Musette’s Musings on books and Winners! and a giveaway (AGAIN!!!)

I’m writing this post on a blustery Sunday because WE GOT THIS AMAZING PROJECT! squeeeeeee!  but it is taking every nanosecond of my work day and basically eats like into the rest of the dayintonightandIamNOTcomplainingOMG!amISOTHRILLEDABOUTTHISPROJECT!!!!.  But!  that means that Sunday, sweet Sunday is the only day to write this post.

So:  let’s talk BOOKS!  A Very Dear Friend  sent me this lovely little book of essays “Endangered Pleasures” by Barbara Holland.  First, know this:  I love the HELL out of a book of essays, having spent many a cold winter’s night curled up with Richardson Wright and M. et Mme White’s offerings.  There’s something so…relaxing..about an essay, especially when they are set in book form.  Ms Holland’s book covers everything from taking naps (she’s for it, as am I) to hoarding money (she is NOT for it, neither am I – fwiw, ‘hoarding’ and ‘saving’ are two different things).  Her own musings brought to mind a bizarre conversation I had with someone who counseled that if I ‘drank the cheap plonk and kept the house at 53F I, too, could quit my job’.  ew.   Ms. Holland christened this ‘delirious parsimony’.  The idea of walking around the house, wearing a coat and gloves in February, eating cheap ‘cheese’ and old turnips in a can?  just squicked me out.  Plenty of time for that, come the Apocalypse.

On Napping:  “A perfectly healthy cat can nap through the entire month of February and wake up feeling all the better for it”.  You said it, sister.

On Working:  “the joy of being at work isn’t fully savored until we’ve been unemployed for a time” (she continues with ‘and, of course, vice versa’ but I have no intention of pissing off the Universe with that one.  Been there, done that – as a small biz owner I get to swing over that chasm too often for my liking) – here’s the thing:  I LIKE working (which is why the reason for my friend’s Delirious Parsimony freaked me out).  Truly.  I don’t always like the job I’m doing – or the people/drama inherent therein – but I love the act of Doing Something.  I suspect that were I to hit Mega tomorrow I would still ‘do’ something.  Sitting around gives me hives – unless I’m sitting around as a reward for having worked like a rented Egyptian mule for awhile and am enjoying the fruits of my labors in some chaise longue on the Mexican Riviera in February.  Then, like that perfectly healthy cat, I can nap through the entire month, perhaps awakening for occasional ceviche and guacamole, washed down with a limonada.

Speaking of …food.  Omg.  What a GREAT book I’m reading:  “What She Ate” by Laura Shapiro.  The chapter on Eleanor Roosevelt is, at turns, both hysterical and grim AF.  The White House years focus on Mrs. Roosevelt’s choice for cook/housekeeper, Henrietta Nesbitt, here crowned as the ‘most reviled cook in presidential history’ and…omg.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  Or heave.  Well!  That’s one way to revenge yourself on your straying husband, I guess, though I doubt she meant it that way.  I would’ve.  But I’m a mean old shrike.

WayWAY back, I was nattering on about mysteries (maybe) and another Very Dear Friend sent me the first Louise Penny book “Still Life” – and I will forever be in her debt, that’s how much I love the Inspector Gamache series.  Funny how some chance remark will result in a life-enhancing exchange – and that one certainly was!  I am returning the favor (Sharon, if you’re reading this, thank you forevermore!!!) by extolling the fabulousness that is the Inspector Rutledge series by Charles Todd (a mother/son writing team);  I came upon this series when I overheard one of my book club ladies chatting about Ian Rutledge and how intriguing the WWI backstory is (our book club is VERY heavy on WW2 – between them and my pop I often felt like I was trapped in some small French village in 1941).

The Rutledge series focuses on post-WWI and the as-yet undefined (and discounted/denigrated) effects of PTSD, as seen through the eyes of Inspector Ian Rutledge, as he desperately tries to reintegrate into postwar ‘civilized society’ as well as his career as a Scotland Yard police inspector.  Interestingly, this is one of the few series where ‘whodunnit’ can be largely secondary to the tale.  Often it’s a bit of a throwaway and you. won’t. care.  Best read in order, I think.  But I’m kinda funny ’bout that, ymmv.

I have NOTHING to talk about re perfume – at least not right now (am testing some gorgeous DSH offerings but they are worthy of my time and attention so it’ll be awhile; it would go faster if I could pry my paws off the GLORIOUS  Un Robe de Zibeline (and if any of you question whether Skynet is possible, let me tell you:  it’s already here.  The advance guard is SPELLCHECK and it is going to kill roughly 30% of the population from the stress of  struggling to force it to allow us to write ‘un’ instead of ‘in’ –  five times it changed it to ‘In’ Robe.  FIVE. TIMES.

But hey!  Winners!!!!!!

I so enjoyed all your comments and would’ve replied but this AMAZING PROJECT came in and I was buried but!  I did ask The Girl to hit randomdotorg and she did.  Came up with the following Posseites!

Artist

Otamom

Taxi

please gmail your evilauntieanita with your details and I will get some fabbo out to you asap!

And a giveaway!  If you’re still reading this rambling post, tell me one of your Endangered Pleasures.  One of my favorites is, interestingly, not all that luxe.  It’s …well, hmmm….how to explain…well, it’s either when you get up to pee or your sleep is otherwise interrupted for a quick minute…and it’s not quite dark…more that crepuscular dawn…and the entire house is quiet…and you realize that everyone is safe and it’s only 3:15a so you have a lot more time to snuggle under the warm covers in your cool bedroom and, at least for that time, every. damb. thing. is right in your world.  That.  To me, that is the most luxe feeling in the world!

Tell me yours (it can be luxe or it can be ordinary – whatever pleases you!  TGirl will read them and pull a winner or two!