Hey, all. I owe you a big wrap-up of our last week or so, but my mind is elsewhere today. Ru was attacked by a neighbor’s dog yesterday on his afternoon stroll with the dog walker and is at the animal hospital awaiting surgery this morning. Gil’s out of town until tomorrow, so I’m just waiting by the phone and cleaning the house from top to bottom to keep busy.

The situation is especially infuriating because this same dog (a husky) broke through his electric fence and attacked another dog just two weeks ago and it seems the owners didn’t do enough to make sure it couldn’t happen again. So our boy has a big chunk of his haunch missing and needs one surgery today to install a rubber drain and another in a month or so to remove the drain and close the wound. (Ru’s vet took plenty of pictures of the wounds and his office notified the police department, so thank goodness that was taken care of before I even got there.)

So I rushed home from work and got to the animal hospital in time to see him before they closed for the evening.

He was even more pitiful than this when I first saw him, but at least his bed made him comfortable.

There was some panting, but he was loopy from the pain meds, so he wasn’t in a bad mood at all. I think he enjoyed the dirty t-shirt I brought for him, too.

But even getting his favorite new toy (John Calamari or Squid Vicious, depending on which one of us you ask) didn’t stop him from accusing me with his eyes when I was ready to go.

a week’s wrap-up after the jump

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Hello, everyone — it’s good to be back home! Milan was wonderful and it really whetted my appetite to experience other parts of Italy, but it’s so nice to sleep in my own bed again instead of on the cinder block that passed for a bed in our hotel.

I’m still trying to digest our experiences and clear my head from the jetlag, but I have managed to get around to posting pictures on flickr. Gil did, too, and we should have our captioning done soon, so check ‘em out! I’ll post more about our trip in the days to come, but need a little time to order my thoughts before I do.

We developed a liking for rugby, of all things, while we were there, so we just watched France kick New Zealand’s butt all over the field. I was rooting for the All Blacks, but hey — France won fair and square, as far as I can tell. (The game still doesn’t make a LOT of sense to me.) Now it’s time to scrounge up something for dinner before the LSU – Florida game and start thinking about what I could possibly cook tomorrow that doesn’t involve pasta or pizza.

Gelato IS as good as everyone says.

Horny teenagers are the same the world over.

It was a gray and drizzly Sunday in Milan, but we didn’t let that stop us! After napping for five hours when we got in yesterday (no sleep on the plane, unfortunately), and sleeping for ELEVEN hours last night (yay, Nyquil!), we set off to explore more of the city today. Milan isn’t really what I always imagined when I thought of “Italy” — quaint villages, winding roads (ok, they do wind a bit here, but not uphill or unpaved), open-air food markets, or areas that don’t resemble Paterson, NJ — but it IS a big, bustling city and enough like NY that we feel perfectly comfortable here. The architecture really is truly hideous in many cases, just like we were warned. The people are effortlessly stylish, which confounds us both, but Gil more so — I think he’s used to being one of the more attractive men on the mean streets of Ringwood. Me? I don’t worry about it so much, but I don’t think the women here like me. I’ve gotten some awfully judgmental stares.

Nothing much to say about the food yet. We got some crappy pizza at a tourist trap near the Duomo yesterday (You don’t say!), so I’m putting myself in charge of food from now on. Had the complimentary breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant this morning and haven’t eaten again yet. No pictures coming until we get home — something about size. I dunno. Gil’s the techie in this relationship.

We’re surviving without football through judicious applications of rugby, made more interesting by the fact that neither of us knows the first thing about the sport. Me: Oh, this is the sport where the guys pile up and push each other around! Gil: Yeah, and they can kick forward as part of regular play! Me: Oooooh, check out their legs! Gil: Shut up. So there you have it: In rugby, players do a lot of piling on and kicking with their large, muscular legs. And shut up. At least they can use their hands.

Gil and I spent most of the past four days just wandering around downtown Toronto, taking pictures (his are here, mine are here), and generally being goofy. I’m so glad I married someone who enjoys vacationing without a plan and taking the days as they come. We also got to hang out with friends and family (most of whom I was meeting for the first time), so it was an action-packed four days.

In that time, we had one exceptional meal, one darned good one, and several others that didn’t suck at all. Our exceptional dining experience took place at Rain, one of Toronto’s best-known fine dining establishments. Gil had gone there for a business dinner on a previous trip and, based on his rave reviews, we basically scheduled this vacation around dining there again. Brothers Guy and Michael Rubino — chef and co-owner/host, respectively — have a passion for Asian cuisine and host Food Network Canada’s popular television show Made to Order. I wish we could get that program here, because I’d love to know how they created every item in our prix fixe dinner, especially the squab three ways, complete with the dumpling of doom:

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Gil and I decided to spend our long holiday weekend in Toronto because evidently there aren’t enough great restaurants or tall buildings in New York for our taste. Also, the exchange rate is basically 1:1, there’s no language barrier, and I’ve never been north of the border, so why not visit friends and family and experience a little fine dining in the process?

We only wandered around a little bit (darn these flats!) this afternoon, but that turned out to be plenty of time to experience a national treasure: