Day 3050

It took me forever to straighten out my bank account after all the changes that were made yesterday. I deducted all the fees and service charges and the account wouldn't balance. I added the minuscule amount of interest I earned each month and the account still wouldn't balance. I'm generally pretty good at keeping track of things, but something was missing. I finally discovered that the cost of my Part D prescription drug coverage had gone up a long time ago and nobody had told me.

This is why I hate automatic deposits and withdrawals. In my old fashioned world if I don't take a bill to the post office or a deposit to the bank, nothing has happened. I was frustrated enough today to finally throw in the towel and sign up for online banking, but I couldn't get Quickbooks to recognize my bank. The software was supposed to work, but it didn't. I suspect the problem was something I've encountered many times before. The bank was expecting me to be using Quickbooks Pro on a Windows PC and I was using a Mac. Jeez. When are Macintosh users going to get some respect?

I wish I could instill a sense of urgency in the roofers. They have told me several times that they will fix my problem, but they sure aren't in much of a hurry. I'm looking at the weather forecast and it's showing rain for the next four days. A four day rain is more than enough to start the roof leaking again above the living room. I've positioned the sump pump in the general vicinity of the leak, but I don't know if it will help. It all depends on the severity of the rain. All I can do at this point is hope that the weather forecast is wrong.

I'm beginning to realize that there is a flaw in the way my Luddite sister and I communicate. We've been writing letters for years, but never made a Plan B. Now that she's sick and doesn't write, I'm not really sure what is going on. It's kind of weird to deal with someone who isn't on the Internet, doesn't text, and rarely answers her phone. My grandparents would have known how to deal with this. I'm sure they would have just walked across the street. All their relatives lived in the same little town.

Dash won't chew his monthly heartworm pill anymore. It's hard to get him to take these large pills now, because you can't easily hide them in a pill pocket. You can't hide them in a piece of banana bread either. Luckily, peanut butter still seems to work. It takes quite a bit of peanut butter to hide a heartworm pill. Strangely, Dash will chew the new Movoflex pills he's started taking. I guess they taste better. Sentinel need to come up with a new flavor for their chewable tablets. Peanut butter would be a good place to start.

I've only got a few days to get my model train collection organized. I keep postponing the inevitable. I don't know why this is so hard to me. The trains have been sitting in the warehouse for years now. I'm never going to use them. It's kind of the end of an era to realize that my collecting days are over. It's time though. I definitely don't want my storage warehouse on that Storage Wars show someday.

Betsy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2578

I got a call from an old college friend who was passing through town today. We talked for almost an hour, which is almost unheard of for me. First we compared notes about who was dead and who was alive among the people we used to hang out with. Then we compared notes about doctors and ailments. Jeez. How did I ever get this old? My friend and I used to play in a band together back in the day. Back then, I don't think either of use would have ever dreamed that we would be having a conversation about Medicare some day in the distant future. Hey, I'm glad my friend still remembered me. There are a lot of people that I don't remember anymore.

Today was even colder than yesterday. I think the temperature is going to continue to drop for the rest of the week. Dot seems to be the only one who likes this Winter weather. You'd think with all her problems that she'd be the one who would want to stay inside, but cold weather invigorates her. She actually seemed eager to walk this morning. I wish she'd been a little more eager to get out of the house when she woke up. We had another accident on the way to the back door and more rugs that needed to go in the washer.

I paid some bills and did a little bookkeeping this afternoon. I'm starting to hate automatic payments, I tend to forget about them and when I eventually do remember to enter them into the ledger, it is always disappointing to realize that I have less money in the bank than I thought I did. Merchants seem to love automatic payments and subscriptions that auto-renew. I prefer to decide who to pay first myself, but there are a few things like health insurance that I'd hate to see expire because of my forgetfulness. I imagine that the older I get, the more I'm going to depend on automatic payments. I'm only mildly forgetful, but there are times when Dot seems to forget what planet she's on. Her vet thinks we ought to try giving her SAMe because there is some evidence that it is effective in slowing down canine dementia. Maybe Dot and I both ought to start taking SAMe.

I went to the vegan store to pick up something for dinner and was disappointed to see that they are already starting to raise their prices. The place has been open less than a year. You'd think they'd wait a while longer before the inevitable price increases. Restaurants and grocery stores need to be careful about price increases. People are particular about what they pay for their food. I think a price increase led to the demise of my first breakfast restaurant. The customers revolted again the price increases, so the management rolled prices back, but lowered the quality of the ingredients to maintain profit margins. That only made matters worse. I still like the vegan meals, but it kind of weird that a plate of vegetables costs more than a big juicy bacon cheeseburger at Chili's.

I think I washed everything in the house today. Dot's incontinence is getting worse and I'm not sure if there's anything we can do. One of our vets recommends adding Phenylpropanolamine to the Incurin she is already taking. Other vets say that Phenylpropanolamine can cause a dog to have strokes, just like the drug does with humans. I hate dealing with pharmaceuticals. All too often the side effects are worse than the cure.

Tomorrow we start all over again. In a lot of ways my life is starting to seem resemble that movie Ground Hog Day. I need to remember to take things on day at a time and always enjoy the good moments even though they might be fleeting.

Hunter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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