4 Happies, A Congratulations and A Thank You

Happy Friday.

When one doesn’t blog for a while a few things are missed. This however doesn’t make them any less worthy of mentioning. As Emily Post, and my mother say…it’s never too late to send a thank you note (I am extending this to any type of correspondence that might require a Hallmark purchace). So….

Last week David saw the end of another year or, in more optimistic phraseology, the beginning of a new one. We celebrated in proper Maberga style by eating one of our neighbors. Many thanks to the fine goat who bravely gave his life (I’m grateful to say he didn’t have a name…or at least I never knew it) so David could marinate him, stew him for a week and we could eat him in honor of David’s life. Happy Birthday, David honey

Today, nephew Max is celebrating 17 years on this planet. Max dude, have a fun and safe day. Only one more year until you can … vote and go to war. Enjoy.

Today also marks 40-some years of wedded bliss for mom and dad. Actually I know that it’s 44 years that they’ve been together but I’m guessing not all 44 were actually “wedded bliss” (for example we can subtract right off the top those 4 years Laurie was in high school, I know they were hell for all of us). Hope you have a blissful weekend.

Last week pals Mette and Teddy acquired a new project. Congratulations, Guys! I know you will put your tasteful touch on the place and make it beautiful.

And last but not least…many thanks to Mary and EarleinDenver for these…

Everyone needs these kinds of dinner guests.













Wait…I don’t mean to imply that David and I invited chips and halapenos to dinner. Those treasures were the gifts that were brought to us by new Hungarian/German pals Claus and Andrea. Sorry, I don’t have any photos of them…let’s just say that I wasn’t thinking clearly after seeing their industrial-sized thoughtfulness packaged in crunchy delight. The chips are for me, the peppers are Dave’s. (that little jar of “cheese food product” to go with the chips and halapenos was an after thought – Claus just pulled that out of his glove compartment ….)

Given that we’ve only met these folks on two other occasions, how would it be that they would feel comfortable bringing nachos to their dinner hosts instead of, say, um, I don’t know…a bottle of wine or some flowers?

Flashback to the first dinner we had with these folks….We are sitting on the balcony of another ex-patriot friend, Marina, enjoying a delicious meal, a little wine, and some “getting to know the new people” small talk. Claus and Andrea have just purchased a house in the valley. Marina is kind of a one-gal, unofficial, welcome committee for newbie foreigners. She graciously invites fun and curious mixes of people together so everyone can meet everyone else – at least once.

So anyway, at this dinner we were having the usual new foreigners get to know you conversation…”why did you decide to move to Italy?” “How did you find this valley?” “how did you find your house?” “does it need a lot of work?” “are you here full-time or a vacationer?”

All these questions were going back and forth when Claus said, “so what do you miss most about life in the US?” David said, rather quickly, “Mexican food.”

This got a huge round of laughter from the entire table of Europeans who thought it hysterical that he would miss something that was from ANOTHER country.

I said that I miss snack chips. “I really miss good chips.”

At this point, Claus says, “well, as it happens, I sell nachos to movie theaters!”

There you have it, Mexican Chips. It’s good to know the right people - people who are willing to cart a case of chips and 5.6 kg of movie theater nacho chilies from Hungary to Italy just to make some folks they met twice feel more at “home”.

We just might invite these folks to dinner again when it's time to harvest the garden chilies grown from seeds from Mary and EarleinDenver.

It's a funny world.

Holy Mattress Hole!

Did you ever wonder what was inside your mattress?

Yeah, me neither. Thanks anyway, Q.













Seems that DestructoDog has recovered nicely from her operation.

So Q had her little operation yesterday. She is now an official member of the “I ain’t never having babies” club. It wasn’t really her choice to join this club, but I think she’ll thank me some day. Well, I don’t care if she thanks me or not…I’m the owner.

When we went to pick her up our sandal-sportin’, Sonny Bono-look alike vet greeted us at the door. He was ready to get rid of Q. She was a great patient, apparently, but was not so fond of being alone on the tiny cage they put her in to convalesce. She cried for 4 hours. It wasn’t that she missed us or needed us or anything like that, when he let her out she gave us a quick nod and then started scoping out the place. She’s no cry baby, I guess she just thought she could wear them down (like she’s able to do to us every night at about 3 when she wants to have a run around the mountain).

Anyway, hippy-vet told us that everything went fine and that she will be good as new immediately.

Lynn: “any restrictions on her movement? She likes to run.”

Vet: “no problem! She can do anything!”

David: “Should we watch her diet?”

Vet: “no, no problem! She can eat whatever she wants. Really, she will be just like normal immediately. Just one thing, she can’t lick the stitches. They will come out.”

We must have looked a little frightened.

Vet: “Don’t worry! There are stitches INside, too. It’s not like her innards will just tumble out on the floor.”

Lynn, “No, it’s just that we have another dog too who is….”

Vet: “no problem! I’m sure he will leave her alone! ”

Yeah right.













On a completely unrelated note...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EM!!!! We all wish you were here to have a celebration dinner - Ruff has even learned the happy birthday dance for you! love ya.

Emergency

Oh, did I mention that we were in the hospital last Sunday? Hmmm…no, I don’t think I did.

David has a little cold, mostly it’s just a little cough. No, we are not being Italian wusses and running to the emergency room with every sniffle. Apparently Italians do this. It’s not an observation of ours, the doctors told us when David was at the emergency room a couple years ago because his head got in the way of the chainsaw cutting some branches. Did I tell you about the chainsaw meets head encounter? Hmmm…I don’t think I did.

Ok, one emergency at a time.

On Saturday, after two weeks of a cough that, from my point of view directly across from the cougher made me think that perhaps I will be the first woman in history to watch her husband’s head actually explode from natural causes (no gun powder assistance), David passed out from one of his coughing spells. He was having a little lie in when he started coughing. He sat up to ride out the fit when, boom, he just toppled over. Luckily there was a wooden footstool next to the bed to break the fall of his head (sarcasm). He ended up with a nice bruise on the right temple and cheek. Sunday morning…repeat performance. “Now are you ready to go see a doctor.”

Being the thorough group that they are at San Remo General…they kept him 3 hours to monitor him. They weren’t so concerned about his cough = passing out. Apparently that’s normal (whatever. I’ve never known anyone to cough so hard that they pass out). They were, however concerned about his head after the bump he took when passing out on Saturday. Hmmm….perhaps I shouldn’t have let him sleep so peacefully through the night?

So they monitored him by keeping him sitting on a bench outside the emergency room rooms, reading his magazine. They also checked his brain, his heart and some other stuff but mostly they just left him sitting there on the bench. Well, they’re the doctors, they know what their doing. They let him go with a prescription for antibiotics.

Skip ahead a week… David has 1. a horrendous cough, 2. a left eye in which the white has completely turned blood red making him look like something out of a B horror movie 3. two black eyes (we’re not sure how this happened), and 4. a couple antibiotic tablets left.

This is making the chainsaw thing seem rather tame.