Charlie Brown

Saturday was a super-special day.

After hearing so many incredible stories about Kristin's horse, Charlie Brown, we finally got to meet him. I must say, he lived up to the hype.

Mike, Kristin, Robert and I drove out to the barn in Maryland, interrupting Charlie's breakfast and his social hour with the other horses. But he was most gracious in letting us bring him in and groom him, showing off his first trick of the day -- the "I won't move even if I'm not on any kind of lead and everyone walks away unless Kristin tells me to" trick.

Kristin took him into the arena to show us even more tricks, like turning in a circle while crossing his legs, and I kept wanting to shout and clap and cheer, but, you know, horses and loud noises, not so much.

Here's Kristin, in her glory, although also in absolutely awful pictures (see, that's how excited I was):

And the barn didn't just sport horses, but sheep, too! And not just sheep... sheep guarding dogs! I mean, come on, could they get any cuter?

 

Back in DC, we took part in a whole other part of barning ... or, farming. (Melissa, stop reading.)

Super-jealous of Robert's 1/8th of a cow purchase, all grass-feed and frozen in individual cuts. I mean, yum.

Finished off with dinner with David and Lauren and it was a pretty successful day.

Happy Post

Here's my happy post for the morning. My college friend and fellow Cabinet member was on NBC's Minute to Win It the past two weeks with his father.

Anthony is the kind of person who brings joy where ever he goes. He has no reserve, no hesitation, and does everything 100%. Last week, my sister was posting on Facebook about how much fun she was having watching this show, without realizing I knew the competitor.

Just WATCH this 3 minute segment. Look how he goes off on tangents, talks to the crowd, doesn't let Guy rush him at all into whatever task is at hand. Guy, at one point, bends over in half, laughing so hard.

Quiet

Thank you, everyone. For your emails, texts, cards, flowers, donations, and warm thoughts that I can feel from afar. In the house, it's just so... quiet.

I went to sleep on Sunday night before Mike got home from Vegas -- took a three hour nap before going to pick him up from his late arrival home -- and I had to put music on because there was no breathing in the room. Doing my workouts in the morning, no one pestering me for a scratch when I bend down to stretch. No wagging tail waiting at the door.

I've just spent some of this evening cleaning up her things around the house, putting her beds in the trash, and packing up her bowls. (Sadie, Zoey and Luci are about to benefit from a lot of treats.)

Not sure that I like the quiet so much.

(Returning tomorrow! Happy posts!)

Good Bye

I bring sad news tonight, and I write this with tears in my eyes. Goldie died yesterday. We knew it was coming, but in the end, it was all so, so fast.

Our good friends Kristy and Bobby were caring for Goldie while we went to Las Vegas with Terry. They said she was normal on Friday, and Friday night, eating, going for a walk, following her and their dogs around the house. Then when they woke up Saturday morning, she had walked out of their bedroom at some point during the night and laid down on a bed in the living room. With a few exceptions, she pretty much stayed there.

Kristy called and said the best way to describe it was "lethargic." She wasn't crying, she wasn't whining, she wasn't breathing hard. But she also wasn't eating, wouldn't take treats, and stayed laying in the living room, no matter where Kristy or the other dogs were.

Mike and I were scheduled to fly home on an evening flight on Sunday, getting in at 1 a.m. Monday morning. I changed my flight to a red eye on Saturday (my flight was on reward points, so it was an even exchange to get an earlier flight; it wouldn't have been to change Mike's flight). Because of the connection, I left at 12:30 a.m. on Sunday morning from Las Vegas, and arrived at DCA at 11:30 a.m. Bobby and Kristy picked me up, with Goldie.

She was, shocking. She could barely move. The tumor was huge, and heavy. She wasn't wagging her tail.

I contemplated driving straight to the vet, to euthanize her, but ultimately decided to take her home, and see how she was in an hour or two. See if she could last until Mike got home.

After only two hours, it was clear she was moving over the edge. The tumor was continuing to grow -- or it could have just been fluid, or blood building up. Her breathing was becoming difficult. I told her it was time, that I was going to call David to help me take her to the vet. I told her goodbye.

You all know me. You know I don't typically speak in spiritual terms. But this -- death -- I have so many beliefs that I need to hold dear in order to get me through. And one of them is that when someone is dying from sickness, you need to let them go. They want to hold on, they want to know you are taken care of. They want to know you are okay.

And, yes, she's a dog. But I believe she needed permission to go. I told her it was time, that she didn't need to fight anymore. A few minutes later, she took her last breath.

It was short, and quiet. She had a few spasms as the breath let out, but I don't think she was in pain. I think she was scared and confused, but I know she felt love. From Kristy, Bobby and their pups, to being home with me.

I'm grateful to the two of them, and to David and Lauren, who came over immediately after she died and helped me get her to the vet.

We're incredibly sad, and heartbroken. She was a good pup, and she gave us her all. We're missing her terribly.

Emergency Exit

By now, many of you have seen the updates on Facebook, so know the basic outline of this story. But here is all the glorious detail.

This was on the first leg of our trip to Las Vegas to meet up with my brother, Terry. It was a 6:35 p.m. flight out of DCA, landing in Chicago. Or, the plan was to land in Chicago.

You could tell immediately upon takeoff that there was an issue. There was a lot of drag, and then you could hear the wheels just churning and churning. We were kind of wavering.

They had turned the lights off before takeoff, and just about one minute after liftoff, they turned them on, the flight attendants were up, and walking towards each other (smallish plane, one attendant in the back one in the front – it was a four seater in each row plane) and talking.

The female flight attendant comes back to the exit row, squats down and says, “Ok, folks, I need to know. Are ready and able to open those doors when I tell you? I need to know right now. If you are at all uncomfortable, tell me now.”

That’s scary shit right there.

We said yes. I was in the window, and Mike and I immediately switched seats so he was by the door. There were two women in the other two seats, and one was a bit shellshocked at the request. The flight attendant switched her out with another guy.

We re-routed to Dulles, and along the way, the female flight attendant came back several times, talking to us, gauging our continued resolve. The male flight attendant went on the intercom and went through how to take the crash position (bend forward, wrap your arms around your legs), and asked everyone to read the safety booklet. In the exit row we went through opening the door, and what command she would shout to tell us to open it (not to open while the plane was still moving, as soon as it stopped, if she shouted the command to “unbuckle your seat belts,” we were to open the doors and start evacuating).

Dulles is only 45 minutes by car, so we were out there in no time. But we had just taken off, so we were above the allowed landing weight. And, I imagine, they were getting the runway and airspace ready.

While we circled to burn off fuel, they finally got the landing gear down and, as far as the pilot could tell, locked.

It was a guess, after all. The flight attendants were really good, and really open. She said that she wasn’t particularly “scared” for the landing, but that the process could be frightening. That was when she said that if the gear gave out, we could end up in a belly flop. She said she’d been through one before, and the worst part is the noise of it. She said it would be really loud, and just medal scraping. But, the closer we got to starting decent, the more relaxed her and the other flight attendant became. They – and the pilot – seemed to believe the gear would hold.

As we did start the decent, you could see the airport. The runway we were approaching was empty of planes, but there were about a dozen fire trucks and a half dozen more ambulances, clustered in three spots along the runway – where we’d touch down, in the middle, and where we were expected to stop. It was not reassuring to see all the flashing lights as we came down.

I’m no expert in landing, but I’ve been on a number of flights. When you land, they put the back down first, then the nose. We did that, also, last night. It was the back landing gear that was the trouble maker, and my perception is that we came in at a much stronger angle – back down and nose up. We also rode on the back for what seemed like a long time – 30 seconds? 45? Before he put the nose down.

The wheels wobbled. It didn’t feel good, but it was never an out-of-control feeling. My guess – and I’d love to ask a pilot this -- is that he wanted to ride the back wheels because if they gave out, he could pick back up off the ground. He didn’t deploy the air flaps during those 30 or 45 seconds, he didn’t put on the brakes, and he didn’t stop the engine. It was as if he was ready to lift off again.

But then the nose came down, air flaps up, and brakes. We rode for a while, I imagine so that they didn’t have to put the brakes on hard, and when we were slow enough, the rescue vehicles caught up and rode along side of us.

It was, not fun. 

But, I'm in Vegas now! We're hoping that the whole experience -- and the not crashing part -- is a sign of good luck for the trip. But that didn't exactly play out last night....

It's... Complicated

Thanks, Joe, for the kick in the rear to post. I have been lack in posting. Ok, more than lack. Totally and utterly absent.

I have had a month... really, six weeks... like none I have every had. I don't know that I have ever felt so busy and overwhelmed and utterly out of time to do anything, including last year when I went to 18 cities across the country in under 30 days. I have not read my Feedly, kept up with Twitter, slept enough, or, for Pete's sake, plucked my freakin' eyebrows in six weeks.

It's a difficult thing, blogging about work. Because it's so out there for everyone to see. Including current, past and future employers, clients and colleagues. Even if I don't mean to complain, or boast, or reveal some client confidentiality, the potential is so high.

Let's just say that working for an agency with multiple clients, so many personalities, not enough hands, processes I don't understand (because I don't have the institutional knowledge), and workstyles different from my own is... exhausting.

And it's two different types of exhausting. There's the physically exhausting, like yesterday, when I arrived at the office at 7:45 a.m. and left at 9:15 p.m., only to be back in at 7:45 a.m. again today. It was work, work, work, work, all hands on deck -- because there were only a few of us, with others traveling. I came home, slept, and got up to do it all over again.

But there is also the mentally exhausting. (Here's where I don't want anything to be misinterpreted.) Go into any thriving company that has been around for a long time, has incredible talent that has been loyal for years, and yet has expanded with new talent over the past year because the firm has been lucky enough to continue to accept clients, and, there's roadbumps. There's the old way and the new way and neither is necessarily better, and it all depends on who happens to be the most senior person in the office on any given day on what direction you're given. There's the optimistic "we're going to set a system to run more smoothly" with the realistic, "this shit needs to get done, and get done now."

I have been awed by the creativity, commitment to client services, and general goodness of the people. I have laughed at going from a place where there were four, relatively quiet people working, to a place where the water cooler talk never ceases. I have gone from being the top of the pyramid in my office, with the bosses over 1,000 miles away, to... not. I used to have pretty set hours, which I chose myself. Now I cancel happy hours and don't get home to make Mike dinner because I never know when I'll be able to leave.

And I hope none of that sounds complaining. It's just... different. I am tired, that's no doubt. I'm also learning tons, and feel like this is a tremendous opportunity.

I'll aim to be better about posting. First, though, I need to actually DO something other than work to actually blog about...