Day 88 - Reveal

9 March 2022

Up early. Breakfast and off to our regular coffee. The original regular, not the new regular. The original regular is on the way to Salvator Mundi International Hospital. Today we see what is under the bandage.

Coffee is good. There is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. I give it a pat and it looks at me with big dark eyes and I remember how awesome owning a dog is. We discuss renting a house in Phnom Pehn instead of a unit and getting a dog.

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.” ― Milan Kundera

Walk to the hospital. Great views over the city. It is a little hazy today so we can’t see the snow-capped mountains in the distance. There is no high rise in Rome. The city sprawls out. No skyscrapers impede the vista.

We take a ticket and wait to be registered. We wait. And wait. Our appointment time passes it is so busy. In the end, we just rock up to Dr. Piperno’s room and walk straight in. He gets ready to remove the dressing. He has borrowed the scissors from the elephant doctor. Huge.

The verdict is good. No signs of infection and healing well. He applies another bandage and we are directed to see him again next Wednesday. This suits us. We will head south for a break from Rome. Campagnia bound.

“To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.” - Henry Miller 

We stroll through the park discussing our travel options. It is too early for lunch so we grab an Aperol Spritz. Or two. Lunch at our local is disappointing. I don’t think we will come back here.

Head home and there are jobs to be done. I drop the laundry off. Get a quick cut at the barber. Kill some time at a local bar with a few beers. I like this bar. It attracts all sorts of reprobates. You can lose an afternoon watching the patrons. Even the staff are intoxicated.

“There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness—(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).” ― Roman Payne

Pick up the laundry and grab a delivery for Shell. Head home. After the Spritz, wine at lunch, and the beers, I need a lie-down. Shell senses I am worse for wear and decides I need to do 100 push-ups.

“Exercise makes you look better naked. So does Tequila. Your choice.” ― Charles Bukowski

Shower. Read. Bed. No dinner.

Naples tomorrow. I can’t wait.