Day 4944

It was quite pleasant on our sunrise walk with Dawn this morning. It was overcast, the temperature was in the low 80's and there was a nice breeze. I was seriously considering taking my long walk in the park today because the weather seemed better than it has been for several weeks. Then the sun came out. By the time we finished breakfast this morning it seemed like a completely different day. I would be returning to the gym again.

First things first though. I had grocery shopping to do. As luck would have it, a lot of things on my list weren't available today. Sam's Club didn't have strawberries. Central Market didn't have any orange juice and their strawberries didn't look fresh. Their juicer must have been broken because there were very few fresh squeezed juices at all. My favorite beer has totally disappeared from the market as well. I had trouble finding the brand last week and this week it had disappeared from all the stores. I have this problem a lot. Frequently things I like aren't terribly popular. Store routinely drop items that don't sell well now. They look at register data and only restock the items that are selling best. That's why a lot of stores are full of unhealthy food.

Since I had to scrap my plans for a walk in the park, I headed back to the gym after I put the groceries away. I tried to get Dawn to go outside an pee before I left, but she had no interest. Dawn doesn't like the heat. She's a smart dog. I don't like the heat either.

The gym is always pretty empty on weekends. It's a very large space, but their were only about half a dozen people on the floor today. My workout was the same as it's been all week. I walked briskly around the indoor track for three miles and then spent fifteen minutes on the basketball court. One of these days I'm going to have to start working with weights again, but that can wait. When I get my Fitbit steps and close all three rings on my Apple Watch activities app, I'm ready to go home.

I stopped at another grocery store on the way home because I started thinking that hot dogs would be good to have for dinner while Janet was away. I got uncured Wagyu beef hot dogs with no Nitrites or preservatives. They were still hot dogs though. Definitely not the healthiest meat, but very tasty. I don't understand grocery stores anymore. The checkout clerk asked if I brought my bag with me. What? I was confused and told the clerk to just put my items in one of their bags like they usually do. Janet told me later that this store charges for plastic bags now and had added ten cents to my bill. It seems weird that they are trying to cut down on pollution by eliminating plastic grocery bags, while literally everything in the store comes packaged in plastic.

When I returned home I did a load of laundry, paid some online bills, and took a nap. Dawn actually stayed with me on the bed which was a surprise. I've got a lot to remember while Janet is away. She takes care of giving Dawn her meds, filling water bowls several times a day, and fixing Dawn's breakfast. I feed Dawn dinner and her late night snack. Janet packages all Dawn meds in little baggies labeled for morning and evening on each day she is away on vacation. When I give the pills, I put a check mark on the calendar. With Dawn you have to do everything in the right order. I need to remember that she goes down to the park to poop after breakfast, never before. I do the same thing after dinner. Hopefully she will come out to the kitchen to eat her breakfast this time. The last time Janet went on vacation I had to bring her breakfast back to the bedroom and then stay out of sight while she ate. Dawn is a picky, stubborn dog who is set in her ways, but I still think she's great. We'll do OK next week.

Trevor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3479 - Independence Day

For the first time in ages Janet and I went and watched the fireworks displays. A succession of dogs that were terrified of fireworks made this impossible in the past. We couldn't take them with us and we didn't want to leave them home alone. Missing the fireworks was no great loss, but it was kind of nice to see them again.

When I took my walks through the park today I was surprised at the lack of crowds. The park used to be packed with people on the Fourth of July. Often you could smell the smoke from dozens of barbecue fires all the way up at our house. Times have changed I guess. There were still some large family picnics but the crowds were nothing like I remember in the past. Actually, Cinco de Mayo celebrations seem to attract more people than Fourth of July celebrations these days.

If you felt like grilling something, today was a good day to do it. It was typical July day with billowing white puffy clouds dotting the sky. Although it was hot, there was a nice breeze and it didn't feel oppressive at all. Some parts of town got a little rain late in the afternoon, but the park stayed dry and no picnics were ruined. We even did a little grilling ourselves. All we cooked were hot dogs, but somehow hot dogs seemed appropriate for the Fourth of July.

Every Fourth of July I am thankful that I am still in one piece. I cringe when I think of all the dangerous things my friends and I did as kids. We would take the powder out of firecrackers and combine it to make bigger explosions. You could buy cherry bombs and M-80s everywhere and it's a miracle that one of us didn't blow off our hands. I remember making cannons out of steel pipe and filling coke cans with sand to use as shells. A couple of M-80's and a heavy rock blocking the end of the pipe would send those cans traveling a long way. We would also put cherry bombs in the center of  full rolls of toilet paper and throw them up in the air. It was great fun, but I still wonder why no parents intervened.

I enjoy petting a dog a lot more than lighting a firecracker these days. Solitude and quiet is preferable to noise. There are still some Independence Days I remember however. In 1976 I remember sailing into Seattle harbor at night after spending the day in Vancouver. The bicentennial was being celebrated and the fireworks overhead were awesome. I remember selling glowsticks to a huge crowd that had gathered in downtown Dallas to watch the fireworks. We were raising money to help the Dalmatians and I don't think anyone in the group would have the nerve to do something like this today. Dallas seemed a lot safer back then. The whole world seemed safer when my young friends and I were tossing cherry bombs around in the late 1950's. Maybe that's why we felt no danger doing very dangerous things.

I think I'll go try out the new neighborhood breakfast restaurant tomorrow morning. It would be nice if this place were good. It's so close and convenient. The rest of the day is up in the air. I need to start getting bids on fixing some things around the house. I hate to spend the money though. I'd rather go to another rocket launch.

Matao is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3478

It's almost an unwritten rule that something will quit working when you need it the most. Now that the huge pile of brush is gone, it was time to tame the front yard. A big patch of grass was dead, but the rest was about a foot tall. I plugged the mower into the charger when I got up this morning and quickly discovered that the charger didn't work. It was pretty easy to see why. There was water leaking out of the case. I shook the charger and I could hear water sloshing around inside. This must have happened during the big windstorm that blew the greenhouse apart. The charger for the electric lawnmower is a rectangular plastic brick. It never occurred to me that it wasn't watertight.

I looked for a replacement charger online and quickly discovered that the part isn't available anymore. Hey, it's an old lawnmower. Was I going to have to buy a new lawnmower just because I couldn't find the right 24 volt charger? I kept looking and eventually discovered other folks in the same situation I was. A few people mentioned that there was a charger for another brand of lawnmower that could still be used instead of my discontinued model.  Ordering things that people recommend online can be a risky business. Often people don't know what they are talking about. I wish they would just agree on things. According to the reviews, this replacement charger worked perfectly, was better than the original, didn't work at all, arrived broken, or had a plug that was difficult to attach to the mower. Oh, well. It was still a heck of a lot cheaper than a new mower. I ordered one from Amazon and we'll see pretty soon if it works.

The mower battery still had about half a charge so I was able to chop down some of the high grass and tall weeds before the mower died. This is why I'm not a big fan of yard work. It never goes as planned. Janet asked why I hadn't gotten any bids on replacing the greenhouse yet. It's on my list. I do things every day, but I just haven't gotten to this yet. I don't think making the greenhouse a higher priority would have saved the battery charger anyway. I'm pretty sure that this thing was ruined on June 10 when the violent storm blew through town. I just haven't gone inside what's left of the greenhouse since then.

I had thought about going up on the roof today, but by the time I finished monkeying around with the lawnmower it was too hot. There is a metal flashing around the edge of the roof that gets so hot during the summer that it burns your hands. Somewhere I have some lightweight gloves I can use to keep from getting burned but I didn't feel like looking for them. I was tired anyway. The roof can wait. I took my two long walks and called it a day.

Janet and I were wondering what to eat on the Fourth of July and decided on hot dogs. We haven't had hot dogs in ages. They're not good for you. You don't even want to know what they're made of. But few things could be more American. My childhood is filled with memories of hot dogs. Sometimes we grilled them. Other times we just boiled them in a pot of water on the stove. They were even good cut up and mixed with baked beans. Hot dogs and potato salad actually sounds like a good idea for the Fourth.

Bob Hope is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day