Week 13: Astro is getting old

I didn’t write my weeknote last week as I was in Italy with my family, but I’m here now, two weeks later and two kilos heavier happier.

• Rome was amazing! It was our mothers' first time in Italy and expectations were incredibly high. Of the big tourist spots, we visited only Colosseo, Foro Romano and Pantheon, choosing to spend most of our time eating delicious pasta, pizza, supplì, and drinking lots of wonderful Italian wine. Travel photos and journals coming soon! 🍝🍕🍷
• We left our dogs Astro and Luna in our favorite dog hotel, RuralCan. It’s quite far from home (4h driving roundtrip), but it’s worth it. Sadly, Astro’s osteoarthritis is making it harder from him to enjoy his vacations. He always loved to bathe in the doggie pool, but last time he was there he couldn’t get out of the water on his own. This time he was so happy to be in a dog pack in nature (seriously, this place is amazing), that he overdid a bit and on the very last day he literally couldn’t walk. The staff helped us with some support harnesses to put him into the car. It took him almost three days to recover… I’ve never seen him in so much pain before, and it saddens me, because the cause of the pain was actually joy and fun games. He’ll be 13 years old in January, and we decided we won’t travel anymore. Staycations forever. 🐶
• My mom was dying to have a comment system on her site. I was totally against, I said it’s a total magnet for spammers, those who really want can email her, threatened to not help when she’s eventually inundated by viagra ads, but she was adamant. Now her little static blog is running a free version of Commentics. 💬
• I also installed GoatCounter analytics on her blog, not without another argument. She should be happy to blog for herself, not for others. What’s the point of knowing if someone is reading or not? What’s this need to know? What’s next, a like button?! And then I turned into the world’s biggest hypocrite and installed GoatCounter on my little blog. Turns out, I want to know. 📈
• This weekend we went on a day trip to Buñol with Luna, leaving Astro alone at home. It was not easy, MIL had tears in her eyes, my mom offered to stay behind with him, but our reasoning was this: he used to be alone before we adopted Luna; he doesn’t have the strength to go for long walks anymore, much less if it involves any kind of hill; he’ll be safer and happier by staying home, taking a nap; and finally, Luna is 7 years old and still full of energy. She loves car rides, she’s curious, she wants to go out and explore. For months now, the dog walks have been boring for her as distances get shorter and shorter. I don’t want to wait until Astro is no longer here, to give Luna the quality of life she deserves. By then, I’m afraid it will be too late for her too. 🐶
• I have cameras set up to watch the dogs and the house when we’re out. As I predicted, Astro was a bit surprised/sad and he searched for us for a few minutes, but then he went to his bed and slept happily for the next four hours. When we got home, I gave him a huge carrot for being such a good boy. 🥕
• We wrapped the week up by playing Synth Riders on the PSVR2 and dining raclette and wine! The VR game on Sunday thing is starting to become a tradition!