Day 3383

Go home Texas weather, you're drunk. I had just about convinced myself that Spring was here and then I wake up this morning to hear the furnace running again. Winter has returned. It was cold and windy when I walked Dash, which was fine with him. He was still slow and forgetful, but the cold seemed to invigorate him and he was determined to explore new paths. We followed a coyote trail this morning which is never a good idea. It wasn't raining, but the ground was damp. By the time we returned, Dash was dirty and his protective boots were wet. So were mine.

Dash didn't want to take his pills this morning. He kept rejecting all the usual treats we use as pill pockets. He didn't like ham. He didn't like cheese. He didn't like turkey. Eventually, he took the pills in some leftover Jimmy Dean sausage. I could always pill Dot by placing pills directly down her throat when it became necessary. This doesn't work with Dash. He tries to bite you and if you do manage to get the pill down, he gags and tries to throw it up. As always, all's well that ends well. Once Dash decided to take his meds, the rest of the day went smoothly.

I had to get a bunch of things at Sam's Club today. They completely rearranged the store this week. Every single aisle had been moved and nobody could find anything. All the customers kept asking employees where things were, buy nobody seemed to know. It was as if somebody had come in during the middle of the night and reinvented the store. Even the brands on the shelves had changed. To make matters worse, the app I use to bypass the checkout line had been discontinued and I was forced to download the replacement app in the store. Of course I couldn't remember my passwords and I had to start over from scratch. The old app was simple and just recorded your transactions. The new app was complicated, played ads while I was shopping, and tried to get me to buy things I didn't want. Jeez. Who thought this was a good idea? I was so disgusted by this display of corporate hubris that I completely forgot to go to Kroger and finish my shopping on the way home. I'll have to go back and get peaches tomorrow.

I'd forgotten over the years that Blogger and Google+ have always shared a lot of functionality since the are both owned by Google. I've been getting warnings for several weeks that I need to remove any shared profiles and widgets from the blog before April 2 or they would just disappear. I clicked the "return to Blogger profile" button this morning without realizing that I never had a Blogger profile in the first place. Suddenly my blog description was blank and there was no way to return to the Google+ profile to see what I had written. I had to write a new profile from scratch. I briefly wondered why I was even doing this. Very few people read the blog anymore. Blogging has become passé. I think the cool people have moved on to podcasts now. The popularity of blogging peaked quite a few years ago.

When I was walking Dash this afternoon, one of his rubber boots and a sock came off. This is the equivalent of having a flat tire in your car. I needed to replace the boot so Dash's paw wouldn't bleed, but Dash wasn't being very cooperative. I couldn't hold him up and replace the boot and sock at the same time, so I had to get him to lie down in the grass. The grass was wet and Dash wasn't pleased. I eventually got the boot back on, but when I got home I noticed that it was inside out. I'm glad this doesn't happen very often.

I hope it is warmer tomorrow. Flowers are blooming. Trees are turning green. It is supposed to be Spring.

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3059

My friend who owns the train store is already promoting my collection. I read the description on his website and my first thought was "Wow, I used to own this stuff." If I were younger, had a good job and lots of space, this is definitely something I'd be interested in buying. I hope the collection finds a good home. I think I was a discriminating collector. Some of the items are quite rare. I spent a lot of time finding these things.

That's all in the past now. I've just begun downsizing, but I'd really like to get to the point where the house is clean and tidy again and Janet and I can spend our time traveling instead of acquiring stuff. There is nothing wrong with collecting. I'm still a big fan of collecting. Learning a lot of trivia about anything broadens the mind. You should only embark on a collecting odyssey if it brings you joy and you've got a group of like minded people to share your obsession with. A collection without other people who appreciate it is nothing.

Dash has been sleeping all night for the past week. I can't figure out what has changed. He's eating the same things and there has been no real change in his behavior. I appreciate the extra sleep, but I know that things could change overnight. I don't really know if Dash's new sleeping pattern is a sign that he's better or worse. You go through a lot of changes as you grow older and some of them are hard to explain. I monitor Dash closely, but there's only so much I can do. I've been taking things one day at a time for a long, long time.

Our morning walks take over an hour now, even though we don't go very far. I don't mind. Dash enjoys being outdoors and I don't have anything to do anyway. Today was pretty typical. I ate breakfast, did a load of laundry and cleaned the toilets while Dash was taking a nap. I did end up watching the new episode of The Expanse that I recorded yesterday. I think I enjoyed binge watching Season 1 and Season 2 better. There's a formula for episodic TV. There's always a cliffhanger at the end of each show to make sure you tune in for the next week's episode. I'd rather watch the entire series at once. The cliffhangers don't make much sense if you've already forgotten them by the time the next show airs.

I picked up some more meds for Dash today. Janet usually gives Dash his pills, but when she travels, I need to make sure he takes them myself. The older he gets the more complicated this becomes. Dash won't take pills in a dog food meatball or pill pocket anymore. He has lost interest in banana bread too. Janet says peanut butter still works. Before she goes somewhere, Janet packages morning and evening meds in separate zip lock bags and labels each one with the day they are supposed to be given. This may seem like overkill, but I appreciate it. I am becoming forgetful. I forgot my own meds last night.

I made an appointment to get my oil changed and the soonest they could work me in was May 19. When I used to need this sort of thing they would just tell me to come on up anytime. Everything is way too hectic now. I also found out that my regular service adviser no longer works at the dealership. Jeez. Why does everything always have to keep changing.

One thing that never changes is my quest for the perfect breakfast every Friday. I still don't know where I'm going tomorrow, but hopefully I'll find something delicious on the menu.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2966

I've been interested in space for a long time, but I never thought I'd see a sporty convertible floating above the earth with a mannequin in a space suit at the wheel. The long awaited Falcon Heavy launch was spectacular. I thought it was audacious of Elon Musk to send his own Tesla Roadster to Mars on the Falcon Heavy's maiden voyage. It was pretty cool to see the two booster rockets return to Cape Canaveral and land simultaneously as well. If this doesn't get people interested in space travel again, I don't know what will.

I defrosted the evaporator coil in the freezer today. There was definitely ice on the coil, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I probably could have gone another week before the refrigerator stopped working. It's a nuisance to take all the food out of the freezer, remove the shelves, and unscrew the back panel to gain access to the frozen coil, but melting the ice with a hair dryer seems to cure the problem every time. It seems odd now that frost free refrigerators are a relatively new development and my parents routinely defrosted their refrigerator this way.

After a thousand point drop yesterday, the stock market had a thousand point intraday swing today. The market was down over 500 points at the open and was up over 500 points at the close. It was a very volatile day for traders. At times like these I think it is best to lay low and do nothing. The economy is good and businesses are thriving, so I think the market will recover. If there wasn't so much high volume program trading by machines, the sell off probably wouldn't have happened in the first place. They say a lot of people who were shorting the volatility index because the market has been so stable lately got totally wiped out. I bet they won't do that again.

Dash seems to be feeling a little better. He still won't eat when he gets up, but his appetite seems to return about mid-morning. I don't know if this is permanent or not, but adjustments can be made. The only real problem is getting Dash to take his morning pills. If the morning and evening meds didn't have to be given twelve hours apart, it would be easy to just have Dash take the morning meds later in the day. Unfortunately, that would push the schedule for his the evening meds back until after our bedtime. Hopefully, this loss of appetite is temporary. It certainly makes life more difficult.

I hear thunder outside, but Dash still seems calm and normal. That's odd. Maybe he's growing deaf along with his many other problems. Dot was virtually deaf in the final months before she passed away and the deafness was a blessing. For the first time in her life, she wasn't scared of storms.

I have no plans for tomorrow. With no deadlines to meet, I'll fret about my jury summons. Then I'll fret about Dash's lack of appetite. Then I'll wonder why our cable bill went up again and how long my refrigerator repair will last. I don't think I'll fret about rain. The rain is supposed to be over by morning.

Landry is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2834

It was difficult to get ready this morning. The anti-nausea pills seem to have no effect on Dash's appetite. I had a lot of trouble getting him to take his morning pills before I had to leave for my dental appointment. I need to remember to start making all appointment later like I did when Dot was alive. It's not fair to rush a sick dog.

Dash spit out his pills twice when I put them in a ball of wet dog food. I retrieved the pills and finally got him to eat them by putting them inside a small slice of banana bread and mashing the bread into a ball. Dash won't eat bananas any more, but for some reason, he still loves banana bread. I was worried that I had given his pills on basically an empty stomach, but just before I had to leave, I tried another can of food and this time he ate it. Save by the bell again.

Every time I go to the dentist there seems to be a different dental hygienist. Janet says a lot of dentists don't hire their own hygienist anymore. They just get them as needed from an employment service that specializes in that sort of thing. That would explain the frequent turnover. Of course it might just be a terrible job. I wouldn't want to poke around in people's mouths all day long.

We fitted Dash for a knee brace today. I'm not sure if this will work, but it's worth a try. The vet said it really helped her dog. Dash is a little old for TPLO surgery, so maybe the brace might prevent his cruciate ligaments from deteriorating further. Failing knee joints have nothing to do with Dash's loss of appetite. They are just one more thing that has gone wrong.

It rained today. This was a surprise. It's been over a month since we've had any rain. The plants in the yard can definitely use the moisture, but I still wish the roofer had made it over to inspect things before the roof got wet again. At least I was able to remove the large elm tree branch from the roof. It would have been a real mess if that was still up there.

We're trying to train Dash to sleep on the floor, so he won't ruin his knees by jumping on and off the bed. Dot was ready and willing to sleep on the floor when her legs became weak, but Dash is a lot more stubborn. It's going to be an uphill battle to train him to do anything new at this point. I really wish that Dash had managed to stay healthy a little longer. I'm still exhausted from three continuous years of being Dot's nurse.

We should learn more about Dash's heart tomorrow. We've got an appointment at the cancer center for a consultation and an echocardiogram. If he's retaining fluid around his heart there is medicine he can take. Lasix can help eliminate the retained fluid and reduce the chances of congestive heart failure. There are side effects though. There are always side effects. I wish the specialists would tell us tomorrow that Dash is just a spoiled dog who wants to eat people food. I think his condition is a lot more serious than that though. There are too many signs that something is wrong.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day