I take back every hint of doubt I had last night about this pie. I have a confession to make: I only let this cool for about 2 and a half hours, when I was actually supposed to cool it for 4. I stuck it in the special Turbo Chill drawer of my fridge and hoped for a speedy finish. In my rush to eat it last night before falling asleep, I didn’t follow the directions.
Archive: June 4, 2008
One of my coworkers is expecting her first grandchild any day now. I decided to make another Super Quick +Easy Baby Quilt from Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson, like Alannah’s Blanket. It’s a boy, but since I don’t know the baby’s name I’m calling this Yvonne’s Blanket (she’s the grandma). I found this cute teddy bears in wagons fabric and decided to use that for the front.
I read The Lovely Bones a few years ago when it first came out, and I was blown away by it. It is an incredible novel, an instant addition to my list of favorite books of all time. In 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is grabbed on her way home from school by a creepy neighbor, who turns out to be a serial killer. He rapes and murders her in a secret underground spot. She is dismembered and her body parts hidden away. But the book is so fascinating because Susie is the narrator of this novel, and she tells her story from her afterlife. She watches her family and friends as they grow up and grieve for her, she struggles with the fact that she will never be older than 14, she watches her killer as his life goes on and she follows the detective trying to solve her murder. It is so complicated and so entirely original. Just the premise is beautiful and creepy and exceptional–what is it like to be a murder victim and watch the world you used to live in change and cope with your loss? Sebold is a powerful writer, and because of that she is deft through some tricky moments that could have made the story a hokey Christian allegory. It doesn’t come across as anything but one girl’s living, breathing (so to speak) experience. And there’s a great deal of hope at the end, despite the horror of her actual death and the fate of her killer. It really isn’t about the murder itself, but about everything that comes after.