Day 1597

When I called to confirm my appointment at the liver center tomorrow, they congratulated me on taking my last pills today. I told them that I'd actually taken my last pills yesterday, and they seemed confused. "Do you think you lost a pill," the nurse asked me? Nope. I took every last one of them. I think I know what had happened but it would be hard to prove things at this point. The first batch of pills arrived a day earlier than expected and when I called the liver center to let them know that they'd arrived, whoever I talked to on the phone said to go ahead and start taking them immediately. They must have left the original projected start date on a spreadsheet somewhere. This just proves that if you do anything long enough, the inevitable memory fog trumps everything. I vaguely remember starting the pills one day early, but my memory of the whole situation is a bit suspect as well.

I've started to notice that when we tell the nurses at the cancer center that we're worried that Dash might be in pain, they give us a prescription for pain pills. When we worry about  infections, they give us an antibiotic.  When we say nothing, they give us nothing. So, are they just giving us these pills to keep us happy, or are they actually prescribing them because Dash really needs them? I don't know. Pain pills and antibiotics are among the most over prescribed medications for both animals and people. I think doctors have gotten used to passing out pills like candy because their patients demand them. We are a nation hooked on pills. I wish I knew if Dash really needed these additional pills, but he's not talking. I hate unnecessary medication, especially antibiotics. On the other hand, antibiotics are absolutely necessary at times. How do you know if you're are doing the right thing? The information I received about supplements from my nutritionist was largely proved wrong and some of stuff I took did more harm than good. Several medications my doctors wanted me to take ten years ago are now featured on those 1-800-BAD-DRUG commercials you see on TV.  Things change all the time, and doctors and vets, like everyone else, are far from infallible. All that being said, they know far more than I do about health and healing, so I usually do exactly what they tell me.

My work load is starting to wear me out. One of the animal rescue sites I maintain has tripled the number of animals in their program. I am constantly adding and subtracting adoptable pets from their website. As soon as I finish processing one batch of animals, there's another waiting for me the next day. Writing has been erratic lately as well. If I knew exactly what I was facing, it would be easier to plan. Now, I'm usually in a situation where I'll go several days with nothing and then have a ton of website and writing projects all due on the same day. I must have been dreaming when I though that I might be able to retire to a tropical island when I turned 55. If you have a small business in today's economy, you're probably doomed to keep working forever.

I had to pick up some more groceries on my way to get Dash this afternoon. The combination of trying to eat healthy, fresh food and being busy all the time is causing me to have to go to the grocery store a lot more often than I used to. You can't stock up on a week's worth of fresh vegetables and expect them all to stay fresh forever. I've started to buy food as I need it, but it's a lot of trouble. Life was so much easier when I could just pull a frozen pizza out of the freezer and grab a beer from the refrigerator.

Tomorrow, the dogs get their monthly heartworm pills. It's trash day as well, so I'll need to remember to take the garbage can out to the curb. Sooner or later, it will be Friday again. I can't wait.

Bea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1190

The landscapers came during breakfast and spent the next five hours raking leaves, hauling away bad soil, and pruning trees. At two-thirty they abruptly left and didn't return. I'm sure they'll be back because they left all their tools in the yard. It looked like they left in a hurry, since one guy left his coat hanging on the bird-feeder. I would have thought the crew would have spent the rest of the day finishing up the preparation work, but clearly they had other plans. I certainly wouldn't leave my own tools lying around the job site on a multi-day assignment, but then my tools are cameras, not shovels and wheelbarrows. Who knows? I'm not going to be judgmental. All's well that ends well, as far as I'm concerned. I still have high hopes that these guys will transform my dog of a yard into something beautiful.

Dot was amazingly good today, considering all the activity she had to deal with. She barked for about fifteen minutes and then got tired of barking and went to sleep by my desk, just like she usually does. It probably helped that the crew worked fairly quietly. No boisterous singing or loud radios this time. Or maybe that acupuncture treatment yesterday has really made Dot a calmer dog.

Dot was so calm this morning that I felt safe leaving her alone while I took Dash to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot. Dash is anything but calm at the vet. He thinks the only reason we go to the clinic is so people can pet him and feed him treats. After Dash got his injection and a few doggie treats, we returned to the house for an afternoon of work.

I typically get quite a bit done when I have to keep the dogs confined to the office. Since staying in the office with them is the only way to keep Dot and Dash quiet, it's usually a good time to tackle long and tedious web projects. With five hours confined to the computer, I managed to finish several projects that I've been postponing for a long time. I could have finished a lot more if the landscapers had stayed until 5 or 6 PM like I expected. Oh, well. There's always tomorrow.

I'm having trouble eating my fresh vegetables in the right order. After years of eating things with a ten year shelf life, I'm still getting used to how quickly some fresh things go bad. If I had more time, I would go to the store more often and buy smaller quantities. I've never had more time though. I probably never will. With my time already stretched between being a dog nanny, a webmaster, a photographer, and an increasingly busy writer, I'm amazed that I have any time for groceries at all.

Pringles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1159

It was a beautiful day. On clear, unseasonably warm February days, everyone is out and about in Dallas. The roads are crowded. The stores are full. The park is filled with people who never walk their dogs on cold, rainy days. The whole town was a three ring circus. Although it actually would have been a good day for me to stay home and read a good book, I decided to join the fray and went to Guitar Center. Not surprisingly, I was already too late for the President's Day doorbuster deals. The AKG headphones that were marked down 79% from list price were long gone. I looked around, couldn't find anything else I needed or even wanted, and left.

The next stop was the grocery store. I didn't even bother to look for deals here. I just put stuff in my buggy as quickly as I could, used the handy automated check out station, and left. Probably the only fun thing I did today was photograph a new Dalmatian in the rescue program. The boy's name was Bosley, which reminded me of those hair loss commercials. This seemed like a strange name for a dog with plenty of hair, but there's no accounting for dog names.

An imaging center sent me six pages of forms to fill out for an MRI I need to have next week. Most of this information I've already filled out hundreds of times before. If we can go to the moon, why can't we figure out an efficient way to have a master patient database, so you'd only have to fill out this information once. Oops, I forgot. We can't go to the moon anymore. Maybe the medical industry can't figure out how to get beyond paper files either. It's weird. All this expensive high-tech diagnostic equipment and still everyone relies on paper records. Every doctor's office I've been to seems to have entire rooms devoted to storing mountains of file folders filled with patient records. Everyone is very particular about their forms too. I've tried Xeroxing forms from another doctor's office to save time, but it's never good enough for them. I'm always handed a ball point pen and told to fill out all the information from scratch.

So far, drinking a lot of water is proving more difficult than eating vegetables. I see people all the time who continually walk around with a bottle of water in their hand. I never understood this obsession with hydration before, and I guess I still don't understand it now. 8-10 glasses of water a day?  Wouldn't two be enough?

Joshua is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1109

It must have rained last night. I slept through the shower, but there was ample evidence that a storm had passed through. The paths through the park were all muddy and the plants were covered with dew. There wasn't much evidence remaining that it had ever snowed however. That's the way the weather is in Texas. Easy come. Easy go. I was disappointed to see this new rain because it meant all my efforts to clear the ice off the roof yesterday were wasted. Of course, I didn't even have to look to know that the roof was now covered with two inches of standing water all over again. I really think I know how Sisyphus felt, pushing his immense boulder up that hill for eternity.

I got off to such a slow start this morning that I might as well just have ordered lunch when I finally arrived at my designated breakfast restaurant. Since I'm a stickler for ritual, I went ahead and ordered a big breakfast anyway. After I finished eating, I took my warm goose down jacket to a little neighborhood tailor to get a new zipper sewn in. The tailor said he could put a new elastic drawstring at the bottom of the coat as well. I'm glad there are still a few people like this around. I'd hate to throw away a perfectly good coat, just because the zipper was broken.

On cold, damp days like this I tend to get a lot of writing done. What else is there to do anyway? I wasn't under any deadline pressure, but I pretty much got caught up on things for the year today. I probably should have saved a few of these assignments for a rainy day, but hey, it was a rainy day.

I'm tempted to go buy a couple of bales of hay to spread around the back yard. It's going to be impossible to grow new grass until Spring anyway and the mud in the yard is getting worse and worse. I'm not really sure where you buy bales of hay in the city though. Some garden stores carry hay bales around Halloween to set your pumpkins on top of, but that's about it.

When I went to the grocery store today I noticed that my tires looked low again. It makes sense, I guess. Hot air expands and cold air contracts. I suppose I'll have to drag out the air compressor tomorrow and pump the tires up again. I can tell by looking that they only have about 20 pounds of pressure in them now.

I was looking forward to watching a new Dr. Who episode tomorrow, since I enjoyed seeing "The Snowmen" episode last week so much. Wouldn't you know. There isn't going to be another new episode until April. Didn't Series 7 begin last September? Jeez, I've never seen a show take so long to air 14 episodes.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1081

The restaurant was filled with platitudes this morning. People would say things like "It's not the destination it's the journey" and their companion would excitedly exclaim  "Exactly, that is so true." These people had to be teachers. Who else would talk like this at 9 AM? I didn't say anything. I just ate my pancakes in silence, while wondering why there was a big sign on the wall saying "Have you tried our new menu yet?" As far as I could see, everything on the new menu was exactly the same as the old menu.

Since this weekend is another Christmas pet photo marathon, I did my grocery shopping right after breakfast. Maybe I ought to go to the grocery store in the morning more often. I did this last week as well and the meat and produce seems fresher than late in the day when I usually shop. I don't think early shopping will ever become a regular part of my routine though. I'll do just about anything to sleep in an extra hour.

When I got home, I began carefully re-assembling the broken guitar amplifier that I had taken apart yesterday. The broken pieces I had glued back together appeared to have dried well and everything fit back together perfectly. I was quite proud of my work. You could hardly tell that the amp had been dropped by FedEx at all. I don't know if the music store will appreciate all my hard work though. They might actually be expecting me to send them back a box full of bits.

Since our own dogs get their Santa pictures taken during one of this weekend's photo sessions, Janet wanted them to have a bath again. Dot hates a bath. She has gotten so good at gluing herself to the back seat, that it is just about impossible for me to get her out of the car and into the dog cleaning facility. Maybe she'll get lucky though. After this bath, I can't think of a good reason why she would need another one this year. I'm just the opposite of Dot. I like taking a shower. What I don't like is getting out and starting another boring day of work. Eventually, the hot water runs out though and makes the decision for me.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1074

Janet convinced me to venture a little further away for our Friday breakfast. We went to a restaurant one of her friends liked a lot. This was a neighborhood breakfast place like the ones I usually frequent. It was just in a different neighborhood. While our own neighborhood is in the process of gentrification, this neighborhood was headed downhill. Although the restaurant was surrounded by pawnshops and empty buildings, it still had a loyal crowd of regulars inside. The food was good, but I doubt that I'll return very soon. I like my neighborhood better.

On the way home from breakfast, I stopped by the grocery store and picked up some things. With that chore out of the way, I could spend the rest of the day finishing up my web and writing assignments.

Since yesterday was Thanksgiving, I got confused and failed to take my garbage can out to the curb last night. I heard the truck when I was making the bed this morning, but by the time I got out to the street with my can, the truck was long gone. Just when I though I was going to be overwhelmed with two weeks of trash next week, I saw the big eighteen wheelers that pick up bulky brush once a month off in the distance. When the truck got closer, I convinced the driver to take my trash along with the brush he was collecting. Here's how silly the city is. Before the bulky trash truck would take my trash, I had to take it out of my can and dump all the garbage on the ground with the rest of the brush. This seemed totally ridiculous to me, but when I looked later in the day, my pile of garbage was completely gone.

It's almost time to put the Christmas tree up again. There aren't many presents under the tree anymore, but it still seems worthwhile to put the tree up. All the ornaments are Dalmatians. Some are wooden. Some are glass. And others are ceramic. You wouldn't think there would be so many different kinds of Dalmatian tree ornaments, but we've been collecting them for quite a few years. It's a pretty little tree, and best of all, the dogs don't try to knock it over anymore.

The stock market had a good day today. Maybe they ought to close the market early every day. The market went up in the morning like it often does, but then it closed around noon, before it had a chance to give up all the gains in the afternoon session. Sounds good to me.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1004

Yay! I began my day with a delicious stack of pancakes. Boo. After the pancakes were gone, nothing much happened.

It was just a routine Friday. I corrected spelling errors on the new website pages I created yesterday. My clients may not be good at providing direction, but they are all experts at finding spelling errors. I changed out one of the employee pictures for a girl who didn't like the photo I had selected. Hey, I try to pick the most flattering pictures, but I don't always get it right. I suspect that a lot of people I photograph wish they had been given the opportunity to wear something nice. I've shot a lot of fashion and I can't say that hospital scrubs bring out the best in most women. Photographing dogs is so much easier. Dogs never have to worry about what to wear.

I think my favorite grocery store has been invaded by an efficiency expert. The cashiers no longer say "paper or plastic" when they ring you up. They just try to give you a chintzy plastic bag unless you protest mightily and demand a paper bag. When I was picking up dinner at the deli counter, I noticed that they now want you to place your entire deli counter order at once. I've been used to ordering one thing and then when it was sitting in my buggy, it would give me the idea for what to order next. Today, they guy behind the counter wouldn't give me my stuff to put in the buggy until I had finished ordering everything. Maybe this was more efficient for the store, but I found the whole experience disorienting. I kept forgetting what I had already ordered and asked for several things twice. It was much better for me to put one thing in my buggy and then think of what would go well with it, adding tasty new items one at a time.

So, that was my day. I didn't worry about the Middle East or wonder who would be elected president. I just corrected spelling errors and got confused at a grocery store. The Dalmatian Rescue group has another casino party fundraiser this weekend. I guess I'm up for the challenge. All I have to do is say "place your bets" over and over again and then spin the wheel.

Nicholas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 873

Yay! We finished landscaping the backyard today. Well, we almost finished anyway. All the grass is in now, but we still need to get several flats of Asian Jasmine and plant the hardy ground cover in areas that are so shady that grass will never grow. The yard look much, much better after all our efforts. The view out the living room window almost makes all the manual labor worthwhile.

Since we got up early today to buy enough sod to complete the yard before the grass company ran out for the day, there was still plenty of time to take Dot and Dash to the dog park after we got finished. The dogs got a real treat, because we took them the the brand new NorthBark dog park in Far North Dallas. This place was palatial. There were 22 acres of nicely landscaped and fenced grounds, complete with a pond for dogs who liked the water.

I was impressed, and apparently so were Dot and Dash. This place was so clean and well landscaped it was unbelievable. If the city put something this nice in our part of town, street people would be living in it. A lady lost her car keys in the park today and the other people who were there with their dogs helped her find them. If someone lost a set of BMW keys in our local dog park, someone would have probably just stolen the car.

The annual British Car Show was being held in the park today. I usually love to go to this show. As I was driving over to the grass store to pick up the St. Augustine sod, I saw lots of old Austin Healeys, MG's, Morgans and Rolls Royce's driving toward the show. This is a fun show, because it is not fancy at all. People drive their own cars to the show and then drive them home again when it's over. No eighteen wheelers bringing high dollar collectibles to this show. No roped off exhibits or guards either. You're far more likely to run into a neighbor who just happened to still have an old MG. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to the British Car Show this afternoon. After this morning's landscaping marathon, a trip to a far away dog park, and the obligatory trip to buy groceries that I didn't have time to do yesterday, the day was over. It's nice to be somewhat caught up again though. And the dogs are going to love their green new yard.

Patches is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day