Day 4476

It felt like Summer today. The temperature reached 93 degrees this afternoon. I hope our nice Spring days aren't over yet. Summers in Texas can be brutal. The furnace still comes on for a little while when we get up in the morning, but pretty soon the AC will be running 24/7. I'm not looking forward to those Summer electric bills.

Dawn got two walks today and enjoyed both of them. I could have slept a little longer this morning, but Dawn was eager to go on her sunrise walk. Now that Janet is back, she's always got places to go and things to do. I think Sunday is Dawn's favorite day. Not only does she get her special outing followed by ice cream cones, she also gets a little bacon with our Sunday breakfast. Dawn loves bacon.

Sunday is usually a big walking day for me, but my feet weren't cooperating today. After Dawn's two walks, I didn't feel like going much further. It still seems strange that my foot pain is so unpredictable. Some days are good and other days are terrible. There isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to all this. At any rate, today was a bad day. I didn't even come close to 20,000 steps.

All I really wanted to do today was nap. I did try to fix the toilet again, but that was probably a futile effort. Other household chores will have to wait. I just didn't feel like doing much of anything today. Today's long walk was my shortest in several weeks. It was a nice day and the park was full of people enjoying the weather. I wasn't one of them. I trudged along, got a respectable number of steps, and then went home for another nap.

The big annual sale at REI is almost over and I still haven't been to the store and gotten anything. There is absolutely nothing I need. I guess I do need some new Hoka shoes, but I still can't find the boots I want and these shoes are never on sale anyway. Maybe I"ll go to the last day of the sale tomorrow. Probably not though. Tomorrow we visit the rescue Dalmatians and one event a day is plenty for me. 

Janet and I watched a little bit of the Oscars during dinner, but it seemed ridiculous and we ended up turning it off after about ten minutes. We didn't recognize many of the actors or movies being nominated. It just seemed like a strange, very self indulgent event. I wonder if the Oscars were every very good. It seemed like we used to like to watch this years ago. Things change I guess. We used to like to watch Project Runway and Top Chef too. I don't think I like anything on TV these days.

We got some new pictures of Sammy's puppies today. Their eyes are open now. These are going to be some good looking dogs. They should start getting their spots soon. I wonder how people get the nerve to raise puppies. It seems like a big responsibility. Just keeping a single dog healthy and safe seems like a big responsibility. 

I hope I sleep well tonight. I've been tired all day. Tomorrow we'll meet Dorothy when we visit the kennel. I've seen some videos of her playing with toys. She never stays still. Hope she stays still for long enough for me to get a picture for the website. It's a challenge with a young dog. Sometimes photographing a Dalmatian can make you dizzy.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2936

I had the best of intentions to check out a couple of new gyms, but it turned out to be so much easier to just re-join the one I've been going to all along. This is my response to just about everything these days. If it's familiar, I can live with it. The gym seemed pretty empty this morning. Maybe some folks did abandon the place because of the price increase. On the other hand, the gym is always pretty empty on Sunday morning. I'm glad this little decision is out of the way. If I did make New Year's resolutions, my first one for 2018 would be to avoid as many decisions as possible.

Janet mopped the brick floors today so that meant it was time for me to vacuum the carpets. Dash must shed more than Dot because the dog hair in the house certainly hasn't been cut in half after she passed away. I'm continually amazed at how dirty the carpets get. We have good filters on the furnace and rarely open the windows. Where does all this dust come from? Dot used to be afraid of the vacuum cleaner, but Dash could care less. He won't even move and I often need to vacuum around him.

Today's rain didn't arrive on schedule and I began to think I could get everything done without getting  wet. As usual, I was wrong. I made it to the gym and back on dry roads, but I ran out of luck when I was giving Dash his afternoon walk. He is so slow these days that I always miscalculate. If he would just keep moving, we would have made it home with time to spare, but Dash prefers to stop and smell things. He doesn't even seem to mind getting wet. At least our boy still enjoys walking. That's all that counts.

I still can't figure out why my WiFi crashes when I download movies. I guess I never noticed this before because I don't download movies very often. I looked on Google and other Apple users were having the same problem. As usual, the online solutions seemed complicated and probably wouldn't work anyway. It's not like any of this actually matters. It was just something to think about on a rainy day.

Dash doesn't like me to sit at the computer anymore. He barks at me and if I don't get up, will start knocking things over that are stacked around my desk with his paw. At first I was puzzled by this behavior. Typically, he doesn't need to go outside and sometimes isn't even hungry. Then I discovered that he wants me to sit on the bed with him. Today, I was happy to oblige. I was tired and it was a grey, rainy day anyway.

It didn't seem like a productive day, but the house is a little cleaner, I'm a gym member again, and Dash still had somebody to nap with. Maybe some people are watching the Golden Globe Awards this evening, but I think I'll pass. I don't even know who these younger actors are anymore.

Vegas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2668

Dot wouldn't settle down this morning, so I skipped going out to breakfast. I don't know what has changed, but she is more active now after we return from our morning walk. It's a good thing I stayed home, because she needed to go outside to pee twice while I was sitting in the kitchen eating my frozen toaster waffle. I walked her around half a dozen times before she finally settled down around 10 AM.

While I was waiting for Dot to go back to sleep, there was a knock on the door. The roofers had arrived. I wasn't expecting the roofers at all today. Truthfully, I wasn't even expecting them this month, so it was somewhat of a happy accident that I decided to stay home this morning. I went up on the roof with the crew to show them where the damaged areas were. There was still water on the roof, but the guys said they would blow it away with a leaf blower before they made their repairs. I would have picked a sunny day to come out, but beggars can't be choosers. I was glad they were here.

The repairs only took a couple of hours and then the roofers were gone again. I was a little worried that it would rain this afternoon before the patched areas had completely dried, but the skies cleared and the temperature got warmer as the day progressed. I think the patches will have plenty of time to cure properly and maybe I won't have to worry about leaks again for the rest of the Summer.

Dash has started throwing up again. This has happened periodically for years. I take him to the vet and they can never find anything wrong. They either tell me to give him a Pepcid, or if he vomits more than once they prescribe some Cerenia. Usually this takes care of the problem. I used to think that Dash had just eaten something bad in the park, but this has been going on so long that I now suspect that there is something else involved. Intermittent problems like this are very hard to diagnose. I'll talk to Dash's oncologist the next time we go in for a check up, but I think he just suggested taking a Pepcid too.

Since Dot has switched her nap time to the afternoon, I waited until she was asleep to go to the store and pick up something for dinner. On my way to Central Market I stopped by my doctor's office to ask why I was no longer receiving reminders to come in for lab work. I used to get lab work done every three months, but the nurse I talked to today told me that Medicare will now only cover once set of labs per year. Did I really ever need the extra blood tests when the doctor was able to bill them out? I'll never really know. Maybe once a year is enough, but I'd have a blood test every week if I could. Frequent tests allow you to chart the results and see if a change in diet or meds is making a difference. Once a year isn't really enough. An annual test will warn you if something really alarming is happening, but it doesn't let you monitor subtle changes. The neighborhood health food store used to offer low cost blood tests several times a year. The tests only cost $25 and I would always take advantage of them. It was really disappointing when one of the guys administering these tests unexpectedly died of a heart attack and the testing service was discontinued. The fact that these $25 tests went to the same lab as the $400 tests my own doctor gave me told me everything I needed to know about the health care system. As soon as insurance gets involved, things suddenly get very expensive.





The dogs are both quiet now. Nobody is pooping or throwing up. I hope it stays that way. Whenever Dot and Dash are having problems at the same time, I realize that one high maintenance dog is really all I can handle. I'm glad the roofers finally made good on their promise. That's one more thing I can cross off my list. Now, I just need to get the landscapers to come out and take care of the back yard.

Flash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day