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October 31 Book: City of Light by Lauren Belfer I had a personal interest in reading this book because a friend of
mine was recently thinking about buying property in Buffalo and she
told me some of Buffalo's history that relates directly to this novel;
the electricity, the assassination of President McKinley, the battle
over the Falls and the time period that Buffalo was home to the wealthy
and socially stylish. October 30 Later in the birthday "day"I had a nice "rest of day"....watched Columbo, read some, napped some. Talked to Mum on the phone for almost an hour. She is so excited about Lou's wedding. It's good to hear her so happy about something and having something to look forward to. Michele called and let Del talk on the phone a bit, I missed their call but she said "bye bye" a couple of times. I hate that we are so far apart. It will be wonderful to see her next year even if it just for a week or so. We went to Tucker's for dinner and the boys actually behaved very well, no bickering or fighting - I think that was their birthday present to me :) Den just ran out to get a disposable camera since the digital is in for repair and then we will have birthday cake and take some pics. I need the camera for Halloween tomorrow night too to take pics of the boys. I will post pics from the weekend tea when I get them from Shelley and Michele. I got alot of reading done and have almost finished City of Light. We have a meet up next week and Karen said she would take some books back to Buffalo to mail for me, which is a huge relief. I also need to mail Delicia's Christmas present so it can go surface mail as well as my ornament for the ornament exchange thing for BookCrossing. I finally sent out the last of the emails tonight so as long as no one else signs up over night we should be good to go. Midnight is the cut off...so I am hoping I don't suddenly get a deluge of joiners. I want to mail some money to Mum but I'll do that from here. My ManuLife cheque for August and September came today. I can't believe it came so quickly. I have an appointment with Dr Spring tomorrow to get refills on my meds, let her look at my tailbone swelling and also to get referred to another specialist and fill out my forms for Manulife. Geez...is that enough do you think? My tailbone was actually not too bad today, but then again I did nothing but laze about all day so that may have had something to do with it. All in all I had a pretty good birthday. There were a few people I would have liked to talk to but they weren't available. I know I can talk to them on another day though so I will try again tomorrow. Ok..cake time :) G'night for now. Happy Birthday To MeOk so I am officially 39..well I will be at 11:46 tonight..close enough. I had a great time at High Tea with some wonderful women yesterday. We laughed and laughed. This past year has been really rough. In fact my last birthday I spent in bed all day, alternating between crying and sleeping. The year itself has been trying, many ups and downs both emotional and physical. I finally feel like life is looking up and I am positive about many things for the first time in a long time. The High Tea was at Taylor's Tea Room in Dundas and there was me, Shelley, Michele, Louisa, Lisa, Barbara and Melissa. They all brought me lovely presents, which (except for Lisa) was totally unexpected. There was an illustrated Narnia book that I have coveted for over a year. It's truly beautiful with the original.illustrations in colour. It is definitely something I will definitely keep forever and pass along (hopefully) to my grandchildren, Season 4 of Columbo and some comfy flannel pajamas that I am wearing now and also Lisa gave me some truly gorgeous roses, a gf for Chapters and some notecards. We had alot of fun. A great bunch of women. Today I plan to spend reading, catching up on email, watching Columbo DVDs and just being generally lazy :) I made myself a bacon sandwich for breakfast with fried bread - true decadence! and I 'm lounging in my new pj's. Dennis is picking up my shvolla cake this afternoon and I think we are going to Tuckers for dinner but I am not sure yet about that, even if we stay in that will be just fine. I have lots of reading to catch up on so I will do that too. I am almost finished City of Light! I am so far behind in books I owe so I really need to get cracking. After City of Light is Mafia Chic, Eat Me and then a bookring book and I then I need to read One More Day by Mitch Albom to start my own bookring. I may post some more later...but for now I am going back to Columbo! October 26 Still hanging in there....Still hanging in. Yesterday was my first day at back at work and it was ok. I got alot caught up and fixed some things that had been bugging me. Physically I was tired by the end of the day but I seemed to stay on top of the pain. Today, totally different story, I am physically exhausted and very, very sore. Good news is that I will be probably be paid for the week I was off with the tailbone injury, when, who knows..but eventually I will! My printer isn't working! I put in new ink cartridges and its like the printer just doesn't recognize the cartridges are there, the colour doesn't print at all and black is all streaky. Its very wierd. The printer is not old and it was working fine with the old cartridges til the ink ran out! I even tried a second set of cartridges, did all the cleaning maintenance and stuff. The boys got their school pics back. I ordered them and when the print comes I'll scan and post them. I need to make an apt for our Christmas pics. Oh...and I took the digital camera in for service. It has an extended service contract so it should be repaired or replaced at no charge. But it may be up to 8 weeks before I get it back, hopefully before Christmas! Ok, off to bed and read for a while. Yes...I AM still reading City of Light! October 24 Just a quick note..Back to work tomorrow. The tailbone is still very sore and there is alot of swelling. Because of glaucoma I cannot take anti-inflammatories so the healing is delayed quite a bit. Sitting is still very difficult and I can only manage about 15 - 20 minutes at a time and then I have to get up and walk around for about 15 min. Makes for an interesting day! I have not been reading much as the pain meds make me loopy and very sleepy and I can't seem to stay interested, but I will keep you posted :) My birthday is on Sunday :) October 17 Tailbones and Insurance CompaniesI finally got somewhere with my insurance company and HR department today. They told me my claim has been approved for LTD to make up the difference from the hours I actually worked. This is a big relief off my mind. Bad news, I slipped on the basement stairs and have cracked my tailbone. I have bruises and swelling from my shoulder to my ankle all down my left side. I am in a lot of pain. The codeine is taking the edge off. I'm going to try and get some sleep now. Hopefully I will be able to move tomorrow. October 16 Book #20: The Dancing Girls of Lahore by Louise BrownBookCrossing Chapters I read half of this then had to give up. I even put it aside for a few days and then picked it up again to give it another try. Why didn't I like it? Mostly, I found the narrator's voice to be condescending and unsympathetic. Louise Brown talks about visiting Lahore for months at a time and "living in their shoes". But she doesn't really. She knows she can return home at any time, she never has to worry about deciding between medicine for a seriously ill child or food for five starving bellies. She never has to worry that she will never have a hot bath again or where her next meal will come from or what will happen to her children should she die or be beaten to death by a would-be husband. Although she attempts to tell the women's stories, what I get from her is contempt for their way of life. Several times she chastises them for putting up with the men in their lives who treat them like slaves - but if these women were to revolt they would have no money, no food at all. Which is better? They are not in a position to be rebels. They are the lowliest of women, no one cares for them, no one offers them charity and they have no one to turn to. They live day to day by their wits and their bodies. For Louise Brown to criticise this way of life (as opposed to the system that allows it) is both hypocritical and mean. This is on another bookcrosser's wishlist so I will pass it along to her when I see her next. October 11 Book #19: Dead Souls by Ian RankinBookCrossing Chapters Each of Rankin's "Rebus" novels involves more than one case. I have found that as I go deeper in to the series, that more and more cases take up Rebus's time - all at once. On the one hand this is intriguing and complex on the other hand, it is requiring more and more energy and focus to complete the novel. It's not that I'm a lazy reader, but I am not sure this is the "type" of book I want to expend that much intellectual energy on. Or perhaps I have just been trained by other writers of this genre not to expect too much and Rankin surpasses that. Anyway, in this novel, Rebus is working on a missing person case, the son of his high school sweetheart, as well as surveillance on a serial killer just returned from the US, hounding a recently released pedophile and the apparent suicide of a once-coworker. Enough to keep him busy. Entwined in that is his relationship with Patience Atkins and the recovery of his daughter Sammy. As usual, Rebus is the rogue cop and goes off on his own and does his own thing. He has one moment of common sense in this novel though and does call for back up - I was surprised :) but pleasantly so. The character of Siobhan Clarke is emerging slowly but surely and I hope this is a sign of things to come and she plays a more prominent part in the novels. October 09 Book #18: Over Her Dead Body by Kate White The latest installment in Bailey Weggins life. She goes to work for
a tabloid magazine as "Crimes Writer" and her new boss is murdered on
Bailey's first day and she's the one to discover the body! As staff
crime writer she's covering the case to write a story and somehow gets
on the bad side of the (yet unknown) murderer and comes close to being
attacked twice. October 08 Thanksgiving Dinner and FamilyI was busy today. I put the turkey in the oven at 3 a.m. then went back to bed til about 9. Then I got up, cleaned the house and got the veggies ready for dinner. Lisa, thankfully, came over and helped me get the rest of the stuff ready and Louisa brought dessert. We had a nice time. Dinner was delicious and we all ate lots of great food! Then we watched National Treasure which was a fun movie. I am organizing the Christmas Ornament Exchange this year on BookCrossing. TexasWren is helping me. We're up to 55 participants already, so it looks like it turning out to be a lot of fun, I just hope everyone plays fair. I haven't read much this year, I am still reading Ian Rankin and also Kate White (both easy mysteries) but they are taking me a long time as I'm tired quite a bit lately. I have been playing Literati with Sande on line the last few nights and it has been SOOOOOOO much fun! Off to clean up the house..a little ... before I head to bed. Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! October 04 Thanksgiving coming upSo tonight I went to the grocery store to pick up all the stuff for Thanksgiving supper on Sunday (we always have dinner on Sunday so I have Monday to recuperate and clean up!). The grocery store was a zoo. I hate getting groceries at the best of times. But..I got the turkey and the veggies and the stuff to make stuffing. I was playing Literati (Scrabble basically) online with Sande tonight...I had so much fun. We used to play alot a few years ago so it was neat to play again. I hadn't played in ages. No one here likes Scrabble so I have no one to play with ;( I am tired tonight. Today was so busy. Not bad busy, just busy with alot of complaints and stuff to work on. It is still not stressful and not hard work. Off to bed..yes at 8:50 - I'm dead on my feet. October 02 Book #17: Glass Castle by Jeannette WallsBookCrossing Chapters This is the memoir of a New York journalist who grew up in a very dysfunctional and unconventional family. Her father was a dreaming, alcoholic and her mother also a dreamer, but suffering from untreated depression. Jeannette Walls and her brother and sisters were constantly moved place to place whenever her parents couldn't pay bills or had to escape from the law, they "skedaddled" in the middle of the night. Their life was poverty filled and often all the children went hungry or scavenged garbage bins for discards or left over food. Despite, or perhaps in spite of, their childhood, they all succeeded in getting away from their parents' lifestyles and creating their own dreams that led them to be self sufficient and productive. Amazingly enough, all four children held deep affection and love for their parents even as they realised they parents would never change and would always make their lives difficult. Monday UpdateWas out of town yesterday and didn't get back til late, so didn't update as usual. Iain ended up not going to the dance on Friday as he got more ill with this cold that is going around and although he seemed fine early in the week by Thursday it was back full force and he spent almost all day in bed. He is not disappointed though, he said there will be another one for Halloween. I was in Buffalo yesterday shopping and at the meet up. I love Fashion Bug and Dress Barn! Got some great deals on some stuff for work for Winter and a really gorgeous knit, green hoody that I think will become my favourite sweater. Got some good books at the meetup and left quite a few at Panera. A woman at the next table saw all the books and we convinced her to sit down with us and we told her about bookcrossing and she took some away with her...it would be cool if she journalled and joined us again some time. Work last week was ok. Mostly I am tired and not used to getting up and moving again so early, but I am sure it will be ok in time. I'm meeting Mel and Shell for dinner tomorrow and then I will have to start planning for Thanksgiving next weekend. Am I cooking? Are we going somewhere else? Last year we went to Karen's and we were supposed to see Graham...before he passed away. Can you believe that it was a whole year ago? This year has flown by. |
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