Day 4502

Another very windy, unseasonably warm, and largely uneventful day. After our early walk with Dawn and my ritual breakfast of shredded wheat and berries, I puttered around the house, doing a bunch of unessential chores. I tried again to fix the perpetually running toilet. Usually cleaning all the small parts with a Q-tip gets things working again for a while. My efforts never last long though. After finishing this hopeless task, I pried open the broken sliding glass door to the atrium and swept the patio and cleaned the outside of the large glass doors. I don't know how this enclosed area gets so dirty, but dust is everywhere in this neighborhood. I swept away the avalanche of catkins that keep falling from our Oak trees on the front and back porch. Usually more catkins have fallen before I even finish sweeping. You'd think I'd learn to do something that was actually useful, but these are the things that bother me most.

I did get one pleasant surprise this morning. I found my lost sock. It was inside the arm of a light jacket I had washed with the other laundry. I discovered the sock when I was putting on the jacket for our early walk with Dawn. If it hadn't been a little chilly early this morning, the sock might have gone unnoticed for months. Jacket weather is almost over for the year.

I got a message to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. I'm not low on anything, so once again the automated systems have run amok. I have tried to change the timing of these renewals in the past, but it's hard to argue with a computer. Once the information is entered in the system it seems to stay there forever.  Now I just pick up the pills and put them somewhere until I need them. I'm not sure what I'm picking up yet, but whatever it is, I doubt that I'll need it for months.

I put a picture I took of the Milky Way on my Facebook page recently, mostly to remind myself why I continue to travel to McDonald Observatory. I was genuinely surprised at how much attention the picture got. Maybe I ought to post more pictures. I probably won't though. Way back when Google+ was a going concern I used to post pictures every day. One day a well known national photographer suggested to his followers that that they follow me as well. All of the sudden I had a ton of Google+ followers. Over 50,000 if I remember correctly. These people always wanted new content. The attention was fun for a little while and then it became a burden. I got tired of being a prolific photographer. I wasn't sad at all when Google pulled the plug on Google+. I didn't have to keep proving my worth anymore. It's much easier to write a little blog that nobody reads.

I have no idea what to take to the observatory with me. Usually I take several Winter coats because it can get very cold at night. I hear it's a lot warmer now though. Do I really need a down jacket in May? Should I take several pairs of Hoka shoes or just the new boots? I can't even decide which camera to take. The camera that works with the star track is not the camera I usually use and am more comfortable with. I guess I could take both, but I hate to travel with a bunch of unnecessary stuff. Do I tend to overthink things. Absolutely.

My grocery list for tomorrow is already longer than usual. How did we run out of so many things at the same time? I wonder if prices are continuing to rise? That's a stupid question. Of course they are. Unfortunately the stock market is headed in the opposite direction. We had the biggest drop since 2020 today.

Mindy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4403

Today I tried to solve small problems. I fixed the problematic French toilet in one of the bathrooms. This is always a bigger job than you might expect because this toilet doesn't use any of the parts you would normally find inside a standard toilet. Some of these parts are impossible to find, so I have to take everything apart and carefully clean it. I was actually able to salvage the expensive plastic valve, so I didn't have to make a trip to the plumbing supply store. The toilet is still on its last legs, but it doesn't run anymore.

With one loathsome task out of the way, I embarked on an even more loathsome task. I cleaned out the atrium. The atrium is almost impossible to access because the huge sliding glass door that provides entry to this space had been jammed for several years. The original idea was to have a pleasant indoor/outdoor space where the atrium actually becomes part of the living room on nice days. I don't know what the architect was thinking. There aren't many nice days here in Texas.

I'm always apprehensive about trying to pry the jammed door open enough for me to squeeze through a small 12 inch opening. What if the door becomes even more jammed and I can't get it closed again. That would be really bad news. Today I had to open the sliding glass door a little wider than usual because I had to squeeze a ladder through the opening so I could knock down some mud dauber nests. The wasps had made the nests right on the glass during the Summer and they've been an eyesore ever since.

The atrium looks great now. I removed all the wasp nests. Swept the flagstone floor. And attached some string hanging from the roof beams to the Japanese Black Bamboo growing in the garden area to train the plants to grow vertical again. I even cleaned the glass windows and removed all the leaves that had gotten inside. I still don't know how leaves get inside this space. There is a roof and all the sides are enclosed.

I unpaired my new Fitbit from my phone to see if that was what was draining the phone's battery. So far, so good. The battery seems to be lasting a lot longer. I'm using the old Fitbit again and starting to wonder why I even bought the new fancier model. The phone's battery had been going dead overnight with the new Fitbit, so we'll see what happens tonight. If the problem has been solved, I may take the new Fitbit back to the store tomorrow and try to get a refund. It seems pretty clear to me that it is defective.

The weather was beautiful today but it was hard to enjoy my walks because of the foot pain. I don't know why I'm even attempting to get steps anymore. My Fitbit doesn't even work. I took my time today and somehow still managed to get 20,000 steps. I didn't see the eagle today, but the park did look pretty. The sky was so clear that I momentarily thought about getting a telescope out and watching the stars tonight. That never materialized. Here I am writing the blog instead. It's a shame the skies aren't darker here. Winter skies are fabulous and there is a wealth of interesting stuff to see just in the constellation Orion. 

The trash has been taken to the curb and I actually feel like I accomplished something today. If I had the energy to do this ten days in a row, the house might actually start looking a little better. 

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day