Day 3083

When I was at the gym today, one of the staff members came out on the court and started blocking my shots. It slowed me down a bit, but it was a nice gesture. Maybe after five years of spotty attendance, I'm finally a regular. I had a good workout today. On days like this, I always think that if I exercised more often, I'd really start making some progress.

The landscapers didn't come back today. I didn't really think they would. Who wants to work on Sunday? I doubt they could find St. Augustine grass today anyway. The yard will probably be finished tomorrow. The good news is that everything will look green again. The bad news is that my water bill will triple.

Dash cut his lip today while he was nosing around smelling things. It was a very small cut, but it bled a lot. Dash bleeds incredibly easily now that he's taking Plavix. We are as careful as we can be with him, but you can't stop a dog from smelling things. I wish I could convince Dash not to spend so much time investigating what the other animals in the park are doing. Our walks would be quicker and he probably never would have gotten that infection in his mouth. At least the bleeding has stopped now. Like I said, we do the best we can.

When Dash woke me up to go outside last night, I noticed that Mars was right next to the moon. I also noticed that Dash took an incredibly long time to poop. I was wide awake by the time we went inside again and had trouble getting back to sleep. Nothing is consistent about Dash anymore. Last week he was sleeping all the way through the night and now he's back to waking me up at 3 AM again. He's still eating well and doesn't appear to be in any pain. I guess that's all that counts.  Next week he's scheduled for another big exam at the cancer center. Hopefully, we'll find out a little more about his current condition.

I got my lab results back and I finally know my blood type. I'm an O+. This is the most common blood type, but I don't know if that's good or bad. Have you ever heard of the Blood Type Diet? It sounds kind of wacky to me, but supposedly your blood type is determined by your ancient ancestors and you'll do best if you continue to eat what they did. According to this unsubstantiated theory, people with Type O blood were originally hunter/gathers and need a high protein diet with lots of lean meat and very little grain. Sounds good to me. People with Type A blood are supposed to be vegetarians.

I had to take back the socks I got last week and exchange them for a larger size. Why are clothes so hard to fit these days. Small, medium, and large mean nothing. Sometimes a medium fits perfectly and other times it is too small. Stores don't like you to try on socks anyway. Usually they are stapled together in some sort of packaging that makes this impossible. At any rate, now I have large socks. These will probably be too big.

I'm going to submit some more art to the auction houses next week. Who knows where this will end?  Maybe Janet is right. Could it be that less actually is more?

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2870

I left the house early this morning so I could get my lab work done before I ate breakfast. Like I always do, I asked these new guys if they could tell me my blood type. I think it's ridiculous that I'm almost 70 years old and don't even know my blood type. I've literally had hundreds of blood tests, but this is one test that nobody wants to do. "Insurance won't pay for it," they tell me. Why not? It seems like useful information that everyone should have. Apparently, the normal way to find out your blood type is to donate blood at a blood bank. This won't work for me. Nobody wanted my blood for decades because I had Hepatitis C. Blood banks probably still don't want my blood. The nurse said it would cost me $100 extra to run the blood type test. "Never mind," I told her. I don't know why this irritates me so much, but the fact that doctors have taken gallons of my blood to run complicated tests and refuse to do this simple one represents everything wrong with modern medicine to me.

While I was walking toward the elevator in the parking garage, I passed a section where every single car was a Porsche. This seemed odd. The place looked like a dealership. There were several Panamera's, a bunch of 911's, a Macan, and two Cayene's. I looked a little closer and wasn't entirely surprised to discover that this was the reserved parking area for doctors. Even my old doctor in the hood drives a Porsche. I'm amazed that it hasn't been stolen yet.

It's still hard to get used to a medical facility where the lobby isn't crowded and everyone is polite to me. I only had to wait a few minutes before they took me back to the lab for blood work. I have to drive a little further, but I think I'm going to like this place.

I fixed my regular breakfast smoothie when I got home, but it was more like lunch than breakfast. Since it was a warm, clear day, I had planned to spend the afternoon repairing the roof. I don't know why I thought I could do this quickly. Nothing happens quickly on the roof. I started by cutting out the section that had gotten ruined by the rain. When I cleared away the debris, I noticed that there was water seeping out around the edges of the square hole I had made in the coating. I'm beginning to think that there is a thin layer of water under the entire roof. I removed some more of the rubbery material, hoping that I would find the end of the water, but the asphalt under the elastomer coating was damp everywhere I looked. I gave up and went back inside. It was clear that I wasn't going to be able to re-coat this damaged area today. Luckily, there is no rain in the forecast. I'll let things dry out for a few days and try again.

I had a lot more success with the large format printer in my office. I finally managed to get the thing unclogged and running normally again. This is a pointless exercise since I don't make large prints anymore, but I can't stand the idea of having a large nonfunctioning piece of equipment taking up space in the office. The printer will clog again, but if I get the urge to make a huge print within the next two weeks, everything should be fine.

The gift card people finally refunded our money. It took four months and they were rude the entire time. They lost our documentation twice and basically treated us like we were the scammers. All I've got to say is don't ever buy a gift card at a grocery store. This scam is well documented on the Consumer Reports website. It is apparently not that hard for someone to get your information before you even buy the card and when you go to use it for the first time, the money is already gone.

I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow. This is the only time I go to the mall. I"ll probably stop at the Tesla store for a few minutes and look enviously at the Model X. Maybe I'll stop at the Apple Store to and see if I'm tempted by the iPhone X. In both cases, I'm guessing the X stands for x-pensive.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

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Day 2405

Things didn't go exactly as planned today. My blood test took forever. The clinic wanted me to fill out new paperwork. Why? "I've been coming to see you guys for over fifteen years," I said. "And nothing has changed. "Oh, we're just updating our records," a nurse told me. I guess she didn't understand. As I said, nothing has changed.

I asked the guy drawing my blood what my blood type was. I've had hundreds of blood tests, and I still don't know what my blood type is.  "Oh, we don't normally do this test," he told me, "because insurance won't pay for it." You've got to be kidding me. I find it hard to believe that insurance will routinely pay for dozens of weird esoteric tests that might not have any real value, but they won't even tell you what your blood type is.

The weather looked fine when I arrived at the clinic early this morning. By the time I left, there were dark, ominous looking storm clouds to the North of me. I checked the weather radar on my phone and they were definitely headed my way. Since my storm phobic dogs were home alone, I decided not to go out for breakfast this morning and headed straight home. Five minutes after I pulled into the driveway, the wind picked up and a major downpour started. It's been a long time since we've had this much rain in July.

The refrigerator is always pretty empty at the end of the week, but I did manage to find a package of toaster waffles in the freezer. I would have preferred Eggs Benedict, but frozen waffles will have to do this week. Breakfast wasn't all that great, but the dogs were glad to have me around. Dot and Dash both stayed calm and by noon the unexpected rain was over.

It's seems like there's a new catastrophe every day. Today there was a military coup in Turkey. This is so confusing. The Turkish army wants to preserve the country's secular heritage, destroy ISIS, and restore democracy, which is something you'd think we'd approve of. The current elected president is well on his way to becoming a dictator and is doing his best to turn Turkey into an Islamic state. So, who does our president support? Well it isn't the army. It wouldn't be the first time we picked the wrong side. It's almost impossible to tell who the good guys are in the Middle East anyway. Maybe there aren't any good guys.

I'm starting to see Jimson Weed flowers in the park. This plant always makes me nervous because it is so toxic. All parts of the plant are highly poisonous and you definitely don't want your dogs to be eating them. People have died from mistakenly using Jimson Weed leaves to brew tea, or from eating the roots. It's odd that the flowers are so pretty. Nature can be deadly, but I'm still more worried about people.

Lots of poop to clean up today. I guess with everything I've been seeing on TV lately, this is a very minor problem.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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