Dec. 15th, 2009

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Agnes Trussel is a surprisingly innocent young woman for having grown up in the country with parents who produce new offspring nearly every year. She is half seduced, half raped by the village bully, and when she discovers that he has made her pregnant she considers her options and, given heart by an unexpected windfall, chooses to leave home and travel to London rather than be forced into marrying her child's father. She finds herself at the door of a maker of fireworks, begging for the job of housekeeper, but hired on as his assistant instead. And from that moment, a world of new ideas is opened to her.

If I have one quibble with the book it's that Agnes is a bit too wonderful -- she exists on the thin, sharp edge of being a Mary Sue -- a beautiful young woman who doesn't realize she's beautiful, who is smart and resourceful, and who has a mot juste for every occasion. Borodale does manage to balance these qualities with some interesting flaws, including a stunning emotional obtuseness. And yet in spite of both her flaws and her good qualities, Agnes is interesting enough as a character to carry the story. However, for me, the most interesting character of the lot is John Blacklock, who in many ways remains a mystery, even to Agnes. His emotional life becomes clearer and deeper as the story progresses, and yet we can never quite come to know him. He is, like his fireworks, a flame that burns brilliantly but all-too-quickly. And as he says of the pyrotechnics themselves, the silence they carry within them is their true beauty.

Both Agnes and John are working to bring something new into the world. This is the story of how they each go about their work, together and yet always in the end, isolated from the rest of the world and even from each other. In fact, most of the books' characters are complex and interesting, though it's not always immediately apparent. They require patience, too, as does a plot which never quite becomes a romance or mystery, or strays into any other literary genre. It can sometimes be slow, sometimes even difficult, but I found it eminently worth the time, and in fact read the book in two long sittings.

And yes, it made me cry. That doesn't happen often, and I'm not going to say why it did for fear of spoiling the reader. Let me just say that it touched a deep and resonant chord in me with its slow sadness, and ultimate reaffirmation of life.
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I carry around a lot of tension in my back. Some of it is plain old stress, some is due to physical problems, but the net effect is the same: My back hurts! A lot. Most of the discomfort occurs in my lower and mid-back, and that area is where this unit really shines. The rolling massage is a comfortable and comforting experience, the shiatsu massage is firmer and more emphatic. I'd say that the latter would be best for working out the kinks while the former is more relaxing. In tandem, they work well. However the shoulder massage function has so far not proved to be very useful, and in fact my neck and shoulders hurt more after use than before. Possibly this is because the unit seems to be designed for someone with a longer torso than I have. I'll have to work with the unit to see if there isn't some way to fix this.

There are a few ways to adjust the back rollers. You can choose full, upper or lower back positions on both shiatsu and rolling massage settings. Rolling massage allows you to adjust the width of the rollers and shiatsu allows the user to stop the massage in a specific place for a little extra therapy.

The heat feature is a lovely addition, but I wish it could be used without the massage. Since there does seem to be a time limit on each massage session, I don't see any reason why the same couldn't be done for a simple heat treatment. However I've never had a Homedics massage cushion which doesn't limit heat use to a massage session, so I really wasn't surprised.

Overall I like the product and plan to get a lot of use out of it, but I'll need to find another chair on which to use it (my desk chair is not particularly compatible with it, alas) and work with it to find the best sort of session to loosen up my aching muscles.
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The house seems very empty sometimes.  Not all the time, just when I least expect to notice that he's gone, and then I get blindsided.  Losing my folks taught me a lot about how you have to handle grief and loss and so I'm coping pretty well, but I miss that little guy.  Not having a cat, but that cat in particular.  In general I'd say that I could probably happily go the rest of my life without a new pet.

I've done a lot of reading and writing of reviews as you might've noticed, and Dawn and I spent the weekend baking Christmas cookies.  We delivered most of them in the last two days, and hope to have them all given out by the weekend.  We've also signed up for AT&T's UVerse which I hope will be as good as they say it is.  But frankly, if the TV and internet are reliable, I'll be thrilled since we're getting both plus unlimted phone service for $30 a month less than we've been paying, and with more stations.  After the first year it'll go up to what we were paying, which is still pretty darn good.  Considering how badly fubar'd the reception was for Dollhouse on Friday, an improvement in TV reliability alone would be worth it.

It's cold here again and I'm tired, but I don't feel like going to bed yet.  Think I'll just vege in front of the TV for an hour or two.

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Tracy Rowan

August 2013

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