Books 'n Booze

It’s been a while since our September book club… so here is what I remember:

• We were going to go out but Matt and Sarah got schedules confused so we went to Sarah’s instead and ate pizza!!!
• We all mostly liked Gulp but there was a lot of talk about poop. But overall, the content was interesting.
• I’m sure we gossiped about our lives and Jen’s upcoming wedding celebration.

BUT THE HIGHLIGHT was watching Dinosaur Train with Mr. Sawyer and listening to Sarah sing us the theme song WORD FOR WORD. It was super impressive.

I’m sure other stuff was chatted about but it was a while ago and I forgot to take notes. It was a fun book club, as they always are. But as for recaps, I kinda suck. I’ll try to make the next one better!

It’s September. September 22nd, even. The last day of summer…

And I’m writing the August recap.

Here’s another factoid — I also just created the group space for August bookclub. That’s right — the group space: the place where we add questions about the book, current event, music suggestions (except no one does that), basically all the things we want to save and then talk about during book club; I JUST MADE THE GROUP SPACE for the August book club… that happened a month ago.

It was mainly for posterity. Didn’t want there to not be a group for that book… even if we don’t use the group.

ANYWAY. It’s the last day of summer, I’m more than three weeks too late even posting the group space, and I’m going to talk about August book club.

Or…

BETTER IDEA.

Let’s talk about alternate universes for a second.

Like, how there is possibly an alternate universe where I don’t procrastinate and do things in an appropriate time frame.

There is possibly an alternative universe where I take scrupulous notes during book club so that I can post scientifically detailed recaps.

There is possibly an alternative universe where Jen, Des and I are actually famous book authors and we only have book clubs to talk about our own published works because we’re just that amazing — and then no one has to write recaps because THEY’RE OUR OWN BOOKS, PEOPLE. How do you like them apples.

Of course, there is possibly an alternative universe where Jen, Des and I aren’t friends. A universe where we didn’t start book club at all. A universe where we didn’t meet in that fateful graduate school class. A universe where our lives never intersected, our friendships never started, and our nights of book loving and food enjoying and life bashing and girl-power supporting and movie preview watching… none of those ever happened.

SO. In the grand scheme of things, even though I post recaps way last minute and maybe this last time didn’t even remember to make a group, even though I’m running out of ways to be quippy about my lackluster recaps, and even though our book clubs aren’t quite as detailed and well run as they were in year one… even though ALL THOSE THINGS…

it’s still better than the alternate universe where we’re not friends.

So I say we just accept this one for what it is and embrace messy recaps and late groups.

Oh! And before I forget… we had a book club in August. We went to brunch at Busy Bee, sat outside, talked about The Story of Science and how it missed the boat on more recent scientists, then gossiped about all things boys and work and family and clothes and life. 

I love my friends. Thanks, universe.

So Des came over today to borrow one of my kick-ass suitcases and as we hung out talking I mentioned doing the July recap and she asked if I had remembered to mention that we didn’t invite her (I’ll come back to that) and I realized that I wrote a recap about the wrong night. Yep. Sure did. I recapped June’s book club which 1. was not my book club to recap and, 2. has already been recapped beautifully by Des. But if you’d like a second perspective on that June 2015 book club, you have a rare alternate perspective available to you in this case. Congrats. Now I feel like you do when you do your homework and then realize that you did it wrong and have to start over. But in my defense I am doing TWO recaps in the time is usually takes us to barely get one completed. This is also excellent documentation for the onset of symptoms when I get diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Ok! July Book Club actually started earlier that day when Sarah, Des, and I started texting back and forth about what we should do for dinner. See I was telling the truth when I said we were super-busy and I had stuff all over my house from the move out of Cam’s place, so hosting and cooking was going to be a challenge for this month. And Sarah and I both wanted sushi! And Des was being suspiciously quiet but Sarah and I were so busy and excited about the sushi that we didn’t really notice that Des hadn’t chimed in. We just kinda assumed it was cool (although in hind sight, DUH. Des definitely would have sent SOMETHING). Anyway, long story short, Sarah and I went to Sushi Thai and enjoyed appetizers and chatted while Des busted her butt to get to my place because she didn’t get any of our texts about the change in plan. Whoops. Sorry again, Des!!

Exhibit A

Fortunately Sushi Thai is not that far from my place and while Des wasn’t in mood for sushi she was able to find something else to eat. This was also good news for Sarah, who got Des’s leftover mini corn veggies (see exhibit A). So we hung out, relaxed, vented about our crazy lives, and talked about the book. (For this section I refer you back to the previous recap because I was fairly accurate in the book discussion, thank you very much. I just didn’t remember WHERE it happened).

Exhibit B (you’re welcome)

Since it was Salooniversary we followed up dinner with ice cream! Goodberry’s is right down the street and it was a nice warm summer night so we headed down there and sat outside with our concretes and chilled for a bit longer. I also drove the ladies past my new place which is very close by, and which I cannot resist detouring past anytime I’m in the area. Then we headed back to our cars but AGAIN! we definitely went to see Magic Mike XXL a couple days later (see exhibit B). Cause, hello, another chance to show Channing Tatum’s abs? Yes, please!) which was awesome because we don’t usually get that chance.

One final shout-out to Des, the very good sport who brought dessert because she thought we were meeting at my place. And therefore I still have Snickers Ice Cream bars in my freezer. Which are awesome and delicious. Thank you, Des!

As usual, things were chaotic. It was my turn to host but we had just closed on Cam’s place and moved all his stuff so my house was a pile of boxes and spare furniture that didn’t fit into storage. It was also half-birthday time for both Des and Sarah, AND it was Salooniversary! So we decided to go out.

We had a lovely meal at Oak City Meatball, which allows you to make your own meal with a mix of meats in the meatballs, sauces to adorn them, starches to mix them with, and sides to pair. Everything was very good AND we were introduced to brocolini, the coolest new veggie out there – a mix of asparagus and broccoli!

We started with a beer at the bar and then moved to a table and talked. I love these ladies. And I love that we have book club to let us catch up on each others crazy lives every month! Des didn’t actually care for the book – she didn’t like that the narrative was often interrupted by the author (which is an excellent point). Sarah and I, who have seen the movie, talked about how amazingly true to the book it was; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book more accurately portrayed in film. And since Des hasn’t seen the movie, we wonder what she’ll think of it, if she does ever get around to seeing it…

We talked about lots of other stuff, some of which was in the current events section of the site, most of which was not. Mostly we just enjoyed each other’s company on a rare and lovely evening in downtown Raleigh. And when we were done we went to Busy Bee so Jen and Sarah could have dessert (is that true or am I mixing up nights?) and Des could have a drink (since she’s avoiding sweets – or are you avoiding beer now? DAMN. I suck at recaps!). AND later that same week we got to go see Magic Mike XXL together! TWO events in one week! Which is crazy awesome, just like Channing Tatum’s dance moves. And abs. So WIN.

See you next month!