Day 4480

Dawn got a bath this afternoon. It wasn't a big event, but it will have to do. Today was a slow day. All our dogs have hated getting a bath. They seem to love getting dirty though. Dawn loves to roll in the grass in the back yard. The grass is pretty thin in places, so she is mostly rolling in the dirt. Of course as soon as she's back in the house, she likes to roll on the bed. If you have a dirty dog, you also have a dirty house.

Dawn always feels better after a bath. She just doesn't like the whole process. We always take her to one of those self bathe places. I'm glad that someone came up with this idea since it works a lot better than trying to take your dog in the shower. At least it was a nice warm day. The whole ordeal was over quickly and now we have a clean dog again for a few days.

I printed out all my reservations, maps, and directions for my trip this morning. I always do this when I travel and carry around a yellow manilla envelope with all this information wherever I go. Everything in the envelope is readily available online, but I like having things on paper. 

When I drive I'll often take a road atlas with me. Even though the atlas is out of date, it still makes more sense to me than Google Maps.  I'm about as old school as you can yet, but I do try. I've finally realized that the app on my phone is much more convenient that a paper airline ticket.

It was such a nice day that Dawn got two walks. I continued walking after Janet and Dawn returned home this afternoon, but I didn't make it very far. My feet really bothered me today and by the time I'd walked two miles I realized that it was time to head for home. None of this makes a lot of sense to me. Yesterday I walked much further with relatively little foot pain. Today was terrible.

It's time to get the lawn mower running again. It's an electric mower and I usually have to replace the batteries every couple of years. I kept the battery inside this winter, so hopefully it will take a charge. We'll see. The large batteries are kind of expensive, but I still like the electric mower better than the old gas powered mowers I used to use. I just wish this mower was self propelled. I'm tired of pushing the heavy thing up and down our hilly front yard.

I'm supposed to pick up my press credentials at the Starfish Room in the Cocoa Beach Hilton. I looked up the hotel online and it doesn't have a Starfish room. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. Every time I go to Florida I'm always thinking "What if I get down there and they're not even having a launch?" I have no faith in anything these days. I usually call to double check everything, which probably annoys the people who put all their information on a website just to avoid people like me.

I've taken this week's trash out to the curb and am halfheartedly thinking about going out for breakfast tomorrow morning. I'll probably just stay home and have another bowl of shredded wheat, but I should resume my Friday morning restaurant breakfasts one of these days. It's been a while, but I know I used to enjoy them.

Smiley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3480

The new restaurant is a winner. I was pleasantly surprised to find something so nice very close to home. This is the second new "breakfast only" restaurant I've been to recently. Is this a trend? These places seem to have a huge breakfast menu, but they close for the day early in the afternoon. There seems to be a demand for this kind of place. The restaurant had been open less than a week and it already had a good crowd.

The menus in these new places spend a lot of time talking about sustainable farming and cage free eggs. There was even a small medallion on the table that said it was made using reclaimed ash. Maybe a storm somewhere else blew down a lot of ash trees. This place was clearly designed for the Avocado Toast crowd. Maybe that's everybody younger than me though. I think people still like nice food. They just don't like to cook.

There must be a large Amazon warehouse here in Dallas. My order for the lawnmower battery charger hadn't even been processed early this morning and it arrived at my door around dinner time. Fedex and UPS have made home deliveries difficult by demanding a signature on almost everything. Amazon doesn't bother with this. They just dump the package on your front porch and leave. They seldom even knock because that would slow them down. They do something they other guys don't though. They photograph the package on your porch and send you an e-mail as soon as they deliver. Same day delivery with photographic proof that the package actually arrived. Amazon for the win on home deliveries.

Most of you know that I procrastinate on a lot of things. I've been needing to fix a sliding glass door for almost two years and had never gotten around to calling the place that a friend recommended. I finally called the company today and discovered that the guy who fixes the doors was dead. He had been killed several weeks ago in a home invasion robbery. If there is a lesson in all this it is that Dallas is a much more dangerous place than it used to be and that if you put things off too long, you can easily lose the opportunity to do them. Life is full of twists and turns. You never know what tomorrow is going to bring, so you should always do what you can today.

In an attempt to follow my own advice, I called the rest of the people I  needed to get home repair estimates from and picked up a prescription I had forgotten about at the pharmacy. The only thing I forgot was getting a new roll of stamps at the post office. I guess I forgot to mark Penny and Evie as adopted on the Dalmatian Rescue website too. I'll do that tomorrow.

I hope my new battery charger works. I can plug the receptacle into the lawnmower and the red charging light comes on. So far, so good. I just need to remember to take this thing into the house whenever it rains. Hopefully I can get a fair bid on fixing the greenhouse so there will be a roof over the lawnmower again sometime soon. Maybe I ought to just turn the greenhouse into a storage shed. I doubt that plants are going to be growing there any time in the foreseeable future.

I'm still getting a lot of steps even though it is becoming ridiculously hot outside. I hope that sweating is good for your health.

Isabella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3478

It's almost an unwritten rule that something will quit working when you need it the most. Now that the huge pile of brush is gone, it was time to tame the front yard. A big patch of grass was dead, but the rest was about a foot tall. I plugged the mower into the charger when I got up this morning and quickly discovered that the charger didn't work. It was pretty easy to see why. There was water leaking out of the case. I shook the charger and I could hear water sloshing around inside. This must have happened during the big windstorm that blew the greenhouse apart. The charger for the electric lawnmower is a rectangular plastic brick. It never occurred to me that it wasn't watertight.

I looked for a replacement charger online and quickly discovered that the part isn't available anymore. Hey, it's an old lawnmower. Was I going to have to buy a new lawnmower just because I couldn't find the right 24 volt charger? I kept looking and eventually discovered other folks in the same situation I was. A few people mentioned that there was a charger for another brand of lawnmower that could still be used instead of my discontinued model.  Ordering things that people recommend online can be a risky business. Often people don't know what they are talking about. I wish they would just agree on things. According to the reviews, this replacement charger worked perfectly, was better than the original, didn't work at all, arrived broken, or had a plug that was difficult to attach to the mower. Oh, well. It was still a heck of a lot cheaper than a new mower. I ordered one from Amazon and we'll see pretty soon if it works.

The mower battery still had about half a charge so I was able to chop down some of the high grass and tall weeds before the mower died. This is why I'm not a big fan of yard work. It never goes as planned. Janet asked why I hadn't gotten any bids on replacing the greenhouse yet. It's on my list. I do things every day, but I just haven't gotten to this yet. I don't think making the greenhouse a higher priority would have saved the battery charger anyway. I'm pretty sure that this thing was ruined on June 10 when the violent storm blew through town. I just haven't gone inside what's left of the greenhouse since then.

I had thought about going up on the roof today, but by the time I finished monkeying around with the lawnmower it was too hot. There is a metal flashing around the edge of the roof that gets so hot during the summer that it burns your hands. Somewhere I have some lightweight gloves I can use to keep from getting burned but I didn't feel like looking for them. I was tired anyway. The roof can wait. I took my two long walks and called it a day.

Janet and I were wondering what to eat on the Fourth of July and decided on hot dogs. We haven't had hot dogs in ages. They're not good for you. You don't even want to know what they're made of. But few things could be more American. My childhood is filled with memories of hot dogs. Sometimes we grilled them. Other times we just boiled them in a pot of water on the stove. They were even good cut up and mixed with baked beans. Hot dogs and potato salad actually sounds like a good idea for the Fourth.

Bob Hope is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3172

I actually did go to a new restaurant this morning. Never been there before. This was a Mexican restaurant that catered to a Hispanic audience. All the menu items were listed in Spanish. Not a problem. Even a gringo like me knew what Huevos con Chorizo were. The food was pretty tasty but I'll probably go back to eating waffles next week. Like I've mentioned many times, I'm set in my ways.

I did so many chores today that it wasn't long before I started thinking it was Saturday again. I'm surprised at how easy it is to get the days confused now that Janet isn't working on a regular basis. It used to be that if the alarm went off at 5:30 AM, I knew it was a work day. If the alarm didn't go off and we slept in late, it was the weekend. I could always tell which day of the week it was by how many bananas were left in the fruit bowl. It's all different now. I'm going to have to become more aware of what's going on around me.

Mowing the grass was more of a chore than I'd thought it would be. I let the grass grow too high in the front yard and the mower wasn't really up to the job. I think I'm going to have to get a new 24 volt battery for the mower. By the time I finished mowing the small yard, the battery was dead. Too bad the battery wouldn't hold out for a few more months. I'd rather wait until next Spring to buy a new battery for the mower, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. The grass is going to continue to grow for quite a while. Batteries are such a nuisance. I like the idea of driving a Tesla, but I can't imagine depending on a car that ran on batteries. What could possibly go wrong?

I made the mistake of washing some of Dash's dog blankets with a batch of black t-shirts. Now I've got dog hair all over my clean clothes. I guess it doesn't matter. I always have dog hair on my dirty clothes. Why should the clean clothes be any different?

Dalmatians shed so much that you have to make an effort to control the dog hair. I vacuumed today and the entire Dyson canister was filled with dog hair. It's like this every week. Despite all the shedding, Dash always has a thick, healthy coat. It makes you wonder where all this hair actually comes from.

The friend who is selling my trains wants to lower the prices on some of the items. I told him that he's the expert and to price things accordingly. Even if I don't get what I initially expected from this collection, it's still a lot better than having a bunch of strangers fight over my stuff on a future edition of Storage Wars. I wish it was easier to unwind a lifetime of collecting. Everything will eventually find a good home with another collector, but it's going to take a while.

Dash used to walk well ahead of me on our walks. Now, I have to be right by his side so I can grab the handle on his Ruffwear harness and keep him from falling when he stumbles. Dash stumbles a lot these days, but it hasn't deterred him from walking. Our slow trips through the park are the favorite part of his day. I think one of the reasons he spends so much time smelling things is that his eyesight isn't good anymore. He is developing cataracts, but surgery is out of the question. Since Dash is no longer a candidate for anesthesia there are a lot of things we can't do anymore. I'd love to get his teeth cleaned again. Unfortunately the dental procedure requires anesthesia. Both of his vets say it is too risky.

I'm going to think it's Sunday tomorrow since I did a lot of my Saturday chores today. Oh, well. At least something got done. I'm not sure if I'm becoming forgetful or if time just doesn't matter anymore. It could be a little bit of both.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2483

When you've lived in a house for thirty years, you start to realize that a lot of things are much older than you think they are. My electric lawn mower in ancient. I've re-celled the battery five times already. When I went to the battery store this time, they told me that my battery was ruined because the charger failed to quit charging after the light turned green. How was I to know? They rebuilt my battery under the warranty anyway, which is why I like these guys. Unfortunately, now I've got to look for a new battery charger. Since the mower was discontinued over ten years ago, I doubt this will be an easy task.

Getting the battery on the mower rebuilt was just one in a long list of Saturday errands. I went to the bank to deposit a check that will keep me solvent for a little while. I picked up some new meds for Dot and Dash at the vet. I did my grocery shopping, and this time the convenient Scan & Go app worked. When I got home, I upgraded my phone to IOS 10 and wasn't entirely happy with the result. Apple doesn't really give you much choice in these matters. If you don't upgrade right away, they keep bugging you forever.

Janet had to go to a Dalmatian Rescue event today and the dogs aren't happy. Neither of them like any changes in their routine whatsoever. They evidently think Janet should be here right now, because every five minutes they keep going to the front door and barking. Dash is fine with this type of vigil, but Dot can't stand up on her own for more than ten seconds and she hasn't pooped yet either. Needless to say, writing the blog tonight has been a sentence-to-sentence endeavor. Hopefully, the dogs will calm down soon. Otherwise, it's going to be a very long night.

I thought I'd come up with a solution by taking Dot's dog bed, complete with all the protective pads, and placing it under my desk. This seemed to work for about five minutes until Dash decided that this new bed looked interesting and decided to claim it for himself. Since both dogs were touching each other, the bed didn't seems to be good enough for either of them. Now, I'm looking for a Plan-B.

The park was full of hikers, and cyclists, and recreational sailors today. When joggers passed Dash and I on our morning walk, they would comment on how nice the day was. I had to agree. To me, Fall is the best time of the year in Texas. With any luck, we've got another month of this perfect weather before things turn nasty again.

Maybe sanity will return tomorrow. Now, that I've got a battery that works, I need to mow the lawn. When I mow in October, I often think I'm done for the year, but often the grass just keeps growing. I really need to go to the gym too. I didn't go last week, but I've already forgotten why. It's too bad that stress can't be counted as exercise. If it could, I'd be in great shape.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2482

I had a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich for breakfast. That's as close to a walk on the wild side as you're going to get from me. I was ready for something different today. By the time I arrived at the restaurant, I was already late. The garbage truck failed to pick up my trash again and I had to load the trash bags into the car and look for a dumpster. When that task was finished, I returned to the house and did my best to get Dot to poop. I knew that she would go in the house as soon as I left for the restaurant, and I didn't want any more bad news this morning. I walked her around and let her smell things for a long, long time and eventually she did go. Maybe I had the sandwich because it felt closer to lunch by the time I finally got underway. A BLT actually makes a great breakfast. I love bacon for breakfast. I like toast. I often eat tomatoes for breakfast as well. I think I'll try this again.

I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with my garbage. The robotic arm on the truck picks up my can and lifts it above the hopper, but nothing comes out.  The driver just assumes that he's done his job and drives away. Maybe I need a new can. My can does look a bit different than a lot of the neighbors cans. I guess I'll have to call the city and complain. Then I'll have to wait months and months before they deliver a new can to my house. It's frustrating. The recycling truck, which comes by later in the day, refuses to take my trash, since it is in the wrong color can. The recycling truck will only pick up trash from the blue cans. Gray cans are apparently off limits.

The new batteries I put in the lawn mower apparently aren't any good. I tried to mow the grass this afternoon and the mower died. I think the batteries are still under warranty, but now I have to drag them down to the battery store and get them replaced again. These aren't flashlight batteries either. They are big, heavy 24 volt batteries that are definitely supposed to last longer than three months. If it weren't for the fact that I used to have even more problems with gasoline powered mowers, I'd just give up on this electric mower.

Even though almost nothing went smoothly, it was a beautiful day. I wish Fall lasted a little longer. This is the only time of year when I can leave the windows open. Actually, I can't leave the windows open very long, or wasps will fly in the house, but it's the thought that counts. Dot enjoyed being out in the sunlight. She'll go outside and wander around aimlessly for a while, come back inside, go to her water bowl, and then repeat the process all over again. We'll go back and forth like this until she gets tired and then she'll eventually go to her bed and sleep. I wonder if dogs can get Alzheimer's? Dot's mind definitely isn't what it used to be. I have a lot of respect for anyone dealing with a loved one who has Alzheimer's Disease or dementia. It takes a lot of patience to understand someone who is not entirely there. Dot still has her lucid moments, but she's starting to remind me of my Dad as he got older.

It's been a long day. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, so I'm hoping that everyone else in the family is as tired as I am this evening. One of these days I'd like to wake up refreshed and ready to go.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2300

Just as I predicted, the lawnmower died about ten seconds after I hauled it out to the front lawn. Despite seeing a reassuring green light on the battery charger, it was clear that the battery needed to be replaced. It wouldn't hold a charge at all. I removed the problematic battery, put the mower back in the green house, and headed for the battery store. The repair guy even remembered recelling this battery before. He said he could refurbish the battery pack while I was grocery shopping and that was good enough for me. A few hours later, the battery was back in the charger, getting ready for a second attempt to mow the grass.

Why aren't batteries more reliable?  Every time I tell Janet that I'm interested in getting a Tesla, she tells me I'm nuts, reminding me that I spend half my life complaining about batteries. Laptops, phones, cameras, watches, recorders, and even lawn mowers immediately turn into worthless piles of junk when the batteries start to fail.  It wasn't so bad when you could just pop in a new battery and get back to work, but increasingly batteries aren't removable. Replacing my laptop battery required a trip to the Apple store. Ditto for my phone. Odd batteries, like the one found in my lawn mower, require a special technician who can take the case apart and recell the battery. It's all a giant nuisance. Somebody told me that the Tesla is powered by 8,000 small lithium-ion batteries that are all wired together. When those things start to fail after four or five years, an old fashioned gas guzzler isn't going to seem so bad.

I was planning to write another article today, but dealing with the faulty lawn mower battery consumed most of the afternoon. At least the story has a happy ending. The mower works now and the front yard looks much better. The first time I mow the lawn each Spring, it always seems much harder than it did the year before. It shouldn't be this way. I'm active. I walk the dogs everyday. I work out. And after all this, the lawn mower keeps getting heavier every year. I blame it all on muscle atrophy caused by taking statin drugs. My doctor still wants me to take statins though, claiming that a heart attack is much worse than a little muscle atrophy.

The weather was just about perfect today. The temperature was in the low seventies. The humidity was low. There didn't even seem to be much pollen in the air. Naturally, the dogs enjoyed their walks and Dot even felt like wandering around in the back yard smelling things. I had to wander around with her, holding up her rear legs with the harness, but that's OK. Dealing with Dot takes a lot of patience, but it's worth it when you can see that she's still able to enjoy herself.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. After mowing the grass, I feel like I've already had my weekly workout. I'll probably go to the gym anyway though. When your other alternatives are vacuuming and cleaning the office, the gym starts to look pretty good.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2282

There are so many things piling up on my to-do list. They will all get done, but it will take a while. It's time to reinstall the battery in the lawn mower and see if it still works. I store the 24 volt battery in the house during the Winter to make sure it won't freeze, but that doesn't guarantee that it will still hold a charge the next Spring. If the battery doesn't work, I will need to get it re-celled again. I've done this twice already, but it's still a lot cheaper than buying a new lawn mower. I need to get the tree trimmer to remove a few dead limbs from the backyard Oak trees. I've been waiting until Spring, so I could make sure which limbs were really dead. Now, it's pretty obvious. It's time to plant new St. Augustine grass in the backyard. The grass never seems to last more than a single season. It's long past time to start working on my taxes. I also need to get the roofers to patch a few worn spots in the elastomer roof coating. This has to be done every year as well. I can't get excited about any of these things, but they all need my attention. While I'm at it, I might as well call the plumber. The washers have worn out in several faucets, making them almost impossible to turn off completely. One of the toilets runs as well. I used to do these type of repairs myself, but I've lost all desire to be a handyman.

Dot seemed very shaky today. She was slow on her morning walk and had more difficulty than usual standing without assistance. When she's wearing her harness, I can tell if she is supporting her own weight or not. She can usually support her own weight fairly well if she is on flat ground and moving forward. Today, she stumbled a lot and I had to keep her from falling. I'll be glad when we have our consultation with the oncologist on Friday. I'd like to know whether it is the cancer causing the weakness, the Palladia pills, or something else.

I like the warmer weather, but I'm not wild about all the bugs that announce the arrival of Spring. I've started seeing ants around the house again and the crane flies are everywhere. Crane flies look like giant mosquitoes except that they don't bite and they fly very slow. You can catch them with your hands, but you just give up after a while because there are so many. Every time I open the back door at night to let the dogs out, ten of these irritating bugs manage to get inside. They are everywhere this year.

When I wasn't chasing bugs, I was repeating everything I did yesterday. I paid a few more bills and stopped at the pharmacy on the way home from the post office to pick up a prescription that was on back order yesterday. I even had the same thing for dinner as I had yesterday, since we still have a lot of leftovers from the weekend. We did avoid walking in the dark this morning, since we made a point of starting twenty minutes later.

I have some major website repairs to make tomorrow. The client wants to remove a page that has always been an integral part of the main navigation menu. I hate when that happens. To remove this one page, I have to end up changing all the other pages. Oh, well. The client is always right. I certainly have time to do this cosmetic surgery tomorrow. The only other thing on the schedule is Dot's physical therapy session.

I hope Dot feels better in the morning. Sometimes it helps when she gets a good night's sleep. I hope I get some sleep tonight as well. Four to five hours a night just isn't enough.

Carmine is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2212

Dot's cancer is growing again. Her oncologist said that she wasn't that alarmed by the growth, but it was still disheartening. We had gone for over six months with no growth in the tumor whatsoever, so it was easy to start believing that the cancer was in remission. We talked about the merits of resuming chemotherapy and both of us agreed that in Dot's case, chemo probably did more harm than good.When Dot initially started taking Palladia to slow down the growth of the tumor, she quickly became weaker and within a week she could hardly walk. She was just too old and weak to tolerate the powerful drug. When we discontinued the chemotherapy, her mobility began to improve again. It's a tough choice when you have to choose between quality of life and length of life. Dot was miserable when she couldn't move around. Her mobility is still limited, but she can move around the house on her own and has a sense of independence. The cancer will win in the end, but for now she is a happy dog. I hope we did the right thing.

I wish I'd remembered to bring the lawn mower battery inside for the Winter before the temperatures dipped below freezing. I forgot, and now I've ruined another expensive 24 volt battery. I brought the battery inside this afternoon anyway, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to have it re-celled again in the Spring. I've learned the hard way that freezing weather and batteries isn't a good combination. This is the third lawnmower battery I've ruined. I wonder how car batteries survive as well as they do? They're out in the cold all the time. Any other type of battery is usually toast if you leave it too long in freezing weather.

Since it looks like it's going to be cold for a while, I'm doing my best to get ready for Winter. I've set the outside faucets so they drip a little to prevent the pipes from freezing. The dehumidifier has done wonders to lower the humidity in the house. Last Winter, I routinely had to mop the inside of the window glass with a towel in the morning to get rid of the condensation. Now, there is no condensation at all. We've learned how to attach Dot's Help 'Em Up Harness over a sweater, so she'll stay warm on our early morning walks. I've got a new pair of Winter gloves now, because my old gloves were falling apart. I can't say that I enjoy Winter, but I'm not going to let it get the best of me.

The year has just begun and there's already a stack of bills to pay on my desk. There's got to be more to life than paying bills and cleaning up poop. Maybe not. Sometimes I think I need to find a greater purpose to my life. Other times I think I've already found it. I do a good job of taking care of the dogs. I make enough sitting here writing so that I can pay the stack of bills on my desk without leaving the dogs. I haven't had a boss to tell me what to do in over 25 years. That's all got to be worth something. I'm not sure how writing this blog every evening fits into the grand scheme of things, but maybe this ongoing saga is valuable to someone.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1586

I got lucky today. When I went to the Interstate battery store to get my lawn mower battery repaired, the technician noticed that the defective cells he was removing from the case were still under warranty. The one year warranty on the two battery cells was going to expire in four days. I had forgotten that the old battery even had a warranty. I've just gotten used to replacing these batteries every year. At any rate, the technician refurbished my battery for free. If I had waited until next week to take care of this chore, it would have cost me $90.

I finally made it back to the gym this afternoon. I really need to figure out how to do these workouts on a more regular basis. It was starting to seem easy when I went three times a week. Now that I can only make it to the gym sporadically, these workouts are killing me. It took me about three months to build up a good rhythm and now it appears I'll have to start all over again. No rest for the weary, I guess. I don't even like going to the gym, but I do like the results. I'd hate to start gaining weight again.

While I was at the gym, Janet called and said she'd lost her car keys at the grocery store. I drove home and found a spare pair of keys to take over to her. While I was home looking for the spare keys, the dogs were very indignant that I wasn't feeding them their dinner. Both of them started barking loudly when I left the house again about five minutes later. You'd think having their dinner thirty minutes late was the end of the world.

I got another letter from the city today saying that Dash's animal registration had expired. This happens every single year. I always get new city tags for the dogs when they have their annual physical exam. My vet sends the updated information to the city immediately, but somehow the city is permanently three weeks out of sync. If they would just wait a few weeks before they send out this noncompliance letter, they might realize that Dot and Dash always have current city tags.

The park is going to be a disaster area tomorrow. Every Easter, throngs of people descend on the park to have family Easter egg hunts. Nobody hides real eggs anymore though. They all just hide candy for the kids. For weeks after Easter, I have to be especially vigilant when walking the dogs. There are are tons of candy left in the grass that the kids failed to find, along with assorted chicken bones, beer cans, and dirty baby diapers. I liked this park a lot better before the city discovered it. It's still nice on weekdays after everybody has gone to work, but weekends and holidays are a madhouse.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. If the weather's nice, there are still a ton of chores with my name on them. Mowing the grass will probably be at the top of the list. If it rains tomorrow, I'll probably just take a long nap  with the dogs.
 

Marley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1580

One of these days, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go paperless. Every couple of months, I try to wade through the mountain of accumulated paper and throw away as much superfluous mail as I can. I have a tendency to save things that I think might be important, and then forget what was so important about the letter later. On days like today, I find myself throwing away a ton of coupons that expired three years ago, invitations to attend seminars that have already taken place, and the ubiquitous unopened proxy statements. I don't know why I get the proxy statements in the first place. Please vote for the following slate of directors, they say. Like my 100 shares are  actually going to make a difference? Annual reports, proxy statements, unsolicited credit cards, surveys, almost anything from AARP is a total waste of postage.  Today I found five letters that really did need to be dealt with and threw away over 100 that were just junk.

What does it mean when 90% of your e-mail winds up unopened in your spam folder, 95% of your phone calls are from telemarketers, and virtually everything the mailman delivers is junk mail?  I must be the kind of customer marketers are trying to reach, because I am deluged with junk. I don't add my name to "do not call" lists because I'm convinced that this will actually increase the number of telemarketing calls. I never open anything in my spam folder because I think this might trigger a hidden malware application. Proxy statements go directly into the paper shredder. It wasn't always this way. As recently as ten years ago, I looked forward to a visit from the postman and clients routinely called me on the phone instead of sending cryptic e-mails that wind up in my spam folder anyway.

After I reduced my mountain of unopened mail to a more manageable size, I got some bleach soaked rags and tried to clean up my bathroom. Somehow when dust, moisture, and soap interact, it leaves a thin layer of scum that is almost impossible to remove. The electric toothbrush, water pic, soap dishes, and toilet are all sparkling clean now. In about a month, they will all be covered with the same scum again. I'll have to deal with the tile grout another day. That's getting pretty disgusting too.

The only reason I even attempted to deal with these tiresome chores today was that it was pouring rain outside for most of the day. I won't need to water the new grass in the back yard for a few days, but I will need to go up on the roof again and remove all the standing water. I'll need to go to the battery store and get a new 24V lawn mower battery too. If I let the front lawn go too long, it will be a tangled mess of tall weeds within a matter of weeks. The lawn mower battery will be expensive, but it's still a lot easier than putting my gas mower in the car and taking it to one of the city's few remaining lawn mower repair shops. These little shops used to be everywhere, but not anymore. Today, people apparently just drag their non-functioning mowers out to the curb for the trash truck to take away and buy another cheap mower at Home Depot. Actually, they just get a yard guy to mow their grass. I'm one of the only people in my neighborhood who still mows his own grass.

As the day progressed, the skies gradually cleared and by late afternoon there were patches of blue sky punctuated with billowing cumulus clouds. The day started dismally, but it ended up being quite pretty. The dogs were as eager to get out of the house as I was, so we took advantage of the nice weather and went on a long afternoon walk. On the way, I thought I saw a squirrel staring at me from a knot hole in a nearby tree. "This would make a cool picture," I thought, and inched closer to the tree to take a picture. When I got about a yard from the tree, I noticed that it was a rubber squirrel that someone had placed in the knot hole. Sure fooled me. Who would bother to put rubber squirrels in random trees in a public park? You'd have to be crazy. Oh wait. That would describe half the people who visit this park. I guess random rubber squirrels are just another aspect of life in the city.

Valli is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1428

While the rest of the city prepared for tonight's expected freeze by bringing in their ferns and potted plants, I just brought in the 24-volt battery from my electric lawn mower. For the past two years I have failed to do this and the expensive battery froze and had to be replaced. This year will be different. Starting today, the battery joins all the other clutter on my office floor and I'll probably trip over it ten times before Spring.

There just isn't enough time in the day anymore. I had a simple agenda today.  All I needed to do was walk the dogs, write a single article, get my November invoices in the mail, go to the gym, and pick up something for dinner at the grocery store. I methodically went from one task to the next and by the time I was finished, the sun had already set and I had to give the dogs their evening walk in the dark. I'm not a real fan of standard time. Things would work out better for me if we had daylight saving time all year long. Hey, I'm not a morning person. I don't care if it's light in the morning, but I definitely need that extra hour of daylight at the back end of the day.

The problem with simple lists is that they're usually only simple because you forgot something. What I forgot to mention in the agenda above was that Tuesday is also Dash's day to go to the vet. Going to the vet is pretty much the same as going to the doctor. It eats up a lot of time. You spend a lot of time waiting in the lobby and a very short time visiting with the doctor. Dash is never well behaved while he is waiting. There is a large parrot in the lobby that he is obsessed with. I don't know whether Dash wants to play with the parrot or eat it, but I can't seem to convince him that the parrot will bite him if he gets too close to the cage.

I worry too much. While I was at the gym, I noticed Dash doing something strange on the nanny cam.  I almost cut my workout short to drive home and see what was happening, but then I noticed that Dash had gone back to sleep again. Staying at the gym didn't alleviate all my worries though. I'm always afraid that one of the old people who go to this gym are going to hit my car. These people are the worst drivers I've even seen. You've really got to be careful when you leave the parking lot. 

Tomorrow, an insurance broker is going to explain Obamacare at our Wednesday morning breakfast meeting by showing us an old episode from The Twilight Zone. That ought to be interesting.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1349

I think the dogs had more energy than I did today. Although we schlepped them all over town, they seemed to take it all in stride. Even though it was hot as hell at the dog park, they still enjoyed the outing. They were both great little ambassadors for Dalmatian Rescue at the PetCo store rescue event this afternoon. They even had enough energy left over to take a pretty decent evening walk.

I can't say the same for myself. I think it was mowing the grass after we returned from the rescue events that did me in. I don't care what you say. I still think mowing the grass burns more energy than anything I do at the gym. I use an electric mower now, and even though it is much lighter than the old gas mower, it is not self-propelled. Pushing that thing up a hill is probably all the cardio exercise I need. The yard does look much better now though.

I discovered that there's a name for the numbness I often feel in my toes. It's called Peripheral neuropathy and I actually wish I hadn't learned about it. I used to think the numbness was just caused by the Carvedilol I was taking to slow down my heart rate. It made sense that since my heart wasn't pumping as fast, the circulation to my feet wouldn't be as good as it should be. Now it appears that numbness and tingling sensations in the toes and feet can be caused by any number of things, including diabetes, Hepatitis-C, and vitamin B deficiency. What this means for me is that my doctors will never agree on a cause and they'll all propose different treatments. I guess it doesn't really matter, since there is no cure for Peripheral neuropathy anyway.

I finished my monthly writers group assignment this evening. Lately, everything I write is starting to feel like an assignment. Whatever happened to writing for the sheer joy of it? I'd like to imagine that I used to write for the sheer joy of writing, but I suspect that I've mostly just written for money. About the only thing I do for the sheer joy of it anymore is eat things on my forbidden list. Bacon anyone?

Pinky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day