A Five Year Plan in Review

Ironwood, Denver

This past weekend we were in Denver for Hunter's college graduation.  It has been five years since I was back home, give or take a week. It gave me cause to pause and review my life over the past five years in New York City and to see what we left behind without rose colored glasses in either direction. Hunter took us to an eclectic store on South Broadway in Denver called Ironwood and I found this ying/yang display of New York and Colorado.  I thought it was a perfect depiction of both places (I will always regret that I didn't buy that doll).

Snooze an AM Eatery

Hunter took us to RiNo in downtown Denver, and I must admit that Denver has achieved a very cool factor.  We had breakfast at Snooze and I think that a restaurant like that in New York City would be too expensive to really cater to anyone truly hip..Yet in Denver we were sampling pancake flights and morning cocktail concoctions with the coolest of the cool. Cameron loved that almost every restaurant we went to had meats from local, organic farms, which is more challenging to find and/or afford in New York City.

We drove up to Evergreen and it looked like time had stood still.  We walked around the lake and it felt like no time had passed at all.  I could imagine that we were just taking a family walk and headed to the lake house to play frizz bee as we had done so many times over the years.  As we walked towards Baskin Robins were heard a familiar voice yell Cameron's name out.  It was her dear friend, Otto Schloegel,   He had spotted us as he was driving around the lake with his mother, Rebecca.  We had made a pact that this was a strictly family weekend and none of us were allowed to meet up with old friends, so it was nice to see a friendly face from days gone by.

We went to Breckenridge as a mini vacation for all of us and stayed at our beloved Beaver Run Resort. As we rolled our bags across the lobby I told the kids to look small as I had made the reservation for two adults and three children under the age of 17.  At least I didn't say they were under the age of 12.

I love Breckenridge and when I occasionally buy a LOTTO ticket I always think that "when" I win I want to buy a condo there.  Although it's only an hour and a half from Evergreen it was a regular vacation spot for us, so it was wonderfully familiar to return to. But as comfortable as it was, there was not a sadness associated with not living there, more of a contentment in knowing that it was still there.

We walked over to the sledding hill in Breckenridge and a gentleman asked if we would like him to take our picture.  Hunter had had his fill of posing for pictures after his graduation, but it caught him off guard, so I quickly agreed and the man may have taken our Christmas photo for us. I sent the photo to two of my co-workers in New York who know me quite well, and yet I wondered when they looked at the photo if they felt like they were looking at someone they did not know at all.  In the photo we look just as I imagine we would have looked if we had never left Evergreen.  You would never know about my miserable job at Un-Named Retailer, the process to get into a good New York City public high school, rats, or the stress of securing a new apartment.

Today I was standing in the middle of Rockefeller Center outside of my office talking on the phone to my sister, Elizabeth, telling her about our wonderful trip to Colorado.  She pressed me about our moving back to Colorado.  I told her that we (Jeff, Cameron, and I) had discussed how nice everyone in Colorado was, (in particular service workers), how nice it was to have a car, and how magical large grocery stores were.  But Cameron added that she wanted to bring her kids up in Manhattan and I said that I loved the newness of every day on the streets of New York. Ultimately we decided that we are lucky to have had the opportunity to live in both worlds.  By the time Cam graduates from college she will have had thirteen years in Colorado and nine years in NYC.  We have four more years to decide where Jeff and I ultimately want to retire.  I have no idea what the next four years have in store for us.  The five years that are behind us had very little resemblance to what I had imagined they would have been.

So the five year plan that lays ahead of us, for now, is to finally relax into our lives in New York after a very steep learning curve, and to not take another five years to get back to a place that I will always call home, Colorado.

Flying with my Therapy Dog

I got back late last night from my weekend trip to Topeka, Kansas where our little dog, Oliver, was safely delivered to my brother, Clinton, to begin his new life in the country (well, the country in comparison to Manhattan). If you read my earlier blog "Washer/Dryer or Fido" you will know that this trip is the end of the saga.

The reason we had to get rid of Oliver was due to his barking, and in our brownstone where he can hear movement, buzzers, and other dogs in the courtyard he was constantly on the alert and manically guarding his territory by yapping. As hard as it was to give him away, this was not a battle that could have been won with a citronella collar or behavioral training.  Oliver is a terrier and is instinctually on guard. 

I had seen an expose' on The Today Show about taking dogs on airlines as therapy dogs, not only avoiding the pet ticket of $120.00, but also offering the freedom of taking the dog out of the crate in the airport and on the plane.  I decided that I would try it myself, and worse case scenario I would have to pay the fare at the boarding counter. The trick for this mission was to have a dog that was calm enough to fly as a therapy dog.  Considering that we were taking him to Kansas due to his high strung nature made the task somewhat daunting.



Two hours after being given a sedative.

I went out to PetMed.com and ordered a herbal supplement that is supposed to have a calming affect on dogs.  We gave the prescribed dose.  It was as if we had not given him anything.  Upon further research the manufacture suggested doubling the dose in case of high stress.  Oliver was still unfazed.  I then researched Benadryl for dogs.  I followed the directions from several online forums and gave him the prescribed dosage.  In this case it actually had the opposite affect.  Instead of putting him to sleep he actually became more hyper.  I had had a similar experience once before when my son Hunter was two years old and I gave him Benadryl for a cold.  He became very awake and agitated, so I knew better than to try a large dose.  I then looked in my own medicine cabinet and looked up the affects of Xanax on dogs.  It is widely prescribed for anxiety in dogs, particularly separation anxiety.  He was seemingly untouched, although Cameron said that he slept like a log that night. Although he was alert I thought I'd test reactiveness by ringing the buzzer to our apartment.  Well, he did his usual dance of running back and forth through the apartment barking as ferociously as possible. So much for the Xanax. 

I headed to the airport with a therapy vest that I got online, the herbal calming supplement (more for my peace of mind than any real belief that it worked), my boarding pass noting that I would be accompanied by a service dog, and a prayer.


Oliver obviously not going to sleep.

The flight that I had booked was Economy Class and I was not able to reserve a seat until check in.  I was worried that I would end up in a middle seat without enough room for his carrier.  I called the airline and told them I would be traveling with a service dog and I wanted to make sure I had adequate room.  The agent booked my seat for me and upgraded me to Economy Plus so that I would have adequate room. The Golden Ticket was that she noted on the boarding pass that I was traveling with a therapy dog, which eased my fear of being called out by TSA for traveling with a dog without a ticket. 



Plenty of leg room in Economy Plus



No problems with TSA security

Oliver has never bitten anyone, but the TSA line can be long and crowded, and boarding the plane can be a crush of people, so I was worried that Oliver might become irritated.  I kept him in his carrier until I had to take him out to walk through the metal detector.  We got through just fine (no alarms went off), but as I stood waiting to be ushered forward to retrieve my bag a male TSA worker was standing very close to me and said, "Oh, what a cute dog."  I thought he was going to reach out and pet him, but I was able to smile and turn away before the guy could reach his hand out.  I had made friends with a lady in line and I asked her to take my picture after we cleared security.

When I boarded the plane I kept him in his carrier and stowed him under the seat.  He never even pretended to sleep so half way through the flight I opened his case.  The young woman next to me must have noticed his therapy vest and said, "Don't worry, the Captain is my boyfriend and he'll get us to Kansas City safely."  For a moment I wondered why she was telling me that, but then I remembered my pretext of having the dog with me. The last hour of the flight I took Oliver out and let him look out the window and sit on my lap.  If the young woman had not also gotten out her phone and shown me pictures of her dog (in bed with her and the Captain - LOL!) I might not have been so bold, but since I knew she liked dogs I wasn't worried that would say anything.  I was also sitting in 4A which is the seat directly behind First Class so both the First Class and the Economy flight attendance were aware that I had the dog out of his crate.  No one said anything.

Clinton and Oliver relaxing.
 

My mom and my sister picked me up at the airport and we headed to Clinton's house.  After our weekend stay Elizabeth and I said that his house was like a zen retreat.  Oliver never barked.  He was in heaven chasing wild bunnies in the yard and looking through the shrubs at the dogs in the yards next door.  It was hard to leave the little fellow behind, but I know that he is stress free and happy in Kansas.