Still Not Doing My Homework

Dr. Zhivago is still in the Kindle.  (On the Kindle?)

My Indiana family are delightfully attractive nuisances.  

We've been shopping for books and clothes and tchochkes. We've been to the ice cream parlor.  We've played 100s of games of Uno. We've been to the zoo and to Little Cuter's office under Notre Dame's golden dome. We've gone to the indoor trampoline park.  We've laughed ourselves silly playing wiffle ball in the backyard; running grandparents were the source of much hilarity, even as the grandparents were inordinately proud of themselves for doing it at all. 

Boris Pasternack requires more concentration than I can muster with all this love in the air.  I've fallen asleep on the same page twice.  The other book I brought,  The Leftover Woman, is depressing, and that's not a space I want to occupy when grandkid love is all around. 

So when FlapJilly asked if I wanted to read the book she'd just finished, I jumped at the chance.  She came downstairs with the first book in the series, too. 

The narrators are animals.  Their feelings are quite human. Loss, abandonment, freedom, responsibility, love and cruelty are neatly woven into the animals' stories. 

It's not that big a leap of faith to believe in the inner lives of apes and dogs and elephants.  This weekend they are more accessible than over burdened Russians.