It’s been over two weeks since I went on maternity leave, and I’m actually starting to miss work a little bit. At least I have Poirot to help me pass the time. Here’s what he has to say about his field of expertise (murder):
It is a little like your puzzle, Madame. One assembles the pieces. It is like a mosaic—many colours and patterns—and every strange-shaped little piece must be fitted into its own place.
from Evil Under the Sun
My blog completely fell apart last year. I had so many things to say about my amazing son and the baby girl who was about to join our family that I felt overwhelmed by the task. I also had a lot to do: work to finish up before maternity leave and a guest bedroom to prepare for my parents. So December passed with nothing more than the Weekly Poirot. In January, even that ceased, and on the 12th, everything else in my universe came to a screeching halt, because the baby, my beautiful Livia, arrived on the winds of a snowy winter storm.
I wish I could say that I’ll catch up on old posts and blog consistently from now on, but the fact is, I don’t have time for much of anything. Taking care of Livia is a 24-hour job. I haven’t gotten more than 5 hours of sleep per night since she was born, and sleep deprivation is really starting to take its toll on me. I need to sleep whenever I can. I would be asleep right now were I not also eating my breakfast as I type this. Food, like sleep, is a necessity.
When I stopped posting last year, I also lost track of which books I had read, so my 2010 Book Love list is probably incomplete. Backtracking will be difficult, maybe even impossible, but I’ll try. I’m not going to worry too much about posting “reviews,” but I would at least like to know how many books I ultimately read. It’s a point of pride for me, silly as it may be.
And I loved doing my Weekly Poirot, so it saddens me that I missed so many weeks. If I can scrape up some time, I’ll do some new ones and backdate them so there will still be one for each week.
That’s all for now. Wish me sleep.
In the Christie universe, some characters doubt Poirot’s abilities, often to their detriment. Here’s what one character had to say about him.
That old mountebank? He won’t find out anything. He’s all talk and moustaches.
from Death on the Nile
P.S. I just love the word “mountebank.” Don’t you?
Having just brought home a tiny newborn and not having been entirely prepared for it, I know all too well the wisdom of these words from Poirot:
To succeed in life every detail should be arranged well beforehand.
from Death on the Nile
I wonder if this comment of Poirot’s is true, and if I have either of the things that would make me count.
To count—really and truly to count—a woman must have goodness or brains.
from Evil Under the Sun
Clear thinking is something of which we all need more. Here’s how Poirot describes his process for clear thinking.
Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition—and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do—clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth—the naked shining truth.
from Death on the Nile
Christmas may be over, but there’s still fun to be had, at least Poirot would think so. He says,
Me–I am not an Englishman. . . . In my country, Christmas, it is for the children. The New Year, that is what we celebrate.
from “The Theft of the Royal Ruby”
Now a Poirot for last week.
I never prophesy. . . . It is true that I have the habit of being always right—but I do not boast of it.
from The Mystery of the Blue Train
I just looked at the weather report, hoping snow was in the forecast for Christmas. Alas, it is not likely, and as Poirot says,
To make a snow-man one has to have the snow. . . . And one cannot have snow to order.
From “The Theft of the Royal Ruby”
It is deplorable! . . . To remove all the romance—all the mystery! Today everything is standardized!
from Evil Under the Sun
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