Thursday Evening

Hadn't realized I haven't posted all week and basically I had nothing in particular to say. I did finish the Las Vegas book and really enjoyed it. Marilyn came on Wednesday and she cleaned off the top of my refrigerator -- I have a bad habit of just sticking things there, and now it's all clear. I also had her clean out the lint trap in my dryer and she got this wad of lint the size of a football. No wonder my clothes were taking two or three cycles to dry.

I thought this would be an easy week workwise, but just as you think that, the universe says, "oh really?" and slams you. So I'm glad tomorrow is Friday. The weather has been lovely -- haven't had the air conditioner on all day and it's just so pleasant to just have the garden door open and nice fresh air (well, as fresh as NYC air can be.)

Started reading "Mistress of Nothing" which is a very odd book, but I am enjoying it. Based on a true story, it's about a fancy woman and her lady's maid in the 1860s who go from England to Egypt because of the woman's health... she needs to be in a dry climate... and she leaves her family behind and they are living in Luxur, and the longer they're away, the more their strict roles and rules fall away. Now both of them have stopped wearing their English clothes and are dressing like Egyptians and calling each other by their first names.

Trouble is brewing however as the "spinster" lady's maid (she's only 30) has started her first relationship with a local man and she got pregnant by him and they don't know how to tell "my Lady." Unusual story and interesting.

Here's what Amazon says... spoiler alert on myself... guess the maid has the baby!

Based on the real Lady Duff Gordon's journey to Egypt with her maid in the mid-19th century, Pullinger's novel brings a broiling desert landscape to life through the eyes of the working classes. Maid Sally Naldrett jumps at the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with her lady, but her fairy tale grows even more exquisite when she falls in love with the lady's interpreter and guide, Omar. The blithe domestic scene takes a turn for the worse when Sally becomes pregnant, much to Lady Duff Gordon's disappointment. As Egypt's lower classes rise up against the tyrannical khedive, Sally's position grows tenuous, forcing her to fend for herself and her half-English, half-Egyptian child in Cairo, a budding tourist town quickly shedding its history. Incorporating actual quotes from the real Lady Duff Gordon's letters, and endowing Sally with tremendous character, Pullinger successfully imagines an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances.