Azzurro...

We are on the ferry-boat for home after our Sardinian vacation. It's a ga-zillion degrees on that bright blue iron flooring. The Dog spent 10 hours flipping himself. What else to do when you cannot pee or poop?

A local aside... that atrocious blue... azzurro... is The National Color of Italy. The Italian national soccer team wears it on their uniforms. The metal signage in all the Italian train stations have it. Ditto for the lamp-posts too. It is a preferred color for economy model FIAT cars. And, the Moby Line ferries are painted with it. Well, the Moby whale is an orangey-red. I have never seen an orangey-red whale... in My Life! Thank God, Tweety-bird and the Tasmanian Devil are not. Why those two characters are even painted on the flanks of a ferry-boat is beyond me. Nevertheless, the azzurro certainly does make The Dog's taupe look almost silver. Not bad, eh?

And... that extreme radiant heat off that iron cladding soothes The Dog's arthritis!!! Yes. Poor thing. 8 years old and already he hobbles. Little old Italian ladies stop us on our w-a-l-k-s to ask why My Dog stumbles along. I have to explain that it's his arthritis. They nod in sympathy. Then, they ask what we do for it. I explain about The Dog's arthritis combatting dog food... his arthritis combatting integrator pills... and his arthritis combatting medicines. The ladies pipe in with their list of combatting ailments, medicines and therapies and, suddenly, we are a crowd of folk gathered around an American with his Weimaraner talking Health Issues on a Genoese side-walk. Gads.