Project Me (6) - Atonnement spoilers.

WOW!  My last project me post was 10.04.10 that was just about a month ago.   So to try to recap.  The book I read from the 1001 list took me all month.  Part 1 was really hard to get into.  But, Angie liked the book - I have mentioned she's really smart right?  It was literally over half the book!  Once  again an over indulged spoiled little girl is the main character.  Her naivete/fantasy/assumptions change her sister,  her cousin, her father's protege and her brother's friends lives and destinies.   Part 2 was seen through the eyes of a soldier retreating across France, wounded with a fever and only partially lucid, but a great improvement over the first part.  I guess it was the triumph of love, and the determination and will to live to reach the true love made this short section necessary, as well as letting the reader catch up on what happened since Part 1 ended. Part 3 was interesting, the whole girl grows up, realizes her mistake and tries to redeem herself.  Dealing with the casualties of war also forces her to grow up in one long day as a probationary nurse.  IF it had ended there, the reader could imagine that her sister and her lover, after finding each other again live happily ever after, that perhaps while never achieving the lost closeness of sisters, there are repairs made to the relationship.  But in the final section "1999"  the girl, now an old woman, facing slow dementia due to micro-strokes is wrapping up her life's business.  You would be led to believe that the first three parts are the result of her lifelong project - a book.  But as she takes stock, we discover that the soldier - her sister's true love- dies of a blood infection, probably from his wound in France, a few weeks after she sees him and her sister.  Her sister only survives a couple of months, dying in the German bombing of London.  Her cousin, who has married her rapist, now the couple is Lord and Lady, and dedicated to charitable works.  And as the narrator heads to her own birthday party, a full circle is made, as the grand and great-grandchildren of her brother and cousins, stage the play she herself wrote at 13, that she was trying to stage with her cousins for her brother at the beginning of the book.  I don't know, it just wasn't a satisfying ending.

I also checked out Gregory Maguires new book The Next Queen of Heaven  I loved his wicked series (also just got a Lion among Men) and his fairy tale books - Mirror, Mirror and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, are 2.  But this book, happens in upstate New York, with an exceptionally obnoxious teenage girl, who just needs some sense smacked into her.  I got about 50 pages in and decided that live was just too short to deal with another book with an obnoxious girl. So I closed the book and returned it to the library.

I was going to go for my semi-annual hair cut (annual this time, I missed the spring and then it was getting too close to summer - I live in fear  of not being able to put my hair in a ponytail/bun)  but some things came up and now I have to reschedule.   If and when I finally get around to it, don't worry you'll get to see it.  It is tough, because I hate blowdrying - and let's face it I leave my house at 330 am- so it really isn't happening  well - ever!  So the cut has to work with the way my hair wants to fall.  

I did find a new nail polish - I am totally in love!!  It is red ( painted a streak on a piece of paper towel because it was hard to tell) but so dark red that it just about looks black.  And there is a ton of glitter in it so it almost glows in the sunlight.  Of course when I went to take a picture it was hard to find the right light, but here's the best I could do:





They look almost brown here, sigh maybe I'll get a better picture this week!


I went to grace's daughter's a couple Saturday night's ago, to a Lia Sophia jewelry party.  I did get Angie something which for obvious reasons I can't tell you about until after Christmas.  It was kind of fun - haven't seen her husband Tom for a long time (he installs carpet,so when we agree and she doesn't, we chalk it up to carpet fumes)  and I only briefly met her daughter once.   And it was just kind of different from my usual Sat night, with my usual suspects.

I went to lunch at Mara's (local coffee roaster, dessert shop, cafe) with Grace last week.  I picked her up/ broke her out!  LOL!  We had the best pumpkin spinach quiches ever!  She was good and had a salad ( she's lost over 40 pounds since last spring - way to go Gracie!)  Me, I indulged and had a New England Clam Chowder and spiced hot caramel cider.  It was fun catching up. (and she listens to me whine about work, and about Braun's not sending C etc without complaint, and I think she's actually able to follow my jerky, disconnected, ADD  random trains of thought!

Temple annoyed me, they said they didn't receive a tuition payment, and weren't going to let Angie register for next semester, and for some reason we couldn't pull up the image on the computer so Curt had to go to the bank and straighten everything out.  Angie is doing well so far in her classes, she's feeling the work load, but all the time management skills she has from her HS days are serving her well and she's staying on top of everything.  She had a bad cold and since a lot of people in her dorm were coming down with strep, she got checked out, but no strep thank goodness. I sent her a care package with microwave chicken soup cups, zinc/ecchinacea drops, airborne, a lot of hand sanitizer (she did start out with   several large bottles in August, but just to be safe) and I made her some homemade chocolate chip scones with red/white colored sugar on top ( Temple's colors).

She has been keeping up with politics on campus.  She went to MSNBCs Chris Matthew's show broadcasting from the Temple campus, a few days later Bill Clinton was there, and Saturday she gave up the football game (the Owls won without her) to see President Obama on campus.