Day 3524

I saw three fire trucks, an ambulance, and the fire department rescue boat converge on the lake as I was walking today. Someone must have drowned again. This never used to happen, but now it's almost a weekly occurrence. There are too many people out on the water who can't swim. The weird thing was that without all the emergency vehicles, you never would have known anything was wrong. The sailing club was having a regatta and no boats were attempting a rescue. All the people in kayaks and stand up paddle boards were acting normally. Nobody even seemed aware that something was wrong. I watched as the rescue boat sped off in the distance and disappeared. I still don't know what was going on. Whatever happened didn't make the evening news. Just another Sunday in the park.

I'm glad they fixed the air conditioning at the gym. It was nice and cool inside this week. Maybe this is why I was more accurate on the basketball court today. Probably it was just random luck. I couldn't think of a reason why my shots were connecting. Some days I'm good and other days I'm terrible. I'll have to accept the fact that there isn't always a logical explanation for everything. I'm a model of consistency, yet I never know how long I'm going to sleep. My appetite varies from day to day. Some days I wake up tired and other days I'm ready to go. There has to be a reason, but the only answer I can think of is that life is complicated.

On my way home from the gym I stopped at a neighborhood hardware store to get an extension cord and some plug adapters so we could use Janet's new toaster oven. I appeared to be the only person in the store who wasn't buying something for a chicken. I guess backyard chickens are still a thing in Dallas. I see them in people's yards occasionally while I walk and when Dash was alive I used to see people bring roosters to the vet. I like cage-free eggs from pasture raised chickens as much as the next guy, but it is so much easier to just buy them at the grocery store. I probably wouldn't make a very good farmer.

Now that peaches are in season, Janet has been making peach cobbler a lot. I love peach cobbler for dessert. This week she tried cutting the amount of sugar in the recipe in half. The cobbler tastes even better. Who knew. I suspect that almost all recipes contain way too much salt and sugar. Chefs seem to love salt and sugar. It should be easier to avoid sugar, but the stuff is everywhere. If you eat processed food at all, you're probably consuming a lot more sugar than you should.

I was going to try to disassemble the old dehumidifier today, but not surprisingly making sure that I got my requisite 20,000 steps seemed more important. I'll eventually tackle this project, but there's no need to hurry. The new dehumidifier is working great. It is extracting three time as much water from the air as the old machine. Performance on the old machine probably deteriorated so slowly that I never even noticed. The two machines are absolutely identical with the exception of six small horizontal slots on the back of the new dehumidifier. There must be a reason for those additional slots. They aren't mentioned in the instruction manual at all.

Tomorrow we visit the rescue Dalmatians again. It is also Janet's birthday. Birthday's are pretty low key these days. They only remind us of how old we've become.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2909

I'm always puzzled when consistency produces inconsistent results. This morning I made my morning smoothie the same way I always do. I dumped the same ingredients into the same Vitamix and turned it on for the same length of time. This time instead of something that resembled a milkshake, I got something that resembled Jello. How did this happen? I debated whether to dump the stuff into a bowl and eat it with a spoon, but decided to just add some more water and run the mixer again. It was a small thing, but I wondered about it all morning.

I wish everything was consistent. There is nothing consistent about taking care of Dash. Every day is full of surprises. It's quite a challenge to get him to eat regular meals. Ever since his last bad vestibular seizure, he's been a very picky eater. We have to keep at least five brands of dog food in the house, because you never know what he'll eat on any given day. He'll eagerly eat something for several days, and then all the sudden, he won't touch the stuff. We've learned to give him a little bite of something before we fill his bowl, because you never know. I think he still has a very healthy diet, but it gets confusing. Today he loved his breakfast, but wouldn't eat the same thing for dinner. If he refuses something, we'll set it aside and see if he'll eat it later. Our refrigerator is full of food waiting for just the right moment.

I got a letter from the government today saying that there will be a cost of living adjustment to my social security payment next year. This was the first increase we've gotten in several years. I was all excited until I read the fine print and discovered that I'll be getting $25 more every month. $25? You're kidding me. I'm sure that will take care of inflation. It still kind of bugs me when I hear politicians call social security an entitlement. Like most people my age, I've paid into social security for my entire working life. It will still be quite a few years before I've taken out more than I put in. Unless I beat the family longevity average, I may never take out more than I put in. It's a shame. If we'd been given the opportunity to take that money that was deducted from our paychecks every month and invest it ourselves, most of us would have done a lot better.

I need to get serious about eliminating sugar from my diet again. I did really well for almost three years, but gradually my sweet tooth has been creeping back. Wheat and grains are almost as bad as sugar because they are converted to glucose so easily by your body. My problem is that I love bread, pasta, pancakes, and almost anything made from grain. I've explored Ketogenic and Paleo diets but they seem way too extreme for me. They are also a lot of trouble. There should be more healthy eating restaurants where you can explore delicious, sugar free low carb meals without a lot of trouble. Maybe these places already exist, but I just don't notice them because I'm too distracted by pancake houses and barbecue joints.

I took a ridiculously small check to the bank today and send out my December invoices so I'll get some more ridiculously small checks next month. I'm glad I had some good years, because this is no way to run a business. I don't know how young people in my line of work survive these days. Everybody thinks they're a photographer or filmmaker and a host of things that used to be lucrative for creative people like me are now expected to be free. If I had a kid I'd tell them to learn how to repair robots. That's where we're headed.

A loose dog in the neighborhood chased Dash and I last week. The owner came running after the dog and nobody was hurt, but now Dash won't walk down that street anymore. Sad. Little by little, our world keeps contracting.

Savannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2734 - My Birthday

The weather surprised me this morning. When I took Dash on his morning walk, we got caught in a downpour. I knew it was going to rain today, but when I looked at the weather radar when we got up, it appeared like there was plenty of time for a walk. The storm wasn't heading directly toward us either, so I thought I was safe. By the time we got home, Dash and I were both soaked. Dash just got a bath yesterday too, but that's the way it goes in life. You've got to be prepared for the unexpected.

I'm getting prepared for my role as Janet's nurse while she recovers from surgery. All I can do at this point is continue cleaning the house. The doctors keep stressing how important it is to avoid an infection. Our house is hardly a clean zone, but it's probably better than the hospital itself. Most people who get infections get them while they are actually in the hospital. Today I scrubbed the shower stall. I learned that soap scum is really hard to remove completely. It seems to get hard as enamel over time. Everything looks a lot better now, although it would have been better to just re-tile the entire bathroom.

Dash seems to be adjusting to our smaller family. He's starting to take normal walks again and now that Dot's exotic food is gone, he's stopped being a picky eater. I'm sure he's still lonely at times, but so am I. The best thing either of us can do is just continue living each day as normally as possible.

Today was certainly normal. It didn't seem like a birthday at all. If it weren't for all the birthday messages on Facebook, I might have forgotten that I am sixty-nine years old. A lot of things about Facebook still irritate me, but I kind of like these birthday messages. It's nice to know that people haven't completely forgotten about you.

We had a little birthday celebration after dinner tonight. Dash and I had a cupcake and Janet had some pineapple slices. Janet's new diet seems remarkably similar to what I was eating while I was being treated for Hepatitis C.  Doctors emphasize eating healthy almost as much as they emphasize avoiding infections. I lost a lot of weight while I was avoiding sugar like the plague. I had to give up bread as well, because it almost immediately converts to glucose in your body. I maintained the spartan diet for over two years, but I'm eating pancakes and desserts again. I'm still not sure whether cutting out sugar actually made me any healthier.

You'd think that each additional year would make me a little wiser, but I'm not feeling very wise tonight. I'm humbled by how much there is that I still don't know. I guess the goal now is to keep learning more than I forget. It's going to be an uphill battle because my mind is like a sieve. There are hundreds of books that line the walls of my office and I've already forgotten what's inside most of them. I guess I could re-read everything, but I probably won't. I'll definitely keep writing though. Reading is good, but writing is even better.

Inky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day