Day 3196

I'm fascinated by the new quick and easy meals I've discovered. I never heard of Cadence Gourmet before, but I'm going to remember the name. Gourmet recipes using fresh, organic, locally sourced ingredients are flash frozen using liquid nitrogen so the ingredients maintain their texture, color, nutrients and flavor. The fish, meat, vegetables, and sauces are encapsulated in what can only be described as rock solid frozen eggs. Toss these weird looking nodules in a frying pan and fifteen minutes later you have an amazing meal that looks and tastes fantastic. Why didn't I discover this concept earlier? Flash freeing in nitrogen doesn't taste frozen at all. Portion sizes aren't a problem either. Each recipe is sold by the pound at a self-serve kiosk. Buy as much or as little as you want. It would have taken me forever to fix the Thai Green Curry Shrimp I had this evening. Piece of cake. This is a game changer for a lazy gourmet like me. Maybe I'll have the Chicken Tikka Masala tomorrow.

Dash has thrown me another curve. When he wakes up at night, he now has trouble standing. I have to be ready to help him off the bed, so he won't stumble and fall. I have to steady him as he regains his footing and hope that he doesn't poop before I can gently lead him out the back door. He's already fallen off the bed once or twice when I didn't wake up in time. I wish I could convince Dash to sleep  on the floor in a dog bed, but he is very stubborn. He doesn't want to wear his harness to bed either. It would be a lot easier to lift him on and off the bed using the handle on the harness. This is still a work in progress. Dot went through a period when she still wanted to sleep on the bed, even though it was no longer practical. She eventually learned that it was safer and more comfortable to sleep on the floor. Hopefully, Dash will learn this too.

The weather is improving. I saw a patch of blue sky today and the water dripping from the living room ceiling has finally stopped. Since there is still some standing water directly over where the leak is located, I'm not sure where this leak actually originates. Water tends to follow the path of least resistance, so the leak could be anywhere. I'll call the roofer tomorrow, but I'm not very optimistic.

One of the dogs Janet and I photographed recently has already been adopted. That's good news. I wish there was more good news. With a deteriorating house, an aging sick dog, and a crumbling business, good news is in short supply. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Maybe I'll see another Great Egret on our walk. Maybe Dash's poop will be firm. Maybe the stock market will rally. I'm certainly not going to watch the cable news channels. That would spoil everything.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2905

It's supposed to freeze tonight. This isn't supposed to happen in Dallas, but here we are again. The Farmer's Almanac predicts a cold, snowy winter this year. I hope they aren't right. Cold weather is infrequent, so I'm usually not well prepared. I remembered to take the battery out of the electric lawn mower and bring it inside. One year I forgot and the battery was destroyed. I remembered to set the faucet on drip in the greenhouse for the same reason. One year I forgot and the pipes broke.

I really didn't want to go up on the roof today because it was so cold. I remembered what can happen when ice builds up on the roof though, and reluctantly cleared away all the standing water. It was a miserable job, but the good news is that the patches I've made recently appear to be solid. I wish I'd used up all the elastomer material now. The small amount that is still in the container probably won't be usable after a freeze. There used to be potted plants I would bring inside for the winter, but they are all dead now. I guess I'm as ready for cold weather as I'll ever be. I just hope that we don't have a power outage this winter. Some of my worst memories are of sitting inside a freezing house for four days, waiting for the power to be restored after an ice storm.

Dash woke us up last night to go outside, but luckily he wasn't sick. He just needed to poop. Even though he slept well, he still seemed a bit shaky this morning. He took a shorter walk than normal and didn't eat all his breakfast. Often it takes quite a while to fully recover from a vestibular event. When Dash is agitated of frightened, he doesn't like to be alone. I usually curl up with him on the bed until he relaxes and goes to sleep. Then I sneak off to the office and try to get some work done before he wakes up again.

I did some more work on my website project today. I suppose it's time to show something to the client, but I know as soon as I take that step, the fun is over. No matter how beautiful or functional I think things are, clients always want to change something. I didn't spend a huge amount of time selecting images for this project because I know that they are probably just placeholders. Pictures are so easy to change that they are never sacred. The best thing about this project is that the client wants to manage things themselves. When I hand over the keys, I'm probably done.

I finished all the left overs yesterday, so I made some pasta with whatever I could find in the refrigerator. I'm always surprised how tasty my desperation dinners are. Whole wheat noodles, Italian sausage, carrots, cucumbers, and tamarind sauce actually go together quite well. I'm too lazy to be much of a cook, but when I make an effort, the results are usually delicious.

I've got a rare client meeting tomorrow morning. I wish Dash had fully recovered by now, but as of this evening he seems a lot better. We'll see how he is in the morning. If he's shaky, I can always cancel the meeting. There just aren't any projects that matter that much anymore. Dash comes first. I hope Dash is feeling good tomorrow. It would be nice to make a little extra money.

Humphrey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2703

It's even harder to tell what day it is now that I'm not going out to breakfast on Friday morning. I'll have to say that my pancakes were pretty good though. They were better than any restaurant pancakes. The only problem was that I had to reheat them in the microwave half a dozen times because every time I took a bite, Dot wanted to go outside.

Dot's new schedule is perplexing. She generally wakes up in a good mood. We take our early morning walk and sometimes she eats a little while Dash is eating his breakfast. By the time I give Dot her morning pills, Dash is usually taking a nap. After taking her pills, I try to feed Dot again, but usually she isn't hungry. She doesn't want to rest either. I might as well just skip breakfast because I'm constantly moving Dot around for the first hour or so after she takes her medication. She doesn't seems to be uncomfortable. She is just restless. We walk around a lot. I figure this is good exercise for her. Eventually she gets tired and goes into a deep sleep. She sleeps more soundly during this period of time than she does at night. By the time I wake her up for her afternoon pills her appetite has generally returned. She eats most of her food between 4 and 6 PM. Sometimes she'll eat more as the evening progresses. If I'm lucky, she'll take a nap when I'm writing the blog and then just when I'm getting ready for bed, she becomes active again.

This type of activity is not conducive to getting much done. It's not great for getting a lot of sleep either, because now there's an additional trip outside to pee every morning around 2 AM. We've learned to adapt to the incontinence, the mobility problems, and the eating difficulties. It makes you wonder what's going to happen next though.

After Dot went to sleep, I drove to Central Market and got some food for the weekend. They were having some kind of celebration of southern cooking, so there were all kinds of tasty new items in the Chef Prepared section. We seldom cook anymore, so something new in the deli section is always a treat. Tonight we had grilled shrimp and Andouille sausage over a bed of smoked grits and red onions. It would have taken hours to make something like this at home. Cooking is overrated.

Dot's changing moods throughout the day make me wonder how the pain pills actually work. I would think by giving her the medication every eight hours, that she would be pain free all the time. Maybe the pills don't really last eight hours though. Maybe it takes a long time for the medication to actually enter her bloodstream. I hope Dot's restless periods aren't just times where she is still in pain. This will be a question for the oncologist when we go back to the cancer center for a recheck next Tuesday. Cancer pain and neurological pain are very different. I'd like to learn more about what is actually happening when we give her these pills.

There are supposed to be thunderstorms tonight. I can see them on the radar West of Fort Worth. Let's hope the go to the North or South of us. I'm not in the mood for thunderstorms.

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2695

I'm running on empty. Dot has become nocturnal. She sleeps during the day and becomes restless at night when I'm trying to sleep. I sleep on the floor with her now, so I'm nearby when she needs to get up. Last night she went outside three times in the middle of the night to pee. I guess this is better than peeing in her bed, but I sure am tired. Dot didn't throw up last night, so I guess the Cerenia pill helped. I should have given her a full dose instead of the half dose I usually give Dash. I could tell she still had an upset stomach, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the previous night. I"ll give her the full dose tonight and hopefully she'll sleep better.

When I woke up this morning Janet had already walked Dash and was almost ready for work. I didn't think I slept at all last night, but I must have dozed off, because I wasn't even aware of Janet and Dash leaving the house. Dot was sleeping soundly too. Finally. I delayed giving her morning pills so she could sleep longer and get some rest.

Dot worried me today. She was too tired to take her regular morning walk. Basically, she slept all day except when it was necessary to take her medications. Dot wouldn't even drink water this morning which was troubling. After one of her vets warned me about dehydration, I've become very conscious of how much water she drinks during the day. I thought I was going to have to learn how to use a syringe to hydrate Dot, but around 4 PM this afternoon, she woke up hungry and thirsty. I held her up by her water bowl for over fifteen minutes as she took tiny sips. Eventually, I saw the water level in the bowl go down a bit and I felt comfortable that she was getting enough water.

I never know what Dot is going to eat. The only thing I could get her to eat with her morning pills were thinly sliced pieces of turkey. I asked Janet to pick up more of this turkey on her way home from work because it seemed like our only remaining option. Dot slept soundly for most of the day. When I woke her up to take her afternoon pills, I was pleased to see that her appetite had returned. I was feeding Dash at the time and she went over to his bowl and started eating his food. Both dogs were eating out of the same bowl for a while, so I kind of lost track of how much food Dot actually consumed.

I'm going to have to do something about the bugs in our yard. When I'm holding Dot's harness and waiting for her to pee, it doesn't take long for the chiggers and mosquitoes to find me. I've already been bitten more times than I was all last summer. Chiggers are much worse than mosquitoes. The bites quickly become big red welts that take almost a week to subside. I'm still looking for that idyllic, imaginary place with no bugs, no snakes, and mild rain free weather.

My Friday morning breakfast outings are on hiatus for a while. Dot has simply become too frail to leave alone for any length of time. That's OK. I think I'll learn how to make pancakes and waffles again. I already can make a pretty decent omelette and my French Toast recipe is delicious. I'm in the mood for pancakes though. We'll see if I can make pancakes and sausages without making a huge mess in the kitchen.

If Dot doesn't sleep wall tonight, I'm going to have to become nocturnal myself. Sleeping during the day with the dogs never used to be an option, but work has gotten so slow lately that it probably doesn't matter when I sleep. The way I feel now, I might sleep for the entire weekend.

Dixie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2276

We survived the rain. I didn't get much sleep last night, because every time there was a thunderclap, one of the dogs would wake up in a panic and start barking. Every time Dot barked, I kept thinking she was going to poop, but she didn't. There is no predicting these things anymore. Both dogs wisely chose to forgo their morning walk when it began raining even harder at daybreak. I thought Dash was going to explode, but after seven or eight trips to the back door, he finally decided that it wouldn't kill him to poop in the yard. With all this going on, breakfast took a little longer than usual. That was fine with me. There wasn't much else to do anyway.

When I turned on the pump this morning, it wasn't working. Against my better judgement, I climbed up on the roof to investigate and discovered that it had become clogged with debris falling from the trees. up. It's that time of year again. Oak trees flower in the Spring right before the leaves start to form. The small flowers, called catkins, are arranged in long drooping spirals that quickly fall off the tree and land on the roof. They are just the right size to totally clog the sump pump. I've burned up several pumps this way. At any rate, I cleaned the gunk out of the pump, got it working again, and since the rain had temporarily stopped, decided to stay on the roof and clear away the remaining water myself. It was a fairly futile gesture, since the rain started again almost as soon as I was finished, but it beat sitting inside and listening to the dehumidifier.

Dot had a good day at her physical therapy session. Maybe she had more energy today, since we didn't take a morning walk. After last week's disappointing performance, I was worried that the cumulative effect of the Paladia pills was making Dot too weak for her water therapy exercises, but she was fine this week. She did poop in the lobby as soon as we arrived at the vet, but that was a huge improvement over pooping in my car like she did last week. It was still raining when we returned home, but luckily the traffic wasn't bad today. Just about every aspect of today involved getting wet.

I'm getting bored with my diet again. I wish it wasn't so much trouble to cook Chinese or Thai food, because I'm getting hungry for Pad Thai. Unfortunately, it's way too much trouble to assemble all the ingredients for a quick dinner for one. I tried to make this dish a long time ago and quickly discovered that mixing together tamarind paste, fish sauce, rice noodles, bean sprouts, eggs, chiles, green onions, sliced pork, peanuts, and sundry other ingredients was way out of my league. It is much easier to just make a cheeseburger.

Maybe I'll have a cheeseburger tomorrow. I need to get my March invoices out and get started on my taxes. I need to do a lot of things, but if it keeps raining I'm just going to be cleaning up wet dogs.

Val is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2249

I had a strange experience today. I received an official looking letter from a law firm addressed to somebody I'd never heard of in my life living at my address. Only three people have ever lived in this house since it was built in 1955, so I knew something was fishy. I Googled the name of the law firm and discovered a laundry list of complaints, saying that these people were scammers and to never pay them. There were an almost equal number of comments saying that the firm was a legitimate collection agency often hired by municipalities to collect unpaid traffic tickets, toll road tolls, and court judgements.

I opened the letter and sure enough it was an order demanding the mysterious recipient immediately pay a local Justice of the Peace court $800. I called the court and sure enough, the man named in the letter was real and had a case file. They didn't know how my address had become associated with the case and told me that they had sent the collection agency a different address several years ago. They didn't seem very concerned and told me to call the law firm that sent me the letter if I still had questions. I called the law firm, expecting a lot of trouble because of all the bad Yelp reviews, but they were quite nice and told me they would take my address out of their database and I wouldn't be getting any more threatening letters. When I asked how my address had become associated with the person they were actually trying to reach, they didn't have a clue. Both the court and the law firm were so casual about this mix-up that I got the impression that it happens everyday. They just didn't seem to care. This unusual civics lesson certainly didn't inspire much confidence in either our legal system or bureaucracies in general.

The cancer center called today with Dot's initial lab results. It appears that her kidneys and liver are still functioning normally, but they still want to see her again next week. I tried to get a blood pressure reading while Dot was at her therapy session this morning but the clinic's blood pressure monitor was malfunctioning. I'll have to schedule weekly blood pressure monitoring at the cancer center instead. One more vet appointment in a long list of ongoing vet appointments. Dot did quite well in the underwater treadmill today. She seemed to have more energy than I did.

When I was preparing dinner tonight, Dot looked like she was getting ready to poop. I rushed to get her outside and quickly pushed all the food to the back of the kitchen counter so Dash wouldn't eat it while I was outside. When I returned a few minutes later, I was surprised to discover that one of the stove-top burners was on and had partially melted a nearby bottle of mayonnaise. Yikes! When I pushed the food to the back of the counter, I must have inadvertently turned on one of the burners. This just goes to show that there are very few scenarios where something can't go horribly wrong. Luckily, no harm was done, but the incident reminded me of the dangers of being in a hurry. I am so slow and methodical that it drives people crazy, but apparently I should have acted a bit slower in this situation.

I have a photoshoot this weekend where my client is actually a committee of people. I think I will have to multiply the amount of time I think the job should take by the number of people in the committee to find out complicated this assignment really is. The fewer the people the better has always been my motto, but I'll do the best I can. One of the people on the committee is another photographer, which ought to make things even more interesting. Anybody who works with ad agencies would find this situation completely normal, but I haven't dealt with agencies for quite a while. I'm going to have to be on my best behavior so these people won't think I'm a grumpy old man. Who am I kidding? I am a grumpy old man.

Laday Gogh is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2248

I couldn't figure out why I've been getting more telemarketing calls lately and then I discovered that Facebook had added a "Call Now" button to my company page. They didn't ask me if I wanted this button. They just added it. This is typical of Facebook. They add, subtract, and change things routinely without any warning. Needless to say, I didn't want a "Call Now" button on my Facebook page. I get enough junk calls as it is. I deleted the button and hopefully things will go back to normal.

It's time to renew my car insurance again. Why do insurance rates always go up? They never seem to go down. I now pay more to insure one car than I used to pay when I insured two. Homeowners insurance, health insurance, liability insurance; it's all the same. Rates go up, but when you read the fine print, you discover that your coverage has actually decreased. There's not much you can do unfortunately. I paid my bill and resigned myself to another month of frugality and living within my means.

At least I had a few good years back when the world was sane. I'd hate to be young and entering the workforce right now. For the most part, young people are fucked. Salaries have declined. Job security is non-existent. And virtually everything has gotten more expensive. I think I only paid about $1,500 per semester for college and I got a very good education. I had no student loans and graduated with no debt. I had a part-time job in the college library that paid for most of my expenses. This would be impossible these days. No wonder college kids are overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders. High taxes mean nothing if you've got no money to begin with. If I were young, I'd definitely be feeling the Bern.

When I was fixing dinner tonight, I noticed that the steamed vegetables I was going to warm up for dinner had a bad smell to them. I threw them away. I only bought these vegetables on Sunday, so they shouldn't have gone bad already. This happens frequently now. Janet and I don't cook much anymore, so I buy a lot of food at the chef prepared counter at Central Market. Everything tastes great if you eat it right away, but it doesn't last long. I'm beginning to think that Central Market uses this deli counter to get rid of food in the store that is nearing it's expiration date. Nothing in the chef prepared section seems to last longer than three days, and if you pick up something that was made using milk or dairy products, you'd better eat it right away. I still don't like to cook. I wish I could find fresh, tasty food that lasted all week and didn't require much preparation. My breakfast smoothies are perfect. Eggs easily last a week. Bananas and fresh fruit last quite a while, if you make sure they're not too ripe when you buy them. Ice cream lasts forever in the freezer. Ditto for oatmeal. Dump these ingredients in the Vitamix and thirty second later you've got a delicious meal. Dinners are more problematic. I like to eat something solid for dinner.

I need to remember that Dot's physical therapy appointment is earlier than usual tomorrow. It's hard enough staying on schedule at her regular time. I'm going to have to get up early. Wait. I get up early every day. I'm going to have to do something else.

Landry is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1972

There's nothing like waking up to the sound of tornado warning sirens. The dogs and I were sleeping soundly when the sirens went off, but we got up quickly to see what was going on. The dogs know what these sirens mean by now, so they were both agitated and upset. They refused to go outside and pee and generally acted like the end of the world was near. Storm phobia didn't keep them from eating though. I don't think anything would keep them from eating.

When the warning sirens went off, the storm was still about ten or fifteen minutes away. This would have been a good time for them to do their business, but they just looked at me like I was crazy when I opened the back door. Since the weatherman on TV said the approaching storm might have 70 mile per hour winds, I thought I'd eat breakfast quickly in case the power went out. This was an excellent time to try a Vitamix smoothie. I dumped two raw eggs, a banana, four strawberries, a little heavy cream and one scoop of ice cream in the blender and turned it on. Delicious! I don't know why I haven't tried this before, because the Vitamix has been sitting on a kitchen shelf for months. There were no problems with my teeth either. I think I've found a new favorite breakfast.

There was a horrendous amount of heavy rain during the morning, but around 1 PM the skies cleared a bit and I was finally able to take the dogs on a walk. I was surprised that they didn't poop in the house, because they both refused to go outside while it was raining. Dot didn't walk very far, but Dash was ready to go the distance. He's still wearing his protective sock, but wet grass makes it fall off even more than usual. I have to keep a close eye on his rear leg while we are walking, or the sock will be gone for good. Since the little rubberized socks cost fifteen dollars for a pack or four, I can't afford to lose one every time we take a walk.

There's not much to do on stormy days like this. When the rain was really bad, I curled up with the dogs on a big blanket on the office floor and took a nap. The dogs are pack animals and this helps to keep them calm. I'm never opposed to a nap anyway. Later, when things calmed down, I wrote an article and made my to-do list for Monday a bit more manageable. Later in the day, I went up on the roof and tried to see if I could hook the pump up to automatically remove some of the water while it was still raining. This seldom works for very long, because the pump gets clogged with tree debris, but it was worth a try. Heavy rains like we had today can almost double the weight of the roof. This is not very good structurally, so I've got to continue trying to removing the water as quickly as I can.

I was so pleased with my banana and strawberry smoothie this morning that I decided to use the Vitamix again and make soup for dinner. I seldom read instructions or recipes, so sometimes my cooking experiments are delicious and other times they are terrible. Today, I just dumped all the leftover vegetables in the refrigerator into the blender and turned it on. Oops. I forgot that soup is supposed to be liquid and ended up making something very much like hummus instead. Rather than admit defeat, I just poured a cup of water into the mixture and ran the soup program on the Vitamix again. This time the results were delicious. I had created a thick, very savory soup that seemed like it might belong on the menu at a nice Thai or Indian restaurant. I doubt that I could ever recreate this dish, because I just dumped in a bunch of leftovers, but it sure was delicious. I think the main ingredients were spinach, carrots, an orange peel, fresh salsa, ground pepper, cream, green chilies, a little diced chicken, and of course a cup of water. The VItamix is super easy to clean too. You just put some hot soapy water in the container and run the cleaning cycle. One minute later you rinse the container out and you're done. This is my kind of cooking.

It looks like we're going to have stormy weather for the rest of the week. Not a problem. I've got lots of new articles to write, a dozen bananas, a tub of fresh strawberries, and a blender. We'll be fine.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1932

Today was so much different than yesterday. Days like this serve to remind me that everything does get sorted out eventually. Despite yesterday's dubious start, the yard looks great. The huge piles of dead Winter leaves have been removed. A new St. Augustine turf has been installed. Patchy areas in the ground cover have been filled in. Even the dog poop seems to be gone. It's too bad we have to do this almost every year, but it's nice while it lasts.

There was no need for drugs today. I don't think the dogs even heard the landscapers. The crew didn't arrive until Dot and Dash had gone back to sleep after breakfast and since there were no loud leaf blowers to wake them, they continued to sleep for the rest of the morning. By the time their internal clocks informed Dot and Dash that it was lunchtime, the landscapers had finished and gone.

The FedEx guy arrived right on time, so I didn't have to waste half the day waiting to sign for the packages. Even work went smoothly. I finished two more new articles and shipped them off to the client before deciding to call it a day. If it weren't for the fact that I still have to hold on to the rear handle of the Help 'Em Up Harness whenever Dot goes somewhere, today seemed absolutely normal.

Dot continues to get stronger on her short walks down our street each morning. We walk her about 50 feet further each day, watching carefully to make sure she isn't getting too tired or dragging her feet. These short walks have really improved Dot's spirits. I think she sees the light at the end of the tunnel now. She may never be able to navigate slippery surfaces again, but at least she can walk. I don't think even Dot's surgeon thought she would do this well.

I still like my Keurig coffee maker. I even ordered some more coffee pods today. It's nice being able to have one variety of coffee for my first cup in the morning, and they try a completely different variety for my second cup. There needs to be more inventions like this. I get all the enjoyment of drinking good coffee with none of the preparation or cleanup. What I need now is a machine that I can put in a pod to fix breakfast or dinner in two minutes. You can kind of do this using a microwave, but microwave meals are terrible. I'm looking for gourmet food in a pod.

Until that day arrives, I can still fix omelets. Omelets are easy. Cast iron skillets are a snap to clean if they are well seasoned. This simple breakfast is also a great way to use up leftovers in the refrigerator. Just dump them in the omelet and you've got a whole new meal. This sounds so good, I think I'll have an omelet tomorrow.

It would be nice if tomorrow went as smoothly as today. Every day is different though. Something as small as a cat in the back yard, or a spider in the shower can change everything.

Smiley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1926

I hope the vet has some suggestions for me when we go to our physical therapy session tomorrow. Dot can stand up on her own now. She can even walk somewhat awkwardly on her own if she's on carpet. She can't sit down on her own though. Her leg muscles aren't strong enough and she just crumples. Unless she is sleeping, I still need to be nearby, so I can grab the harness if she starts to fall. There have been no accidents, but I'm afraid that if she twisted her leg when she was trying to sit, she could hurt something. I'm kind of trapped, because I don't feel comfortable leaving her alone, even when she is contained in the small pen.

I've been told to just give Dot a doggie Xanax if I have to leave the house, but I'm not comfortable with that either. I really don't like mood altering drugs of any kind and I know that Xanax can have some bad side effects in people. I guess I'm trapped in the house until Dot gets a lot stronger.

If I were busier, the housebound hours would go a lot quicker. I've spent an enormous amount of time over the years just sitting here at the computer anyway. This shouldn't be a big deal. Unfortunately, work has slowed down for some inexplicable reason and there's not much to do. There's nothing worth watching on TV. I can't relax enough to read a book. And most of the household chores are loathsome tasks like fixing a leaky shower pan or getting rid of wasp nests. This is when I need a nice long writing job.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the roofers get here before the rain does. They said they'd come out tomorrow, but I hear it might rain tonight. I don't know why they couldn't have come earlier? The weather has been nice all week. This could change pretty quickly though. I hear that tornadoes have already touched down in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Northwest Arkansas this evening. I hope this bad weather stays North of us tonight.

We were out of milk and cereal this morning, so I fixed myself an omelet using leftover pesto, mac and cheese, black beans, and eggs. It was surprisingly good and got rid of some leftovers that were on the verge of going bad. I'd cook more often if I didn't have to clean up the kitchen afterwards. When it takes longer to clean up than to fix the meal in the first place, it's hardly worth the effort.

Tomorrow should be an adventure. It will be my first attempt to transport Dot in the car by myself. The hammock I've installed in the back seat looks very secure, so I think things will go smoothly. I hope the water therapy will go smoothly as well. Since Dot's legs are weak, they will fill the tank with more water than usual to provide extra buoyancy. I don't know how Dot is going to react if she starts to float though. I hope this works, because Dot really needs to be using her legs more.

I'm disappointed that the BBC fired Jeremy Clarkson. I'm sure he had a good reason to get in a fight with that producer. I've known quite a few producers who were jerks. Jeez, Top Gear was of the few TV shows that I actually enjoyed watching. It won't be the same without Jeremy. After hearing that the German plane crashed in the Alps because one of the pilots got locked out of the cockpit, I'm going to be nervous every time I see a pilot walking down the aisle to go to the bathroom. You would think they'd give the pilots keys to these cockpit security doors. Not to worry though. I only fly about once every three years.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1836 - Christmas Day

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas. We slept in late and probably would have slept even later if the dogs hadn't insisted on their morning walk. The skies were clear for a change and the park was virtually empty. Even the joggers and cyclists were home this morning. There were plenty of ducks and squirrels though, so Dot and Dash had a great time. Dot seemed stronger and more active today, so maybe the Rimadyl is working.

We had a nice leisurely breakfast when we got home and then we the took the dogs to the dog park. This used to be a Christmas tradition, but for a variety of reasons we haven't been able to go for several years. Last year, Janet was out of town visiting relatives and the year before we had terrible weather. Today was beautiful though and both dogs were eager for an outing. I wish the traffic was always as light as it is on Christmas Day in Dallas. It seems to be the one day each year where most of the stores close. Merchants seem to ignore Thanksgiving and Easter now, but Christmas still seems to be a day of rest. Driving through the virtually empty streets, I realized that I would enjoy living in a big city a lot more if there weren't any people.

The dog park was fairly empty too. Only die hard dogs enthusiasts make going to a dog park a priority on Christmas morning. Dot and Dash enjoyed mingling with the eight or ten other dogs in the park until a guy arrived with a pit bull who was a bit too aggressive for our taste. I've got nothing against pit bulls or any other breed, but I'm always a bit wary of powerful, poorly trained dogs who aren't well supervised by their owners. Things can escalate quickly when the owner isn't in control. This guy wasn't paying attention to his dog at all and kept telling people to slap it on the butt if it was bothering them. The dog was way too interested in Dot and was getting aggressive, so we left early and went home. I wish there was a way to keep people from bringing unruly and aggressive dogs to public dogs parks, but for the most part, these place operate on the honor system. You take your chances and just hope that all the other people in the park with you are nice.

When we got home again, the house was quickly filled with delicious smells as Janet began to prepare Christmas dinner. The dogs both took a nap near the kitchen, so they would be nearby in case scraps of food fell on the floor. Since it was a nice day, I went up on the roof and removed several weeks of rain water and leaves. It's been windy lately, so most of the leaves are gone from the trees by now. From now through Spring the troublesome roof should be a bit easier to manage.

Dinner was a delicious feast. The dogs got a boiled chicken breast as a Christmas treat, while Janet and I enjoyed a crown roast of pork with traditional holiday side dishes of sweet potatoes, dressing, and noodle kugel. There was even a fresh pumpkin pie for dessert. Opening our gifts was almost an afterthought. We have everything we need these days, so the day is mostly about relaxing and enjoying some time with the dogs.

Tomorrow, it's back to work for both of us. Even though it was Christmas Day, I still remembered to take the trash out to the curb this evening. You never want to forget about trash day.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1591

I managed to compound the problems I was facing with an already busy day by making small mistakes in virtually everything I touched. Maybe I just had too much on my plate today. I suspect it might have been my tendency to ignore the details however. The details I forget are inevitably the first thing my clients always notice. All's well that ends well though. I think I managed to get everything fixed.

Dot did great at her physical therapy session today. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that she was actually getting younger. Her rear legs seem stronger now and she doesn't stumble as often. More importantly, she hasn't had a seizure since  we started to do acupuncture on a regular basis. I asked the vet if there might be a connection between the acupuncture and the seizures, and she said that although there was no way to prove things conclusively, at least two other patients of hers quit having seizures when they started having acupuncture. There is some anecdotal evidence that acupuncture can help prevent seizures in certain situations. Maybe Dot is one of the lucky ones where acupuncture really makes a difference.

I went back to eating oatmeal this morning, but the whole time I was fixing my breakfast, I kept thinking that tomorrow was Friday and I would finally get to go out for a real breakfast. I need to come up with a better solution for feeding myself. I'm actually a pretty good cook, but my OCD tendencies make cooking excruciatingly slow. I often find that I've wasted half the day fixing myself a simple meal. When I'm chopping vegetables, I have to cut everything into precise little squares. The meat has to be browned just so, and heaven forbid that I substitute another spice for the missing one in the spice rack. None of my compulsions make the food taste any better, but they sure do waste a lot of time. I've also noticed that I tend to wash all the dishes by hand before I put them in the dishwasher.  I don't know why I do this, but I suspect it has something to do with trying to make things easier on the machines. By some twisted logic, I think that the dishwasher will last longer if it doesn't need to deal with excessive amounts of dirt.

One of my clients mentioned that she had an idea for a TV series that she would like to pitch. There was a time when I would have jumped at this obvious opportunity to help her put together a pilot episode. I have the experience and I have the equipment. I just don't have the energy anymore. Production is a lot of work. Fifteen years ago I was going to SXSW every Spring, hoping to make connections and find funding for video projects I wanted to do. Now, I'm wondering if I'll ever get behind the camera again. Years ago, I was totally perplexed at all the changes my Dad went through as he got older. Now, I think I'm starting to understand.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1308

It's been raining for two solid days and I haven't gone up on the roof once. There's still a lot of water up there, but I'm not nearly as worried about it because there are no longer any leaks. Any regular reader will quickly realize that two days of standing water on the roof with no attempt to remove it is nothing short of astonishing. Even without troublesome roof leaks, rain can still be problematic though. It's hard to walk the dogs. Today was a waiting game. The rain was fairly steady throughout the day, but I discovered if I kept an eye on the iPad weather radar, I could still manage to find little pockets of relative dryness when the rain would slow to a trickle and the dogs became brave enough to venture outside. It was one of those days where I used up a lot of towels. We would get wet. Then I would dry everyone off. And then we would repeat the process again.

I was invited today to send a recipe to be included in the 2014 SXSW Interactive Cookbook. It was quite an honor, since my recipe will apparently be included with other recipes from luminaries like Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, and BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti. This invitation just shows how far I have fallen in recent years. Yes, I not only used to attend SXSW on a regular basis, I used to be a speaker there as well in the early years. There's only one problem with submitting a recipe of mine to this cookbook. I don't have any. I can only think of two original recipes I have created in the past twenty-five years and I can no longer eat either of them.

These days I hardly cook at all. I've succumbed to stopping by Central Market several times a week and picking up some tasty, semi-healthy items from the Chef Prepared section. It's kind of like eating out, except that I can eat at home with the dogs and there are no waiters to tip.  Today, I picked up a container of Kale, Chard, and Orange salad and another container with Walnut, Grape and Blue Cheese salad on the way home from the gym.

The gym is already starting to feel like a familiar place. I'm starting to establish a routine that suits me. I stay about an hour or so and work mostly on exercises designed to build up my upper body and core strength. A lot of people at the gym seem to be doing cardio workouts using treadmills and elliptical machines. I don't think I need this type of workout quite as much, since I spend so much time walking the dogs. Maybe I do though. I'm just making this up as I go along.

Even though it was a slow day, I still managed to get a few writing assignments finished. I have a feeling that tomorrow will be busier.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1106 - Christmas Day

Christmas quite literally started out with a bang this year. Shortly after midnight, a fierce wave of thunderstorms started rolling through town, waking up both the dogs and ourselves. As Dot and Dash sat huddled under a blanket in the center of the bed, lightning bolts lit up the house while booming thunderclaps rattled the dishes. This was a long, very loud thunderstorm, and the dogs weren't happy about it at all. By morning, the thunder and lightning had moved off to the East, but the cold rain remained for the rest of the morning.

With the help of the weather radar app on my iPad, we found a little break in the storm so we could take the dogs outside to do their business. Shortly after we returned, the rain turned to snow and we had our first White Christmas in quite a few years.

The cold snowy weather was perfect for a day of Christmas cooking, and pretty soon the smell of Christmas ham and sweet potato casserole filled the house. I tried to get a head start on some of my writing assignments while our Christmas dinner was in the oven and Janet watched Christmas movies on the Lifetime channel. When we opened our gifts after dinner, the dogs had great fun tearing the paper off of colorfully wrapped up packages of dog biscuits. As a special Christmas treat, Dot and Dash got to share a boiled chicken breast for dinner. Even though the weather was cold and damp, it would be hard to imagine a better Christmas.

Tomorrow, all the wrapping paper in the living room will be bagged up and placed in the trash. Our Christmas dinner leftovers will be divided up and placed in Tupperware containers that will be my dinner for the rest of the week. Janet and I will both return to work, wondering when the next holiday will arrive. The dogs will just wonder where all the chicken went.

I've still got a week to come up with some decent New Year's resolutions. I'm not very good with resolutions of any kind. I'll probably just resolve to slog through another year, so I can enjoy Christmas again in 2013.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 740 - Christmas

Dot woke up this morning limping on her left front leg. I'm not sure what's wrong, since she seemed fine when she went to bed last night. I think she just over exerted herself at our gift wrapping event yesterday. It's easy to forget she's getting older now. She spent most of the afternoon standing, instead of sleeping like she usually does. Maybe it was too much for her.

The furnace didn't come on this morning either, but by the end of the day we had heat again and Dot seemed to be walking more normally. It was a simple, but satisfying Christmas. I often feel lonely on Christmas. I don't have a lot of friends and am more or less estranged from family. I probably don't show my appreciation often enough, but I'm very grateful to have Janet and the dogs. They keep life normal.

It didn't snow this Christmas, but it certainly felt like Winter. I couldn't walk the dogs together this evening because of Dot's limp, but as Dash and I tramped through the woods, it was easy to imagine a coating of snow on everything. We returned to the smell of holiday cooking and an hour or so later everyone sat down to enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner. We had ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes and a spicy stuffing. There weren't a lot of presents under the tree, but we don't need much at this point in our lives. I'm content.

I even managed to complete a few watch articles today. The month long writing marathon is almost over and it's not going to seem the same in January. I'll have to admit that I've learned a few things about watches and about writing this month. If I could only be this disciplined about personal projects. If I could work at the same pace on personal projects, I could have easily completed a novel by now. Personal projects are tough though. There just isn't a strong enough sense of desire pushing me onward. Maybe that's what I should have asked Santa for this year: a stronger sense of desire.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day