Day 3303

Filling the pothole in the driveway with rocks actually worked. The surface is stable now and it's easy to get the car in and out. The toilet is still working as well. That's a minor miracle. Let's hope that the roof repairs were successful as well. I went up to check on things this morning and it looks like the guys did a good job. I don't see how water could possibly get inside the house now. Of course, I've said this many times before. Somehow water always seems to win this perpetual battle. I'm definitely not going to attempt to repair the damaged sheetrock in the ceiling until we've survived a few heavy rains.

Dash was alert and full of energy this morning, but his legs still aren't working very well. He stumbles frequently now and is unable to get up. I've started leaving his harness on in the house so it is easier to lift him up after a fall. We've repositioned the rugs so he has better traction in strategic places, but there isn't much we can do medically. I guess we could give him steroid shots to reduce inflammation in his spine, but we're not even sure there is any inflammation. Steroids are not a good long-term solution anyway and neither of his vets have recommended them. Dash could be suffering from degenerative myelopathy, a ruptured or slipped disc in his spine, arthritis, or the weakness could still be a symptom of his vestibular disease. He still enjoys his daily walks, but they are becoming progressively slower. One of these days we'll have to see if he can learn to use Dot's doggie wheelchair.

I wrote another letter to my Luddite sister today. Every time I do something the old fashioned way, it makes me realize that I'm not really that dependent on the Internet and technology. I could go back to living like I did in the 1970's rather easily. Life was good then. I had an IBM Selectric typewriter and a little Sony Trinitron TV that received about eight channels using a built in antenna. I played my music on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and shot most of my pictures with a Nikon-F on Kodachrome film. We still picked up the phone when it rang. There were no telemarketers. I think even answering machines came a bit later. Has life really improved that much since then? I don't think so. We'd already been to the moon in the early 1970's. Houses were affordable. Music was great. People trusted each other more. What's not to like? I'd go back in a minute if I could.

I've had a low grade cold all week. It's not the flu, but it's still a nuisance. My nose is constantly dripping and I wake up with a sore throat. Nothing really seems to make a cold go away quickly. You've just got to let it run its course. Decongestants and antihistamines don't work well with me. I hate the way they make me feel, so I don't take them. As a result I'm blowing my nose all the time. Hopefully I'll be back to normal in a few days. I look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer now.

There was a beautiful sunrise this morning. It was almost worth getting up early. I think we have to get up early tomorrow as well. Janet has plans and Dash won't walk anymore without both of us nearby. Hopefully Dash will be a little steadier on his feet for tomorrow's walk. I don't have any plans at all, but I'm sure that something will happen. It always does.as

Mack is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3302

What a busy day. The roofing crew arrived early. It took a while to explain what was going on, but once we were all on the same page, the guys found two additional leaks. Since these leaks corresponded to areas inside the house where water was getting in, I felt like we were making progress. When I asked whether they felt confident that the had discovered all the potential leaks, they just shrugged. "We'd have to tear up the entire roof to do that," one guy said. At least the guys made an honest effort to patch the leak. We'll have to see what happens when it rains again.

I got a quote on fixing my office chair. It's going to cost more than it cost to fix the dryer. How can that be? It's only a chair. Reluctantly, I told the guys to go ahead and order the parts. The repairs will still cost considerably less than buying a new chair. Janet suggested just going out and buy a cheap chair at Office Depot, but I like my Aeron Chair. It has served me well and even though I don't spend a lot of time designing websites or editing videos these days, I still like to be comfortable when I'm writing the blog.

Since I was making progress on the roof and the chair, I decided to tackle the driveway as well. I went out and bought a hundred pounds of river rocks at Home Depot and dumped them in the pothole. It wasn't an elegant solution, but it just might work. At this point I just want to stop getting mud all over my car every time I back out of the driveway. Before filling the hole with rocks, I checked to make sure there wasn't a water pipe underneath. Nope. The ground is just saturated with all the rain we've had lately.

The last thing on my list today was an attempt to fix the weird French toilet in one of the bathrooms. This seldom works, but since I can't get parts for the toilet anyway what do I have to lose? Basically I just shut the water off, clean off the parts as best I can and them put the flushing mechanism back together again. This is the most complicated toilet I've ever seen. It was probably designed by the same person who designed Citroën automobiles. Rube Goldberg would be proud.

Dash is still slipping on the bricks, so I went to the storage warehouse and brought back a few more rugs. I've already brought quite a few of these rugs home, but I was surprised at how many still remained. We must have covered our entire house with cheap rugs when Dot was sick. The rugs do make a difference. They help Dash get up when he's been sleeping on the floor and they help him stay upright when he's awake.

Towards the end of the day I got a call from the guy who is restoring my Sequential Circuits synthesizers. He said that one of the synthesizers was as good as new now and that he was making progress on the other two. These synthesizers have been in the shop for over three months now. I didn't even want to ask what this was going to cost me. I still don't feel bad about restoring this stuff. Vintage Sequential Circuits gear is very desirable. When everything is finished, I'll either start playing the keyboards again, or someone will want to buy them.

All in all, it was a good day. I like making progress even if the progress is small. The weather should be nice tomorrow as well, so today's roof repairs should have plenty of time to dry before rain puts them to the test again. Fingers crossed. For some reason I'm slightly optimistic today.

Jordan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3301

Did I make any progress today? It's hard to tell. I'm sitting in a chair that stays upright, but it's just a loaner chair. My own chair might take up to a month to get fixed. Evidently nobody keeps a supply of parts for these chairs in Dallas. The weather was nice today. It would have been a perfect day to fix the roof, but the roofers had other plans. Nobody showed up. I did get a one word text message from the guys though. It said "tomorrow."

I was bragging about Dash yesterday, but today we had a setback. He could barely stand up this morning. He slipped and fell so often in the house that I had to leave his harness on so it would be easier to get him upright again. It's getting harder and harder for Dash to get up on his own. He struggles a lot now. I'm going to have to bring back more rugs from the storage warehouse because the brick floors have become too slippery for him. It's strange that things can change so dramatically from day to day with Dash, but that's the way it is. There will be other good days, but there's no avoiding the fact that Dash continues to go downhill.

When I took my chair to the Herman Miller store, it reminded me of how much I hate to drive. It's sad. I love cars, but Dallas traffic is terrible now. At certain times of day it feels like I'm driving in Los Angeles. I don't know how regular commuters avoid going insane. There's always a near miss somewhere. I'm always afraid that if I get hit, the other driver won't have a license or insurance. I guess that's why I prefer to stay in the neighborhood. Maybe this is why Amazon Prime has become so popular. Why leave your own house if you can avoid it.

Even frequent naps aren't erasing my sleep deficit anymore. I'm just not getting enough sleep. With a somewhat nocturnal, incontinent dog, getting eight hours of sleep is just a fantasy. It's not going to happen. Maybe if I slept whenever Dash slept I'd be OK, but I'd never get anything done. If Dash isn't eating or walking in the park, he's sleeping.

The pothole in my driveway keeps getting deeper and deeper. It almost seems like there is an underground spring beneath the driveway because the hole is always muddy and filled with water. It could just be all the rain we've had lately. The park is always muddy these days as well. The ground seems saturated with water. Of course in August this same ground will be dry and cracked. Texas weather is always like this. There is nothing in moderation. At any rate, the pothole is one more problem I can't keep ignoring indefinitely. I need to find someone who does driveway repair soon.

I'm really tired of fixing things. It never ends. Is this just the modern version of the Sisyphus legend? Sometimes I fantasize about living on a cruise ship where everything is done for you. Then I remember that I get seasick.

Misty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2220

I've wondered for years why the city has never bothered to fix our street. The street has been ignored for so long that it has gradually just become a collection of potholes. I really wasn't expecting that it would ever be repaired, but much to my surprise a parade of heavy equipment arrived in the neighborhood late this afternoon. It looks like the shabby street is finally going to be repaved. There must be a master plan for street maintenance in Dallas, but I've never been able to figure out what it was. Some streets seem to be continuously under repair. Others get fixed every five years or so. And then there's our street. I haven't seen a road crew here for twenty five years. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to repave the street. It could be weeks, or it could be months.

Other than watching the road crews unload the huge machines that scrape the old asphalt off the road before it is repaved, there wasn't a lot that happened today. I actually forgot what day it was from time to time, because the day seemed exactly like yesterday. It was clear and cold for the second or third day in a row. Dot got us up right on schedule by pooping in her bed again. I managed to spot Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter in the pre-dawn sky on our morning walk. When we returned home, I fixed my breakfast smoothie and made some coffee. The breakfast ritual takes quite a while, but I wish it took longer. Day like this can drag on forever.

I started writing another article after breakfast. I probably could have completed two articles today, but why bother. I still need something to do tomorrow. I write to a word count and need at least three hundred words for my editors. When the subject is interesting it is not hard to come up with 600 to 900 words. Today I only managed 360. Not surprisingly, it is often harder to write the shorter articles than the longer ones. Coincidentally, it is also harder to write blog posts on days where nothing happens.

I saw a psychologist on one of the morning TV shows talking about how buying a lottery ticket actually makes most people happier for a short period of time. Almost universally, when you buy a ticket you start thinking about what you would do if you win. Nobody really expects to win, but supposedly thinking about something positive for a day is good for you. So, you really haven't wasted your money on a piece of paper, you've actually bought a little positive attitude instead. No matter what your circumstances, for a very short while your glass is half full. Works for me. Daydreaming is also supposed to be good for you, so I should be in great shape. I daydream all the time.

It is ironic that I have made money by selling all my worst stocks at the end of 2015. If I had held on to these losers, they would have all gone down even further when the market started crashing in January. We had another bad day today with a drop of 364 points. The market has already dropped over 7% this year and the month isn't even over yet. Not good! Bolder people than me are aggressively shorting stocks now. I think the market is too volatile to do something risky like this, but I understand why some people take the risk. It sucks to keep losing money. No wonder people are buying over 100,000 Powerball tickets a minute today. When you can't count on jobs or the economy, you start counting on luck. Hey, maybe I'll win tonight. Or, maybe you'll win. Good luck.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2046

We had to decrease the amount of time that Dot spent in the underwater treadmill today. She just didn't have the same amount of energy that she did last week. The vet confirmed what I've been observing all week. Dot's left rear leg is definitely growing weaker. Why? We don't really know for sure. The problem could be caused by the Palladia medication. The vet suspects that the weakness is a neurological problem caused by another shifting disc in her spine. It could be something else entirely. The only way to know for sure will be to systematically eliminate each possible cause. After her next Ultrasound scan, we will stop the Palladia for a while and see if her condition improves. If discontinuing the Palladia makes no difference, we can have another MRI done to see if one of the other discs in her spine has slipped or ruptured. If we can find out what is going on, there may be something we can do to reduce any discomfort Dot may be feeling. I don't think further surgery is an option though. Dot is too old and has been through too many major surgeries already.

I feel kind of helpless at this point. Dot still has the desire to be active. She just doesn't have the strength. It's hard not to feel that I'm letting her down in some way. I had the same feelings during my Dad's last days. I knew he wanted to get out of the critical care facility and go home. The doctors wouldn't release him though. Once certain things have been set in motion, they can end up being almost impossible to reverse. At least Dot is still happy and in good spirits. She may never walk unassisted again, but I'm happy to assist her for as long as she's willing to continue this journey we've embarked on.

The Summer has returned with a vengeance. The air conditioner runs pretty much non-stop now and I'm having to run the sprinklers in the yard almost every morning to keep things from drying out. Friends who spend time on the water say lake levels are still high for July, but other than that our wonderfully wet Spring is becoming a distant memory. Just about everybody was complaining about the rain in April and May, but a lot of people, including myself, would like to see some of that rain return. The only real reminder of the massive Spring rains are all the potholes in the city streets. It will probably take several year to fix all these potholes. My roofer tells me that one of the reasons he hasn't been out to fix the defective elastomer coating on my roof is that his company had an unprecedented number of leaks to fix this Spring. I'm just glad that my own roof wasn't one of them.

I remembered to take the trash out to the curb this evening, but it's hard to remember everything. I forgot that the brush and bulky trash truck was coming last Wednesday and I continually keep forgetting to wear my retainer at night. I never forget the dogs pills or my own meds. I never forget my keys when I leave the house. And I never forget a work deadline. I think my brain is too crowed with routines and details though. For everything I do remember, there's something else I forget.

I'll definitely remember to go out for breakfast tomorrow. My Friday breakfast outings are often the high point of my week. I was excited to learn that one of my favorite downtown restaurants will soon be adding a second location in my neighborhood. By Fall I may have two restaurants to tempt me.

Jewel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1980

I had to renew some prescriptions today and a bottle of pills that cost me $30 last month suddenly increased to $160. Yes, I've entered the so called doughnut hole again. Part-D prescription drug plans have always seemed overly complex to me. There are six or seven different categories of drugs, each with it's own co-pay rate, and then there are three different benefit stages that plan members must navigate during your plan year. You start out with a reasonable co-pay, then after you've received a certain amount of benefits, you enter the doughnut hole, where rates skyrocket for a while. If you keep refilling your prescriptions, you eventually reach what they call the catastrophic coverage stage, where you pay next to nothing for your meds. I know the government is trying to save money, but do they really need to make things so complicated? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just have a somewhat higher co-pay all year long and keep the coverage constant? I feel the same way about taxes. A simple flat tax would be so much easier for everyone.

It was strange to see blue skies this morning as we walked the dogs. I haven't seen the sun for quite a while, so today's mild weather was a welcome treat. The dogs enjoyed the sunshine as much as I did, and Dot had one of her best days in a long time. We walked up and down several hills and she got some much needed exercise. Since the long range weather forecast is still predicting rain for the remainder of the week, I thought I'd take advantage of this rare clear day to mow the grass. The grass had grown so rapidly as a result of almost a month of solid rain that I had to raise the mower blades a bit. At the regular setting, the thick grass was just too much for the little mower.

It was pretty busy for a Monday. In addition to going to the pharmacy and mowing the grass, I began working on my first mobile website for an actual client. My initial efforts are nothing to write home about, but I'm definitely making progress. Two months ago I didn't even know what responsive web design was. Since I'll probably eventually have to redesign every site I manage, I'm trying to tackle the easy problems first. If this goes well, I'll try something a little more difficult next time.

All the rain we've been having must be causing the foundation to shift a bit. The screen door at the back of the house is getting sticky again and this morning I watched a ceramic tile in the bathroom crack right in front of my eyes. I thought I'd superglue the chipped tile back together again and ended up gluing my fingers together in the process. I need to make a mental note that nail polish remover does not work to remove superglue from skin. Acetone does work though. Luckily, I had a small bottle of acetone in the utility room, or my thumb and forefinger would still be stuck together.

The dogs immediately started barking this morning when they saw me get the bananas out for my breakfast smoothie. They wanted to make sure that I remembered to save a banana for them. I didn't forget the dogs, but in the confusion of the moment, I did forget to add the eggs to my smoothie. Oh, well. This morning's concoction probably wasn't as nutritious as it should be, but it still tasted good. At least the dogs were happy. In addition to remembering to add eggs tomorrow, I need to remember to take my car to the dealership. I have an appointment to get the wheel fixed that I damaged hitting a large pothole. Hopefully, I won't hit another pothole driving up to the dealership. The roads are really that bad.

Skippy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1969

Benicar, the medication I use to control my blood pressure, has joined the growing list of drugs targeted in class action suits. Every time I turn on TV I seem to see one of those 1-800-BAD-DRUG ads about Benicar. It seemed like it would be prudent to switch back to Zestril, my original blood pressure medication, so I stopped by my doctor's office in hopes that he'd just write me a script. No so fast buddy. I have to have a full exam and probably some more blood tests first. Nothing is simple anymore. Knowing my doctor, he'll probably want to keep me on Benicar, despite the ominous sounding TV commercials.

At least Dash has finished with all his meds. He seems to have made a full recovery from the torn paw pad and no longer needs antibiotics or pain pills. Maybe I should take his leftover pain pills. My teeth are still bothering me. I'm starting to think that it's not even the wisdom tooth extraction that is causing the problem now. When I initially went back to the dentist at the first of the year, he mentioned that I may have to have a crown replaced. He thought the existing crown had a crack in it and that this was causing the temperature sensitivity I was experiencing at the time. Unfortunately, he also said it was impossible to fix the crown until I had the crooked wisdom tooth removed. Somehow, having the wisdom tooth removed has upset a delicate balance that left me thinking I had great teeth for years. Now, the fortress appears to be crumbling.

Dot did great during her water therapy session today. The vet is very pleased with her progress, but thinks we need to be doing more strength building exercises. Instead of taking Dot on longer walks, she wants me to spend more time walking her up and down hills and inclines. This shouldn't be hard to do. The park is full of hills and inclines.

On the way home from the vet, I hit a deep pothole in the road and damaged one of my wheels. Potholes are everywhere this Spring, since we've had so much rain. Road crews are repaired some of them, but they have only scratched the surface. I've never seen the roads this bad. I'm really glad I got the tire and wheel damage coverage when I bought the car. It seemed expensive at the time, but when you figure in the damaged tire that was already replaced under the policy and the repair to this wheel, I've already paid for the coverage.

We've been on the verge of a bad storm all day. It rained a lot last night, and then off and on during the day, but I managed to get the dogs walked without getting wet. I may not be so lucky tomorrow. I think the weather is supposed to keep getting worse through the weekend, with the possibility of tornadoes on Saturday.  I hope this forecast is wrong. I don't even want to think about tornadoes on Saturday.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day