Denver | The Daily Nickel

I live in Denver, Colorado. Sure, I’m on the west side of the city and it only takes me about 30 minutes to be in true wilderness, but I would never say I lived on the edge of the wild or anything. And yet, earlier this week as I was heading back to get the laundry from the dryer I looked into the backyard and spotted this.

In case you can’t see clearly, that is a hawk killing a pigeon. I didn’t see the actual attack, but the pigeon was still alive when I glanced outside so it couldn’t have been too long after. The hawk dispensed with his prey rather quickly, but it took him a bit of time and hopping around my yard with the carcass in his talons to finally get the perfect bit of strength to fly into our neighbor’s tree with it.

It was nuts. The perfect intersection of wild and tame. A bird of nature killing the iconic city bird.

Is this considered cannibalism? Or would a hawk have to eat another hawk for cannibalism to apply?

Regardless, it was a pretty outstanding and only made me cry a little (whereas seeing an alley cat kill a squirrel in my grape vines last year made me bawl ferociously). Plus, the dogs went wild smelling each and every lingering pigeon feather for a few days afterwards.

I love this damn city.

When the year was brand new and I was in a huge slump I made myself a list of resolutions. Something I never do, but this year I really needed a reason to look forward to the year and get off my ass and participate in my own life. One of my main goals was to try something new in Denver/Colorado every week. I love this city that I live in, and I really love this state. I was born here, my family has lived here for generations….Colorado is in my blood.

Now not every week is some epic adventure, but last week was pretty great.

The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is a staple of downtown Denver. There are 2 buildings and 11 combined floors full of every type of art. The first Saturday of every month is a free day. Cory and I try to go as often as possible. This works out so well because we don’t have to force ourselves to see everything and then end up rushing through and not remembering anything. I’m no art aficionado but I know what I like and I appreciate the talent of other people. This Saturday we checked out the free day and focused on the Modern Art areas. I can’t say I’ll ever understand what’s so miraculous about a black canvas with a yellow square in the corner, but to each his own. Here are some photos of art that did blow me away:

While there I realized that the famed Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective was only going to be in Denver (the only US destination) for one more day. I quickly bought my ticket for the next day.

The exhibit was amazing. I never knew how instrumental Saint Laurent was in liberating women. As an aside: his parents knew what they were doing when they named him….how could he not become daring yet remain elegant with a name like that! He shocked the world when he put runway models in pants. Gasp. Shock. Horror. He experimented with sheer fabrics and let the beauty of women dictate his designs instead of forcing unwieldily designs on women. He did away with the trend of corsets and generally pushed boundaries. Seeing his designs up close was stunning. The precision and quality was just out of this world. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I was so happy to be able to get to the Art Museum twice this weekend and experience a little bit more of my fair city. The next big exhibit to hit Denver features Van Gogh and I’m counting down the days!