Little fluffy clouds

Waiting for monsoon

Little fluffy Arizona clouds. Monsoon is on its way here. I can’t wait for a break from the heat.

It has been so uncomfortable here lately. Temperatures have been hovering around 100 and mornings are not cool, they are tepid and humid. Because I need to get the girls out first thing before it gets hot, I don’t get out to the studio until mid to late morning and the sun is blasting the east side of the studio windows and walls. There is no shade except for the wimpy little umbrella that doesn’t even help until afternoon when the sun gets behind the trees. I have been doing very little painting. I picked out a few other calls for entry that I will apply to in September, studied some of my old notes from Insa’s workshop, watched some art-related videos, and I’m reading a book on the business of art. Lots of indoor office work this week.

I did get some boards prepped and gessoed for when I get that break in the heat. I got a lot done this week, applied for a call for entry with an art licensing opportunity. I know it’s a long shot because I am clueless about the art licensing business but I sent everything in anyway. My neighbor’s daughter helped me package a few dozen prints the other day, and I applied for the winter farmers market.

It starts the first week in November. I’m getting a larger booth this time just because I am so tired of feeling cramped in that small 8 x 6 space. I will be able to display a little more art and have more room to bring people into the booth so they can see things close up. I don’t know if it will have any impact on sales, but I want to try it. I had to sign up for a few more weeks in order to get a better rate on my booth, so I might be completely burned out on it by March next year.

Horsetooth Rock from town with morning light, my hike/run up the Towers the other day, more little fluffies, girls at the lake.

I finally got off my butt on a weekday morning and drove out to the Soderburg trailhead and powerhiked up the Towers road in Horsetooth Mountain Park, and ran all the way down. It felt so good! It was a warm morning, but I got started just before 6 am and was down before 8. I don’t know what I’ve been doing but my legs are so much stronger. I climbed the Towers a good ten minutes faster than it used to take me, at least in recent years. I didn’t get very short of breath or having to stop often. I felt great climbing trails in Crested Butte, too. But I know the Towers road well enough because I’ve run it so many times. I know how long it normally takes me, and this is clearly an improvement.

I want to get up to the Longs Peak trail at least to Granite Pass, climb Mt. Audubon, and do the Manitou Incline this summer to early fall. I have to do this on the weeks that Dennis has a day off in the middle of the week so the girls will get their morning walk in. I have to get up super early for all three of those climbs and also drive to them, anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to two and a half hours each way.

Speaking of Manitou, which is just outside Colorado Springs at the base of Pikes Peak, I would find a place to stay down there if. IF.

This has everything to do with our stupid dumbass Secretary of Homoeroticism Defense Pete Hegseth, Kegsbreath, or whatever they call him. I can assure him that there is no shortage of testosterone in the military. Not that he’d listen to me, but I have this thing about Colorado Springs. It’s not that it’s a big military city with the Air Force Academy, NORAD, and Fort Carson, and the laughable Space Force at Cheyenne Mountain. It’s not that every person in the military is an asshole like Hegseth.

It’s that I used to run a lot of races and training runs down there and even when I stayed on the outskirts of town even as far north as Monument or close to Manitou and even the Broadmoor area, every hotel was full of Hegseth clones, with plenty of testosterone. They would smoke, they were loud, drunk, leering and rude to women, had this attitude that they were special and the world owes them something, and basically were a nuisance everywhere they went. I have no effing idea what fantasy Kegsbreth is conjuring up in his misshapen little skull, but from what I seen, them don’t need no more testosterone than they already got.

Just when you think things can’t get any more outrageous than they already are, some boneheaded dinosaur proves you wrong.

That’s all I have for now. Have a great weekend, and let’s hope for rain and cooler temperatures.