"Don't Take My Cat"

0/17/16 - 2:52pm

We said goodbye to the Camerons yesterday morning after a week of nonstop indulgence and as much as we would have loved another week or two with them, my liver is failing and I can’t see my feet.  We had homemade chicken broth soup for dinner last night and crashed early and hard.  Recovery begins.  Other than swimming this morning and a game of kickball I am sipping tea and allowing my body to heal.

Their last day here was not lacking excitement.  We started by walking to the mafia restaurant down the road (reason for the name is that it is flat out beautiful, always empty from the road, and still in business.  We had always talked about going but sort of remained hesitant until we had some muscle - in steps Mic).  I’ve got to say, our biggest mistake thus far was not coming here sooner.  It is a quant almost Napa like Thomas Keller lunch bistro that is financed by the owners of one of the largest pig farms in Italy (so maybe we’re still right about the mafia part).  Of course with that understanding, we ordered a massive charcuterie board, heaps of porchetta, freshly grilled focaccia, a few bottles of wine, 2 rounds of Amaro and more beers than we wanted.  It was exactly how you want to do lunch with the mafia.  On our way home, Shiloh was lured into Mario’s house (a late 60 year old overly friendly overly touchy Italian) so we all joined for a glass of wine.  As we were walking back to our house, the kids noticed that our neighbors had just put a grey kitten into a carrier and were giving it to a little kid who was about to drive away with his mom.  In heroic fashion I ran up to the family and told them “you are stealing our cat” and that “that is our grey kitten so you can’t give it away” to which they replied “NO.  This kitten was born here.  That is its mom.” and then the worst thing happened, they pointed at momma kitty who has been the cat we thought was wild and was living at our home.  There was a miniature meltdown by all parties until Brody came running back from our house yelling “our kitten is still there!”  Whoops. I deeply apologized (likely a bit too late after accusing them of stealing our cat) and then realized the kittens that the momma cat brought over to our house were actually there's, but that the mom had other kittens too.  Long story boring, I stuck up for my kids and they know that Poppa Bear will regulate when needed.  The worst part is now we have these two cute kittens that are technically not ours, but, since the momma cat brought them here, finders keepers :  )

That was all before Tony & Andrea arrived for a final meal with the Camerons.  They ended up cooking dinner for all of us, their famous curry, which was likely the best I’ve ever had.  We all had a great time hanging, a couple more Montenegro’s and then off to bed.  Probably good to call it early too because they had to head out early for their flight, and I don’t think I would have woken up the next morning if we didn’t slow the Amaro.

All in all, it was an absolutely perfect night and we are so incredibly thankful to have such amazing friends.