Day 3083

When I was at the gym today, one of the staff members came out on the court and started blocking my shots. It slowed me down a bit, but it was a nice gesture. Maybe after five years of spotty attendance, I'm finally a regular. I had a good workout today. On days like this, I always think that if I exercised more often, I'd really start making some progress.

The landscapers didn't come back today. I didn't really think they would. Who wants to work on Sunday? I doubt they could find St. Augustine grass today anyway. The yard will probably be finished tomorrow. The good news is that everything will look green again. The bad news is that my water bill will triple.

Dash cut his lip today while he was nosing around smelling things. It was a very small cut, but it bled a lot. Dash bleeds incredibly easily now that he's taking Plavix. We are as careful as we can be with him, but you can't stop a dog from smelling things. I wish I could convince Dash not to spend so much time investigating what the other animals in the park are doing. Our walks would be quicker and he probably never would have gotten that infection in his mouth. At least the bleeding has stopped now. Like I said, we do the best we can.

When Dash woke me up to go outside last night, I noticed that Mars was right next to the moon. I also noticed that Dash took an incredibly long time to poop. I was wide awake by the time we went inside again and had trouble getting back to sleep. Nothing is consistent about Dash anymore. Last week he was sleeping all the way through the night and now he's back to waking me up at 3 AM again. He's still eating well and doesn't appear to be in any pain. I guess that's all that counts.  Next week he's scheduled for another big exam at the cancer center. Hopefully, we'll find out a little more about his current condition.

I got my lab results back and I finally know my blood type. I'm an O+. This is the most common blood type, but I don't know if that's good or bad. Have you ever heard of the Blood Type Diet? It sounds kind of wacky to me, but supposedly your blood type is determined by your ancient ancestors and you'll do best if you continue to eat what they did. According to this unsubstantiated theory, people with Type O blood were originally hunter/gathers and need a high protein diet with lots of lean meat and very little grain. Sounds good to me. People with Type A blood are supposed to be vegetarians.

I had to take back the socks I got last week and exchange them for a larger size. Why are clothes so hard to fit these days. Small, medium, and large mean nothing. Sometimes a medium fits perfectly and other times it is too small. Stores don't like you to try on socks anyway. Usually they are stapled together in some sort of packaging that makes this impossible. At any rate, now I have large socks. These will probably be too big.

I'm going to submit some more art to the auction houses next week. Who knows where this will end?  Maybe Janet is right. Could it be that less actually is more?

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3030

I started to get ready for Summer today. I called the landscaper to get the backyard looking decent again. I called the tree trimmer to get some dead limbs removed from the Oak trees. I called the roofing supply company to see if I could buy the elastomer coating in a small enough size that I could lift the can up to the roof by myself. I found the battery for the lawn mower and installed it to see if it would still take a charge. Nothing was actually resolved today, but at least I made a start.

I was pleased that I managed to find an inexpensive used MIDI keyboard controller that does everything I need it to do. Since this keyboard cost me less than a single one gallon can of the elastomer roof coating, I thought I got quite a deal. Best of all, when I got home from the music store and plugged the keyboard into my computer, everything worked perfectly.

I wish everything worked perfectly with Dash today. He was moody again and refused to take his afternoon walk. It was a beautiful day and Dash wasn't having any vestibular issues, so I don't know what was wrong. I know that Dash was feeling OK, because when Janet came home just before sunset, he abruptly changed his mind and wanted her to walk him. He likes it when we all walk together. It's all too complicated for me. On Monday and Tuesday, Dash was eager to take his afternoon walk. I guess I'll never know why today was different.

I feel kind of sorry for Mark Zuckerberg. Every time I turned on the TV today, there he was, testifying in front of a bunch of old people who basically knew nothing about technology. Why is everyone so outraged about privacy? There is no privacy anymore. Every time you go to the grocery store, fill your car with gas, or pick up a prescription at the pharmacy, you are being tracked. Surveillance cameras are everywhere and you'd be horrified if you knew how much Apple and Google already know about you. Zuckerberg is just a geek who invented a cool app that everyone became addicted to. It's your fault that he became a billionaire. Jeez. Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. If you really value your privacy, stay offline altogether. If Cambridge Analytica sold your information to Target or Walmart nobody would care. This is all about politics. A wide variety of companies have been selling your information for decades and congress never even noticed.

Even more puzzling to me than the Facebook debacle is the situation in Syria. The only thing the Democrats and Republicans seems to agree on is that they would both like to bomb somebody. Why? Couldn't we wait a while? Nobody has even verified that the gas attacks were real. Isis and Al-Qaeda have staged these type of events before. They guys might not have a powerful army, but they have learned that provocative fake news can be even more powerful than bombs. Lobbing hundreds of cruise missiles into Syria isn't going to help anything. Even if the gas attacks are real, adding a bunch of bombs to the mix is just going to make the situation worse. I wonder how long it's going to take for our government to realize that it's time to come home. We've accomplished absolutely nothing in the Middle East and probably never will.

The dismal state of the world is one of the reasons I focus my energies on dogs. Dogs don't care about global politics. They don't even understand why they need to wear a city registration tag. All a dog wants is regular meals and a warm, safe place to sleep every night. If we're lucky, they enjoy our companionship as well. If these were our own priorities, the world would be a much better place.

Tyson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3028

Now that things are turning green again, it is becoming apparent that the yard needs some attention. With each passing year, yard maintenance has less and less appeal. I guess I'd better start by mowing the grass. This usually involves getting a new 24-volt battery for the electric mower. Even though I bring the heavy battery inside when the weather is cold, it never seems to make it through the Winter. Don't even ask about the gasoline mower. I'm sure it just needs new spark plugs, replacement belts, and a good cleaning, but I just don't want to mess with it. I was hoping that the St. Augustine grass in the back yard would return this year, but it never does. We'll have to get the landscaper to put in new grass again. There are some dead limbs on the Oak trees too. One of them is directly over the house and I have no idea how the tree trimmers are going to bring it down without dropping it on the roof. I know this limb is a problem because the tree guys didn't want to mess with it the last time they were here.

I wish the yard would take care of itself. Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a modern high rise without a yard to maintain, but then I remember we have Dash. Having an incontinent old dog in a high rise would be a nightmare. There would probably be a homeowners association too. Years ago when I lived in a condo, I swore I'd never deal with homeowners associations again. Oh, well. I guess it's time to suck it up and take care of the yard. I may not like yard work anymore, but Dash need a place to poop.

It was a slow day. In addition to the regular breakfast and dog walking rituals, I went to the post office and picked up some more enalapril for Dash. Since Dash was feeling good today and I had nothing else to do, I also stopped by Guitar Center. I hadn't been to this store in a long time and was surprised at how empty it was. Back in the day, this place was always packed with musicians. You don't really realize how much online shopping has changed things until you visit a store where you used to hang out fifteen years ago. I always used to run into my computer geek friends at Fry's Electronics and Guitar Center was a great place to talk shop with other musicians. I had my favorite camera stores, furniture stores, and watch repair shops. There were even three different stores in Dallas that specialized in model trains. All these places are gone now. I have a feeling that Guitar Center might not be long for this world. Kids don't want to become guitar heroes anymore.

The weather was much warmer today. This afternoon I didn't even have to wear a jacket. I wonder if this means that Winter is finally over. It's probably too early to tell. At least we didn't get a hard freeze during our recent cold spell. A hard freeze this late in the year would make our yard look worse than it does already. Actually, today's weather was just about perfect. It was cold enough that Dash was still willing to walk and warm enough that I didn't have to bundle up in a Winter coat. Dash has always had trouble dealing with the heat. With his heart condition, I'm not looking forward to this Summer. I know it's going to be rough on him.

There's not much point in worrying about July yet. It's still easier to take things one day at a time. With that in mind, tomorrow looks pretty good.

Livy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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