Day 3082

I was expecting the landscapers on Monday, but they decided to come today. There was lots of work to do. Most people use a lawn service on a weekly or monthly basis. I use one once a year. Today, the guys pulled weeds and hauled away a year's worth of dead leaves. I think they're coming back tomorrow to install the new St. Augustine grass. It's a shame that grass never lasts more than a single season in the back yard, but that's just the way it is. The large Oak trees have such an extensive root system that they suck up all available water. The grass never has a chance to develop deep roots of its own. Even though the new grass isn't in yet, the yard already looks better. A year's worth of Oak leaves can really make a yard look messy.

I got my first check from the friend who is selling my train collection. Not bad for one month. Seven items have sold already. My friend says it might take two years to sell the entire collection. That's OK. It took me way more than two years to accumulate this stuff. I wonder what has caused me to have such a change of heart? As recently as five years ago I wouldn't have even considered selling my collections. Now, getting back to basics would be a blessing.

Dash was real interested in what the landscapers were doing. He watched at the window for hours. I couldn't let him outside because the gates were open, but he definitely knew that something was going on in his yard. I hope I cleaned up all the dog poop before the guys arrived. Stepping in dog poop is no fun for anyone. At least it will be easier to clean up after Dash now. During the Winter, the poop just disappeared under a mountain of leaves.

I went to my safe deposit box on the way to the grocery store to look for documents and records about my artwork. The galleries and auction houses want a lot of documentation. I found a few receipts, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped. Actually, there was very little of value or usefulness in the box. I wonder why I even have this thing. It's kind of like the storage warehouse. Twenty years ago it all made a lot of sense. Now, not so much.

Maybe now that the yard is clean, I won't get so many bug bites. I've got so many bites that I'm starting to look like I've got chicken pox. Each bug leaves their own distinct signature. Ant bites are small raised welts. Mosquito bites are wide pink blotches. Chigger bites are smaller and redder than the mosquitoes. All of them itch. I just hope I don't get any spider bites. Spider bites are the worst.

I watched a show about eating healthy on PBS this afternoon. It looks like Janet has already adopted the perfect diet. I still have a ways to go. I still consume too much wheat and it's pretty tough to totally avoid sugar. Neither of us drink soft drinks, but I still enjoy a piece of pie for dessert. Janet just has a slice of cantaloupe or watermelon. It will be a long time before I learn to substitute cantaloupe for pie.

We had to shorten Dash's walk today. It's getting too hot. Our cool, wet Spring is just a distant memory now. The temperature was over one hundred degrees this afternoon. This is not only dangerous for Dash, it's too hot for me as well. Let's hope the air conditioner keeps working.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2632

I tried the bank again on my way to pick up some prescription this morning. This time there were only two people sitting in the lobby, so I added my name to the sign up sheet and sat down to wait it out. I can't imagine how long people had to wait when the lobby was full, because it still took me over half an hour to see a banker. The guy wasn't immediately sure why I had received the letter about my safe deposit box, but said he'd investigate. It turned out that my signature card listed me as the owner of the box and the bank's account records listed my company as the owner. I didn't care who was the owner as long as I didn't have to wait a long time.

The banker said it would be easier if the company was listed as the owner, but that I had to show some proof that the company was mine. Keep in mind that I've had this box for a long, long time. "Don't you already have something in your records," I asked. Nope. They had nothing. "There's probably something inside the box," I said. I found an old DBA certificate and asked if that would work. Problem solved, but I still don't know why it was a problem in the first place. I was surprised to see that I had registered the name Sealander & Company in 1980. Wow. That was a long time ago. I must have been doing some free-lance work while I was still working for an ad agency, because I didn't officially start the company until 1990.

As I prepared to leave, the banker thanked me for being patient and not getting angry. "I imagine that people don't like to wait a long time," I said. There were six customer service offices at this bank, and the banker who helped me was using the only one occupied. No wonder there were always long lines of angry people in the lobby. This is so typical of business today. I'm sure all the offices were occupied at some point. There are 44 checkout aisles at the big Fry's Electronics superstore where I used to shop a lot. Now, when I visit this store, only three or four of these checkout stations are staffed. The rest are empty. When I make a deposit at my local bank branch, there is usually only one teller working. Nobody wants to hire anyone anymore. They just keep experimenting to see if their customers will tolerate even less service than they are currently receiving. It didn't used to be this way. I think companies would still make a tidy profit if they were fully staffed. They just might not make quite as much. Personally, I think the world would be a better place if companies were happy with a modest profit and more people had jobs. We really need to make the world less efficient. Maximizing efficiency is ruining everything.

The dogs did well today. Dash has regained his appetite and continues to hold down food even though he has finished taking the Cerenia pills. He hasn't experienced any more seizures either. I think we've found the right balance in the pain medication Dot is taking. She appears comfortable now, without seeming lethargic or sedated. There were no bad accidents in the house today. The dogs still required a lot of attention, but all in all, it wasn't a bad day.

The tree guy promised that he'd have my trees trimmed by the end of February. I doubt that I'll see him out here tomorrow, so I'll have to give him another call. I need to call the roofer again too. Now, is the perfect time to patch the roof. It's clean and dry. If he waits another month, the oak trees will start to bud and the roof will be covered with catkins. Technically, catkins are flowers, but to me they're just a nuisance. They clog the gutters, cause allergies, and coat the roof of my car with a sticky yellow powder. Once the catkins start falling on the roof, it's going to be a lot more difficult to make those patches.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow morning. I hope the forecast is wrong. The day goes much more smoothly when the dogs get their morning walk on schedule. There's not much I can do about the rain. There's not much I can do about anything actually.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2630

We're definitely having an early Spring. It's not surprising, since temperatures have already topped 80 degrees several times this month. It's weird to see trees turning green and wildflowers starting to bloom in February, but that's what's happening. It's a shame that Texas weather is so unpredictable. Probably just as soon as everything is in full bloom, there will be a big ice storm and all the flowers will freeze. It has happened before. Actually, this happens just about every Winter. Texas plants must be pretty resilient.

I wonder how many coyotes we have in the neighborhood. Just about every morning I'll run into someone walking their dog who asks me if I've seen the coyotes. We've all seen the coyotes by now. One neighbor told me that his dog ran out the front door last week and went to play with the coyotes. "I thought Daisy was a goner," he told me. I was expecting to hear a sad story, but fifteen minutes later, his dog came home unharmed. There are also bobcats in the neighborhood. I'd be more worried about the bobcats than the coyotes.

Dash continues to improve. He seems just about back to normal now, which if you knew Dash, isn't very normal at all. Now comes the hard part. We've got to convince him to start eating dry dog food again. He loves the canned food we've been feeding him while he recovers and he's pretty stubborn to begin with. It's going to be hell convincing him to eat kibble again. Dash has a tendency to get crystals in his urine, so we put a lot of research into finding a diet that was healthy and would prevent crystals and kidney stones. The diet works, so one way or another, we've got to get him eating it again.

I stopped by the bank again on the way to the grocery store to try and resolve my safe deposit box issue. This time there were even more people waiting in the lobby than there were yesterday. Why do all these people need to talk with a banker? I didn't have the patience to join the queue, so once again I'll have to come back later. Maybe all the people in the lobby got the same letter I did. It's always a possibility. If I was smart I would wait a month or two before returning to this bank. Eventually, all these other people will get their problems solved.

The app that allows me to bypass the checkout line at the grocery store was working again this week. All my purchases from last week were still there though. I had to manually erase each of them before I could start putting groceries in my cart. I love bypassing the checkout line, but this experience is a reminder that technology is only a time-saver when it works.

Dot's new pain pills seem to be keeping her more comfortable. Unfortunately, they aren't making her any stronger. What this means is that she wants to be more active, but still stumbles around and falls over without my assistance. I spent most of the afternoon holding up her rear legs while she walked around the house and smelled things in the back yard. I always try to encourage her to move around when she feels like it. It takes a lot of time, but I probably need the exercise too.

I had some website updates to complete this morning. There isn't a lot of difference between weekdays and weekends anymore. We sleep a little later in the morning on weekends, but that's about it. This client was very nice and just told me to make the updates when I had some extra time. Even though there was no rush, I still felt compelled to do the job right away. I guess I'll always be this way.

I"m going to try and go to the gym early tomorrow. Maybe this way I can complete my workout while Dot is still asleep. I keep trying to construct a predictable world, but it just isn't going to happen.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2628

Today was an improvement. Both dogs slept all the way through the night without any disasters or medical emergencies. Dash held down his food today, even though he seemed a little tired and disoriented. Getting him eating again is the most important thing now. We'll worry about the residual effects of his vestibular disease when we get him stabilized. Dot seemed more comfortable today as well. I've been trying to fine tune her pain meds so that her discomfort is controlled without turning her into a vegetable. So far, giving her the regular dose of Gabapentin at bedtime and cutting the dose in half at breakfast and lunch seems to be working. The pills won't make her stronger, but they do seem to make her less agitated and allow her to sleep peacefully. These are all little things, but I think we made some progress today.

To celebrate today's progress, I thought I'd reward myself with a nice bowl of Pho. There is a new Vietnamese restaurant in the neighborhood and I've been meaning to try their noodle soup ever since they opened. There is something about Pho that is very satisfying. It's a simple dish made with broth, rice noodles called bánh phở, a few herbs, and meat. Basically, it's just soup, but it is so flavorful if it is made correctly. I wasn't disappointed today. I picked up my take-out order on the way home from the post office and enjoyed an early dinner as soon as I got home. The portion sizes on all the take-out meals I order always seem huge. After I ate what seemed like a gigantic, steaming bowl of Pho, there was still enough left over to make another meal tomorrow.

Yesterday, I got a letter from my bank saying that I needed to stop by my branch and confirm some contact information on my safe deposit box. This seemed strange, since I've never changed or modified any information since I opened the account. At any rate, I stopped by the bank on the way to the post office, thinking I could take care of this problem in a matter of minutes. A banker told me that I would have to wait in line behind a lobby full of old people. I'm an old person too, but I wasn't like these people. These were the kind of people who drive ancient Lincoln town cars and wear socks with their sandals. I have no idea what these people were waiting for, but just by looking at them, I knew that their questions were going to take a long time to answer. I asked the banker if there was a time when there weren't any people in the lobby and he just rolled his eyes at me. I think I'll try this again later.

I got a request today to remove a page from a website that I'm almost certain that I removed five years ago. I checked, and sure enough the page was still on the server. Oops. Occasionally, when a hosting company does maintenance on their servers, they will restore a site from a back-up copy. I suspect that this is what happened. They must have restored something that I erased a long time ago. I bet there are a lot of other ghost pages out there. I mostly work with a local copy of the sites I manage and rarely look to see what is actually on the server. I'm kind of superstitious about erasing things on the server. I used to use the server as a convenient archive for all versions of the sites I design, but I can't do that anymore. Google can still find the unlinked pages I've discarded and clients get mad when people click on links to this outdated information. It was easy enough to remove the offending unlinked page, but I still miss the days when the Internet was simple and fun.

It's going to be hard to convince Dash to eat dry food again. He's really liking the canned Hills Prescription ID I'm feeding him to settle his stomach. Dot must like this food too, because when Dash is finished eating, she will come over and lick his bowl. I guess we'll take this one day at a time. Dash still seems to have vertigo and appears dizzy at times. Until he is stable, he can eat anything he wants.

Joey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1411

I went to the bank and got another safe deposit box today. I had let the old box lapse when I discovered that there was almost nothing of value inside. Now, I'm beginning to realize that there are still a few things that need to be protected from the paper shredder. In our house, it would be real easy to end up shredding a car title, or some other innocuous but important document, by mistake. Junk paper and important paper all look the same these days. If they weren't tucked away in a safe place, it would only be a matter of time before I accidentally shredded the car title and house deed along with all the irritating mail from the phone company and AARP.

Halloween is fast approaching and we still can't think of a good Halloween costume for Dot and Dash to wear to the annual dog training class Halloween party.  In previous years, the dogs have gone as Dorothy and the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, a cowboy and his faithful horse, a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader and a Texas Ranger ballplayer. Dot's best costume was when we dressed her up as Cruella DeVil. Dash's best costume is anything that he will keep on for more than five seconds. After all these years, I'm out of ideas. Maybe we could turn them into poodles for the evening.

The day was filled with the usual weekend errands. There were trips to the gas station and the grocery store. The bed got clean sheets and the clothes got washed. I'm sure I could have accomplished more if it hadn't rained. The weather has been so nice lately that I've almost forgotten how disruptive a little rain can be. The dogs hate the rain and always manage to turn even a mild shower into a weather emergecy.

While Janet went to a hockey game downtown with clients, I huddled with the two storm phobic dogs on the bed and quickly fell asleep. Few things will put you to sleep faster than a warm dog on either side of you. Luckily, this was just a Fall shower, without  the usual thunder and lightning. We actually needed the rain, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to go to the dog park tomorrow. With the amount of rain we're getting right now, the park is almost certain to be closed on Sunday. I'm going to try to get to the gym again tomorrow, but my exercise will probably include sweeping water off the roof as well.

Pearl is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1364

I closed out an old safe deposit box today. I'd almost forgotten I still had the box. The contents included a household inventory from 1990, a deed to some property I no longer owned, an out-of-date will that gave everything to the wrong people, and two music publishing contracts with companies that no longer exist. Just about the only useful documents were two ancient car titles for my two equally ancient cars.

I finally made it back to the gym. The same people were still there, doing exactly the same things they always do at the gym. It didn't look like I missed much last week. Actually, I did miss something, because my workout seemed a bit harder this week. I really need to discover a way to make working out part of my regular daily routine. Just going to the gym when I'm completely caught up with everything else doesn't seem to be working.

I heard a loud thump in the bedroom this morning when I was doing my website revision assignments. My first thought was that Dash had another seizure. When I got to the bedroom, he wasn't having convulsions and it's didn't look like he'd had a seizure. He was just standing very still with a perplexed look on his face. When I asked him if he wanted a cookie, he became alert again, so I knew nothing was wrong.  Dash likes to sleep near the edge of the bed, so I suspect what happened was that he just fell off the bed when he was having a dog dream. Since we have a low platform bed, all that was hurt was his dignity.

American politics have become surreal. On one side you've got John McCain and Barack Obama joining forces to go to war. And on the other side? Well, on the other side you've got the American people. So far, the only person making any sense is Vladimir Putin. To top things off, a survey came out today saying that more people were upset about the Miley Cyrus VMA Awards performance than about the use of gas in Syria. Strange days to say the least.

I have yet to discover why people have become so enamored with Wordpress. So far, creating a site in Wordpress seems a giant pain compared to what I've been doing in Dreamweaver all these years. I have a feeling that a lot of people who think Wordpress is cool are just buying ready-made themes and not even trying to develop their own themes from scratch.

Tomorrow Dash gets an evaluation to see if the phenobarbital he's been taking is having the desired effect. Everything certainly seems to be working, unless today's odd behavior was some sort of a seizure. I'm still hoping we can come up with a plan to gradually wean him off the phenobarbital and substitute a safer anti-convulsive drug instead.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 976

I don't visit my safe deposit box very often. Perhaps I should go a little more frequently. I had to retrieve something today and discovered a household inventory list that hadn't had any new entries since 1990. I also discovered a very out-of-date will where all the beneficiaries were already dead. These worthless documents will go straight to the shredder, but I wonder how many other totally worthless documents still remain. There's probably plenty of worthless documents over at the storage warehouse. Once, my accountant told me that I needed to save all my financial records for at least three years. At another point in time, the same accountant told me that I should keep things seven years. I think I've been keeping records for ten years just to be safe. What is the point though?  Most of these records could have been generated by aliens from another planet and I wouldn't know the difference anymore. I just look at this stuff and wonder what it has to do with me.

I will admit to saving a few totally worthless documents from the shredder today. They were both publishing contracts from record companies that had gone out of business over a decade ago. I saved them because they reminded me of a day when I actually thought I had a future in the music business.

As you might expect, the city didn't get finished with their aerial spraying program last night. I don't know if they ran out of insecticide, or the planes were too slow, or what, but they only got half the city sprayed. That means the spray planes will be back tonight. They're starting earlier this time as well. The dogs will have to get all their peeing done by 8:30 PM this evening. Why do I think this isn't going to work? The dogs always want to go out around midnight. On a positive note, I didn't see any mosquitoes today, so maybe the spray is working.

I got a great little condenser microphone today that connects directly to an iPhone or iPad. The sound quality was amazing. It sounded very similar to some Neumann microphones I've used. It makes as much sense to use the phone for interviews now as anything else I've got. I predict that in a couple of years, I'll be using the phone for everything I do.

Unfortunately, the iPhone still can't cook breakfast. I had Eggs Benedict this morning on my weekly breakfast outing. I thought they would be a real treat, but Janet's Eggs Benedict are a lot better.

Toby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 885

I went to a new breakfast restaurant this morning. I'd driven by the place many times but had never eaten there before. As soon as I went inside, I knew I had entered the Twilight Zone. I was the youngest person in the entire restaurant. Lots of people were reading the newspaper. No, they weren't looking USA Today on their iPads, they were looking at real paper newspapers. Nobody was using an iPhone or Android. The few people who were talking on cell phones had ancient brick-like models that I hadn't seen in years. The food was good though. Most importantly, the all important coffee refills just kept on coming.

After breakfast, I paid a visit to my safe deposit box to look for some documents that my real estate agent needed. I couldn't find the documents, but I did notice that there was nothing of real value or importance in my box. I found two old music publishing contracts with record labels that had gone out of business years ago. I found a detailed inventory of office equipment that I no longer owned. I found an expired passport. I found an old will that I should have thrown away because the beneficiaries are already dead. I don't know why I even keep this safe deposit box. Everything in it is worthless.

I had to fight rush hour traffic to go to the airport this afternoon. Ordinarily, I don't even leave the house at this time of day, but rush hour just happened to be when Janet's plane arrived from Las Vegas. I keep thinking we're in a depression, because that's all I hear on TV. When I'm out and about though, people look like they're doing pretty well. If you judged things by the volume of rush hour traffic, you'd have to call Dallas a boom town.

Neither Janet or I felt like cooking when we finally made it home again, so we took the dogs out for dinner at Cafe Lago instead. It's amazing how well behaved Dot and Dash are when we take them to a restaurant. They're been to this dog friendly restaurant enough now that they both understand how things work. If they're well behaved, they're going to get food. They just sit at our feet quietly like model canine citizens. People come over to pet them at our table on the patio and would never believe how badly behaved this pair can be at home.

Skippy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day