Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2018 i 5280 Magazine

The conventional wisdom holds that when it comes to death and dying, we treat our pets with more dignity than we do our human family and friends. I’m inclined to agree with that view, and I was relieved that when our 19-year-old cat passed on last year, she was able to do so in her sleep, in our home. In Colorado, however, the way we approach human death is undergoing a transformation that provides more choices to those who are terminally ill and to their loved ones. Proposition 106—which is also known as the Colorado End-of-Life Options Act and was approved by nearly 65 percent of Centennial State voters two years ago this month—is complicated and not without controversy, so 5280 editors Kasey Cordell and Lindsey B. Koehler decided to…

THE CANDIDATES YOU KNOW HIM…As district attorney for the 18th Judicial District, where he tried the Aurora theater shooting case, and as a colonel in the Colorado Army National Guard. YOU KNOW HIM…As former dean of the University of Colorado Law School and as a deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. ON SANCTUARY CITIES HIS OWN WORDS: “I think sanctuary cities are anathema to the rule of law. I think they are contra to everything we stand for as self-governing people.” THE TAKEAWAY: Brauchler won’t back local governments that disobey U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s orders. HIS OWN WORDS: “[Denver’s policy has been] if you want to come and testify in court because you are a victim of a crime, we’re going…

OFFENSE IS THE BEST DEFENSE After giving up 108.5 points per game last year—23rd out of 30 NBA teams—it’s time for a new strategy: Keep defenseaverse guard Jamal Murray under the basket, where he can cherry-pick easy layups. WASTE (EFFORT) NOT The Nuggets finished 15-26 on the road last season, as opposed to 31-10 at the Pepsi Center. Why not forfeit away games against good teams to conserve energy for home matchups we can win? ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE Guard Isaiah Thomas, the Nuggets’ only major pickup, is a former MVP candidate whose play has declined due to a hip injury that doctors haven’t been able to fix. Surely Boulder’s got a hippie healer who can prescribe some frog venom (or whatever) to mend what ails him.…

If you’re a cook who adds red pepper flakes to your tomato sauce (or an eater who sprinkles them over every plate of pasta), put down that shaker and pick up Musso Farms’ Pueblo Chile Pasta Sauce instead. Carl Musso, one of the largest chile producers in Pueblo County, based the rich, zesty sauce on a Sicilian family recipe. “About two years ago, I thought to myself, We gotta make this sauce Pueblo-fied! We gotta add some chiles,” Musso says. The exact pepper blend used in the sauce is a secret, but Musso did divulge the inclusion of the mirasol variety most people know as the Pueblo chile, as well as a few other types grown on his 120-acre farm. Imported San Marzano tomatoes, Sicilian sea salt, oregano, Musso Farms…

5280: Of the roughly 70 medical-aid-in-dying prescriptions written in Colorado in 2017, Scales Pharmacy filled approximately 22 of them. Why so many? Dan Scales: As a pharmacist, you have no obligation to fill a script that’s against your moral code. So there are many pharmacists who won’t fill the drugs. Also, many chain pharmacies—like Walgreens—don’t mix compounds, which means they can’t make the drug cocktail a lot of physicians prescribe. That leaves independent pharmacies like ours. You don’t have any objections to the state’s End-of-Life Options Act? I really believe we kinda drop the ball at the end of life. We do a poor job of allowing people to pass with dignity. I won’t lie, though: After filling the first couple of prescriptions, I did feel like I helped kill…

“In a perfect world, I think one should be with family at the end. There are benefits of sitting with a dying person. Compassion means ‘to suffer with.’ Sometimes that suffering isn’t physical; it’s emotional. A lot of healing can happen at the end.”—Dr. Michelle Stanford, pediatrician, Centennial “If people’s existential needs and pain are addressed—things they need to talk to their doctors and family about—natural death can be a beautiful thing. It doesn’t have to be scary. In American society, we don’t talk about death and dying. It’s because we fear it. We are afraid of the anticipated pain, of having to be cared for. In other cultures, there is more family support and there is no thought of being a burden. This is a part of life, part of…

FALL FASHION 2018 TIE ONE ON Oscar de la Renta pussy-bow, gardenprint silk dress ($2,990), Neiman Marcus, Cherry Creek Shopping Center, 3030 E. First Ave., 303-329-2600, neimanmarcus.com; Ray Griffiths 18-karat yellow gold Crownwork earrings ($3,645), Metalmark, 1600 Boulder St., 720-441-4635, metal markfinejewelry.com. SWTEATER WEATHER Brunello Cucinelli paillettes-embellished, mohair and wool zipup blouson cardigan ($5,395), Neiman Marcus; Metalmark Fine Jewelry house collection 14-karat yellow gold threader earrings ($720), Metalmark. SMOOTH AS SILK Sies Marjan silk dress ($1,295) and faux shearling shrug ($1,495), both Lawrence Covell, 225 Steele St., 303-320-1023, lawrencecovell.com; Jimmy Choo Kelley bow pointy-toe leather pump ($895), Nordstrom, Cherry Creek Shopping Center, 2810 E. First Ave., 720-746-2424, shop.nordstrom.com; Ariana Boussard-Reifel shoulder duster earrings ($695) and brass cuff ($775), both Sacred Thistle, 1110 Acoma St., 720-598-6957, sacredthistle.com. ON THE CAPE Michael…

LINDSEY B. KOEHLER Deputy Editor Deputy editor Lindsey B. Koehler took an unscientific poll among her friends: How many funerals have you been to? She was unsurprised to learn that, at age 39, she’d experienced more end-of-life ceremonies than most. “Being exposed to so many memorial services at a young age was sad and a little scary,” Koehler says, “but it probably helped me fear death less. It’s just another part of life.” So Koehler was intrigued when 5280 features editor Kasey Cordell came up with the idea to collaborate on “The Art Of Dying Well” (page 96), an examination of end-of-life options and planning for death in Colorado. “I think people will be surprised this isn’t a depressing article,” Koehler says. “It’s meant to help readers prepare for death—and…

How far $45 million, the yearly amount sought by the Caring 4 Denver ballot initiative, could go in helping Denverites with mental illnesses and addiction issues. A recent report from CU researchers stating that a cat-borne parasite called Toxoplasma gondii could increase a person’s entrepreneurial spirit. Now to study infection rates in startup central: Boulder. If Denver’s marijuana tax rate rising from 3.5 to 5.5 percent this month—to help fund affordable housing—will slow consumption (we’re guessing no). The unsung beauty of southeastern Colorado, where Centennial-based Southern Plains Land Trust has preserved 25,000 acres of prairie. The group will celebrate its 20th anniversary at an October 19 gala.…

A snowstorm canceled one work weekend. A hellacious rainstorm postponed another. Legal battles over a quarter-mile of private land waged for six years. Almost two decades after it was conceived, the Dixon Trail is finally finished and providing passage to hikers looking to scale Cheyenne Mountain. Located inside Colorado Springs’ Cheyenne Mountain State Park, the difficult Dixon Trail zigzags up 2,000-plus feet over 3.25 miles to connect with the previously inaccessible, three-mile Top of the Mountain trail system, completed in 2015. Together, the paths provide a lot of new track to tread—something runners at the Cheyenne Mountain Run will discover on October 20. The four-year-old race will expand from 10 miles to a half-marathon this year, as the Dixon Trail leads runners through old-growth pine and past the remains of…

Ah, fall: a time for wandering through corn mazes, yelling yourself hoarse at Broncos games, and, hopefully, eating plenty of apple-cider doughnuts. But until seven months ago, when Denver-born Stem Ciders opened Acreage Ciderhouse & Eatery in Lafayette, you’d have been, ahem, hard-pressed to locate the cakey treats along the Front Range. “Cider doughnuts are part of the feeling of being in a cider house,” consulting chef Daniel Asher says. He wasn’t content to simply fry classic versions at Acreage’s sprawling compound, set on 12 acres that eventually will host a farm and orchard. Instead, Asher’s oh-so-Colorado recipe features Cheatin’ Wheat’s locally produced glutenfree flour blend, Stem’s own pear cider, and diced organic apples. The dough is rolled into just-larger-than-bite-size pastries, fried in Centennial State sunflower oil, tossed in crunchy…

2008 Ben Parsons (pictured) opens the Infinite Monkey Theorem (TIMT) in a Quonset hut off an alley at West Fifth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, selling 2,000 cases of bottled wine in his first year. 2009 TIMT kegs its wine. 2011 The 2010 Black Muscat is released in a can at TIMT’s inaugural Wine at the Mine party at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. 2012 TIMT moves to its current 15,000-square-foot digs on Larimer Street in RiNo. 2013 TIMT begins producing Colorado’s first true méthode champenoise sparkling wine. 2014 Parsons opens a second winery in Austin, Texas. 2017 A second Colorado taproom opens in Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace; 150,000 cases of wine—90 percent in cans—are sold in 40-plus states. 2018 Parsons signs leases in Dallas and Fort Collins; releases…

The original Zoe Ma Ma noodle restaurant, located just off Pearl Street in Boulder, has as its primary virtue a happy modesty in size and ambition: It exists to serve quick, slurp-worthy meals. Yes, there are dumplings and rice and bao buns if you don’t want noodles, but I’ve always gone there for the saucy za jiang mian with soy-simmered ground pork and the soupy noodle bowl with Sichuan braised beef. Food like Zoe Ma Ma’s is what ordinary folks ate every night at food stalls and compact shops when I lived in Southeast Asia as a kid; after we moved there, I was gobsmacked to learn that delicious food could be nothing special. Those places provided what the ordinary diner expected: slow food for fast eating. Zoe Ma Ma’s…

THE CATEGORIES The Masters TAVERNETTA $$$$ LoDo There are many ways to fall in love with Tavernetta, the year-old Denver sister restaurant to Boulder’s Frasca Food and Wine (at right). No reservation? Grab a seat in the walk-ins-only lounge; elegant cocktails and snacks at just $4 to $12 make aperitivi hour (3 to 6 p.m. daily) an especially charming time to linger there. Or, if you secured seats in the stylish dining room or opposite the lively open kitchen, you can move into soul-warming territory with chef Ian Wortham’s all’amatriciana made with al dente rigatoni or a burnished whole rotisserie chicken, which arrives with salty roasted fingerling potatoes and a fresh green salad. Either way, put your drink selections in the gifted hands of wine director Carlin Karr, for there’s…

1. Ask to see a certificate of education and research the organization that provided the doula’s training. Look for curricula that involve at least some in-person instruction. For example, the Conscious Dying Institute’s eight-day, on-site training portion includes lectures, writing exercises, demonstrations, and partner practices. It’s also split into a three-day session and a five-day session, with a 10-week internship requirement between each on-site phase. 2. Compare fees. Death doulas in Colorado charge about $25 to $125 an hour and may offer a sliding scale based on their clients’ financial means. 3. Pay attention to the doula’s listening skills. The last thing you want as you prepare to cross over is someone who hasn’t been hearing you all along.…

Despite what you might have heard, hospice is not a place where one goes to be euthanized. “That misconception is out there,” says Nate Lamkin, president of Pathways hospice in Northern Colorado. “We don’t want to perpetuate the thought that we’re in the business of putting people down. That’s not what we do.” That long-standing myth of hospice care is, in part, why many Colorado hospices have declined—potentially in violation of state law—to fully participate in the End-of-Life Options Act. By and large, the mission of hospice—which is not necessarily a place, but a palliative approach to managing life-limiting illness—has always been to relieve patient suffering and to enhance quality of life without hastening or postponing death, Lamkin explains. “This law kind of goes in opposition to that ethos,” he…

Lynda Teller Pete spent two years creating a small tapestry for the 2011 Santa Fe Indian Market: The fifth-generation Navajo weaver painstakingly laced 115 stitches through every inch of the 27-by-18-inch piece. After Pete won the top prize in the textiles category at the prestigious art festival, the design got a bit of publicity, and a couple of collectors bought it for $11,500. Soon after, though, the Denver artist opened an El Paso Saddleblanket Co. catalog and discovered the downside to fame: The Texas-based business was selling a rug very similar to Pete’s work for $15. It wasn’t the exact same pattern—but it was close. After being contacted for this story, Dusty Henson, El Paso Saddleblanket Co.’s founder, wrote in an email to 5280 that the rug is a variation…

Maria Garcia Berry left her birthplace, Cuba, under stressful circumstances. It was 1962, and as one of 14,000 unaccompanied children sent to the United States under Operation Pedro Pan, the eight-year-old made the trek without her parents. During a pre-flight contraband search, the Cuban military police tore the heads off all her dolls—save one. The survivor, Milagro, accompanied Garcia Berry to Miami and, when her parents rejoined her four months later, to Denver, where the family settled. Now, 56 years later, Milagro will help Garcia Berry share the island’s culture during ¡Cuba!: The Exhibition, opening at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on October 26. Curated by the American Museum of Natural History, the traveling exhibit includes a replica of the country’s limestone caves and invites visitors to play…

“I was an English education major at Ohio University, and I had to take a class about young adult fiction. We read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s the story of a boy struggling with his freshman year of high school and how the friends he meets accept him to the point that he can finally accept himself. Later, I was teaching high school English, and the kids didn’t care. I said, ‘Forget it, I’m teaching Perks.’ There were so many kids who wouldn’t miss my class because of that book. I still have former students reach out to me about it. When I have writer’s block, I’ll read a couple pages of it and remind myself about the power of teenage stories.”…

Austinites love breakfast tacos, New Yorkers scarf down egg sandwiches, and Angelenos opt for avocado toast. Here in the Mile High City, however, the consummate morning meal is the humble breakfast burrito. And while countless Colorado eateries sling the beloved green-chile-and-egg-filled torpedoes, Santiago’s compact beauties are certainly the most ubiquitous. Since opening the original Brighton location in 1991, founder and operator Carmen Morales has grown the Santiago’s queendom to include 28 Centennial State outposts that collectively craft more than 700,000 gallons of the fast-casual eatery’s signature green chile every year. Even more impressive: Santiago’s has raised more than a million dollars for local charities, a remarkable feat for a restaurant where checks average less than $8. We sat down with Morales and one of her three daughters, Rachel Wells—owner of…

This is a story about death. About how we in the United States—and maybe to a slightly lesser degree, here in Colorado and the West—tend to separate ourselves, emotionally and physically, from both the ugliness and the beauty of our inevitable ends. We don’t like to think about dying. We don’t like to deal with dying. And we certainly don’t like to talk about dying. Maybe that’s because acknowledging that human bodies are ephemeral short-circuits American brains groomed to (illogically) hope for a different outcome. Perhaps it’s also because the moment death becomes part of the public discourse, as it has in the Centennial State over the past several years, things can get uncomfortably personal and wildly contentious. When Coloradans (with an assist from Compassion & Choices, a national nonprofit…

It was June in Arizona, and it was hot inside my dad’s kitchen. The whole place smelled musty, the way old cabins do, and I watched as a swath of sunlight coming through the window illuminated lazy plumes of dust. My thoughts felt as clouded and untethered as the drifting specks. I had flown in from Denver the day before and driven more than 100 miles from Phoenix to collect some of my father’s things and bring them to the hospital, where he lay in a medically induced coma. It had all happened so fast. I’d received a midnight call from a neurosurgeon in Phoenix—the same one who had done a fairly routine surgery to mend a break in my dad’s cervical spine a few weeks earlier. Somehow, the physician…

Although Oregon’s Compassion & Choices is best known here as the organization that helped push Proposition 106 onto Colorado’s November 2016 ballot, the nation’s oldest end-of-life-options nonprofit didn’t abandon the Centennial State after the initiative passed. “First, we help states enact the laws,” says Compassion & Choices’ Kat West, “then we stick around to help with implementation and make sure it’s successful.” In Colorado, the rollout has been fairly fluid. Perfect? Certainly not. Fortunately, Compassion & Choices has been trying to smooth some of the wrinkles in the system. The biggest help so far might be its website. The nonprofit keeps its online content updated with everything a Coloradan needs to know about the state’s End-of-Life Options Act. Of particular note: the Find Care tool, which lists clinics and health…

$3,000 to $5,000 Cost for a lethal dose of Seconal (secobarbital), one of the drugs doctors can prescribe. The price for the same amount of medication was less than $200 in 2009; the drugmaker has increased the cost dramatically since then. Many insurance companies will not cover the life-ending medication. 4 Drugs that pharmacists compound to make a lower-priced alternative to Seconal. The mixture of diazepam, morphine, digoxin, and propranolol, which is reportedly just as effective as Seconal, costs closer to $500 (pre-dose medications included). 5 Ounces of solution (drugs in powder form that are dissolved in a liquid) a medical-aid-in-dying patient must ingest within about five to 10 minutes. 2 Pre-dose medications—haloperidol to calm nerves and decrease nausea and metoclopramide to act as an anti-vomiting agent—patients usually take about…

BURIAL Typical cost: From about $5,000 for a casket and full funeral service, plus about $5,000 for cemetery fees (plot, headstone, etc.) What you need to know: In Colorado, a funeral home cannot move forward with a burial (or cremation or transportation across state lines) until a death certificate is on file with the county and state, which normally takes a few days. The funeral home will need information like social security numbers and the deceased’s mother’s maiden name to begin the process. Further, state law requires that if a body is not going to be buried or cremated within 24 hours, it must be either embalmed (using chemicals as a preservative) or refrigerated, so make sure your loved ones know what you prefer. Your family can opt to have…

Colorado horror fans were robbed of an important shrine when the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining was shot in Oregon and Alaska. The rightful location? The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, which inspired the creepy Overlook Hotel. Other spooky movies filmed in our state may not be as scary as Stanley Kubrick’s classic—unless we’re talking about the quality of the acting—but at least you can visit the sets of these delightfully campy flicks. ELVES 1989 With the help of an ex-cop turned department-store Santa played by Grizzly Adams (aka actor Dan Haggerty), Kirsten learns the two-foot-tall elf who has been stalking her was genetically modified by a Nazi scientist—who, by the way, happens to be her granddad. The creature’s goal? Mate with Kirsten to create a master race.…