Day 1523

I got a pleasant surprise this morning. I received a publisher's proof of my entry in the upcoming SXSW Cookbook. I was amazed. My recipe looked really good. Somebody had actually followed the directions and cooked the recipe, just so they could photograph it for the cookbook. I didn't know they were going to do that. I also didn't know that they were going to give me a really nice write up that made me look like much more than a reclusive guy who works at home with his dogs.

Maybe I was more back in the days when I routinely used to attend SXSW. I couldn't even afford to go to SXSW anymore. The festival wasn't a star studded event like Sundance back then, but it was still a big deal. The year they asked me to be a speaker at the event, fellow speakers included folks like Steven Soderbergh and Matthew McConaughey. I'm without a doubt the least famous person to have a recipe in this illustrious cookbook, which includes recipes by luminaries like Guy Kawasaki and Randi Zuckerberg. It's an honor to be included. I felt kind of the same way when Paypal selected me to be a spokesperson for their advertising a few years ago. I'm kind of a ghost now, but it's nice to be remembered.

It felt like Spring today. Temperatures were in the seventies and there was a nice breeze. Weather like this always brings a ton of people out to the park behind my house. For years, the place used to be a quiet wooded area and then one year the city passed a big bond issue to revitalize the park. Now the park is a popular destination for people from all over the area. With people come problems. Almost every time there's a really nice day I see fire and rescue folks on the lake rescuing swimmers and unlucky folks who managed to sink their kayaks. I don't know what happened today, but while I was giving Dot and Dash their evening walk I saw a large firetruck with seven firemen, a fire department rescue boat, a police car, and an ambulance. I hope everybody was OK, but it didn't look good.

My second Jawbone UP band has broken. I've gotten hooked on wearing these diminutive activity trackers, but they sure don't last very long. Janet and my stockbroker have had their bands go kaput on them too. I wonder why they can't make the batteries in these things last longer. That's usually what goes wrong. One day you wake up and realize the battery just won't charge anymore and you're just wearing a silly looking loop of rubber.

I'm so happy that Dot has made a complete recovery from what could have been a very serious accident. Dalmatians must have iron stomachs. Spot ate broken glass and lived. Petey ate several birds and some rather large barbecued rib bones. Greta just gnawed on the legs of my prized Palazzetti Tomasa dining room chairs, which didn't hurt her at all, but it sure made me sick.

It definitely looks like a dog park day tomorrow. The weather is absolutely fabulous this weekend. At least temporarily, the ground hog is forgiven.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1522 - Valentine's Day

To a dog, Valentine's Day is just like any other day, except that sometimes you get dressed up in silly costumes, and other times you get an extra treat after dinner. Ours usually get a Sprinkles dog cupcake. These look exactly like the Sprinkles cupcakes for people, except that they are for dogs. I hope they are made with dog safe ingredients and aren't packed with sugar. I've never really asked. Dot and Dash sure like them though.

This morning, when I was driving home from my breakfast restaurant, I noticed a lot of men washing their cars, so I decided to wash mine as well. Men seem to like to wash cars, especially on a nice day. There is something satisfying about a clean car. It is well within the realm of possibility. A clean house is nothing but a pipe dream. With two Dalmatians and clutter everywhere, I've given up on ever having a clean house.

Dot is just about back to normal now. Her eyes are bright and her energy has returned. The only problem I'm having now is figuring out where to keep her, so she'll be safe when I have to leave the house. When I look around the house, there are lots and lots of cloth or leather things a dog could chew on if they got in one of those frantic chewing moods. For now, I put up some dog gates and confine her in a hallway area where there are brick floors. There is no need to confine Dash, but since he likes to sleep on the bed when we're gone, he ends up being confined too. Dot's temporary hallway pen blocks his exit. Neither dog seems to mind this arrangement since they sleep most of the day anyway.

The complex boarding arrangements add even even additional time to my daily dog care routines. Now that I'm walking each dog separately and creating separate spaces for them every time I leave the house, there doesn't seem to be much time for anything else. No sane person would spend this much time being a dog butler, but you guys probably figured out that I'm not entirely sane quite a while ago.

I paid a bunch of bills this afternoon and now I feel poor again. Money seems to flow in and out of my hands like the tide. I need more lucky breaks like I got at the grocery store this morning. I ended up getting a $30 Filet mignon for $9 because somebody mistakenly mislabeled it. I didn't even realized that I had selected such an exclusive little piece of beef until I heard two butchers conferring about the price. They were good to their word and let me have the price marked on the case. I think they took that $9 sign down as soon as I left.

It looks like we've got a three day weekend with decent weather coming up. I'm still not sure what President's Day is all about, but I'll take any excuse I can get not to work. Who knows, the dogs might even get two trips to the dog park.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1521

Dot is OK. After spending the day getting a series of Barium x-rays to determine if her digestive system was still functioning properly, the radiologist finally gave her a clean bill of health and she was able to come home again. Everybody told me that we were extremely lucky that she was able to throw up the last big mass of carpet last night. The spongy, fibrous mass effectively blocked any solids from going into her intestines, which was a good thing. It didn't look like she had any long strands of fiber in her intestines at all. If she wasn't able to throw this mass up, it would have had to be removed surgically from her stomach.

All's well that ends well, but now I can't really trust Dot in the house when I'm gone anymore. Who knows when this frantic compulsion to eat something like this will return? We've got to figure out what is causing these episodes. The best guess so far is that she has acid reflux. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the problem. I had a bad case of acid reflux myself once. It took a long time to find the cause and eliminate it, but it can be done.

It was good that work was slow today, because it gave me time for the trips back and forth to the vet and other errands that I wouldn't have had time for if it was a normal day. Traffic was terrible today, but I wasn't in a hurry so it didn't matter. I decided to get Sprinkles cupcakes today, instead of waiting in the insanely long Valentine's Day lines tomorrow. What the hell. These cupcakes will still be just as fresh tomorrow. I'm tired of standing in line for two hours or more just to buy some very overpriced cupcakes. Apparently other people had the same idea, because there was still a line. It was a reasonable line though. I was out of there in twenty minutes.

This week I'm glad I live in Texas. They may be having record snowfalls in New York, but it was 70 degrees in Dallas today. I think the nice weather is expected to last through the weekend too. I heard several people talk about playing golf this weekend. I'm sure the cold weather will return, but I'm a happy camper now. This is one of the weirdest Winters that I can remember. We continue to bounce back and forth between freezing and sweating and nobody knows why.

At least we don't have sinkholes in Texas. I was shocked to see all those historic Corvettes get swallowed up by a huge sinkhole in Kentucky. Florida has a lot of sinkholes too. All we have are tornadoes. If Dot's condition continues to improve, I'm going out for a good breakfast tomorrow. It's been a long week and I need a break. Dot's not getting anywhere near anything cloth when I leave though. No more carpet eating! I think I'll pen her up in the brick hallway. I'm getting ahead of myself though. First we have to see how she does tonight.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1520

It was a stressful day. Dot is not getting better. When I took her on her morning walk, she threw up some of the carpet she ate. About three hours later, she threw up even more carpet scraps. I took her back to the vet and she said that even though it was a good thing that she was able throw up most of the carpet she ate, she wasn't out of the woods yet. Carpet is apparently one of the worst things a dog can eat because long strings of the fabric tend to stay intact. It is these long strings that can cause serious problems if they get into the intestines.

The vet said I ought to try feeding her small amounts of a bland canned dog food like Hills ID four times a day, to encourage her to pass the rest of the debris through her system. Unfortunately, she couldn't hold the canned food down and threw up again. We'll be watching Dot carefully tonight and taking her back to the vet first thing in the morning for a series of Barium x-rays to determine if there is a blockage. Hopefully, she'll be able to pass everything, because if she can't, she'll have to have abdominal surgery. Our first Dalmatian had to have abdominal surgery and it was extremely difficult to get his digestive processes working again afterwards. He almost died.

Dash, of course, is still waking us up in a panic at three in the morning to go outside and poop. We're still not sure what is wrong with him either. My shoulder is taking its own sweet time to heal as well. Life goes on, but this is definitely not the best February I can remember.

I went to the networking breakfast this morning, mostly because Dot seemed perfectly fine when I woke up. She actually seemed perfectly fine when I returned. It wasn't until about 10:30 AM that she started throwing up carpet scraps. This morning's meeting was actually pretty interesting. There was no formal agenda and we just sat around and talked about how much our respective industries had changed in the last decade. It was oddly reassuring to realize that everybody else was facing the same jarring, tumultuous changes that I am.

Dot is resting calmly now. She threw up some more carpet right after I finished my dinner this evening, but she is breathing normally and her stomach is not distended. If she starts throwing up violently, we'll have to take her to the emergency vet tonight, but hopefully that won't happen. She actually appears more comfortable now after she threw up the most recent batch of carpet.  The odd thing is that she now appears to have thrown up more carpet than she actually ate. Poor girl. She's got to be really uncomfortable.

Hopefully, things will start looking up tomorrow. I saw the sun again this evening while I was walking Dash. That's always a good sign.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1519

I've certainly seen better days. We started things out with a dog emergency. As most of you know, I have to walk Dot and Dash separately now, because of my shoulder injury. I walked Dot first and she seemed just fine. Then I returned and walked Dash. When Dash and I got home again, I discovered that Dot had eaten a big hole in the bedroom carpet and seemed very distressed. When I pulled a long string out of her mouth, I got worried and immediately took her to the vet. It can be quite dangerous for dogs to swallow things like string, pantyhose, or anything else that might get stuck or cut through their intestines. The vet said that Dot was in no immediate danger, but that I should watch her very carefully for the next 72 hours and bring her back immediately if she appeared to have an obstruction. Dot has never done anything like this before. I'm baffled. She eats grass occasionally when her stomach is upset, but has never attempted to eat anything in the house. Especially the carpet.

Hopefully everything she ate will pass through her without any problems. She certainly isn't the first Dalmatian to eat something bad. We have had Dalmatians in the past who have eaten socks, paper towels, and even glass. They all lived. You always worry though. Our emergency vet has a glass case in their lobby filled with unlikely things they have taken out of a dogs stomach. It is unbelievable what some dogs will try to eat.

I had a disagreement with a client about an invoice today. I hate arguing about money. I don't like to wheel and deal and I don't like to negotiate. I've always thought that my services were quite reasonable and have always wondered why people who think I'm expensive don't just go somewhere else. They don't seem to realize that I don't really care whether I keep their business or not. At my age, there's not a single client left who will make an appreciable difference in how I live my life. The die has already been cast. I mostly just work to stay busy. If someone will humor me and treat me with respect, they can get me for a song. If they insist on proving that they are the boss, I'm gone. Life is too short.

I can't decide whether to go to the networking breakfast tomorrow. I probably should, because I've never told these people that I'm growing bored and the omelets are no good anymore. I promised that I'd build the group a good website though, and I'm still not done. I always keep my commitments, so I guess I'll continue getting up early for a while longer. My heart isn't in it anymore though. Eventually the website will be done and I'll probably go back to sleeping in late on Wednesdays. That's just the way it is. What's the point of networking with a bunch of folks when you don't even really want their business?

Janet and I are thinking that maybe Dot has acid reflux.  I had acid reflux for many years and it often made me miserable. I never tried to eat the carpet though.

Lady Gogh is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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