which_chick | (no subject)

We're finishing up Memoirs of a Geisha at grandma-reading-time. The Chairman has just shown up at the Ichiriki when Nobu was expected -- this is after the airplane trip to the little island and the grand reveal that occurred there. Because I am reading the book to grandma (who invariably falls asleep halfway through the half hour I have set aside for reading time -- I'm valiantly pretending that the soporific here is the fucking book rather than my reading), I could not stop and throw it across the room for being so wildly implausible. And, well, I was kind of cheering for the sort of ending that it looks like we're getting.

Just (flavor of green olives)... that kind of ending never happens to me. I've frequently gotten the ending that goes Go away and never speak to me again you complete fucking freak -- I don't know what I was thinking to go out with you in the first place!. Sometimes I get Let's be friends which, in my darker moments, I translate as Our social circles overlap too hugely for us to fully sever diplomatic relations. Very occasionally, I get one bizarre enough to be my bitter woman's punchline for years afterward. (Poor Alan. He meant well, I suppose, but what he actually said was this: You're beautiful and intelligent and talented and entirely unlike anyone I've ever met before... but I think I'd rather date a woman. I went completely goldfish -- mouth opened, moved, no sounds came out.) But that other ending, I don't get that one.

I hereby declare this self pity moment over. Huzzah!

I've picked a new book for us to continue onward. We were going to have proceeded with Sense and Sensiblity which I looked at (it's freely downloadable) and thought was readable. I wanted a paper copy because I find paperbacks easier than my trusty laptop to leave at the nursing home for reading every day. To further that end (does anyone write like that? Besides me, I mean.), I went to ye olde local bookstore. It turned out that the local bookstore (and I use the term loosely -- it sells more scented candles, crafting goodies, greeting cards, and used DVD rentals than books) only had a single copy of a single Austen novel -- so we are reading Mansfield Park instead of Sense and Sensiblity. The bookstore did not have any other Austen books -- I checked, even though the air was thick with perfumed candle scents and hard to breathe. I can still smell that shit on the book I bought. It was oppressive. I mean, okay, it's chick lit (Can we abbreviate that as clit? Please?) but it shouldn't have to smell that way.

One of the things that I did not expect about grandma reading time is that I have to summarize the where we left off stuff for grandma every night because she's slept through the second fifteen minutes of reading time. Stopping reading every five minutes to see if she's awake does not work. She wakes up anytime she hears "Grandma? Are you awake?" It's like a spell or something. As soon as we go back to Geisha prose, she falls asleep. (No, I do not read in a monotone. I even do voices. I read with expression.) So, I summarize: "Yesterday, when we left Sayuri, she was plotting to hook up with the Minister and enlisted Pumpkin to make sure that Nobu accidentally happened upon the two of them." This wouldn't be so bad, but then I have to deal with Who is Pumpkin? and Isn't Nobu the one she wants? and Wait, I thought she liked the Minister... isn't that the one whose handkerchief she has? (Like Othello, this story makes much of a handkerchief but unlike Othello, this handkerchief doesn't have strawberries on it, just a monogram.) I think I need a whiteboard and some colored markers. That would probably help with retention, here.