Cosmo, flowers, and fountains

It's been sort of quiet since the puppies left. We are down to just five dogs, which is a pretty light load for around here. Two of them are fosters but they are feeling and acting like part of the household so it almost feels like we are on a break from fostering. Cosmo came to stay for a couple days, however, so we had a new, but not so new face around here. He was new to the fosters, but our guys had met Cosmo when he was a foster here and on one other visit since then. 

Cosmo is very attached to his people and didn't like the idea of being left with me, until he was. Once his family were down the driveway he immediately reverted to being my best friend. He doesn't play with the other dogs (Kilo tried), but he gets along with everyone just fine. It was nice to have him around for a couple of days.

The gardens are looking good. We are nearing the peak of the season.

Kilo trying to get Cosmo to play.

Cosmo wasn't interested.

Jamie brought some new toys for Paisley. I have to keep Kilo from stealing them like he did the puppies' toys. Paisley is really enjoying them and she's becoming quite affectionate with me, albeit still freaky.

Cosmo and magnolia blossom

Cosmo and Kilo

Pinot the adventure pup

It's just a couple days shy of six weeks since the husky pups arrived. It seems longer. 

Pinot went to her new home today after a couple of days being the only puppy around here. Kilo kept her company quite a bit and she found ways to entertain herself when she was alone.

Pinot was the only pup who never exhibited a bit of shyness. When the first visitors came all the puppies ran to a far corner of their space and huddled together. Except Pinot, she ran right up to them, completely fearless. That tells you everything about her that you need to know, but she kept telling us more and more as time went on. She was the first puppy to get through the divider and explore the open, grassy end of Daneland. She was the first to climb every obstacle, the first to squeeze out through the fence, etc. Combine her bold sense of adventure with her husky genetic disposition to escape, and you've got a challenging puppy on your hands, even if she is only about 15 pounds. 

There is a four foot tall divider in the puppy shed that separates the puppy space from my space, where I've got supplies stored, trash, and food. It also keeps the puppies away from the main door to the shed so I don't have to worry about one of them slipping out when I'm coming in usually with my hands full of bedding, food, and/or water. The divider is actually an foldable exercise pen and there's a gate on it so I can do through into the puppy space (see pics). 

I would close Pinot in the shed when Kilo wasn't out watching her, and always at night. However, I started finding Pinot on my side of the divider when I'd go out to check on her or to let her out. At first I thought she was pushing through the bottom of the gate. We'd had puppies do that before, so I secured it first with a carabiner, then a leash clip, and ultimately with zip ties. Still Pinot was getting through. Huskies are known to be escape artists but I was beginning to think she was an actual magician. 

It seemed to be effortless for her too. She was getting through that fence immediately after I left her alone, even though it meant leaving her food and water where she couldn't get back to them. Today I resolved to find out how she was doing it. The pictures tell the rest of the story.

Pinot outside today. One ear up, one down.

The dividing "fence" is an exercise pen. It's basically like a wire crate that's stretched out and attached to opposite walls. It's four feet tall, but here she's trying to climb it with a stuffed toy in her mouth.

There is a crate inside the puppy space and it seems she was climbing up on it to get closer to the top of the fence.

She had no trouble climbing to the top of the crate. She has done it a number of times in the past few days. 

A wire crate isn't the easiest thing to walk on, but she made it up and never dropped the toy.

She was quite proud of herself for making it up there and looked at me with an "I told you so" look on her face.

And then she headed for the top of the fence. Bear in mind that there is nothing on the other side like the crate she had used to get halfway up on. She had a four foot drop on the other side and she had done this several times already. 

The toy was still in her mouth. She was showing off and I was duly impressed. I just sat and watched as she did it. But at this point she slipped and fell and got a leg stuck in the crate. She was sort of hanging by the stuck leg and of course started screaming. I rushed to free her but had to go outside and come in through the other door because I still had the gate secured shut with a zip tie. By the time I made it in she had freed herself and was preparing to begin the climb again.

I admitted defeat and just opened the divider gate for her after that, giving her full access.

When her family came for her today, I warned them.

Pride and prejudice

I'm having a difficult time composing my thoughts today. There's a lot swirling around in my head. A lot of this may seem rather random and disconnected. We'll call it "stream of consciousness" and pretend that it's a literary device I've specifically chosen to employ today. This is long and I'm writing it for myself, feel free to skip to the dog pictures.

June is LGBTQ+ Pride month. I'm going to shorten this to "gay pride" because I'm old. Now it's often just referred to as "Pride month" and everyone knows what it means. That brings me to my first point, which is that pride has gone mainstream and I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with that. I mean, it's a good thing, but gay pride used to be a counterculture event for a very marginal segment of society and some of us at least grew very comfortable in our little niche. Gay Pride in D.C. always coincided with Father's Day, which I'm guessing wasn't entirely coincidental but rather was chosen because most of those who would be celebrating Pride had uncomfortable or non-existent relationships with their fathers such that there wasn't a lot of conflict between the two events. That has changed for many and that's a good thing. But we also need to remember that mainstream acceptance is still limited to certain cities in this country. Prejudice, hatred, and even violence toward the gay community is still the norm in much if not most of this country.

Still, it strikes me as a little weird to be wished "happy pride" by well-meaning straight people as if it was a holiday celebrating the gay (etc.) community. To me, pride was a protest event, a coming out event, and I can't quite wrap my head around the change. The last big pride event in Charlottesville had more straight people than queers. I recognize that as a good thing in many ways, but I'm an old queer and I'm having some trouble adapting. 

Today, June 26th, is the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court's opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down laws prohibiting same-sex marriage. That decision came on June 26, 2015, but Clay and I had been married since October 9, 2014, and the lawyer in me compels me to explain why and how that happened. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (which includes Virginia) had come to the same decision on or about October 5, 2014. When the Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of that decision, it became the operative law in Virginia, and our state attorney general (Democrat Mark Herring) directed cites and counties to immediately begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Two days later Clay and I applied for a marriage license and became the first same-sex couple in Fluvanna county to be licensed and then married, two days later. 

Fast forward seven years to today and I found myself attending a Pride Market at a local brewery (Decipher) along with Kilo (Clay was working). I wasn't sure how well attended the event would be and I wanted to support and thank the brewery for sponsoring it, and I like their beer so we went. The event was very well attended, which I was very happy to see, in spite of my personal, somewhat conflicted, feelings about "mainstream" pride events. It was so well attended that I wasn't too comfortable in the crowd, and Kilo was a handful, so I left after two beers, which actually is my limit anyway.

Two days ago, on Friday, the supreme fucking court released its opinion reversing Roe v. Wade. That was a foregone conclusion the day that Trump was elected because of the appointments he made to the court after the fucking republicans succeeded in blocking Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland. So it really came as no surprise. Outlawing abortion has been the GOP's rallying cry since the days of Ronald fucking Reagan. They now had a 6-3 majority and they wasted no time in rolling back the clock. What has escaped widespread attention, however, was the concurring opinion of Clarence Thomas, the black justice married to the white woman who was instrumental in the January 6th insurrection.

The radical Catholic Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he openly signaled the intention to overturn, not just Roe, but other decisions which had established the right of adults to use contraception, the right of adults to engage in consensual sex in the manner of their choosing, and the right of same-sex couples to marry. There are at least five votes on the Supreme Court that would walk back those rights as soon as the proper case is presented to them. 

That brings me back to today and my decision about what to wear to the Pride Market today, and the Pride Dog Parade I attended yesterday. I was talking to Erika about this last week and told her that I didn't have much Pride gear for me or the dog. I went through the list of things I had that would identify me as gay: a t-shirt that no longer fits; a hat; a tie-dyed bandana; and a marriage certificate. I wore the hat, put the bandana on the dog, and pinned the marriage certificate to a t-shirt that did fit, wearing it as a point of pride and also as a statement about what's at stake in this country in every election at every level of government.

Kilo in his "I Got 2 Dads" bandana yesterday. 

And at today's Pride Market at Decipher Brewing.

My Pride t-shirt

And here's some other recent Kilo pictures:

Kilo and Maya playing

Della laying down some rules.

Kilo is a climber.

Kilo and Pinot sharing Pinot's food