Day 4317

What a beautiful sunrise this morning. The days keep getting shorter, so we'll continue to start our walks with Dawn just before dawn, at least until the time changes in early November. I hope this weather continues for a while. It is usually brisk and cool in the morning. I wear a light jacket on our sunrise walks and it is still brisk and cool without the jacket when I take my long walk after breakfast.

I took two Tylenols when I got up this morning because I wanted to have an enjoyable walk. Tylenol actually seems to work better for arthritis pain than for headaches. Who knew? I won't take any tomorrow and we'll see what happens. I do think my foot is gradually getting better, largely because of the new shoes.

I've got to think of something new for breakfast. I don't feel like returning to making smoothies every morning, but I'm getting tired of the shredded wheat. I've eaten just about everything over the years. There was a period where I had a grapefruit every morning. I had yoghurt for a while, although I hate it now. I made pancakes from scratch and went through a period where I fixed myself elaborate omelets. One of my omelet recipes was even featured in a cookbook once. If you've been reading the blog long enough, you may remember the SXSW Cookbook. I started making smoothies when Janet got a Vitamix but never really used it. I thought the Vitamix was magic. I started making delicious soups for dinner and then discovered smoothies for breakfast. Somewhere along the line I started going out to restaurants for breakfast every Friday. Covid ended that activity. I need to make breakfast interesting again. It used to be my favorite time of the day.

I'm a lazy person by nature, but I feel guilty doing nothing on Tuesday because that's when Janet cleans the house. To make myself useful today, I cleared away all the brush that had taken over the narrow side yard on the East side of our house. I almost forget that this small patch of land exists. This is the side of the house where the bedrooms and bathrooms are and the windows are glazed with frosted glass. This lets lots of light in, but blocks the ugly view. You don't need curtains either. I'm still impressed at how clever the architect of this house was in the mid 1950's. It's too bad that seventy years have passed and the house is falling apart.

I cleared away a mountain of brush and small trees and hauled them to the curb just in time for the bulky trash truck which arrived about an hour after I was finished. I had totally forgotten that it was bulky trash day today, but it turned out to be convenient timing. After the side yard had been cleared, I cleaned the windows. They were covered in spiderwebs because spiders seems to love our house. That's one good thing about Winter. The spiders are gone. Everything looks nice now and I hope it stays that way. I don't want to go in that side yard again until next year.

When I was walking this morning, I saw two helicopters in the distance that appeared to be circling my house. This was a little alarming. I worry about fire a lot since I hear so many firetrucks going up and down our street. As I got closer to home, I thought that it must be a bad auto accident instead of a fire. Our street is way too busy for it's size. For a while it was used as a detour when a freeway was under construction and a lot of people kept using the road after the freeway was finished. I started seeing a lot of police cars and wondered how many police cars you really need for a wreck. About three blocks from home a lady walking her dog passed me and said "be careful, they're chasing bad guys." I never did find out what was happening. Just another day in the city I guess.

Diva is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 439

When we got up to the dog park this afternoon, we were surprised to see four police cars in the parking lot. Just before we arrived, several cars had been broken into and purses and personal items had been stolen. This was in broad daylight when the park was open. There must have been fifty people nearby, but this didn't seem to deter the thieves in the least. They smashed the side windows, grabbed what they wanted and were gone in less than two minutes. It's sad that this kind of thing is becoming so commonplace in Dallas. Nobody in the park even seemed alarmed. Ironically, there must have been ten German Shepards in the park when the robberies occurred, but they were apparently too busy playing to go after the robbers.

On a brighter note, it seemed more like April than February outside today. I've noticed that the Dogwood trees are already starting to bloom. There were several pretty Dogwood trees in the park that were in full flower. Hopefully, it won't freeze again. That's what usually happens here in Dallas. Everything starts to bloom and then there is one final freeze that nips all this early growth in the bud.

I packed the boxes I brought home yesterday with an assortment of scale models and piled them up to take back to the storage warehouse again. Why I ever collected so many die-cast models of construction equipment in the first place is a mystery to me. I have little interest in the models anymore. If I can ever got rid of this stuff, maybe I'll tackle the autographed footballs next.

Janet kept telling all this trivia about the Oscar nominees as we watched the famous folks walk down the red carpet during dinner. How does she know all this stuff about these people? I didn't even recognize many of them. For the second year in a row, I haven't seen any of the films nominated for best picture. I think I'm doing better than I was last year though. At least this year, I was planning on seeing two of the films. Never got around to it though. That's why DVD's are so nice. Eventually, when most people have already forgotten about them, I probably will make a point of seeing The Social Network and The King's Speech.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day