Day 3764

I'm seeing more and more pictures of people baking bread, fixing elaborate meals, and even sewing from friends who used to spend most of their time in meetings. I guess we are part of this trend. Janet baked a pineapple upside-down cake in a large cast iron skillet today and it was delicious. It was much better than the pineapple upside-down cakes we used to get at Central Market. Actually everything we've been eating lately is much better that the take out meals that used to be our standard fare. I wonder how long we all need to remain quarantined before these newly acquired habits become permanent? Healthy, home-cooked meals are actually a good thing. Having the time to cook them is even better.

My life still hasn't changed much. Janet never used to spend much time at home, but it's been enjoyable having her around. We do more things together now. I have a feeling she'll be running marathons soon. She runs three miles every morning before coming home to take a long walk with Dawn and I. I'm still spending a lot of time puttering around on the computer, but I think I need a project. I enjoy writing, but don't really enjoy chronicling the spread of the coronavirus. I'm tired of talking about it. I'd much rather be writing about astronomy and space. I feel like I submitted my story to Sky and Telescope at the worst possible time. Boston, the home of the magazine is becoming a hotspot and I doubt that my story is the first thing on the editors minds these days. There's still a story in the works at SpaceFlight Magazine too, but I don't even want to ask about that one. London is in a world of hurt these days.

Dawn really enjoys her long daily walks, especially on cold mornings like we've had for the past several days. She enjoys the outdoors and often suns herself on a big rug we've placed in the back yard for her. She'd probably enjoy lying in the grass too if we actually had any grass in the back yard. Now there's a big project. I could re-sod the back yard without the help of the landscape guys. I've done it before when I was younger and had more energy. If I got the tree guy to come over and cut down the remaining damaged Oak tree, our grass would probably get enough sun to finally grow on its own. When I talk about mowing the grass, I'm only talking about the front yard. Until the trees started falling, the back yard was always covered by a thick tree canopy and the grass never got enough sun to grow.

I'm surprised that nobody noticed that my picture of a Buttonbush flower on Sunday's Easter post looked exactly like a coronavirus. I thought it was kind of clever. I have no idea what all the black moths were doing on the Queen Anne's Lace plants today, but they looked ominous. There were hundreds of them and they reminded me of tiny little vultures.

I not only forgot to mention the resemblance of Buttonbush plants to coronavirus illustrations, I also forgot to mention that the watch of the day on Saturday's post used to belong to Alice Cooper. Actually, every watch has a story but I can't be bothered to explain it. I've completely forgotten the backstory to many of the watches I used to collect. It seems so long ago. Collecting things was a waste of time and money. Of course if I had put that money in the stock market, it would all be gone by now anyway. Who knew the apocalypse was coming.

What day is it? Time has lost all meaning. We go to bed later and get up a lot later. When you turn on the television it feels a lot like Ground Hog Day. It's the same news over and over again. There are still chores to do, but it's easy to put them off until tomorrow. What's the rush.

Flash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1670

I think even the dogs would agree that the dog days of Summer have arrived. It's hot. It's dry. All the wildflowers behind our house have dried up an gone to seed. Without rain, the ground in the park starts to crack and deep fissures appear in the soil. I've got to keep an eye out for these cracks when I walk the dogs. They are often quite deep and are hidden beneath the patchy prairie grass. As the cracks grow, I've seen dogs step in them inadvertently and injure their leg.

When I was grocery shopping today, I stopped by the vet and made a day boarding appointment for next week while I'm on jury duty. When the dogs were younger, I would have just left them at home, but Dot is old and frail and I still worry about Dash getting an itch and scratching at the slowly healing cancer scar on his neck while I'm away. I don't know why taking care of a sick dog should be any different than taking care of a sick child, or an elderly grandmother. The dogs are more important to me than most people anyway. I think I should be exempt from jury duty, but it's not going to happen. The courts love people my age, because they don't have as many excuses. I've seen retired people actually eager to sit on juries, because they didn't have anything better to do. I'm not one of those people. I don't trust the court system and don't even like to go near a courthouse.

For the second weekend in a row, I sat inside and worked on websites, instead of braving the heat and doing yard work like I should. I did water the shrubs in the back yard along with the Wax Myrtle tree out front, but mowing the grass can wait. It's just too hot. The grass doesn't grow very fast in this weather anyway. I try to convince myself that by letting it grow longer, I'm helping the root system grow longer as well. I must be doing something right, because the grass is still green. Usually, by this time of year it's already starting to wither and turn brown.

I actually got quite a bit done on my latest website project this afternoon. There wasn't much else to do. After putting the groceries away, vacuuming the house, and doing a little coding on the new website, it was really tempting to spend the rest of the afternoon taking a nap with the dogs. Well, I guess it was a little more than tempting. I did take a nap with the dogs.

Tomorrow, I'll go to the gym. Sure, I had time to go today, but what was the point? I just wasn't in the mood.

Winston is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1556

Such a busy day. It wasn't a bad day though. Even though I had way too much to do, the day was full of encouraging signs. I was happy to see that Dash seems to tolerate his chemotherapy medicine. So far, I've seen none of the possible side effects that the oncologist warned me about. Dash didn't start vomiting today. He doesn't have diarrhea. And he doesn't appear overly tired. A bad reaction could still appear over time, but at least we're off to a good start. If Dash was going to have an immediate adverse reaction to the drugs, I would have seen something by now.

My own Hepatitis C treatment seems to be going equally well. I learned today that my viral load numbers have decreased from a baseline of over 5 million IU/ML in January to just 18 IU/ML today. This sounds pretty dramatic, but the numbers have to go all the way to zero and stay there for two months before I am considered cured. If even a small amount of the virus remains, it will eventually start replicating again and I'll be right back to where I was when I started. Considering that I'm only halfway through my treatment, I'm very encouraged though. I have every reason to believe that my numbers eventually will go to zero

The back yard looks much better now. The landscapers spent most of the day planting new grass, putting fresh gravel on the paths, and removing all the Winter leaves. Just getting rid of all the leaves made a huge improvement. The landscapers are pretty good about sticking to their estimate, but I've got to remember that everything is à la carte. If you think of something extra you want them to do once they're here, you're going to get charged for it. Needless to say, as the yard starts to take shape, I always think of additional things that need to be done. So, the job went over budget today, but I guess it was my fault. A least the yard looks nice for a change.

I wish work wasn't keeping me so busy this Spring, but I'm definitely not turning any jobs down. I need the money. Now, when a check comes in, I think "this will help pay for Dash's surgery," or "hey, here's a month of pills." With Dot's carpet eating incident and Dash's cancer, the vet bills are pretty staggering. As high as the costs are, I'm still amazed at how reasonable they are compared to what the same procedure would cost for a human. The veterinary specialists Dot and Dash see are every bit as good as any human doctor I've seen, and their equipment is even better. The difference in cost can all be attributed to health insurance and malpractice insurance. Everything about human medicine is hugely inflated to cover these costs.

Dash resumes his radiation treatment tomorrow. I think he enjoyed his day off. I know I enjoyed the day off. A trip back and forth to the cancer center can make a busy day much busier. I picked up Janet at the airport this evening, so life should return to a semblance of normalcy. When you've got problems, it's always good to have two people to solve them.

Baxter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1286

I discovered why there were all the warnings about wearing gloves and protective eye wear on the can of expanding foam insulation I used to fill cracks in the house this morning. The stuff is nasty. Since I am growing increasingly clumsy, I followed all the directions on the can and dressed accordingly. I hate working with this stuff, but it's still the best way I know to fill the cracks and crevices where bugs can get into your house.

After sealing several dozen potential entry points, I accidentally discovered where the bees were coming from and successfully removed the small but growing hive.  It was a tiring, but successful morning.  I didn't get stung and only managed to get a small amount of the gooey foam on my arm.  The instructions said to let the foam dry on your skin and it would wear off.

The dogs loved their trip to the dog park, since they hadn't been in several weeks. The fun was short lived though, because it was just too hot outside. Even though we brought our own water with us, we only ended up staying about half as long as we usually do. The heat made the bath that came afterwards somewhat of a welcome relief. Dot and Dash usually hate getting a bath, but today they seemed to welcome the cool water flowing over them.

I waited to take my own shower until later, because there was still work to be done. I mowed the grass and sowed some new "deep shade" seed in an effort to fill the patchy areas are are already starting to appear in the grass we put in this Spring. When I had the landscape guys over last week to remove the large limb that had fallen, I asked them why the grass was looking so patchy. They looked genuinely puzzled. The grass should be growing well. The soil was prepared properly. The grass was watered and fertilized properly. There are no insects in the soil as of yet. It's just not growing well. I'm beginning to think that our yard is some kind of Bermuda triangle for horticulture.

This weekend really went quickly. Tomorrow, I'll go back with a serrated knife and cut the rough edges off the expanding foam after it has fully cured. Then, after I paint the stuff, you won't even know it was there. If I don't have a lot of writing work on Monday, I might go out and price some new tires for the Defender. I've started noticing that the slow leak in the rear tire is getting worse, and it's time for new tires anyway. Buying tires is right up there with putting on a new roof when it comes to satisfying ways to spend money. Oh, well. As Mick Jagger says, "You can't always get what you want..."

Dot and Dash have the right idea. They certainly didn't try to turn this weekend into a chore marathon. Right now, they're both taking a snooze on top of the bed's freshly laundered comforter. I'll think I'll join them.

Boo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1224

I tried, with very limited success, to tie up some loose ends today. Everyone I called seemed to have a good excuse for why they were either late or had forgotten what I was asking about. The roofer was swamped with repair requests after a series of recent rains. The Land Rover dealer said they had left me a message. The insurance agent said my check was made out wrong. The accountant said the disk copy of my tax return wasn't ready yet. It was always something.

Of course, I'm not much better myself. I apologized to my vet for completely forgetting Dot's acupuncture appointment last Monday and then she regaled me with a long list of things she had forgotten during the same week.  I think life is too busy and too stressful for just about everyone. We are all being asked to do too much and given too little time to do it in.

I was just about ready to call the plumber this morning to come out and fix the toilet when I noticed that it wasn't the only thing that wasn't working. The water was turned off for the entire house. This seemed kind of odd, so I looked up the number for the water department and was preparing to give them a call when the water came back on again. I never found out what was going on until I took Dot to the vet later in the day and noticed a big pile of dirt in the front yard where the city had dug up and replaced the water meter. What was that all about? To the best of my knowledge, there was nothing wrong with the water meter. At least the city could have given me a call and told me what was going on. If I knew they were digging in the front yard this morning, I never would have wasted so much time trying to figure out what the problem was.

After we went to all this trouble to put in nice green grass in the back yard, Dot has decided that she would rather take her afternoon nap in the ground cover. I guess there's no accounting for taste. She can lie down wherever she wants, but I wish she liked the grass more. She's squashing the young Liriope plants the landscapers planted.

Dash has his annual physical exam tomorrow. I'm supposed to bring a stool sample to the exam with me. Hopefully I won't forget what's in the zip lock bag in my pocket like I did last year. There nothing like going to the grocery store and realizing that you've got a bag of poop in your pocket.

Mindy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1010

I must be a glutton for punishment. Even after being stuck in customer service hell with an AT&T call center agent this afternoon, I still think I'm going to go get a new iPhone tomorrow. Yeah, I've heard all the arguments on Google+ that the Android is better, but the Samsung Galaxy phones are simply too big for me. It's like putting a small tablet in your pocket. Definitely not for me. I've used Apple products since the original 1984 512K Fat Mac and see little reason to switch horses this late in the game.

Maybe I can get that new Siri personal assistant thing to be my friend. I really don't have many questions to ask, but if I could set the phone to just let me ramble on and have Siri interject with an occasional "I agree completely" or "You're a genius" it would make my day.

That's the problem with the dogs. Even though they're both as friendly as can be, neither of them think I'm any smarter than they are. I'm convinced that they think I'm just another dog. Although Dot and Dash may be right about my abilities, it would still be nice to have someone look up to you. If I get than new phone, I'll have to work on getting Siri to think I'm a genius.

I might as well throw my rototiller away. The armadillo that visits our yard every night is doing a much better job of tilling the soil than I ever did. I can't believe how destructive this little creature is. After less than a week of hunting for grubs, the armadillo has totally destroyed what was left of the backyard grass. I don't even know how the animal is getting in and out of the yard. The yard is completely fenced with no gaps large enough for an armadillo to crawl through. I don't think he's still in the yard during the day though, or the dogs would have found him by now.

Hey, at least it's Friday tomorrow. Maybe I'll get a brand new phone. Maybe I'll just get a big stack of pancakes with a side of bacon. Either way, the day will probably be more interesting than it was today.

Rosie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 996

I'm feeling a bit snarky today. It made no difference whatsoever having the U-verse technician come out yesterday. I continue to experience intermittent dropouts in the broadband signal, just like I have for months. I don't think the problem is something a technician can fix. The equipment is working fine. The problem is that the whole U-verse concept isn't ready for prime time yet. AT&T won't admit this though. They're making too much money signing up people who have become disgruntled with cable.

An armadillo tore up our yard last night. The same thing has happened every September for the past three years. The poor grass was struggling to survive anyway. Now, the back yard is pretty much decimated. I think the armadillo was looking for white grubs. It didn't find any, but that didn't stop him from trying.

I had to pick up a coffee filter and a Sodastream CO₂ canister at Bed Bath and Beyond today. When I got to the checkout counter, I finally remembered I had forgotten to bring one of those big blue Save 20% coupons that seem to arrive in the mail every other day. There is a stack of these coupons in the kitchen and I can never remember to bring them with me. Janet says I could save a lot of money if I would start using coupons, but they just don't seem important to me.

Printer ink does seem important, although I don't know why. I rarely print anything on my large format printer anymore. I still need to buy the ink though. Epson, in their evil wisdom, uses the expensive pigment ink to clean out the lines and keep the printer from clogging. Somehow, I've managed to empty all eight cartridges on the 4880 printer just running the cleaning cycle periodically. I don't think I've actually printed much of anything this year. Since I had to renew my monthly prescriptions today as well, I found it ironic that the printer ink cost me more than the pills that keep me alive.

Someone asked me the name of today's flower on Twitter this morning. It's called a Prairie Verbena. For years I've just been calling the thing a blue ring flower. I'll probably forget the real name as quickly as I forget those blue Bed Bath and Beyond coupons. I won't forget that Dot is almost back to her normal self though. We returned to our regular long walk this morning and she didn't cough a bit.

April is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 916

It was a slow day. I did what I normally do on slow days. I tried to tidy up loose ends. In retrospect, I should have just left well enough alone. Today's loose ends were a bunch of marginal, small jobs that had somehow slipped through the cracks. I wasn't particularly interested in any of these jobs. They didn't pay much and some were just favors that didn't pay anything. After I finished contacting clients, I realized that all I succeeded in doing was reviving a few jobs that the clients weren't interested in either. If I had just kept my mouth shut, these jobs probably would have just gone away on their own accord. Now, I've got to do them.

I'm beginning to see the wisdom of the cloud. I needed to reprint a large banner I'd done for Dalmatian Rescue about three years ago. I couldn't find the file anywhere on my computer. This wasn't that surprising, since I am working on a different computer now. When I called the printer however, they instantly knew what I was talking about. They had archived the file when I initially uploaded it long ago. It is already prepared and ready for printing. I like it when other people already have my files. Maybe someday, I won't need to save anything.

I've noticed that people have been leaving birthday greetings on my Facebook page and it isn't even my birthday yet. Some of these people have known me long enough to know perfectly well when the real day is, but they tend to believe Facebook anyway. Even when it's wrong. What is this all about?  Information is so easy to obtain on the Internet that we all want to believe it. It's much easier this way. I'll admit that I'm guilty myself. Whenever I casually look something up on Wikipedia, I am inclined to believe it is true. It's just so much easier to believe everything I see on Wikipedia than to do careful research and find out the real story.

I've noticed that squirrels are eating the new grass we just planted. The nerve of those cheeky squirrels! I thought that squirrels liked nuts anyway. They apparently like fresh grass too. I see them nibbling away every day. They grab a single blade of grass in their paws and nibble it down from the tip to the root. You'd think that a blade of grass wouldn't even matter, but we've got lots and lots of squirrels. I'm beginning to think that this is one of the reasons why our grass didn't last long last Summer.

Rugby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 884

Today was a good day. My new client loved the website I designed for them. The presentation this morning went very well and there were virtually no changes. We are ready to launch. I now have three competing offers on my rent property and the best offer is above my initial listing price. To round things out, I also regained an old client that I lost several years ago when they decided to take their operation in-house. Not bad for a Thursday.

I never realized that there was so much paperwork involved in selling a house. My real estate agent has already given me a ton of documents to sign and the sale hasn't even taken place yet. I'm not even sure what stage of the process we're in right now. I don't think they've done the inspection yet. I do know the buyers want to close on the deal in early June, so I guess they're serious.

I've been so busy this month that I'm having trouble keeping up with everything. The transition I've made from doing a few high paying jobs each month to doing a whole lot of low paying jobs each month has been brutal. I have to be fast and fairly organized to make any money at all. The real trouble with the low paying jobs is that the low paying clients still think they're important. I find myself spending just as much time talking with clients and answering e-mails as I used to. Sometimes I spend more time answering the e-mails than I do actually doing the job. I guess it's good to have a backlog of work though. I always know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow.

The back yard is starting to look really nice. I think last week's rains helped. The dogs certainly approve. Dot and Dash go outside every day after lunch now to lounge in the sun. All I have left to do is plant some Asian Jasmine ground cover in the really shady areas and then we'll be done for another season. I definitely don't have a green thumb, but it is nice to see that I've done something right, even if the results are only temporary.

I don't know where to have breakfast tomorrow. Neither of the places I've been going recently sound appealing to me. I can't believe that my Friday breakfast outing idea has run aground so quickly. After all, I've only been doing this a few month's now. Maybe I can find someplace new. I'd hate to have to resort to my own cooking again.

Susie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 869

People used to greet me by name at guitar stores, Italian furniture stores, and art galleries. Now they greet me by name at the pharmacy. I take so many pills that I've risen to the head of the class at my local pharmacy. All the pharmacists know who I am and what I take. It's depressing. I'd much rather have a friendly, personal welcome at the guitar store.

I suspect that those Halcyon Days might be over. The Carpal Tunnel in my wrist is so bad that is hurts to even pick up a guitar. I can still play, but not for very long. As much as I hate all the pills I take, the doctors say they are absolutely essential. I guess it is no surprise that my pharmacist is getting to know me better than anyone else. I'll take pills to keep me healthy, but I draw the line at taking pills to make me happy. I'm responsible for my own happiness.

They even make psychotropic drugs for dogs now. It just seems all wrong. The world around us may not induce euphoria anymore, but I hope that the dogs and I will always be able to cope with whatever comes our way without the need for a chemical filter. So far, so good. I manage to get through boring and even stressful days pretty well. I'll admit that there are still a few clients who could send me over the edge. If I manage to keep my sanity, I owe it all to Dot and Dash.

Training class was great tonight. The weather was warm enough that I didn't need to wear a jacket. My Spring allergies weren't acting up as much as they usually do. Dot and Dash even seemed to be in an unusually obedient mood. For the first time in quite a while, I wasn't looking at my watch continually to see when class would be over.

My new website is coming along well. With any luck, I might be able to get a functioning version up on my test server tomorrow. if that goes well, I might even get back to tackling the dreaded grass in the back yard again.

Bogart is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 866

I'm increasingly feeling like the captain of a sinking ship. Everything is broken. Lately, when I embark on a repair project around the house, I find myself having to repair my tools before I begin. When I retrieved the handy aluminum garden cart from the greenhouse this morning to begin installing the St. Augustine sod, I discovered that both tires were flat. No problem, I thought. I got the air compressor out of the utility shed and began pumping them up. Neither tire would hold air. The rubber was so dry and brittle that the tires wouldn't make an airtight seal around the rim. Oh, well. I tried. While I had the air compressor out, I decided to check the tires on the Defender. One rear tire was inflated to 40 PSI, while the other was only inflated to 17 PSI. I could understand the low, leaky tire, but how did the other tire get more air in it? A mystery for sure. I never inflate tires to more than 32 PSI.

After two trips to the grass store and many more trips transferring the grass sod from my car to the back yard using my broken garden cart, I was ready to begin. Janet bought some top soil in big bags yesterday. We spread the top soil on the tilled soil to smooth it out and then put the squares of St. Augustine sod on top. The grass looks good, but after we installed all the sod I bought today, only 1/3 of the yard was actually covered. Either the yard had gotten bigger, or the squares of sod had gotten smaller. By my rough calculations, this means at least four more trips to the grass store and 100 more squares of sod before the job is complete.

Our regular Sunday trip to the dog park was the most relaxing thing we did all day. The city could stand to plant some new grass too, because the park is starting to look just as bare as our back yard. The dogs didn't seem to mind the lack of grass. There seems to be an unwritten rule among dogs that the dirtier you are, the more status you have. All the dogs in the park today seemed perfectly content digging holes and rolling around in the dust.

It's hard to believe that it's almost May already. April just zipped by. With tax season out of the way and a real estate agent trying to sell my rent property, there is nowhere to go but up. Hey, I may even try to make some new business calls next week.  That would be a first for a year that is now almost half over.

Parker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 865

Getting the rototiller going this afternoon wore me out. For starters, gas engines that haven't been used in four years don't like to start. I must have pulled the starter cord a hundred times before I got any type of combustion. Once I got the tiller to start, it refused to stay running. Finally, after the engine had warmed up and the lines had been cleared, I got the raucous two-cycle noise I was looking for. Once I actually started tilling the soil, I wondered why I even bothered. It was like tilling an asphalt parking lot. The ground was so hard that the tiller would bounce a foot in the air when it hit a particularly hard spot. The machine was vibrating so badly that my right hand kept bumping into the kill switch and stopping the engine. I thought about duct taping the kill switch open, but I was getting tired and I knew that if the tiller got away from me, there could be some serious damage.

Somehow, I remember that tilling the soil used to seem a lot easier. Today I had trouble even getting gas into the tiller. It used to be that filling your gas powered yard tools was as simple as putting a spout on your gas can and pouring until the tank was full.  Now, with all the child proof safety features on modern gas containers, you practically have to read an instruction manual to figure out how to get the gas to flow. I sprained my thumb trying to get one of the child proof latches to open and I don't even have children. After all my efforts, I will admit that the back yard no longer looks like an asphalt parking lot. It looks like a field of boulders instead. Dash certainly likes the new look. As soon as I let the dogs out to inspect things, Dash immediately started digging holes in the newly loosened earth.

The only easy thing I did today was finish writing my April writer's group assignment. I wish that real life was as easy as doing things on the computer. Sure computers crash from time to time, but they seldom make you sweat or cause you to sprain an ankle. I wish that cleaning the house was as easy as defragmenting my hard drive. Just hit the start button and wait till it's finished. That would be nice.

The worst thing about getting ready to plant grass is that I've still got to go buy the grass and actually plant it. St. Augustine sod is heavy, because each square consists of a tiny surface of light grass attached to a base of heavy clay. The grass people say that this clay will dissolve and disappear as soon as the roots get established. The clay actually never disappears. It turns into a rock hard layer that practically has to be dynamited if you ever want to plant grass again.

We'll try to go to the dog park early tomorrow. If we waited until we finished planting the grass, I'd be too tired to go to the dog park. I'm sure Dot and Dash will enjoy having a green yard again. For a while they'll be able to sun themselves without turning into little dust balls. Then, the inevitable will happen. They'll race around and tear the grass up again and we'll be right back where we started.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 623

Every once in a while I wake up feeling like I'm going to fly like an eagle. Most days a feel a lot more like a pigeon. I hunt and peck. I make a little money. I never end up flying very far from where I started. I typically have a hard time getting up in the morning. Sometimes I stay in the shower until all the hot water runs out. Let's just say I don't start the day singing a rousing chorus of Good Morning Sunshine.

All this being said, I do manage to get a lot done when I finally kick myself into gear. Today I made revisions on just about every website I manage. I finished a couple of articles, took Dash to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot, and picked up another month's supply of meds for myself at the pharmacy. The day was a pigeon's dream.

I've been hearing a lot lately about Facebook's new privacy settings. They evidently let you individually select which people you want to see various posts that are on your wall. Sounds like a lot of trouble to me. Facebook still doesn't have the filter I want. I wish they had some kind of zip code filter. I would use it to filter out my neighbors. Increasingly, people I see almost every day are asking me if I saw their Facebook message. Why don't they just tell me in person? It would certainly be a lot easier, because I almost never look at that messages section of Facebook.

I'm keeping the back yard really wet, in hopes that the Fescue seed we planted this weekend will sprout and cover some of the dead patches. So far, the only result of this frequent sprinkling has been two muddy dogs.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 621

On the way home from the dog park, we stopped by Sprinkles again to get some cupcakes for Dot's party. They make dog cupcakes there, but really it's just an excuse to get some for ourselves. Janet seems to think that Dot's birthday is really today anyway. Maybe she's right. I'm terrible with dates. I just looked on the blog from last year and we celebrated her birthday on the 27th then, so I assumed it would be the same this year. Dot's real birthday may be Feburary 4 for all I know. When you rescue a stray, you never really know how old they are or when they were actually born. Most people just make the day they adopt their dog the pet's birthday from that day forward. I don't think Dot or Dash particularly care when they were born. They just wanted a bit of the steak we had for dinner and of course, their special Sprinkles dog cupcake. I think the party was a success.

Earlier in the day we got a call from our vet about some stray puppies that had been found in the park. The pups had spots, so the people who found them thought they might be Dalmatians. The dogs were heartbreakingly thin and looked like they had the mange. The two puppies definitely weren't all Dalmatian, but they were adorable. We see situations like this all the time and it is terribly sad. Who would just dump little puppies like this? One way or another these pups will get healthy again and find good homes. Probably next week there will be another story just like it however. I'm sure there are hundreds of stories just like this all over the country today.

I finished the day by mowing the grass, which was probably a mistake. It was still well above 100 degrees today. It's weird listening to all the reports about the hurricane on the East Coast. You wonder why they get all that rain and we get none? Even though we continue to water, the grass in our back yard has given up the fight. The yard that looked so great in May looks terrible again. I went to Home Depot this afternoon and got some Fescue grass in hopes that I could reseed the dead spots. It's probably hopeless though. I bet I'll be putting in a brand new turf again next Spring. There is just too much shade in the back yard for grass to grow properly.

Mandy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 466

Yay! We have grass again. Well, at least we have some grass. When I was picking up sod at Miller Grass this morning, I overheard one of the grass guys tell someone ahead of me in line to buy twice as much as they thought they would need and everything would work out right. I only bought what I thought would be enough to cover the backyard, and as a result, I'll have to go back and buy some more tomorrow.

Planting the grass was a family affair. Dash dug big holes in the dirt while Janet and I arranged the squares of St. Augustine sod. Dot supervised, as she usually does, by barking at Dash when he got too rowdy. It seems like there ought to be some sort of tool that would allow you to easily cut the sod squares to fit irregular shapes, but I haven't found one yet. We have lots of curved pathways and borders in the yard and every time we would come to one of these areas, we would have to cut the sod to fit using shovels or tree trimming tools. I need to go to Home Depot and see if there is a better way of doing this. Probably, most people just have rectangular yards and it isn't a problem.

Friends and even some other bloggers seem to think I shouldn't be having the problem's I'm currently having getting a new heat pump installed at my rent property. Believe it guys. This is an old Bud Oglesby building. I've known other people who have lived in Oglesby homes who had to jack hammer all the way through the concrete slab under their living room floor just to fix a minor plumbing leak. Old things are usually hard to fix. Old Oglesby buildings are always hard to fix. There must be some sort of logarithmic curve that defines the cost of repairs based on the age of the object being repaired. At any rate, waiting fourteen days for a replacement heat pump is nothing. I once had to wait over six months to find a water pump for my 1972 Citroën Maserati. Come to think of it, I've been waiting over a year for a small mechanical part on an old Omega watch I'm having repaired.

I downloaded the Time Warner app that is supposed to let you watch TV on your iPad. They've been advertising this thing on TV and after seeing the commercials over and over again, I finally got curious enough to give it a try. I don't know why Time Warner even bothered to release this app. It's totally worthless. Remember when you used to try to watch YouTube videos on a real slow computer? That's what the app is like. You watch TV for about fifteen seconds and then everything freezes while the next little segment is buffered in memory. After doing this several times the iPad runs out of free memory and the whole thing crashes. I think I'll just continue watching TV on the television.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day