Day 3186

Today had its ups and downs. Dash pooped in a neighbor's driveway this morning and then a little later he lost one of his shoes. I cleaned up the poop the best I could, but losing the shoe was a big deal. As soon as I noticed the missing boot, I tried to get Dash to turn around and go looking for it, but he he can be very stubborn and wanted to continue going forward. Even though it was in his best interest, Dash wouldn't turn around at all. Luckily, we weren't that far from home. His exposed rear paw was dirty and scuffed up a bit, but there was no bleeding.

When I made sure that Dash has finished his breakfast and was ready for his nap, I retraced my steps and went looking for the shoe. These boots are way too expensive to be disposable, so I need to make an effort to find them when they fall off. I wish he'd been wearing the green or red boots today. They would have been a lot easier to find. The missing black rubber boot blended in with the ground and was much more difficult to locate than I expected. Eventually I found both the boot and its companion sock. Strangely, the sock and boot weren't together. I don't know how he managed to lose the sock before the shoe, but that's the way it happened.

I went back to Knife for breakfast this morning. They stop serving at 10 AM, and I barely made it. Hey, it can take a long time to find a missing dog boot in the park. The Brioche French Toast I ordered this morning was delicious. Knife is really a high-end steak house, but they serve a limited breakfast menu since they are located in a hotel. I'm glad I discovered this place. It's exactly what I was looking for. It's odd. I've been looking for a nice place to eat in the neighborhood for years and what I really wanted was a chance to pretend that I wasn't in Dallas at all.

On the way home I discovered that my favorite Macintosh repair shop had gone out of business. Damn. Just about every one of my computers has been serviced at this store at one time of another. The place was close to home, the service was great, and the technicians could fix anything. The whole experience was a huge improvement over going to the Apple Store. I shouldn't have been surprised that the place went out of business. If I like a place, it is almost certain that it will go out of business. My favorite furniture stores, hobby shops, camera shops, art galleries, and restaurants have all gone out of business. It's so inevitable that businesses I like will fail that I've thought about hiring myself out as a consultant. If I like your concept, just forget about it. Why throw your money away. Just invest in something I hate instead.

It's still raining here, but I need to remind myself not to complain about the weather. There are no downed trees. There are no high winds. And there is no flooding. I'm sure there is water on the roof, but it is just rain. I feel sorry for all those people on the Carolina coast, but I still don't understand why they are living on the coast in the first place. Don't they know that when sea levels rise, all their property is going to be underwater anyway.

Janet and I will try again to take pictures of the rescue Dalmatian tomorrow. It's hard to tell at this point if we will be successful. So far, the weather looks almost identical to what we were dealing with last week.

Nicholas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2615

When I was driving to breakfast this morning, I noticed that a popular restaurant I used to frequent had gone out of business. The sign was down. The furniture was gone. And there was a large For Lease sign in front of the building. There's got to be a story behind this sudden departure, but I'll probably never know the details. I was sad to see the restaurant go out of business. I hope I didn't contribute to the demise of this place. The owners were good people. I quit eating here because the food quality declined. Maybe the chef quit or the place changed ownership. Whatever happened, it was apparent that somebody was trying to cut corners by using inferior ingredients. You can never assume that customers will never know the difference. I think customers always know the difference.

I was nervous about leaving the dogs this afternoon, but everything worked out fine. It took longer than I thought to get the set ready for Sunday's photo shoot, but it was actually kind of enjoyable talking with the other photographer who was working with me. This guy was near the beginning of his career while I was near the end of mine, but we still found plenty to talk about. I enjoy talking shop. We talked about lighting techniques and the types of gear we preferred and never mentioned politics at all. I was skeptical about the client's idea at first, but I now think it will work. I still might not understand the concept, but the photo will be pretty.

I had hoped that Dot would still be asleep when I returned, but she was standing up and barking instead. A quick glance revealed that she had not peed or pooped in her bed, so I quickly unlocked the back door and immediately took her outside. I brought her inside after she peed and wandered around for a bit, and then she promptly pooped on a rug in the dining room. Oh, well. I was expecting a mess this afternoon, and I got one.

Dash continues to improve. The wobbling walk and uncertain gait was almost unnoticeable. By the time he finishes his Prednisone tablets, he should be back to normal. The dogs were actually pretty good today. I had some rugs and blankets to wash this afternoon because we didn't make it this morning on our daily mad dash to the back door. It was my fault that we didn't make it. Dot and I woke up about the same time and I had to pee too. I need to remember that her needs have to come first. In theory, I should be able to hold it for a while, but when you first wake up it doesn't seem that way.

There was a penumbral eclipse of the moon tonight. I caught the tail end of it when I was taking Dot out to pee after dinner. I should have gone outside a little earlier, since mid-eclipse was right after sunset, but I don't think I missed much. A penumbral eclipse is pretty subtle. The moon doesn't disappear or turn red; it just gets a little darker. A comet is supposed to be viable later tonight as well. I think I'll skip this one. It doesn't come into view until 3 AM and you need binoculars and a dark, clear sky to see it anyway.

This weekend should be busy. Janet has a Dalmatian Rescue event tomorrow and I've got the photo shoot on Sunday. Hopefully, the dogs will cooperate. I won't be able to go to the gym this week, but I have a feeling that I'll get plenty of exercise anyway.

Landry is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2322

Dot's injuries have caused me to worry more. There is absolutely no reason to worry any more than I usually do, but I still wake up every morning expecting something terrible to happen. Today, when I was at the gym, I checked on the dogs with the baby monitor and got a weird error message. I get error messages with this camera all the time, but I'd never seen this one before. It seemed to indicate that the camera had been physically moved. The only thing that I could think of was that Dash had another epileptic seizure and knocked the camera off the low table where it was sitting. This was an irrational fear since Dash hasn't had a seizure in years, but I cut my workout short and went home to check on things anyway. Everything was fine. When I re-booted the WiFi network, the camera worked perfectly.

My seasonal allergies are worse than ever this year. My eyes were itching when I woke up and I spent the rest of the day sneezing, blowing my nose, and squirting Visine in my eye. It probably didn't help matters that I mowed the grass this morning, but it had to be done. I wish I had a self-propelled mower, but I'm tired of trying to start gas powered mowers. I like my simple electric lawn mower, but it's getting harder and harder to push it up the hills. Elon Musk needs to design a decent electric lawn mower. Most of them are pretty crude and basic.

My new activity monitor send me a message saying that based on a twelve day analysis, my resting heart rate is considered normal for a person who eats well and is physically fit. That was kind. If the message was honest, it would say that the heart rate is normal for a crazy old man who still mows his own grass and vacuums up dog hair obsessively with the most powerful Dyson available. I do stay active, even though taking naps is one of my favorite activities.

On my way to the gym this afternoon, I stopped by the sporting goods store that is going out of business again. They keep lowering prices further every week and I'm drawn to a bargain like a moth to a flame. I walked away with a big plush dog blanket for Dash. The last thing we need are more dog blankets, but this looked pretty and was marked down from $70 to $14. I couldn't resist. Dash liked the blanket, but he always likes new things.

Dot hasn't pooped all day. Ordinarily, you'd think this was a good thing, but it's making me nervous. She should have done her business after lunch, during her evening walk, or at least after dinner. She just wasn't in the mood. Now, I'm sure she's going to explode when I'm not looking and make a big mess all over the house. There's nothing you can do. Incontinence and old age are just a fact of life.

The Foxglove and Milkweed plants are starting to flower behind our house. Wildflowers always bloom in a distinct sequence. I see pink and yellow Primrose flowers first. Then there are a lots of Horse Nettle, Grape Hyacinth, and Crows Poison blooms. The Firewheel and Mexican Hat flowers always seems to arrive last. The meadows and native prairie around our house look so lush now that it's hard to believe that everything will be brown and dry by early July.

The refrigerator is stocked with strawberries and blueberries and there's a big bowl of fresh bananas on the kitchen counter. I'm ready for another week to begin.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2313

Nothing went as planned today. I tried something new for breakfast and I didn't like it. This is why doing new things is problematic for me. When I go to a new restaurant, I'll methodically try everything on the menu to find my favorite items. After that, I'll order the same thing over and over again forever. The process can take months. Why did my old restaurant have to change? I got this time consuming process out of the way years ago, and now I have to start over again.

After breakfast, I stopped by the cancer center to pick up Dot's missing pills. I tried to convince them that I had already paid for the pills, but their record keeping was better than mine and they showed me that the reason I ran out early was that I had rescheduled Dot's Ultrasound exam for a week later than originally planned. I tend to forget how expensive the Palladia pills are until I buy just a few at a time. The unit cost is unreal. Every time Dot takes her chemotherapy pills, it costs $50.  She has a treatment every three days. It's hard for me to have any sympathy for pharmaceutical companies. They tend to charge by how life threatening the disease is. When I was taking Sovaldi while I was being treated for Hepatitis C, the cost was an astounding $1000 a pill. The difference was that I had health insurance and Dot doesn't. Dogs basically pay retail for their meds. Is any of this fair? Of course not. Very few things are fair anymore. This is why voters are so mad this year.

Since the cancer center is near the sporting goods store that is going out of business, I stopped on the way home to look for more bargains. I came home with a nice pair of waterproof boots for walking the dogs and light fleece jacket to wear around the house when Janet keeps the house too cold in the summer. I probably didn't need either of these things, but it seemed to balance thing out to pay too little for something after I had just paid too much for something else.

I got started on my big website overhaul this afternoon. Many of the changes the client requested didn't make a lot of sense, but this is what I do. If I only took jobs that made sense, I would make no money at all. Since the annual subscription for the design tool I used to create this site will run out while I am working on this project, I will need to renew for another year. The cost of the subscription is more than what I will make on the job. Oh, well. It's just the cost of doing business. When I started designing websites, I didn't need a lot of help. I could write simple HTML using a word processor.  Things are different now and today's new responsive websites have become quite complicated. I need all the help I can get.

I didn't have much luck with Dot today. I tried my best to get her to poop in the yard while I was home, but she always decided to go while I was away. The latest accident occurred while I was giving Dash his evening walk. I kind of knew it was going to happen, but I couldn't get Dash to turn around and come home in time. It was a nice day and he wanted a long walk. Long walks are fine, but Dash didn't have to clean up the poop when we got home. I'm still doing laundry. I'm hoping for a calm, uneventful weekend, but the weather report says to expect thunderstorms. We'll see. At least the garbage truck picked up my trash this morning.

Krissy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1717

The year is winding down. Most of the wildflowers in the park have been replaced by seed pods and odd looking fruit. These will provide the seeds to begin the whole process again next Spring. Most of the flowers we see on our walks are actually weeds. One of the most common is Horse Nettle. The small white flowers with the bright yellow stamen are ubiquitous in the meadows below our house. In the Fall the pretty flowers are replaced by clusters of small yellow fruit that resemble cherry tomatoes. Farmers and ranchers often call these things devil's tomato, since they are poisonous. One more thing to steer clear of with the dogs.

I got a letter today telling me that the only remaining store in Texas that specialized in selling astronomical telescopes will be closing at the end of the month. This store joins a long list of fascinating small businesses that I've enjoyed patronizing over the years. The Observatory has been around for over 15 years, but I guess it finally succumbed to the same pressures that have caused many other small businesses to shut their doors. The stores that sold model trains were the first to go. Then the independent camera stores and retail lumberyards disappeared. Even though it never gets dark enough in Dallas for serious star gazing, I used to like visiting the telescope store. When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronomer. I never had a good grasp of math, which explains why I went into advertising instead, but I still have a fondness for nice telescopes. I'll miss this unique store. It's just not the same buying things on eBay.

Dot had an excellent physical therapy session today. We started interval training again and she did just fine. Her weight has stabilized at 53 pounds and her rear legs are definitely getting stronger. There is still a tremor in her left rear leg when she is standing still, but it doesn't seem to affect her mobility. For a senior citizen, Dot is really quite remarkable. She can still keep up with Dash, who is probably five years younger. We may have to learn to live with the incontinence issues though. We still haven't tried medication, but this doesn't look like it is going to clear up on its own. Dot doesn't even know she is peeing on things, because she is always asleep when she has an accident.

This week has gone quickly. This entire month has gone quickly. It's hard to believe it will be Labor Day on Monday. I'm already looking forward to my breakfast outing tomorrow. It is supposed to rain on Friday, but hopefully I can get the dogs walked and have my breakfast before things get messy. I don't mind designing websites in the rain, but walking dogs in the rain is another matter entirely.

Mandy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day