Shelter Shoes

I threw away my shelter shoes today.
This last Saturday was my last day as an employee at the Colorado Humane Society. The separation was bitter sweet- I have been at the shelter so long that it is part of who I have become. I love my friends there and the dogs, but I just couldn't do it anymore. The people that come into that place have become more than I can handle anymore. Of course there are great people looking to adopt pets, but lately it seems like they are far outnumbered by scum of the earth people who have no respect for their lives let alone that of a defenseless animal. When I started at the shelter I was just learning about "customer service" and I had a bright outlook and hope for everything. The more time that went by, the more jaded I got- to the point where I was constantly on the defense and surprised when people were really nice to me. Lately, I have noticed that I have become like that even when I'm not at work. The job was destroying my view of people in general, and that scares me because I know I am a nice, upbeat person. The past few weeks I found myself dreading going in for work and counting the hours until it was over, and that's how I knew I was done. It's been 5 years- and this is a hard job. It's a heavy burden to bear and I don't know how the other people at the shelter have been doing this full time for so much longer.
Of course I plan on volunteering as often as possible, but this way it will be on my own time and I can enjoy the parts of the shelter that I love and step back from the parts that are bringing me down. I do have a spare pair of shelter shoes...
In the meantime, I feel like I am in a huge transition in my life. I will be done with school next semester and I feel the change coming. I've been cleaning my house all day and I finally completely emptied my suitcase from Italy. Yep. Took me 3 months... but now it's in my closet. After all of this change this weekend I feel an odd sense of calm and transition, and I think it's going to be really good.

Procrastination and Cleaning

The only time I ever get the undeniable urge to clean my house is during finals week. That must be my order of dislikeable tasks...#1 on the list- studying. #2- cleaning. I will clean to avoid school work. Ironically, my house is always messiest leading up to finals week so it really feeds the urge to clean. I have to actually MAKE myself not clean and do my school work. Then, when I have finished my work I allow myself to clean and I just unleash on my house. It will be the most thorough cleaning of the semester...so, in theory, I deep clean my house quarterly... Right now is one of those times that I am sitting in a pile of scrap paper, surrounded by misplaced junk, and all I want to do is clean like a maniac. However, I know it is just my zany brain trying to avoid studying so I have to resist. You know your house is too messy when you keep dropping things and just leaving them there because you think, "what's the use? everything else is on the floor..."

I WANT MY VACATION!

I have two more weeks and then I am off to California. I cannot wait. This semester of school has been so frustrating, tedious, and sleep inducing I just want it to be over so badly. Plus, I get to see so many of my family and friends! I didn't realize just how many people I love are in California. So, everyone get ready, I'm coming your way...counting the days!
I would also like to take a moment and talk about air conditioning. I didn't grow up with air conditioning and ever since I have lived on my own in apartments I just don't think I could live without it. My air conditioning broke this weekend- a weekend with highs in the triple digits- and I actually had to leave my house. I know a lot of people who don't have air conditioning and while they don't enjoy it, they get by. But I was thinking about this last night- you know, there is a correlation between the temperature and crime rates. When the temperature goes up, crime follows (there is a joke in sociology that there is a correlation between ice cream sales and murder rates). Just think, if everyone had air conditioning maybe the world would be a better place. Think about the countries that have the most problems with violence and war, and most of them are in damn hot parts of the world. So maybe instead of looking for weapons of mass destruction we should have been installing window air conditioning units..I can see it now...the helicopters hovering overhead and dropping parachuted window units...just a thought...

Live TV

I woke up really early this morning to go to the gym. I've been trying to work out at least 3 times a week but have been striving for 5 and I keep getting hung up on my schedule. So I thought about all of those people that wake up at the crack of dawn to work out before going to work. I decided I should try it and see how it works. The jury is still out, but that's not exactly what this blog is about...
So it was about 7:30 AM and I'm running on the treadmill. There were only a few people in the room because most of the business crowd works out around 6:30 AM. I know because half the women in the city were standing in the locker room when I arrived. They were naked and doing their hair, which is another thing I don't get. I mean, go you if you are that comfortable naked in public but seriously...is it really necessary? I mean, maybe just a little underwear...I think some things should be saved for the privacy of your own home...but that's not what this blog is about either. Another day.
SO. I am running and watching the local morning news. The news desk people start a story by saying, "The dog your about to see works harder than most people and does things most dogs can't do." And there is this news guy on location interviewing a local police officer with the Denver Police Department. This particular officer was part of a canine unit and he was going to do a demo with his dog. The first thing that cracked me up was the news guy kept saying that the dog was a "canine dog" like that is the name for a police dog. I'm thinking, dude, that is like one of two species names that people know. Canine and feline. You're calling the dog a dog dog. You sound like an idiot. But it gets better. So the cop says that there is another cop hiding in the police station posing as the bad guy and the police dog is going to find this guy. So the cop lets the German Shepherd go and the news guy and his crew start following the dog as he runs around the building. The dog runs into what looks like a locker room, kind of looks around confused, and then proceeds to take a big poop in the middle of the room. You can actually hear the camera man chuckling because he's the only one in the doorway filming the dog. Then the dog finishes and kind of looks around like, "shit man, I don't know where the dude is". It is a total failure. So the poor embarassed cop comes running in and points to a closed door. The dog gets this look like, "Oh ok. He's in the closet huh? I guess I'll have to figure out how to open the door without thumbs asshole..." and so the dog jumped up and starting biting at the door knob, to no avail. He can't get it. So the cop now looking really disheartened grabs the dog and shouts for the "fugitive" to come out or the dog will attack. I was thinking he should have said, "watch your step, there's shit everywhere" but he didn't.
Meanwhile, I'm running and looking around like, is anyone else seeing this? the kicker was that the this was all live and the news desk people were laughing HYSTERICALLY, you can't see them. Can only hear them. And then it goes to the female news caster and she says, "Well. I think every dog does that trick, Ed."

I just love this picture.

I FINALLY FINISHED MY PAPER. I have been stressing out all week. One of those things where you feel like you are drowning in your own stack of "to-do's". I had an 8 page research paper due tomorrow. The kicker was it was on suicide ( I didn't get to choose the topic). However, going to work and then spending my Friday and Saturday nights sitting here reading about people killing themselves makes me inclined to jump in the river. My friends recommended I just write 2 pages and then say that this paper was pushing me over my emotional edge and I had to stop. However, I opted to do the work. Although the paper isn't great, it's done, and that's all that matters to me right now. Then, as I was going through some documents on my computer I came across this picture and it made me smile.

Sorry So Sporadic

I don't even really have anything to talk about. Life has been going non-stop for weeks now. I don't know where the days are going. They zip by and I just feel lucky to have gotten anything done at all. I feel like my list of "to do's" is just getting longer and longer. But, what are you going to do? Just one thing at a time. My classes right now are so tedious. I'll be really excited in a few weeks when these long summer classes are over.
Anyway, just wanted everyone to know i'm still over here clicking away, just less often...