Day 2273

I'm not sure that going to the gym made much of a difference. You can't get in shape with once a month workouts. Today's visit was more of a symbolic gesture. Maybe it was my way of saying "don't count me out yet." I did all my routines faithfully, elevated my heart rate, and worked up a sweat, but I'm still going to have to do this three times a week to make any real difference.

All I could think about today was the weather forecast. There are supposed to be thunderstorms every day next week. I really hope this isn't true. The combination of rain on the roof, mud in the yard, and dealing with a storm phobic crippled dog will test my sanity. It takes forever to get Dot to pee in the yard on a good day. In stormy weather, it's hopeless.

It's getting warm enough to call the landscapers to come back and replace the grass, ground cover, and bedding plants that died during the winter. We do this every year. Apparently neither Janet or I have anything remotely resembling a green thumb. This year, the yard looks even worse than usual because months of walking behind Dot and holding up her rear legs while she smells things and looks for a place to pee has killed a a significant percentage of the Asian Jasmine and Liriope. This happened once before when an earlier Dalmatian grew old and required assistance. It took at least three years for the ground cover to recover and start looking decent again. Apparently, dogs, cats, possums, and raccoons can walk through ground cover with impunity, but when people start tramping through the stuff, it dies.

I always listen to Ted Talks on the radio while I'm driving to and from the gym. The Ted Radio Hour on Sunday afternoon is probably the best thing on PBS. Today's subject was laughter and after listening for about five minutes, I turned the show off. I just couldn't relate to it. This is probably not a good sign. I can't recall that I've ever turned off a Ted Talk before. If the subject was sadness, the vastness of the universe, or preparing for the day the robots take over, I probably would have been fascinated.

The house smelled good today. Janet was preparing pulled pork in the slow cooker and the pork roast she was cooking gave the house the aroma of a nice barbecue joint. Pork has always been my favorite meat, but I am very conflicted about it now. I love bacon, ribs, and center cut pork chops, but every time I see a picture of a cute little pig on Facebook, I feel vaguely guilty. Damn you Facebook. All you do is destroy my faith in humanity with an endless stream of mindless memes, political rants, and cute pictures of piglets.

After I took that one watch to the watch repairman last week, I've been noticing that many other watches are running slow, are hard to wind, or have simply stopped running. What was I thinking when I thought it would be fun to collect watches? If I'd given the matter any thought at all, I would have realized that my compulsion to repair things and the inevitable nature of mechanical things to break would soon be at odds with each other. It has become impossible to keep all these old watches running, and even if I had the time and money to keep fixing them, it would just be another quixotic gesture.

I vacuumed and cleaned the house today, so this virtually guarantees that Dot will poop in the house tonight. I've tried again and again to get her to do her business outside this afternoon, but she isn't ready yet. Such is life.

Anne 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