This Pic Makes Sookie and Rory Tear Up

While we have a lovely Rainier cherry tree in our Seattle backyard, Sookie and Rory still dream of the days when they spent hours eating persimmon parts under the tree in their yard at Cielo Chiaro:

*Note: We were on pre-tirement, and now we’re back. Want the full story? Start the pre-tirement journey here. Want to go backwards? Read the last pre-tired post here and scroll back. Or, just keep coming back for pretty Italy pictures.

Dogs in Sunny Italian Springtime

The sun has been insistently splendid so far in our April Italian springtime, with temperatures ticking above the norm (so we’ve been told), and afternoons begging to be spent lazily. Which is okay with us, that’s for sure—we love sitting outside reading while the sun shines (and if we have a cold bierra or vino bianco, all the better). The dogs have been reveling in the weather as well, with Rory enjoying his favorite Italian pastime-of-the-moment: lizard hunting. The little Italian lizards are everywhere when the sun is heating things up, but especially on the rock walls:

Sookie would much rather sit in the sun and be petted, but every once in a while Rory gets just crazy enough that it catches her eye and ear and she checks out the hunting action:

before pouncing. Of course, with the sun comes pretty high temperatures, so a black dog like Sookie gets pretty heated with just a little lizard chasing. Sometimes, she gets so hot that she can’t even sit and be petted, instead heading for shade and greenery:

Eventually, though, the shadows start to overwhelm the yard and we have to head back inside. Of course, when trying to get Rory to leave his lizard-hunting, this is the look we get:

Ah, kids are the same no matter what species. They always want to have five more minutes of playtime.

Dogs in Springtime

It’s still a mix of days here in the Niccone Valley (the most beautiful valley in the world, some say), with some sunshine, some days where the rain beats the earth as if it were angry, some with wind whipping around the olive trees, and some with only a handful of big clouds hinting at blustery evenings. The sun is starting to win out more often than not, though, which leads to the dogs spending more time outside, sometimes running wild, and sometimes just smelling the newly blooming flowers on the breeze (as well as the deer droppings on the breeze):

Of course, all these smells also lead to a hunting mentality, because who knows what critter might be sunning itself, just outside of the world’s flimsiest fence:

All that spring can make a dog tired though. Luckily, recently Sookie had an awfully friendly pillow to sleep on—Jon Sholly’s lap. Sadly, the changing of the seasons also means that visiting friends have to hit the road, back to homes and stateside habitats, which means Sookie can’t have such a comfy spot all the time:

Sookie and Rory and Their New Toys

Different dogs, like different people, enjoy different toys (even in Italy), and enjoy their toys in a different ways. That’s a lot of difference for two dogs who spend a good amount of time smelling each other’s butts. But hey, difference makes the world spin even for dogs. Just look, for evidence. Here’s Sookie with her new Ratt-Ratt, cuddling up after just a little chewing and chawing:

On the other side, here’s Rory, with his new toy (after not being as interested in his own Ratt-Ratt):

Looks almost vicious, doesn’t he? Only to plastic bottles though.

Sleepy Italian Dogs

Some evenings even the elusive black squirrels of Niccone can’t nudge the dogs off the couch. Whether it’s Rory trying to break out-under-through the world’s flimsiest fence to chase the yappy neighbor dogs, or Sookie scouting out how to slip through the front gate to skip across into the olive grove across the street to chase deer (eleven were there the other morning), some days just wear puppies out:

Maybe it’s not just puppies that get worn out though:

Hey, pre-tirement isn’t always go-go-go.

Teaching Rory to Play Yahtzee

The Italian pre-tirement isn’t solely pizzas, pastas, and artistic and natural wonders. There’s also plenty of time to play Nightmare Before Christmas Yahtzee (ya-ya-yatzee!), which was sent over the sea as a holiday present from my awesome nephews (and sister and brother-in-law). The only bad part was that Nat won the first game and that Rory got a smidge overly excited by me shaking dice in the pumpkin king’s head:

He got used to it after a while (and I won the second game--thankfully on both counts). Sookie? She was nonplused about the whole ordeal, kicking it Sookie style (which is a bit diva, between us--but if you're a star like Sookie, you can be a bit of a diva. Look at Beyonce) on the couch:

Puppies and Persimmons

Some people (I’ve heard) like persimmons. I think they’re icky. Which is a shame, cause there is a persimmon tree in our Italian backyard. In the dog part of the backyard, to be specific (the dog yard, I suppose. The dog domain. Where they run around, chase mice, do their business, wrestle, bark a bit, smell cats, and gnaw on each other. But not the part of the yard where they eat deer droppings. That part we walk by in the mornings. It’s their breakfast buffet, normally). While the persimmon tree doesn’t do anything for me, lately, the dogs are always near it when they’re outside. Even when the persimmons don’t look even close to appetizing in my opinion (it was a little gloomy when I took this pic, but even so, it’s late-ish winter and the persimmons left aren’t looking near to snazzy):

The dogs, see, have developed a persimmon addiction. They love these old persimmons, and usually head straight for the tree when we go into the yard to see which of the twenty or so persimmons left have fallen off since their last visit to the tree:

They’re pretty focused once under the tree with their dish-divine-of-the-moment, with Sookie even licking the persimmon juice and muck from leaves (oh, as an aside, the branches on the ground are mostly from the olive garden . . . wait, I mean the olive orchard, as the branches are pruned olive branches that we drug into the dog yard to help cut down on muddy paws):

And Rory’s developing a strategy for moving rocks around to better find the persimmon remnants (which is a huge step above his developing a strategy for tunneling under the fence to try and get to the little yappy dogs next door, a practice which was his favorite occupation before persimmon-dropping season):

The one downside to all the persimmons? What our German neighbor Doris calls (when she watches the dogs): ka ka. It’s not that the persimmons are bothering them internally (if you know what I mean), but they are, um, going to the bathroom more. And that’s probably enough said (except to add that we do get lots of plastic bags at the markets. So, the bags are being put to good use). The tree doesn’t have a lot of persimmons left, however, and the birds are also pretty excited about their winter fruit experience, so soon I think the dogs soon can again devote more time to what’s important: Doggie Wrestlemania 2011!

Sookie and Rory, Sookie and Rory: Italian Dogs

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the many hilltowns perched like living history atop the rolling green hills here, and to dwell too much on the difference between creams, and the menu selections on ristorantes in this village and that town, forgetting about the really important things here in Italy, which are the same (funny enough) as the really important things anywhere: dogs Sookie and Rory. With that in mind, here are some pics of the finest dogs in Italy and how they spend their time. As you can tell from the paw on the screen, Sookie forced me to write this (nah, I’m kidding. But what a cute paw). First, Sookie gets up (after much prodding) and looks out over the valley from the balcony:

Then (when it’s sunny, at least), they go outside and Rory does a check of the grounds for intruders (lizards, mice, old Italian men driving those three-wheeled trucks that max out at 15 mph):

Then, it’s off to the wrestling matches. The dogs would be happy to wrestle and run throughout the day (or, until they get tired, or, until Sookie decides she needs to sun herself and Rory decides he needs to eat persimmons):

Then Rory watches for the neighbor dogs:

and sometimes Sookie also does lookout duty (or, shows that she’s the queen above all things):

Eventually, even doggies get tired, and so we come in to watch the fire burn and read stories aloud about Lassie or Rex the Wonder Dog while sitting on the couch:

At some point, even the most energetic pooch wears down, and then it’s time for the end of the day, and a short nap until it starts over again:

Sookie Goes to the Veterinario (Or, Trying to Say “Anal Gland” in Italian)

We’d been meaning to take the dogs into the vet in Umbertide since we arrived, so that they could get dog passports, which allow them to travel over continental Europe without having to carry reams of paperwork (most of which was talked about way back in a post on bringing dogs to Europe). However, the dolce vita lifestyle seemed to get into the way until recently when Sookie ended up demanding to go to the vet (well, she didn’t demand it, but he body did). Something about the move, or the increase in her cheese intake, or new foliage in the dog yard, caused her to have a flare up in a very delicate spot—her bottom. I won’t take a picture, but we could tell by looking at it that it was bothering her, so we decided to take her in to the vet. First, we tried to ask our super handy and friendly German neighbor Doris (who speaks German, natch, and Italian, and English, and who has two dogs and a horse) how to say “anal gland” in Italian, thinking (as Sookie had an infected anal gland in the past—I just realized that I’ll probably get some very odd traffic to this blog now that I’ve said “anal gland” so many times. Yikes) that we should know the right words going in. After some very odd looks from Doris, though, we stopped, asked if she knew the vet’s hours, and headed out with Sook in tow.
The veterinario is just outside of Umbertide, under a very small and thin tunnel under the train tracks, and located in a sparse, vaguely industrial area/sketchy part of town. At first we were confused—it’s just a house:

but then we saw the sign for a vet named Rebecca and the hours (the sign was falling off a bit, but looked clean):

Once inside, there’s a little waiting area, so small that we left Sookie in the car cause she doesn’t like to be crowded in with cats and such (or, she likes it too much). There’s no check-in desk or receptionist or anything, just some doors off the small waiting room. We didn’t know what to do, exactly, so we peeked in one of the doors and there was a lady (turns out it was Rebecca the wet—we met the other vet, Rudolfo, or Rudy, later) in a white lab coat looking at a cat. We didn’t want to interrupt, so we sat back down and then when the cat (and the cat owner) left, we walked in. At first, we tried to explain (Rebecca the vet has okay English) that we had a dog with an anal gland problem. But she just looked at us weirdly, and so we got smart and just brought Sookie on in to the office. Once we brought Sookie in we could use the international language of pointing to show Rebecca the vet the problem. We had to pick Sookie up and put her on a big metal table, and Sookie had to get a not-very-happy checkup (which I won’t describe, cause you can probably imagine it), and does indeed have an infection, which meant we also took our first trip to the Farmacia to get antibiotics (the pharmacists here dole out doggy drugs, too, as well as acting more like doctors). We did finally (we took Rory and Sookie back together a week or so later) get doggy passports, so if we want to take the dogs to France we can:

though right now they’re pretty happy just running around Italy:

The Journey Is Half the Fun*

So, we’ve made it to Italy, and Cielo Chiaro. We actually made it a couple days ago, but have been settling in, as well as tracking down the cafes (or bars--in Italy, much the same, if not completely the same) that have Wi Fi and don’t mind us taking advantage of it. But, naturally, to make it to Italy we had to travel here by van, airplane, and car, as for some reason traveling by instantaneous matter transformation or some such hasn’t been invented yet. Scientists, get to work already.

First, we woke up at 6:30 am. Then, after packing things up (luggage, dog crates), we took the somewhat short van drive to the SeaTac, facilitated by my helpful sister Holly, who rented the van for us, then drove with us and took the van back after dropping the dogs and then us off (we hope she took it back. Though, for all we know, she may have taken the van to Mexico to look for really good Margaritas. Our cell phone access hasn’t been fantastic yet). Here’s Sookie in the van, with no idea what’s in store for her:

Our number one stop was we to drop the dogs off at Lufthansa cargo, and meet our handler Lee. He was a bit country, but had his papers in order, which was good. We were too stressed by this time to take his picture, sadly. While we waited, the dogs got to walk around the lovely Lufthansa parking lot about five times (which had as many cigarette butts as a Judas Priest concert. I suppose cargo handlers smoke a lot to pass the time between manic pet owners showing up). After the walking, the paper checking, and hotdog persuading (for the dogs) we got them in the crates, and then had to leave them, which was incredibly sad--Sookie was crying, and Rory was just shaking in his crate looking as melancholy as only a dog can look, droopy-eyed and droopy-jowled. And they still didn’t know they had to spend about 11 more hours in the crates. Poor puppies. Then we loaded ourselves in at the regular gate, walked around the airport worrying about the dogs, and finally boarded.

We flew Lufthansa, as you’d expect since the dogs flew Lufthansa cargo. In general, European airlines are quite a bit more comfortable than their American counterparts (not to be anti-American or anything), with amenities a-poppin’, and a full line up of movies and TV (I watched Karate Kid, Prince of Persia, Monk, 30 Rock, and Glee), decent to nearly good food (which is a ton more filling than no food I must say), and nice seats. Lufthansa, sadly, isn’t quite as comfy as British Air (my other international airline of choice), and they don’t provide you with little toothbrushes, or eye masks. But, they did give us wine with dinner, and--even better--brandy after dinner. As I was chewing my nails about the dogs the whole flight, the brandy came in handy:

Then we got to Germany. Me, I’m three-quarters German, so don’t take any of my German ranting the wrong way. I love me some Germans, and have been amazed at the efficiency of the Frankfort airport before. This time, not so much. Once we took the like twenty minute bus ride from our plane to the terminal, it seemed no-one could tell us where to find the dogs. We picked up our luggage without a hitch (all 10,000 pounds of it), but when asking where to find the dogs, it became maddening. The Lufthansa cargo people must have a grudge with the Lufthansa airline folks (due to a company soccer match or a beer drinking competition gone wrong), cause the airlines folks didn’t have a number for cargo, or any real idea how to get there, or any desire to help us get there—and I looked crazy enough you’d have thought they would want to get rid of me quickly. Finally, we received a vague “go to Tor 25” pronouncement in a hushed whisper from one guy dressed as a janitor but wearing a Rolex. We also had to get our car, though, before the car people split, so we had to split. Nat took a cab (with a cabbie who milked her for most of our existing Euros) to Tor 25, and I took a shuttle to get the car at the Holiday Inn Express. We said our goodbyes, knowing we’d never see other again. In this life, at least.

However, the Peugeot lease gentleman at the Holiday Inn Express (in a basement room—I thought I was getting kidnapped when walking down the hall), calmed me with the cool German-ness I’d expected from the beginning, put me in our rental car, and gave me a super easy to follow map back to the airport. Whew. Of course, when I drove up to Tor 25 (anyone who can navigate the Franfurt airport without sleeping for as many hours as me deserves a medal. Or a drink.) they looked at me as if I was a terrorist. And when I exasperatedly said “dogs” to one of the gunmen (or the gate guard—it’s all a bit hazy), they waved me off, mumbling “Tor 26, Tor 26.” During all this, by the way, all I could think of was the short-lived DC 70s adventure/barbarian/long-haired-guy-in-animal-skin-underpants comic Tor (mentioning this for pals Philip and Markie B, who may be the only ones geeky enough to get the reference).

When I get to Tor 26, the fun really starts. Nat’s pacing outside, insane-like, thinking she’d never see me again. Once I assure her I’m not a ghost, she starts to tell me about German bureaucracy and how it relates to dogs. I always thought the American government had a death-grip as the red tape champion, but wow, the Germans make us look like pikers when it comes to paperwork. At Tor 26, we had to go back and forth between two offices on the same floor at least 10 times, waiting in line each time, paying Euros each time, getting stamps each time, cursing each time under our breath, trying to reason without screaming with obviously underpaid and pissy folks each time, and never once seeing the dogs. This went on for at least 40 minutes after I’d gotten there (longer for Nat before I showed), and then they sent us to another building about 10 minutes away, with an electronic badge to get through the revolving gates. Just one badge though, so only Nat could go while I waited by the gates as the most un-smiling people in the world walked through this way and that, glaring at me (again—as if I was a terrorist. Which maybe I looked like by then?). After she got back through the gates (about 20 minutes—where she had to plead for our “fighting” dogs with a woman who probably owned a pack of killer German Shepherds) we had to go back to the hellish Tor 26, wait in line at the one of the offices again, then go to (honestly) a third office to get more stamps, and where, after being asked if they bite, Nat had to put on a full body suit (no joke), and then finally . . . got to get the dogs.

The pups had been let out of their crates into a horse stable, so they got to stretch and drink a sip or two of water, but dang, they were happy to see us. And by “us” I mean the sun, the sky, the scraggly tufts of grass in the parking lot, the lamb lung we smuggled in our carry-ons, and then Nat and I. In that order. After that, it was just a matter of playing a game of Tetris with the car, trying to fit luggage, crates, and us in while three creepy Germans just stared at us from three cars away. Thanks for the help, Germans. But we were on the road by 1 (our flight was in at 9:15, by the way. A mere three hours and forty-five minutes to get the dogs. And yet some people use the phrase “German efficiency” without laughing). Then we had a short stop to get gas, and to get some sandwiches that didn’t look great but tasted divine:

After that, it was a rapid seven hour drive to Milan through the German countryside, the Swiss mountains, and the Italian motorways. Things I learned along the way: Germany has a lot of road construction, and a lot of rest stops. Many of the rest stops don’t even have restrooms, but do have a lot of tree-y areas for dogs to run around in:

The regularity of these rest stops makes me think Germany also has a lot of gentlemen on the down low (if you know what I mean). Cause the one we stopped at was assignation central—truckers, look for kilometer 146. Other things I learned: the Swiss don’t want to see your passport, dog papers, or anything when you come into Switzerland, but do want you to buy a 40 Euro toll pass. The final thing I learned was that the waiter (I wish I would have gotten his name) at the Holiday Inn Milan-Assago (the finest dog-friendly hotel on the highway) restaurant is a champ. They have a buffet thingy going there, and he was shutting it down by the time I showed up salivating, but he still let me load up, didn’t look askance when I said I was a vegetarian, and let me take everything back up to our room so we could chill with the dogs. So, our first meal in Italy:

The next day, we cruised through Italy, and made it without a hitch (though with a wrong turn or two). And now here we are:

*Whoever said this first obviously never left their house.