Day 2564 - Winter Solstice

Today was the shortest day of the year, but it sure seemed long to me. I've just about given up hope of ever getting anything but the bare necessities done. I wonder sometimes when I ever had time to run a busy and successful company. I have to remember that the dogs were young and healthy then. Back in the day, I even had time to play in a rock band, compose and record songs in a home studio, and spend weekends building a fashion photography portfolio that would end up launching me on a whole new career. In those days I had no dogs at all. When I'm feeling sorry for myself, I sometimes miss the freedom I once had, but I wouldn't trade my life with Dalmatians for anything. Dot and Dash are my best friends. My purpose in life is to keep them as safe and healthy as I can. They don't know it, but their purpose in life has been to save me. Let's just say that life was kind of shallow before I was introduced to the joys and sorrows of sharing life with a dog.

The days will start getting longer now, but I don't think I'll notice anything for a while. If I remember correctly, sunsets will continue getting shorter for a while and daylight will slowly increase with an earlier sunrise. The only thing I like about the short days is that it's easy to capture some nice sunset shots. Dash hates walking in the dark though, so he's not happy. I have to walk Dot first, so she'll be tired and sleep when it's time to walk Dash. If I reverse the order of things, Dot tends to get anxious and there's a good chance she'll poop all over the place. I feel bad that Dash gets short changed sometimes, but what are you going to do? We're all doing the best we can.

I paid my property taxes today. I think that's the last big bill of the year, so I guess I survived 2016. I hate that expenses keep going up, while my income keeps going down. It kind of takes a lot of the fun out of getting old. My only hope for 2017 is that the stock market rally will continue. Events can easily change things, but there's a good chance that the rally could continue. I think lower tax rates and fewer regulations will help businesses of almost any size.

I think the bird that poops on my car every Winter has returned with several friends. There is more bird poop on the car in the mornings now than there ever was before. These birds don't seem to be frightened of my rubber snake either. There's not much you can do about pooping birds. You can't catch them. In the city, you can't shoot them. I don't think you can reason with them either. I'd build these guys a nice birdhouse if they'd just leave my car alone.

I may have to write my blog in the mornings while Janet is away for the holidays. Evenings are Dot's active time and she hates being left alone. Sometimes Janet sits next to her on the floor and watches movies on her iPad. Other times she walks her up and down the hall while I'm writing. Janet had to work real late tonight and it was kind of a preview of what's to come. Dot didn't like me being in another room and writing at all. We'll figure out a solution. There's always a solution.

At least it was warmer today. We didn't have to bother with all the cumbersome dog coats.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2304

My rubber snakes are gone. When the landscapers were using their leaf blowers to clear away all the leaves in the yard, they must have blown the snakes off the car, bagged them up with the leaves, and thrown them away. The two colorful rubber snakes were the only things I've found so far that were the least bit effective at keeping annoying Bluejays and Cardinals from pooping on my car. It should be an easy matter to go buy some replacement snakes, but rubber snakes are surprisingly hard to find. I found mine at the Dollar Store in a bin filled with cheap children's toys. When I went back to get some more today, they were all gone. Now the bin is filled with little action figures and rubber dinosaurs.

I haven't been having much luck getting Dot to her physical therapy appointment lately. She pooped in the car again on the way downtown. I kind of knew it was going to happen when I had to get off the freeway and take a detour because of an accident. It doesn't take much to get Dot upset. Once she realized we were no longer on our regular route, it was all over. Once we arrived, Dot did pretty well. We've had to slow down the treadmill a bit, but she's still hanging in there. When Dot was getting her acupuncture therapy, the vet kept asking me if I smelled incense. Nope. My sense of smell isn't very good. The only thing I was able to smell this afternoon was poop. It turned out that another customer had brought incense with them. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

I'm going to have three choices for breakfast this Friday. The Dream Cafe has finally opened a restaurant in the neighborhood. I've been waiting for this place to open for over a year. We drive by the location every week on our way to physical therapy and I noticed today that the construction crews were gone and people were eating on the patio. I hope the place is as good as the original downtown location. Maybe I'll go this Friday and try their fried chicken and waffles. If you haven't had chicken and waffles, you haven't had a proper Southern breakfast.

I missed another opportunity to view a Space X launch at Kennedy Space Center. I'm not even going to apply for NASA credentials anymore. The Dragon Cargo Spacecraft launch is tomorrow. I'll watch it on my computer. Leaving town just isn't going to happen while I'm taking care of Dot. Hopefully, NASA will continue their social media outreach program for bloggers like me. I went to one of these launches as NASA's guest a little over a year ago, and I'd definitely like to do it again some day.

Until then, I'll keep doing laundry and cleaning up poop. I learned a long time ago that life isn't always exciting. There are ups and downs punctuated by long periods where nothing happens at all. I'd like to think that taking care of Dot is as important as anything else I've done, but it does test my patience at times. I haven't seen any rocket launches lately, but I've learned to appreciate little things like a good night's sleep and looking forward to chicken and waffles.

Paxton is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2184

Dot helps keep things in perspective. I cleaned up a rug that Dot had just pooped on and then cleaned up myself a bit for a Christmas party at the Presidential Library. I rarely go to parties of any sort these days, but I'll have to admit that this one was quite nice. I was Janet's guest, so I tried my best to find some clothes that weren't ridiculously out of style. They probably were out of style, because I looked exactly like every other old man in the place. It was a pleasant evening. There was an open bar. We had a delicious dinner. We met George and Laura. And we were still home before 9:30 PM. It's weird that every modern president has one of these libraries. They are really quite extravagant. I've driven by LBJ's library in Austin a few times and heard a lot about Clinton's library, but I'd never actually been inside one of these buildings before. The library is only a few miles from my house, but it felt like it was in a parallel universe very far away.

My own universe is much smaller and consists mostly of poop. I'm still trying to outwit the red Cardinal that poops on my car everyday. It seems to like to look at itself in the car windows, so that's were I've been placing the rubber snakes. Now, all the bird sees when it flies up to the window is a big snake. The strategy seems to be working. The bird still targets my car, but it's avoiding the snakes. Now, all I need to do is go to the Dollar Store and buy some more rubber snakes.

I discovered that I could watch the Dr. Who episode I missed Saturday night on my computer.  BBC America has a website where you can watch complete episodes of pretty much every show they broadcast. The only downside is they use some sort of proprietary video player and you can't skip the commercials or back up the tape to watch something you missed. I'll have to watch the entire show over again, because Dot pooped at a critical point in the story and by the time I cleaned up the mess, the show was over. I still have no idea what the season finale was all about. Dr. Who scripts are so complex now that if you snooze, you lose. Is Clara dead or alive? Is Peter Capaldi still the War Doctor? What is all this business about being a hybrid? Maybe the Hell Bent will make more sense if I can watch it again while the dogs are asleep.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner. I've done absolutely nothing this year. I haven't put up a tree yet. I haven't bought presents for anyone. I haven't even got a plan. I'm just too tired to think about it. Maybe after I finish up with this year's Santa photos I'll get in the spirit of things. Until then, I'll continue to get up early, watch the parade of planets in the pre-dawn sky as we walk the dogs, make my banana and strawberry smoothie, drink some strong coffee and get ready for another day.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2183

We're making progress. Our broadband service was finally restored today and the humidity in the house is down to 38%. When the technician called to tell me that everything had been fixed, I asked him what the problem was. "We found four separate faults in the fiber line to your house," he told me. "That sounds pretty major," I said. "Was service out for the entire neighborhood?" "No, it was just you," the guy said. It figures. Our house just seems to attract problems.

I stretched the soiled photo backdrop out on a long clothesline this morning and sprayed it with the Nature's Miracle enzyme. It was a nice day, so it didn't take long for the muslin cloth to air out and dry. I think it looks and smells much better, but Dot and Dash beg to differ. They are still real interested in the cloth backdrop when I take them outside. I'll see what Janet thinks. You can't dry clean or wash these hand painted backdrops, because all the paint will come off. I'll clean the backdrop again tomorrow and hopefully by next Saturday it will just be another large, somewhat dirty piece of canvas. I'm hoping for the best. The last thing you want is the smell of pee when you're shooting a long sequence of pet pictures. If one dog has marked the canvas, all the other dogs will want to pee on top of the same spot to claim it. That's just the way dogs are.

Even though our U-Verse service is working again, I'm still tempted to switch to Time Warner. I checked prices today and their top of the line bundle is about 40% less than what we are currently paying right for U-Verse. Cable providers are tricky though. They are masters of bait and switch tactics. You sign up for something and then you notice a few months later that you are paying quite a bit more. None of the cable providers include taxes in their pricing either. It's amazing how many weird and often expensive local and state taxes they can get away with adding to your bill. No wonder so many people are just watching Netflix and Hulu on the Internet. So far, the Internet has managed to escape most of the ridiculous taxes the utilities and telecom providers tack on to your bill.

The evil bird that poops on my car has returned to spend another Winter taunting me. I know it's the same bird every year. I wonder how long birds live? I think that parrots can live 50 years or more, but what about Blue Jays and Cardinals? This bird always poops on my car and never on Janet's. It drives me nuts. I've tried everything to scare the bird away, but nothing seems to work. I really thought rubber snakes would do the trick, but this bird has no fear of snakes. It even pooped on one of the rubber snakes yesterday.

I thought I might be able to see Comet Catalina this morning, since it is currently located very near the Moon and Venus in the pre-dawn sky. It turns out that the comet was fainter than expected though, and I wasn't able to find it with binoculars. I'll try again tomorrow morning, but I suspect that the glare from cars and streetlights will pretty well mask the faint sixth magnitude object.

Work continues to be slow this month. Maybe this is the new normal. I certainly hope not.

Humphrey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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