Day 2856

We tricked Dash into walking this morning. Janet walked with us down the alley and into the park. As soon as Dash started smelling interesting things in the park, he didn't even notice that Janet had turned around and gone back to the house to get ready for work. The rest of our walk was completely normal. It still seems odd that Dash hates to leave the house, but once our yard is out of sight he seems to enjoy himself. I'm probably the same way about vacations. It's like pulling teeth to get me to go on a vacation. I'll come up with every excuse in the book to avoid leaving home. Once the plane has left the runway, I'm fine. The only way to explain this is that I probably have the attention span of a dog. As soon as I'm somewhere new, I completely forget about the old.

The refrigerator part arrived at the repair shop today, but they won't be able to come out and install it until Monday. This means that I'll probably have to take the freezer section apart again and defrost the evaporator coil one more time this weekend. This sucks, but I'm really not surprised at the delay. Now, I have to decide whether to quietly install the new parts I ordered myself before the repairmen arrive, or ask them to install them for me. One way or another, I'm determined to get this refrigerator working again.

Janet's doctor isn't taking new patients anymore, but there are other doctors at the practice. I made an appointment to meet one of them next week. They call this initial visit a "meet and greet." I've had the same primary care physician for a long time now, but it's probably time for a chance. I'm definitely not getting any younger. I was so impressed at the quality of care Janet received during her cancer treatment that it seems crazy not to have access to the same type of care myself. I always used to think that Dot and Dash had much better doctors than I did. Maybe this new concierge practice will   put me in the same league with the care that Dash is receiving at the cancer center.

I wish I'd never upgraded my computer to Sierra. All my aging software worked perfectly with Mountain Lion. Now, I run into little snags and hiccups almost every day. The most irritating problem is that Dreamweaver won't save login information for web servers anymore. I have to manually enter user ID and password information every time I upload something. There are a lot of passwords to remember and if I forget them, I can't count on the clients to remember them either. Old Quicktime movies won't play anymore either. I would be tempted to reinstall Mountain Lion, except that it's usually not a good idea to go backwards. I'm sure that since I've changed hard drives when I upgraded the system, it would be almost impossible to return things to exactly the way they were. I also need to remember why I upgraded in the first place. My accounting software wasn't going to be supported anymore. In my line of work, you need Microsoft Word, you need Photoshop, and you need accounting software.

After I took today's mail to the post office, I stopped by a little neighborhood Cuban restaurant and picked up a Cuban Sandwich to go. Everyone seems to make a Cuban Sandwich a little differently. This one was supposed to be very authentic, but how would I know? I'd been curious about this restaurant, since it gets very good reviews. I drive by this place every week and it only took me a year to stop and order something. The sandwich was pretty good.

I can't decide whether to go out for breakfast tomorrow. I guess it will all depend on how much trouble it is to get Dash to take a walk.

Diva is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2794

There are three restaurants in the neighborhood that I go to a lot. One is a favorite of millennials. The next seems to be favored by middle-age teachers and health care workers. The third is a time machine inhabited by really old people who still prefer reading the morning paper to looking at their phone. Each of these groups is so completely different than the next that they might as well be living on different planets. Maybe the world was always this way, but I don't think so. We have really become a tribal society. Does everyone hang out with their own tribe because it has become too difficult to communicate with the other tribes? I don't know. I ate with the millennial tribe this morning. They seemed happier than the other tribes in the neighborhood, but maybe younger people are always a bit more optimistic. I had no idea what they were talking about, but the food was good.

Janet's birthday is tomorrow. Since I have renounced gift cards after receiving a fraudulent gift card for my own birthday, I needed to go shopping for real birthday presents. Shopping for people our age isn't always easy. For the most part, you've already got everything you need. I wanted to get Janet something she would really like, but since she is actively downsizing, I didn't want to add even more to the clutter. Hopefully, I did well today. I can see why gift cards are so popular. Gift cards are easy.

Maybe I shouldn't have bragged about Dash's health yesterday. Right after I finished writing my blog post, Dash threw up again. He seemed fine all day. He ate well, took normal walks, and didn't seem to be in any kind of discomfort or distress. Just like when he has vomited previously, he went to sleep around 10:30 PM, woke up about two hours later, and seemed very restless and agitated. Immediately after he threw up in the yard, he went back to sleep and was calm for the rest of the night. This seems to happen about once a week now. It is really odd behavior. The symptoms don't seem to be consistent with vestibular disease and if he were really sick, you'd think there would be other signs of discomfort. I'll talk to the vet again when he goes in for a Phenobarbital level check next week, but I don't expect any easy answers. These periodic and seemingly random vomiting episodes have been a problem for a long time now.

I never did buy any eclipse glasses while they were still available, so I guess I'll need to make one of those pinhole projectors out of an old cereal box. I remember doing this once when I was a kid. The last partial eclipse I saw was right around sunset, so it was possible to safely look at the sun through some thick haze on the horizon. If you are a regular reader, you might remember the picture I took. Monday's eclipse will be right around midday in Dallas. You don't ever want to be looking at the sun when it's high in the sky.

I never really made plans to see this eclipse. In my heart I was hoping that Dot would make it to her next birthday and I knew she needed me. She almost made it, since her birthday would have been on the 27th of this month. I never expected that Janet would be diagnosed with cancer either. She has always been much healthier than me. Life is full of surprises and you've got to stay flexible. You've got to stay hopeful too. There will be another chance to see a total eclipse in 2027. I won't even have to leave town, since Dallas is in the path of totality. Hopefully, we'll both still be around by then.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day