Summer Life Lessons

Out of the four days I have been in Italy I spent the first three walking around in a zombie slow motion status because of the amount of painkiller I ingested in the attempt of making my headache go away. I overheated, my blood pressure touched the sky and when I eventually got used to the weather it was time to leave.

I left Ireland with the intention to read and write, at least in the evening.Of course it didn’t happen because my brain was too drugged to engage in any extra activity, and also I have been trapped in a hectic and tight schedule. I got to meet relatives from all sides of the family and the in-laws too. Precisely like expected, in fact, the battle of the grannies started from day one. Never mind the girls will be there two weeks on their own now and another three in August with the travelling husband and me: Both grandmothers must have them now and pronto!.
My only aim was trying to stay out of the territorial conflict long enough to make it back to Ireland.Once I am back home, how the girls spend their time is not my problem anymore: the maternal and paternal grandmother will have to sort it out themselves. In the meanwhile,the best and painless solution I managed to come up with, it was that the girls would stay Sunday and Monday with the maternal grandparents and Tuesday and Wednesday with the paternal ones. Unfortunately, doing my best was not enough.It turned out that at my mother’s house we arrived Saturday night and so,technically,the children have been there three days. Sunday morning when I got up and switched on my mobile phone there were already few voicemail messages from my mother in law who,with absolutely no desire of pressuring me, suggested the girls stayed with her until Thursday:Par Condicio! Feeling absolutely no pressure, I agreed.

In fairness, the plan was not too bad, and I could see my grandparents and still have plenty of time alone with my mom. What I didn’t really consider it was that being already the third full day we were living under the same roof it started to be difficult for both of us to hold our tongues, but here it is when the absurd hot weather comes to some utility: nobody has enough breath to argue with 35 degrees and the 75%of humidity.Thinking back, I should have argued against the idea of having lunch at the beach, but once again all my energies were focused on fighting the heat.

Like a diva from the fifties,here I am removing my kaftan and unveiling my new black tankini embroidered with flowers.Happy and proud I go for a swim and everything was perfect,until I stepped out of the sea.Once out of the water the object of such pride and joy it transformed itself in a superpower heat generator and me in a walking sauna. Wearing that thing and being wrapped in foil would have been the same. I tried to be the usual optimistic me and looking at the positive side of the situation: a day like that and the unwanted belly fat would have melted away, leaving me with the most amazing flat stomach.Great!!!For a while I indeed nourished this idea and also positioned myself out of the parasol shadow and directly under the sunlight.I didn’t last long, and when I thought I could see smoke coming out from my abdomen through the bath suit, I just stripped off that infernal piece of torture and slipped into my good old bikini. Shamefully I must admit that my vanity is not as strong as I thought, and neither is my will of a flat stomach.

Despite it all, these four days have been overall beneficial, and some life lesson has been learned. First of all, there is no point to waste time rubbing sticks to start a fire: wearing a tankini under the early afternoon summer sun will give you the same result. Second, there is no point wasting too much energy trying to accommodate your mother in law:You can’t win! On Wednesday morning, in fact, I have been asked to go and get the girls already as they were getting bored, and their grandma was getting tired.

The Regained Ring And The Stranger’ S Flap.

The morning after the ring flew the coop I woke up very early.Despite my late night ,most of it spent kneeled down with my butt up searching inch by inch my bedroom carpet in the hope to see that glimpse of sparkling to put back on my finger.At 7.44 am I was already wide awake .I resisted in bed for a little longer because by principle it seemed absolutely wrong to get up so early on a Saturday morning.My legs couldn’t stay still and I kept turning from one side to the other until I decided it was time to get up.I took a long breath and I went to the shelf where the jewelry box was.I opened it …….and closed it back with a sinking hearth:the ring was still missing.

“Did you think the ring had gone back to the box on his own over night?”,a still half asleep traveling husband said.Of course I didn’t ,but it worth to check.”Don’t worry ,if it is in the house it will come out .We will find it”,he added before going back to sleep.”Yes”,I said,”it is just annoying”,and I went downstairs followed by the dogs for whom is never too early to have breakfast.After I fed them I gave and other quick look around but without any success. I made myself a strong mug of coffee and I brought it with me into the study to be drunk while writing my post.After the husband got up we searched again together.And again unsuccessfully.Now,I secretly but seriously started to doubt the ring has ever been with the other jewelry on the desk at all:what if I lost it when out and I haven’t realized it?I quickly dismissed that unbearable hypothesis,but the seed of the evil thinking was planted. Soon vicious thoughts overcrowded my already distressed mind:What if I will never find it?What if I won’t see it and I will hoover it?What if Kurt or Clara will eat it or,worse,what if Kurt had already eaten it? My head was spinning;anxiety was possessing me and just when I believed I had nothing left but go to Italy ringless and face my mother I heard it:”Here it is is!I have found it!”.The ring has been all the time on the bench in the hall and the traveling husband just spotted it.I probably dropped it when picking up the shirts and because it landed on the cushion it didn’t make any noise.Now I can leave in peace.

My family is already sitting in the car waiting for me and when I am not out in five minutes they start beeping the horn:No pressure,of course!We are leaving for the airport nearly ten minutes later then planned,I am told!I roll my eyes up so vigorously that they hurt for the next 15 minutes and I am afraid they will never go back to their normal position,God blesses sunglasses.

Despite been dropped at the airport ”late”,we still make it to the gate before they had started to board and reasonable on time to get bored .While we are queuing ,I noticed that behind me there is a guy with two kids,a boy and a girl,probably around 9 and 13.There seem to be just the three of them and I find it very sweet that he is going on holidays on his own with the kids.Unfortunately,this sweet picture of papa bear (he is a big man with long blond hair tied into a pony)who brings his kiddies to Venice on his own gets spoiled when I noticed his flap’s zip is down.He is wearing a pair of quite tight bermuda short and it is nearly impossible not to spot the zip undone.

I never really got what is the most politically correct thing to do in these situations:Do you tell or you just pretend you haven’t noticed ?It is exactly like when you are talking to someone and they have something sticking out their nose:You can’t not to look at it but, would you tell or not? This time I decided to not tell.Not because I am insensitive mean woman who take pleasure on other people embarrassing look ,but simply because a guy with his trousers’ flap’s zip down sure looks less weird then a total stranger mother of two who looks at the guy’s open flap.

The flight is on time and we arrive in Venice according to schedule around 11 pm.

The girls are happy to see their grandparents,who are incredibly already at the airport and at the right one. I am just happy to proudly wave at them with my fully ring adorned fingers.

Suitcases And Missing Rings

I hate packing. After years of travelling, it got easier and I learned to travel light but still, I hate it. Not to mention unpacking whose thought starts to upset me since the moment I am start packing because apparently everything I am stuffing in my suitcase, and not without effort, it will have to be taken out and store away; maybe even washed and ironed. It is a bit like the Christmas decoration: We all love them; we all are excited putting them on, but the only thought of when we will have to take them down would be enough to make us ran and forget about them.

There was a time when packing was not only an unpleasant activity but also the fount of an awful dose of stress. I never knew what to bring or what to leave. It took me ages to chose my outfits.A desperate volume of clothes were going in and out of the wardrobe and in and out of the suitcase multiple times. As a result, I ended up packing too much or too less. Thankfully now I developed a precise technique and I don’t get stressed over packing anymore but it still feel it is a time consuming despicable thing to do.Unpacking too!

I suppose I should have gotten used to pack and unpack, as aside from my little trips I pack and unpack my husband at least once a week. Yes,” the travelling husband” doesn’t do or undo his bag! Instead I just got fed up with it.Fed up but with some expertise that at least accelerate the procedure.In total honesty, I don’t think I can take all the credit for my advanced packing skills, but I must admit that for sure the airline’s security procedures after 9/11 helped. You basically can’t bring anything with you anymore, and that little that you can still bring it must be carried discretely and occupying the smallest space possible.Years and years of this and I became a suitcases engineer.

At around 9.30 pm the bags are done. We are packed. The girls’ luggage was easily and quickly sorted. They will be in Italy for the rest of the summer and I simply threw in their bags whatever clothes they own that has the word “short” in their names: short sleeves t-shirts and shorts, plus swimming togs. My bag required a bit more time because I am staying only a few days now, but I will be back for three weeks, so it makes sense to bring clothes to leave for later but,as myself and the husband are also going away on our own in the meanwhile, I need to keep in Ireland some of my nice summer clothes.It was a bit of an hassle to pick what to bring or leave but at the end I made it.

I eventually crashed on the couch to watch some tv. After one hour of zapping between Friday night realities, docudramas about the murder next door and old episodes of Dynasty I gave up and decided to go to bed.
I had to carry up the stairs my iPad and my phone, in case the travelling husband rings, the laundrette shirts still in the hall forgotten from this morning and a glass of water. Already full hands I realised I left my rings and my watch on the desk in the study, will I come back to get them? Nahhh, I can carry them too! I slide the iPad and phone under my armpit so to have a free hand to scoop them up. I made it upstairs with no accidents except some spilled water along the stairs,but that is ok.I throw whatever I am holding in my hands and underarm on the bed, except the glass of water of course. I put away the shirts and I go to kiss the girls goodnight.

Back in my bedroom, I move the phone and Ipad to the bedside table and the rings to the jewellery box, but then it is when I notice there is one ring missing. Impossible, it was on the desk with the others. I took it upstairs I’m sure, it was in my hand.It must have been fallen under the cover: Nop; Under the bed then: Nop; On the stairs coming up, I mean where else: Nop. At this point, the only explanation is that it fell in the study somewhere. It has not! I looked for the bloody ring for an hour.I looked everywhere: it merely vanished! I found mismatched earrings I lost months earlier, a bracelet I didn’t even remember to have but no trace of the ring: my mother ‘s diamond ring.She gave it to me when daughter number one was born, and I always wear it. Panic starts to rise: me not wearing it will be the first thing she will notice and considering my history of losing jewellery it won’t be a pleasure to listen to her. Plus, she will never believe it is not lost, but it is in the house somewhere. I can’t sleep, and at 1.30am, when the travelling husband comes back from his business trip, I am still awake. I told him what happened and he says not to worry, we will find it…….One day or another but in the meanwhile, he suggests me not to wear any ring and blame it on swelling fingers. “Oh,By the way love, if you are thinking to write a post about it,make sure you block your mother out of the blog first”,he kissed me switched the lamp off and in a nanosecond is snoring….I am still wide awake looking at my bare fingers.

The Chain that is not A Chain but just Fun.

Rayntbradbury.com nominated me for this Friday Funday Challenge created by AGuy Called Bloke and K9 Doodlepip!

Thank you and ,well what can I say ,thankfully is not a chain because I am totally incapable to keep them up.Plus, I am still traumatized by those awful chains that were circulating when I was a teenager: the scary ones promising the biggest of the misadventures if you broke them.Bare in mind at the time there was no e-mail and no self phone(yes,I am that old!)so everything was sent by post and usually,on top of the cost of the stamp,you were also asked to add a couple of notes in the envelope.And there it was where most of our weekly allowance went.Then,it came the time that I had to pick between break the chain or buy my favorite monthly magazine.Not an easy one but bravery took over:I broke the chain saved the money and bought the magazine!Guess what?Nothing bad happened,not even a bad grade in school.On the other side,not even Tom Cruise ever swung by at one at our party .

What Tom Cruise had to do with the chain?Actually nothing but the most appealing thing of the magazine was the horoscope and what a thirteen/fourteen years old girl looks for in the horoscope ?Love,of course.And what was the object of any teenager girl lust in the eighties?Tom Cruise,of course.I must say me and my friend were quite open minded and could have been more then happy with Morten Harley too.What Tom had to his advantage ,it was that he still had some teenagerly spots that made him closer to our regular boys friends and somehow,to our eyes,more accessible….if only the ocean it was not in between!

Now,after this completely unnecessary digression I am going back to the post I have been tagged on that is not a chain and whose questions I had so much fun answering.Hope you will enjoy them too .

1] List 10 people [alive or dead] you would invite to dinner?
Three couple of friends is always fun spending time together.I know that it makes only six but I never really believed in the motto “the more the merrier!”

2] What are your goals to be achieved in the month of July 2018?
Work on my book and I am already behind my so careful planned schedule…yack!

3] What is your earliest memory?
Pretending to sing with my grandparents curtains rope’s end and with my grandmother scarf pinned on my head to look like I had long hair.

4] What are your views on mainstream music?
Sound is what capture my attention first.

5] Where would you like to be in 7 years time?
Too far ahead to give a realistic answer.

6] What is the colour of your eyes?
Dark Brown

7] Do you like word games – if so which ones?
I like scrabbles and crosswords in general but never understood Sudoku

8] What are your favourite comfort foods?
Chocolate and crisps shoveled into my mouth together

9] What animal would you like to have as a pet?
I suppose by now all my readers know that: a bat

10] Classical music or not?
I don’t listen to it regularly and I am not an expert but I like opera.I went to see a few and every time was a marvellous experience.

11] 5 things about society that annoy you?
Indifference;The incapacity of too many people to be happy with what they have and to be grateful for they have, whether it was given or earned;Judgmental attitude;Bigotry/Hypocrisy.

12] How important is creativity to people?
Essential and we all have it in a form or another

13] Do you have any siblings?
No.

14] Which 3 questions will you be deleting to add your own in?
I’ll delete questions 17 too exposing;questions 19 and 7.
And add for those who will answer: A.sweet tooth or savory one?;B.Soccer,Rugby or Basketball;C.favorite season.

15] Your favourite childhood movie?
The Goonies and ET.

16] What traits do you display when nervous?
I talk and rambles a lot when nervous because not at easy but I snack voraciously if nervous because worried or anxious.

17] Are you healthy eater?
On average, yes, but I don’t say no to food sins

18] Bullet point your day so far.
Wake up, yoga breakfast, school runs, walk the dogs, housework, shower, writing, school runs, making lunch, laundry, writing or mainly taxi duty for my daughters, cooking dinner(from scratch because I am a healthy eater …even if my swimming suit disagree this year), washing up, tv or reading, bed, reading, collapsing exhausted. Now we are on holidays so routine doesn’t exist.

19] What are your 5 most favourite scents/smells?
My perfume(Chanel 5) that I’m wearing for nearly 30years.Sandalwood and anything peppery sweet

20] The three bloggers you are nominating are?
do I really have to?can we not do that whoever feels can share their thoughts?!

Add on questions from Ray:
17) You woke up as a Frankenstein. What will you do?
Buy good full covering makeup
18) You are a chef in the kitchen for the White House. What is on the menu today?
Pigs’ Ears
19) Google your name (only the name, without the last name) – tell us what Google tells you about it.
Apparently my name is also the surname of a Spanish artist ,who I never heard of before,but who fills the first two pages on google.

A Truly Madly Ordinary Trip To The Vet.

The scorching weather is still all over Ireland, and so even today we had our lunch on the beach and a nice good swim in the sea. This is the routine we are pampering urself since the school have finished. We try to be back home by 3.30/4, and I can write undisturbed until dinner time. Today we were late because I had errands to run after the beach. I had to collect some of Indie’s documents to give to her adoptive parents who are coming to take her on Saturday, and I had to stop by at my Swedish friend’s home to collect her fishes. When on holidays we mind each other fishes. Unfortunately, this summer we have nothing to be cared for as all our long line of aquatic houseguests have been suppressed by our late psychopathic bully fish who, ultimately, took his own life.

As usual, the little swimming guys came with a friendly and handy travel tank. Daughter number 1 and 2 are in the back seats wearing only their still wet swimming suit and a towel around their waist. They naturally fought over who has to hold the tank on the way home, and daughter number 1 wins ignoring that the tank is not leaking proof and if I drive over 40 km /h(a thing that I do) it splashes everywhere. The back road is bumpy and not entirely paved. Thankfully the journey is no longer than 7/10 minutes because a little bit longer, and the poor guys wouldn’t have had any water left.

Once home I wasted an hour fighting with the internet connection and with the gymnastics club website to pay for the first term of next season. Yes, you heard me: They want to be paid for something is not going to start until September within the 6th of July and in full!
Without me even realising it, it was already 5.30pm and like starving pirana the dogs were viciously going around my ankles reminding me that it was dinner time.
As the afternoon was nearly gone and soon it will be time to start making dinner for the girls there was no point to sit down at my desk, but I could optimise my time bringing Kurt to the vet.

When I called for him with the lead in my hand, he ran toward the door in total excitement. An excitement that vanished when he realised that it is only him going out. He knows that if he is brought out on his own and by somebody not wearing hunting gear and carrying a shotgun, it is not for something fun.

Our old vet was like family even for the non-canine side of the gang, in fact everytime we were at the surgery he would let me weight the girls on the dog’s scale: much simpler!
When we moved, and we had to pick a new vet, I won’t hide it has been more traumatic then picking the new GP. In the end, we follow the suggestion of our good neighbours. In the clinic, there are two vets. One older, that I love and who is genuinely compassionate; and a younger one that he is the one we most saw so far:dr M.He is an excellent doctor and very competent but not sympathetic.I frankly am not even sure he likes animals as pets. He is a very stylish man, but from what I heard through the grapevine, he is not Mr Congeniality. I must say there is certainly some truth in that but for some unknown reason with us he is always friendly and chatty. May be a reason can be found in the fact that every time we amuse him.I could start start with that time I was there just after spraining my ankle, and I asked him to have a look to see if it was broken so to avoid a trip to the hospital. A broken bone is a broken bone,weather is in a animal or a person right?. Then there was the time when I brought in Clara after we home treated an abscess on her paw, but we needed a prescription for some antibiotics. Not to mention the time when he noticed pellets on her ears, and I had to explain what happened and that the most of them I had removed them myself. Anyway, whatever the reason, he is always happy to see us, and he is very fond of Kurt and never wastes a chance to compliment me for the way he is kept, fit and slim.
Unfortunately, Kurt doesn’t reciprocate his fondness. To his eyes he is the man who always stacks a needle in his neck and, worst of all, he is the man who ordered his “castration”.According to Dr M, Kurt was over sexualized. I never heard of an oversexualized dog before, but I didn’t argue because he promised me that for sure he would have calmed down. Kurt was at the time still in his puppish jumpy phase when his hobby was chewing the couch and eating whatever he could reach, including multiple remote controls, my car seat belts and my husband inside car’s boot upholstery.On the day of the surgery, we had been welcomed by a German nurse with a solid accent who, while checking the information in the file, kept saying,”So Kurt,(in fairness to her she was the only one who got his name right), you are here to be castrated”.
“Castrated”?Spaded, neutered, fixed…whatever but that word said by her made me want to run away with my dog as fast and as far as possible.I, instead, only covered his big ears and whispered to him it was going to be ok.
“It will take at least three hours before he will be fully awake from the sedation and then we will have to monitor him for a while, so expect a call from us, not before 5″, that is what I was told at around 10.30am in the morning.
At around 2.30pm, they rang me:”Kurt is awake and wants his mommy”.I could hear him howling in the background. They couldn’t handle him any longer. Once home he jumped out of the car still with the huge Victorian collar around his neck and started running like a wild horse:”yep, he calmed down!!!”

Back to today, Dr M is on duty and Kurt had to put up with it. He is still a bit hyper-energetic, but he is also a real gentleman and behaved accordingly until the annual check and vaccination were finished.

When at the reception desk waiting to pay, two ladies with a cat each came in and still holding their cats’ carrier they started to pet Kurt. Wrong move as Kurt goes bananas when he sees cats. Soon it was the three of us pulling him back to avoid him to get to those fluffy creatures and have a feist.
The receptionist, who is an old lady who is everything but miss congeniality herself, looked at me disapprovingly and says,”Still not much of a well-mannered dog, is he?”,I blushed in shame remembering that time she “kindly” asked me to wait outside because Kurt was upsetting, if not terrorising, the other dogs in the waiting room.
Relieved that hopefully we don’t have to endure this for another year,I was ready to leave when the girls suddenly started to giggle and brought their hands up their nose.I look at them enquiringly and then …..the “scent” reached my nostrils.I immediately looked at Kurt still giving his back to the desk. He had just unleashed one of his most significant talent: a silent, deadly fart. I know I should feel embarrassed and may be sorry for the poor lady who will have to smell that for at least the next ten minutes, but I can’t stop laughing myself and, maybe, next time she will be nicer with poor handsome Kurt.

Dan Alatorre’s Word Weaver Writing Contest: “VOODOO” is Here. Let The Games Begin! (July 2018)

Dan Alatorre - AUTHOR

Announcing the July 2018

Word Weaver Writing Contest!

Enter your amazing piece of writing! We have over $400 of valuable prize packages!

and a special bonus

ALL entries will be critiqued by ME!

Yep, I’m going to personally critique your submission.

Wow, I’m gonna be busy. But you’re worth it. Probably.

NO LIMIT ON HOW MANY TIMES YOU CAN ENTER

Enter your amazing piece of writing! Or two! Or more! I will decide the winners and award a HUGE prize package plus some other amazing goodies. (Last time, contestants entering multiple pieces allowed me to find a story I liked. Smart move.)

YOU will have the month of July to enter an amazing piece of your own writing to our contest.

Here’s what you do:

Yep, you guessed it: enter a piece of your writing in the contest. (Nothing gets by you, Smarty McSmarterson!)

The contest “theme” is intentionally broad:

HORROR/SCARY/EERIE/SPOOKY/GHOST…

View original post 2,268 more words

That Night Of The Concert.

And for one night I was back in my mid-twenties because I think is precisely 20 years I have not attended a concert. A proper one, as I don’t believe Jane Birkin in a theatre can be categorised as “concert”.True must be told I nearly risked to go to see Metallica. I already had the tickets in my pocket when daughter number one got in the way. Literally on the way as from the day we bought the tickets and the day of the concert I developed a six months bump that was coming before me. Sometimes I still doubt that the travelling husband, being a man of numbers and a man who hates music even in the car because he finds it annoying, made his math and got me pregnant to avoid the concert.

Back to these days, here we are the big man(aka my Swedish friend’s husband) and me, all excited and ready to go to see Roger Waters. Meeting point is a pub in town not much far from where the travelling husband works as I am supposed to drive there with the girls and leave the car and the offspring with him.
He is already waiting for us on the road. He got in the car and took the driver seat. I show him the pub address,”But that is on the other side of the canal, it will take ages to get there with the car but walking is five minutes, you better go on your own”.”Oh ok “, I say, ” So where would I get out the car?”.
“Now. Go go go go, before the traffic light gets green again”, and the travelling husband opens my door, not in cavalry gesture but more in an “I am throwing you out” gesture.

In fairness, he was right and even miss google map said I was only five minutes walking away from the pub. Unfortunately, because of my controversial relationship with maps in general, those five minutes became fifteen as I kept going in a circle around the same street. Eventually, I am on the right track, as confirmed by miss google map. I am now truly two minutes away when my darling husband, who had just pushed me out the car, rang me to be sure I got to the meeting point and I am safely in the company of my concert pal, who is also a good friend of him. Of course, I did lie not wanting to bear the humiliation to have gotten lost again.
Now, the two rockers are reunited and have all the essential to enjoy their “back to our youth night out”. Like two happy and light-hearted teenagers, we start with a beer and a sneaky cigarette.

We might feel in our twenties, but still, we have old people seats. Expensive sitting chairs with a brilliant visual and an even better acoustic.
The atmosphere is fantastic ad the concert is terrific, even better then I expected.
By the time is finished and we are out is not even midnight. The queue to get the tram back into the city is monstrously long. We decide to stop by at the nearest pub. Not the most original idea as whoever is not queuing for the Luas is having a drink there. The place is anyway not excessively noisy or annoyingly crowded. We sit outside and share the table with an old couple, just back from the concert too. The big man and I are both quite extrovert and rarely go somewhere without knowing new people, for the not always well-concealed annoyance of our introvert partners. As more as we talk with our new friend of the day and as more obvious it gets that they think we were a couple.I then very genuinely I say,”Oh gosh no! He is not my husband “.
“No no no, I have a wife at home, and she has a husband too”, the big man adds. The couple looked at us slightly baffled, the woman clearly doesn’t know what to say, and then it hit us both that now they are probably thinking we are having an affair and we are quite shameless displaying it.
“No no no, we are not having an affair”, we said nearly at the unison,” Just our partners don’t do concerts!”.
Relief crossed the couple faces, and we can all celebrate this clarified situation of not sin with another pint.

We leave the pub, the queue for the tram is gone, and we head toward the city centre. Now, what do we do? Do we go straight home or do we enjoy for a bit longer this free pass night? We decided on one last drink despite the fact it is a school night for both of us, but what else can we do? We are in our twenties again, and we can sure handle this, right? Not really, as the following day he didn’t start working until late morning and me, I was indeed up and running by seven am, but with a sluggish stomach that is still with me after three days.

As it was the last drink, we went to a fancy cocktail bar. The bouncer greeted us and escorted us inside down the stairs. Dimmed lights, carpets on the floor, red velvet covered chairs and couches.The tables are positioned in a way that they are entirely private but with a good sight of the rest of the place.
We take a seat and, sharing the same twisted mind we can’t help but laughing and starting to make up stories about how much the place resembles one of those swinging club prive’ they show in the movies. We are now expecting some masked guest any minutes to come and approach us. Instead, the only one to show up is the waiter.

While waiting and in between fantasising and ironising about the place we also had plenty of time to consult the cocktails list. I went for a banana and coffee-based cocktail called “manner your dog”,(the cocktails name were quite peculiar and open to multiple interpretations too), the big man stayed classy and classic and ordered an “old fashion”.Unfortunately not a suitable option for the place and the waiter that not even bothering to write down the order said,”But Sir, as you are here why not to try something very different. May I suggest something you sure have never tried before?”.I nearly chocked myself in the unsuccessful attempt not to laugh, the big man probably for the first time in his entire life was speechless. I couldn’t resist but rub his arm and say, “He is a very traditional man”.
“Believe me, sir, you won’t regret it”, the waiter replied. Now even the big man is desperately trying not to laugh, and after some insistence, he capitulates and goes for a new alternative cocktail. Once the cocktail arrived, we drank them, paid them and called it a night before being suggested to try something else or even more alternative.