You gotta love spring break. There's no pressure! No gifts to buy, or flags to fly or eggs to hunt or even fancy dinners to prepare. Just good old-fashioned hanging around. We took care of Izzy, the chihuahua (some of you know him, I know) this week, while his owners were away in Mexico. He is very different from Daisy -- a lot noisier and livelier -- he barks at people when they come to the door and whines when you go out and begs at the table. Daisy was surprisingly nonchalant about his presence and did her best to ignore him, but certainly, she took advantage of him not eating his food as quickly as she does. If he got distracted during a meal, Daisy was at his dish like a dirty shirt! He didn't lose weight, so I don't think she ate all his food, thank goodness. He went home today and I felt quite sad to say goodbye. He is a spritely little fellow and you couldn't help enjoying his funny little prancing and his cute perked up ears.
Off we go tomorrow to Ottawa. We've arranged to see our MP at Parliament and he is going to get us into Question Period and then take us on a tour of the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings. I am looking forward to seeing my sister and having a good visit and seeing the sights of the capital. We'll miss Daisy, though. Our neighbours are going to look after her, but I often wonder if she worries that we won't come home or that we don't love her. Of course, we do.
I just finished reading a really great book -- Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. It focuses on a family during the Cultural Revolution in China and it is just fascinating. How the different characters deal with "self criticism" and re-education and the terror of trying to survive when the rules keep changing and everything is suspect. The people are mostly musicians and they find that even that can get them into trouble. Anyway, I don't think I'm describing it very well. It is an epic story with so many memorable characters -- it reminded me of one of those epic Russian novels, or Dickens and I recommend it highly. Now I'm reading Philip Roth's The Plot Against America which imagines that Charles Lindbergh beat Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 and became the president of the United States. Lindbergh spoke positively about Hitler and Roth wonders how the United States would have been changed by not entering the Second World War and allying itself with the Axis powers. A lot of it reminds me of the situation in the United States now -- how popular the president is with certain sectors of the American populace and how people don't seem to really listen to what he's saying, how frustrating it is for people who are actually listening (and how scary), how he takes credit for things accomplished by his predecessor; as I'm reading, I keep thinking, "oh, how did Philip Roth know this would happen?" Okay, it's time for bed. Our plane to Ottawa leaves early tomorrow morning!
Happy Spring!
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