Day 3598 - Halloween

The only thing spooky about today was listening to the roofer this morning remind me of all the things that were wrong with my roof. I was impressed with this roofer's knowledge and experience, but I didn't hear much that I didn't already know. My roof is almost impossible to keep repairing at this point and it is going to be very expensive to replace. Due to the odd shape of the house, adding a slight pitch to the roof so it will drain properly will be complex. Putting on a new roof without eliminating the low spots won't eliminate the standing water problem.

I got the impression that if I wanted the roof to look and function the way it did in 1955, I might as well just build a new house. The large open atrium in the center of the house, a gas line on the roof, and multiple areas where settling has caused rain water to accumulate all add up to a complicated and expensive problem. This roofer, like many of the others who have given me bids, concluded that it would be prohibitively expensive to remove all the plywood decking and add a taper to the beams. He didn't think an engineered roof with foam panels creating a slope would work well either. He did say he could put on a roof that he would warranty for fifteen years whether it was under water or not. That should be enough. Fifteen years from now they'll be carting me off to assisted living anyway. One of the most interesting solutions would be to cover the entire roof with spray on truck bed liner. This would be too expensive, but it would make a tough, durable roof.

I didn't get any good news about the sliding glass door either. Nobody makes doors this large anymore. Nobody has parts for old style doors either. I could have a custom door manufactured, but it probably wouldn't look the same. It's too bad that the only guy in town who could fix my door died.

It was below freezing when I woke up this morning and it was still very cold when I took my morning walk. It was a clear sunny day which made it difficult to dress properly. When the wind wasn't blowing, I was too hot. Down by the shoreline where it was still quite windy, I was too cold. For some reason, my feet hurt more than usual today. By the time I returned home, I was ready to go back to bed.

I did go vote today. The only thing on the ballot were propositions and constitutional amendments. The lack of candidates running for office made this a very low turnout election. It was a good thing there wasn't a line, because there were brand new voting machines and voting was more complex than usual. You were given a blank paper ballot which was inserted into the voting machine. You made your selections electronically on the screen and then the machine spit out a printed ballot with your voting choices. You took this printed ballot to another machine which scanned the results and then saved the paper ballot as a backup. I guess all this complexity is to prevent someone from hacking the system, but you'd think they would have come up with an easier way to accomplish this.

I just realized that I have a dental appointment on Monday when we visit the Dalmatians. I was going to reschedule tomorrow and then I learned that dentists have a four day work week. Most of them are closed on Friday. Why did I not know this before? Janet told me it has always been this way. Restaurants are always open on Friday, but I can't decide whether I want to go our for breakfast tomorrow. I'm losing interest in my breakfast outings.

Roxy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2830

It never ends. I was just getting ready to go to the grocery store this afternoon when I heard a horrendous noise. I went outside to see what had happened and discovered that a big chunk of our elm tree has just fallen on the roof. I wasn't expecting this. There was no wind today and the large branch that had fallen was alive and filled with leaves. I didn't do anything immediately, but knew how I was going to be spending the rest of the afternoon as soon as I returned from the store.

I guess I should have expected this. The day certainly didn't get off to a good start. Dash wouldn't eat anything this morning. He even turned up his nose at the canned food he normally loves. This was kind of a crisis, because it is essential that he takes his phenobarbital pills to prevent seizures and they must be taken with food. I finally got him to take his morning pills inside several balls of cheddar cheese. We needed him to eat more than a little cheese, so we scrambled an egg for him. He ate the egg and then immediately went back to sleep.

Dash's poor appetite has me worried. I called his regular vet and made an appointment for early next week. Then I called the emergency vet who bandaged him up last Tuesday to see whether the antibiotics she prescribed might be part of the problem. Since Cephalexin does cause loss of appetite with some dogs, she decided to stop the medication and see if we notice any changes in the next 24 hours. I think this will be OK, since the dewclaw wound is healing nicely and doesn't seem to be infected. Hopefully, the antibiotics are causing the problem. Otherwise this might be tough to diagnose. I'm always worried that Dash's cancer could have returned. That could certainly cause a loss of appetite.

When I returned from the grocery store today, I pulled a heavy duty reciprocal saw up to the roof with a rope and began sawing apart the elm tree that had fallen. This was a very large branch and I was surprised that it didn't seriously damage the roof. I guess the little branches with green leaves fell first and cushioned the blow. This job would have been a lot easier with a chain saw, but I'm scared to death of chain saws. I won't go near them after a friend of mine practically sawed his face off with one. Wood is heavy. I feel like I sawed about a thousand pounds of wood this afternoon. Too bad we've already had big trash day for September. I don't know what I'm going to do with all this wood until the next big trash day.

I was dreading this evening because Janet is away at a Dalmatian Rescue event. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as I expected. I managed to get Dash to take a decent walk on his own. He took all his evening pills and I was even able to get him to eat a small dinner. I had to hand feed him, but considering the problems we had this morning, this is progress.

The refrigerator doesn't seem to be working again. It seemed too warm this evening when I was preparing dinner. Maybe Janet just left the door open a long time when she was loading in new groceries. We'll see if it cools down again by morning. I guess it would make sense that there would still be problems. The appliance repairmen still haven't returned to install the new thermostats they ordered. It's entirely possible that the coil has frozen again. I'll have to call the repair shop on Monday and see what the delay is. They should have been able to find a thermostat by now.

I hope Dash is feeling better tomorrow. It might be a really long day. I don't know any magic formula to get Dash eating again. I guess if things continue to deteriorate, I can always try feeding him whatever I'm eating. I'll have to make a point of eating something healthy though.

Sage is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2816

Traveling with Dash in the car is usually a disaster. Today was no exception. We made it to our appointment with the photographer this morning without incident. I think she even got some good pictures. The trip home was the problem. We had almost made it back to the house when Janet noticed that there was blood everywhere. Dash had ripped out one of his dew claws. Don't ask me how it happened. I don't know. He was fine when we got him in the car. He was fairly calm on the way home and didn't appear to get his nail caught on anything. He didn't even yelp or appear in pain. One minute he was sitting on his bed and the next minute there was blood everywhere.

We took him to the vet to stop the bleeding and see if he needed stitches. They were really busy, so we had to drop him off and pick him up later in the afternoon. When he returned, he had a bandage on his paw and was wearing a cone. The vet thinks he will be fine, but we need to keep him from chewing the bandage or getting it wet. Hopefully, the dewclaw will grow back. Dot lost a nail once when she got it caught in a crack in the pavement while on a walk. Her nail eventually did grow back, but it grew in crooked for some reason.

Dash hates wearing the cone and bumps into everything. Hopefully, we can take it off tomorrow. The bandage needs to come off pretty soon as well. There will be less risk of infection if the wound is exposed to the air. To be safe, he is taking antibiotics, but a damp or wet bandage is not what we want right now.

Taking Dash to have his portrait made and then taking him to the vet to get treated used up a big chunk of the day. I feel bad. Maybe if we had trimmed his nails a little sooner, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. I'm really nervous about taking Dash in the car now. Bad things seem to happen whenever Dash rides in the car.

I ran my Saturday errands while Dash was at the vet and when he returned, I spent the rest of the afternoon with him to keep him calm. It wasn't that hard to keep Dash calm. He was really tired and pretty soon both of us were asleep on the bed.

Janet thought the refrigerator was broken again, but I thought she just left the door open too long while loading in new groceries. It still seems to be working to me. At any rate, the appliance repairmen will be returning next week anyway to install the new thermostats they ordered. I'm more worried about the shower. I had to use the wet/dry vacuum again today to clear away the water that had collected under the tiles. I think the shower pan will prevent the water from getting into the rest of the house, but it still shouldn't be getting under the tiles.

I hope Dash is back to normal soon. One problem after another is wearing me down. I feel vaguely guilty being bothered about trivial problems, because every time I turn on the TV, it seems like the rest of the world is dealing with huge, almost apocalyptic problems. A torn nail is nothing compared to a hurricane. I'm sure it's a big deal to Dash though. The little guy seemed pitiful today.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2464

A client wanted some advice about where to host his website. He gave me a price for 32 years and asked me if it was a good deal. I've been doing this for a long time, but I'd never heard of anyone wanting to renew a hosting agreement for 32 years at a time. I did the math and converted the price to a more normal 3 or 5 year contract. OK. The price was in the ball park. Later in the day the client said he'd made a typo and the price was actually just for 3 years. Oops. That changes everything. The price suddenly seemed insanely high. You've got to watch those typos.

This error on the client's part must have been an omen, because my own day was filled with a host of little errors and few of them worked out in my favor. After cleaning a poop soiled rug that took an inordinately long time to dry, I put it down on the floor again and within five minutes Dot pooped on the same rug all over again.

I went up on the roof to mark the bad spots for the roofers and discovered a lot of brand new areas where the elastometric coating was peeling away. The roof had deteriorated further over the weekend. Some of the new damage was on patches that had been applied less than a month ago. This is not good. I really need an entirely new roof, but it is going to be very difficult to convince the roofer that the roof is fundamentally defective.

I finally got around to opening the package of printer ink I'd ordered recently and discovered that the company had sent me the wrong ink. Now, instead of just installing the cartridges in the printer, I will need to return the ink and have my supplier reship the correct cartridges. The supplier apologized and said they ship me replacement cartridges today, but this was one more instance where something that should have been easy turned into something difficult.

When I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, one of my refills was on back order, so I'll need to go back again tomorrow. This wasn't a big deal, but it made me tired. I don't like taking these pills in the first place. Somebody ought to make the whole process easier. It seems like I'm always asking doctors to renew prescriptions or returning to the pharmacy to pick up something that the automatic refill process said was ready. I just need to resign myself to the fact that nothing is going to work flawlessly ever again. The world is broken.

Dash woke me up coughing last night and Janet and I were both worried that he had kennel cough. Dot is so fragile now that the last thing we need is for her to get sick. I made a mental not to call the vet, but this morning everything seemed fine. Dash hasn't coughed all day. I don't know what was going on last night, but my theory is that he ate a frog when he went out to pee last night. Our yard has been full of frogs and toads lately and the dogs are very curious about them.

I have a lot of little chores on my to-do list for tomorrow. I hope at least a few of them go smoothly.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day