The Silver Linings Playbook – May 2013
May 24, 2013 in recap
Another month, another successful book club and another recap!
The evening began with an appetizer of potsticker soup, courtesy of Sarah – very tasty. I made a Pinterest special with turkey, salami, cheese, peppers and onions in a crescent-roll casserole, which seemed to be a hit. I also made a mixed green salad with pine nuts and parmesan cheese, inspired by a tasty salad I had in Vegas a few weeks ago. Since the people who normally eat around the green things ate their portions I call it a win.
Post-food, Tim and Matt wen off to play games and the ladies settled in for our evening tasks, starting with tunes. I’m afraid I may have picked a duplicate theme: songs about expectations (what is with me?!) but we still got some goodies out of it, including some Adele, Glee, Wicked Soundtrack, I Fight Dragons, Dashboard and, of course, Taylor Swift. We did note that we’re about to move into duplication territory (and not just the accidental duplication I do) because we’ve hit most of Des’s musical library, so in the future we agreed folks can contribute UP TO 5 songs, but 5 are not required.
Up next was Thirds: write about a time when you unfairly judged someone. I wrote – and Des agreed – that I have more of a tendency to give someone too much forgiveness and understanding. I put up with crap when people treat me badly. That being said I’m also slow to open up to new people so I suspect that may be the way in which I’m “judge-y.” Sarah talked about off-the-cuff judgements, like the ones you have when you see a homeless person and turn away. There’s something to be said for giving that person the benefit of the doubt – but with your personal safety in mind since, especially for us chicks, there can be a danger.
We then discussed the book. It was a hectic month: end-of-semester tasks for Sarah and I had two trips back-to-back so I wanted to go with a pretty quick and easy read and came up with ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’, by Matthew Quick. We were a bit short of discussion questions but we had plenty to talk about. I haven’t seen the movie (which came out at the end of 2012) so that wasn’t a conflict for me, but it clearly loomed large in the minds of Des and Sarah and impacted their reading of the book. Apparently the movie is much more… glib (may not be the right word but that’s the impression I got) about Pat’s illness and his relationships with his family and ex-wife. We agreed that the book took the whole thing a bit more seriously, though Des had the impression that it was still a relatively happy portrait of mental disease (no doubt that’s true).
About this time the boys started whining that they were hungry so we had Des’s delicious dessert – a variation on my favorite dessert in fact: strawberries with angel food cake and whipped cream! The strawberries were fresh and the angel food cake was awesome and the whip cream was whippy – it was so good! 🙂
As usual, our current events ran the gambit of topics, although – for the first time ever – I don’t think we really had a parenting article! We did have one about kids though, and the creepy things they sometimes say (“I want to peel all your skin off, Dad”). We talked about drinking during pregnancy, the (fucking) best (fucking) sorority rant EVAR (you little shits), and things we have to unlearn when we leave college and get those “real” jobs in the “real” world. We also talked about immigration and the fact of the Boston brothers who bombed the marathon being naturalized citizens (or in one brother’s case, well on his way). This was our hot topic for the evening; there’s concern that it’s relatively easy to become American, and the words that meant very much to me when I heard my mom recite them were something that Des simply saw a “required” of her. We don’t want our citizens bombing or terrorizing us so we have to be cautious who we let become “American”, but we’re also a nation of immigrants and we have to remember that. We lightened the mood a bit at the end of the evening with movie trailers while the boys were taking turns being slow. Some really good looking movies coming soon! And Sarah hasn’t seen “Love Actually”! Des, we have to remember that and chain her to a couch to see it soon!
All right, kids, that’s it from me. Next month is Sarah’s book, and Des has already assigned us her reading for July since it’s a long one (800+ pages), and we’ll be meeting a bit early that month before Sarah abandons us for England! And I for one was kind of shocked to realize we’re coming up on our second anniversary of Saloon! (What is the second anniversary, kleenex? Reynolds wrap? Ok, looked it up and it’s cotton. Bummer that we missed our “paper” anniversary, right?) Ok, Jen out.
