Kind of sounds like an Anthony Bourdain show, doesn't it?
Today was the longest day ever, and although it started out rough, it ended on a high note.
Let me explain.
This morning I woke up, bleary-eyed at 8 am after staying up until 2:30 organizing things for the party, got on my running shoes, because I somehow think I can get in shape before my party this Saturday, despite downing spritz after spritz on a daily basis, and opened the door to see a dejected Hans with his head in his hands.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Bruno's dead" came the response.
Bruno is a little black pygmy goat, and the companion to Olga, who is a little brown pygmy goat.
"Oh shit" I said. Now I'm assuming Hans' dog "Spank," a dog of dubious origins who was kidnapped by my friend Emilia and deposited at Hans' house a couple of years ago (but that's a story for another day). was the culprit, as he has been known to be a sort of killer. I think the count is 3 rabbits, 2 cats, 1 hedgehog and multiple mice. He's quite proud. And so, I figured that Bruno had succombed to Death by Labrador.
"How?" I asked.
"Drowned," said Hans.
What the actual....drowned??? How the heck does a goat drown? But he did. He apparently slipped and fell into the pond in the night and couldn't get out. So poor Bruno was no more.
Now even writing this, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I mean, I have to admit, it sounds pretty damn funny--dead goat who drowned in the night. But Hans is an animal LOVER, and this was his 9 year old daughter's pet, and so, it was decidedly NOT funny, but fairly tragic, and the day was quickly derailed as we dealt with burials and funerals and tears and whatnot.
Luckily, I had an escape route. Not that I wanted to fink out of the goat drama, but I mean, yes, I did. So I was glad to have the excuse of going to Sophie's dance performance tonight out by Asti, an hour or so from home.
I had to pick up my sister in law, Vanessa, and her boyfriend Marco 2 (as not to be confused with her brother, Marco 1) in Torino, drive out to the Monferrato region, meet up with Marco and his girlfriend and his parents, check into a hotel, go get Niccolo and his girlfriend and Sophie's roommate from the train station, meet my friend Emilia and her daughter Elena, and get to Orsolina to watch the show. Cool. We had all afternoon, it was sunny and hot, and our hotel had a pool. Vanessa and I had big plans for spritzes poolside.
So I gave Hans one last sympathetic goat hug, hopped in my car and made for Torino.
And all was well. I picked up Vanessa and Marco, and we happily chatted and gossiped all the way to Cossombrato, where our hotel was, excited to go to the pool and relax a bit. And when we got there an hour latere, it was a beautiful place, with wedding preparations going on, and a beautiful pool in their garden.
We went up to the receptionist and gave her our name. "It's a large party with 5 rooms," I said. "Last name is Cucco."
The receptionist's face went white.
"But that reservation was canceled!" she said.
"Cancelled?" I said, rather loudly. I looked at Vanessa, she looked at me, picked up her phone, and called Marco's girlfriend, Roberta.
Soon we had all levels of drama. Desperate receptionist and her manager flipping through reservation books, Vanessa yelling at Roberta, who was yelling at Marco. Me, speed texting the same Marco, and Marco 2 laughing and pulling out a cigarette.
Turns out the reservation had been canceled, but this is Italy, and so the receptionist quickly procured a bottle of wine and some homemade salami for us, and we happily drowned our sorrows while plotting our next move.
In the end, we discovered that Marco had canceled the original reservation and reserved a place elsewhere, only he never sent the new place to anyone, so we didn't know that had gone down.
But we were pretty sad to say goodbye to our pool and our nice receptionist who gave us free wine to apologize for canceled reservations that were not their fault, and hop in the car to drive to the new place which was 40 MINUTES AWAY!
Our nice relaxing afternoon had just gone the way of the dodo, as we'd need to drive there, check in, I'd need to drop off Vanessa and Marco and drive 45 minutes back to Asti to get the kids from the train station and race to Orsolina.
However, all's well that ends well, and even though I am now writing this from a hotel room with no air conditioning and a fan that is making a whole bunch of racket, they do have an angry donkey and a hilarious turkey here, and Sophie's show was fantastic.
1 comment:
Your life should be made into a movie, only people would say that it was too exaggerated! I'm laughing so hard right now.
Post a Comment