spring???

Listening to one of my favourite programs - the World at 6 news on CBC. A long segment right now on the exploding moose population in Newfoundland - what is to be done? Earlier, a long segment on the Atlanta Thrashers, a hockey team moving to Winnipeg, another on the death of a former hockey player and a third on a hockey stick manufacturer returning from China to Canada, now making sticks with maple leaves on them. Squeezed in there was a bit about Obama and Israel and the fires that have destroyed the town Great Slave Lake.

A slow news day in Canada.

It's sunny! It's warm! The garden is green, and the birds are singing. Too bad this is all going to vanish tomorrow at 6, when the planet explodes, the Rapture hits and we all die - except for born again Christians. Apparently, the 89-year old lunatic behind this frenzy has even prepared a video about his horrific prediction to explain it to toddlers. Oh my - what fools these mortals be. And for "mortals," substitute "Americans."

Though I am, in fact, according to one of my two passports, one.

Yesterday, lunch with old friend Margaret from Vancouver, who decades ago was pregnant, twice, at the same time as I and who is now one of my esteemed editors. We discussed our beloved children, now adults - how utterly we love and support them unquestioningly and do not have the slightest, no, not the slightest worry or concern of any kind.

And then an in-class writing session with my Thursday group, which is like being with the most ideal kind of family, where you know and cherish people deeply but don't have to live with them.

Birds and distant traffic the only sounds, as the holiday weekend begins. A strange glow on my face, from the big round ball in the sky. I could get used to this. Tomorrow morning, off to Ottawa to visit my family. Happy long weekend to you, Canadians, especially Newfoundlanders. May you get your mooses under control.