Day 3837

We've noticed that Dawn is more comfortable around women than men. I guess this is understandable. When she was used as a breeding dog, Dawn was owned by two men who didn't treat her very well. Dawn is friendly with me when Janet is home, but always seems a bit nervous when she and I are alone together. Usually she will just sit in the center of the bed until Janet returns. She will let me bring her a treat, but never follows me around the house or even goes outside. It's kind of sad. I'm good around dogs and have spend an enormous percentage of the past thirty years with a Dalmatian as my constant companion. I wonder how long it will take to win her trust?

I think we are doing all the right things. I'm the one who feeds her and gets her ready for walks in the morning. We're trying to get her to associate me with positive things. Dawn is eager to follow me to the kitchen and loves to be petted when Janet is home. She's certainly not unfriendly when we are alone, just wary, like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop. You never really know what a rescue dog's life was like before they enter the adoption program. Dawn clearly loves her new life. I've rarely seen a dog so happy to do simple basic things. She must have had some very bad experiences though when she was a puppy mill mom. Some memories never fade.

I'm a patient person, so hopefully I will win Dawn's trust over time. We are already starting to see some progress. It's something to work on. Janet loves to travel and if this coronavirus mess ever gets resolved, I'm sure there will be many times when Dawn and I will be alone together. It looks like we've got a lot of time to work on trust issues because the virus keeps getting worse in Texas. It doesn't look like either Janet or I is going anywhere soon.

It certainly doesn't look like I'll be going to Florida for the Mars 2020 launch. That state has turned into a disaster. Even Texas looks good compared to Florida. I don't think people in these Southern states are behaving much worse than people in other states. The virus is just slowly working its way from state to state. Nothing can stop it. Even the smallest rural areas will be hit sooner or later.

I wonder why it is such a human thing to want to gather together? Even when I am walking in the park, I notice that people tend to like to walk together in groups. I listen to birds. Everyone else chats. When I used to go out for breakfast on Friday mornings, I was always the only person eating alone. Walking alone is lovely. I even prefer going to a movie theater alone. This is why the solution to this virus problem seems so obvious to me.  If you catch the virus from other people, just stay away from them.

Why would you feel compelled to flock to a beach, hang out in a bar, or hit the streets marching or protesting right now? The virus doesn't care what you like to do. I think I'll postpone getting a haircut for a while longer. I've still got to get groceries tomorrow, but that feels pretty safe. I've been getting groceries for months now. Nobody talks or mingles. We just quickly push our buggies through the store like masked ghosts, all looking for Clorox Wipes.

When the definitive book about 2020 is written, I think the title will be "Unintended Consequences." I'm just waiting to see what happens next.

Derrick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3190

The art conservator threw me a curve today. The restored lithograph actually looked very nice, but as I was leaving the studio, the conservator told me to be sure to store the art horizontally until I had it framed again. Where? The print is very large and I knew immediately that it wasn't going to fit anywhere in the house. It wouldn't fit under the bed, since there is a support post right in the middle. I tried, but the print was way too large to fit under the bottom half of the bed. The closets aren't deep enough and I couldn't even put the thing under a large rug on the living room floor. The bricks on the floor absorb moisture, so floor storage wasn't really an option anyway. This sucks. The conservator specifically warned me against taking art back to the storage warehouse. "You're asking for trouble," she said. I guess I could re-frame the picture and hang it back on the wall, but I've already replaced the art I sent to the auction houses with pictures of dogs I took myself. I think I like the dog pictures better anyway.

I took a better camera on our morning walk and managed to get a decent picture of a Great Egret and a Coot together. It was hardly worth bringing the camera unfortunately. Dash wouldn't stay still and most of the pictures I took while moving were out of focus. I have to concentrate on Dash to keep him from falling. We walk on a very short leash now and his harness has a big handle on top that I can grab to keep him from falling. I walk directly alongside of Dash so I can easily lift him up or steady him without knocking him over. I've practiced this technique with Dot and other older dogs. It works pretty well, but walks aren't very relaxing.

I listened to a show on RadioLab recently about how efforts to save the Kirtland’s warbler inadvertently burned down a Michigan forest and killed a young wildlife technician. The efforts to save the bird from extinction were eventually successful, but now cost almost a million dollars a year. The locals now hate the bird, but birders fly in from all over the world just to catch a glimpse of it. I think the show was called Weighing Good Intentions and it was mostly about unintended consequences. I wonder if people realize that there are unintended consequences to almost everything we do. Whenever I turn on the TV these days, my first reaction is "this isn't going to end well." There are very few winners here and a few years from now, there are going to be a lot of unintended consequences. I think everyone is acting badly. Maybe I should just quit watching TV while I have my morning smoothie. It might be better to take up knitting instead.

I received a printed copy of one of the auction catalogs in the mail today. My art looked pretty, but I'm still nervous about the auctions. I'm sure there are unintended consequences to unwinding a lifetime of collecting things. I think I'm doing the right thing, but like most things in life, I won't find out what it all means until much later.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

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Day 2523

I'm a writer. I find it fascinating how storytelling has become a ubiquitous part of our current political dialog. Was it always this way? I'm not sure. It does seem like the press and the politicians are spending a lot of time constructing a narrative these days. A narrative is just a story. It is not necessarily true. We have all these competing versions of the truth out there, each carefully packaged for our consumption. It's almost as if nobody trusts us to come to a conclusion ourselves. There are narratives designed to appeal to the young. There are narratives that reinforce preexisting beliefs. Some narratives provoke fear. Others create hope. Very few of these stories deal with the complexities that lie just beneath the surface. People just pick their favorite story and run with it. Personally, I'd rather sift through the evidence and decide for myself.

So, where is the evidence that explains Tuesday's election? The elephant in the room is the fact that most people didn't even vote. Over 46% of eligible voters didn't even bother this year. I listened to a reporter this morning interview some of the young people who were protesting the election last night. They were unhappy with the results, but many of them didn't vote. Unbelievable! Few, if any, could could come up with a coherent reason why they were so angry. At best, they just repeated someone else's narrative. Maybe you're worried about Trump. I'm a lot more worried about what happens when these millennials take over. There is one ray of hope. One of the exit polls discovered that a significant minority of the college age population did not end up voting with their peers. These were generally science and engineering majors who were making the only protest they could against the mindless political correctness they were experiencing on campus. I'm convinced that these students who did not drink the Kool Aid are going to be the ones who get all the good jobs when they graduate. Somebody is going to be needed to program all the robots.

Maybe if all the angry people actually did move to Canada like they are promising, my business would improve. If Facebook is any guide, most people in advertising and marketing wanted Hillary to win. I'd be happy to take their clients if they leave. I'd be even happier if people would just quit complaining. I'm old enough to remember what people said when Ronald Reagan was first elected. It was remarkably similar to what many are saying about Trump now. Of course these days Reagan is revered as one of the best presidents of the modern era. Funny how time changes things.

As fascinating as this election has been, I have a feeling that it's just another "not my circus, not my monkeys" situation for me. I'm old. The stakes aren't nearly as high for me as they would be for someone in their thirties or early forties. I would just caution people on both sides of the political fence to be careful what you wish for. Unintended consequences are a bitch.

I deal with unintended consequences every day. After a lifetime of making decisions, you just can't avoid them. I discovered today that one of the unintended consequences of getting my new iPad is that I'm going to have to subscribe to Office 365. Another unwanted expense. One of the unintended consequences of giving Dot Tramadol is that she has become more demanding as she feels a little better. I'm walking her around the house on the hour now. I think she's pooping more too. Life is full of surprises. I guess that's what keeps it interesting.

Puppies are today's Dalmatian of the Day

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