Day 2900

One down, one to go. Today's photo shoot went well. The dogs were friendly. The owners were happy. And all the equipment worked. It's always a good day when nobody pees on the backdrop and Santa doesn't get bit. I can't even remember how many years we've been doing this, but some people keep coming back year after year. I've watched their dogs grow from puppies to senior citizens. We didn't have any exotic animals today, but we did photograph one cat. In recent years, people have started bringing their children to these events for Christmas pictures. Everyone says we are so much easier to deal with than the Santa at the mall. Some children were chatty and gave Santa a long list of what they wanted for Christmas. Others seemed terrified. I'm no psychologist, but the kids with dogs in their family seemed the most relaxed. Having a dog makes everything better.

I had the usual aches and pains from kneeling most of the day, but actually this year seemed easier than last year. Maybe I've reached some sort of a plateau where my body has stopped falling apart for a while. At least I didn't slow the others down today. We were booked solid for the entire day and it was important to keep things moving along. Thankfully, our host built a pause in today's schedule to give our team time to eat lunch. Sometimes this doesn't happen and it can make for a very long day.

I may have gotten a new web design job as a result of today's event. At least I've got a meeting scheduled next week to talk about things. Lately, I'm a little apprehensive about taking on new work. I definitely still need the money, but I'm growing tired of the deadlines and responsibility. I think this means that I'm finally coming to grips with retirement. The day is coming when I will just say "no thank you" to new assignments. I'm not there yet, but I am becoming more gracious about letting someone else get a new account. It's too bad the the stable world of my parents is gone forever. When my Dad retired, he was able to depend on a nice pension for the rest of his life. Defined pension plans have gone the way of the dinosaurs. All we've got now is a stock market that could crash at any moment.

Janet was able to leave the photo shoot a little early, so Dash still got his evening walk. It was pretty late when I got home, but I still went up on the roof anyway and patched the hole I made yesterday before it got dark. The weather forecast is changing and the last thing I wanted was for the roof to get wet before I finished what I started. My patch looks good, so I think I'm going to be OK. Once the roofers discover that I've started buying my own elastomer material, they'll probably never come back. I don't know what else to do though. I really need to get this done.

Tomorrow is going to seem like Saturday. Janet and I still have our weekend errands and grocery shopping to do. I probably won't make it to the gym, but that's OK. I had my workout today. There's probably no point in taking the photo equipment back to the storage warehouse. We've got another Santa Paws event next Saturday.

I'm hoping to sleep in late tomorrow morning. Dash may have other ideas though. It's always easier to do what Dash wants. Maybe this is why our photo shoots go so well. Santa and I have learned to do what the dogs want.

Greta is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2733 - Father's Day

Every Father's Day I see all these pictures on Facebook of people with their Dad. I can't recall any pictures of me and my Dad together. Even when I spent a lot of time with him toward the end of his life, we never took a picture together. To be fair, I can't recall any pictures of me and my Mom together either. I don't know what this means, but our family certainly didn't spend a lot of time recording family events.

Maybe this odd tradition continues. Janet and I have taken an enormous number of pictures of our dogs in every conceivable situation, but we have very few pictures of each other. I wouldn't read too much into this. Animals are just more fun to photograph.

I moved the pressure washer to another part of the house this afternoon and continued my quest to clean the exterior. There seems to be a fine line between removing spider webs and removing paint. The exterior paint is old and if I try too hard to remove a stubborn web, I can easily strip the paint away too. I'm going to have to go to a hardware store and see if there is some kind of spray I can apply to keep the spiders from returning. It would be a shame to have invested this much time cleaning the place, only to have all the spiders return in a few weeks.

I wish good house painters weren't so expensive. I've gotten bids several times and have always been appalled at the cost of professionally repainting the house. I repainted the interior myself about eight years ago and I think this might have been the origin of my shoulder problems. Painting the ceilings with a roller was a bitch. About halfway through the job, I discovered a power roller that made the job quicker, but holding a paint filled roller at the end of a long pole was still tiring. Maybe painting the exterior will be easier since there are no ceilings. The exterior walls are mostly brick, so a few wooden walls shouldn't be a huge problem. Oops. I forgot that the long back porch has a ceiling. That's were all the spiders congregate. This area needs some kind of special spider proof paint.

Janet took me out for a birthday dinner tonight, since she'll have to work late tomorrow. Sometimes my birthday falls on Father's Day and even when it doesn't, the two days are always close together. Mom used to say that I was her Father's Day gift to Dad. I think Dad would have preferred a new fishing rod or some wood carving tools. It was enjoyable to go out to dinner for a change. We haven't been out together since Dot got sick and couldn't be left alone. We didn't forget Dash though. We ate early, so there would still be time for an evening walk before it got dark.

The older I get, the less I look forward to birthdays. I'll be 69 tomorrow. Despite what some people say, 69 is not the new 49. The aches and pains are real. I feel old. I look old. I am old. My Mom didn't even live this long, so I really should look at each additional year as a gift. It would be beneficial to develop a positive attitude. Youth is very forgiving to negative people, but it's silly to be negative when you're old. You just don't have that many years left. I don't want to waste the time I've been allotted. There might not be a bucket list, but there is still a lot of stuff I'd like to do.

Rugby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2198

I thought I'd finished my Christmas shopping yesterday, but I forgot something important. Yup. I didn't have any wrapping paper. I got back in the car again after breakfast and went to the Container Store. They had an entire store full of overpriced wrapping paper. I found what I needed and went back home again. Hopefully, I really am finished with shopping this time.

I was surprised to find a UPS package on my doorstep from a distant cousin I rarely see. I was even more surprised at the contents. One of my elderly aunts had passed away not too long ago and this cousin was the executor of her estate. He send me decades of family photos that I never even knew existed. I should have known they existed, since I was in many of them. It seemed strange that this aunt, who I hadn't seen in years, kept a much better record of my family than I did. I should have asked her to tell me the story behind these pictures while she was still alive. Now she and her brothers and sisters are all gone. It's odd. I've been a professional photographer for many, many years, but I've never kept a family album. There are very few pictures of me as an adult at all. I do have thousands of pictures of my dogs though.

I knew there were going to be problems with Dot when she went to bed without doing her business last night. Sure enough, she pooped in her bed around 3 AM, and then pooped again in the kitchen a few hours later when she was eating her breakfast. As messes go, this was a big one. Hopefully, she will be back on schedule for a while. It's sad to see Dot's neuropathy progress. There is no cure and her condition will gradually get worse. The spinal surgery helped. The water therapy we do every week continues to help, but the nerve damage is still there. The only comforting thought is that Dot is still happy and doesn't seem to be in any pain. I just try to make each day as easy as possible for her.

I installed the new version of Pro Tools this morning. I added a few essential plug-ins, made sure everything worked and then quit the application without making any music at all. It will probably be months before I even think about Pro Tools again. I don't know why it is so important for me to stay current with Pro Tools, Media Composer, Final Cut Pro and a few other tools that my business used to depend on. I was a good editor, but I've kind of lost my chops, since it's been a while since anyone's needed me to open up these applications and actually use them. I'm sure that there will be a day when I'll get bored enough to open Pro Tools again and learn to use some of the fancy new features. Maybe I'll write a song again some day. That would be nice. It's such an uphill battle. To write a song again, I'd have to get my keyboard out of the storage warehouse and teach myself to play piano again.

I paid the last of the December bills and took them to the post office. With this year's humongous plumbing bills, dental bills, and cancer treatment bills behind me, maybe now I can finally get ahead of the game. Oh, wait. There isn't time. The year is already over. I'm sure that next year will bring a whole new set of surprises. I guess I'll wrap packages tomorrow. It would be a good idea to get them wrapped before Christmas.

Two sisters are today's Dalmatians of the Day

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