Day 3114 - Independence Day

The park was surprisingly quiet today. If park attendance is any indication, Cinco de Mayo has become a bigger holiday in Dallas than the Fourth of July. There are still neighborhood parades in several parts of town, but we haven't gone to one in a while. Janet used to be a judge at a local Fourth of July parade. I think we even walked with the dogs in one of these small parades when they were young. It's been a long time since we watched fireworks. Most of our dogs have been terrified of the noise. All I remember about watching fireworks in the park is getting bitten by ants.

These days we just watch the holiday concerts on TV. The Beach Boys always seem to play at these type of concerts. I was wondering how The Beach Boys were even still alive and then I noticed that the band is really just Mike Love and a bunch of much younger musicians. Listening to The Beach Boys brought back memories of Independence Days many decades ago. I'm really lucky to still have both hands after all the cherry bombs and M-80's we used to play with as kids. Fireworks weren't regulated at all back in the day. Now, these things are considered explosive devices and are illegal. I wonder how I survived cherry bombs and learning to drive without seat belts?

We were thinking about going out for dinner tonight, but it was too hot. Sometimes we have ribs on the Fourth of July, but neither of us was very hungry tonight. We still have a grill, but haven't used it in ages. Barbecue for us means driving to a good barbecue place and getting take out. No barbecue today. No burgers and beer either. We just ate left overs.

The wall I've been fixing finally looked smooth enough to paint, so I applied a coat of primer today. I was real careful, but still managed to spill paint within ten seconds after opening the paint can. I just don't seem to have any dexterity anymore. I'm always tripping over things and making a mess. I used to have perfect vision and a very steady hand. Not anymore. Using my watchmaking tools has become a joke. I don't even attempt to change batteries anymore.

It didn't seem like Wednesday today. I almost went to the gym, because it felt like Sunday. Then I remembered the place was closed. I'm really going the be confused tomorrow. I'll probably think it's Monday. Dash knew it was a holiday because both of us were home. We seems happier when we're both around.

Hopefully, he'll sleep through the fireworks tonight. I'm starting to hear explosions now. It's not as bad as it used to be because there aren't as many kids in the neighborhood anymore. I guess I ought to cut these kids some slack. Their fireworks antics aren't nearly as noisy as mine were when I was their age.

Matao is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2012 - My Birthday

I'm 67 years old. When I started blogging, I was still a little reluctant to reveal my age. I work in an industry that worships youth and I thought that my age was starting to hurt my business. I don't really care anymore. We all get older. Even though we are both old and tired, Janet and I can still run circles around most Millennials. I wear my age like a badge of honor now. I grew up in the best of times. I got to experience Woodstock, the moon landings, the Beatles, and president Kennedy firsthand. The Internet was so new that when I first began designing websites, one of my early creations was included in a book listing the top 1000 websites in the entire world. Jeez. Now, there are probably more than 1000 websites in my own zip code.

The world has definitely changed. My parents took long car trips in the Summer and we visited almost every National Park. None of us wore seat belts. I climbed trees when I was young and walked to school when I got a little older. On the Fourth of July we bought M-80s and Cherry Bombs. On Halloween we wandered around the neighborhood for hours at night in strange homemade costumes and nobody got hurt or abducted. Our parents didn't drive us to ballet lessons and soccer practice. They just told us to go outside and play. The world was a safer, much kinder place and I grew up confident and secure as a result. It was the best of times. Although it sucks to watch as your body and mind slowly begin to deteriorate, I wouldn't trade places with today's Millennials for all the money in the world.

Giving the dogs their daily meds just got a little more complicated. Dash still takes the most pills. He needs phenobarbital for seizures, allopurinol to prevent kidney stones, benezepril for high blood pressure, levothyroxine because he lost his thyroid gland to cancer, and doxycycline to cure his Lyme Disease. Dot only takes Palladia, but chemotherapy is more complex than all Dash's meds put together. When I give Dot her pills, I have to put on purple rubber bio-hazard gloves, pen Dash temporarily in the bedroom so he won't inadvertently grab one of the pills by mistake, and then wash everything I've touched before I put the pills away again. I hope that Dot tolerates the Palladia well and doesn't suffer from any of the potential side effects. Palladia, like any cancer drug, doesn't work for everybody. We'll discontinue the drugs if they make Dot miserable. She has lived a long and happy life. The quality of the time she has remaining with us is much more important than the length of time. I just want her to be happy.

My own meds aren't complicated, They are just expensive. When I went to get some prescriptions refilled today, the pharmacy declined my credit card. WTF? I always pay my balance in full every month and was puzzled why anyone would decline my card. I called Visa when I got home and they told me that they had flagged the pharmacy transaction as suspicious since the dollar amount was much higher than usual. I told the Visa lady that I thought the amount seemed suspicious as well. "I am in the Medicare Doughnut Hole," I said, "and the cost of my meds has literally doubled overnight." The Visa lady said she was sorry and reinstated my card. I still don't understand what this Doughnut Hole is all about. When I had private insurance, my prescription costs always stayed about the same. Medicare Part D is different. They pay for a while. Then they quit paying while you're in the Doughnut Hole phase. Eventually they come back and pay for virtually everything in the "Catastrophic" phase, after they feel they have punished you enough. Only the government could create something so needlessly complex.

We had a nice birthday dinner with Sprinkles cupcakes for dessert. Janet surprised me with an Apple Watch for my birthday. I wasn't expecting anything and felt a bit guilty since we are both spending so much for the dogs medical care. I was delighted to get the watch though. 67 is a lot different than 37, but life is still good. Thanks to all of of you who sent me birthday greetings on Facebook today. You guys probably raised my Klout score by three or four points.

Inky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1656

The dogs both got a long overdue bath this morning. The combination of Dash's cancer treatment and Dot's advancing age has meant that the dogs have been a little dirtier lately. Since they both sleep on the bed with us at night, there comes a point when a bath is necessary though. It's hard to sleep when your dog stinks. What amazed me today was how good Dash has become about getting a bath. He hopped right into the tub at the Dirty Dawgz self-bathe place and didn't put up a fuss at all. This would have seemed impossible a year ago. I think going back and forth for radiation treatments all Spring has changed Dash. He trusts people more now and is much more accepting of things. After all he's been through, he probably realizes now that a bath isn't going to hurt him at all.  Our boy is growing up.

After we returned home with two clean, good smelling dogs, I went up on the roof to remove the standing water from the rain we had earlier in the week. I tried to make sure that the runoff went on the lawn, instead of into the street, since I didn't want the code compliance guy getting on my case again. The water did eventually drain into the street anyway, but it evaporated quickly, since it was a hot day.

I then went to the grocery store and bought another case of bottled water. We go through the stuff, well, like water. I don't remember when, or why, we stopped drinking water out of the tap, but it's been a long time. There is even one of those ice-water dispensing gizmos in the door of the refrigerator, but I don't use that either. I know our water is perfectly safe, because we fill the dogs water bowls with tap water all the time. Drinking bottled water is just one in a long list of totally irrational things I do every day.

We didn't get any mail today. That was strange. You can usually count on the post office to deliver a steady stream of flyers and junk from mattress stores, politicians, Bed Bath and Beyond, and AARP. Most of this stuff goes straight to the trash without even being opened, but still it's nice to know that the postman is making his appointed rounds.

"What are you going to write on your blog tonight, since nothing happened today?" Janet asked me during dinner. "So," I said. "That has never stopped me before."

Patch is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1643 - Father's Day

Sometimes I think I must have been raised by wolves. I look at all the nostalgic pictures and family remembrances I see on days like this and am a little stunned that I have no vivid childhood memories of my own. I do remember my Dad's later years very well when our roles became reversed. I also have vivid memories of my college days and of my first ten years as a working professional. To me, these were my formative years. My actual childhood is a bit murky. I never saved many pictures either. I certainly didn't have a bad childhood. There were lots of Summer car trips to national parks. I remember Swanson's TV dinners, dressing up for church on Sunday, and a black and white television in the living room where we watched Gunsmoke and the Ed Sullivan Show. I'm sure there was more, but those early memories never mutated into nostalgia. They just evaporated.

Maybe my fuzzy memories are for the best. A lack of reverence for the past never seemed to hinder me in life. I'm often amused to hear others extoll the benefits of living in the moment. I think I've spent most of my life living in the moment. It's only recently that I've started thinking about the past at all. I don't even think this is nostalgia. It's just the realization that 2014 is not my favorite point in history. I think I enjoyed the years between 1960 and 1980 a lot better. Those years were great. I hope my Dad enjoyed those years as well, but I'll never know. I wasn't there.

Dogs didn't enter my life until 1987, but they've been the focal point ever since. I remember more about the time I've spent with Spot, Petey, Greta, Dot, and Dash than I do about myself. The Dalmatians aren't a substitute for family, or an escape from family, they are my family. I am thrilled that Dash is winning his battle with cancer. Dot's incredible determination in the face of old age is an inspiration. I worry about them a lot. In an odd way, I'm their Dad.

Yesterday's website design insights proved to be short lived. When I uploaded everything to the server, my solution didn't work the way I expected. I had made a very small mistake yesterday, but it took me a very long time today to discover what I'd done wrong. After wasting three long hours looking for the source of my stupidity, I finally got the site working again. Sure hope my client likes what I've done.

This unexpected website troubleshooting cut my trip to the gym a bit short this afternoon, but I guess a short workout is a lot better than no workout at all. The dogs got a nice walk today and Janet and I had a very enjoyable dinner. I've got no complaints at all. It's been a nice weekend. Maybe the website troubleshooting gave my brain a workout. It could certainly use one.

Shadow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1498

I'm perpetually tired these days. I follow the generally accepted practice of compensating for today's declining rates by increasing my work load. Economies of scale don't really work for me unfortunately, since I have nobody to delegate things to. There is only me. The more business I get, the faster I have to work, and the less fun everything becomes. If I didn't detest working with others so much, I would hire a bunch of young, low paid work slaves and delegate everything. This seems to work for some people. I prefer to live under the illusion that I'm an artist, working alone, and doing whatever I want. I'm not really an artist, of course. I just grind out a bunch of crap that other people don't want to bother with themselves.

I identify with what a lot of millennials are going through. They don't want to grow up and become chemical engineers and mathematicians. They'd rather do what I do instead. Hey guys, I don't think there's much future in being me. I've played around at being a documentary filmmaker, an architect, a fashion photographer, and a writer. I never wanted to have a real job, and still don't. I only manage to live pretty well because I got lucky in the 1980's. It remains to be seen whether luck will come my way again. My advice to millennials comes with a note of caution. The world just doesn't need many Peter Pans. If you don't want to compromise and collaborate, be prepared to live in your parent's basement forever.

If you are determined to pursue the creative life when the world is crying out for medical administrators and petroleum engineers, I wish you luck. I would encourage you to leave your parents immediately and learn to fend for yourself. That's what I did. I failed again and again, but learned that failure is no big deal. If one thing didn't work, I would just try something else. If something actually did work, I would run with it until I got bored. I learned that if you are supremely confident, you will survive no matter what you do. I guess I'm still surviving after a fashion, although I feel a bit like Alice after she'd gone down the rabbit hole. The world is a very strange place these days.

I'm glad I enjoy the company of dogs. Dogs keep me humble and dogs keep me honest. When I'm not writing, I'm a faithful butler, attending to the needs of Dot and Dash. Today, we walked, we ate, and we napped a bit. I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot. I helped Dot up when she stumbled a bit on her morning walk. The dogs tolerate the long hours I spend writing and I tolerate some equally strange habits of theirs. I'm still tired though. There's no getting around that.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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