Books 'n Booze

Look at me – all over this blog post. Day after Saloon. I WIN! Actually we’v been getting beat up by SPAM so it’s been on my to-do list to come and resolve that and I figured I’m already logged in so… Enjoy you’re on-time recap but keep your expectations low, people!

FOOD

Evening started out with a really delicious meal! I made kabobs with the lovely skewers gifted to me by Des, but I jumped the gun on cooking them a bit so dinner was ready at the same time Sarah (and Matt) got there with soup. But I think it worked out well – it’s not like we were going to stand around the kitchen and eat soup like we normally would with the appetizers. So we were able to sit and eat both the soup and kabobs (steak with veggies and rice) at the same time and they complimented each other beautifully! Des’s desert was a Paula Dean Pumpkin cake-y things that was delightful in spite of the pumpkin! 🙂 Really it was delicious, possibly in part because of the two sticks of butter it contained. Just sayin’. All in all a perfect fall meal.

THIRDS

Because the book had to do with alcohol, our Thirds task this month was to try a new alcohol. Jen was stuck at a dinner in Seattle and could only try a local white wine which was “cold” and “rich.” Des did a bit better by first trying an untasty beverage on her anniversary (congrats!!) and then buying a desert wine which she really liked. Sarah uncovered the truth about the SkinnyGirl cocktails (there’s less alcohol in them! That’s why there’s less calories, yo!) but still enjoyed them.

BOOK

We actually swapped the order of things this week when we realized <gasp /> that Sarah had not finished the book! She lost her phone (which she downplayed but I imagine did include a tremendous amount of angst) so her time for reading was instead spent wandering around campus calling herself and listening for a familiar ringtone (this is probably not true but the visual made me chuckle). So Des and I reluctantly spoiled the ending at the we proceeded to talk about the book.
We agreed it was a pretty easy read. We liked the characters though Des noted and we agreed that Francis sometimes seems to drop characters in for the purpose of moving the plot along, without satisfactorily resolving their place in the narrative.  We enjoyed the relationship between Tony, the protagonist, and his new friend Gerald. We agreed death by plaster of paris would be a horrible way to go and noted that the publication in 1984 was noteworthy not only for the lack of cell phone but also the simplicity of the mystery and the genuine reactions to horrible circumstance. Seems like we may have become a tad over-dramatic and desensitized to violence these days, go figure. All in all, a pretty good read.

MUSIC

I was evil and made the CD theme “songs about expectations” which I learned at 3pm on the day of book club was actually a REALLY hard theme. We managed to muddle through and sometimes I approve of the tougher themes because people think about things in a more creative way- outside the box. But anyway, we got the new Taylor Swift from Sarah (shocking!), some “I Fight Dragons” from Des (shocking!) and no Beatles, JoCo or BNL from Jen (genuinely shocking!). Looks like a good CD!

DISCUSSION

LOTS of good topics this month! We had our token parenting discussion (a dad who openly claims his favorite child!), a non-contentious political debate (practically required with the election < 2 weeks away!) and we chatted about how to create secure passwords.  We looked at a list of bestsellers from past decades which made me concerned about what this decade will include — Twilight and “Fifty Shades” after past decades included the likes of Hemingway and Thorton Wilder. We got righteously indignant over the way e-books are being handled: overly-expensive and ultimately not our own, since we can’t resell them and they’re in proprietary formats. The book peoples of the world need to resolve this. Des expressed her strong support for the article insisting people stop asking about your race (“My Racial background is none of your business!”) and we all wondered if we were being punked by the recipe for making homemade mozzarella that called for… mozzarella. I’m still confused. Finished things up with some movie trailers — Oscar season is coming and we’re all excited about various movies from “Cloud Atlas” to “Perks of being a Wallflower” to ANYTHING WITH CATS EVER (guess who).

Once again the boys played Magic quietly in the corner while we chatted and actually, we rounded things up pretty quickly. We did talk more about upcoming events. It’s the holiday season so there is LOTS going on. We managed to schedule November Saloon just under the wire (the 28th) and there’s lots of other activities we want to enjoy in the next couple months, starting with Halloween next week! PLANNING IS FUN!