Day 3318

If there is one recurring theme in my dreams, it is that I'm usually lost. I've been wandering around searching for things in dreamland for most of my life. Last night I was with a group of people and we were trying to return to our hotel. I could see the hotel in the distance, but the road I was on twisted and turned and eventually arrived at a dead end. I climbed over fences, avoided rivers and finally reached the hotel. By this time, all my companions had disappeared. When I went inside, the interior of the hotel looked unfamiliar. I was still lost. I wondered if I was in the wrong hotel. Then I woke up.

I have so many of these type of dreams that I wonder if they mean I am lost in real life. Sometimes I feel that way. Of course, there are other times when I feel like I'm the only sensible person in the room and that everyone else is lost. Maybe dreams mean nothing at all. I sure wish I'd find what I was looking for though. This is getting old.

On cold days like this, I feel like I am part reptile. My entire metabolism slows down. It takes forever to make the bed and to fix breakfast. Morning walks take forever too, but that is Dash's problem, not mine. At least the weather is cooperating. The ground is almost dry again and today my boots weren't even muddy when we returned.

The guy who is fixing my Sequential Circuits synthesizers called me today with another progress report. It is amazing how much can go wrong when you leave something in a storage warehouse for fifteen years. The repair guy is still convinced that he can bring all three synthesizers back to life, but it sounds like he is completely rebuilding them from scratch. He needed me to authorize a new parts list today. I've already reached the point where I'll probably never make a profit if I sell the synthesizers later. I wish I wasn't compelled to always fix and repair things. This has turned into a major and probably very expensive project. The sad thing is that I can't even play the piano very well anymore.

The week has gone quickly. It's already time to take the trash out to the curb again. It's amazing how much trash that two people can generate in a week. Of course a lot of ours is just bagged up dog poop. We're pretty frugal compared to some of our neighbors. The curb is piled with Amazon Prime boxes every Friday morning.

Dash had a good day. We haven't had a medical emergency in quite a while. He is eating well now and seems happy. It's sad that his rear legs have become so weak, but adversity doesn't seem to slow Dash down. He stumbles around, seemingly oblivious to his many problems. I hope that I have the same determination when I start to fall apart.

I'm going to return to last week's new discovery for breakfast tomorrow. There's a huge new menu to try.

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2489

I wasn't expecting rain this morning, but that's what we got. Dash refused to go outside and pee. Dot, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to the rain and drug me outside in the rain as she slowly wandered around the yard looking for the perfect place to pee. By the time I changed my wet clothes and dried Dot off, it became obvious that the dogs weren't going to get a morning walk. I wasn't going to get to go out to breakfast either, because I kept hearing thunder off in the distance. Dot and Dash are fine in a gentle rain, but thunder and lightning throw them into a panic. I found a package of frozen toaster waffles in the freezer and resigned myself to spending the rest of the day with my two storm phobic dogs.

When I went out to retrieve my trash can after breakfast, I discovered that the truck didn't pick up my trash for the third week in a row. I'm trying to figure out why this keeps happening and the only thing I can think of is that there's a new driver on our route. I remember I used to see the robotic arm stop at the top of it's arc and shake the cans before lowering them to the ground again. This was to make sure that everything gets dumped into the truck. The mechanical arm swings the cans in an arc very quickly to position them upside down on top of the truck. As the arm is moving, I have a feeling that centrifugal force keeps the trash bags pressed against the bottom of the can. If the arm doesn't stop long enough at the top of its arc and allow gravity to empty the cans, then that might explain why my trash bags are still inside the can even after the truck has picked up my can. This driver is in a hurry and isn't stopping to shake the cans.

Since I'll never be able to explain my perfectly reasonably theory to the driver, I went on the City of Dallas website and requested as new garbage can. Maybe a new can will help. My neighbors all have newer trash cans than me and they don't seem to be having the same problems I'm having. I have my doubts that the city will even respond to my request. I've requested services on the city website before and never got a response. Who knows. Maybe the online forms don't even work.

Dash can be incredibly stubborn. He kept refusing to go outside and pee until the rain eventually stopped. He didn't get his walk in the park until almost noon, but that was apparently what he wanted. Poor Dot didn't get a walk at all. After the dogs had been taken care of, I loaded the trash bags in the car and went looking for a dumpster. I'm getting sick of this. After decades of reliable trash service, I don't understand why this is happening now.

I didn't sleep well last night. I remember having very lucid dreams that had people I know in them. I remember my dreams about fifteen or twenty seconds after I wake up and then they're gone. It's too bad that the dreams are so fleeting, because I'm sure they're more interesting than my day-to-day life. My fitness tracker tells me that I get lots of REM sleep but very little deep sleep. If REM sleep and dreaming help to consolidate memories, maybe I don't have to worry about Alzheimer's after all.

I wonder if that hurricane on the East Coast had everything to do with all the rain we got today. Probably not. I'm glad we don't have to worry about hurricanes here in Dallas. Tornadoes are bad enough.

Hershey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2461

The day didn't start auspiciously. We weren't able to get Dot outside quickly enough and she peed on one of the large rugs again. In an effort to get the dogs walked before Janet had to go to work, I didn't make the bed, and of course that's where Dash hopped with muddy paws as soon as we got home. As soon as one of the soiled rugs came out of the washer, the sheets went in.

I shouldn't have bothered to go out for breakfast,  By the time I got finished taking Dash on a second longer walk, it was already too late. The sweet spot where the restaurant was relatively empty was over and I was forced to eat with a large crowd who had pushed several tables together for an impromptu business meeting. I keep changing destinations, but I can't seem to bring back the old magic. Eating out on Friday morning just isn't as much fun as it used to be.

I worked on a writing assignment today, but I had trouble getting the finished piece to its destination because the client's anti-spam software kept blocking me. This is especially irritating, because although I'm on the receiving end of a lot of spam, I'm definitely not a spammer myself. Apparently, the Securence anti-spam service the client uses really doesn't like Bluehost, where I have my e-mail account. Good grief guys, Bluehost is a large, reputable company with millions of customers. Somebody in the client's IT department needs to figure out a way to Whitelist me. It's hard enough doing these assignments, without having to jump through hoops to get them where they need to go.

Dot was restless today. It seems like I spent half the day helping her walk back and forth to her water bowl. She'd want to go outside and then as soon as I got her out on the back porch, she'd want to come back in again. We did this over and over again. I can tell that her lack of mobility is frustrating for Dot, but I don't know what to do about it. Like it or not, if she's going to go anywhere, she's going to need me to be her back legs.

The trash truck picked up my garbage this morning, but it didn't do so well with my neighbor's garbage. The robotic arm that picks up the cans must have malfunctioned, because it ended up dumping their garbage all over their front lawn. The truck didn't even bother to stop and try again, because the garbage was still there the last time I looked. The city should go back to the old way of picking up trash. More people will be employed and grumpy homeowners like me will be a lot happier.

The new Apple Watch has built in GPS and the new iPhone 7 has a much better camera. Why does Apple keep doing this to me? I have way too much Apple stuff already, and now I wish I had these two newcomers as well. Do I actually need a new phone? Of course not. Now that I've found a place that will replace my phone batteries for a reasonable price, I might never need a new phone.

What I do need is more sleep. Janet can't get Dot to pee at night, so I have to take her outside an hour after everyone else has gone to sleep. I'm usually the one who wakes up in the middle of the night to clean up her poop too. It's wearing me out. My fitness tracker says I'm getting absolutely no deep sleep, but lots of REM sleep. I know I'm dreaming a lot, but ten seconds after I wake up, the dreams evaporate. I can't even remember whether they were good dreams or bad dreams. If the dreams are better than my day time existence, it would be nice if I remembered them.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day