Day 2433

Nothing went smoothly today. The dogs were tired from their morning walk and sleeping peacefully when I left the house to get my car safety inspected. I had an appointment, but the Land Rover dealer was busy and the inspection took longer than I thought. By the time I returned home, Dot was awake again and had pooped in her bed. This was a messy accident. I had to clean Dot, three blankets, two rugs, and my shoes. I really wasn't gone that long. It's a shame that I can't even leave the house for two hours without risking this sort of calamity. It's not Dot's fault. She's just very old and her incontinence is a way of life.

Apparently, I've been messing with the router too much in my quest to get the pet cam working. I wanted to experiment with some other settings today, but discovered that the router had frozen and wouldn't let me login to the control panel anymore. I called tech support and they told me that I would have to restore the router to it's factory settings in order to gain access again. Damn. This means that I will have to reconnect everything in the house to the WiFi network all over again. It took forever the first time I did this, so I was hoping that I'd never have to repeat the process. While I was on the phone with the technician, Dot decided to poop in her bed and I was forced to blurt out "Hold on a minute, my dog is pooping and I've got to clean it up before she eats it." Tech support offered no advice on this matter. I thanked the tech support person for speaking English well enough for me to understand and decided to postpone resetting the router for another day when I would hopefully have more patience.

The only productive thing I did today was get my August invoices in the mail. I didn't have time to go to the grocery store, so I decided to pick up some take out on my way back from the post office. Unfortunately, this was when it started to rain. The rain completely surprised me, since it has been bone dry all month. The unexpected thunderstorm frightened the dogs and when I returned to the house with dinner, I wasn't all that surprised to discover that Dot had pooped a third time.

By the time I cleaned Dot up and fed the dogs their dinner, I was ready to consider the day a total loss. I tried to give Dash his evening walk, but he was still nervous about the weather and didn't want to go outside. Eventually the rain stopped, the laundry got done, the dogs got walked, and life returned to some semblance of normality. Today was tiring though. It takes a lot of patience to live this way.

I need to remember to renew my vehicle registration this weekend. The vehicle registration goes hand-in-hand with the safety inspection and you need both to stay legal. I have no plans for the weekend. I just hope that tomorrow isn't a repeat of today.

Ellis is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2432

Today was quiet. I spent most of the day finishing my remaining writing assignments. In theory, I could make a good living this way, but the assignments aren't consistent enough. I miss the days when reading was considered mandatory. Back in the day, I used to write lots of annual reports for large corporations. These jobs always paid well and weren't much harder than the lower paying online work I do today. Everything is visual these days. I was curious when I heard about Instagram Stories recently. Finally, an Instagram feature designed for people like me. Not really. I was very disappointed when I discovered that these "stories" were just meant to be collections of short videos. In a world where people increasingly communicate using emojis, I'm lucky to have any writing jobs at all.

Since Dot keeps me housebound most of the time, I watch way more TV than I should. I never actually watch entire shows, but the TV in the kitchen is always on and I'll glance at it as I'm doing my daily chores. Donald Trump is increasingly portrayed as an unbalanced Dr. Strangelove. Hillary Clinton is portrayed as an evil mafia boss who is above the law. Since there is a basis for both of these portrayals, why are we being asked to vote for either of these people? The main message of both campaigns is that the other guy is even worse than they are. It's pathetic. You'd think the third party candidates would get a little more traction in this toxic environment, but nobody even bothers to interview Gary Johnson. The media treats him like someone who was born with six toes. He's just a curiosity. I'm pretty burned out on political news, but it's still more interesting than cooking shows or The View. Why do the networks even bother with daytime programming? I think the only people watching are me and a bunch of people sitting in doctor's waiting rooms.

I'm still trying to figure out how to reconfigure my network router so I can use my pet cam again. I guess I could just go buy a different pet cam, but I am determined to get the existing one working. I've given up on AT&T and have started talking with the people who make the software that the camera uses. So far, they're just asking me a lot of questions, but the questions are very specific, so I think we might be getting somewhere.

Janet and I found a lost dog while we were walking Dot and Dash this evening. The little dog was friendly, but was hard to catch since we couldn't move very fast with Dot. Luckily, a neighbor driving down the street saw us and stopped to help. We found a phone number on the dog's collar and he said he would try to reunite the dog with its owner. Hopefully, they are back together now.

Tomorrow I have an appointment for my annual safety inspection. I've tried to schedule this excursion so that Dot will be asleep while I'm gone, but I have little control over what Dot actually does. Just because she's usually asleep at 10 AM, doesn't mean that she's going to be sleeping tomorrow. Whenever I go out these days, I tend to come home to find a dog who has pooped all over the place.

At least it's Friday tomorrow. This has been a long, very hot week. The trash has been taken out to the curb and I'm almost ready for bed. I'm hoping that the safety inspection doesn't take very long, so I still have time to go out for breakfast. I'd definitely like to end the week with a good breakfast.

Hannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2429

Dash got stung by a bee this evening. At least I think he got stung by a bee. We were taking our evening walk and all of a sudden he started limping on his right front leg. We were about three blocks from home, and he refused to put any weight on the leg the rest of the way home. He growled at me when I tried to examine the leg too. It was time for a trip to the emergency vet. Since I didn't have an appointment, Dash and I had to wait a long time in the lobby. During the hour or so we were waiting, Dash started to calm down and by the time the vet got around to seeing us, he seemed well on his way back to normal.

Basically we still don't know what is going on. It definitely could have been a bee sting, but there was no obvious redness or swelling. The vet said there were lots of things that could cause this sort of sudden lameness. It could be a soft tissue injury. It could be arthritis. Although unlikely, it could even be an early sign of bone cancer. I decided to wait to do anything further. We'll give him a Benadryl tonight and see how he feels in the morning. If he needs x-rays, we can do them during his next re-check at the cancer center. Dash probably does have arthritis. His rear legs are starting to get stiff and I wouldn't be surprised if he develops hip dysplasia as he grows older. It's always something with these dogs.

The last thing I expected today was a trip to the emergency vet, but I really shouldn't have been surprised. Nothing else went right today either. I wasted a huge amount of time trying to get AT&T tech support to show me how to enable port forwarding on my router. I knew how to do this on the old router that broke, but this new one doesn't seem to allow port forwarding. There ought to be a special place in hell for companies who outsource all their customer support. It takes forever to resolve the simplest of problems when you're talking with someone who doesn't speak English well. About one time out of ten, I manage to get a technician who actually knows something about technology. The rest of the time I end up talking with people who are just reading from a script. I don't think the guy I talked with today even knew what a router was. My conversation was definitely a wasted effort.

I had some website updates this morning, but they didn't keep me busy all day. I actually spent more time cleaning up after Dot, than I did modifying the websites. It was good to have something to do though. Days filled with writing and coding chores are definitely more satisfying than days where there is nothing to do but clean up poop.

I was going to get my safety inspection done today, but Land Rover said that I needed to make an appointment. Evidently they only do safety inspections in Friday's now. I made an appointment for Friday and then went up on the roof to check on last week's repairs. Our current dry spell has allowed the patches to cure nicely. From the looks of things now, I think the roof is going to be OK this Winter.

I hope that Dash is back to normal tomorrow morning. If he is still limping, I'll see if I can get him over to his regular vet for some x-rays. It's been a long day and I'm ready for bed. All I need to do now is see if I can take Dot's harness off without waking her up. I don't want to wake Dash up either. Everyone seems so calm now.

Lilly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2422

Today was a lost cause. It was hot. I couldn't get organized. And despite some valiant efforts, I didn't really accomplish anything. Since work was slow, I though I'd try to figure out why the pet cam wasn't working. The camera worked perfectly last month and I haven't changed any settings. Why wasn't it working now? The elephant in the room was the new router that AT&T sent me recently. It made perfect sense that this would be the source of the problem if it weren't for the fact that everything in the office except the pet cam connected to the Internet just fine. Google wasn't any help at all, since this particular camera isn't very popular. I couldn't find many people who were having the same problem. I suspected that the default settings on the new router are blocking the pet cam, but I also suspected that I could easily turn the router into a brick if I messed around with the configuration without knowing what I was doing. If I were more knowledgeable about such matters, I would enable port forwarding on both the router and the pet cam and force the two devices to connect. I did discover that I could use a proxy server to bypass the router entirely, but since I don't have a proxy server there was no way I could test this. In the end, I wasted three hours experimenting with different settings, and the pet cam still doesn't work.

I was going to wash the car today, but when I took the dogs outside after lunch, I quickly decided that this was a bad idea. It was way too hot. I guess it was too hot for the roofers too, because they didn't show up. When I tried to find out what was going on, I was told that my roof was still going to get fixed this week. We'll see. It seems like it's either too hot for the roofers to work, or it is too wet. Apparently this is a three bears story where the porridge has to be just right.

When I tried to make an appointment to take Dot to the vet, I discovered that I've lost my Wednesday time slot to someone else. I couldn't get in this week at all and had to settle for next week. That was fine with me, since I'm not in that much of a hurry to restart Dot's physical therapy anyway. I would like to know whether the water therapy will still benefit her and try to resume her acupuncture treatments, so I guess we'll wait until next week.

I hope I'm more organized tomorrow. Maybe I ought to tackle a project I know I can finish. The dogs certainly aren't helping me become more productive. They spent most of the day sleeping. I was real tempted to join them.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2358

Some days you shouldn't get out of bed. Today was one small blunder after another. I decided to wash a bunch of small rugs that are hard to vacuum and the rubber backing came off in the dryer, leaving the rugs and the dryer in much worse shape than when I started. I eventually got the dryer cleaned up, but in the process ended up spilling a bottle of liquid Tide in the utility room. Laundry detergent is much harder to clean up than little bits of burned rubber in the dryer drum. As soon as I managed to get all the rugs clean and back on the floor, Dot pooped on one of them and it had to go back in the washer all over again. It was that kind of a day.

I never did make it to the gym because I couldn't seems to get finished with my list of chores. The chores weren't hard. I just didn't have my wits about me today. It didn't help matters that the dogs were both restless. Every time I'd get started cleaning something, one of them would want to go outside. I took Dot out half a dozen times and she just stood around for a minute or two and wanted to come in again. This is actually fairly normal behavior for dogs, but when you have to act as their rear legs, it can take a lot of time. Maybe they were edgy because of the weather. The weather certainly was strange today.

The sky was clear and blue when I took Dash on his afternoon walk. It was perfect holiday weather and the park was filled with families having picnics. Not more than five minutes after we returned home, I heard a giant thunderclap and it started pouring rain. Where did this rain come from? I didn't even notice any dark clouds on our walk. I bet there were quite a few picnics ruined this afternoon.

The internet is still working fine, which is amazing since I did nothing to fix the problems I've been having. Everything started working the minute the UPS man delivered the replacement router that AT&T sent me. I think I'm going to pay the penalty and keep the new router as a good luck charm. I'm convinced that as soon as I return the equipment to AT&T, my problems will resume and I'll have to ask tech support to send the router back. It's much easier just to keep it. For the time being, the lucky router will just sit in its box as a spare. I'm sure it will eventually be put into service. Nothing stays working that long in our house.

Tomorrow is a holiday, but we had out holiday meal today. Janet cooked a pork shoulder roast in the slow cooker and it was delicious. Now, that I think about it, this is what probably made the dogs restless and active today. When there's meat cooking in the crock pot, the dogs can smell it all day long. Now that dinner is finished, the house is quiet and peaceful again. Dot and Dash are both sleeping and I'm looking forward to calling it a day myself.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2356

It was raining so hard this morning that I quickly abandoned my plans to go out for breakfast. It just wasn't worth it. The dogs are always restless when it rains and even more restless when they can't go on their morning walk. They will stand at the back door and just look at you like they expect you to stop the rain. It took about five tries before Dash would venture outside and pee. Dot ended up pooping inside the house while I was fixing my breakfast. Once I got the mess cleaned up, breakfast really wasn't bad.

I made some delicious French Toast with a leftover loaf of bread I found in the refrigerator and cooked a few fresh sausage patties to go along with it. Add some dark roast coffee and real maple syrup and this meal easily held its own with any of my recent restaurant outings. Since there were no bananas today, the dogs even let me eat in relative peace. They go nuts when there's a banana around.

I talked with Dot's oncologist after breakfast and rescheduled her appointment for next week. There actually was an ultrasound technician available today, but not the one the oncologist wanted. There is a specific technician that the oncologist wanted to use who is familiar with Dot's case. Evidently Dot's tumors are located in an area that is difficult to scan and the technician who was sick today was the only one who knows exactly where to look. I was happy to reschedule, because transporting Dot in the car on a wet stormy day is even more difficult than on a normal day.

I got an e-mail from AT&T this morning warning me that there would be a non-returned equipment charge if I didn't hurry up and install the new router they sent me and return the old one to them. Jeez. It's only been one day since the UPS guy delivered the package. Truthfully, I'm reluctant to install the new router, since everything has been working perfectly since the package arrived. This is the first time in a month that I've had no problems and so far I've made no changes at all. I still think the tech support guys fixed something after my irate calls and just didn't tell me. I'd like to just put the new router in the storage warehouse and keep it in case I need it in the future, but apparently AT&T frowns on this. If everything is still working properly in the morning, I think I'm going to call and ask if I can return the package they sent unopened. I'm very superstitious about setting up and configuring a completely new home and office network at this point. Maybe I should just leave things alone.

The city didn't pick up my garbage again. My can was the only one on the entire street this morning that wasn't emptied. This has happened too many times. I don't think the garbage men are purposely trying to harass me, but something is definitely wrong. I'm starting to think that the lid on my can doesn't open properly when the automated truck picks it up. Things worked much better when real people emptied the cans. The robot automated truck picks up the cans, but I don't think it can sense if it has actually emptied them.

I think I've finally found someone to help me walk Dot while Janet is on vacation next month. It's been a lot harder to find a reputable dog walker to come over every morning than I thought it would be, but things are looking up. The dog walker is going to come over and meet Dot next week and I think we'll be able to work something out. I've been walking Dot and Dash for over a decade and never dreamed that a simple walk would become so difficult. It's important to keep Dot moving though, so I'll do what I've got to do.

We've got a three day weekend ahead. We've also got lots more rain ahead as well. It remains to be seen whether we'll have a relaxing holiday.

Libby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day