Day 1608 - Mother's Day

I opted to clean the roof today instead of going to the gym. I really had no choice. When I took a peek at what was up there, it was a soggy mess. Last Thursday's wind and rain had deposited a thick blanket of of catkins, small branches, and leaves that the water had shaped into beaver ponds. This Spring tree debris had trapped all the water and none of it was draining off the roof. By the time I got the roof cleaned up again, I might as well have gone to the gym. The exercise was just as strenuous. I'm always worried that I'll get in a car wreck and the dogs will be left alone in the house for an uncertain amount of time. Probably I should be a bit more worried about falling off the roof.

I went and got groceries for the week this morning. I'm really a terrible shopper. I never make a grocery list and typically just buy what I'm hungry for right now. I tried to be a bit more methodical today, but I still probably bought fruit that will go bad before I get around to eating it and vegetables that I won't eat at all. I carefully try to follow the 80/20 rule where 80% of my diet comes from plant material and 20% from meat protein. I'm eating a lot more vegetables now, but life was so much simpler in my younger years when a similar trip to the store would have resulted in five frozen pizzas, a tub of Blue Bell ice cream, and a case of beer.

Mother's Day is one of those holidays that I probably wouldn't remember if it weren't for Facebook and the thousands of people who use a picture of their mom as their profile picture for the day. I have thousands of pictures of my dogs, but very few of family. Both of my parents passed away quite a few years ago and the memories are rapidly fading. I do still remember that my mother was a remarkable woman. Because I have no long-term memory, I wrote a story about her right after she died. I'm glad I did. Whenever I read this story, I feel lucky to have had a Mom like this, and sad for the way her life ended.

Dash's neck continues to improve. The radiation burn has gone from red, to pink, to a light salmon color. A scab has formed over the worst area and the surrounding skin looks almost normal again. I stopped the Tramadol yesterday evening and he seems just fine without it. Both dogs had lots of energy on their walks today and are in good spirits. There is still a complicated schedule of pills to administer, but so far, so good, on that as well.

I keep hearing on the news that we'll be getting more severe weather tomorrow. No tornadoes are forecast, but there is supposed to be lots of wind and rain. With this kind of forecast, you might think it was ludicrous for me to spend hours clearing the water off the roof this afternoon. Actually, tomorrow's forecast is exactly why I cleared the roof. When there's a heavy rainstorm, you want as much water draining off the edge of the roof as possible. The last thing you want is a beaver pond that just lets the water get deeper and deeper. Hopefully the forecast will get revised as the cold front moves closer. I vote for no rain at all. We've already had enough rain for one month.

Dodger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1605

I could describe today in three words: all day rain. It didn't just rain. There were 60 MPH straight line winds, tornado warnings, severe weather sirens wailing in the neighborhood, power outages, and non-stop weather coverage on all the local TV stations. Needless to say, the dogs weren't happy about all this, but we ended up being pretty lucky. The worst of the storm went to the North of us and all we got was a lot of heavy rain.

Amazingly, during all this commotion, we managed to squeeze in two fairly normal walks. We took our morning walk early, before the downpour began, and then when the skies began to clear around sunset, we walked again. I saw lots of downed trees in the park on our evening walk, but our own trees suffered no damage. I think the weak trees have already been knocked down in previous storms. The ones that are left are pretty hardy. I'm still surprised that our power didn't go out. Usually our neighborhood is the first to go. Even though there were outages all over the city, our lights didn't even flicker. Like I said, we got lucky today.

Since I was more or less housebound all day, I managed to get completely caught up on work. It wasn't that I wanted to work; there just wasn't anything else to do. When I got my writing and website chores finished, I did my May invoices and got them ready to mail. I didn't go to the post office though. I didn't want a tree to fall on my car like some of the pictures I'd been seeing on Facebook today. The car never left the driveway. I learned a long time ago that the best thing you can do during stormy weather is stay home and take a nap with the dogs.

It's so nice not to have a leaking roof anymore. Even though I know there is four inches of standing water up there now, it's no big deal. I'll still have to remove the water eventually, but it's not a major crisis like it used to be. One of the main reasons I still have to get the water off the roof is that once ponds form, things start to grow in them. Once I left the water up there too long and saw hundreds of tiny tadpoles swimming around in a large puddle. Standing water attracts mosquitoes too. It's not really what you want on the top of your house.

Dash continues to get stronger. The radiation burn on his neck is no longer red and raw. It is becoming a pinkish color that actually does remind me of a bad sunburn. Maybe I'm imagining things, but every day, the radiation damaged skin seems a bit more normal. Everything seems a bit more normal this week. Even though it had been a very stormy day, both dogs were eager to take their evening walk. I think cabin fever finally overcame their fear of storms. They definitely had things to do and places to go this evening. I had trouble keeping up with them.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day