That damned Cassie and other hot dogs!

Even though I don’t really want to leave Spain, I do love to pack. I love to organize my things and I pack way in advance, and often unpack and repack multiple times. In advance of travel, I packed a baggie full of enough dry dog food for a couple of days that I could keep in my carry-on bag to be sure I had access to it wherever I was staying along the way. Done. Then I found the ripped up baggie that the food had been in. Cassie had found it in the carry-on and of course eaten it all. So, the next day, I filled another baggie with dry dog food and I put it in the zippered compartment of my carry-on. No outsmarting Cassie!! She unzipped the pocket, extracted the baggie and ate it all. Again. Before I started keeping the door shut to the room where I was staging the packing, she also ate a carton of Knorr beurre blanc sauce. I’d bought it in France and I was really excited to take it home to try it on some Texas Gulf Coast fish! She got the carton totally out of the plastic baggie and ate all of the liquid sauce out of the carton without leaving one drop in the carton and without spilling any inside the suitcase. I think she’s smarter than I am. She is the worst!

I bought a bag of the hot dog potato chips. Really not bad. I could definitely taste the mustard and ketchup as shown in the picture. Also, the flavor of hot dog really came through. I wonder how they do that…I hate to think. I noticed there’s a hot dog in the picture with lettuce on it. Novel.

For good measure, I also tried another new flavor. I don’t know how they keep coming up with so many delicious (tongue-in-cheek) flavors. This one is chorizo AND fried egg. They were pretty gross. My taste buds may not be the most refined, but I couldn’t taste the egg, chorizo yes, unfortunately.

And for your amusement…

I feel totally ridiculous in this get-up (and WAY TOO blond!), but prepared for travel…

This morning I was foolishly feeling confident about getting everything done before leaving when the zipper on one of my suitcases broke. It may have had something to do with being overstuffed, but also it is a bad zipper in a cheap suitcase from the China store. I had to go get another one.

So this is my farewell blog post for a while. This experience couldn’t have been more different from last year when I had 30 visitors and was constantly traveling. It’s been eye-opening in ways. I’m sure you’ve all had some epiphanies. Leaving is sadder this time because I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back due to the virus/border closings/unwanted American passports.

What I do know is that I’m very lucky to have found this corner of Spanish paradise and wonderful friends who will be here for me whenever I can return. Love you all! Un peto.