We’re home now. All of us. There was drama every step of the way. I had boxed up the big oxygen concentrator I bought in Ponce and was carrying it home as checked luggage. I was belted into my seat for the return flight when a JetBlue rep came up and informed me that my checked box had been flagged by TSA as hazardous, and was not going to be allowed on the plane. Did I want to get off the flight and reclaim it, or could someone pick it up for me? Much back-and-forthing, but no budging. (I’m sure someone thought it contained oxygen, which it did not.) Finally I reached Allysen by phone. Yes, she could return to the airport and get it, and I could stay on my flight. And now it was up to her to get it to the Post Office and mail it, before her flight to Boston.
Picking up Shadowfox in Newark went okay, except that I drove the campervan, and Google maps insisted on directing me onto parkways north of NYC that are auto-only, with lots of low bridges. White knuckle time! I could easily have Storrowed myself. I could find no way to tell the Goog to stop doing that, and so it was not a fun drive, in either direction. I guess I should have researched the route ahead of time, but I hadn’t foreseen the need. Here’s a picture of a “Storrowed” truck.
Allysen was up all night that night closing down the house in Ponce. Tthen she and McDuff took a 2-hour cab ride to the airport in San Juan—where they took to the air minutes before the entire island of Puerto Rico went dark with the second major power outage since December.
We are all settled back in at the ranch, including Shadowfox in her new home.
Happy Easter, belatedly, to everyone who celebrates it. And Happy Boston Marathon tomorrow. Which I must steer around as I make my way to my first evaluation meeting with the Brigham lung transplant team! Wish me luck!
