year. Luckily the bees haven't returned this year, but we sure have plenty of wasps. There are wasp nests everywhere. I tried to spray some of these nests today without getting bitten and somehow ended up getting bug spray on my tongue. Yuk!  I went inside and immediately rinsed my mouth out. I don't think I've been poisoned or anything, but it definitely wasn't a good taste.

It was so hot at dog training class this evening that all the dogs seemed to be doing their exercises in slow motion. Everyone brought plenty of water for their dog, but the dogs weren't interested in working. Who could blame them. Unlike people, dogs are sensible creatures. I know that Dot and Dash would much rather have stayed home this evening with their noses in front of an air conditioner vent.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day