Hot Water and Bedtime

My dad and I just engaged in a team effort leading to success in lighting the pilot of our hot water heater and getting it started. This involved a flashlight, matches, instructions on a sticker, an instruction manual, laborious reading aloud of instructions, anxiety about running out of matches, reading things upside down ("What's that say?" "Warning: Hot water leads to scalding injury."), stooping, and crawling. But it's lit. I'm so glad that I'll have hot water tomorrow morning. This morning, I traded in my shower time for some extra sleep time. That means shampooing is an absolute MUST tomorrow morning.

My dog has already gone to bed, and soon so must I. They tell kids that the sooner you go to bed, the sooner morning will come. It's true, and that's why I sometimes procrastinate going to bed. But that can make morning more painful. I seem to recall a Jerry Seinfeld bit about Morning Guy and Night Guy. Night Guy doesn't care about the morning; he's having fun, he just keeps staying up late. Then Morning Guy wakes up and feels miserable; he says to himself, "I hate Night Guy!"

My dog is very sensible. He goes to bed at bedtime and wakes up in the morning just fine. He wakes up, eats breakfast, sits with me on the couch while we both doze a little, goes for his walk, rests while I shower and dress, follows me upstairs, stays with my parents while I'm at work (lots of napping, interspersed with barking at anyone who comes to the door), greets me when I come home, eats, goes for a walk, rests a bit on the couch, then goes to bed. It's a dog's life.

I'll tie in the fire/pilot light them with the bedtime theme by quoting from a book whose title I can't recall, but which may have been written by a fellow named De Jong: "Shadrach, Meshach, and To Bed We Go."

Walking for Dan

Today I took part in the local Walk to Defeat ALS, in memory of my brother. On my dad's blog are these and more pictures. These show me and my immediate family.

Here are my dad and my dog.

My sister-in-law and nephew.

Me and my parents.

Dan died of ALS on November 4, 2006, at the age of 52. That was much, much to soon to lose him. If you'd like to contribute to the ALS Assocation, which both funds research to discover the cause and cure of ALS and provides help to people now suffering from it, go here.

Sunday afternoon nap

Last Sunday, I had my sister-in-law and nephew over for dinner. Later in the afternoon, my parents joined us. During the after-dinner conversation, my nephew fell asleep, which doesn't say much for the scintillation level of our talk. My dog kept him company, although my picture-taking disturbed him slightly.




They look comfy, don't they?