Sad Cypress

Book Review: Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot) by Agatha Christie. Genre: Mystery. Hardcover: 256 pages. Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. Description: A woman stands accused of murder. Only Hercule Poirot is convinced of her innocence. But his fight to save her life takes him into the shadows of her dreadful family secret. My Review: I like to call Agatha Christie books my brain reliever. I feel as if I am reading something intelligent, and I suppose I am. I am saturated with sub-par writing and books. I feel as if authors are not even really trying to produce something unique or extremely well thought out. With AC I feel as if I could actually learn something about writing or plotting from her work. I learn to look at things from a different angle. I learned about the unreliable narrator from Agatha Christie. The fact that I love mysteries is an added bonus. From the AC books I have read so far romance isn't a huge element. 

So I was happy to see some romance going on in this book. Not that anything much happened. But I was happy to see a kinda/sorta happy ending for a certain someone, especially after pining after a certain d-bag. I always try to guess who the baddie is, but I always fail. I sort of guessed it. But I always doubt myself. Or I like to keep speculating until the very end. Even if the evidence points strongly to one person or the other. People did complain about the repetition. And I did feel like the book dragged itself along (like a beaten, broken and bloodied puppy) a bit in the beginning. But I am not complaining too much. It wasn't a huge issue with me. I had the time. Rating: 8/10. Agatha Christie is always a winner, even if I don't love love love the book in question ecstatically. Her work is a palate cleanser and a relief for my sad brain, despite this book not being best I have ever read (I don't mean this as a backhanded compliment, nope).

Obsessively Obsessed with Purple

It's been a while! I realize I've showed nothing of my recent purple make up obsession. True, I've been in a total purple folly lately. Eye speaking, I mean. I'm in the quest of finding the most perfect matte purple eyeshadow. Pigmented, smooth, not too red, not too blue. And it's less easy than it seems. Awaiting the Graal to hit me, I've been toying with all my purple toned eyeshadows for a long while now and I've almost only worn purple looks since Fall, declined in all kind of ways. Without even getting bored. I wonder why I thought before (I mean, years ago) that purple would never fit me. I can't think of a color getting along better with my eye color than purple. In fact, it's simple I find purple beautiful on every skin tone and with every eye color. Purple is beautiful. Lately I've acquired 2 great eyeshadows: Shiro Cosmetics "Rattata" (a deep matte purple) and Heavenly Natural Beauty "Captured" (a matte purple with a green shimmer). This is "Captured" that I'm wearing here. It's so so pretty and quite unique. Actually, it reminds me of Zoya "Adina" (which I adore) turned into an eyeshadow, minus the copper effect. 

I completed "Captured" with a tiny bit of MAC "Steamy" (aqua green with gold shimmer) on inner corner, MAC "Carbon" and MAC "Shock-a-holic" (bright matte purple) on external corner and of course, black khol, MAC "Blanc Type" to highlight and mascara. And elf Bedazzle lipgloss (totally transparent with a little bit of sparkling diamond shimmer). I really loved this make up. The green shimmer is really playing with the ambient lights. I darkened my hair! I'm naturally ash-toned medium/dark brown with strong red highlights (no one in my family get red hair tendency - no idea where it's coming from) but I wanted a little change and was bored of my tips being redder/lighter than my roots. I hesitated between dark brown and getting blonde-red with blonde highlights (both blonde and dark fit me) but I finally opted for an almost black brown (GarnierHerbabrillance #300 applied 15mn instead of 10). Actually, the dye practically didn't change the root color and evened out the whole hair. Exactly what I expected!

Don't Mess With Old People!

How to call the cops when you're old and don't move fast anymore. Walter was going up to bed one night when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed. He opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw there were people in the shed. Walter phoned the police who asked "Is someone in your house?" He said, "No but thieves are breaking into my garden shed stealing things"! Then the police 911 dispatcher said, "All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available." Walter said, "Okay." He hung up the phone and counted to 30. Then he phoned the police again. "Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were thieves stealing things from my shed. 

Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot and killed them both and the dogs are dragging their bodies away" he hung up. Within five minutes a Police Helicopter, six Police Cars, two Fire Trucks, a Local News Truck, an Ambulance and two lawyers from the ACLU showed up at Walter's residence and caught the burglars red-handed. One of the Policemen said to Walter, "I thought you said that you'd shot them!" Walter said, "I thought you said there was nobody available"! My neighbor said she's going to use Walter's trick the next time she needs the police to respond quickly. Last Friday night a drunk driver narrowly missed running over some kids and hit two parked cars right on our nice street. 

It took the police well over 20 minutes to show up and some of our neighbors were complaining about the slow response time. I'm not sure if 20 minutes response time is slow or not? I guess because it was Friday night the police were busy with higher priority 911 calls... who knows? Have you ever had to call your local police for help? How was their response time? I have the highest respect for law enforcement officers and think that most of them do a fantastic job serving and protecting our citizens. I'm not sure why but "the media" doesn't see it the way I do. They seem to be on the side of the crook more often than the cop? Don't mess with old people is reported to be a true story? Even if it isn't I still like it!

H&M Light Purple

I sincerely hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day. I spent the day indulging myself with tea, pain au chocolat and painting my nails in a proper Valentine fashion. This time my choice ended up being H&M's Light Purple, one of their smaller nail polishes. And since it was Valentine's Day I added a cute little accent heart! I must say I would rather have called this colour pink, instead of Light Purple. It doesn't really have that much purple in it, perhaps in a certain light. It is pretty nonetheless! I haven't been wearing that much pink lately, so it was nice for a change. When it comes to the application, I had no problem whatsoever. H&M usually makes wonderful nail polish and it goes on extremely well. However, with these smaller bottles there is one not so very good thing about them....they chip easily. After just one day I had one chip, so the quality isn't the best on these smaller bottles compared to the regular sized ones. Next up will be a more elaborative manicure that I did before wearing this one. I've got a busy life at the moment, so it takes a while before I get into a good pattern of blogging again. But have no fear :)