Day 3404

Maybe getting enough sleep is overrated. I've been getting almost eight hours of sleep a night for the past several days and I still feel tired. I get up, make the bed, and follow my routine, but it feels like I'm sleepwalking. It's hard to find a reason to do anything. Time fixes these things. It has in the past and it will now. Time moves very slowly though. It's going to be a long Summer.

I don't know why I thought the gym would be crowded today. It wasn't. There were even fewer people on the floor than there are on Sundays. The younger people were probably doing something outside today because the weather was beautiful. I probably should have been doing something outside too. When my workout was finished I felt like I'd actually gotten more exercise on yesterday's three mile walk. The walk felt more strenuous anyway. I guess the trip to the gym was worthwhile. I was very coordinated on the basketball court this afternoon. I wonder why some days I can sink baskets like clockwork and other days I can't hit anything? Try as I may to be consistent, it doesn't always happen.

I bought some socks on the way home from the gym. Socks don't last very long with me. Pants will last several years and shirts will last forever, but socks don't hold up well. They all develop holes in the heel very quickly. It probably doesn't help that I never wear shoes in the house. I wear socks like slippers. They're comfortable and keep my feet from getting cold on the brick floors. I don't understand the whole concept of sandals. I want my feet to stay warm.

I finished cleaning the car today. Cleaning the car is so much easier than cleaning the house. A car is small and manageable. The house just seems like a bottomless pit. I cleaned all the black gunk off the wheels with soap and water. Land Rover wheels always seem to be dirtier than other cars. Older Mercedes seem to have this problem as well. I don't drive much, but I can never seem to keep these wheels clean. I think as the brake pads wear down, they deposit a thin film of black residue on the wheels. I may be wrong though.

I'm getting tired of the huge sizes at Sam's Club and Costco. Buying in bulk saves money, but where do you put the stuff? I think I've reached the point where I'm willing to pay more for smaller packages of paper towels and toilet paper. We just don't have room for 45 rolls of toilet paper. I don't need a gallon of Windex either. A little bottle will do just fine.

Passover and Easter coincide this year. It has always seemed curious to me that these holidays don't always coincide. Occasionally Passover and Easter are a month apart. It's all the Moon's fault. The date for Passover is determined by the Hebrew Calendar and the date for Easter is determined by the Gregorian calendar. Both holidays are supposed to fall on or near a full moon in early Spring, but a lunar month isn't exactly 28 days and a solar year isn't exactly 365 days. It can get complicated. You'd think that after all these years we could have come up with a better way to measure time.

It seemed like Sunday today because I went to the gym and Janet fixed a special meal. I'm confused. I wonder what it will seem like tomorrow?

Wilson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3005

I certainly didn't accomplish much today. I did my grocery shopping and filled the car up with gas, but that was about it. Janet was away at a Dalmatian Rescue event today. Dash usually follows Janet around like glue on weekends, but he didn't seem to notice she was gone. I suspect he just thought it was another work day. We ate breakfast and took our morning walk just like we did yesterday and then I started my Saturday errands. When I returned Dash was asleep.

I spent a long time trying to figure out where to store a huge box of toilet paper I got at Sam's Club. Buying in bulk does save money, but it sure is difficult to store the stuff when you're living in a small house. I guess I could have done some house cleaning, but I got distracted looking for a technical service manual for my refrigerator online. There are all types of sites that will sell you duplicate service manuals, but I wanted to find a free one. I eventually found what I was looking for and started reading the diagnostic section. It's probably not helpful that I want to figure out what is wrong before the service technician arrives on Monday, but that's just the type of guy I am.

I suspect that one of the two remaining original thermistors has gone bad. Hopefully that's all it is. If the mother board I replaced a few months ago is already defective, I've got a big problem. Truthfully, I have no idea why the refrigerator isn't working. It should be working perfectly. When I read through the technical service manual, it appeared that the previous technicians had done exactly what the manual recommended.

While I was searching for the cause of my refrigerator problem, I started looking up the side effects of some some of the meds I'm taking. That was a mistake. A hypochondriac should never start reading about side effects. It's easy to imagine that you have all of them. I'm trying to decide whether a brand name drug I'm taking is worth the extra money. The brand name and the generic are similar, but for some reason the side effects are different. After comparing both, I felt like someone was telling me to pick my poison. I miss the days when I didn't even have a doctor and took no meds at all. As you might expect, those days were a long, long time ago.

We were going to go out for pizza tonight, but Janet ended up getting a free pizza at the grocery store.   We thought about going out anyway and then it started to rain. Once I started to hear thunder, I knew we were staying home. We've learned that it isn't wise to leave Dash alone in a storm. The free Tom Thumb pizza wasn't bad, but it didn't come close to the pies at our neighborhood Italian restaurant. Who knows when we'll have the urge for pizza again. Usually, both of us eat amazingly healthy meals. Sometimes you just crave pizza though.

I hope I wake up tomorrow with more motivation than I had today. I could have easily stayed in bed all day. Luckily, I don't need motivation to go to the gym. I've never been motivated to go to the gym. I just go because that's what I do on Sunday.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2901

Dash apparently didn't get the memo about sleeping in this morning. He woke me up every hour on the hour last night to go outside. I thought that he was sick and had a bad case of diarrhea, but when I went out to clean up his poop in the morning, everything was normal. What had caused this strange change in behavior? It had to be being left alone for most of the day. He still got two walks in the park and all his regular meals yesterday, but they weren't at the regular times he was expecting. Maybe this was enough to throw him completely off schedule. I'd hate to think that I have to do everything at precisely the same time every day just to get a good night's sleep, but maybe it's come to this. The older Dash gets, the less he likes surprises and change. I think I understand how he feels. I don't deal with surprises and change very well either. Not to worry. We'll be back to our regular routine tomorrow morning. It's boring, but it's reassuring to both of us.

Since I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, I kind of stumbled through the day. I didn't feel like cooking, so I ate a leftover breakfast burrito from yesterday's photo shoot. They were pretty good. I asked Janet where these things came from and she said McDonalds. What? I was eating food from McDonalds and liking it. Who would have thought. I can't recall ever being inside a McDonalds. Like Walmart, this is a place I studiously avoid. Maybe I've been wrong all along. Will I be eating Big Macs and McRib Sandwiches a month from now? Who  knows?

We somehow ran out of all the things we buy in bulk at the same time, so the car was pretty full when I returned from the grocery store. The only problem with buying things like paper towels and toilet paper at Costco or Sam's Club is where do you put the stuff when you get home? It took me forever to find a place to store the huge box of toilet paper I got today. I don't think we need to worry about running out for a while.

I've been watching the weather forecast and it looked like today might be my last opportunity to work on the roof before it rains again. I didn't attempt anything major because it might rain as early as tomorrow morning. So far, my patches are looking pretty good. There were a few Oak leaves embedded in the coating I applied yesterday, but I don't think they'll hurt anything. At this time of year, falling leaves are inevitable. We've got two mature Red Oak trees, an Elm tree, and two Live Oaks in out backyard. Most of the leaves from these trees winds up on the roof every Fall. It looks like I'm going to have to buy some more coating material again. I've got less than one gallon left. I've applied ten gallons of the stuff already and there are still large expanses that I haven't even touched. At $40 a gallon, I'd hate to even think how much it would cost to re-coat the entire roof.

I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon and Janet and I are going to a Christmas party in the evening. This leaves just enough time to walk Dash and drink my morning smoothie. Luckily, I'm actually ahead of schedule on my website project. I'd like to think I'm done, but you're never really done on these type of things. I'm going to try to get a good night's sleep tonight, but that all depends on Dash. When I took him out to pee a little while ago, I took a look at tonight's super moon. I guess it did look a little bit bigger, but I definitely wouldn't call it super. Anything within 10% of its normal size all looks the same to me.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day