Tuesday

I saw someone looking at me as I entered the house.

We walked 7 miles this morning after biking out to the island and parking our bikes at Main Beach.  It was 88 degrees with a light wind, but not too crowded. The water was very clear.

And the skies were beautiful!

It was a tough morning for giving Dee Dee her pills. She's getting wise to all of our tricks. I've found that when she refuses, it's best to walk away and try again later. We finally got them all down. The big one we sometimes have to break up into three pills to get them by her, while the three smaller ones are a bit easier to disguise. That means that every day we have to get her to take 12 pills if we break the big one up. No wonder she gets suspicious.

Her health journey is a perplexing one. At times we have thought she is at the end. Then she has a really good day and surprises us. Today, for example, she's had a great appetite, without the usual pleading to eat. She even ate up most of her backlog of rejected food in the refrigerator, food that she has refused to eat many times. I was going to throw them out.

I spent most of the day online working.

I've got a non-functioning sprinkler head to fix tomorrow. The patch of brown grass drew my attention. I'll have to dig it up and see what's going on.

8 miles walking

11.94 biking

Sunday

Later in the day, we took Dee Dee to the park outside of the Dunedin Community Center where there are many large oak trees. On the way home, John took a detour downtown. I saw all these umbrellas on display, and John said "Get out and take a picture for your blog, and I'll circle around the block and pick you up." Very thoughtful man. He has a good eye for out-of-the-ordinary things. It comes naturally to him, but I have to work at it.

We stuck close to the house most of the day. Dee Dee is following her new schedule of eating 1/2 can of food every 6-8 hours. We're feeding her by hand to entice her to eat. She walks away from her bowl when there is food in it. My theory is that it's difficult to eat with the bowl on the floor because of gravity and pressure on her throat and chest. But she also won't eat if you hold the bowl up to her. She still has to "pick it up" with her mouth. Somehow, the direct "take" from your fingers is easier. She is still enjoying her walks, but we have to plan them for early in the morning or early evening. Sometimes we can take her to a shaded park if it's not too hot and we make it quick.

We walked from our house to the the corner of Bayshore and Curlew and took a detour through the new Stirling Park. We came upon these two racoon squirrels playing in the pine trees. They are larger than the regular squirrel and they have an enormous tail that looks like a racoon, hence the name.

Walked 7.6 miles

Biked 0

Saturday

Last night, we needed to take Dee Dee outside, but there was a huge rain storm moving through. We opened the Weather Channel app to see what was going on and noticed that it was one cell about 15 miles in diameter moving west, northwest. We didn't have much daylight left, so we needed to find a solution. I suggested driving up to Wall Springs Park. It looked like from the radar that it would not be raining there and Dee Dee could do her business. It worked! Can you imagine trying to drive out of a rain storm in NC? Good luck. You would need to pack your bags and fill up the tank to find daylight.

We made it to Wall Springs just before closing (8:30) and got to see the last rays of daylight.

John said that Dee Dee could check off Wall Springs Park from her bucket list.

We took Dee Dee to the causeway at 5:30 a.m. again. Then we had just a few hours this morning before John left for Ponce Inlet (named after Ponce de Leon, by the way), so we rode to Wall Springs Park since we had just been there the night before. It was 86 degrees with light winds.

We stopped at the Dunn Water facility and got some filtered water and came home.

Dee Dee and I spent the afternoon and evening together waiting for John to return. She ate and took her meds, and we went on a short walk, successfully. It got up to 91 degrees today, so we had to wait until late afternoon, and even then it was tough on the old girl.

We're relaxing on the sofa together, watching a movie.

Biking: 14.05

Walking 2.5

Friday

Another beautiful day on Honeymoon Island. We took a bike ride out to the island this morning, parked our bikes, and walked all the way back to bridge and back to the Island. It was 81-84 degrees with a 6 mph breeze. We have now become regulars on the causeway. The regulars recognize each other as we pass and exchange greetings. One regular stopped John in Publix the other day and said she hadn't been able to walk and missed him!

It was a good 6-mile walk and 12 mile bike ride. We were home in time for lunch.

Another gay flag in the neighborhood celebrating Gay Pride Month in June.

After lunch, we hit the Pinellas Trail and headed to the edge of Clearwater. We passed this chalk message in downtown Dunedin:

"If you think a mask makes it hard to breathe, imagine being black in America."

We could use a whole lot more empathy and imagination.

We enjoyed the shade on the trail to Clearwater. The moss hanging from the trees is so Florida. The shade helped because the temperature got up to 95 degrees on our ride, with just a light wind.

We stopped at the new Stirling Park as we rounded the corner towards home on Palm Blvd and rode our bikes through the trails. You can see the St. Andrews Condominiums that border the new park. The paths are nice and there are several ponds and lots of wildlife. I think this new use of space is going to be very popular. The location is perfect, right off the Pinellas Trail.

The Parks and Recreation folks are still adding benches, signage, and clearing brush.

This shot is of the old driving range and putting green left over from the previous iteration of the park when it was a Par-3 course. The city decided to leave this part of the park for this use. They did refurbish the tees and the building that houses the folks to run the place and public facilities. We haven't checked that out yet, but will soon. I included the picture because the shot is taken from the Pinellas Trail and this is where we've been bringing Dee Dee for her evening constitutional. The trail is always interesting--for humans and dogs, and it keeps us from having to always walk in our neighborhood.

We got up at 5:30 a.m. and were out the door at 5:38 headed to the causeway to walk Dee Dee. Towards the end of the walk, the sun was beginning to rise.

This is the only decent picture I could get when we first arrived. It's hard to get a good picture in low light. Apologies for my husband's head that's floating into view.

We finally dragged the legacy grill from the previous owner to the curb. It looks better in the picture than it really is. It's all rusted and gross. I can't imagine eating anything off of it. The way things work in our neighborhood is if you have anything that you want to get rid off, stick on the curb on Friday and someone will drive by and pick it up. If not, then the city will cart it off on Tuesday with the regular garbage pick up. This is a great system. It keeps debris out of the landfill, and what looks like trash to one person is a keeper for someone else. We have acquired three pieces of furniture this way, so we know how it works.

I couldn't stand looking at this hulk of a grill one minute longer.

Dee Dee Report:

She had a good day, as you can tell because we left her alone to walk and ride. She is functioning, sleeping, eating, wagging her tail, and generally interested and alert. Her mind is in remarkable condition; it's too bad that her body is failing her. The vet never called about her stool sample, so I guess that means it wasn't blood. I'll give them a call tomorrow to follow up.

Dee Dee and I get to spend most of the day together tomorrow as John crosses Florida to attend his brother's beach wedding near Ponce Inlet.

23.48 miles biking

7.7 miles walking

Dunedin Causeway at 5:00 a.m.

We woke up at 5:00 a.m. and were out the door at 5:08, headed to the causeway, which opens to the public at 5:00.

These pictures don't do it justice because of the low-light, but the causeway was wonderful. It's a totally different place at this time of the morning. We could hear sounds that we normally don't hear, like the waves lapping on the shore. We saw only three or four people. Normally, the passing cars drown out low-level noises like that. It was so quiet and peaceful, and I swear the smells were more intense. It reminded us both of Cedar Key, that laid back town in the Big Bend region of Florida.

You could see the city lights in the distance of Clearwater.

Luckily, John turned the coffee maker on before we left, so when we drove into the garage at 5:45, coffee was waiting.

We read and had cereal and headed back out for our walk on the causeway. We had two goals or rather one goal for two groups of animals: we wanted Dee Dee to walk before it got too hot for her, and we needed for us to walk before the sun warmed things up too much for us.

We rode our bikes to the Main Beach shelter on Honeymoon Island and locked our bikes. Then we walked back to the draw bridge and back. We caught the draw bridge on the way back. It was 84 degrees at the beginning of our walk and 86 by the time we finished, a little after 11:00. That included 8 miles walking and 9.8 miles biking.

As you can see in the picture, the winds were very light, about 2 mph. It would have been a great day for kayaking or paddle boarding.

I caught this cool cloud moving through the neighborhood. I was trapped inside most of the afternoon doing schoolwork.

We had leftover lentils, rice, carmelized onions, and cumin, topped with avocados and a splash of red wine vinegar.

John leaves for Ponce Inlet (near Daytona Beach) on Saturday to attend his brother's wedding. I'll be staying in Dunedin to care for Dee Dee. It's a 3-hour drive each way, so he'll be leaving after lunch to get there for the early evening beach wedding. It will be very informal and all outdoors.

I talked with Dee Dee's doctor this afternoon, mostly to update him and to hear him talk about options and timing. He is willing to drain more fluid, but not until it is necessary because there are risks to poking needles into chest cavities blindly. He said that she will tell us when it's necessary, meaning that she will cough more, be restless, not eating, and short of breath. We set an appointment for Friday, July 3rd because he plans to be away for two weeks after that. We can cancel it or do something before that if necessary.

John's worried about me being home alone without a car in case she needs immediate attention. But I think I'll be okay. I can call a Lyft if I need to. Some friends have volunteered to be on standby, too.

She's eating well and is reasonably comfortable. I had to hand off my pill-giving responsibilities to John this morning. No matter what I tried, she kept spitting up the pill--after eating turkey, bread, mayo, and cheese. In other words, she might as well have had our lunch. I even tried her favorite dog food. Finally, John came to the rescue and tried bread and peanut butter. The peanut butter (which she loves) sticks to the pill (which she hates). In her conflicted state, she tries to separate the two, but without thumbs and fingers it's really difficult to do, so she swallows both. The other trick is to have an empty peanut butter and bread ball ready to shove in her mouth right after the first. It overwhelms her suspicions and makes it harder for her to find the dang pill with nothing but a tongue and sticky, delicious goo everywhere.

Blue Sky

It was 82 degrees with light winds this morning on our early Honeymoon Island walk with Dee Dee.

The views were spectacular.

After we dropped Dee Dee off and picked up a few items at Publix (more Crave dogfood, most importantly), we took a walk down to Mira Vista Park. The skies were amazing.

Views from the Mira Vista Park

We walked by the new Stirling Park on the way home. There's this interesting plant with clusters of leaves, and most clusters have one red leaf.

There's a pond behind this stand of cattails.

I think the new park may be about to open.

I completed step two and three of the retirement process. I got everything notarized this afternoon and then uploaded it to the state's web site. I discovered that AAA offers free notary service for members.

Dee Dee struggled today. She ate a whole can of Crave at 12:30, but I think it made her belly uncomfortable. Her breathing is labored.

We have a new plan for tomorrow. We're going to get up at 5:00 a.m. and head to the causeway before it gets too hot. Maybe then she'll be ready to eat and take her meds when she gets back and we won't have to take her out when it's so hot. And we'll be able to take our walk without having to walk in the heat and the sun. We feel like we've been behind the curve ball all day.

We'll see how it goes.

7 miles walking

0 miles biking