Things from the past week that have made me sad.

1. While the Myanmar tragedy has me clenching my fists in rage (How can political agenda trump human necessity? I know I am a liberal idealist, but seriously, they may as well be mass murdering their own people.), every morning and afternoon since the Chinese earthquake I have driven to and from work with tears in my eyes. NPR's coverage of this is extremely compassionate and moving. I am finding it both compelling and very hard to listen to.

2. Our neighborhood is rife with loose dogs. They mostly all have owners, and in some cases I know who they belong to, but the general attitude towards pet ownership seems to be freedom of movement (this may be a cultural Mexican thing, I don't know, or maybe it is just a low socio-economic scale thing - who knows). There are also a lot of reckless young drivers going much too fast for a residential neighborhood, so this has really been a tragedy waiting to happen.

Before leaving for Carrie's shower Saturday morning, I pulled out of the driveway and rounded the corner to find our adjacent neighbor's little chihuahua-mix mutt dead in the street. This little dog has spent the last several months running back and forth between our houses, barking at us as though to say "YOU MUST BE AFRAID OF ME!" Of course David and I laughed at him often. So I was pretty heartbroken to find him there. I could not bear the idea of coming home to find that he'd been run over further, so I stopped the car and got out to move him. He was not bloody at all, but his little neck had obviously been broken; I started to cry and wrapped him up in newspapers and put him on his owner's lawn.

WHY CAN'T THESE PEOPLE KEEP THEIR DOGS IN THEIR YARD OR HOME?

3. Monday morning, as I got ready, I watched out the window as the deceased chihuahua's little friend (there were two of them that ran together, owned by the same family) trotted around the yard, sniffing all over. He wandered out into the street, following a trail only he could see. He stopped at the spot where I found and removed his partner. He continued to sniff there for a bit, then walked over to the spot where I had deposited the body, now removed. After a few seconds of smelling around the area, he trotted back to his front porch, where he sat down and moved no more until I left for work.

Comments

[Lillet]

bawling.

[Tobi]

#3 is so sad! The earthquake though, we were talking about in my class today (I teach ESL) I was very thankful that none of my student's families were involved. It is absolutely horrifying. It seems like this has been a terrible week for tragedy everywhere.