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This is Fruitycake, and we made it to Lake Como.

I would like to begin by saying that getting here was a tremendous accomplishment. We drove for hours. I rode in a car for the first time in years and handled the responsibility with the dignity you would expect from someone in charge of this entire operation. Girl Person navigated. Boy Person drove. I supervised. And eventually, after mountains and highways and Girl Person checking the phone thing approximately 4,782 times, we arrived near Lake Como. There was only one small problem. Before we could go to the house where we are staying, we needed food.

Girl Person looked at the phone thing and found what it said was a very big grocery store. This seemed perfect because we needed enough food for our stay, some things for tomorrow, drinks, snacks and, obviously, pizza. Boy Person and I waited in the car with the air conditioning because it was hot and I had already done enough traveling for one day. Girl Person went inside to get the groceries. This seemed like a very simple assignment.

It was not.

Girl Person walked through the doors and apparently entered 1987.

She said it was like one of those malls from when she was growing up. There were stores everywhere. There were people wandering around. There were long hallways. And then she noticed something that made the whole situation even more confusing: people were walking around the mall with grocery carts. They were pushing carts past stores. They were taking carts into stores. They were coming out of stores with carts. Girl Person stood there staring at everyone like she had accidentally traveled through a portal and missed an important meeting where Italy explained how grocery shopping works.

So she looked at the phone thing again.

GROCERY STORE. YOU ARE HERE.

She looked up.

Mall.

She looked at the phone.

Grocery store.

She looked at the people pushing grocery carts through the mall.

And that was when Girl Person completely lost it.

She started laughing. Then she laughed harder. Then she laughed so hard she started crying. This was not because anything was actually that funny. This was the kind of laughing that happens after you have driven for hours, you are tired, you are in a place you have never been before, you don’t speak the language very well, you have a very important rescue visit the next morning and your phone is insisting that you are standing inside a grocery store while you are pretty certain you are standing outside a shoe store in 1987.

Eventually, she called Boy Person from inside the mall and informed him, “I cannot find the food.”

Boy Person asked where the grocery store was.

Girl Person explained that there WAS NO GROCERY STORE.

Boy Person pointed out that the phone said there was.

Girl Person informed him that she was aware of what the phone said because she was currently standing there crying and laughing at it.

So Boy Person said the words every tired Girl Person occasionally needs to hear: “I’ll do it.”

He came inside and took over grocery duty while Girl Person came back to the air-conditioned car to sit with me. And this, friends, is sometimes what love looks like. Sometimes love is flowers and candlelight. Sometimes love is holding hands while walking beside Lake Como. And sometimes love is your husband walking into a 1980s Italian shopping mall to locate a grocery store that your wife swears does not exist.

Apparently, it did exist.

Boy Person found it.

And then something even more miraculous happened.

HE FOUND PIZZA.

At that point I stopped asking questions.

We finally had our groceries, our pizza and everything we needed, so we drove to the house where we are staying. And that was when we discovered the next little Lake Como surprise: stairs. Lots and lots and lots of stairs. Stairs for the luggage. Stairs for the groceries. Stairs for the drinks. Stairs for the pizza. After watching Boy Person and Girl Person carry everything up, we suddenly understood those people wandering around the mall with grocery carts. We would now like to apologize for judging them and respectfully request to borrow one.

But that day, as funny and exhausting as this day has been, we are sitting here at Lake Como feeling incredibly grateful because today is why we came. Today we visit the rescue. Today we meet the people doing this work here in Italy, meet the dogs they are working so hard to help, listen, learn, ask questions and begin figuring out how everything we learned during our years traveling to 48 states and visiting 48 rescues with Brickle and Digby might become something new.

And strangely enough, today’s affirmation could not have arrived at a better time.

TODAY’S AFFIRMATION

I Cannot Do Everything, And I Should Not

I cannot do everything, and I should not expect myself to. Rest, help and limits do not make me weak. I will give my energy to what truly matters. What remains unfinished does not reduce my worth.

Girl Person could not find the grocery store today. Boy Person could. Boy Person could not sit in the air-conditioned car and supervise me while simultaneously finding pizza, so Girl Person did that. I could not carry the groceries up all those stairs because I am a dog and I have boundaries. I ate pizza instead. We all contributed according to our individual abilities.

But there is something much bigger in those words for us today. For a long time, Girl Person and Boy Person have felt as if they have to figure out everything before we can start again. We need to sell the rustico. We need to figure out where we are going to live. We need to figure out finances and health and what our next project will look like. We need to somehow take everything Brickle and Digby started and determine how I can help carry their legacy forward. When you put all of those questions together, it can feel so enormous that you convince yourself you cannot begin until you know every answer.

But lives don’t wait for us to have all the answers.

Today, we do not have to figure out our entire future. We do not have to create a whole rescue project in one day. We cannot help every dog today, and we should not expect ourselves to. We just have to show up. We can listen. We can learn. We can ask what rescues here need. We can meet dogs who are waiting for homes and learn their stories. We can film and share what we discover with all of you. And we can take one real step back toward the purpose that Brickle and Digby taught us so many years ago.

Today we are tired, excited, nervous and very, very happy. There is pizza. There are approximately nine million stairs between us and the car. And somewhere down the road there is a grocery store hiding inside a mall from 1987 that Girl Person may never emotionally recover from.

But we made it.

Today we take the next step.

And that one matters a whole lot more than finding the food.

Although Girl Person would still like it entered into the official record that THE PHONE SAID IT WAS A GROCERY STORE.

Love,
Fruitycake

P.S. Today We Need You With Us ❤️

Today’s rescue visit means so much to us. Please send us your prayers, good thoughts, encouragement and strength. We want to walk through those doors ready to listen and learn, and we want to make Brickle and Digby proud as Fruitycake begins carrying their legacy into whatever comes next for 2 Traveling Dogs.

We are also still in need of donations for the necessities of this trip, including fuel, meals, Fruitycake’s needs and all the many the expenses. If you can help with even a few dollars, it truly adds up and allows us to put our energy into what matters today.

❤️ Necessities: www.tinyurl.com/2tdnecessities
❤️ Venmo: @travelingdogs2
❤️ Zelle: rachael@2travelingdogs.com
❤️ Patreon: www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue

You can also help by getting Fruitycake’s September Affirmations For Dogs And People Workbook and following these affirmations with us all month, joining us on Patreon for the daily blogs, audio blogs and extras, or purchasing one of our Make Rescues The Breed Of Choice! shirts.

And if you cannot donate right now, please share what we’re doing and send us some extra strength for today. This may be one rescue visit in one place on one day, but after everything that has happened, it feels like a very big first step.

For Brickle. For Digby. For Fruitycake. And for the dogs still waiting. ❤️🐾