Monday, November 18, 2013

Day 1434

I guess I waited too long to make Thanksgiving dinner reservations. I called a few of our favorite places and they were all booked solid. I did a Google search for Thanksgiving Brunch and came up with a few more interesting choices, but they were booked as well. This all seemed a bit strange to me. We haven't cooked Thanksgiving dinner in years. It used to be super easy to get Thanksgiving reservations at a nice restaurant, because everyone else in town was having a big family dinner at home. Maybe the rest of the world finally realized that big family meals were stressful and it was a lot easier to go out somewhere. I suspect that family meals are still the norm though. The more likely explanation for the dirth of available restaurants is that the entire family goes out to eat these days because not as many people like to cook anymore.

We finally found a nice place to eat, but it took a while. Just because the Internet gives you instant access to everything doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to find what you're looking for. I'm still looking for a nice looking cargo mat for the new car. I'm growing tired to throwing blankets in the back for the dogs and would like something fitted that looked like it came from the factory. As I said, I'm still looking.

I'm also spending a lot of time looking for ticks. I saw a tick crawling up my arm as I was writing this morning. Almost every day, I find a tick on one of the dogs. The weather seems perfect for an explosion of ticks in the park and they all seem to be looking for Dot and Dash. I don't like to use chemical deterrents on the dogs, since Dalmatians have sensitive skin. This means that I've got to make a careful search of their fur after every walk. I was hoping that our freezing weather a few weeks ago would last three or four days, to kill off some of the bugs, but that wasn't in the cards. Although it wasn't as hot as it was yesterday, I still had the air conditioner on for a while today.

I was surprisingly busy today, considering how dead Monday's usually are. I had a huge website revision to complete this morning and as soon as I finished that job, there were three new articles to write. I only managed to finish one of the articles today, but at least I know where we'll be eating on Thanksgiving. I'll finish the other articles tomorrow. I'm going to try to find some time later this week go go down to Dealey Plaza on November 22. The Grassy Knoll is an interesting place on a normal year. On the 50th Anniversary, it ought to be a bubbling caldron of conspiracy theories.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day
Watch of the Day