Day 3400

I like round numbers. 3400 seems reasonably close to 3500 and 3500 makes 4000 seem possible. I still don't know if I can reach my goal of writing something every evening for 5000 consecutive days, but I haven't given up yet. The thing that keeps me going is that I really don't know what is going to happen in the future. Anything could happen. Maybe the future will be worth reading about. I certainly hope something interesting occurs in the days ahead. Right now there isn't much of a story line. The blog has always been the story of two special dogs. Now that Dot and Dash are gone, so has a lot of my reasons for blogging.

We'll see what happens. Right now, I'm just trying to clean up the house. I took another load to the storage warehouse today. With Dash's support system gone, the house is stating to look bigger. I kind of miss the dog beds and kiddie gates, but there's far too much clutter around here already. It's time to restore some order to the place.

Janet brought an old computer home and wanted me to remove the hard drive so she could donate it. Nobody really wants old computers, but we've found a place that will take them. This was one of those Apple computers that looks like half of a bowling ball with a screen on a swinging chrome arm protruding from the top. I thought it would be easy to remove the hard drive, but apparently Apple didn't think this was a good idea. I had to disassemble the entire machine to access the cleverly hidden drive. It's a good thing I had a complete set of Torx screwdrivers. You couldn't even open the case with regular screwdrivers. Eventually, I finished the task, but I'm still wondering if it was worth the effort.

I got a voice message from the crematorium saying that they were unable to meet our request for a Saturday cremation. WTF? Dash's cremation is scheduled for Thursday morning. When I called to find out what was going on, the receptionist apologized immediately and told me she has been trying to reach someone else named John and had called me by mistake. "I'm so sorry," she said. "We'll see you tomorrow morning." "Tomorrow is Wednesday," I told her. "Our appointment is for Thursday morning." "Oh, I'm so sorry," she told me again. "I don't know why I even said that. Your appointment is definitely scheduled for Thursday." Somewhat reassured, I hung up the phone and continued my housecleaning.

I'm continuing my efforts to keep walking. Walking without a dog is just exercise, but at least Mr. Fitbit is happy. Somehow I've convinced myself that I need to take at least ten thousand steps a day. Ten thousand steps is easy with a dog. It's a little harder when you're just wandering around the house.

This is going to take a while. Dogs of ours have gone to the Rainbow Bridge before, but there was always another dog waiting to greet us when we returned to pick up the pieces. This is the first time there have been no dogs in the house for a very long time. It's awfully quiet around here.

Becker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2060

I wake up every morning with a logical, well thought out schedule that everyone completely ignores. Clients could care less about my plans. The dogs don't care either, even though most of what I do has been designed with them in mind. The city of Dallas always thumbs its nose at my plans. It is almost impossible to leave the house without encountering an accident, a construction crew, or a broken stop light that brings traffic to a standstill and makes me late.

I really only had two things to do today, but keeping these simple tasks on schedule was next to impossible. The package I needed to pick up at the UPS will-call counter wasn't there, even though I received an e-mail saying it was ready to pick up. I eventually got things sorted out, but by the time I got home it was already time to take Dot downtown to her physical therapy session. I got the car ready for Dot, but she was on an entirely different schedule and was in no hurry to leave the house. It took a while to get her hooked up in her harness and then she didn't want to poop in the yard, so I knew there was a 50/50 chance she'd poop in the car. It was late, so we had to go anyway. On the way to the vet we got stuck at a malfunctioning stop light that was only letting three cars get through before it turned red again. The light changed five times before we made it through the intersection. The trip downtown took twice as long as it normally should. Luckily, our vet is always late too, so we were both back in sync when we arrived.

Dot did pretty well today. She actually seemed to have more energy than I did. This heat is becoming unbearable. October can't come soon enough. Even though I water the shrubs every day, the yard is still drying out. The house isn't insulated well enough to stay cool in the Summer, so the air conditioner has to work extra hard. Even the tap water is warm now when you turn on the cold water tap. The ground is so warm that it actually warms up the water as it it goes through the underground copper pipes to the house. I'm not surprised that Dot actually seems to like using the underwater treadmill these days. The water is nice and cool.

I watched bits and pieces of the presidential debate this evening. My initial impression was that each of the candidates did reasonably well. It often seemed like they were debating with the three moderators instead of with each other. The moderators seemed to have gotten some sort of directive from the network to make the show provocative. They kept trying to ask gotcha questions that would make them seem tough and probing to their news anchor peers. I'm not really a careful listener to these type of things, but my gut feeling was that the 10 candidates were more or less united on many issues and the moderators were just doing their best to stir things up. This was a little disappointing. I really didn't learn anything new tonight, but then I'm not a big fan of either politicians or news anchors. I would have rather watched a new episode of Dr. Who.

Dot gets an ultrasound scan tomorrow to see whether her tumor has grown. Hopefully it has stayed the same or even shrunk a bit. I'm always a bit nervous about these scans because they place Dot on her back in a cradle to do the imaging. With all the problems she's had with her spine, there's always a danger that a nerve could get pinched again. She needs the test though. All I can do it tell them to be extra careful with her. At least it's Friday tomorrow. The trash has been taken to the curb and I'm ready for the week to be over.

Margo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1588

I realized this morning that I've got an appointment for the dogs at the vet every single day this week. Today Dash had his fifteenth radiation treatment. Tomorrow he gets his annual physical and vaccinations. Wednesday it's more radiation therapy. Thursday Dot gets her weekly acupuncture and water therapy. Friday we finish things out with Dash's next to last radiation treatment. It's a good thing that I've got a flexible schedule.

I was expecting terrible weather today, but most of the bad storms went to the North of us. We still got a little thunder and lightning, but now that Dot's hearing isn't so good, the storms don't tend to bother her as much. The loud severe weather alerts that take over the TV from time to time during storm season bother Dot more these days than the thunder itself. I guess we're in the middle of tornado season, but it hasn't been so bad this year. Like I've said many times, you can never figure out Texas weather.

One by one, my laundry list of website problems is starting to get resolved. Today, the recalcitrant forms on one site finally started working again. Maybe one of the dozens of calls I made to technical support eventually resonated with someone. Hopefully, I can now check this problem off my list and move on to other things. Maybe this problem got solved first because it was basically a coding issue. Broken code is always easier to fix than finding the answer to vexing questions like "why isn't my site popular?"

I've been watching this show about FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals, Alabama on PBS this evening. I'd forgotten how many amazing songs had been recorded there. The show seemed like the sound track to my life. Everything from Percy Sledge's When a Man Loves a Woman, to the Rolling Stones Brown Sugar, and Paul Simon's Kodachrome were recorded at FAME Studios. Lynyrd Skynyr's Sweet Home Alabama was actually about Muscle Shoals. I only mention all this because this particular music is one of the few things that still manages to break through my somewhat stony indifference. I loved playing these songs when I was a bass player in an obscure rock band. When I wrote jingles for commercials, I would occasionally daydream about quitting my job as an advertising copywriter and moving to Nashville. It never happened though.

I guess everything works out as it should though. I've got no complaints. I understand Dalmatians better than most men and take some damn nice pictures of local wildflowers. All that being said, I still might dust off the guitar tomorrow and play a few tunes to make the day go faster.

Joe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1557

The FedEx delivery guy was late this morning. Dash finished his radiation treatment early. The landscaping guy said he was coming back at 9 AM this morning to pick up all the bagged up leaves from yesterday. He must have come at some other time. All I know is that the leaves are gone now. I don't know why scheduling has become so difficult lately. Nothing seems to happen at the appointed time anymore. Basically, it was one of those "hurry up and wait" kind of days. It's amazing that I got anything done at all.

Dash continues to do well with his radiation treatments. Other than seeming a little tired, he appears to be completely normal. I'm starting to notice a lot of the same people are sitting in the lobby whenever I go to pick Dash up. There are apparently a lot of people like me who take their dog in three times a week for radiation treatments. I wonder if the other people think the cancer treatments are as expensive as I do. Probably so. What are you going to do though? It's the only game in town.

I found a small metal clockwork toy that I bought in Germany years ago and placed it on my car's driver's side mirror in hopes that it would serve as a makeshift scarecrow and frighten the troublesome pooping bird away. The plan seemed to work, since the bird didn't poop on my car all day. You'd think that I'd have better things to do than worry about this bird, but it irritates me.

Of course this small bird isn't the only thing that irritates me. I've pretty much turned into a grumpy old man. Cyclists who insist on riding their bicycles on busy city streets irritate me. People who let their aggressive dogs run loose in the park behind our house irritate me. My large printer irritates me. I could go and on, but it's Friday. The weekend is finally here and weekends seldom irritate me at all.

Spring officially arrives this weekend. That's a good thing. I think it's already here in Dallas. It got up to 81 degrees today. I was too busy to go out for breakfast this morning, but maybe I'll get to go back to the gym this Sunday.  On the other hand, maybe I'll just take a nap.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1554

Reality is starting to kick in. Radiation therapy is not like going to doggie day care. Dash came home today with a number of small florescent green marks on his body, supposedly to help guide or position the radiation robot. He seemed more tired than usual and was coughing a bit. The oncologist said this was completely normal, but it reminded me of my own hepatologist, who keeps telling me that waking up feeling like you have a bad case of the flu every morning during Hepatitis C treatment is completely normal too. Things like this are probably where that old "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" cliche came from in the first place.

This is going to be a very long Spring. One of the common side effects of radiation treatment is diarrhea. One of the common side effects of Hepatitis C treatment are flu-like symptoms. Both therapies cause fatigue. Oh, well. I wasn't planning on running a 5K anytime soon, and Dash likes to sleep a lot anyway. I suspect we will both be OK.

The traffic is a lot lighter at 7 AM than it is at 7:30 AM. Everybody seems to go to work at exactly the same time. At 6 AM the roads are empty. 7 AM is OK, but by 7:30 the roads are getting crowded. By 8:30 AM, it's gridlock. If you still commute to work every day, you have my sympathies. I've worked out of the house for so long now, that I don't think I could do it anymore. All that being said, it was definitely worth getting up a little earlier this morning. The trip to the cancer center was a lot easier than yesterday. The trip home at 3 PM wasn't bad either. People usually don't come home this early. I try to avoid rush hour at all costs these days.

Although it wasn't a normal day for Dash, it was business as usual for me and Dot. We ate breakfast together and took a walk after I dropped Dash off at the cancer center. I wrote two articles, updated a website, paid some bills, went to the bank, picked up a prescription at the pharmacy, and mailed some letters at the post office. This is where I took today's picture. It used to be a regular No Parking sign. Over the years, shrubs grew up around the sign and covered up the word that spelled Parking. Now, the sign just says No. It pretty well sums up my feelings on most days.

Tomorrow, Dash goes back to the cancer center again. This will be the only time when his treatments are back to back like this. After tomorrow, we begin going on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hopefully, giving Dash a rest between treatments and taking the weekends off will help. I've canceled Dot's acupuncture session tomorrow. There's only so much I can do. Next week I'll see if I can re-schedule things so she continues to get her therapy as well.

Nick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1428

While the rest of the city prepared for tonight's expected freeze by bringing in their ferns and potted plants, I just brought in the 24-volt battery from my electric lawn mower. For the past two years I have failed to do this and the expensive battery froze and had to be replaced. This year will be different. Starting today, the battery joins all the other clutter on my office floor and I'll probably trip over it ten times before Spring.

There just isn't enough time in the day anymore. I had a simple agenda today.  All I needed to do was walk the dogs, write a single article, get my November invoices in the mail, go to the gym, and pick up something for dinner at the grocery store. I methodically went from one task to the next and by the time I was finished, the sun had already set and I had to give the dogs their evening walk in the dark. I'm not a real fan of standard time. Things would work out better for me if we had daylight saving time all year long. Hey, I'm not a morning person. I don't care if it's light in the morning, but I definitely need that extra hour of daylight at the back end of the day.

The problem with simple lists is that they're usually only simple because you forgot something. What I forgot to mention in the agenda above was that Tuesday is also Dash's day to go to the vet. Going to the vet is pretty much the same as going to the doctor. It eats up a lot of time. You spend a lot of time waiting in the lobby and a very short time visiting with the doctor. Dash is never well behaved while he is waiting. There is a large parrot in the lobby that he is obsessed with. I don't know whether Dash wants to play with the parrot or eat it, but I can't seem to convince him that the parrot will bite him if he gets too close to the cage.

I worry too much. While I was at the gym, I noticed Dash doing something strange on the nanny cam.  I almost cut my workout short to drive home and see what was happening, but then I noticed that Dash had gone back to sleep again. Staying at the gym didn't alleviate all my worries though. I'm always afraid that one of the old people who go to this gym are going to hit my car. These people are the worst drivers I've even seen. You've really got to be careful when you leave the parking lot. 

Tomorrow, an insurance broker is going to explain Obamacare at our Wednesday morning breakfast meeting by showing us an old episode from The Twilight Zone. That ought to be interesting.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1414

I noticed today that I've already made 25 cents from Shutterstock. Hey, it's only a matter of time before the money starts rolling in. It's kind of sad that people's creative efforts have so little value on the Internet, but that's just the way it is. Today's art directors routinely purchase fantastic stock images for just a few dollars that used to cost them thousands. At least photographers can upload a ton of images to a stock photography site and forget about them. Internet writers don't have that luxury. Writers are faced with coming up with custom solutions for pennies.

A certain amount of the writing I do is Internet-based. I'm always complaining about how low the pay scale is, but I have it so much better than some Internet writers. Some of these sites that pay for content advertise that writers can make as much as $3 to $10 dollars an article. Give me a break! This is no way to make money. I went through most of my career thinking that commercial writers should make a minimum of a dollar a word or $100 an hour. All I've got to say is that times have certainly changed.

Today was certainly a lot busier than yesterday. The dogs seemed to have regained their energy and wanted to go on a long walk. There were phone calls to answer and deadlines to meet. I paid some bills, updated a few websites, and finished another article.

I worked fast, because I was determined to get to the gym today. Working out three days a week seems just about right. Unfortunately, all it takes are a few snags in my schedule and those three days can easily turn into zero days. I lucked out today and everything clicked into place. I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot, picked up some dry cleaning, went to the post office, and still made it to the gym before 4 PM.

I'm going to need some more good luck to make it through tomorrow. All the local weather forecasts are predicting severe weather tomorrow. I dread taking Dot to her acupuncture appointment during a thunderstorm. She gets so stressed out during storms that it would defeat the whole purpose of the acupuncture. The acupuncture session is supposed to relax you and thunderstorms have exactly the opposite effect on Dot. If the weather is bad enough, I'm just going to cancel tomorrow's appointment. If there is hail in the forecast, I'm not leaving the house at all. After Janet's car was severely damaged in a hailstorm several years ago, I've become very wary about driving in bad weather. We'll see what happens. Texas weather is very unpredictable. I could wake up to clear skies tomorrow.

Dakota is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1330

While I was sitting in the lobby waiting for Dash to get his antigen shot this afternoon, a guy came in and told the receptionist at the clinic that he had an emergency. He said his dog had collapsed and was unresponsive after only five minutes of playing at the dog park. What was this guy thinking? It was 106 degrees outside! Dogs don't handle extreme heat well anyway. The last thing you want to do with your dog when it is 106 degrees outside is keep throwing the ball for him at a dog park. Luckily, the dog was OK after some rest and a bowl of water, but I still think his owner was an idiot.

I feel like I spent the entire day trying, without much success, to schedule a variety of things. An imaging lab wanted to schedule an MRI for me, but they needed insurance approval first and apparently the insurance and imaging sides of the equation weren't communicating well. No resolution here. A client wanted a travel estimate, but wasn't sure when they wanted me to travel. Not much success here either, especially since hotels and airlines seem to charge different rates for each day of the week. Don't ever try to make travel arrangements when you don't know when you're going. I wasted even more time trying to track down a missing Fedex package that mysteriously disappeared and then just as mysteriously reappeared about six hours later. I would like to tell you about a day where everything went smoothly, but don't hold your breath. Very few aspects of life go smoothly anymore.

A website project that had been dormant for over two years roared back to life today. I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. It has taken me over two years to decide on certain things. I have a feeling that people who are slow to make decisions are a lot more common than you might think. I'm happy to move this project back to the front burner though. It was getting pretty cold sitting on the back burner for so long. Although I'm not sure that the terms I agreed to several years ago are even relevant anymore, I'm probably stuck with them. That's usually the way it works.

I'm praying that it will be a little cooler tomorrow. I don't know how many 106 degree days I can take. I've got to drive Dot across town for her water therapy treatment tomorrow and taking the Defender out in this kind of weather is never something that inspires confidence. Janet says I can use her car to transport Dot if I get up extra early and drive her to work. I'm not surprised that she doesn't want to trade cars and take my car to work. Driving an unreliable car without a synchromesh transmission is definitely an acquired taste.

Margo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day