Lisa's surprise

When we got Lisa, we didn't just inherit a nasty skin disease with her. Oh no, she had an even much bigger surprise in store for us! Now it's also clear why her first owner wanted to get rid of her so fast. We had already noticed that lately she already got tired after a walk of barely an hour whereas in the beginning she could keep running for days. And also her nipples looked a lot bigger than last month. We began to suspect that we had been tricked a lot worse by the former owner and the vet immediately confirmed our fear. She turned out to be pregant of three big puppies! At first, this was a big shock to us because what could we do with three puppies in a country where there are simply too many of them, meaning they'd be hard to get rid of. To let alone the fact that a lot of the mountain folk over here have never heard of animal rights and treat their cats and dogs like dirt. Then again, there were only three of them and Christine and I agreed that we'd probably keep already one for ourselves.

And last Friday afternoon was the big day! I was out teaching English, but when I returned, Lisa immediately ran out of the house to greet me and hinted that I had to follow her. So proud that she was to show me her three cute little pups... 

Number one's a male and very much resembles his mum (the darkest of the three). Unfortunately he's not very fond of the camera because most of the time he hides under or behind mummy. Number two's a female and slightly lighter and more greyish in colour...

And then there is our favourite... number three, also a female. Christine always says that Lisa's ink cartridge must have run out because the second one was already less dark than the first and when number three arrived... well... :-)

Number three's also the only one which already has a name: Fee (pronounced "fay" and meaning "fairy"). Isn't she a beauty? She's quite adventurous and likes to hide under the cloth we put on the floor.

Proud mum Lisa watching over Fee...

Number two having a nap...

Fee again with her creamy-grey fur. All three've got white toes and a white tip on their tails! :-) 

So since Friday we're proud grandparents! The cats are a bit less happy because Lisa's become over-protective and even aggressive towards everything she sees as a menace to her pups, including our cats, although she's already calmed down a bit today. But yesterday we received an unexpected visit. An elderly couple we've never seen before wanted to walk to our house in order to see how it has changed since we live here. It's something Italians like to do and usually we respond kindly to this exaggerated curiosity. But this couple brought two dogs with them, none of which were on a leash! Lisa heard the dogs and stormed right out of the garage (where we've made her nest) and violently attacked the dogs. The old man raised his walking stick at her and wanted to beat her, just when Christine per chance also arrived with her car and the man turned back. He shouted something like: "it was a mistake to come here!" and went away, followed by his wife. We can understand that they must have been terrified, seeing Lisa (who after all very much looks like a real wolf) barging at them. But then again its them who've trespassed on private property with two dogs on the loose. In the mean time we've heard that in our village they're saying all kinds of nasty things about us. Like blowing a football horn at hunting dogs, for example. :-D Well, we've never seen any hunters since. Hopefully this will also be the end of all these intrusions of curious people... hehehe...

Dreamworld

I know, I've been neglecting my blog a bit. Of course I've been awfully busy and I'll reveal more about my current projects some other time. But actually, I've already been thinking about this particular post and especially about how I would write all this. Because to many people who're still in the daily grinder, spending hours in rush-hour traffic, working all day long and then still having to do all of the household, my life here must seem like a dreamworld. And in many respects this is quite true and you'll never hear me complain. I know that I'm lucky, although I don't feel any shame towards the rest of society because I've been working very hard as well for twenty years, until my autism made me completely collapse. So I firmly believe that I've paid my debt to society and that now I've earned a bit of rest. But saying that I'm now living a dream is also far from the truth. In fact, there are days when I rather wish I was dead. It sounds grim but it's exactly how I feel at times and no beautiful mountains or abundant sunshine can change that. The environment has changed and I find a lot more rest now. But within I haven't changed at all. I'm still the same Peter, seriously autistic and sick and tired of having to compensate this terrible thing. Well, I don't find it so terrible but other people would if I became the person I actually want to be. And there's the nag because rarely do I get any appreciation for the effort that I'm doing. People take it as read and on the contrary get very angry at me when at times I can't do as much effort as I should and my mask falls off.

Last week, Christine and I were sitting at the breakfast table while all of a sudden I asked her something which she actually had already just said. Tears started rolling off my cheeks because at moments like that I have to face the fact that I have a certain "condition". I'm very intelligent, gifted even, but I can't remember something simple that was just said to me. It's something very difficult to accept and it frustrates me beyond words. But then, Christine said something that made me furious: "Now do you understand why I always ask you things two or three times?". Which she indeed does and for which I always become very snappy and even angry. It's like reminding a disabled person all the time that he's sitting in a wheelchair. So what's the most important? That I sometimes forget something or that I keep my dignity as a person? Well, you have to anwer this for yourself because obviously I choose "dignity", being the person concerned in this case. 

All in all, it's one of these small examples where people say that they accept my handicap, but in reality still expect me to be "normal" because I can pretend to be "normal" so well. Sometimes I indeed wish that I were physically disabled rather than mentally because the latter is so difficult to understand for other people. Phrases like "But I often also feel like that" or "Don't be so faint-hearted"... I've heard them a thousand times. And also after this blog post people will not understand; I'm realistic enough about it. But I can only keep trying... :-)