Day 4434 - Superbowl Sunday

Not a lot to complain about today. My team didn't win the Superbowl, but other than that it was a great day. Something in the air has changed and my allergies are gone. At least they're gone temporarily. The weather was nice today. By early afternoon the temperature was 65 degrees. My feet didn't bother me a lot either. I took three walks and managed to get 22,000 steps.

Before our Sunday outing with Dawn, Janet wanted to try giving Dawn gabapentin to see if it would help with her anxiety in the car. Our vet told us to give her the pills two hours before any anxiety provoking event and that they would wear off about four hours later. We can use the gabapentin as needed without having her take it all the time. 

I've always been a sceptic about any type of mood altering drug, but I'll have to admit that the pills did seem to work. The gabapentin took the edge off of Dawn's anxiety without doing anything dramatic. Dawn was still alert, had fun smelling things, and enjoyed her walk. There was still a little anxiety in the car, but the difference was dramatic. She seemed more relaxed about her walk as well. The one segment of the walk that made her nervous previously seemed normal now. All in all, this seems to be a safe and practical way to reduce stress in the car. 

The lady at the drive thru window finally noticed Dawn in the back seat and gave her a free pup cone this morning. Dawn thought this was a great idea. Usually we order two cones, eat some ourselves, and then give Dawn the rest. Today Dawn still got to share our cones and then had another cone all for herself. The gabapentin certainly didn't affect her taste for ice cream. I don't think she had much to complain about today either.

After I finished my long walk, I attempted to bleach away the brown stains in the living room ceiling. I must have learned something from my past attempts because I didn't make a mess this time. The ceiling looks much better now, but unfortunately the source of the leak is still up there somewhere. If we have another hard rain, I'm sure the stains will reappear. If I were younger I might make a further effort to find this leak. I've tried though and it seems hopeless. I really need to just give up this fight and have a new roof installed. I'm sure there would still be standing water on any new roof, but with a good enough warranty it probably wouldn't even matter. My goal now is just to avoid going up there and risk breaking my neck.

I was disappointed that Cincinnati didn't win today's game. I never followed either team very closely, but Cincinnati seems like a better city than Los Angeles. I can't find much to like about LA anymore. I can't find much to like about the current crop of Superbowl television commercials either. Most of them didn't even make sense. Today's advertising creatives don't seem to have a sense of humor. Their attitude appears to be lets spend a lot of money, create a lot of action, and make a lot of noise. The halftime show certainly made a lot of noice.  Call me old fashioned but I would have preferred hearing the Eagles sing Hotel California to this. The soundtrack to today's chaotic life has no melody.

I imagine that the power company crew will be back to trim our trees tomorrow. We still don't know whether they will cut the trees down or just make a mangled mess of things again. I suppose we will go visit the kennel dogs, but it depends on what's going on in the yard. I don't really feel comfortable leaving Dawn alone if the yard is filled with the sounds of trucks and chain saws.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4226

I watched Jeff Bezos and his passengers take a short ride to space aboard his New Shepard rocket this morning while I was eating breakfast. I also watched the rocket's namesake Alan Shepard take a similar ride in his Freedom 7 capsule 60 years ago. The Internet didn't exist back then. We all gathered around a bulky black and white television that has been placed in the middle of the gym at my middle school. Fifty two years ago today my college friends and I gathered around a different television in the university student union to watch Apollo 11 head toward the moon. A lot has changed since those early days, but I find that after all these years I'm still interested in space travel. 

Back in the day I thought we'd have atomic rockets and be living on Mars by now. It never really occured to me that we'd have space tourism instead. I wouldn't mind flying on that New Shepard rocket. The price would have to come down a lot though. If someone could manage to get the cost down to the price of a Carribean cruise, I might consider it. Jeff would have to put an elevator in that tower though. Climbing all those stairs looked like the hardest part of the trip.

Time flies. Two years ago I was in Florida to attend a Space X Falcon Heavy launch from Pad 39A on the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch from the same pad. One year ago I was looking for Comet Neowise in my backyard and starting to develop an interest in astrophotography. I wonder if I'll still be around when the first Space X Starship lands on Mars? There are going to be a lot of interesting developments in the years ahead. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to witness some of them. For now, I'm just going to try to stay healthy until Dallas gets a total solar eclipse in April 2024.

We took Dawn back to the vet today so they could get a urine sample to determine whether her infection has cleared up. We talked for a bit about Dawn's obsession with licking her paws.  We have to determine whether the problem is behavioral or medical in nature. The vet thinks we should try anti-anxiety medications first before doing extensive allergy testing. Janet agrees with the vet while I remain suspicious of all psychotropic medications. I'm sure that anti-anxiety medications work. I just don't like the idea of depending on a drug to regulate your mood.

Dawn took her longest walk in many months this morning. She seems to enjoy exploring the neighborhood now. Our one mile loop has slowly increased to a mile and a half. We let Dawn choose where she wants to go and don't try to push her too hard. She is increasing her territory a little bit at a time and seems to feel comfortable as long as she knows the way home. This cautious behavior still seems strange, since Dawn took long walks with us for many months when we first got her. She did have that one pretty bad seizure about six months ago. Maybe that caused some brain damage.

It was a little hot this afternoon, but the skies were overcast so I decided to take my long walk instead of going to the gym. I use the spray fountain I discovered recently and this helps keep me cooler. It's weird that I spend so much of my day doing things I don't really enjoy. Writing and walking provide a certain amount of discipline and I think everyone needs to lead a disciplined life. If you looked up 'free spirit' in the dictionary, the definition would definitely not include me.

They say that people who overthink things tend to develop anxiety. I wonder if it is the same for dogs? It would be a shame if Dawn spends her day overthinking things while I'm here thinking of nothing at all. 

Lady Jane is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2242

We actually got to Dot's physical therapy appointment on time today. I wasn't really any more organized. The vet just called while I was eating breakfast and asked if I could come earlier this morning. "Sure," I said. "We're on our way." Dot didn't have time for her morning nap. I didn't have time to take a shower and answer e-mail. I didn't even turn on the computer before we left. It all worked out pretty well and ended up being the first time in several months that I wasn't late.

I think I've figured out how to keep Dot calm in the car. She isn't really anxious of fearful, she just needs to be in a comfortable position before we start our journey. Since I wasn't in a rush today, I waited a while before we left the driveway. When Dot started squirming, I re-positioned her before we got underway. As soon as she was calm for a few minutes, I started the car and she didn't move again until we arrived at the vet. This plan may not work next time, but I thought it was pretty clever. It was certainly better than drugging her with Xanax.

Today was surprisingly busy. When we got home, I fed the dogs their lunch and spent the rest of the day updating several websites. It wasn't a bad day at all. Dot did exceptionally well on the treadmill this morning. She walked for a full twenty minutes and didn't appear overly tired. Like I've said many times, Dot has good days and bad days. This was a good one. It was good having some work to do as well. I like that sweet spot that's somewhere between being bored out of my mind and totally stressed out by impossible deadlines. Finding this balance is hard though. In my business, you work when the client wants you to work.

I'm having increasing problems accessing my various Google accounts. Sometimes Google Drive quits working. Other times I have trouble logging into Blogger. Today I couldn't even access my Google+ account. Usually the outages are temporary, but I'm afraid that someday I'll sit down to write the blog and won't be able to go to my Blogger account at all. I just got a notice that Google Chrome won't be supporting anything earlier than OS 9.0 on the Mac starting in April. Maybe this is where my problems start. I like older browsers and operating systems. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google almost insist that you use their latest offering. I heard that Windows is going to start automatically updating itself to Windows 10 in the near future. One more reason I'm glad I'm still on a Mac. I wish people would just slow down and leave things alone for a while.

When I was debating whether to give Dot Xanax yesterday, it occurred to me that most anxiety is caused by two things. Running out of time makes you anxious and running out of money makes you anxious. If you have control over just these two things, a whole lot of problems simply disappear. It's hard to have both things simultaneously though. Whenever I've had plenty of money, I've had no time. Conversely, when I have plenty of time, I seldom have any money. Hmm. I wonder how you get both?

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2235

It's taking longer and longer to get Dot ready for physical therapy. You can't rush an old dog. She likes to sleep in the morning, so it's hard to get her out of bed and put her harness on in the first place. When I take her out to pee before we get in the car, she wanders around forever, smelling everything in the yard before she finally does her business. At this point we're already five minutes late. I try my best to get her positioned comfortably, but inevitably she tries to creep towards the side window and ends up getting one of her front paws stuck in the little space between the edge of the seat and the door. When she does this I have to stop the car and re-position her before she panics and starts to struggle. At this point we're usually ten minutes late. Sometimes we avoid construction zones and traffic jams. Sometimes we don't. I wish Dot's vet made house calls. She suggested giving Dot a low dose of Xanax to reduce Dot's anxiety before we get in the car, but that would make me more anxious. I have an irrational fear of drugs like Xanax and Prozac. When I was asking the vet what Xanax does and how it would make Dot feel, the vet gave me a puzzled look and said "You've never taken a Xanax, have you?" Nope. I wish I could ask Dot what she thought about the whole thing.

Personally, I don't think drugs are a good solution for anything. Maybe this is hypocritical, since I do take meds to control blood pressure and cholesterol. These seem different than antidepressants, sedatives, and anxiety medications though. I've noticed that sedatives sometime have the opposite effect on Dash. They make him hyper and anxious. My Mom experienced terrible side effects from the antidepressants she took. I'd rather just learn to become comfortable with being depressed. Who knows. Maybe Dot does need a Xanax, but there's got to be a better way to keep her calm in the car.

The weather was nice again, but the day didn't leave much of an impression on me. I must have done something other than take Dot back and forth to the vet and clean up poop, but I be hard pressed to describe it now. Walk, eat, clean up poop, repeat. That was about it. It's anybody's guess whether trash will be picked up tomorrow after the mystery trash pickup on Wednesday. I took my can out to the street anyway, just in case. The neighbors seemed as confused as I am. There were other cans on the street, but only about half as many as usual. Probably my can will end up being run over and squashed by a piece of road paving equipment.

I didn't bother watching the presidential debate tonight. Been there, done that. Why do we need so many of these debates? Jeez, if you don't know what these guys think by now, you probably never will.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2111

I had to make some changes to a website this morning and was quite surprised that the hosting company no longer accepted my password. Since I'm one of the only people who has the password, this could mean one of two things. Either the site had been hacked, or my client had fired me without bothering to tell me about it. Either way, it wasn't good. I couldn't get any help from tech support because they needed the password to verify my identity. I couldn't get any help from the client because you can never get hold of clients on weekends. Maybe some people can, but I've never have much luck.

The weekend definitely wasn't getting off to a good start. Earlier, both dogs woke me up around 4 AM when I heard them wandering around the bedroom. We immediately took Dot outside to pee. I looked around to see if there were any accidents and then discovered there was poop in the bed. It wasn't in Dot's bed, it was in ours. This totally baffled me. It is physically impossible for Dot to get in the bed anymore and Dash has never, ever pooped in the house. What was going on? Is there a racoon living in Janet's closet? Did something scare Dash enough to poop? The dogs weren't talking. The only thing that I can think of is that Dot actually did poop in her bed like she often does when she gets up to shift positions. Maybe Dash saw the little turd in the dark, thought it was a dog treat, and then immediately spit it out when he discovered what it really was.

The bedspread immediately went in the washing machine and then a little later a rug went in the next load of wash when Dot pooped again while she was eating her breakfast. After that, life got back to normal. Well. it wasn't completely back to normal, because I was still wondering if I had gotten fired from one of my busier website accounts. I wasn't getting many answers today.

After breakfast, I started charging batteries for tomorrow's photo shoot at the golf tournament. I still can't decide whether to take my favorite DSLR with the optical viewfinder, or the newer and more reliable mirrorless camera with the electronic viewfinder. I really like the older camera but sometimes the auto focus motor gets stuck and I have to focus manually. Digital cameras with optical viewfinders are on the way out, so when this one finally gives up the ghost, it may be my last. I'm not looking forward to this photo shoot at all. It is too tiring for me.

The suspension didn't squeak at all today when I went grocery shopping. Intermittent problems drive me nuts. I've already made an appointment to take the car in for service and if the mechanic can't replicate the squeak, they'll say nothing is wrong. I know something is wrong. Yesterday, the suspension made a lot of noise.

Late in the day, the website client returned my call and told me that he had changed the password because he had forgotten the old one and needed to change something on his e-mail account. The e-mail he needed to change wasn't on the webserver though; it was on the GoDaddy server. Nothing got changed on the web server except the password. Oh, well. I wrote down the new password and spent the rest of the day doing what I had hoped to finish early in the morning.

I wish I'd never upgraded my phone to OS 9. The battery definitely isn't lasting  as long as it used to. I hope my batteries last tomorrow at the golf tournament. I always seem to be at the mercy of batteries.

Suki is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day