Day 2161

The other day, I was listening to an old radio interview with Allen Toussaint on NPR. It occurred to me that Allen's song Working in The Coal Mine, was the perfect sound track for my weekends. The tune was certainly appropriate today. I outdid myself with backbreaking activity. Yesterday, I noticed that my neighbors were piling up trash in front of their houses, so I was determined not to let another big trash day pass me by. I hauled a huge pile of nondescript rusty stuff that had been accumulating in the green house out to the curb and made my own pile as well.

Once I started my pile, it became obvious that this would be a good time to cut down the three dead Photinia Bushes near the back fence. I didn't have an extension cord that would reach that far, so I finally found a good use for my generator. The generator provided plenty of power for my trusty reciprocating saw and the unsightly trees I'd been meaning to cut down for at least two years were finally gone.

It was time to put the screen porch back together too. If I waited to find time to locate new extra wide screen wire and purchase new hardwood trim, there would have been a big gap in the screen until sometime next Spring. I carefully reused the old materials and although I can't say the porch is as good as new, at least it's as good as it was before. When the environmental cleanup people come to clean the vents and retrieve their big dehumidifier tomorrow, the house will finally be back to pre-leak condition.

When I was hauling trash to the curb, I noticed that there was a lot of nice fresh white gravel back by the garbage cans. I shoveled up a big pile of this gravel and traded it for the muddy gravel on the gravel walkway the tunneling crew had messed up. It was probably this activity that reminded me of  Working in The Coal Mine. I was tired at the end of the day, but felt like I'd accomplished quite a bit.

On my way to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions, I stopped by my storage warehouse to look for backdrops for our upcoming Santa Paws photo shoots. I found quite a few muslin backdrops, but couldn't tell which was which without unfolding them all. I dropped off the plastic fencing that had been keeping Dash out of the atrium while the tunneling crew was working and returned home for dinner. I'll save getting ready for the December photo shoots for another day.

The dogs were lucky to get both their walks today. It looked like it was on the verge of raining for the entire day, but the rain didn't actually start until after dinner. There is still lots to do. I need to find how water is still getting out of the shower stall after all the expert grouting work I did last week. I need to finish a website that should have been complete three days ago. All in good time. What I need to do most is post this and go to sleep.

Honey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2160

We went to a rescue event today. Dash was an ambassador for Dalmatian Rescue at Pet Fair. We told him he need to be on his best behavior. This meant no excessive loud barking, no knocking over other vendors booths, and no pooping in front of a crowd of little children. Generally, Dash was pretty good. He was a little too eager to sample the treats at the Hills Science Diet booth, but he let everyone pet him and was very friendly with all the other dogs.

Dot used to go to rescue events like this all the time. Sadly, she had to stay home today. These type of public events are simply too tiring for her. I drove home midway through the event to check on her and she was sleeping peacefully. I took her out to pee and she immediately thought it was dinner time. It was actually only 2:30 in the afternoon, but how was Dot to know? When she wakes up from a nap, she usually eats.

It was good to give Dash an opportunity to do something social today. It has become so difficult and time consuming to care for Dot, that we don't get out much anymore. He was still a little timid, but he seemed to have fun, making friends with other dogs and begging for treats from anyone who would feed him. When the days start to get longer again, we should probably start taking him back to our Wednesday training class. He was never that wild about the training exercises themselves, but he loved seeing the other dogs.

Now that I've had a chance to look around, I realize that we've got quite a mess to clean up in the back yard. Although the tunneling crew did a good job of backfilling their tunnel, there is still leftover dirt and mud all over the yard. I naively thought that the cleanup would be so good that there wouldn't be a trace that anything had happened. They did lay a bunch of 4x8 plywood sheets on the ground to protect the grass, but a lot of the excavated dirt seemed to land elsewhere. I'm probably going to spend the rest of the Winter cleaning mud off my shoes. When I take Dot outside to pee at night, I inevitably step in mud now. I guess stepping in mud is better than stepping in poop.

If I have time tomorrow, I'm going to reassemble the screened in porch that I had taken apart to give the tunneling crew access to the leak. I had thought about replacing the aluminum screen panels and buying some new wood for the finishing trim. In theory this would have been a simple task, but nothing is simple with this house. The extra wide screen material is not generally available in hardware stores anymore and standard dimensions for lumber have changed over the years. To exactly match the existing trim, I would have to buy lumber and have it milled to the proper size. It's not an ideal solution, but I think I'll just reuse the old aluminum screen wire and try my best to replace the old wood trim without cracking or splintering the wood.

I looked at the dehumidifiers they had on display in the store at Lowes and most of them were crap. You could never use one of these smaller machines to dehumidify an entire house and since they were all made of plastic, they probably wouldn't last a year anyway. Commercial dehumidifiers cost well over $1000 and are generally made in the USA. The machines at Lowes cost around $200 and were all made in China. Like everything in life, you get what you pay for.

I doubt that I'll make it to the gym tomorrow. I've still got lots of website work to catch up on and the house is filthy. My shower stall repairs didn't really work either. I'd prefer to take a long nap, but it looks like wall-to-wall chores tomorrow.

Puppies are today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2016

Dot almost made it through the night. I recognize the signs now. Whenever she gets up and leaves her dog bed in the middle of the night, she's had an accident. I took her on a short walk down the alley to see if she'd finish what she started and sure enough she did. When we got back inside, I cleaned up her mess, threw the blanket protecting her bed in the washer and we all went back to sleep. It's amazing how almost anything can become uneventful and routine if it happens frequently enough.

When the sun came up a few hours later, we ate breakfast and took our morning walk. Even before sunrise, I could tell it was going to be a hot day. There is nothing consistent about our weather at all.  A few days ago it was pouring rain and a bit chilly. Today was just a normal sunny Texas Summer day.

Since it looked like it was going to be dry for a few days, I decided to get the water off the roof. A lot of it had already evaporated, so the job didn't take long. I'm hoping the roof will stay dry for a while, so the roofers can come over and finish patching the areas where the Elastomeric coating has bubbled up during the May rains. The roofers have been pretty good about fixing these trouble spots, but after what I paid for this roof a few years ago, there shouldn't even be trouble spots.

After I took the outgoing mail to the post office, I stopped by Home Depot and got some wire mesh screening material to fix the screen door. To be on the safe side, I picked up some fiberglass screening material too. One of these items should do the job whenever I actually get around to fixing the door. It's not a fun job, so the screens I bought today could end up sitting around the house for weeks.

I noticed a small mistake in a website I'd finished about a month ago. Nobody has complained yet, but I thought it would be a good idea to fix everything before anyone else noticed. It was a simple mistake, but the bad code was found on every single page in the site. It took me quite a while to get everything back to normal. I could probably have just left things alone, but the mistake was mine and I couldn't let it go. I doubt highly that anyone else even noticed.

I went to an animal rescue board meeting tonight. I've skipped so many of these meetings that I was beginning to feel like they'd kick me out of the group if I didn't start making an appearance now and then. The meeting wasn't bad, and as an added bonus for fighting rush hour traffic to attend, they served pizza. I'd be fat and probably have diabetes if I ate pizza all the time, but it sure is good. I love pizza, but I still don't like meetings.

I'm perpetually tired these days. I'd go to bed earlier, but it's already pretty late by the time I finish writing the blog. I'd get up later, but the dogs wouldn't hear of it. They both like to walk at the crack of dawn, when it's still cool outside. To make matters worse, I've always been a very light sleeper. The dogs wake me up two or three times every night. Today is pretty typical. I can't wait to turn out the lights and go to bed. A little sleep is better than no sleep at all.

Boo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day