Bill Roper's Journal

I think I have sent off all of the CD orders for OVFF to people who I don't expect to see there. I will catch up with everyone else shortly.

The kids are off from school tomorrow (although K has a lot of rehearsal), but I will be back at work.

Meanwhile, Ruby has figured out that if Gretchen manages to get out into the garage without taking Ruby with her *and* the back door is open, Ruby can figure out a way through the fence so that she can come join Gretchen at the van.

Ruby the Dog: Intelligence 16, Wisdom 3. (So Gretchen estimates...)

The fence will be fixed soon. Just not soon enough.

Once you draw the sword for battle, it's time to finish the battle. In this case, the battle was going through all of the paperwork on the tower downstairs. And now, I have finished.

There are still some things that need to be moved to their final destinations, but I shredded an entire trash bag full of old documents for live accounts that needed to go away. I also threw two big loads of documents from closed accounts -- many of which were 15 or more years old -- into the recycling bin. And I found a *lot* of useful paperwork, including documents for some of our home renovation work that we'll need if we ever need to figure out our basis in the property, the receipt for my Taylor 710 short-scale guitar (which is not so much *useful* as fun to look at), some gift cards that are still good, and enough of the kids' birth certificates to choke a horse.

So that was on the "get things done" side of the ledger for the day.

I discovered yesterday that "Suits" is leaving Peacock at the end of the month. It seems that it's sliding over to Netflix (which has the first eight seasons now, but not the truncated season nine). This is bad, because we have vacation plans later in the month, we don't have Netflix, and we are somewhere in season eight. I am fairly confident that we can manage to finish the series before going on vacation, because all of our network programming has gone to bed for the summer. But we will need to be diligent. :)

While we were doing things around the family room, I would occasionally go and throw the ball out into the back yard for Ruby the Dog. This made her happy.

Later in the evening, I looked at the new dog bed that sits in the corner, usually unoccupied, where her old dog bed used to be. Ruby has never really liked the new bed, but she spends more time lying in her crate than on the new bed.

The *old* bed was sitting in the garage, because I hadn't thrown it away in all of these months. I went out to the garage and hauled it in. As I walked across the family room, you could see Ruby's ears perk up.

The new bed was removed and the old bed put in place.

Shortly thereafter, Ruby was lying comfortably in the bed that she wanted to be in all along.

I have taken the new dog bed out to the garage.

We keep accumulating more mail-order tile samples for the bathroom shower project. *Two* big boxes of samples arrived yesterday (along with my new sunglasses, necessitated by the old ones breaking) and with work and all, I didn't try to get them off the porch until after dark. Ruby the Dog was, of course, interested in the open front door as I tried to wrestle the packages in, but that was ok, because she no longer bolts out the front door at any opportunity and I can normally tell her to back up without a problem.

"Normally", however, does not include the situation where Ruby sees a rabbit on the sidewalk. Ruby lit out after the rabbit, the rabbit lit out for cover, and Ruby went running two yards down our side of the street. Great.

But once the rabbit was out of sight and out of mind, Ruby turned around as I called for her and headed back to the house. Well, except for a stop in our front yard to sniff at all of the places where the rabbit had recently been. But eventually she came back in, I could close the front door, and I could stop juggling heavy boxes of tile samples.

We have now examined the tile samples in detail. Today, over lunch with Gretchen, we were able to discuss a fine set of contingency plans for the bathroom depending on:

1) How much of the old tile may be available in the garage.
2) How much damage is done to the existing tile by removing and replacing the old shower pan.
3) How long Gretchen is willing to tolerate having our bathroom (or parts of it) torn up.

I've ordered more tile samples. Tomorrow, I'll look for tile in the garage.

*sigh*

Yesterday, Ruby was being ignored downstairs while I was working and everyone else was out. She took advantage of this opportunity to sniff out an Amazon package containing the ball that Gretchen had bought her for Christmas. The package was then dragged to the back door and ceremonially dismembered, as Ruby got her present a bit early.

Today, my noble hound has come upstairs to join me in the office and was, until a few moments ago, lying placidly next to my chair. Now, however, I am being informed that it is time for me to leave work and come downstairs.

And who am I to argue with Ruby the Dog?

Sam and Bonnie asked if they could use our house as a rendezvous point with Bill and Kelley, as they were all on the way to the Pentatonix concert over in Rosemont tonight and Kelley had the tickets, so everyone needed to enter together. This seemed reasonable and we had quite an assemblage here for the first time in a while, which resulted in a lot of good conversation. It also made Ruby the Dog *very* happy, as she was getting attention from some of her favorite people that she doesn't see very often.

On the other hand, we're going to have to vacuum the floor again, because when Ruby the Dog gets that much petting in a short period of time, it's always a super-shedder event.

Gretchen noticed the other day that the kibble in the bowl for Sunshine the Cat looked a bit larger than it should. Further investigation showed that the pitcher of cat food had been inaccurately filled with dog food, which explains why Sunshine has been looking grumpy.

This was fixed yesterday. The dog food was consigned to Ruby the Dog who was happy to consume it, Sunshine's bowl and pitcher now contain cat food, and Sunshine still looks grumpy.

On the other hand, I just woke her up.

Ruby the Dog got her sutures removed yesterday. Today, she is out of the Cone of Shame and appears to be much happier about the world. And ready to chase the ball!

And I have two small projects ready to build for testing at work, which means I can start on the *next* small project. :)

The National League won the All-Star Game over the American League by the final score of 3-2. This was the NL's first win since Tony LaRussa managed the team back in 2012. Whee!

In other happy news, the vet called yesterday with the pathology report on Ruby the Dog's lump. It *was* a mast cell tumor, but not a particular nasty type, so the chances are excellent that the surgery removed everything and that she'll live as long as she would have without the lump. And that is *excellent* news.

It had become late, Gretchen had already gone upstairs to bed, and I'd decided to stop watching the extra innings of the Angels vs. Rangers game. This meant that it was time to get Ruby the Dog her treat and put her in her kennel for the night.

The dog, apparently sound asleep, started moving as I walked into the kitchen and got into the kennel. I removed a Beggin Strip from the bag. Normally, I break this up into small pieces for Ruby while she's sitting it her kennel watching intently, but I became distracted in the kitchen, broke it up into small pieces while standing there, and dropped it into her empty food bowl.

D'oh.

Well, the food bowl had been empty, so I decanted the treat back into my hand, took it over to the kennel, and gave it to my happily drooling doggie.

It must be time for bed.

Ruby the Dog really liked the new cushion that Gretchen bought her for the kennel. It looked like we'd finally gotten to the point where the ceremonial destruction of the pad was a thing of the past.

This lasted until the thunderstorms two days ago. The corner of the cushion was shredded as Ruby tried to dig out of the kennel and, once that happened, more shredding occurred last night. The cushion was a loss and has now gone out with today's garbage.

We'll see what to do next.