Day 4327

I ran a bunch of small errands today. I picked up the prescriptions my doctor called in when I had my physical exam a few days ago. My prescriptions always get renewed whenever I have an exam whether I need more pills or not. Now I've got too many pills again. I got a new aerator for a bathroom faucet at a plumbing supply store. I forgot to have the plumber replace this when he was out to the house a few weeks ago. It was surprisingly hard to find an aerator that fit because the faucet was European and had different threads than most faucets. I took my vaccination card back to the doctor's office so the nurse could add my booster shot information. Now I'm wondering what the new electronic card on my phone is good for if it can't be updated. Actually, it probably can be updated, but it will take most doctors forever to learn how. My doctor didn't even know there was an electronic card. Since the colonoscopy doctor was just across the hall from my regular doctor, I visited them too to ask if they'd filled the prep kit prescription yet. Nope. I hope they remember because their office isn't open this weekend. I wasted a lot of time doing not very much, but all these things needed to be taken care of.

It was still windy and cold today. It's time to start wearing long sleeved shirts again. There's a fine line for me between pleasantly cool and cold. It was getting pretty close to cold this morning. I have a coat for every season, so I was comfortable walking, but I still enjoy shirtsleeve weather the best. Dawn certainly seems to enjoy the cooler weather, although the wind sometimes scares her. She took a longer sunrise walk today on a very brisk early morning.

My arm doesn't hurt any more from the Covid shot. I don't feel as tired either. I guess this means that I have no excuse to keep postponing mowing the yard now. I keep wanting to wait a little longer so I only have to do this one more time this season. It's hard to predict when the grass will stop growing. Occasionally we'll get a warm spell in December and the grass will start growing again.  I should probably get a yard service like all my other neighbors, but we have a small yard and mowing is actually good exercise. I don't like mowing the grass at all, but I do like being self sufficient.

I ran all my errands today early in the afternoon, hoping that there would be less traffic. This plan didn't work at all. Traffic has gotten so bad in Dallas that it seems like rush hour all the time now. If doesn't matter when I leave the house. There are always a ton of cars on the road. There's always a lot of construction too, which makes things even worse. I definitely miss the empty roads of far West Texas. I won't be going back there any time soon though. I'd better get used to life in the city for a while.

I have this urge to buy more gadgets when I really should be saving my money to fix things around the house. I keep putting things off because I hate the idea of having strangers inside the house. Other than the plumber and my HVAC guy, I don't know anyone I trust anyway. When I used to own rent property I always had repair work done between tenants. It's a lot easier to work on a house when it is empty. When you are actually living in the place, even simple things like painting or replacing carpets can be problematic. Just removing all the books from the bookshelves in my office so someone could paint behind them would be a nightmare. Workmen are always going in and out and leaving doors open too. That just doesn't work when you have dogs. 

Tomorrow is grocery day again. Where does the time go? My list is a little longer this week, so I'm going to get started as early as I can. Anything to avoid the crowds.

Dakota is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2656

I need to come up with a new plan for getting Dot outside when she wakes up in the morning. She just can't make it to the back door anymore. For the past three days I've had to wash a bunch of rugs that she peed on while making her exit. It's a mess. If I take up the rugs, the floor is too slippery and Dot will fall. She's too heavy to carry. And it's impracticable to have her sleep in the living room. Incontinence is a bitch. I've placed Dot's bed so I can see it while I'm working. I've learned that if she lifts her head and looks at me, she needs to pee. I stop what I'm doing and take her outside immediately. This usually works during the day. Nights are a problem though because she sleeps much longer than the two hours she can reliably hold her bladder. I really don't know if there's a solution to this, but it's wearing me out.

My project for the day was cleaning a bathroom faucet that seemed to have mold inside it. You'd think running water would keep the faucet clean, but apparently not. I needed to clean this thing because it was a bit disconcerting to turn on the faucet to brush my teeth and see little black flecks come out. At any rate, I took the faucet apart and soaked the parts in bleach. The faucet and the water coming out of it seem clean now, but I'm sure this is just a temporary fix. Everything I do these days is a temporary solution.

Since I was successful at cleaning the faucet, I decided to watch a YouTube video and learn how to replace the hard drive on my desktop computer. This used to be super easy on the old tower Macintosh computers, but things have changed. Even the screws that hold things together on my 27" iMac are different. To exchange the hard drive on my current computer, I'd first need to buy a set of special Torx screwdrivers and a big suction cup to get the glass off the front. Once the the components were exposed, I would risk ruining the fragile LED screen if I accidentally touched it. To make matters worse, there was a special heat sensor that only came with Apple OEM drives, so replacing the drive with a high capacity third party drive wasn't going to be easy. I learned that somebody made a replacement for the Apple heat sensor, but it was uncertain if this part was even available anymore. Basically, it took me longer to watch the video than it used to take me to replace all the drives in my old silver door Mac.

It is fundamentally discouraging to realize that I can no longer fix most of the things I use every day. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. For most of my adult life I have modified and upgraded all manner of things on my own. Modern manufacturing techniques make it virtually impossible to change components or make simple repairs. We live in a disposable society now. If something breaks, you're not supposed to fix it. You're supposed to have insurance, or Applecare in my case, and use your policy to exchange your damaged gizmo for a new model.

The adjustments we've made to Dot's pain medications have made her more alert and active, but they haven't made her any stronger. This means that I'm spending even more of my time moving Dot around when she gets restless. Dot is heavy. After a day of holding up her rear legs, my shoulder is begging for mercy. Caring for an injured dog with carpal tunnel in your wrists and a dislocated shoulder is not something I'd recommend.

We're supposed to have severe weather tomorrow morning. I brought all the rugs that were drying outdoors back inside and took the trash out to the curb. Luckily, the rugs appear to be dry. I guess I'm prepared for the rain, but I'll miss going out to breakfast tomorrow. I'm all out of bananas and fresh fruit, so hopefully there are still some toaster waffles in the freezer.

Ariel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2346

I'm convinced that waiting for service technicians must be one of the circles of hell in Dante's Inferno. No matter when you schedule things, the repair people are never on time, and when they do finally arrive, the part you need the most isn't ever on the truck. I thought today's plumbing repair was going to be a simple job, but I should have known better. When the plumber finally arrived, he took a quick look at the leaking faucets and told me that simply replacing the washers wasn't going to work. The fixtures had corroded so badly that he recommended replacing the entire assembly. I thought the plumber would go and pick up the parts himself, but he suggested that it would be better if I do it. "I'll probably pick up something you hate," said the plumber, "and even if I do find the right parts, I'll have to mark them up 40%. OK. You convinced me. I drove down to the plumbing supply store and looked at the faucets he recommended. I didn't like either of them. I took one of the handles from the old faucets with me and the owner of the store recognized it and said he had all the parts to completely rebuild my current faucet. This seemed like a better solution to me, since the newer faucets didn't look like they would fit anyway. I bought $90 worth of faucet parts and returned home to reschedule another appointment with the plumber. The dispatcher told me that someone could come out again toward the end of the day, which sounded much better than waiting until Friday. I waited and waited, but the plumber never showed up.

When you are waiting for a repair person, you can't run to the bank, or walk the dogs, or even take a shower, because that's always when the repair guys will arrive. If you cancel everything and wait patiently, they will never show up. If you figure that they're going to be late anyway and decide to run a quick errand, they'll be in your driveway in ten minutes. At any rate I have all the parts now.  The next step is to get another plumber to come out and tell me that I bought the wrong parts.We'll have to go through all the barking again too. The first thing that Dot did when she saw the plumber this morning was poop all over the place.

The sink will eventually get fixed, but I'm betting that something else will go wrong before the job is finished. At least I had something to do while I waited today. Since I wasn't able to leave the house for a large part of the day, I was able to complete one of my increasingly rare writing assignments. Hopefully, I'll have another assignment when the plumber returns. It will help to pay the plumbing bill.

The weather forecast has been wrong almost every day this week. It was supposed to rain today, but the weather was actually pretty nice.  Dot did well on her short walk this morning. I think a week of reduced activity is helping her.  I could use a week of reduced activity myself. I'm perpetually tired these days. Maybe tomorrow will be my day of rest. There certainly isn't much else on the schedule at this point.

Susie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day