Day 2499

A lady from the sanitation department called me this morning. She listened politely as I explained the problems I've been having with trash collection. I thought we were getting somewhere when she told me that the city had hired a lot of new drivers recently and seemed to agree with my theory that the driver didn't know how to operate the fancy robotic garbage truck. When I finished my story and asked what was going to happen next, I instantly became disappointed. "I'll talk to my supervisor about this," she told me. This is going to end like every other encounter I've had with a large bureaucracy. Maybe this supervisor will talk to his supervisor, or maybe it won't even get that far. I doubt that anything will happen. The drivers are probably protected by their union and can't be fired anyway. The driver might not even be at fault. There's always the chance that the city added fifty extra streets to his regular route and he is just doing the best he can to keep up with the added workload.

A little later, a representative from SiriusXM  called and asked if I was enjoying my free trial and wondered why I hadn't activated my subscription yet. Normally, I don't even answer these type of telemarketing calls, but this guy surprised me by calling my cell phone. I explained that I only listened to one channel in the car and their package prices seemed pretty expensive if all I was going to use satellite radio for was to avoid having to listen to all the annoying pledge drives on the local over the air public radio station. I took this opportunity to complain about the tinny, compressed quality of all the voice offerings on SiriusXM. The guy thanked me for my input and agreed that I probably wasn't the target audience they were looking for. I don't know why companies like these don't adopt an à la carte pricing structure. If I could just pay for the stations I actually listen to, I'd gladly subscribe to SiriusXM. I feel the same way about my AT&T U-Verse account. Why should I have to pay for hundreds of channels when I only watch ten at the most?

I went to the vegan take-out store to buy enough meals to augment the leftovers in the refrigerator for the rest of the week. I love this store and hope they manage to stay in business. There is no way I could cook all these interesting meals myself. Cooking for one is hardly worth the trouble. It's hard to buy small quantities of vegetables and if you buy larger quantities, the stuff goes bad before you get around to eating it. I talked to the lady who started the store today and she told me that she got the idea when friends of hers kept saying that they'd love to become vegetarian, but that it was so much easier to just get a burger. This store is easier than going to McDonalds. I'm hooked.

On my way home I dropped off one of my favorite watches at my local watch repair place to get the band fixed. It doesn't matter if your wear the watches or not. Eventually, they all just fall apart by themselves. I doubt that I'll wear this watch anymore, but it was an old friend that deserved some respect. I have no idea how the watch broke. It's been sitting in a drawer for years.

Dot seemed so tired today. I don't think the Tramadol pills are having much of an effect. I had hoped that they might help her walk a little easier, but that isn't happening. We'll continue the pills for a few days longer in case there is some sort of delayed reaction, but I think this is just an experiment that failed. I wish it were easier to transport Dot. I think the water therapy still might help, but I hate to put Dot through the ordeal of getting her to the vet and back on a regular basis if all it does is cause her stress.

Maybe something interesting will happen tomorrow. I'm not counting on it though.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2454

How did I go from being curious about everything to being irritated at everything? It all happened pretty quickly. Today, I was particularly irritated at the garbage man. Ever since the city switched to these new robotic garbage trucks, my garbage can fails to be emptied about half the time. The robotic arm on the truck picks up the can and lifts it above the truck to dump the garbage in the hopper, but the process happens so fast that none of the bagged garbage actually falls out of the can. The truck thinks it has done its job and just drives away, leaving a full garbage can for me to live with for another week. This never used to happen when real people emptied the garbage and threw the trash into the back of the truck. The city loves these new robotic trucks because they are very efficient and only require a single person to operate. Unfortunately, the trucks just don't work very well.

It's bad enough that the city only picks up the trash once a week now. Playing Russian roulette with the garbage truck every week only makes the process worse. Today, I'd had enough. I loaded all the garbage in the back of my car and went looking for a dumpster. A lot of dumpsters are locked away now, because they don't want people like me using them. Hey, it's not my fault. If the garbage truck did it's job, I definitely wouldn't be driving around with trash in the back of my car.

Breakfast was crowded today. I would have gotten an earlier start if I wasn't looking for an empty dumpster. I probably should have gone someplace else, but I was in the mood for pancakes and the cinnamon pancakes at the overcrowded restaurant are particularly good. All the regular tables were taken, so I had to sit at a long communal table that everyone tends to avoid. The inconvenience was worth it though, because the pancakes and sausage were delicious.

Today was particularly busy. I finished a lengthy website update that involved adding and changing out a ton of new photos. When that task was finished, I started writing my new article. In the old days, this type of workload would have been considered completely normal. I probably would have finished everything before noon. Today, I felt a bit overwhelmed. I haven't had this much to do in weeks. I got everything done though and still had time to do a load of laundry and clean up Dot's poop.

The satellite radio worked this morning when I started the car. This was odd, because there was a failure message on the screen when I pulled into the driveway yesterday. How did the radio acquire the satellite when the car was off? I don't pretend to know how satellite radio works. I'd rather have a WiFi hotspot in the car instead, but this is a free trial, so what do I care.

We've got a long holiday weekend coming up. Will we do anything festive on Labor Day? What do people normally do on Labor Day? I don't have a clue. As always, I just hope that the dogs act normally and that I can catch up on sleep.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2453

We have become the bad back family. It goes without saying that Dot has the worst problems. Neurological damage resulting from a ruptured disc in her spine has nearly crippled her. Last week Dash's vet said that his stiff awkward walk may be caused by a bulging disc in his spine as well. Janet has had lower back problems for years, and this morning I woke up with a bad back for the second day in a row. It's kind of hard to have a normal day when your back hurts. Hopefully, a little extra rest and avoiding heavy lifting for a while will get me back to normal. Several years ago I had a pinched nerve in my neck and I discovered how debilitating spinal problems can be. To this day, I have no idea what I did to cause my neck injury. I don't have a clue why I woke up with a bad back yesterday either.

I activated my free satellite radio trial today and of course it didn't work. I remember that I had the same problem connecting to the satellite the last time I took advantage of one of these free trial offers. Last year it took three or four phone calls and fifteen minutes of sitting in the car with the motor running before Sirius XM finally found my car.  I never bothered subscribing to the service before and I probably won't this time either. I never listen to music in the car anyway, so all I wanted were some extra news and weather channels. The sound quality of these voice only channels was terrible. Everything was severely compressed to save bandwidth. It wasn't what I was expecting. Probably the only reason I signed up for the trial again was the message that said "absolutely no obligation. no credit card required." I'll eventually get the car paired with the satellite, listen to a few programs, and then receive six months worth of junk mail asking me why I didn't subscribe.

I got another writing assignment today, but there wasn't enough input to actually start writing. I asked some questions, received a few vague answers, and decided to postpone this project until tomorrow. I often receive very little input on my writing assignments. I think people hire me because I'm pretty good at just making stuff up. Show me a picture and I'll invent a plausible story. I'm surprised that I never got into writing political speeches. Making absolutely nothing sound good has always been a specialty of mine.

I did write a letter to my Luddite sister. Since she lives directly in the path of that hurricane heading for the Florida coast, there's a chance that my letter will never arrive. Maybe the mailbox will just float away. I wonder why people live in hurricane zones? Hurricanes seem to hit the same places again and again. Of course, I live in what many would call a tornado zone, so you could say the same thing about me.

I got my electric bill today and it was even higher than it was last August. I could have sworn that last August was a lot hotter than it was this year, but maybe I was wrong. I have a feeling that the bill increased because of the dehumidifier. Dehumidifiers use a lot of electricity. I guess a large electric bill is better than mold in the closets though. The house seems a lot more livable since we've got the humidity under control.

I'll write my article tomorrow and see whether I can convince Dash to get back to his regular walking schedule. I'm debating whether to drive a little further and look for a new breakfast restaurant. It kind of bothers me that I don't have a favorite place anymore.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2008

It was definitely Monday this morning. Monday is always the day when things get off to a slow and often rocky start. When I woke up this morning, Janet was already on the phone, having trouble getting an appointment to get her car in for service. Both dogs were barking at me because I wasn't fast enough getting their breakfast. After a fairly peaceful walk, I turned on the computer and discovered even more problems. Somebody must have gotten up even earlier than me. There were short, ambiguous e-mail questions that required long, detailed answers. There was confusion about who was in charge of certain projects. Was I ahead of schedule, or falling behind? I still don't know.

It took a while to get everything sorted out, but after I did, I noticed a letter in yesterday's mail offering me a two month free trial of satellite radio in my car. Since the was no obligation to continue the service after the two months were up, I decided to give it a try. I signed up, and of course when I started the car later in the day, the satellite radio didn't work. It took two more calls to tech support before the satellite found me. "You have to turn off Bluetooth before you can acquire the signal," someone in a far away call center told me. "But I'm talking to you right now using Bluetooth," I said. "If I turn it off, this call will go dead." That's kind of how it went. Eventually the satellite did find my car and I discovered that SiriusXM was just as boring as regular radio. I tuned into a live traffic report channel and found that it only monitored traffic conditions in Boston and Philadelphia. The Rock and Roll channel was just playing very old Elvis Presley tunes. I'll still probably continue listing to NPR instead. National Public Radio does have some good programming, but I wish they quit talking about the Middle East. I'm tired of hearing about problems in the Middle East. I wish there was a channel that just played Ted Talks. A veterinarian channel would be nice too. I'm always interested in learning how to keep the dogs healthy.

Summer has definitely arrived. Every morning I wake up with a new batch of mosquito and chigger bites. I don't know how all these mosquitoes got inside, but they're very hard to get rid of. The air has turned hot and muggy and the fire ants have returned. The birds that poop on my car have returned as well. I don't know where these irritating birds go in the Winter, but our house has definitely become their permanent Summer home. At least we are in no danger of a drought. There is more heavy rain in the forecast for tomorrow, as a big tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico heads inland. I'm glad I don't live in Houston. We'll get wet, but Houston is in danger of flooding again.

I need to get up early tomorrow because I've got a dental appointment in the morning. I hope there are no complications and I can get home again before the rain arrives. I hate leaving storm phobic dogs alone in the rain. I don't like being out in the rain myself, but I want to put this dental work behind me. There's no point in postponing things anymore. The only thing I'd like to postpone is my upcoming birthday. I used to look forward to birthdays, but the years go by too fast. We need to slow these birthdays down.

Shadow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day