I've just returned from a week-long business trip to Lugano, Switzerland at the southernmost Italian end of the country. The day before I left, Tosca had the staples removed from her back. It's healing up well and she's doing fine.

The flights to Switzerland are gruelling -- a 20 hour day with 12-13 hours of that spent on planes. The trip itself was fantastic. The moggies missed me and have were happy to see me back. Zoe and Jetta have been glued to my lap. Pippin decided that we needed to get up at 8 am this morning instead of letting us sleep in. He used two of his main techniques. First, he gets affectionate and cuddly close to our faces. Usually that's all it takes. When that didn't work, he looked for mischief to get into and found it by sticking his head in the wastebasket and chewing on something plastic. That worked. Sigh....

On my last day in Lugano, I took a bus ride up to a small, gorgeous mountain village called Bré. Down in the city, I only saw people with dogs, though I did see a cat-themed boutique called Il Gato. But in Bré I did finally see some cats, so I thought I'd share a couple of them. The Swiss-Italians seem to prefer tabbies, especially orange tabbies. They all looked dubious of me, though one pale orange tabby nearly let me pet him. Judging from the reactions, however, I don't speak Meow well in Italian.

She's a tough girl, our Tosca. She's bounced right back from the surgery. Here's what her Frankenstein back looks like, held together by four staples.

		Animal	All Bird Cat Dog Horse Pig Rabbit Reptile Small&Furry	Breed		Zip Code