Day 3317

I didn't want to get up this morning. It's probably good that I don't set the schedule around here because I'd end up sleeping till noon every day. Dash always likes to walk right after he takes his morning meds and Janet likes to take early classes at the gym, so we get an early start on Wednesdays. Today, the temperature was below freezing when we woke up, so Dash needed his full Winter outfit. It takes a while to get all his gear on, but it's worth the effort. Dash moves so slow now that he'd freeze on cold mornings without a warm sweater and paw protection.

The sky was clear today, so the temperature did eventually warm up as the day progressed. When the thermometer hit 40 degrees, I figured it was warm enough to go up on the roof again. There wasn't a lot of standing water today, but I don't want to take any chances. So far there haven't been any additional leaks. One of the pumps had tipped over again. Maybe it was that windy day when the greenhouse roof blew off. No wonder no water was coming out of the hose yesterday when it rained. I had to watch my step because there was still some ice on the roof. It took me about an hour to get things cleaned up. Hopefully I won't need to go up on the roof again for another week or so. The forecast looks pretty good for the rest of the month.

It was a sad state of affairs that clearing the water off the roof was the big event of the day. Things have been extremely uneventful lately. I spent some time after breakfast cleaning up a small cut on Dash's leg. He bleeds so easily now. He must have scratched his leg against a twig or some brush on our morning walk. I'm always careful where we walk, but it is impossible to prevent these accidents. Dash is a dog and he loves to smell things. The small cuts don't freak me out anymore. I've gotten much better at stopping the bleeding.

I got a message from Herman Miller that the replacement part for my Aeron Chair has been shipped from Michigan. That certainly took a while. I'd almost forgotten about the chair, since the loaner chair they gave me is pretty comfortable. As far as I'm concerned they can take their time with the repairs. It's just one more bill I'll have to pay when they're done.

Maybe I'll use the gift card the electric company sent me recently when the chair is ready for me to pick up. The electric company sends me a gift card every year to "thank" me for being a customer. Wouldn't it be easier to just lower my rate a bit? The gift card is always small and sometimes I forget about it until after it has expired. Maybe the electric company's marketing department has determined that customers like these little gift cards. They seem silly to me. Nobody gives you anything for free. I'd just like a lower bill every month.

I'm already thinking about breakfast on Friday. I'll probably go back to the same restaurant I tried last Friday, since there were so many things on the menu. Those shrimp grits sure were good. Maybe I need something special to do each day of the week. I've got the breakfast restaurants on Friday and the gym on Sunday. Tomorrow is trash day, but that doesn't sound very special. I'll have to think about this.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3259

I did a lot of laundry today and watched the Mars landing on NASA TV. That was about it. Of course there was poop to clean up, a walk in the park, and a large smoothie to drink, but these things happen every day. Mars landings and major cleaning efforts happen much less frequently.

I started watching Mars landings when the Spirit and Opportunity rovers made their debut in 2003. When I look up at Mars at night, it seems amazing to me that we can send things to this distant point of light. Traveling to a different city seems complex to me. It's hard to even imagine traveling 300 million miles and still arriving right on time. Maybe if I understood orbital mechanics a little better I might not have not have wound up in advertising. What I do definitely isn't rocket science.

I'm not sure if the solar panels have deployed yet, but the Insight mission appears to be a success. So few things in life work perfectly that I'm always impressed when anything goes exactly as planned. So many things could have gone wrong today, but they didn't. If my car worked as well as a Mars lander it would probably last 100 years. The space program proves that we actually do have the capacity to do things right. The reason that we don't have lawn mowers and cars built like the Insight lander is that nobody could afford them. Even though the space program is horribly expensive, it's cheap compared to all our senseless wars. I'd like to see fewer aircraft carriers and more Mars landers. Hopefully, I'll see a lander with a person in it while I'm still alive.

Dash was frustrated that he couldn't sleep on the bed while everything was being laundered today. Janet took the big, heavy comforter to a laundromat and I washed everything else at home. Everything looks crisp and new again. Even the pillows look good. It would sure be nice if Dash doesn't poop in the bed tonight. We need a few days to enjoy things the way they used to be.

The weather continues to be confusing. It was 34 degrees when we woke up this morning. Just a few days ago the temperature was almost 70. We'll probably go back and forth like this for the rest of the Winter. I just hope we don't get much snow. When I see the blizzard conditions in other parts of the country, it makes me glad I live in Texas. Dash had to wear a sweater this morning under all his other gear. He wasn't happy. It wasn't easy to get the sweater on because he wouldn't relax his legs so we could slip them through the armholes. I'm sure he doesn't enjoy all the time we spend dressing him to go outside, but it is necessary. The little guy likes his walks but he's pretty fragile these days.

Dash has a vet appointment scheduled on Wednesday, but I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow. I certainly don't have much on my schedule. I'll have to say that I enjoyed watching the Insight landing today. I don't think I missed much by not being there in person. I wish there were more events like this. Watching a talented group of people accomplish the impossible is uplifting to me. It sure beats watching congress accomplish nothing.

Pepper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2903

If I made a chart that showed my productivity on the x-axis and the outside temperature on the y-axis, you could clearly see that the colder it gets, the less I accomplish. It was so cold today that I spent most of my time wondering if I should wear a warmer sweater. My office is on the opposite side of the house from the utility room, so the warm air from the furnace has already cooled down quite a bit by the time it makes its way through the the vent system. If I turn the furnace up enough to warm this room, the rest of the house is impossibly hot. Janet and Dash like the house cooler anyway, so I'm basically screwed.

The only good thing about the colder weather is that Dash enjoys his walks more in the Winter. Even though he was sick yesterday, he was eager to walk today. I have plenty of warm coats, so chilly walks are never a problem. I hate to sit at the computer wearing a down jacket and a wool hat though, so I'm always adding and subtracting sweaters. I never seem to be happy with the weather. It's always too hot, or too cold, or too wet, or too dry.

It was certainly too cold to go up on the roof today. It rained a lot last night, but the standing water will have to sit there for a while. It's hard enough working on the roof when it's warm. When it's cold, it seem downright dangerous. I hope I did a good job with the repairs I've been making for the past several weeks. This is the reason I continue to patch the roof.  The elastomer coating just needs to stay waterproof until the next warm, dry day.

It's easy for me to forget what day it is. I kept thinking it was Monday today. Probably just having a slightly different schedule yesterday was enough to throw me off. At any rate, I spent much of the day doing typical Monday errands. I went to the bank, paid some bills, and picked up some more Cerenia pills for Dash at the vet. It was a slow day, so I also wrote a letter to my sister.

I needed to order some more checks while I was at the bank and the lady I talked to tried to convince me to stop using paper checks. "We've got better ways to pay now," she told me. "Better for you," I kept thinking. What's wrong with paper? Everyone keeps trying to get me to go paperless. When the bank officer was telling me that using your phone to pay was more secure, I just rolled my eyes. Jeez. Virtually all security breeches are electronic in nature. Those Equifax hackers certainly didn't steal a huge pile of paper.

Dash seems fine today. Maybe it was the anti-nausea pills, or maybe his vestibular disease symptoms are over for a while. This is a frustrating disease because the symptoms come and go without warning. We're never really sure what makes him sick and what causes him to get better. I think the anti-nausea pills help, but since he can't keep taking them forever, we kind of just guess at when he really needs them.

It's supposed to be even colder tomorrow, so it may be time to find the little ceramic heater I keep under my desk in the Winter. In many ways it would be a lot easier to just use a laptop at the kitchen table in the Winter, but whenever I'm in the kitchen, Dash thinks it's time to eat. I could never get any work done in the kitchen. I actually hope that Dash is barking in the kitchen tomorrow. When he's acting this way, it usually means he's feeling pretty good.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1842 - New Year's Eve

Ordinarily I'm in bed by midnight, but I guess I'll stay up late tonight to welcome the new year. The bloom is definitely off the rose when it comes to New Year's Eve celebrations. I think I lost interest over twenty years ago when the band I played in was always booked for big New Year's Eve parties. When you're up on stage looking down at a sea of drunk faces, the appeal of getting wasted is less than zero. I hated these New Year's Eve parties. The weather was usually terrible. It seemed like we had to play longer than normal. And it was a bitch to pack up all the equipment at 2 AM. Somehow, it's a lot nicer to watch the ball drop on TV, enjoy a glass of champagne in the kitchen, and go to bed a few minutes after midnight.

I thought I'd come up with a clever plan to lower my prescription cost. I got my doctor to renew everything for another year and I was going to get all the prescriptions filled today before the cost of my drug plan went up again. Every year the cost continues to go up. My plan didn't work very well, because the pharmacist said most of the prescriptions couldn't be filled until I ran out of my current supply. He filled two out of the eight scripts and said I could pick up the rest when needed. "When I pick up these other prescriptions in January, will I have to pay next year's higher rates," I asked. Of course I will.

It was only a few degrees above freezing when we took our morning walk. The dogs still didn't want to wear sweaters under their harnesses, but they did decide they'd had enough when we'd covered about half our normal route. I wish I could convince Dot and Dash that the sweaters are a good thing, but it's hardly worth the effort to get them to wear them anymore. They both run away whenever I get the sweaters out. It's hard to get Dot's sweater on too, since her legs have gotten so shaky. I guess we'll just have to take shorter walks until the weather gets a bit warmer.

The weather forecast is predicting sleet or freezing rain later tonight. I hope this forecast isn't accurate, since freezing rain is always a big mess in Dallas. This is when the highways turn into a roller derby and large trees fall over under the weight of the ice. Many of the power outages we've experienced over the years have occurred during ice storms.

I hope that 2015 is pleasant and uneventful. We overcame many adversities this year, but it would be nice if we could avoid them altogether in the year ahead. I hope the dogs stay healthy. I'd like just enough work to keep me busy, but not enough to make me crazy. I'm still debating whether to have any champagne tonight. It's a nice tradition and my liver is back to normal again. My doctors have told me that the occasional drink will cause no problems at all. On the other hand, I'm kind of proud of my sobriety. Maybe I'll just have some eggnog.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1838

It was cold when we walked the dogs this morning, but as it turned out, this was as warm as it was going to get. As the day progressed it continued to get colder and colder. Now, it looks like it might freeze tonight. Of course tomorrow, the temperature will be back up in the fifties again. I'll never be able to get used to Texas weather.

When I was out shopping this afternoon, I saw several neighborhood Christmas tree lots packing up their tents and disposing of their unsold trees. A Christmas tree lot the day after Christmas is a sad sight. I wonder what these guys do the rest of the year?

The stores had huge sales on wrapping paper and Christmas ornaments today. I know people that always buy their wrapping paper this way. I don't think that far ahead. I just look for what's lying around the house on Christmas Eve. When I was getting groceries, I saw a crowd flocking to one particular aisle. I pushed my buggy toward the melee to see what all the commotion was about and discovered that all the Christmas candy and sweets were half price. I don't eat many sweets myself but got caught up in the moment and ended up buying a box of half price Godiva chocolates.

I seem to have reached some sort of plateau with the stretching exercises that are supposed to help my shoulder. I was making real progress for the first few days, but now I seem to have hit a brick wall. Maybe, this is as far as my bad shoulder is going to move. It's not that the joint is increasing painful to move, it just won't move at all beyond a certain point. I can lie on a flat surface and extend my left shoulder all the way behind my head with a full 180 degrees of motion. The right shoulder will only extend about twenty degrees past a vertical position. Today, I kept thinking that this is as good as it's going to get, but I'm sure that my physical therapist will think otherwise. We'll see how far she can pull and stretch my sore arm on Monday.

I was worried that the dogs would be too cold today and started to bundle them up in their Winter sweaters. Now that the dogs are both wearing their red Ruffwear harnesses on walks, it's kind of a challenge to add sweaters and coats. These Web Master harnesses are kind of like a coat themselves. Do you put the sweater under or over the harness? I eventually gave up, which is probably what the dogs wanted anyway. They like the cold a lot more than I do. I continue to be amazed at how briskly Dot walks along on these cold mornings.

The rubber snake didn't work. I think all I did was make the bird mad. It not only pooped on the car, it even pooped on the rubber snake. I'll try a different color rubber snake tomorrow, but I definitely think this irritating bird is winning the battle at this point.

I don't really feel like going to the gym tomorrow, but I probably should anyway. I told my physical therapist that I try to go to the gym at least twice a week. Jeez, I'm still having trouble making it even once a week. I think these guys can tell when you're not doing your homework.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1792 - Veteran's Day

I thought I'd try to put the greenhouse back together today. As you might expect, the job was a little more difficult than I would have hoped. This greenhouse began life in the 1950's as a cleverly designed prefabricated kit. The Fort Worth company that made the greenhouse hasn't existed for decades and the thought of finding spare parts is laughable. I've always been impressed with how precisely everything fits together, but you just can't go to to Home Depot when something breaks. I decided to salvage the damaged roof segment instead of replace it. There wasn't anything comparable to replace it with anyway. The main problem I had was that since I couldn't actually crawl up on the translucent fiberglass roof, I could only reach four of the sixteen anchor points. I tried to see if I could attach the segment from the inside, but it became obvious that this was not how the roof was designed. I did the best I could and eventually secured the segment in place, but I suspect that another big wind will just blow it down again. What is even worse, I discovered on closer inspection that many of the anchors that hold the other roof segments to the frame had broken as well. Probably the big wind storm that knocked out our power last month and landed a piece of our neighbor's roof in our yard, damaged this greenhouse as well.

The strenuous work of repairing the greenhouse roof left me hungry, so when I finished my repair work, I went to the grocery store to look for something tasty to eat. With Thanksgiving approaching, Central Market is filled with an abundance of tempting treats. I filled my buggy with enough stuff to last me until the weekend and then went home again to see how the dogs were doing.

Dot and Dash had the good sense to stay inside today. They had absolutely no interest in joining me outdoors while I repaired the greenhouse and preferred to huddle together on a pile of blankets in the bedroom instead. The cold front that arrived during the night served as a reminder that the house is always harder to heat in the Winter than it is to cool in the Summer. The furnace does a good job, but with all the single pane glass in the house, the heat dissipates quickly. Moisture is already starting to condense on the inside of the glass and I need to wear a sweater to stay comfortable. I'd keep the temperature at 80 degrees if I could, but 70 is about all the furnace can manage. This suits Janet and the dogs just fine, but I'm already missing our mild Indian Summer Fall weather. The three weeks of nice weather in the Fall is the only time of the year in Texas I really like.

Tomorrow, we get the new WiFi thermostat installed. This means that Dot will be barking non-stop while the HVAC guys are here. Dot's a good little watchdog, but she makes no exceptions for repair people and service technicians. It will be an interesting day. The temperature is supposed to dip below freezing tonight. I need to start remembering to set the outside water faucets on drip so they won't freeze. I guess it's time to bring the heavy lawnmower battery in for the Winter as well.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day