Rachel's Adventures: Alyssa's Baby Shower

I was pretty excited about the work I did on last week's pictures. It was like I had a breakthrough in what I am accomplishing. When I went to class, my teacher Carol even noticed this. I really don't know why. I had thought why would it be when I'm drawing lizards? No reason. If we were working on something else, I think it would have shown with that. So this week it is snakes. I had decided on one snake, and I liked it. But, it was too distant to give detail, so I decided to do another that was a close up. My classmate Linda has gotten on to working on eyes. Her pictures are amazing! She is very detailed and top-notch n shading! Very good! I'll ask her sometime for permission to print one of her pictures. Such talent! Carol mentioned at looking to move to Las Vegas. I would sure miss her as Linda has said also. But she said we could stay at her home if we came to Las Vegas. Then she said she might do classes that could be extended weekends to have classes and then time to gamble, or do other activities. No immediate plans, but it is something we needed to be aware of.

Snake

Further work on the Peacock

Further work on the Lizard

Further work on the Peacock Feather.

I had gotten an email, not specifically to me, but asking for readers to write reviews of books they want to advertise. So they listed four books and asked that one be selected. They stated it wouldn't be a guarantee that you would get one. So, I filled in the form and the book I selected, called The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

What a fascinating book! I have never read a book like this. It is about power, the position and treatment of women. The writer is from South Korea and was translated by Deborah Smith. She has to also be good, because it reads so well. In this story the protagonist is a housewife who is in a relationship not based on love, or anything really positive but that her husband feels he can control her. She also refuses to wear a bra because it is uncomfortable.She has a regular nightmare that show lots of blood. She decides from this to become a vegetarian though that did not stop the nightmares. She will not eat dairy or eggs too. Her husband catches her tossing all the meat in the freezer and becomes very upset with her. Her emotional tone is flat in responding to him. All she will say is "I don't eat meat".

They go to a management dinner for work. She is not wearing a bra and she refuses to eat anything with meat. Her husband is embarrassed by her. He even exerts support from her side of the family to get her to eat meat using violence by her father and what everyone sees as her sense of duty to her husband and father. She refuses. She appears non- responsive to all attempts for her to eat meat. In the mean time she has become very thin, This book came from Pelican Random House Books. I don't know where they got my name, but I'm pleased I got the chance to participate in this. The book is around 200 pages. The sentences are short and there are no extra words used in the whole book. I recommend it for the unique style of writing and the excellent story where the theme could fit for all countries and the issues as to treatment of women. This country perhaps has a stronger sense of need to control women, though I see it a lot.

My niece Shannon asked about coming up this weekend. I told her that Alyssa, Shelley's oldest daughter's baby shower would be on Saturday. She had to make arrangements to get a car rental. They do this for out of town visits. I'm glad Jordan and Shannon were coming here for lots of reasons but the one that comes to mind was to put the shower present (a stroller/carseat combo) into the car and then into the restaurant.

I had never been to Agave Grill and Cantina. There are so many Mexican restaurants in town. Janet and I go to Mexicali not for the food, but for the Margaritas. And, as I have said, for both Janet and I, each of us went there with our husbands (both of our husbands have died). It offers a kind of comfort for both of us. The food was very tasty and the margaritas were okay, not as good as Mexicali's, but not a bad drink. Jordan spent the time with his cousins so this was the first time Shannon and I spent time without others. Very pleasant! We went to the Red Pepper for fish tacos. She made breakfast Saturday morning which was delicious. Mainly, we just lazed around. And, on Sunday, we Christened my new waffle maker. We made enough so I could freeze them and take them out one at a time, putting them in a toaster to get it nice and hot. The baby shower for Alyssa went well and my son Jeff and his wife Stephanie were there. It was good to see them. It has been several months since I last saw them. I got wonderful reports on their two daughters, my granddaughters Cassadie and Meghan. They are doing very well.