Day 1704

The day passed surprisingly quickly, considering how little I actually got accomplished. I had a pleasant pre-dawn walk with the dogs. When the sun came up, I had an equally pleasant breakfast at my favorite restaurant. Maybe I'm just imagining things, but Dot's incontinence seems to be improving a bit. We almost made it till 4 AM this morning before she had to go outside. There were no accidents during the day either. I don't tempt fate though. I still take Dot outside every two or three hours.

It's amazing how quickly the temperature rises once the sun comes up. We start the day in the low 70's and end it in the high 90's. There's an equally big difference between inside and outside temperatures. I'm usually too cold inside and too hot outside. The dogs seem to feel the same way, so we spend the day going outside to warm up and then back inside to cool down again.

My two errands for the day both involved staying in compliance with the law. I got new city tags for Dot so she's legal for another year. I usually get the tags when she has her annual exam, but we had to postpone the exam and accompanying shots because of her recent surgery. Hopefully, the new tags should put an end to the late notices I've been getting from the city. Next on the list was getting a new registration sticker for my car. The government isn't good at many things, but they're ruthlessly efficient at making sure your dogs and cars are registered.

The dogs are going to get a bath this weekend. Dot has peed on herself far too often and Dash is just dirty. At this time of year, some of the native grass in the park becomes covered with a sticky substance that inevitably gets on the dogs as we walk along the trails. Maybe these plants regenerate by using dogs to spread their seeds far and wide. It sure is a mess though. After very walk, I have to clean all this sticky stuff off their legs and paws before we go inside.

Another thing that happens at this time of year is that the possums return to the yard and start digging big holes in the grass. I don't know what they're looking for, but they sure make a mess. It's hard enough keeping the grass growing in the August heat, but this week's assault by hungry possums has just about decimated the St. Augustine grass in the back yard.  I try to keep the lawn watered, but sometimes I think that the soft, damp ground just makes it easier for the possums to dig.

It would be nice to sleep in late tomorrow morning, but I doubt that we'll get the opportunity. Once I get up to let Dot out at 3 or 4 in the morning, it's hard to get back to sleep again. We're making progress though. We've gone from 2 AM to 3 AM and now 4 AM. Pretty soon we might just make it through the night.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1288

Sometimes life reminds me of one of those hamster wheels. No matter how fast you try to move, you somehow always end up in exactly the same place. Summer seems to accentuate this feeling. It's hot. It's monotonous. To conserve energy, you tend to reduce everything to a series of simple repetitive actions. Around and around you go, just like a hamster on an exercise wheel.

I seldom feel like doing anything new when the temperature is over 100 degrees. By the time I get up in the morning, it is already hot. By the time we have finished our morning walk, it is often unbearable. When we return, the dogs immediately lie down on the brick living room floor to cool off and I warm up the computer to begin another work day.

The house is kept cool because Janet and the dogs like it that way. I can never seem to find the right temperature. I'm always either too hot or too cold. I often wear a jacket around the house in the middle of summer because it's too much trouble to constantly be resetting the thermostat. Sometimes I think there is something wrong with my ability to regulate my own body temperature. Other times I think I'm just impossible to please.

Today was a website update day. There were a lot of things to change and the updates kept me busy most of the day. Website maintenance is a bit like a hamster wheel too. You change out a bunch of photos and text and then when you're all done, you find yourself with exactly the same website you started out with. The different words and pictures are important to clients, but I just see textures. It all looks the same to me.

I thought the road in front of our house was finished, but I was wrong. Today the paint striping trucks were here, painting white lines on the road. I found myself trapped in the driveway again for a while, because the last thing I wanted was white paint on my brand new tires. The paint seemed to dry very quickly. Who knows? Maybe it was even dry when it was applied. At any rate, I waited an hour and then took Dash to the vet for his regular antigen shot. Dash had a new nurse give his shot today. I wanted to ask for his regular nurse, but I forgot her name.

By the time the dogs and I took our evening walk, it was so hot outside that we didn't even attempt to go very far. As soon as Dot and Dash had done their business, we turned around and went home. It looks like more of the same scorching weather tomorrow, and according to the weather forecast, for the rest of the week. It's kind of ironic. If I had just waited just one month to put on the new roof, I wouldn't have had any rain problems at all.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1164

I'm amazed at how much daily temperatures have been fluctuating this February. This morning I wore a heavy goose down ski jacket while I was walking the dogs. We barely missed getting soaked by a chilly Winter rainstorm. When we walked again late in the afternoon, the skies had cleared and the temperature was over 70 degrees. I wore a t-shirt. The entire month has been this way. One day, signs of Spring are everywhere and I'll see daffodils along the path. The next day, it's 35 degrees outside and feels like it is going to snow.

I took a break from my writing chores around mid-afternoon to pick up some new slacks I was having hemmed. I wonder how long it will be before I actually wear these pants. There is literally no reason for me to dress up anymore. All my work is conducted over the Internet these days and the dogs certainly don't care what I look like. The neighbors probably don't care either. It's probably only a matter of time before I start taking the trash out to the curb on Thursdays in my bathrobe.

I made a big salad for dinner using all the leftover vegetables in the fridge. Tomorrow I'll go to the store and get a new supply. I think I'm learning to manage meals better than I used to. Usually, something has gone bad in the fridge by Thursday, because I've simply forgotten about it. This week, I made a conscious effort to eat the things with the shortest shelf life first. Other than that carton of milk that inexplicably turned sour, everything stayed fresh this week. The big chef salad was actually pretty good too.

I'm fascinated by the little activity tracker I wear on my wrist. I never realized that it almost always takes me exactly 38 minutes to get the water off the roof. I usually burn up 250 calories doing this. My longest activity of the day is my morning walk with the dogs, and I am sometimes more active sleeping than I am writing. It's a good thing I take the dogs on long walks, because I burn up no energy at all writing.

I'm disgusted with the stock market again. As recently as a month ago, I was doing pretty well. Now, everything is headed downhill again. There is no rhyme or reason to anything anymore. I have no idea why gold and commodities are in the toilet right now. The price of gas is going up, but oil stocks are going down. I have shares in a 3-D printing company that were stratospheric a few months ago. Now, the shares are going down as quickly as they went up. Nothing has fundamentally changed about the company.

If yesterday was full of bad omens, today was full of good ones. The car ran smoothly. So did the furnace. I got a large number of website updates finished today, so it doesn't look like I'll have to work this weekend. We'll just forget about how much I lost in the market today and concentrate on what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day