I thought September would be better

And here it's already the 2nd

It’s easy to find everything in a hot mess in August. It’s been a miserable summer here in the Sonoran desert and maybe where you are too? Way too hot and WAY too humid. It’s the DESERT. Hardly seems fair that it’s muggy too.

It’s 95 instead of 101 and that feels hopeful but I’m ready for change, breeze, turning off my lumbering AC minisplits that the landlord is ignoring and being passive with the one service guy in town who happens to be a bully and his brother in law. Small town things get awkward.

I’ve got it working but I’ll admit that I’m super cranky and exhausted and as you might guess, there’s no break in dog rescue. They need the same stuff every day all day and since I let the last abandoned puppy from someone throwing a litter on the street in the house? there’s extra everything. Stepping in pee again from a group that’s been potty trained for a couple years and buying a whole different kind of food and all the things that keep me from taking puppies into the sanctuary. But sometimes they are there at the door and I’m not a monster.

So here she is and of course she’s trying really hard not to steal food from the big dogs and she catches herself when I say HEY! when she starts to pee in the living room. Again. She runs to the door and says oh yeah, this. It’s all part of the gig. But it’s annoying in August.

You lean in once you’re already rolling with this kind of project. You can’t half ass it. You’re IN or you’re OUT. At some point a couple three years ago when I realized that it was not going to be easy to get out of here and find somewhere to go I just went ahead and rescued the dogs. Like a hamster scratching at the glass to be let out and you just finally stop and say, I’m stuck. I guess I’ll jump on this wheel thing.

I brought the nearly dead inside, nursed them back to life, sometimes they died anyway, picked up the puppies stuck in fences, moved the deceased to the other side of the road and called someone to drive me to a desolate place so I could lay them to rest. The mopping, feeding, raking of poo and cleaning barf and pulling ticks (especially in August even with preventative which is $$$) is all day every day. But I’m on the wheel. Keep running.

“That sounds horrible,” she said. “I hope you find your path soon and things turn around for you…this isn’t how I pictured your life. ”

Hold up. What did you just say to me?

I’ll hand to her. It does sound horrible. Not the caring for dogs so much, what’s 13 if you’re already doing it? But the place, the heat, the lack of services and crap food, yea yea it’s a challenge but I was necessary. It’s still necessary. If I leave I’ll be helpful elsewhere, but I can’t help but think I was brought here for a reason. Accidently, or was it?

Will I be here for the rest of my days? I hope not. Surely I can be of service someplace with a Vet and a more agreeable climate and some Italian food? One hopes. At the risk of sounding unenthused about chatting with yet another vapid old college acquaintance recently, I made a pact with myself. I’ll no longer “catch up” with people who:

1. Don’t go weak in the knees for dogs/animals who suffer. A visceral response to starving, dehydrated, limping, alone, lost, confused, ignored dogs. You don’t have to upend your life and not go to the beach house with your wealthy in-laws, but you have to get it. If not, you’ll think I’m just an idiot and why don’t I get out of this hell hole and that, I cannot answer. Nor will I shoulder that shade.

2. If you don’t think being of service is part of being a human on the planet. If you’re not delivering meals to shut ins, volunteering at the homeless shelter, carrying a heavy bag for the elderly, painting someone’s living room who can’t, holding a baby for a mom who’s got her hands full reading to the blind or putting water and food out for birds, drunks, dogs, cats…Yea we don’t vibe.

3. If you don’t acknowledge or respect what I’m doing by just saying wow, that’s different, good for you and then talk about other stuff, I like to talk about NON DOG THINGS. Please send me pics of your dinner. Tell me an engaging story! In English! I’m not looking for praise and I’ve not reinvented anything. I’m just doing what’s obvious. Everyone says, Oh I couldn’t, it breaks my heart…and that’s so true. I just found that it breaks my heart less if I at least try. There’s no more grateful face than that of a dog you’ve acknowledged who is suffering. And I don’t judge you for not wanting this “path” which I clearly am on, for now. It can’t be forever because the burn out is mounting, but if it cools off and maybe I find a bigger facility and a Vet in a town with resources and support systems? I can make my path even bigger. But also, how dare you.

   Hope I find my path?

   So to all the people I knew 30 years ago (I swear this will be the last one) who thought I’d be driving down the road in a convertible with my hair blowing in the wind, yelling at my publisher on the car phone and flicking a cigarette out the window, I’m sorry to disappoint your childish vision.

   I’ve moved on, you should too.