It was this or a puppy card. You’re welcome.

Ciao Bella!

We got invited to a wedding in … Italy! OMG, the locations and caliber of open bar really do get better with age. So, I’m working on increasing my Italiano. Grazi DuoLingo. I can already tell you that Gli Uomino mangia l’cannoli (the men eat cannoli); no place to go but up from there.

I booked the hotel – direct link from the wedding sit e- so if our villa is full of overseas nudists, that is not on me. There were two options: $300 and $3,000 a nite. We opted for the former. Let’s hope pervs opt for the latter as the opportunity for unwanted illicit mayhem overseas seems exponentially higher when we don’t know what our table mates are saying.

Pete is in charge of transpo. He is not cheap at all, but it’s an airline industry thing that those guys hate loathe icky bad all out despite paying for airline tickets. But Southwest will only get as close as the United States eastern seaboard, and that’s a loooooong swim. I can’t sit jump seat and using a buddy pass for an occasion like this is poor form when you’ve got firm dates and the amazing royal blue this season Nicole Miller formal jersey dress just purchased for this blessed event. Positive space tickets mean more dinero but also mean we get aisle/window seats sans risk of some middle seat dude with bad breath and B.O. First world problems. But if I’m gonna stink when we deplane (and we all feel a little ripe after that many hours in even a well appointed fuselage) then it will at least be from sweltering in my own glandular ilk.

The latest from upscale Mayberry.

School is back in session. We are only three days in and my kids are already asking how long until spring break. No Buono. Sydney says there is police presence every day at dismissal. Ironicalloy, thge officer drives the K-9 unit police SUV, wears the uniform shirt with the k-9 emblems but the actual K-9 died last year. Fido died just after the county budget was passed, which allots a little extra pay to the department and officer with K-9 duty, so – much like the dogwalker on the town square in Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil – o9ur local officer continues to dutifully comply with his extra duties driving the K-9 truck . I am fine with the seeming existence of a big ominous police dog (which seems even scarier if you think it’s there but can’t see it) to keep folks in check. Especially in the gunfire crazy days we are sending our kids to school in: if you’ve read A Mother’s Reckoning by the Columbine shooter mom, you’d be terrified. They were college shopping earlier that same year. WTF? So, yes, keep the police dog budget in place for as long as we can. Any deterrent – even if it’s baseline fear factor – welcome.

Pete is in Vegas preparing for an overnight hiking trip. About a year ago, he and a handful of others got permits to hike Mt. Whitney. This requires two nights of camping within the park system. Some of his fellow hikers have been women. I’ve been asked if I’m nervous or jealous of my BF going someplace out of cell service with single women as part of the group. There are other guys there, too.

My response? Ha! No. Oh, hell no!

First, I trust him. Completely. And as much as I appreciate the “it’s not that we don’t trust you, we don’t trust everyone else” parental credo oft iterated through my childhood, none of the women are sketch or given me reason to think they will do anything untoward.

Second, EVERYTHING you bring into the hike area must be brought out of the hike area. Since most folks can’t go three days without dropping deuce, and you are specifically HUGELY fined forbidden from just burying or tossing your shit in a steam or lake, you literally have to CARRY YOUR SHIT IN YOUR BACKPACK. I don’t like picking up Hugo’s poop and that only requires transport from the yard to the garbage bins. Knowing that my awesome significant other is hiking around a mountain with chics sporting their own poo bags (wonder if they come in the little clip on containers like Hugo’s dog leash has?) poses no threat to hygenically predisposed well=-Purelled me. If I ever undertake a mountain climbing feat, it will first require a severely thorough GI cleanse and bowl binding bananas regimen until I am back in the land of indoor plumbing.

The waste removal bags are sold in packs of 12 on REI.com as the “Go Anywhere Toilet Kit”. They come with biodegradable TP and moist wipes. I’m not sure if the wipes are for your hands or your other parts? Surely not both?

Even if the Go Anywhere bags are scented, we all know what their contents smell like, and it’s not anywhere close to as good as the cleanshaven Soft Soap and Armani perfume that I’m wearing. I see it an analogous to a solider returning home from war. The soldier does NOT want to see his girlfriend wearing camos and combat boots. He does want her to be wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie and to smell good. I don’t even own combat boots, so we are good on the girl front. Especially since, unlike wartime, Pete can traipse back down the mountain to me anytime he wants and is, thus not relegated to poo bag bearing only alternatives.

Gotta run. Kids get back soon and Hugo needs a boost back inside. At thirteen plus, he’s more lump than dog. He has this giant mass that sways between his hind quarter abdomen area. Since I’ve never heard of a labrador growing udders (which this closely resemble), we affectionately cal it his wiener goiter. His dink is somehow affixed to the side of this mass and still full functioning. How he whizzes in a straight stream defies physics, but he seems fine with it and is doing measurably better than our unfunded Mayberry police dog.

Hope you are feeling light years better. We will reschedule hangtime soon when the worst of the chemo beast is behind ya’. No worries about the last minute cancel; will make our next reunion ten times funner!

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy