Boop's Bookshelf: Close Range by Annie Proulx

Close Range checks off 'A book of short stories' in my 2015 reading challenge 

The Author

Annie Proulx is an American journalist and author. She writes several collections of short stories, and her most well known work would be Brokeback Mountain - which was adapted into a film. (However, many people who have seen the film wouldn't know it was originally a short story). Incidentally, Brokeback Mountain is included in this collection of short stories.

She has won several awards through her career, including a Pulitzer Prize, the Dos Passos Prize and the O. Henry Prize twice - both for stories within the Close Range collection. 

Proulx currently lives in Wyoming, the area in which Close Range is set.

The Synopsis

How does one write a synopsis on a collection of short stories? 

Close Range is a collection of stories all set in the Wyoming - a mountain region in the West of America. The stories are set at different time periods, however there are common themes throughout such as life as a rancher and the open spaces of Wyoming. All of the stories and all of the characters revolve around life in Wyoming.

My Thoughts
It's very rare that I read a book of short stories. In fact, I don't think I have ever read a book of short stories! Annie Proulx was able to create scenes in rich detail, no matter how short the story was. each of her stories were written differently, some very differently which I think is an impressive talent - usually an author has a recognizable style that comes through in their writing, but with Proulx this was not the case. I found that engaging and impressive.

The hardship and moral ambiguity of the characters and their situations really stands out through all of the stories. The immoral situations that they find themselves in are often written in as throwaway comments, and treated as normal or expected - especially the rape of women through the different time periods. It made an impact, and helped to make the reader understand how things were and the character's attitudes to life. It made an impact.

All of the stories really drive home the feeling of an open, sparse area where you don't come across many other people. The characters all seemed to be stuck in Wyoming, or always coming back to it.

My Rating...

3.5 stars

I enjoyed reading it, I admire the authors writing skills and it's a collection I may reread in future.

A New Thing

I have two blogs, this one, and my health and fitness blog. I usually try to keep them separate, and not post about weight etc on here. However, I have undertaken a big change as of Thursday, so it seemed relevant to write about it on here too.

After struggling to battle my weight on my own, I finally took the plunge and joined Slimming World. This is going to be a big overhaul and I'll be acclimatizing to different eating habits. I would go so far as to say this is a lifestyle change...I'm commiting to attending the weekly meetings every Thursday, and to following the Slimming World eating plan.

I'm going to have to put in a lot of effort to plan out my meals - especially lunches at work...

I feel apprehensive about everything at the moment, so I'm not entirely sure how I feel about doing this. A part of me is looking forward to it, another part of me feels apprehensive about sticking to a plan - I'm worried I will fail and waste everyone's time. BUUUT there we go. I'm doing it and changing my food choices.

Today was day 1 of Slimming World, I'm finding it a bit confusing to work out how many syns things are actually worth, especially when the starter pack book says one thing, and the website says another. Annoying...Anyway, that's what's been going on with me recently.

Happy Friday!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I hate being hairy. Yes, I am absolutely going there. When I have hairy armpits I feel like a icky man-lady. Over the years I've tried all kinds of hair removal...shaving, waxing, that stinky hair cream stuff...the only thing I haven't tried is the slightly more permanent laser hair removal (I can neither confirm nor deny that it may be next on my list of things to try...)

I thought it would be interesting to write about my experiences with each method...ENJOY

1. Shaving

The standard. Where more or less everyone starts out...

Yay

• Feels great to get the hair off quickly and pain-free! 
• Quick
• Cheap
• Easy
• Can do it at home
• Convenient

Nay

• Itchy regrowth
• Does NOT last very long. At all. 2 days max
• Accidental slips or bad angles can cause uncontrollable bleeding and scarring
• Razors quickly go blunt
• Razor burn/razor rash
• Ingrown hairs
• Red bobbly skin

Krummometer says: 

P.S. Krumm is a character from a cartoon Aaahh!!! Real Monsters. It was always on Cartoon Network in the late evenings.

The convenience of shaving pushed it up to a 3 for me, and to be fair, I shave on my legs pretty much all the time. Though in other more sensitive areas - like armpits - it does not work very well for me.

2. Hair Removal Cream

Yay

• Quick
• Can do it at home

Nay

• It smells gross
• It doesn't work as well as I would like it to
• It's gloopy

Krummometer says: 

I did not like this. at all. Gross and smelly with unsatisfactory results...Boooooo!

3. Epilator

Yay

• Quicker than plucking each hair out
• Cheap (once you have bought the epilator)
• Reusable

Nay

• Painful. All the pain.
• Scary - there is no way I would use this on my underarms - legs are as far as I will go with this!
• Too violent - sometimes it breaks the hairs and I'm left with stubble

Krummometer says: 

Another hair removal method I did NOT like. It's too painful and does not give very good results.... Having said that, the last time I used an epilator was several years ago soo it might be worth giving this another shot. Maybe. 

4. Strip Wax (Home kits)

Yay

• Pulls the hair out from the root
• Lighter regrowth
• You can do it privately at home without the awkwardness of stripping off in a salon

Nay

• Painful
• Takes a lot of courage to pull off the strip yourself
• Messy and sticky
• It's hard to reach all the areas you want to wax 
• Takes a lot of time

Krummometer says:

It's hard to pull the strips off - correctly - on your own. It's also soo messy and sticky...I prefer the smoothness of waxing, but I prefer the convenience of shaving over the mess of waxing myself

5. Strip Wax (Salon)

Yay

• You don't have to do anything. Just lay back and let the beautician do the work
• Lighter regrowth
• Smooth results

Nay

• Going to a salon every month can get expensive
• Painful
• Having to grow the hair out long enough to be waxed again is neither fun nor attractive...

Krummometer says:

I love the smooth, clean feeling after a wax. However, I have sensitive skin so I do sometimes come up quite red and sore in the stubborn hair areas.

6. Hot Wax

Yay

• Gentler on the skin (no wax strips - just peels off)
• Gets the shorter hairs that can be missed in a strip wax
• Smells nice
• hairless for longer
• Grows back finer

Nay

• Gets expensive going to a salon every month
• Can be painful (but less painful than strip wax)
• I haven't seen this in many places - few and far between!
• Have to regrow the hair in-between treatments

Krummometer says: 

Pling Pling Pling! We have a winner. This by far is my favorite hair removal method. I prefer it over all other methods I've tried thus far! 

What method do you prefer? 

Krumm image sourced from here: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/317/1/f/krumm_by_mollyketty-d6u5rsd.png

An Unexpected Trip to A&E

Since last weekend, (by last weekend I mean the 17th May) I've had abdominal pain. I thought I had eaten something bad so just got on with things and went into work as normal. By Wednesday I had violent chills, was sent home from work, then was alternating between chills and fevers. Alongside those, a pounding headache, backache and dizziness. When I got home from work I crashed out in the thickest onesie I own, wrapped in my duvet. I had a fitful sleep for a few hours, then got up to wait for Andrew to come home - I wanted him to take me to the doctors as I was not fit to drive with the dizziness. Once Andrew was back from his late shift at work, we called the NHS 111 number to get advice on where we should go. After answering questions about my symptoms, they advised we go to an Urgent Care Clinic. So we did. We waited to see the doctor there, he did some tests, prodded my belly and advised we go to A&E.

We drove over to A&E with a letter in hand from the Urgent Care Clinic doctor, saying he thinks it could be appendicitis. After I was seen by the A&E Nurse, I had a short wait before being taken through to the ward just off the A&E waiting room. I was to be put on an IV drip with fluids to re-hydrate me, and have intravenous paracetamol. Before that, I had to have some blood taken for testing. They couldn't find the vein in my left arm, so they moved to the right arm and were able to draw blood and insert a cannula for the IV bags. The A&E doctor examined me, and agreed that it looks like appendicitis, though there are other things it could be. He called a surgeon to examine me as well - as they would have a better idea of where the problem lies. Once the surgeon had prodded my belly, they decided to admit me and put me on the list for urgent surgery. I was wheeled through to another ward, to sleep before waiting for surgery the next day.

Thursday I wasn't allowed to eat as I was on the list for surgery. I was getting occasional strong waves of intense hunger - I hadn't eating anything since 11am Wednesday. Luckily, these would dissipate quite quickly - providing the breakfast/lunch/dinner trolley was taken away swiftly! I was also having some stomach issues - which were not pretty I can tell you that for free. It was a long day interspersed with a couple of visits from the surgical consult/anesthetist through the day. A loooong boring day. By the end of the day, I still hadn't had any surgery. Thankfully the night-time surgeon came to see me late in the evening (read: middle of the night) and gave me the okay to have some food (Hallelujah!). I had some toast, juice, and yogurt - Best. Meal. Ever. Then had very fitful sleep.

Friday was another long day. I was told I was at the top of the list for surgery, but still had to wait for most of the day before I heard anything. It was all too much, I was tired, felt crap and was bored out of my mind waiting to be called in for surgery. Also I was scared, I've never had surgery before. Around 5pm I was finally called down to theatre for my exploratory laparoscopy. It was nerve-wracking, but the surgical team made me feel at ease by cracking a couple of jokes. It all happened really quickly from when I was brought down to surgery, at one point there was two people talking to me at the same time and I had to work out who I needed to reply to! Quite disorientating. Especially as they had given me something which they forewarned would make me woozy (A prelude to being K.O.'d!).

I have some weird vague memories of waking up feeling panicked, hearing a voice saying my name, someone saying 'she's fighting us' and someone talking to me, telling me about my operation and saying I ripped out my cannula. That's all very fuzzy and I'm not sure what exactly actually happened. The next time I became aware again, I was on oxygen in the recovery room - waiting to be wheeled back to my ward. That felt surreal.

Anywho, it turned out to be appendicitis, so they removed my appendix and I'm feeling much better now. Yaaaaay

Radio Silence

I've had a very busy few weeks. A week in Scotland, a week in the office catching up, and a week in France returning last weekend. Since I got back, I was sick and ended up in A&E - I'll post about that another time. Anyway, for all of the above reasons things have been silent around these parts recently!

I'll be posting more regularly (hopefully!) soon...

JustGiving - Race For Life

Good morning, early birds!

If you're often around these parts, you may have noticed a new little button at the top of my sidebar...
It kinda looks like this:
 It's saying "Hello! please click on me"

Basically I am running in one of Race for Life's 5k events on 10th June. I did this event last year, with a time of just under 47 minutes. I'd like to do it quicker this time around! I'll be posting about the trials and tribulations of my training over on bekbek19.wordpress.com if you would like to read about that in the run up to the event...

I don't have a sad cancer story to tug on your heartstrings and incite you to donate. I know people who have died from it, and I know people who have recovered from it. Sop story or no, so many people are affected by cancer in one way or another.

If you feel strongly about supporting Cancer Research, please please don't hesitate to hit the sponsor button. It's an important cause, and there is still a long way to go before we can successfully beat cancer.

Boop's Bookshelf: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie checks off 'A book set in high school' in my 2015 reading challenge

The Author

Muriel Spark was a award winning Scottish novelist. She wrote several short stories, plays, poems, novels and biographies. She had several titles and honors awarded to her through her lifetime. She has written pieces for the BBC, and lived in several countries through her life. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the best known of Spark's works.

Synopsis

This short story centers around a Miss Jean Brodie and her exclusively selected group of students at the school she teaches at. The relationship between her and her students is a special one - though that may not be a good thing. Miss Brodie is in the prime of her life and she shares her experiences with her students, while subtly shaping them into miniature versions of herself. Brodie's teaching methods are looked down on by the school's headmistress, who invariably tries to intervene with Brodies' 'set' and gain a reason to dismiss Miss Brodie. Through a love triangle and increasingly manipulative behaviour, one of the girls eventually betrays Brodie to the headmistress, handing her the tools to bring her down. However, Miss Brodie never finds out who that was.

My Thoughts

While reading this, it was difficult to keep track of which girl was which. This was exacerbated by the chapters jumping around in time through the time that the girls knew Miss Brodie. At the beginning I felt that Miss Brodie was a forward-thinking, liberal teacher who is being stifled by the traditionalist headmistress. However, as the story progressed and the power Brodie holds over the girls is abused, I felt that she was much more ominous and her views more dangerous. I mean...I hate to lay down a spoiler, but at one point she says that she was in Germany and she thinks Hitler's regime is a good thing...

She was more than a little obsessed with fascism and she pushed that onto her 'set'. She more or less turns these girls into her very own fascist group, and they hung from her every word. She specifically chose the girls in her set because their parents were disinterested or too naive to intervene in her relationship with them. All a bit ominous and it made me feel a little uncomfortable.

On the positive side of that, my reaction to the manipulative Miss Brodie is the result of good writing. I felt genuine emotion towards Miss Brodie, even if the feelings weren't all positive. It is a well written novel, however I didn't particularly enjoy the story. Then again that could just be because there was a lot about fascism that I didn't understand...

My Rating:

3 stars

Good writing, didn't like the story quite so much...