Revolting appliances, reading books

Thanks for nothing internet. I am having to re-type the whole of the post that I wrote last weekend. Boring.

All the household appliances are revolting. Going on strike a la London style - one by one. The washing machine went first. It refused to dry anything or even remove the excess water. So every morning we had to wring out sopping wet clothes and hang them up on our rickety over the tub stand. Then in a moment of early returned home panic I dropped a glass of water on the laptop rendering the ‘c’ key and one of the ‘ctrl’ keys useless. So now I have to type everything in word and paste ‘c’s into it before transferring it to its rightful place.

So we got a new washing machine (requiring a third mortgage) and of course we had not bargained for the integrated-ness of our kitchen so we had to return it and buy a yet more expensive one to fit our kitchen. It worked fine till one night last week it suddenly went off its rails (literally) and threatened to take off, the sound was so deafening, with all of us suddenly jumping out of bed in a panic. Emergency switching off and call to the installer next morning determined that the level of the floor the machine was off/ uneven and the sole cause of the sound/ jumping. The dude came and fixed it and it worked for 2 washes. As of 3 nights ago it is back to its old tricks, this new machine. The guy has readjusted it. And when it happens again we have a plan to rectify it that is more permanent.

We also ordered a new laptop. Ours was on its last legs before I dropped the glass of water on it - although that is not a good enough reason to christen it with water. It’s mouse pad temperamental, the contrast on the screen fluctuating, the memory and speed too low; 6 years having served us well it is ready to retire. So my days are spent waiting at home patiently for things to be delivered/ fixed etc.

In other news, it took me 12 days from the 6th of July to finish 1 book. An all time slow-ness record, but with good reason. The book was ‘The Associate’ by John Grisham, a man whose book redefined legal fiction in my youth. The book was good to start with, the story following a law student into his first job at a big Manhattan firm, egged on by blackmail for a college indiscretion. The blackmailers want inside information on a lawsuit that that firm is pursuing, something big and involving defence equipment. The process is long and arduous and he flits with the ethical dilemma of betrayal and pursues his own methods of finding out about his blackmailers, finding a way out of this safely. While the writing is good, it lacked the lustre of his earlier novels. It sped along and then slowed and then sped, threading stories of people around him, his father, colleagues, roommates from college, to make up the numbers and provide adequate background. Sadly it ended badly – very up in the air, with some FBI involvement but no real conclusions. It’s all left to your imagination and random options. The abrupt end left me very disappointed. I shall have to re-read one of his earlier books to persuade myself to buy his next book.

Since then the speed of reading has picked up and I finished Testimony by Anita Shreve (very well written, worth the effort) and am now onto the ‘The Senator’s Wife’ by Sue Miller (so far so average). More book reviews seem to be the order of the day…..