Monroe Mondays

Happy Birthday to Me!

Cruel Books

I’ve read some cruel books lately. I read a lot of different books – thrillers, fiction, I love non-fiction books and I read books with subjects I don’t understand, because I’m curious. Once I read a book about anorexia and another about a man who had a sex change operation, because I don’t understand it. I am and will always be interested in Holocaust, because it is so cruel and the strangest thing that has ever happened and it must NEVER happen again. Therefore, we have to read books about it and therefore I recommend two books (one of them unfortunately only in Danish), because we must NEVER forget:

“The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir” is written by Chil Rajchman, who as a 29 year old was sent to the extermination camp Treblinka. He has never told his family about it, but after his death some years ago, the successors found a manuscript with his memories. Rajchman survived gassing by pretending he was a “hair dresser”, he cut off the hair of the women before they were gassed. Later he pretended he was a “dentist”, he pulled out artificial teeth from the dead. Rajchman survived ten month in the camp and escaped after a revolt where only 57 out of 300 survived. An expert has judged that approximately 900,000 died in Treblinka, but today that number is judged to be way too low. About 1,500,000 is judged to be much more realistic.
This book is very different from other Holocaust books, because it is the captive’s own words and not an interview book written by a journalist. Chil has written his memories right after his escape and I guess it was his way to get rid of the horrible memories. I can promise you that this is the most cruel, horrible and disgusting book you have ever read and will ever read. It is so incredible horrible that I did not get any pictures in my head. It is so surreal that I cannot imagine anything - my luck, because I don’t think I would have slept for 14 days after.

The other book is an interview book about Arlette Levy Andersen’s year (yes, a year) I Auschwitz. It is only in Danish and is titled “The Girl from Auschwitz”. By coincidence I saw her on TV and was immediately sold, I simply had to read that book. Arlette is French, a lovely elderly lady, who finally tells about her past.
Arlette Levy Andersen lived a year in the extermination camps Birkenau and Auschwitz at the end of WWII. For 40 years she did not tell even her own Jewish family what happened from she was arrested by Gestapo at a French university till she in May 1945 came home by train to Paris, where her parents picked her up.

In the book she opens up to the cruel experiences, because she feels she has to. “Soon there will not be anymore left to tell what happened.” as she says. It was that sentence I heard on TV and was sold. In the book Arlette tells about her childhood in Paris, the arrest, the deportation in cattle truck, and her stay in the extermination camps. After the liberation, Arlette travels to Denmark to study and falls in love with a Danish man, whom she later marries and thereby becomes Danish herself.

It is also very worth reading. It is much more quiet than Chil’s book, but it is still cruel. Since it is written by a journalist it includes are much more facts. I would love to hear her speech about her past.

But now I really need to read some superficial chicklit.

Monroe Mondays

It Gets Harder!

I’m watching the Danish version of “Dancing with the Stars” every Friday night. I love it! It is perfect Friday night entertainment – beautiful dresses and lovely Dancing. But now there are only three couples left, and they are all great dancers:

Patrick and Claudia – He is a professional boxer

Tommy and Marianne – he is a famous Danish actor

Sofie and Silas – she is a professional skier

I wish they all could keep on dancing the rest of the Winter! :)

Monroe Mondays

Nail Art 2.0

This Tuesday we had a Nail Art 2.0 event at my home. Yes, I work in the IT business. :) It was such a great evening. We had some lovely food from the local chinese restaurant:

Note the Marilyn Monroe napkins.

We had some really good laughs and a lot of talking going on:

After all the nice food we moved to the sofas, drank tea and coffee and threw some chocolate in our thoats, meanwhile the Konad plates were studied and designs were planned:

Here I'm stamping a dear colleague's nails:

I'm sorry about the missing focus, DH is not the best photographer, but it was very nice of him to take some photos of all of us.

Here are four sets of nails I made. The first is my brand new light blue holographic polish from Makeup Store (called SIW). Everybody fell in love with it and it is really very nice. I stamped a butterfly on the thumb nail and star-like flowers on the other fingers:

The next set of nails are my new blue polish from Sally Hansen, which I hadn't even tried yet, but do I love it!? I have stamped black flowers and put a single rhinestone in the ring finger nail:

The next set of nails are proof that you should keep your polishes in the fridge. This nice purple colour is at least 25 years old and still going strong. :) I have stamped black flowers on all nails and put a clear rhinestone in the middle of each flower, very nice:

The next set of nails have a neutral base, her zodiac sign (sign of the lobster, haha) and a turquoise Nfu-Oh flake polish on top:

THANKS to my great colleagues for a lovely evening! :)

Monroe Mondays

Petticoat

It is time for my quarterly bonus! Yes, another quarter has already gone by, unbelievable! I don’t understand it and before the wink of an eye it’s Christmas. Well, I LOVE Christmas so no complaints about that. Bonus money is spending money, a little spending is allowed although I have to save for our trip to the US in February. So I have invested in a petticoat:
Yep, a petticoat! I love the fifties and always dress fifties style. Back then women looked like women. But I have a confession: I have never owned a petticoat although several of my dresses would look lovely with such one underneath:
The mole brown dress will soon enjoy my latest investment. I am not brave enough to wear it at my job, but I will use it at every formal occasion. I have bought it at Doris Design and it cost GBP 65 (there are 36 metres of fabric in a skirt). The shop is situated in the UK.

And to stay in the fifties department – I’ve found my favourite singer (besides Elvis, of course) on vintage vinyl at Amazon – Sam Cooke:
I look so much forward to play his music on my record player, it is so much more charming than just putting a disc in the CD player. Do you know him? I am sure you all know Wonderful World, everybody knows it and it has been used in many movies:

I just love his voice!