Dog Days of Summer

Yeah, okay, it’s not the dog days of summer.  But for cryin’ out loud, I had to come up with a title!  So, here’s a lesson for ya: What ARE the dog days of summer?  They’re generally considered the period of summer that is hottest, normally July and August, right?  But why do we call them “Dog Days of Summer”.  I’m a caninophile…. I adore dogs.  And I think it’s a bum wrap that the most miserable summer days are linked to my little canine buddies!  Well, they’re not.  During the hottest days of summer, aka July and August, the star Sirius (the Dog Star), in the constellation Canis Major (greater dog) is in close proximity to the sun.  Our ancestors apparently believed it was this juxtaposition of Sirius and our sun that caused the days to be so hot.

But it’s the dog days of summer for me for a different reason.  I made the reference in the title because at this very moment, Nikki is curled at my feet gazing up at me, and Ixchel has plastered herself to my side.  Scott is still asleep, as is his wont on Saturday mornings.  I have a delightful cup of coffee on my end table, and my brewer is ready to brew a pot as soon as I hear signs of stirring from the bedroom.  The temperature in the house is just right, and humidity is down (not easy right now).  Life at this very moment is perfect.  It’ll change as the day wears on, I’m sure.  But at this moment, it’s perfect.  And to ME, that’s a dog day!

The weeks since we got home have been kind of busy.  We got our house painted! YAY!!!! Pamela Burright, of Burright Painting, and her gang have done a magnificent job!  I’m no longer ashamed seeing my house!  The yard, well, that’s a different story.

Work had been going pretty well since our return, everything seemed great.  Yes, all in the past tense.  This week I discovered that one of my more demanding database processes failed while we were in England, and my alert system failed.  Well, it worked just fine, but it failed.  See, my alert system sends SMS text messages when this particular process fails.  They go out at varying, increasing intervals, until the 200 minute mark, at which time it is generally logical to assume that I have started looking into the matter.

Well, see, I was in England.  In spite of having paid VERIZON WIRELESS a huge sum of money to make my cell phone receive texts and calls while in England, that did not occur.  And so I did not get those texts, nor did they arrive after I returned home.  So I’ve continued along fat dumb and happy thinking everything was fine.  It’s not.  It now appears I have several weeks worth of work ahead of me.  Grr.

And I used to sing the praises of Verizon, but it is highly doubtful I’ll continue to utilize their services after this experience. They may be the nations largest; in fact BECAUSE they are the nations larges, their customer service is crap.  Those on top never have to worry about things like CS.

Guess that’s it for today!