r00kers

We here in the mountains are used to many things that our friends below are not. We spent 18 hours or so without power on 1st January, it happens. We are used to husbanding the water in the house when we lose power, we are used to the different measures we need to take to heat our house (fire up all the wood stoves), we are used to cooking on the wood stove, used to its hard to control heat and the need to keep it full and stoked. We are used to minding lots of things when we are without power for a day. It happens.
What we are not used to, what I am still wrestling with, is the senseless murder of another human that took place the other day at our local ski area, Eldora. We knew the victim pretty well and his wife really well as she was my son's kindergarten teacher. Their kids are now without a dad, a wife is now without a husband, and the community has lost a beloved member. The shooter decided to kill himself after being wounded by a local sheriff's deputy a little ways from my house. From all accounts he was formally happy, now troubled kid who snapped over to the place where one is willing to kill to eliminate imagined demons.
When I moved here I assumed this was a challenging place to live sometimes, but for entirely different reasons. I have now seen my friend and neighbor's child die of flu, my best friend's child die of a household accident, and now this. I lived in the city for years and never saw this many people that I knew go 'before their time'. It's been a pretty fucked up new year so far.