Loose Ends

Because Ryan thinks I'm too negative, I decided I'm in no hurry to provide him with his W-2. So with my free time this evening, I finished reading my book Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. The beginning was a little slow and there were too many characters for me to keep track of. Maybe I'm just dumb, but it was a lot to remember, especially since I didn't have time to sit and read 16 chapters in one sitting. Then, after the middle of the book, there were only certain characters the book focused on. As I neared the end, I realized there weren't near enough pages remaining to provide me with a satisfactory ending, so I set myself up for disapointment before I ever even arrived (not a good thing to do). Sometimes, when I'm reading or watching a movie, I decide what I want the ending to be and if it's not that, I get a little sad. Some parts of the book were so quick to jump to shocking endings whereas others were very slow moving. I felt like the end of the book left far too many loose ends for me to be content. However, as I was reading some of the author's comments after the book, I realized she either never wrote the last half of the book, it hasn't been published or no one has found it yet. You see, the back of the book explains the author was a Jew and in 1942, she was arrested and eventually killed. For 64 years, this novel remained hidden and unknown. In her notes that were published with this book, it is obvious that she intended to write 2 or 3 more parts, 200 pages each. Now I guess I'm going to have to make up my own ending.

Overall, especially considering the circumstance of the book being published, I enjoyed reading this book. I especially liked the perspectives that were given from different classes of people (everyone from the poor French to the wealthy French to the German soldiers). Sometimes we think only about what we may be suffering and not what others, even when they appear to be the enemy, may be suffering as well. It also had me pondering about why people think we're strange for having a food storage. Look what happened to so many French that didn't have any food on hand? They were starving! The book wasn't as depressing or dark as I thought it'd be. I had it set in my mind that it was going to be more about Nazi rein and that the characters would be in concentration camps at some point. I would recommend it as long as very vague and open endings don't leave you feeling serious anxiety.

On a different note... Friday night Jason had a campout with the Scouts. After the wedding reception, I came home and worked and cleaned until about 130am. I had to be up by 630am to get ready for the Cub Scout Pow Wow. My mom came and picked Clara up and I carpooled out to Heard Pueblo with the other Cub Scout people in my Ward. I was a little bitter that I was taking a whole day off of work and leaving Clara the entire time to do this, but I had a good time and got some good ideas. I don't know that I'm destined to be a lifelong Scouter, but for now, I'll do my best and enjoy having the opportunity to teach the boys. Jason had to go to work when he got back from his campout so Clara stayed at my mom's until I picked her up around 430pm. Ohh, I didn't want to stop squeezing her.

Shortly after I got to my mom's, we were outside visiting and James and two of his friends were about 8 feet high in a sheet hanging from a tree. They were laughing and laughing and the sound of ripping fabric caused me to turn around just in time to see the sheet rip open and James, who was on the bottom, falling to the ground. He made a loud thud and seemed to be okay so I felt better replaying the image in my mind and laughing as I did. Too bad we didn't have the camera rolling, it surely would've won us some money for the funniest home video! Clara and I went to Fry's (AGAIN!) with my mom and I'm happy to say I won't be needing cheese any time soon.

Tonight (Monday) Kate invited me over to eat with her and her two boys. She's not a semi-widow due to school, but rather the wonderful world of public accounting. It was nice not to have to cook dinner AND to have some company. And now I continue to waste time to avoid preparing W-2's!