A week.

It has been quite a week. I am not okay. I have been sleeping poorly. Eating horribly. Rarely exercising. The dread in my gut has not abated much. And as it was lessening due to time, there was an incident of hate right here in Denver. Today a woman's vehicle was spray painted with transphobic slurs and included "die". Right here in safe blue Denver. Again, I'm not all that scared for myself, but I fear for those who are visible minorities. It is not about me.

I don't know how to have conversations. I want to talk about my outrage, my sadness. I want to reassure my upset friends. I want to fight injustice. But I can feel my apathy creeping in. Shutting me down. I don't trust people anymore. People who say they are my friend yet do not show me. People who claim not to be racist but happily elect a blatantly racist man into the highest office. Replace "racist" with sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc. And you know, I'm not even that afraid of Trump himself. He's silly and selfish. But he's surrounding himself with advisors that only bolster this atmosphere of hatred and bigotry. And I fear those who voted from him. Those who wholeheartedly approve of his ways. People who would prefer I didn't exist, that so many of my friends didn't exist. This is not okay.

I am sick of "moderates" trying to say that it is okay. That is privilege. I am sick of the people who say that we are just sore losers. It's not about that. I don't actually have strong opinions about Hillary, but I have always had strong opinions about Trump. This is not about my candidate not winning. It is about losing, but it's about losing my voice. (Potentially) losing the accomplishments I, and people like me, have worked so hard for these last few years. It's about losing all the forward progress we've struggled for. And it is even about losing lives and livelihoods. Reports have come in of over 400 people being harassed and assaulted in the course of this week. Due to the color of their skin. Their religion. Their accent. Their gender presentation. It is not okay.

I am not okay.


The only glimmer that makes me do at least something each day is my foster puppy. She's super cuddly and doesn't make messes or noises. The perfect animal.

Video games help me not to think. Teagan helps me to play video games. 

SOCO?

This past week was a southern Colorado week.

On Tuesday I got a call from my work asking if I wanted to go on an investigations/transfer case with Colorado Humane Society (which is a subset of my shelter.) I said sure, because anything is better than the daily grind. This meant meeting earlier than my usual schedule though.

We drove south for threeish hours. The job was to catch 10-15 cats and two dogs from a tiny house. It was not as bad as previous cases, but it was bad. When people hoard animals it's usually not just animals. The tiny house was very cluttered and since there were so many cats, there was feces literally everywhere. The cats were in the box springs, in the dresser drawers, in the kitchen cabinets. There was hair, vomit and feces in each of those places as well. Very unhealthy. However, unlike other cases, these cats were not mean. They were a bit scared and darted around, so they weren't super easy to catch, but they didn't fight back and many of them were caught by hand instead of traps and nets. We ended up with 11. Luckily, we didn't have to transport them back to the shelter in Denver. Instead, we went further south and dropped them off at a small shelter in Trinidad. I got a new experience, a day "off" work and free lunch. Good times

For the Fourth of July weekend we went where we'd vowed never to go in the middle of summer: the sand dunes.

It was awesome.

prickly pear blossom.

Sure, a bit hot in the middle of the day, but fine if we stayed off the sand. There was about an hour of rain both evenings, but nothing terrible. And we saw the distant and rather pitiful fireworks show put on by Alamosa.










It's one of the very few National Parks that allows dogs, so we brought Zorro along. He wasn't thrilled by being forced to ride in the very back because we had four people. The creek that runs by the dunes was very wide for this time of year, so we had some fun playing in the sand there. The sand was too hot for the dog's paws during the day, so when we went there he wore booties. The one time we actually hiked the dunes was around 8am and the temperature was perfect. I also went barefoot and it was amazing how quickly the sand began to heat up around 9am. Zorro seemed to really love dashing through the sand. He kept treating it like snow or water though; as he ran, he'd dip his head as if to scoop up the sand into his mouth. He always stopped before actually doing that though.  It is a favorite place and it had been too long.

poor abused pup. 

my friends and the dog running the dunes.

Summer start.

Camping season has begun!

Over the long Cesar Chavez weekend, my boyfriend and I drove to Utah to camp. It was a bit chilly (especially) the first night, but that's the only way I enjoy the desert. We did a couple of nice hikes, got some good photos. Tired the dog out. And then we picked up my old nordic skis from my parents on the way home.

Egyptian Temple, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. 

LaSal Mountains, Utah.

Sunset.

Sunrise.

Fisher Towers, Utah.

Fisher Towers trail end.

Fisher Towers trail.

Tired pup.

And I am finally fully outfitted for backpacking. And for only a bit over $200. So this weekend I believe we're going to test it all out. Hooray.

And 14er season is near.