We are a house full of sick people. Well, two sick people. It's the season. Both F and J are home with some irritating little bug that causes low level symptoms and a low grade fever, just enough for them to stay home, but not enough for them to suffer as one should when one is home sick from school. Although one of my fondest memories from my childhood involved a bout of chicken pox that left me covered with little spots, unable to go to school, and feeling perfectly fine. No suffering there, except presumably my mom's.
I'm finally doing the actual painting on the giant great room job, finally, which is a relief. I've been stuck with maquettes for the last year and it's nice to move on to full scale work. Plus I'm painting a somewhat fanciful tiger right now, and how often do you get to do that? I'm a little disheartened by how much there is left to do, seeing as how I've barely been able to work on the project up to now; what has been accomplished so far (which is actually quite a lot) has been done by subcontractors. When I get a little further I will photograph the work and also the maquette I'm working from.
And I also finished The Wide Sargasso sea, by Jean Rhys, which has languished on my bookshelf for at least ten years. This was prompted by yet another BBC version of Jane Eyre. I was struck by the direct, concise quality of her writing. Interesting that the author came from the islands herself, and was able to use that unique cultural perspective. And I liked that Antoinette (inexplicably called Bertha by Mr Rochester, the cad-- trying to drive her crazy maybe?) was such a sympathetic, though troubled and fragile, character. It adds a little dollop of justice to Mr. Rochester's rather grisly fate ( I was always creeped out by Jane getting together with him after his accident, effectively becoming his nurse maid).
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