Day 3239 - Election Day

I decided that it was time to face reality and hire a mover. Even if I continue to move something every day, I just don't think I can get everything out of the old warehouse on my own by the middle of the month. It took me fifteen years to fill this place up. I guess it was unrealistic to think I could empty it out in a matter of weeks. Maybe if I extended my lease until December I could finish the job, but my body would be a wreck. It just isn't worth it. I've only moved about one third of the contents so far and I already feel like a cripple.

The movers arrive Friday. Hopefully, I'll never have to do this again. Jeez. What am I thinking? Of course I'll have to do this again someday. I still don't know what to do with this stuff and I know it's never coming back to the house. Hey, at least I'm getting rid of quite a few things. That's a start.

I made reservations for Thanksgiving Dinner today. As usual, I should have done this earlier. This particular Thanksgiving Brunch has become very popular and the restaurant is filling up fast. I couldn't get a table until 1:30 PM. I guess that's OK. We usually eat later on holidays anyway.

I've got to get up early tomorrow to walk Dash before going to my doctor's appointment. I won't be able to eat breakfast because they want to do fasting blood work again. I hope the phlebotomist can find a vein this time. I hate it when the vein rolls and they keep poking you. That's what happened last time. My veins used to be super easy to find. Now they seem to be hiding.

Dash made it outside both times last night. It's always a good night when Dash doesn't poop in the house. When I go to bed, I never know how things are going to turn out. Sometimes he makes it to the back door with time to spare and other times he can't even make it out of bed. I wish Dash would learn to sleep on the floor. We have nice dog beds, but he still prefers sleeping in the bed with us. I don't know how long this can continue because he's having increasing difficulty getting up at night. If I don't wake up first to help him off the bed, he frequently stumbles and falls.

Even though I have movers coming, I still went over to the storage warehouse and moved a few more things this afternoon. The more I'm able to move ahead of time, the less I'll have to pay. Today I moved a bunch of pictures that were left over from several gallery shows I had over a decade ago. I hadn't looked at these pictures for a while and I'll have to admit they were pretty good. It took a while to secure my first gallery show, but after only two shows I totally lost interest in the gallery world. Competition for gallery space was intense and you had to be an active member of the local artist's community to find opportunities to show your work. Like most other things in life, the art world turned out to be all about who you know. It seemed way too much like business to me.

I'll be asleep long before the election results are finally decided. I suspect that nobody will be happy. We are such a divided country that you can't really expect the results to bring any kind of unity. When I wake up tomorrow morning I expect that half the country will still be mad. At the moment, I just don't know which half.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2522

I felt good this morning. The rain has lifted and Dash and I walked under a partly cloudy sky, watching the dawn turn into a beautiful sunrise. It was also heartening to see that democracy still works.

I was beginning to wonder. To my democratic friends who think the world has ended, how could you not see this coming? You simply can't go around saying let them eat cake forever. I'm convinced that the election turned out the way it did because millions of good people got tired of being ridiculed and shamed for simply wanting to continue living according to the values their parents and grandparents taught them. Our parents were good people. They weren't burdened with the tyranny of political correctness. They had more important things to do than worry about gender neutral pronouns and safe spaces. They won World War II, went to the moon, and built an an amazing, vibrant country with the belief that we were a great melting pot where everyone could prosper by working hard and adopting a shared set of values. When a political party starts to ridicule those values, this is what happens. When you look at a political map, you see a vast sea of red surrounded by a few slivers of blue on either coast. It is arrogant and wrong for the elites to characterize this vast sea of red as an irrelevant bunch of ignorant racists, sexists, and homophobes. These people are America and they have spoken.

I'd like to see us adopt a shared set of values again. Diversity without the desire to assimilate just creates tribalism. That's where we are now. We are just a bunch of tribes with no particular loyalties to any of the other tribes. Remember that poem by William Butler Yeats where he says "when the centre cannot hold; anarchy is loosed upon the world?" That's where we're headed. So many things are falling apart because we have lost the center that kept us together for so many years.

Perhaps I had time to ruminate about politics because today was so slow. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to get any more writing assignments. I didn't even have any website updates today. I picked up some prescriptions at the pharmacy and spent the rest of the day walking Dot up and down the hallway. She is not sleeping as much as she did a few months ago. Now, I get summoned by her barking every hour or so. We walk around for a little while and then she gets tired and wants to lie down again. It's too bad we can no longer take the long, active walks we did when the dogs were younger. Dalmatians are very active dogs and I think they get frustrated when they spend too much time in the house. I get frustrated too.

I saw another meteor this evening. I guess that's one good thing about the time change. I don't like walking in the dark, but I do like looking at the stars. In less than a week I'm going to get a chance to see the largest supermoon since 1948. I've seen these close approaches of the moon before and it really doesn't look much bigger. Maybe this time will be different. I hope it doesn't rain on the 14th. I'd really like to see this.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2521 - Election Day

I'm glad I voted early. We took our morning walk early today to avoid the rain and when we passed a polling place in the neighborhood, there was already a line. The polls weren't even open yet, so I imagine that this was a very busy day. It did rain later in the day, so I wouldn't have wanted to be standing in that line.

I went up on the roof to fix the sump pump after breakfast and was appalled at the amount of water that has accumulated overnight. There was at least four inches of standing water directly over my desk. There was nothing wrong with the pump. The extension cord has just become unplugged somehow. Even though there was more rain on the way, I went ahead and cleared away the standing water anyway. The Fall rainy season is the worst as far as roof maintenance is concerned. Since the weather is cooler, the water never evaporates and since it is Fall, there are tons of wet dead leaves in the water. The leaves create little duck ponds that make it difficult for the water to drain over the edge of the roof. Basically, it's a big mess.

Against my better judgement, I finished gluing my running shoes back together. I had only glued one shoe yesterday when I realized that I had more Superglue on me than on the shoe. This time I was much more careful. With this job successfully completed, I glued some new shoe taps on my hiking boots. I'm weird about shoes. I have a number of new shoes in my closet just waiting for someone to break them in, but I continue to wear my oldest most worn out footwear until it has been absolutely destroyed. Old, beat up shoes are just more comfortable.

I wonder what the TV news anchors and pundits are going to talk about after this election is over? For the past year I haven't been able to watch TV for more than fifteen seconds without hearing the words Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Cable news has been obsessed with this election for a long, long time. It doesn't matter whether you listen to a red station like Fox or a blue station like MSNBC, the coverage has been relentless. It's hard not to get sucked into the horse race. I'm not a very political person. My favorite candidates didn't even get nominated. Nevertheless, I'm listening to the election return coverage right now. It's early, but so far the race is remarkably close. This could end up like game seven of the World Series.

I think the Tramadol is helping Dot. Her legs aren't any stronger and the muscle atrophy she is experiencing is severe, but she is definitely more active now. In many ways, this new activity doesn't amount to much. She barks. I help her up and we wander around for a while and then she goes back to sleep. She does seem happier though. That's the important thing.

I'd sure like to see the sun tomorrow. These gray, rainy days always seem longer than usual. The dogs have never liked rainy days. It's almost impossible to get Dash to go outside to do his business. It doesn't matter with Dot, because she just poops in the house anyway. I'm always nervous about humidity buildup in the house and water on the roof. It helps if there's lots of work to keep me busy, but there is little to keep me from fretting about the rain today. You guys can continue fretting about the election if you like. All I'd like to see is some blue sky tomorrow.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1057 - Election Day

Today was a light housekeeping day. I paid bills. I renewed my prescriptions at the pharmacy. I balanced my checkbook. I even found time to catch up on my correspondence. What I didn't do was stand in line to vote. I'd already done that earlier during the Texas early voting period.

From the looks of things at my precinct, I could just as easily have waited until today to vote. When the dogs and I walked by the neighborhood polling station on our morning walk, there was no line at all. People walked in, voted, and were out again in just a few minutes. The long lines I kept seeing on television in other parts of the country seemed like they were from another planet. Several people asked if Dot and Dash were going to vote as we walked by. I wish they could. They'd probably make a smarter decision than many people I know.

I made an appointment for an annual physical exam with my doctor today. Usually, by the time my annual physical rolls around, I've seen the doctor so many times that there's nothing new to discover. This year is different. I've hardly been to the doctor at all this year. It's not that I feel all that great. It's just that I've grown weary of learning that my body is continuing to disintegrate. I'm sure I'm just as healthy as most people my age, but that's not saying much. After a certain point, it's all downhill.

I'm beginning to wonder if Klout has any validity at all. I noticed this Summer that my score went up quite a bit after people I don't even know said Happy Birthday to me on Facebook. Now, I'm noticing a similar effect when I get tagged in one of those pictures you see all the time with a big heart and lots of bunnies. Of course, real social interactions don't have any effect on the score whatsoever. I can't complain though. My latest perk is a free selection of Zatarain's Cajun style pasta mixes. WTF? When did Cajuns start cooking pasta anyway?

I like watching the election returns on a night like this. A close race is like watching a good football game. It's still early and I'm not sure what will happen as the evening progresses, but I always enjoy seeing the pollsters and pundits proved wrong. Often, the pundits are right of course, but it's reassuring to see that sometimes the voters still have a mind of their own.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day