Day 2805

What a surprise to wake up to blue skies. If the rain is over for us, maybe it will stop soon in Houston as well. It was such a nice day that it seemed like a good time to do something different. Instead of doing our normal chores, Janet and I went out to lunch together and then went to a museum.

I almost never eat lunch anymore. Three meals a day is way too much for me now. After I took Dash on his morning walk, I just had a small bowl of fruit, instead of my usual enormous breakfast. This seemed to do the trick. I was hungry at lunch. Maybe I should just eat lunch and skip both breakfast and dinner. After my meal, I felt full for the rest of the day and just had a small salad for dinner.

While we were at the museum I was interviewed by a reporter from a French newspaper. This seemed a bit odd. I can't imagine a French newspaper sending a reporter all the way to Dallas for this show. Maybe she was on her way to Houston to cover the hurricane and was just killing time in Dallas for an afternoon. Who knows. I can't say that I'm an art expert or even a Dallas expert, but I answered her questions as best I could. I thought the woman was German until she corrected me. All Europeans speaking English sound German to me.

For some reason nothing leaked when I took a shower this morning. This was a mystery to me, since it leaked a lot yesterday. Maybe this was just an omen that today was going to be a good day, but I'm still curious about what is happening under the tiles. Why would the shower leak yesterday and not today when  all the variables were exactly the same?

Janet bought some of those little solar powered garden lights for the back yard and when they arrived today, I discovered that the instructions were in Spanish. I had a little trouble putting the things together, but I must have done something right because they lit up this evening when the sun went down. The only problem with solar garden lights in our back yard is that we don't get any sun. The thick tree canopy is the main reason the grass doesn't grow well. We'll see how long the little lights continue to glow. I'm guessing that two hours from now they'll be dead.

When we went to the museum there was an app you could download to your phone that described the exhibits. There is an app for everything now. I remember when museums had little tape recorders and headphones you had to rent. None of the visitors were the least bit surprised by the app. They seemed to expect something like this and were all holding their phones up to their ears as they walked through the gallery. Maybe I should have become an app developer. Never mind. I bet the percentage of seventy year old app developers is just as low as seventy year old web designers.

When Janet is home from work, every day seems like Sunday. It's kind of disorienting. I had some website updates to make today and I thought I'd save them until Monday morning. Then I realized that it was already Tuesday. It's going to be hard to remember that tomorrow is Wednesday. Nothing happens on Wednesday anyway.

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1155

I joined HARO a few weeks ago. HARO, which stands for "help a reporter out" is kind of a neat idea. Participating reporters and TV producers send out e-mail queries for story ideas they'd like to pursue. If you've got the information or expertise they need, you reply and maybe you'll be a feature story in a newspaper or a guest on a talk show. On the other hand, maybe someone will just steal your idea and you'll get nothing. I'm not sure if crowdsourcing creativity will work, but it has been interesting to see what reporters are looking for these days. "Looking for chefs who have converted pot pie or other comfort foods into soup." "Looking for experts on eyebrow transplants." "Looking for someone who has added a third story to their house." "Looking for lawyers to discuss the different types of hit and run." "Looking for bullies who are willing to tell their stories on camera." "Looking for medical doctors willing to share old wives tales their moms told them growing up." "Looking for hermaphrodites who have been through puberty."

I get these e-mails every morning, filled with dozens and dozens of equally ridiculous story ideas from reputable newspapers and TV stations. It certainly wasn't what I thought reporters spent their time thinking about. Who knows. Maybe if I keep reading these queries, I'll find a reporter who is looking for an expert at removing water from a flat roof, or maybe someone will want to interview me about the best techniques for removing mud from a dog's paws.

It was another gray, rainy day. There's not much to do on days like this. I try to avoid driving because I'll just have to wash the car all over again. I'm always doing laundry on days like these because the dogs get filthy. Today, I miscalculated and we all got soaked on our morning walk, even though I'd already checked the weather radar on my iPad before we left the house. After I dried everyone off, I looked for new places to place the roach bait I bought yesterday. Like I said, it wasn't a very interesting day.

You'd think by looking at the little orange flower I photographed this morning that my day was filled with subtle beauty and wonder. Nope!  It was just another rainy day.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day