Day 2624

I usually check the dogs on the baby monitor before I start my workout at the gym. Typically they're just sleeping, but today I heard Dot yelping like she was in pain and saw Dash looking around with a worried look. I turned around and went back home again, wishing it wasn't a fifteen minute drive. The house was quiet when I arrived home, but Dot was resting in an awkward position on her dog bed. She must have tried to get up while I was gone and twisted one of her rear legs. On a good day, Dot can still get up on her own. On a bad day she can't. It used to be pretty safe to leave the house for a few hours when the dogs were taking their morning nap. They both sleep soundly and would typically still be snoring on their beds when I returned. That's all changed in the past month or so. Dot is a lot more restless now and doesn't sleep as soundly. Since the oncologist thought that the restless might be caused by discomfort, I was hoping that the Gabapentin might help. If the drug makes her as limp as a wet washrag though, it only makes matters worse.

When I got the dogs up, everything seemed fine. Dot was able to walk and both dogs were eager for me to feed them their lunch. I think Dot's yelping was more of a panic attack than an injury. She has grown very dependent on me and doesn't like to wake up and find me gone. I took the dogs outside to pee, fed them their lunch, and then cleaned up after Dot when she decided to poop while she was eating. After lunch we walked around for a while until Dot got tired and then they were both ready to take a nap again. After making sure that Dot was relaxed and resting in a comfortable position, I got in the car and went back to the gym. This time the trip was a success. It's always a balancing act to care for Dot while still finding a little time for myself. I'm almost always nearby when Dot needs me, but I do need to occasionally get out of the house.

The rain that was supposed to arrive today got delayed. Now, we're supposed to get some severe weather starting at about 1 AM this morning. I wish the tree guys had already come out to trim our trees. One of the main reasons I wanted to remove the dead limbs is that I'm always afraid that they're going to fall in a strong wind. Maybe the storm won't be a bad as the weatherman on TV is predicting. Sometimes I think they make things sound alarming to get more viewers. Of course, Texas weather actually is alarming, so I never ignore what the weatherman says.

I don't know what to do about Dash. He has gotten finicky about his food again. This is nothing new. It has been going on for years. We'll find a healthy diet that Dash likes and after enthusiastically eating it for months and months, he'll abruptly stop and refuse to touch the stuff. We look for a new diet and the whole process starts all over again. I've asked every vet I know what causes this behavior but have never really received a satisfactory answer. Sometimes Dash will refuse to eat something in the morning and then enthusiastically scarf the same food down in the afternoon. Nothing is simple at our house.

I didn't even bother with vacuuming this weekend. Every time I thought about getting out the vacuum cleaner, the dogs were sleeping peacefully and I didn't want to disrupt things. Sleeping peacefully is the Holy Grail around here. When the dogs are asleep, maybe I've got time to take a nap myself, or even get something productive done. Actually, Dot is asleep right now, so maybe this is my opportunity.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2534

I've been tired all day. Dot had a major accident last night and when I took her outside to clean her up, I tripped and ended up cutting my leg as I tried to keep Dot upright as I fell. These emergency cleanup operations don't always go well. It's dark, so I can't see the full extent of the damage and I'm usually half asleep. By the time I got Dot clean, changed all her bedding, and bandaged my cut, I was exhausted. As I lay in bed trying to get back to sleep, I felt my heart pounding like I'd finished a strenuous workout. This isn't good.

It's really cold in the mornings now. I wear a Winter coat and compression tights under my pants on our early walks. By noon, everything has changed. When I took some bills to the post office early this afternoon, it was warm enough to wear shorts again. The temperature changes so radically during the day that I sometimes change three times a day and switch back and forth between the furnace and the air conditioner. Life would be easier if I didn't want to always feel like it was 72 degrees.

While I was running errands this afternoon, I went back to the REI store to look at some camping mattresses I noticed over the weekend. I thought one of these things would make a great dog bed for Dot. The mattresses were large and comfortable, but were only about an inch and a half thick. They seemed perfect. I wish I'd noticed earlier that these mattresses were inflatable. Inflatable things don't last very long with dogs. My trip was a wasted effort, but it really didn't matter. The whole day was a wasted effort.

I updated some websites this morning and got caught up on my bookkeeping, but by the end of the day all I could remember was getting up in the middle of the night with Dot and trying to stay awake at the computer. I just couldn't stay focused  today. Wisely, I decided to wait until another day to upgrade my computer's operating system. I'm going to need my wits about me when I embark on that foolish project.

I'm going to have to do some research and see if there is something else I can feed Dot.  She's having loose stools now, which makes my cleanup efforts ten times harder. I noticed the other day that the bird that shits on my car is back for another Winter. Normally, this evil bird drives me crazy, but I hardly even noticed it this year. I've got bigger problems to deal with now.

Ranger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2093

I was happy to see a long overdue check arrive in today's mail. Now I can finish paying my August bills. Of course it is September already, so the whole process will begin all over again soon. Vet appointments. Trips to the pharmacy. Writing checks and taking them to the post office. Sometimes entire months go by this way. It wasn't always like this. For many years the only things that mattered were having a cool job and a cool car. I didn't even bother to balance my checkbook. Karma took care of that. I'm mature and responsible now, but there are times when I think maturity is overrated.

I called the Apple Store and tried to find out what the procedure was for getting the battery replaced in my laptop. Apple service sucks. After spending forever talking to an automated computer that insisted it understood complete sentences, I finally ended up talking to a real person who knew nothing. She told me that I would have to come to the store and talk to a technician. "That's why I'm calling you now, " I told her. "I was hoping to talk to a technician on the phone, so I won't have to make two trips to the store." When I asked her if the store even had the battery I needed in stock, she told me she wasn't allowed to discuss the store's inventory over the phone. I finally gave up in disgust and called a third-party repair service that I always use when I'm frustrated with Apple. They told me to bring the laptop in tomorrow morning and they'd have me ready to go in thirty minutes. The price for this speedy service was exactly the same as the Apple Store price.

Dot pooped in the house again. I thought she was asleep and was surprised to see her standing by my desk. Thinking she might need to go outside, I got up and we went to the back door. It didn't take long to notice the little trail of poop leading to the door. She did need to go outside. About five minutes before she walked into my office. I wish Dot had a way of warning me. If she would just bark or scratch the floor when she needed to go, I'd come running.

Dash still likes his new food. Now, we need to find out whether this diet is a short or long term solution. Dash has a sensitive stomach and is prone to get crystals in his urine, so it took us a long time to find a brand that was nutritious, made in America, and didn't cause him to gain weight or form crystals. He seemed to love his food for several years, but maybe he's like me. I can eat the same thing for months at a time and then one morning I'll wake up and never want to see it again. I hope I don't sour on my fruit smoothies anytime soon. They are delicious and very easy to make. One day I'll wake up and they'll seem disgusting though. It always happens eventually.

I"ll probably go ahead and get the laptop battery replaced tomorrow. It would be nice to have a computer that didn't instantly die on me the next time the power goes out. I need to get a haircut soon, but that will probably have to wait. Thursday is reserved for Dot's physical therapy and Friday she has another Ultrasound scan at the cancer center. It's going to be a busy week.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2092 - Labor Day

You could tell it was a holiday this morning. The park was filled with cyclists and joggers when we took the dogs on their early morning walk. Judging from the number of people we saw, Labor Day is pretty universally observed. Unlike President's Day and other seemingly optional holidays, everybody stayed home from work today.

I stayed home too, but that didn't keep me from working. As soon as we finished breakfast, I went up on the roof and removed the water from Saturday's brief, but surprisingly heavy rainfall. Just like our last rainfall, I wished that I'd remembered to sweep away all the pecan shells first. If you've ever gathered these nuts, you've probably realized what an effective and permanent brown dye they make. Nothing seems to remove the stains left by pecan and walnut hulls. I"m really tempted to ask the roofers if they could paint the roof to match the color of these persistent stains, because they are not going away. You may wonder why I chose a white roof in the first place. I was under the impression that the special coating would get me a nice tax credit the year it was applied, but my accountant said the roof didn't meet the government's energy efficiency guidelines for some odd technical reason. Oh, well. Screwed by the government once again.

Since I was already outside, I decided to wash the car when I finished with the roof. The car seems to get dirty whether I drive it or not. Birds shit on it. Sticky tree sap sticks to the windows. And the wheels are perpetually coated with a mix of road grease and brake pad dust. It's almost impossible to clean the house theses days, but the car is a smaller challenge. It makes me feel good to see a clean car. I may not be able to keep everything spotless, but at least this tiny little chunk of the universe is still under my control.

I thought I'd finished my website work yesterday, but apparently not. I got input for some additional pages that needed to be created in this morning's e-mail and then I noticed on Facebook that two dogs needed to be removed from an animal rescue website because they had been adopted. Increasingly, animal rescue websites are just an afterthought. The real news goes out on Facebook now.

I think we've solved Dash's eating disorder. He was just bored. Janet got two different brands of food to try yesterday and we filled Dash's bowl with one of the new choices this morning. He gobbled it down like he was eating a steak dinner. It's a shame that Dash doesn't like his regular food anymore, because it was perfect for him. It made life easier to feed Dot and Dash the same thing too. Maybe if he eats this new food for a while, we can re-introduce the original food and he'll think it's new again. You can't fool a dog all the time, but sometimes you can. It's worth a try anyway.

Janet goes back to work tomorrow. I go back to having my fruit smoothies for breakfast. Hopefully, Dot doesn't go back to pooping on the floor. We've had a nice accident free holiday.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2084

When I arrived for my photoshoot today, I was greeted by two kids, a cockatiel, several parrots, a rabbit, a Labrador retriever, a basset hound mix, a large iguana, a lizard, a box of puppies and kittens, and two very large snakes. Through a process of elimination, we selected five animals that seemed to get along well with the children and each other. Amazingly, the children weren't afraid of the snakes, but I got a little nervous myself when a large yellow python wound up in my lap while I was looking through the viewfinder.

These type of photos aren't easy. Is everybody looking at the camera? Is the cat going to go after the bird? Will the snake eat a puppy? We had wranglers for each animal to keep things safe, but still there were a lot of surprises. The seventy pound snake moved pretty fast and always seemed to slither out of the frame. The bird flew away several times. The iguana was getting old and occasionally fell off its perch and landed on the floor with a thud. I was amazed that the rabbit was so calm. Most rabbits wouldn't want anything to do with a situation like this, but our bunny was calm and collected and stayed with us for the entire shoot. I think the photo came out great. I'm not sure what the snake thought.

I thought Dash was sick this morning. He got us up early, went outside, immediately pooped in the yard, and then wouldn't eat his breakfast. This had me worried. Dash always eats his meals. He seemed perfectly normal on our morning walk and as soon as we got home again I figured out what was going on. There was a smell of brisket in the air when I opened the back door. Janet was fixing a slow cook meal in the crockpot and the smell of the meat simmering overnight must have driven Dash wild. He's a very stubborn dog and he woke up wanting brisket for breakfast instead of his dog food. As soon as we gave the dogs a little taste of the brisket, they both were happy and spent the rest of the morning sleeping quietly on their dog beds. This evening when the meat was safely in the refrigerator, Dash thought his dog food was just fine and ate it eagerly.

With a concert and a photoshoot on the agenda, this turned out to be a very busy weekend. There was no time to mow the lawn or go to the gym, but I'm surprised that we got as much done as we did. The dogs still got their walks. The dog's bedding got washed. Dot only pooped inside once this weekend, but that still required a full load of laundry. The house could be a little cleaner, but I did manage to get all the photo equipment packed up and back to the storage warehouse. Tomorrow, I'll need to burn some DVD's so the client can sort through the hundreds of images I took today. I think there are still some website revisions I need to make as well. Oh, in case you're wondering, the brisket was deliciou.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1795

It was a busy day. I got up early so I could walk the dogs and go out for breakfast before the HVAC technician arrived. It's a good thing I got an early start today, because although most repair people arrive late, this guy actually arrived early. The instructions that came with the thermostat said that most people could install the thing themselves. I'd glad I had a professional to keep me from doing something stupid. For starters, the old thermostat had four wires going to the furnace. This new one had eight. Where were those extra four wires supposed to go? I didn't have a clue.

The first thing I noticed when the service technician got the thermostat installed was that an exterior temperature immediately showed up on the display. "Where did that come from," I asked. "There are no external thermometers hooked up to this thing." "Oh, your WiFi router knows exactly where you are," he told me. The thermostat is just retrieving the nearest available exterior temperature reading from the cloud. I love technology, so I was impressed to see that this gizmo can remind you when it's time to change the furnace filter, provide a long-range weather forecast, and even automatically update its own software. Since a built-in microphone lets you control the temperature by saying things like "make it warmer," or "make it cooler," I suppose the NSA could overhear everything we say if they wanted. I've got nothing to worry about though. All they'd hear at our house are barking dogs.

Speaking of barking dogs, Dot didn't bark once while the HVAC technician was at the house. This is unprecedented. The technician was as surprised as I was and asked me "Where are your dogs today." Dot is slowly going deaf and sleeps so soundly now that she didn't hear a thing. She slept thorough the entire installation process. It was kind of sad in a way, since I know how much Dot loves to bark. I'm sure the technician appreciated the unexpected quiet though. Usually Dot barks so loudly that we have trouble even talking to each other.

I had a couple of writing assignments to complete, but I also spent some time trying to locate a new source for Dash's elusive dog food. One store told me that they could have a bag for me by Monday afternoon. Another store told me that the product had been discontinued and wasn't available anywhere. A third store told me that the brand was still available, but that the company had changed the product's name. I don't know who to believe. It definitely shouldn't be this hard to buy dog food though.

I wonder how long this current cold front is going to last? It certainly doesn't appear to be getting much warmer. I'm still surprised that the dogs appear to like this chilly weather. Not me. I'm already looking forward to wearing t-shirts and shorts again. I'm afraid that's not going to happen this weekend. My new thermostat tells me that it's only a few degrees above freezing outside and that I should expect more of the same this weekend.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1793

I need to get a life. I was so disappointed today when the HVAC guys canceled my service appointment. Yes, I was actually looking forward to getting a thermostat installed. I kept thinking that if they could land a spacecraft on a comet 300 million miles away today, it shouldn't be that hard to drive twenty miles to put my talking thermostat in. In fairness, it was a very cold day. The dispatcher told me they were only taking "call for heat" emergency appointments today. This happens every year. The first night it drops below freezing, thousands of people turn on their furnace for the first time and quite a few of them discover that it doesn't work. Having been one of those people in previous years, I could sympathize with the HVAC guys heavy work load today. I'll just wait until it gets a little warmer to get the thermostat put in.

I watched the live feed of the comet landing this morning and immediately wanted one of the cool looking chairs the flight controllers were sitting in at the European Space Agency Center in Germany. I did a Google search for the impressive looking chairs, but couldn't find anything. I bet the chairs are German. If Porsche made a chair, it would look like this. The mission itself was much more impressive than the chairs. The fact that we have the ability to land a spacecraft the size of a washing machine on a small 2 mile wide rock over 300 million miles away that happens to be traveling toward the sun at over 30,000 miles an hour is simply astonishing. Kudos to the team that put this astounding ten year journey together. Not only is the technology amazing, the math involved to ensure that the spacecraft arrived at the right place at the right time after its ten year journey just blows me away. I wish I was smart enough to figure something like this out. When I was young, I thought I wanted to be an astronomer myself. I wasn't very good at math though and picked a profession where no rocket science was involved.

Dash has a delicate stomach, so it's been hard finding the perfect food for him. Some brands of dog food make his poop runny. Others cause crystals to form in his urine or make him gain weight. We finally found the perfect diet and then the pet food stores stopped carrying it. Janet usually picks up food for the dogs, but since the HVAC guys canceled on me today, I had some extra time and decided to go look for the elusive brand myself. After an extensive search, I found nothing. The manufacturer still makes the food, but apparently Dash is the only dog in town that eats it. One store has promised to special order a thirty pound bag for us, but so far the order has never arrived. It's frustrating. We've got about three more days before Dash has to start eating Dot's food. That didn't work out too well the last time we tried it, so hopefully something will turn up soon.

Work has been kind of slow this week. Things always slow down as we approach Christmas. It's kind of a shame, because the colder it gets, the more sitting at a computer and writing seems like a good way to spend the day. I spent a little time updating websites today, but actually I spent more time looking for dog food. It was that kind of day.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 393

We opened a new bag of food for the dogs this morning and were amazed to discover that it was full of worms and little black bugs. It was all fairly disgusting, so Janet cooked Dot and Dash some eggs instead and I took the bag back to the pet store. The pet store people initially seemed a bit sceptical that their premium, all natural dog food could be full of worms, but while I was talking to them, a worm crawled out of the bag and started slithering across the counter. The girl at the register screamed and the manager immediately offered to give me a new bag.

Now, I don't know what to do. It's so hard to find a diet for your pet that you can really trust. There are just about as many opinions about what dogs should eat as there are dogs. This particular brand was helping Dash's coat return to normal. It seemed nutritious without a lot of excess calories, but I really don't like the idea of opening a bag and having worms and bugs crawl out. Some of my friends say a raw diet is the answer, but I'm not sure about that either.

I had lunch with a friend for the second day in a row. For a solitary person like me, this constitutes a full social calendar. I'll probably eat lunch with the dogs for the rest of the month, but it was nice to catch up on things. The last time my friend Alan and I got together, he predicted that within a year I would have a Facebook page and a cell phone out of simple necessity. I didn't believe him then, but he was right. Alan was a little surprised that I had adapted to life in the fast lane so quickly, but what choice did I have? There's just no point in doing something new unless you are going to do it well.

FedEx finally delivered the software I need to complete the migration of my business over to the new computer. I'm ready to go now, although I still can't decide the best way to move all my video and image files. The files transfers seem to be the most painless and trouble-free when I burn the images to a DVD and transfer them that way. The only problem is that if I moved all the files this way, I would have to burn a hundred and fifty 4.7 GB DVD's. Maybe I don't need all these files anymore.

It didn't get above freezing today. I put two coats on each of the dogs when I walked them this morning, but they still didn't want to go outside. I wasn't that wild about going outside either.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day