This has been an unusually active week for me, since my daughter and son-in-law are visiting. Tonight we went to see The Lion King. I was so blown away by the puppets. Even the people behind me stopped visiting long enough to get drawn in by them. The music, at least the ones with the African rhythms and harmonies, were just wonderful. The story line is no shakier than some of the classic operas I've seen lately. A good time was had be all.

Sadie, my daughter's dog, has been very busy out in my back yard this weekend. She has been protecting my house from those terrorist squirrels who usually come and go with great frequency, since I''m about the only house on the block without a canine protector. Sadie has a great stalking technique which is unfortunately ruined when the toy poodles next door get excited and yap at the squirrels to RUN, RUN, RUN. The other day Sadie was so intent on her quarry she ran into the cable box.

While I was in Australia last month (how's that for dropping names, at least of places?), I picked up several books to read. I finally got around to reading True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey. A fictionalized account of Ned Kelly, the infamous Australian outlaw, it is written in a very distracting dialect. The story does give a distressingly dismal view of the times for the poor in the late 1800s, although there are some amusing situations. This book was a winner of the 2001 Booker Prize.