Day 2963

Dash wouldn't eat this morning. It took forever to get a minimal amount of food in him so it was safe to give his morning pills. Since it is critical that Dash always takes his phenobarbital on a regular basis to control seizures, a loss of appetite can be pretty dicy. Dash wasn't even interested in banana bread this morning, so we knew this was bad. We decided to give him a Cerenia pill, even though he wasn't showing obvious signs of nausea. Cerenia was really the only tool we had. Three hours later, he started eating again.

Nobody has ever explained how Dash's various symptoms are interrelated. Maybe they aren't. There are so many things that can go wrong with this dog and some of them are life threatening. To me, it is very stressful. My best guess is that the periodic eating disorders are related to his vestibular disease. Depending on how bad the vestibular event is, it can appear to be a stroke, a seizure, vertigo, or an upset stomach. Dash's worst vestibular seizure put him in intensive care for four days. Today's mild event just gave him an upset stomach. By mid-afternoon, he was back to his old self again.

While I was running my Saturday errands, I did some more appliance shopping. I learned that it would be a good idea if I just put a hold on things until President's Day. Evidently you can get some of the best appliance prices of the year during President's Day sales events. I guess it is a tradition to lower prices on refrigerators on President's Day. I'm happy to wait. I wasn't looking forward to buying a refrigerator today anyway.

Now that I'm more or less living on a fixed income, sales have become more important to me. I'll be going to the annual Super Bowl Sale at my favorite clothing store tomorrow. This is the only time when I can actually afford these clothes. I realize that when someone offers you 75% off on anything, they're just trying to get rid of old merchandise, but what do I care. When you're almost 70 years old, nothing ever goes out of style.

Dash has become very needy as he's growing older. Janet is at an animal rescue event tonight and Dash has been throwing a tantrum since she isn't around to sit in bed with him. This is what they do in the evening. Janet watches Netflix movies while Dash takes a nap. He's more than welcome to come in the office and nap while I write, but apparently that isn't good enough. He want's me to sit in the bed with him now.

When I was taking Dash out to pee this evening, I saw a guy lurking around in the dark. He seemed startled when he saw Dash and I and told me he was looking for his Airbnb rental. Given the state of the world today, the guy could have been completely legit. He also could have been a burglar. I told the man that nobody I knew in the neighborhood had turned their home into an Airbnb and he got in his car and left. I felt like telling him that it wasn't wise to go lurking around in the dark in a residential Texas neighborhood. It's a good way to get shot.

I still don't understand the popularity of Airbnb, Uber, and all those ugly Limebikes that are littered around town. If I take a Yellow Cab, or stay at a Holiday Inn, I know exactly what I'm getting. I suspect that I don't possess the level of trust required to participate in the sharing economy. It all seems like buying a pig in a poke to me.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2821

What happened to our nice Fall weather? It felt like Summer again today. I wonder if the abrupt change in temperature confused the White Pelicans I saw arrive yesterday? These birds spend the Winter at the lake every year. I thought that their arrival was a sure sign that cooler temperatures were here to stay, but I guess I was wrong. It's hard to predict the weather these days. The Farmers Almanac says that Texas is going to have a cold Winter with lots of ice and snow. I find this hard to believe, but stranger things have happened.

Nothing strange happened today. In fact, very little happened at all. Sometimes I wonder if I'll be able to continue this narrative for another 2,179 days. It's not always easy to write about nothing. Dash seems better at dealing with uneventful days than I am. He's either sleeping, begging for food, or trying to lick his injured dewclaw. I've been trying to give him a reprieve from wearing the cone all day by putting a towel over his front legs while he is sleeping. Usually this works pretty well, but Dash is sneaky. A couple of times today, I caught him with his head under the towel, still licking the dewclaw.

I got a check in the mail today that was immediately offset by two bills that were considerably larger than the money I received. I took the check to the bank, paid the bills, and took them to the post office. It's hard to get ahead this way. At some point I'm either going to have to get a job or start spending my retirement savings. The future is so uncertain that it seems unwise to start using your nest egg too soon. I'm not sure it is wise to go looking for a job either. Who would hire me? I've survived on my own for so long that I'm probably not employable. When I'm honest, I have to acknowledge that it's a collaborative world and I'm not much of a team player. I used to think it would be fun to work part-time at an Apple Store in my retirement years. I'd be a natural, I thought. I know more about Apple products than just about anybody, but Apple customers aren't like they used to be. It's not a small group of tech savvy geeks anymore. Lately, when I go into an Apple Store, I am repelled by the way the company has changed. It's all about the phone now. The computers are an afterthought. I'm not sure how excited I could get about selling you a phone that lets you send messages using an animated animal emoji that mimics your facial motions. I don't even want to stay connected.

It's weird how quickly the news organizations have forgotten about the hurricanes. Just a few days ago every reporter in the country was standing out in the rain seeing who would be first to get blown over by a gust of wind. Now, they are all back to bashing Trump again. It's almost as if the storms never happened. If your home was flooded, the story definitely isn't over. It's probably just beginning. I keep wondering if there's a part of the country where you never have to worry about tornados, floods, hurricanes, or forest fires. A lot of my favorite places out West have been plagued with wildfires this season. Maybe there are no idyllic places left.

I always used to think of Crested Butte as an an idyllic place. My family used to spend summers near there when I was young. The other day I read an article about how Airbnb was destroying communities like Crested Butte, making it impossible for the locals to find affordable housing. Apparently, investors have bought up everything in town and are using the properties as short term vacation rentals. Nobody even knows who their neighbors are anymore. There are two sides to everything and the new sharing economy doesn't benefit everyone. LimeBike has arrived in Dallas and I'm already starting to see the green and yellow bicycles abandoned all over the park like somebody's trash. In theory, another customer will eventually hop on one of these bikes and ride it somewhere else, but it isn't happening yet. For the record, I'm not really fond of Uber either. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Nicholas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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