Day 4081

I managed to get most of the leaves bagged and out of the yard before it started raining. This was quite an accomplishment, since there were a lot of leaves. I'm starting to understand why there are so many ads on TV for products claiming to reduce arthritis pain. You've seen the ads: Voltaren, Australian Dream, Blue-Emu, Capsaicin, Infrared light therapy, Salonpas, the list goes on and on. The sad fact is that at a certain age, your joints start acting like a rusty hinge. I can't recall raking and bagging leaves ever being this troublesome before. My shoulder bothered me. My wrists bothered me. My knees bothered me. Of course, my foot wasn't going to get left out of the pain parade either. Maybe that lawn care service actually was worth the money.

I was pleased to see a package from England in this morning's mail. Inside were two copies of the October 2020 issue of SpaceFlight with my article about the Artemis program. It's been a long wait. I wrote the article a year ago last February after a visit to the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. My joy was short lived unfortunately. Where was the February 2021 issue with my article about the Space X Crew 1 mission? The magazine forgot to send the second article. This means that I'm going to have to ask them again, which I hate to do since everyone at the magazine is working from home and dealing with all sorts of Covid problems. I'm determined to get a copy of the Crew 1 article though, even if it takes me another year to do it.

Dawn really surprised us today. When she finished her one mile loop, she just kept walking. She wasn't reluctant at all and seemed to be really enjoying herself. Maybe it was the weather. It was a lot cooler this morning, but the rain hadn't arrived yet and it was still dry. There were lots of new smells as well, because the city workers had just mowed the grass along our trail. By the time Dawn decided that she'd had enough and headed for home, she'd walked over two miles.

By the time I'd finished my longer walk, I'd gone over five miles. I wasn't trying for distance today. I was just trying to beat the rain without destroying my feet. I've developed a peculiar flat footed style of walking that seems to work. Flexing the foot causes the most discomfort. If I can just lift the left foot up and down without a lot of heal and toe flex, I'm usually OK. Janet says I should go back to the gym and try exercises that don't involve walking. She's probably right.

My seasonal allergies started early this year. I've had a runny nose for weeks now. It got so bad today that I took an Allegra. Of course this pill did nothing. It never does. I hate adding a mask to seasonal allergies. Sneezing and blowing your nose constantly just doesn't work very well. I've ruined more than one mask by sneezing into it. I can't really recall when the seasonal allergies go away, but May comes to mind. It's going to be a long Spring.

I've got an appointment for a haircut tomorrow morning. I won't have time for my regular huge smoothie, so I'll just have a bagel and a cup of coffee instead. I'm sure it will still be raining in the morning. It's supposed to rain all the way through the weekend. I'm glad I took care of the leaves before the rain started. I'll be glad to get a haircut too. I'm long overdue.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2214

I couldn't figure out why it was so dark when we got up this morning. As soon as I went outside, I knew the answer. The world was enveloped in a heavy fog. I love foggy mornings, but the dogs were a bit confused when they couldn't see ten feet ahead of them. The fog lifted quickly, but it was pretty while it lasted. As soon as we finished walking Dot and Dash, I took a camera down to the lake and tried to capture some pictures of the sailboats. If I had arrived twenty minutes earlier, I would have gotten some great photos, but the fog was already dissipating. Story of my life. It's hard to combine nature photography with walking dogs. I took a few pictures anyway and headed back up the hill to fix my breakfast.

Dot was very slow this morning on her walk, so it surprised me that she did so well at her physical therapy session. She was able to stay on the underwater treadmill for the full eighteen minutes and we were able to include a couple of intervals where she was walking at a higher speed. There's no way to predict how Dot is going to react anymore. Every day is a new day. Some days she is strong and full of energy and other days she hardly leaves her bed. I've come to realize that she can poop at any time with very little warning. She still seems happy though and that's all that counts.

My missing UPS package arrived today. According to the UPS website, it was never missing at all. They just added an extra day to the delivery schedule and said it was still on time. I guess that's one way to handle things. There never was any explanation about how a package could arrive both yesterday and today, but at least it wasn't broken. If I were busier and didn't have OCD, I'd never notice that the FedEx and UPS websites aren't always accurate. I probably wouldn't even track my packages at all. I'm convinced that people who spend too much time tracking things don't have enough on their plate. I track everything, but when I'm busy I can go for days without checking my UP fitness band or Apple Watch. When I'm not busy, I check these things all the time.

I don't know what's happening with my joints. I've had problems with my shoulder for ages and occasionally my knee goes out as well. Lately, I've started having problems with my right hip. I'm kneeling and standing all the time. I kneel down to get Dot's harness on and then stand up to walk her. I kneel down to make our low platform bed in the morning. I sit on the floor with Dot during her acupuncture sessions. It's disconcerting when you find yourself in a low crouching position and can't get up. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Getting old sucks. The last thing I need at this point is to be up on the roof and have my hip joint lock up on me. With all my aches and pains, I've still reluctant to have surgery though. There's a place for surgery, but I think it should be a last resort.

It's been impossible to get Dot to poop at night this week. Her internal schedule has changed. We'll take her outside and walk her around forever before we go to bed, but apparent she isn't ready to go yet. She seems to prefer doing her business at 3 AM now. In her bed. I've never slept soundly, but lately I'm sleeping even less than usual. I saw on TV yesterday that researchers now think that lack of sleep might cause Alzheimer's. I'm doomed. On the other hand, they say that writing every day is good for cognition. Sleep less, write more. That's my motto. Maybe everything will balance out in the end.

Vegas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1823

I was very impressed with my physical therapist today. She was thorough, informative, and was able to map out a comprehensive two month treatment program that should lead me toward greater mobility. It turns out that there is a lot more wrong with me than I thought. My shoulder problems were obvious, but there were also still problems with my neck and left hand. The therapist said that I didn't exhibit any of the classic symptoms associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and suspected that I have damaged or injured some of the small bones in my hand instead. She said that my right shoulder wasn't dislocated, but that the shoulder muscles on that side of my body were extremely tight and were preventing the shoulder joint from operating properly. The remedy is lots of supervised stretching exercises.

Some of you may remember the horrible problems I had with my neck during a trip to Las Vegas a few years ago. The physical therapy I had after that painful incident worked amazingly well, but it wasn't pleasant. They gradually stretched my spine, so that the soft tissue that had become encapsulated or pinched between the vertebrae were freed and my neck could move again. At one point they put me on a machine that seemed very similar to a medieval rack and literally stretched my entire neck. Yikes! I hated those sessions, but they worked. I've never really had a problem with my neck again. I think I've got a lot of uncomfortable stretching in my immediate future.

My cold seems to get worse every day. I guess it isn't really getting worse. It just continues moving to the next phase. My initial fever seems to have ended. My sore throat isn't as bad either. Unfortunately, these symptoms have been replaced by a terrible runny nose and a persistent headache. When I get a bad cold, it almost always lasts at least a full week. I've still got several days to go before the worst is over. I was really hoping that I'd start feeling better before this weekend's back-to-back Santa Paws photo shoots, but that's not going to happen. I need to remember to throw a big roll of paper towels and a large sack of cough drops in my lighting bag tonight. At this rate, I could probably be part of the photos, as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

I haven't felt like cooking all week, so I picked up a barbequed pulled pork sandwich at Central Market's new little in-store restaurant on the way home from my physical therapy appointment. The sandwich and accompanying fresh sweet potato fries looked delicious, but I don't think I appreciated my dinner as much as I should have. A bad cold destroys your sense of taste. I could have been eating cardboard. What I should have done was skipped dinner entirely and just gone to bed early.

I saw on the Internet today that NASA is going to provide full press credentials to a select group of bloggers, so they can write about an upcoming satellite launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I think I'm going to apply for this press pass. If NASA accepts your application, you will get to interview space scientists, take a special tour of the Vandenberg launch facilities, and watch the launch itself from an up close VIP location. I've always been a huge fan of the space program and all NASA wants is a chance to expand their social media presence in new and different ways.  Hey, I'd be more than happy to write about a satellite launch on the blog. This isn't a contest or a prize. It is just chance to get official NASA press credentials. The only downside is you have to pay for the trip to California for the launch yourself. This is a media event, so I guess that Some Assembly Required would have to pick up the tab. It would certainly be exciting to be accepted though. I hope I do better on this than I did on the Amtrack Writers in Residence grant. That didn't go too well. Too bad I didn't get accepted for that one. Then I could have taken the train to California.

Savannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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