Day 2854

I am becoming increasingly disorganized. Part of my brain has already retired. Another part is still trying to keep track of deadlines and responsibilities. I kept forgetting today that I had an article to write and several websites to update. The jobs were minor and inconsequential, but they were still real jobs. Back in the day, I would have had these tasks finished before noon. They still aren't finished.

I kept forgetting I had work to do because I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get Dash to walk. I was unsuccessful again. Our boy just doesn't want to walk in the morning anymore. Later in the week, Janet has a light day, so we are going to experiment and see if he'll take an early walk with both of us. He still walks fine in the evening, so maybe he's just being stubborn.

I woke up early this morning because I was cold and then remembered that I had wanted to see the conjunction of Mars, the Moon, and Venus. I took a pair of binoculars outside and easily spotted all three. Mars is very faint because it is on the other side of the solar system. It won't be close to Earth again until next summer. After accounting for the visible planets in the morning sky, I went back to bed. Astronomy is appealing, but not quite as appealing as sleep.

If I ever invited you to connect on Alignable, I apologize. I initially thought that this might be a cool way to network and get business, but it just seems to connect me to nail salons and real estate agents. I'm getting so much spammy mail from these folks now that I'm thinking of deactivating my account. I should have known better. I never liked LinkedIn, so it should have been a no-brainer that I wouldn't like this either.

With Dash refusing to walk, I'm not getting as many steps in during the day as I'd like. It was easy to take over 12,000 steps a day when we took two walks in the park. Now my total is much less. Without these daily walks, there aren't as many photos either. I miss these long morning walks, but strangely I don't feel like walking without a dog. I've walked with a dog companion at my side for so many years that it just doesn't seem right to walk alone.

I guess I'll finish my article tomorrow. There isn't a deadline, but writing will give me something to do during the day. I don't think there's much of a chance that the refrigerator repairman will be coming over tomorrow. Chances of the roofer coming over are even less.

We'll see how tomorrow goes. Dash is eating well now and seems to be happy enough just spending his day doing nothing. I wish I could say the same.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2515

Today was so disorganized that it was almost time for lunch by the time I finally finished breakfast. I wasn't able to get Dot outside in time this morning, so we started the day with lots of rugs to wash. I can't decide whether cleaning up pee or poop is worse. When Dot looses bladder control on the way out the door, the mess certainly covers a wider swath of territory. Dash decided to take a fairly long walk this morning, but that only put me further behind. Dot was sleeping peacefully when I started breakfast, but Dash decided that he wasn't getting enough bananas and began barking loudly enough to wake her up. Since Dot is almost deaf, it takes a pretty loud bark to get her riled up. Basically, this morning was a three ring circus.

My watch keeps telling me to stop and take a deep breath. This is so irritating that I almost feel like learning how to use Siri, just so I can tell the watch to shut up. I'm tired of the continual barrage of software upgrades from Apple. Most are designed for newer hardware and tend to make older equipment like mine run worse. This fact doesn't keep Apple from annoying me with upgrade notices though. I'm still running Mountain Lion on my office computers. I think this was the last good system they made. I wish I'd stopped upgrading my phone. It hasn't been stable and reliable since IOS 7.

When I did finally get around to turning on my computer today, I was greeted with a complicated website update request. I dread updating this particular website, because I didn't design it and still can't really figure out how it works. The client should have kept the original designer, because every time I look at this site, it gives me a headache. I think I made most of the changes correctly, but one or two things still have be puzzled.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow. I always worry about the first rain after a roof repair. Will the repair survive?  Will it perform well?  You never know. I really hope that everything holds up as promised, because Lord knows when I'll be able to get these roofers to come out again.

I can't figure out whether Dot is feeling better or worse. She's more active than she was a few weeks ago, but I'm not sure what this means. She wants to move around more often, but she isn't any stronger. Sometimes when I take her outside, she just stares off into space and doesn't seem to know where she is. There are other times when her brain appears to be working just fine. It's pretty obvious that she's beginning to show some signs of senility. I try to be kind and patient with Dot and hope that someone will return the favor when I become senile. Losing your mind is a terrible thing.

I wonder why my appetite keeps decreasing?  I'm just not as hungry as I used to be. It's easy to eat less for dinner, but I'm having a hard time with my breakfast smoothie. After months of experimenting, I finally got the taste just right. Now I have to figure out how to adjust the ingredients without changing the taste. It's harder than it seems. If I stop using a whole banana, what do I do with the leftover part? The easy answer would be to just eat it, but that would defeat the whole purpose. I'm trying to eat less.

Leftover bananas and dog poop are what I worry about these days. You guys can worry about who's going to start World War III. 

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1007

I went to the pest control store and got some more roach bait to replace the tube of gel that had gone bad. Hopefully, I won't wait seven years to use the stuff this time. I find bug guys oddly comforting. There are very few ambiguities about professional exterminators. They don't salt and pepper their conversations with words like sustainability or multiculturalism. Ask these guys about getting rid of pests though and they'll pragmatically tell you the best way to kill virtually anything. I've always thought if we were in a war we really needed to win, it wouldn't hurt to put a few bug guys in charge of things. They'd get the job done.

When I'm working up on the roof, I can see over the neighbor's fence. Today, I noticed a very brown and very dead Christmas tree tossed right outside the neighbor's back door. It was obvious that when they took the tree down after Christmas, this was as far as they got. I guess I find this comforting as well. It's nice to know that as disorganized as I've become, the neighbors are even in worse shape than I am. Since it's September, I don't know why I never noticed the dead Christmas tree before. I'm sure it's been out in their back yard for a long time. Probably the tree escaped my attention in exactly the same way as that tube of roach bait that expired in 2003.

The FedEx guy delivered some business cards I'd designed this morning. It continues to amaze me how easy and inexpensive printing has become. There really isn't much need for people like me anymore. When online printing first arrived on the scene, I would carefully prepare Quark Express files to upload, just like I would for a traditional printer. This time, I was in a hurry and used the handy online design wizard on the printing company website instead. I had everything completed in a matter of minutes and the results were just as good as if I had done everything by hand.

It's starting to get cool in the mornings now. It isn't exactly jacket weather yet, but it won't be long. This leaves me wondering what to do about the furnace. As some of you may remember, my furnace is kaput. I either need a brand new furnace or some very expensive repairs. Last Spring when the furnace broke, I decided to postpone making any sort of decision until it got cold again. Pretty soon, I'm going to wake up shivering and realize that once again, my chickens have come home to roost.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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