Day 4706

Good grief. Our furnace went out on the coldest night of the year. It wasn't the flame sensor this time so I couldn't fix it myself. The gas was coming on, but the fan wasn't working so no air was reaching the vents. Since there was no air circulating through the furnace, it would quickly overheat and shut down. 

As luck would have it, the HVAC guy I've been using for over twenty years retired a few months ago. I didn't know who to call until I remembered that the plumbing company I've been using has a HVAC division. I called their emergency number and about a half hour later one of their on-call technicians called me back. He said he could come over, but advised against it, telling me that the company's overtime and weekend rates were ridiculously high. He said that if we were cold, we could stay in a nice hotel for the weekend for a lot less than their emergency rates and asked if I could wait until Monday. The rates definitely were ridiculously high and I asked who would pay this kind of money. Hospitals, commercial companies, and others who absolutely could not afford to have their heating and cooling interrupted evidently. This company is good but they don't do much residential work. I decided to wait until Monday.

We bundled up for our sunrise walk this morning. Dawn, like all of our Dalmatians, seemed to like the cold. I was warm enough because I was wearing two down coats. Winter arrived rather suddenly this year. Only a few weeks ago I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. A hot breakfast warmed me up a bit, but the house has stayed cold all day. I have resisted the urge to monkey around with the furnace because I would probably only make things worse. The technician I talked to this morning said that I probably need a new fan motor and capacitors. I wished the guy could have come out today but I wasn't about to pay $700 extra for a weekend service call. 

I had a hard time starting the car when I went to get groceries this morning. WTF? I have a brand new battery. The battery is still under warranty, but I'll have to find time to go to the repair shop that sold me the battery on Monday. At any rate, the saga of broken stuff continues and I can't seem to catch a break. Once the car was warm it started fine, but I don't want an unreliable car if I've got to get up early to go to the airport.

I probably will need to go to the airport soon. I got a message from NASA today saying the the Causeway bridge has been repaired and that the Titusville entrance to Kennedy Space Center is usable again. Damn. This took away my best excuse to scrap the trip and stay home. I guess I should just go through with the trip. I've already committed to write an article for SpaceFlight Magazine and I'm a bit worried that if I skipped this launch it might affect my ability to get a press pass in the future. Oh, well. Like it or not, I'm headed back to Florida.

It never did get warm today but I took my walk in the park anyway. This was a winter walk with a sweater and a warm coat. There are a lot fewer cyclists and joggers in the winter. The weather was nice this afternoon, but I was still a bit chilly. Tomorrow I'll go mall walking and start to pack for the Artemis launch. I'd better get some warm blankets out for tonight. I't s going to be very cold in the house.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4333

I can now cross one more medical exam off my list. I saw the urologist today and got a good report. I don't have to see him again for another year. Sometimes I can't decide whether routine yearly exams from every doctor you've even seen in your life are just a way to pad doctor's incomes, or if they are really necessary. I guess they are necessary. Most of these exams are to check for early signs of cancer. So many of my friends have had cancer that I'm all for early detection. In the early stages, cancer often has no symptoms. By the time you realize something is wrong, it can be too late. I only have one more exam this year and then I'm done. I'll have to call the dermatologist and schedule that soon.

The only problem I had today wasn't with my body, it was with my car. I had a hard time starting the car this morning, which is usually the sign of a bad battery. It was very cold this morning and I haven't used the car in almost a week, but still it's probably time for a new battery. I don't want to get stranded on a cold day. I was determined to avoid the Land Rover dealer this time and went straight to the Interstate Battery store on the way home from the doctor's office. I was convinced that batteries would be less expensive there and they were. Unfortunately, I was told that the store couldn't put batteries in Land Rovers, along with several other makes of late model cars. Evidently, changing a battery on my car causes several security circuits on the car to lose their settings and only the dealership has the codes to reset things properly. I'm screwed. Remember the problems I had with the "service required" light on my dash? There are lots of other things that try to force you back to the dealership.

I still didn't want to go back to the Land Rover dealership, so I called an independent garage that works on Land Rovers. Usually you have to drop off your car at this place, but they said they could put in a new battery for me while I waited tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to go ahead an do this even though I could probably squeeze another month or two of life out of the old battery. Batteries don't give you a lot of warning when they die. I've been stranded before and it can ruin your day. Hopefully, the car will start tomorrow when I take it over to the garage.

My feet didn't hurt at all this morning when I took my long walk. Go figure. There is not a lot of rhyme or reason to this. Some days my feet are painful and other days they are not. Since I do virtually the same things day after day, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'm not a podiatrist though and I do walk a lot. I'm just going to chalk this up to old age.

Venus is so bright right now that I thought I was looking at an airplane coming toward me while I was taking out the trash tonight. The light didn't move though, so I checked a star chart when I got back in the house. It was definitely Venus. Friends out at the observatory say that Venus is bright enough now to cast a shadow. I've even seen pictures that prove it. You'd never see this phenomenon in Dallas. There are too many street lights and left over Halloween decorations casting their own weird shadows. I really miss the dark skies of West Texas, but I've pretty well resigned myself to waiting until next Spring to make the trip. Milky Way season is already over and it's starting to get cold up on the mountain. I definitely don't want to make the long drive in the Winter. I've heard too many stories about stranded motorists on icy freeways. 

I guess the big event tomorrow is getting a new battery. It's not very exciting, but I'll regret it later if I don't do this now. Maybe I'll ask these guys what they'd charge for several other repairs I'm going to need within the next year. It wouldn't be hard to beat the dealership prices. I hope my car will last until car prices become reasonable again. Right now they are insane because of low inventories caused by the chip shortage. Even used cars have gotten way too expensive just because there are so few cars available. You never know what is going to happen next. Maybe next month there will be a battery shortage.

Ginger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3368

Breakfast almost turned into lunch today. Dash stumbled a lot on his morning walk. He peed in the house twice. He wouldn't eat his breakfast. And then he kept trying to get on the bed as I was trying to leave. We can't leave Dash unattended on the bed anymore. He has trouble getting up on his own and there's a risk that he will fall off and hurt himself. It made Dash mad to go to his safe place. I knew he was tired, so I stayed with him until he calmed down and went to sleep. I don't blame Dash for being frustrated. I'm sure he just wants to be a young dog again. Don't we all.

Needless to say, I was a little late in getting started today. Why was the restaurant full at this time of day? I was amazed that so many people were eating breakfast at 11 AM. This was a work day too. I'm amazed at a lot these days. So much has changed in the world and most of the changes make no sense to me. I was curious why all these people were eating so late. They couldn't all have a sick dog at home. As usual, I was probably the only one out of sync. As I was leaving, I noticed that I was the only person in the entire place that was eating alone.

There were more bills to pay today. It seems like there were always bills to pay. I guess I could set up auto-pay so I wouldn't have to keep making constant trips to the post office but I'm afraid that I could easily lose track of things. When I'm paying bills manually, at least I'm aware when companies raise their prices and start charging me more. Everybody follows the same formula. They offer an attractive introductory rate to get your business and hope you forget that the offer is temporary. As soon as the introductory period runs out, rates jump dramatically.

Although it was cold this morning, the day turned out nicely. By the time we took our afternoon walk, the weather was beautiful. I'm starting to see early wildflowers, but it's hard to photograph them while I'm walking Dash. He stumbled even more on his afternoon walk than he did this morning. I did a good job of keeping him from falling, but it can be difficult walking a dog with two leashes. I feel like a puppeteer sometimes. There is a leash at the neck and another at his tail. I keep each leash taunt while still allowing Dash to walk as naturally as he can. When I feel him start to stumble, I pull up on the appropriate leash to keep him upright. The special Help 'Em Up Harness make this all possible. Walking is a team effort now, but it's worth it. If you have a dog with mobility problems, it makes a huge difference if you can find a way to let them move around normally.

Google+ is going away very soon. I get daily messages urging me to back up my data before everything disappears. I wonder why I still post every day if everything is going away. It's kind of sad. Google+ was the only social network I actually liked. I never really understood Twitter. Hashtags and 140 character messages were never my cup of tea. My Facebook timeline is mostly just a bunch of dog pictures. There's nothing wrong with dog pictures, but I actually learned lots of new stuff reading Google+ in the early days. All I'm learning now is that Google is terrible at keeping promises.

One of my back up UPS boxes has a bad battery again. This is an older Uninterrupted Power Supply and I think I've already replaced the batteries before. I'll drop it off at the repair shop tomorrow when I go grocery shopping. I feel sorry for people who have bought an electric car. They haven't owned these cars long enough to realize how evil batteries can be. They always go bad and usually at the worst possible time. I think I'd much rather replace a fuel pump or a head gasket than to replace all the batteries in a Tesla. I really wish everything just worked perfectly forever, but that's not going to happen.

Carmine is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3172

I actually did go to a new restaurant this morning. Never been there before. This was a Mexican restaurant that catered to a Hispanic audience. All the menu items were listed in Spanish. Not a problem. Even a gringo like me knew what Huevos con Chorizo were. The food was pretty tasty but I'll probably go back to eating waffles next week. Like I've mentioned many times, I'm set in my ways.

I did so many chores today that it wasn't long before I started thinking it was Saturday again. I'm surprised at how easy it is to get the days confused now that Janet isn't working on a regular basis. It used to be that if the alarm went off at 5:30 AM, I knew it was a work day. If the alarm didn't go off and we slept in late, it was the weekend. I could always tell which day of the week it was by how many bananas were left in the fruit bowl. It's all different now. I'm going to have to become more aware of what's going on around me.

Mowing the grass was more of a chore than I'd thought it would be. I let the grass grow too high in the front yard and the mower wasn't really up to the job. I think I'm going to have to get a new 24 volt battery for the mower. By the time I finished mowing the small yard, the battery was dead. Too bad the battery wouldn't hold out for a few more months. I'd rather wait until next Spring to buy a new battery for the mower, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. The grass is going to continue to grow for quite a while. Batteries are such a nuisance. I like the idea of driving a Tesla, but I can't imagine depending on a car that ran on batteries. What could possibly go wrong?

I made the mistake of washing some of Dash's dog blankets with a batch of black t-shirts. Now I've got dog hair all over my clean clothes. I guess it doesn't matter. I always have dog hair on my dirty clothes. Why should the clean clothes be any different?

Dalmatians shed so much that you have to make an effort to control the dog hair. I vacuumed today and the entire Dyson canister was filled with dog hair. It's like this every week. Despite all the shedding, Dash always has a thick, healthy coat. It makes you wonder where all this hair actually comes from.

The friend who is selling my trains wants to lower the prices on some of the items. I told him that he's the expert and to price things accordingly. Even if I don't get what I initially expected from this collection, it's still a lot better than having a bunch of strangers fight over my stuff on a future edition of Storage Wars. I wish it was easier to unwind a lifetime of collecting. Everything will eventually find a good home with another collector, but it's going to take a while.

Dash used to walk well ahead of me on our walks. Now, I have to be right by his side so I can grab the handle on his Ruffwear harness and keep him from falling when he stumbles. Dash stumbles a lot these days, but it hasn't deterred him from walking. Our slow trips through the park are the favorite part of his day. I think one of the reasons he spends so much time smelling things is that his eyesight isn't good anymore. He is developing cataracts, but surgery is out of the question. Since Dash is no longer a candidate for anesthesia there are a lot of things we can't do anymore. I'd love to get his teeth cleaned again. Unfortunately the dental procedure requires anesthesia. Both of his vets say it is too risky.

I'm going to think it's Sunday tomorrow since I did a lot of my Saturday chores today. Oh, well. At least something got done. I'm not sure if I'm becoming forgetful or if time just doesn't matter anymore. It could be a little bit of both.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3132

It was 111 degrees at our house today. Yikes. That's only two degrees away from the all time record for Dallas. Any way you look at it, the weather is brutally hot. Lately, our entire day revolves around surviving the heat. There were still a few stars in the sky when we got up this morning. There wasn't much of a breeze, but the temperature was only 85 degrees. Dash seemed to appreciate our attempts to protect him from the heat. He was enthusiastic about his early walk this morning and for the first time in over a month wanted to explore the shoreline. This was actually very encouraging. Dash has so many medical problems that it's nice to see that he can still enjoy some of the things he loved to do when he was younger.

I'm not sure the backyard plants are going to make it, but we're trying our best to keep them alive. The water from the sprinklers probably benefits the squirrels and birds as much as it helps the yard. There were dozens of squirrels enjoying the water while we were eating breakfast. You'd think with a large lake nearby, these critters would migrate to the shoreline, but they seem to prefer their favorite trees.

I went to the gym right after breakfast. Why not. The gym has a better air conditioning system than we do and the place is nice and cool. Only the regulars were exercising this morning. The park wasn't very crowded either. The longer the heat continues, the less you want to do. After a while, the only thing that seems appealing is eating a big bowl of ice cream.

Janet's laptop had a weird problem today. The trackpad popped out and the case wouldn't close. I've had lots of Macs, but had never heard of this happening before. I did a little research and discovered that this was actually a very common problem. When Macintosh laptop batteries get old they have a tendency to swell, and this can cause the trackpad, which sits directly above the battery, to pop out. Luckily, the fix is pretty easy. The computer just needs a new battery.

One day next week is going to be battery day. I promised Janet I'd get the laptop fixed and I still need to replace the backup batteries in my uninterruptible power supply as well. Since batteries were on my mind, I recharged my own laptop and replaced the batteries in the wireless mics for the video camera as well. I haven't used the microphones for a while, but you never know.

Since Janet is leaving to visit her family soon, she's been trying to teach me the routine she uses for giving Dash his daily meds. It's a complex system since Dash hates taking pills and we never know what he will eat from day to day. On good days we can still hide the pills in a meatball of Hills ID dog food. When that doesn't work, we have to resort to more exotic treats. Sometimes peanut butter works. Other times we've tried to hide the pills in angel food cake. When nothing else works, we always keep some fresh steak in the refrigerator. When I master Dash's meds, I've still got to figure out how to get his protective boots on by myself.

The security light went out again last night. Jeez. This thing was fixed for the second time just last week. The light comes on normally at dusk and then shuts itself off around 1 AM. The circuit breaker is not tripped and the light comes on normally again the next evening. I have no idea what is going on. The electrician doesn't have a clue either. The only thing I can think of is that the special LED bulb is not compatible with the photocell. Who knows. Maybe the light just won't work during a heat wave.

Since it's not getting any cooler tomorrow, I'm going to have to try getting Dash to take a walk while Janet is getting ready for work. Usually he won't walk until after she leaves the house, but it will be too hot by then. Dash is a stubborn dog, but maybe he'll listen to reason. Leaving early is for his own good. We'll see.

Pongo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3079

Our power went out again today. Once again there was no wind or rain. It was pretty hot though. Since the outage occurred around the evening rush hour, I suspect that everybody just came home from work and turned on their air conditioner at the same time. The power grid in our part of town is pretty old. I don't think it's up to the job anymore. When the newcomers start tearing down all the 2000 square foot homes and replacing them with 5000 square foot homes, something's got to give.

My doctor seems to think I'm in pretty good shape. I'm a borderline diabetic who needs to take statins, but other than that I'm good to go. The heart is good, there are no signs of cancer, my weight and blood pressure are under control. I just need to keep exercising and eating right. I got a pneumonia shot today and will probably get the new shingles vaccine at my next exam. Apparently, you can't take these two vaccines together. I was relieved to learn that I don't have peripheral neuropathy. The reason my fingers and toes sometimes feel numb right after I wake up is due to the way I sleep. There's a name for the condition, but basically it's just a pinched nerve.

I finally got a decent picture of a scissor-tailed-flycatcher. These birds are amazing to watch, but hard to photograph. They catch insects in mid air and can use their long forked tail to make abrupt turns and even hover like a helicopter. They are very territorial and will chase away larger hawks and other birds that invade their space. I don't know why this one was so still this morning, but now you know what they look like.

My doctor said the pneumonia shot might cause some soreness. He was right. My arm feels like someone hit me with a hammer. Oh, well. If I never get pneumonia, it was worth it. The soreness in my arm is nothing compared to all the chigger bites I've got anyway. These bites are driving me crazy. Chiggers are so small that you usually can't even see them. The bites pack a wallop though. They itch much worse than mosquito bites. The only thing worse are fire ants. We have those too. It's only a matter of time before I start getting fire ant bites.

When the power went out, I noticed that the UPS for my computer only had four minutes of back up power. It's supposed to have over an hour. I've already replaced the batteries on this uninterrupted power source once. It looks like I'm going to have to replace them again. Gasoline seems so reliable compared to batteries. I'm always replacing batteries. I've been fascinated with Tesla ever since they first appeared on the market. I don't think I'd ever have the nerve to buy one though. The car is basically a giant lithium-ion battery. What could possibly go wrong?

I hope we don't have another power outage tomorrow. It's going to be very hot. When the power went out this afternoon, the inside temperature went up ten degrees in less than an hour. A full day without power would be very hard on Dash. Years ago, we were without power for four days in the middle of July. We're all too old for that now. If it ever happened again, we'd have to move to a dog-friendly hotel.

Ollie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2882

I was locked out of a shopping website this morning because I had too many unsuccessful login attempts. I was confused. I was pretty sure that I remembered my password. I kept entering it again and again to no avail. Eventually, I called customer service and explained my problem. "Did you really mean to append your e-mail address with .con," the representative asked me. Oops. I'd made a typo when I filled out my application. I meant to say .com of course. This is what happens when you get old. Ten seconds of sloppy typing equates to forty-five minutes on the phone with customer service. Now I know why I haven't been receiving an avalanche of spammy e-mails from these folks. They've been sending everything to my .con address.

It took me much longer than expected to write my article today. For starters, I forgot about the assignment and began gluing rubber patches on another pair of Dash's protective boots. I used to be able to finish these assignments in a couple of hours, but this one took most of the afternoon. One problem now is that I have to spend more time proofreading. My Bluetooth keyboard is getting old and occasionally skips letters unless I remember to press the keys very firmly. I've got to figure out how to turn adaptive spelling off too. The computer is always trying to turn the words I intended into something else. Sometimes I have to read a piece three times to catch these mistakes. It's insidious. I never realized how spoiled I was during my early ad agency years. I would just hand a draft to a copy secretary and they would clean everything up for me. How times have changed.

A really large hawk swooped down and landed in the back yard this afternoon. I was outside at the time and the bird startled me. There are lots of raptors in the area, but this was the first time I've seen one in the yard. I wish I'd had my camera handy. The hawk only stayed a few seconds and then it flew away. I'm usually not quick enough to capture these chance wildlife encounters. The only thing I can reliably photograph are squirrels. Our trees are like high rise condominiums for squirrels. They're everywhere.

I called my new doctor about a mistake I saw on the prescriptions they'd renewed for me. A nurse told me that there was a glitch in their practice management software and that the pharmacist would just ignore the mistake when he refilled the prescription. This never would have happened with my old doctor. He still scrawled his prescriptions on a small pad of paper with the indecipherable handwriting that doctor's are famous for. I guess hand written prescriptions are a thing of the past too. My new ones came straight out of the computer. Even the doctor's signature was digitized.

The battery on my Apple Watch is starting to go bad. I'm not surprised. This is a Series 1 watch and Apple is already up to Series 3. Things last just long enough until a newer version becomes available. The problem is I don't want a new watch, I just want a new battery. Some things are easy to repair, but an Apple Watch isn't one of them. I looked up a repair guide on the IFIXIT site and I can assure you that I'll never attempt to change the battery myself. The procedure is very complex and seems certain to fail if you are even slightly clumsy. Maybe I'll just power the watch down and turn it on again. This seems to be the universal repair procedure for all electronic devices.

I wish there wasn't still rain in the forecast. I'm not busy this week and this would have been a good time to finish repairing the roof.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2795

With each passing year, birthday celebrations become a little more subdued. Janet and I both accept the fact that we are aging, but I can't say that we welcome it. Birthdays just remind us how old we actually are. That being said, it was a nice day. We slept in late, ate a rare breakfast together and walked Dash before it became too hot. Basically, it was just a regular Saturday, full of errands and chores.

I was glad that Janet liked the gifts I got her. You  can tell the difference between when someone really likes something and when they are just being polite. I looked for things that she would like and use, but would never buy for herself. The Dyson Hair Dryer was a hit. Everybody thinks this thing is ridiculously overpriced until they actually use it. It's just as revolutionary as the Dyson vacuum cleaners. Janet is far too practical to buy something like this, but she knew all about it as was happy to receive it. I think the only thing Janet uses more than a hair dryer is her phone.

I was looking for something very different today. I though I'd buy some welding glasses to view the eclipse on Monday. It turns out that very few welding supply stores are open on Saturday. I also discovered that very few welders actually use the shade 14 glasses that are considered safe for viewing the sun. The typical welding glasses you'd find at a Home Depot or Lowes are usually only shade 5, which won't protect you from anything. Oh, well. I gave it a try. I guess I'm back to making a pin hole projector out of a cereal box.

A website I built several years ago vanished when the web server crashed last week and took all the files with it. Luckily, I still had all the original files on a backup drive, so it didn't take long to rebuild the site on a new server. Time and time again, I'm reminded that electronic records aren't very permanent at all. Hard drives crash. Files get corrupted. Software becomes obsolete. I have paper records that go back to when I was in college. My electronic files aren't nearly as robust. Even though I back stuff up regularly and save almost everything, I've lost a surprising amount of information over the years. I began using computers in the early 1980's, but very little survives from that era. I wonder how long my digital photography will last. Probably not nearly as long as some of my old film negatives.

I don't know what I'm going to do about the shower. I took a good look at my handiwork today and I can't see where the water is getting in. The joints and cracks I sealed look good. Obviously, water is still seeping through small cracks in the tiles somewhere, but I can't find the crack. It's looking more and more like the only solution is to have a good tile guy come over and re-do everything.

I started hearing the low battery beep on the smoke alarm this afternoon. I went to replace the battery, but was surprised to discover that none of the replacement batteries worked. This didn't make sense. The batteries were brand new. In fact, I had just opened a fresh box. Eventually, I noticed a message on the box that said, "Use before 2014." I must have actually bought the box of batteries a few years before that. Everything in the house is like this: unused, yet so old that it has become obsolete. The challenge for Janet and I moving forward is to avoid becoming like that box of batteries.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2559

Why do car problems always take place at the worst possible time? When I got in the car to go to breakfast this morning, I got a big surprise. I pressed the starter button and nothing happened. The engine didn't turn over at all. I immediately knew that this was going to be a bad day. Dot had an appointment with her oncologist today and it can take months to get an appointment with this woman. I definitely didn't want to cancel. There were several other appointments today as well, but Dot's visit to the cancer center was the big one.

When I talked with my service guy, he seemed fairly convinced that it was just a bad battery. He sent a technician over to the house to see if he could get the car started. If we could get the car moving, I could drive up to the dealer and get a new battery installed. I called the cancer center and they were nice enough to reschedule my appointment for later in the day. I rescheduled or canceled my other appointments as well and started to think that this day might have a happy ending anyway.

While I was at the Land Rover dealer, I got a call from UPS and they said they had found my package. This was good news too, but I wasn't sure if I'd have time to drive down to the service center today. Dot's appointments at the cancer center often take a very long time. Walk in emergencies at the dealership often take a long time too. It was a busy, hectic Friday and they had to work me in. Eventually, they discovered that the battery was the only real problem, so I bought a new battery and was on my way.

When I got home, I resumed cleaning the rugs that Dot had peed on when I was trying to get her out of the house this morning. Everything has to be just right if I have any chance of getting her outside without an accident. Last night she peed too early. She really needs to pee at 11 PM, and last night she seemed to think that 9 PM was a better time. I wish I could explain to her that she just can't hold it that long.

I thought I'd have time to run down to the UPS service center and pick up my package before taking Dot to her appointment, but a major accident along the way foiled my plan. I saw four fire trucks and two ambulances, although I wasn't close enough to see what actually happened. The road was blocked in both directions. After waiting about ten minutes, I gave up and drove over the median so I could exit the mess and get out of the traffic jam. This was a very bad wreck, but I didn't see much compassion on the faces of the other drivers. You could tell that like me, they just wished the fire trucks had pulled over to the side of the road.

I used my GPS to find an alternate route to the UPS service center and when I got back home again, I was only ten minutes late. I quickly packed Dot in the car and we were on our way. Dot doesn't travel well these days. I dread driving with her, because she often panics and tries to escape. Since she can't move very well, her struggles usually result in her getting stuck somewhere. I try to drive in the far right lane, so I can always get off the road quickly if necessary. I'm worried that someday she'll accidentally manage to unlock one of the car doors while we are moving.

There was good news and bad news at the exam. Dot has a new tumor in her liver, but like the other existing tumors, it appears to be growing very slowly. Her liver still functions normally. Most of her blood chemistry looked good, but the doctor was worried that the muscle atrophy in her left rear leg was getting worse. She said we need to keep Dot moving and encouraged me to continue our slow walks each day.

The day was very hectic, but I guess it wasn't that bad after all. My car works, Dot's oncologist said that Dot is good to go for at least another two months, I finally have my package, and all the soiled rugs are clean and back on the floor again. I still have a bad cold, but maybe I can get some rest this weekend.

Hannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day