Grabbing a few moments...

It's been a whirlwind since my mother-in-law arrived on Monday.  Which is nuts, because she has slowed down considerably over the past year with some stomach complaints and other ails.  But for a 78-year-old, the woman outlasts me in the kitchen.  She's been cooking non-stop for the last couple of days, with time-out only to shop (for more food, to cook), and for some visits and chats on the phone.

And for the Turkish soap-operas.  There are two that she likes in particular, Alia and Assi.  They are shown on MBC which I'm guessing stands for Middle Eastern Broadcasting Company, or something like that and they are either dubbed into Arabic, or filmed in Arabic. I think she gets them at her apartment in Stockholm on satellite television.  We don't get MBC here, so we found the programs online at the MBC website, but they weren't up to date.  My nephew in Paris was able to direct me to a website that has more recent episodes, so she watches them on my laptop after her work is done in the kitchen.  Z and I were sitting in the living room last night watching something on TV and he kept smiling as the romantic music would get louder from the kitchen, with Arabic exclamations of love, or whatever.

She's been keeping me pretty busy as sous-chef and driver, and I love listening to her stories.  So I haven't had too much time to read these days, but yesterday I managed to finish Giller-Prize-winning novel The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre.  It is a compelling portrait of a priest involved in "managing" the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Canada.  MacIntyre writes with an authoritative voice and portrays the parties involved in all sides of this tragedy.  Highly recommended.

I'm on to Audry Niffenegger's most recent (after The Time Traveler's Wife) called Her Fearful Symmetry.