Day 2009

Take care of your teeth. I've always had good strong teeth and when I was younger I would frequently go decades between dental visits. This was a mistake. Just because my teeth didn't hurt didn't mean there weren't any problems. The problems grew slowly and painlessly year-after-year, until one day my mouth just imploded with bad news. If you take care of your teeth you can probably just go to a regular dentist. I had to go to a place called The Center for Complex Dentistry.

I was in the chair for over three hours today. The dentist talked back and forth with his assistant throughout the procedure. At one point I heard him say "This isn't supposed to be that difficult." At another point he called hurriedly for a second assistant, saying "I don't have enough hands to do this." Toward the end, he told me "I think you've made my top 10 list." Apparently, the work I had done was very difficult. I only had two fillings and one crown replaced, but one of the fillings was almost impossible. The dentist lived up to his reputation though. He was very, very good.

Be sure to pee before you have major dental work. Three hours is a long time to sit in that chair. I still have to go back in early August to have my permanent porcelain crown installed, but my long dental saga is almost over. My teeth are in good shape again, and most importantly, I won't need to get implants. I still don't know why it takes over a month to get a crown made, but I guess it does. The temporary crown they made me today fits well and I don't expect problems. They dentist just told me not to eat anything really sticky like taffy or caramel while I have the temporary crown. No problem. I don't eat many sweets anyway.

I didn't get a lot of work done today, since I was at the dentist for so long, but I did figure out a clever way to do a lobby slide show for one of my clients. These type of things used to involve dragging a ton of still images into an editing program, creating dissolves or other transitions between each image, and then burning the Ken Burns style Quicktime movie to a DVD in continuous play mode. I hated to make these things. Now you just have to plug a little Chromecast stick into the back of your TV, link the TV to one of your existing Google photo albums using your phone and you're done. It took me less than 45 seconds to have a nice looking slide show up and running.

It rained sporadically throughout the day but I was lucky enough to have a dry spell at both the beginning and end of the day so I could get the dogs walked. Dot hasn't had any more accidents in the house since I started being much more conscientious about getting her outside frequently to poop.  The days of trying to fit the dogs activities to my schedule are over. In the long run it is a lot easier just to change my schedule to meet the dogs needs. My financial adviser called today to confirm an appointment for tomorrow. I told him I'd be there unless there was a bad storm and I needed to stay home with Dot and Dash. Nobody even questions these type of things anymore. They all know who comes first in my world.

Hershey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1971

After we walked the dogs and ate breakfast this morning, I took Janet to the airport. It doesn't seem like a year since her last family reunion, but time just races by these days. Last year, when Janet left for her Las Vegas reunion, Dash was still undergoing cancer treatment. Now Dot is recovering from spinal surgery. The entire year has been one dog emergency after another. Luckily, both dogs are much better now.

Dot and Dash never like it when one of us is gone, but after a day or so they get used to the new routine. We get up a little later. The walks take longer, because I have to walk each of them one at a time. Janet bags up their meds for me before she leaves. I just pick up a little packet labeled Saturday Night, Tuesday Morning, or whatever the date happens to be and the correct meds are inside. I hope the weather improves, because it's going to be a long week if it continues raining every day.

I picked up some easy-to-chew groceries on the way home from the airport and then spent the afternoon working on my mobile friendly test site. Slowly but surely I'm learning how to build responsive websites. I have several new writing assignments that I could have worked on, but I didn't feel like writing today. I actually didn't feel like doing much of anything today. I'm surprised that I got as much done as I did.

I've got all the ingredients to make smoothies for breakfast now. We'll see how that goes. Since one of the ingredients for my banana smoothie is ice cream, I may just eat the ice cream. I had a scoop for dessert tonight to avoid cleaning pie out of my teeth and was surprised that it didn't bother me at all. I thought for sure that a lot of the discomfort I'm feeling was that my teeth had become more cold sensitive, but maybe it's something else. If the smoothies work for breakfast, I may just start eating soup for dinner. Chewing crunchy food is definitely a problem as this point.

I wish the dogs didn't mope so much around when Janet travels. It makes me feel guilty. I try to keep them entertained, but both of them hate change. When anything changes in their routine, they act bewildered. I think I provide the stability in their life and Janet provides the excitement. They need both. I've learned from experience that stability isn't always appreciated when you're looking for excitement. Hey, at least Dot and Dash like to sleep in late. We'll probably be doing a lot of that this week.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1968

I know it sounds impossible, but I've lost all interest in food. I still get hungry, but it's so hard to find food that doesn't get hopelessly lodged in the gaping socket the wisdom tooth left behind, that I don't look forward to meals at all. All the dentists have told me that this hole will close on its own as part of the healing process, but I'll believe it when I see it. In an effort to find something soft and easy to chew, I broke down and fixed myself French Toast this morning. This was a lot better than the crunchy granola and fruit I ate yesterday morning, but the bread got lodged in my teeth anyway. I've thought about a liquid diet of tomato soup, but acidic things like tomatoes give me heartburn. Even scrambled eggs get caught in my teeth. This sucks. I thought about going to the store and getting a package of hot dogs and eating them without a bun until my jaw healed. Maybe I'm just hungry for hot dogs right now. I have a feeling that they wouldn't work any better than anything else I've tried.

I had a huge website update to complete today. Somehow the new person responsible for social media at the company didn't realize I needed to be in the loop and when it finally dawned on them that the website was out of date, I was three months behind. More than anything, this shows you how completely Facebook has replaced the company website as the go-to place to show the world what you are doing. This website was hopelessly out of date and nobody even noticed.

I spent the remainder of the day writing an article for another client about an upcoming trade show. Many of my clients actually used to send me to these trade shows and conventions back in the day. Every one of them has abandoned the practice and just have me pretend I was there instead. Apparently Wikipedia and a little imagination are all you need these days. I kind of miss going to trade shows. It was a chance to stay in nice hotels and discover interesting restaurants using other people's money. Of course, this is probably why everyone quit sending me to these events. Nobody really needs to go to trade shows anymore. They are an anachronism. If it weren't for all the people desperate to get out of the office, trade shows would have died out quite a while ago.

I bet my electric bill is going to be higher this Summer. The severe trim the power company crews gave my Live Oak trees is already letting a lot more sunlight into the house. I've always liked the thick tree cover in the back yard and have been convinced that the shade keeps the house ten degrees cooler in the Summer. I certainly hope this massive tree trimming effort in the neighborhood eliminates our power outage problem. It looks like we're going to have bad weather for the rest of the week and if the power still goes out after the power company ruined my trees, I'm really going to be pissed.

Patches is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1805

OK. I made an appointment to see a dentist today. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal to most of you, but it is somewhat of a breakthrough for me. The last time I sat in a dentist's chair was just before my previous dentist retired. That had to be at least five years ago. Needless to say, I'm not fond of going to the dentist. I'm not fond of having a toothache either, so I suppose my appointment is the lesser of two evils.

My tooth didn't hurt as much today as it did yesterday, but this temporary reprieve wasn't enough to make me chicken out. Beneath all my phobias is a fairly rational person. I knew it was time to deal with this. Hopefully, I won't need a root canal though. Just the thought of a root canal is enough to send shivers down my spine.

It was surprisingly busy for the start of a holiday week. I worked on some writing jobs in the morning and updated a few websites in the afternoon. There was a trip to the vet to pick up some prescriptions for Dash and some exploratory visits to dental insurance websites. Oops. I should have thought about dental insurance several months ago. It's a little late now, at least for this initial visit.

The weather is turning colder again, but I'm prepared now. I've got my winter socks, my winter gloves, a warm down jacket and my new high-tech leggings. I hesitate to say "bring it on" though, since I really prefer warmer weather. Since the dogs do seem to enjoy the brisk mornings, I'll just bundle up and try to get a few good sunrise pictures while Dot and Dash are smelling a nearby bush.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. If I finish my regular work early, I might try to get serious about uploading a bunch of new pictures to Shutterstock. There are certainly photographers out there who have figured out how to make a decent living from selling stock photography. I need to figure out how to crack this nut.

I find myself surprisingly tempted by the onslaught of Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads. Such amazing bargains on absolutely useless stuff. It's weird. At least statistically, I should be entering the de-cluttering phase of my life and I still have this desire to acquire things. I wonder why? I really have all I need. Maybe I'm just bored.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1732

Such a busy day. I got my blood tested at the liver center. I finished the first of two new writing assignments. I brought five dead websites back online. I comforted the dogs during a thunderstorm. I got groceries for the weekend. And I still found time to have a nice breakfast at my favorite restaurant. The most problematic task was moving the websites to their new hosting company. First, I had to get a new password from Network Solutions before I could begin pointing the domains to the new server. I can never remember all my passwords. It seems pointless to write them all down on a yellow Post-it note and stick it on my computer screen, but it's just about come to that. After I received a new password and moved the DNS for each site, I tried to figure out the new server's control panel and reconfigured a few things in Dreamweaver so each site would upload correctly. I think everything works now, but it took a while.

For the first time since last Spring, it is actually colder outside than it is inside the house. A cold front must have accompanied this morning's rainfall, since it is much colder than it was yesterday. The temperature was in the mid-90's on Thursday. Today it got as low as 65 degrees. The dogs both seemed to enjoy the cooler weather and wanted to take longer walks. They didn't want to walk any faster, just longer. Needless to say, our walks took a long time today. I didn't mind. A nice walk is always more enjoyable than staring at my computer screen. I was actually delighted that Dot is strong enough now to take these longer walks. Our girl has come a long way.

I'm charging camera batteries now for tomorrow morning's photo shoot. I wonder what will happen if it rains? Hopefully, the weather will be nice, because we don't really have a contingency plan. If I wake up tomorrow morning to the sound of rain pounding on the roof, I guess our Plan-B will be to just reschedule the entire photo shoot for a sunny day. I hope that nobody suggests moving the shoot indoors, because I don't have enough strobes to light the large group I'm supposed to photograph. My client is a very positive person, so I assume that she'll make everything turn out OK. I haven't even mentioned the possibility of rain, since everyone thinks I'm too negative already.

I wonder why I keep thinking about the new iPhone 6? I certainly don't need a new phone. I barely use the one I've got. Nevertheless, there's a good chance that I'll end up getting one of these sleek looking tech toys with its fingerprint recognition system and pretty rounded corners. I'm hopeless. I wonder if there's a twelve step program for people who are addicted to pretty things?

Dot and Dash are both getting so much better that it's time to turn our attention to dental care again. It's amazing how quickly a dog's teeth get dirty. It's only been a few months since Dot had her teeth cleaned at the vet and they are already beginning to show signs of plaque buildup. Our vet showed us a new enzyme product that requires no brushing. You just add a few drops to their water bowl each day. We'll see how that goes.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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