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Dec. 23rd, 2009 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The office has half-emptied out this week. Next week, there will be a skeleton crew on board and I won't be one of them. I haven't worked Christmas week for years and having some seniority would generally mean I can get the time off if i want it. It's very quiet, too. Not a lot happening.
Just have to get through this afternoon, then a session at the gym after work. Don't really feel up to is as i'm a bit tired, though. I woke up at 4 and really didn't get back to sleep properly, though dozed a bit. See, yesterday i bought a small bag of "chicken bones" as seen in this photo here. A New Brunswick company, Ganong, makes the best. They are a brittle candy shell of cinnamon with chocolate inside as the "marrow" and oh God they're good! They only bring them out at Christmas time, or at least, that's when you see them around a lot more, so it is one of those treats that really typify the season. We always had them in the house growing up, those, and the buckets of hard candy in various shapes including ribbons and the clear sugar gylcerine "toys", shaped like animals, clowns, all sorts of fanciful things. Anyway, sucking on those chicken bones can make your tongue bleed from the sharpness of the brittle candy shell or.... which is what i think i did, the hot cinnamon "burned" my tongue and the roof of my mouth a bit. My mouth hurt when i went to bed but when i woke up at 4, it was very tender, felt a bit swollen and i had a hard time getting back to sleep. It's not so bad now, just a little tiny bit sore. Guess i learned that lesson!
2009 books:
30. Once in a Lifetime by Cathy Kelly
She's an Irish writer and i've read a few of her books. I quite like them. This one is mainly about one woman, Ingrid, who's a well known political interviewer on television. Her husband, David Kenny, runs the family owned posh department store, Kenny's. There are a few other characters, mainly women who all have a connection either to one or both of this couple or to the store and we get to know some of them as well, and their problems and solutions. David Kenny dies suddenly and most of the book is about the aftermath, dealing with that, how she copes (not very well at first but that's got a lot to do with a "shocking" discovery she makes. Standard plot really, but i won't spoil it for you). The other characters' stories aren't given a huge amount of detail but enough that make it interesting to read. What was a bit odd, though, is when they take a fairly minor character and jump back into their past and describe it all in detail. It doesn't seem to really go with the rest of the flow. It might have been better if it was about Ingrid rather than someone that's really not a major player. I think i would have enjoyed it more if all of these secondary and minor characters had more connection to each other or to Ingrid in the end. Some of them did, but not all of them. Having said that, I still enjoyed the book. Cathy Kelly writes decent books. She's no Marian Keyes, whose books i really like a lot, but she's not bad.

2009 books:
30. Once in a Lifetime by Cathy Kelly
She's an Irish writer and i've read a few of her books. I quite like them. This one is mainly about one woman, Ingrid, who's a well known political interviewer on television. Her husband, David Kenny, runs the family owned posh department store, Kenny's. There are a few other characters, mainly women who all have a connection either to one or both of this couple or to the store and we get to know some of them as well, and their problems and solutions. David Kenny dies suddenly and most of the book is about the aftermath, dealing with that, how she copes (not very well at first but that's got a lot to do with a "shocking" discovery she makes. Standard plot really, but i won't spoil it for you). The other characters' stories aren't given a huge amount of detail but enough that make it interesting to read. What was a bit odd, though, is when they take a fairly minor character and jump back into their past and describe it all in detail. It doesn't seem to really go with the rest of the flow. It might have been better if it was about Ingrid rather than someone that's really not a major player. I think i would have enjoyed it more if all of these secondary and minor characters had more connection to each other or to Ingrid in the end. Some of them did, but not all of them. Having said that, I still enjoyed the book. Cathy Kelly writes decent books. She's no Marian Keyes, whose books i really like a lot, but she's not bad.