Book Club Fridays
Back a few years ago, D and a cluster of friends in the neighborhood began a book club. They maintained an active club, dropped one member, added a couple new ones through word of mouth. Being working professionals, Fridays were chosen so the affairs didn’t interfere with weekend plans, not that D and I have extensive social lives–but evidently others do. Though being the end of a workweek, there was always a scramble to buy the food and prepare the club’s dinners. Food for thought?
D even felt the need to shut down work on time–an unusual feat.
One member was (still is) a lawyer and mother of two high energy little boys. Others were mothers as well, though with older children. The lawyer would show up with dessert and flee back to her house, hardly staying any time at all because her husband couldn’t handle the boys–hmmm. Another woman from the far side of the lake would be dropped off by her husband and later picked up again so she didn’t have to drive. They already had grown kids, and he was driving her–that’s true love. We found out later her night vision was poor, but even so, he gets points. And when the party’s at his house, there’s usually single malt.
Book Club Fridays were an excuse for a host to welcome the small hoard of talkative women (is that redundant?) with multiple main dishes, side dishes, desserts delivered along with the wine and other libations. We haven’t hosted one in well over a year.
Another club member, hoping to prepare roast pork but being more a professional than a chief, asked if I’d help. I learned roast pork from my years in Little Havana (otherwise known as Miami). Cuban pork, if you haven’t had it, is an excuse for pork-flavored garlic. So I showed her how to stuff the sucker with a few heads.
D liked to use her friends to test new recipes. Guinea pigs, I think you call them. She enjoys cooking–even rushed on Friday nights.
Originally, spouses were verboten. Then Jen joined and declared at her house spouses were encouraged–though we weren’t to take part in the book discussion. By which admittedly the men weren’t overly distraught, since the tables laden with appetizers were there for the sampling while the women huddled in another room–or in our house out on the screen porch. For those ‘in the club’ it was an opportunity to discuss the selected book (or movie), and for the abandoned spouses the chance to destroy a smorgasbord after a long week.
Occasionally D or one of the others might emerge from the scrum, and when asked ‘how it was going’ the response was often ‘oh, we haven’t gotten to the book yet.’ If you recall the scene with the Ents in Lord of the Rings with days passing while they debated what to do about Saruman the White, well that might serve as an example.
In warmer weather the club might meet on the lake, tying off two or more boats and drifting, ‘rafting’ as it’s called. It’s surprisingly bright on the lake at night, and when the moon rises, there’s not a better way to spend Friday nights. We lost no one overboard, though several phones have gone bye bye.
We’ve lived in the Barcroft community for nearly as long as we’ve been married–finding a house in Lake Barcroft turned out to be the second of our important projects. The first was adopting our first husky, Butz. We had our priorities.
The book club members never felt a name was necessary–evidently not as critical as deciding on a next book to read. There were a handful of dedicated readers, and the rest were down for the event. One woman admitted she saw more movies than the books they’d been made from. After all the years, D’s iPad has seen more books pass its screen than most libraries.
Though presently the book club’s been put on hold. The last in-person gathering of the book club happened over a year ago–until the pandemic drove everyone into our respective caves. Last summer we hooked up (with bungee cords) several times on the lake with a few of the club members, but even that felt risqué, er, risky. Hooking up has a new connotation of late…
A few Zoom meetings since, but with spotty attendance. For some reason–surprise! sitting in front of a computer screen sipping wine, eating too many appetizers and gabbing hasn’t had the same impact, especially after a week of working by Zoom, and MS Teams, and WebEx… Dogs do their scenting for social interaction and we need to be talking in amongst the clan.
Courtney Christine’s story, Gifts That Have Moved Me to Tears, on Medium reminded me of D’s Friday Book Club. The gifts her small church group exchange–she writes–are non-monetary gestures of friendships. You should read her entire piece, but here is the climax:
“I think of these things on a freezing cold December day while walking my Wonder Woman of a dog around the block. December has become the season of gift-giving, of searching for perfect purchases. It occurs to me that my poet friends and artist friends and writer friends and musician friends—most of us poorer than the dirt we garden in—are deliciously rich in something. We have the ability to give gifts beyond value, beyond mattering. Not only are our creations thick with imagination and colorful expression, they hold the most impactful message in their stanzas and shadowed shapes.”
From Gifts That Have Moved Me to Tears by Courtney Christine
Courtney Christine closes the post with her friend’s pencil sketch of her mutt with tall ears sporting the aforementioned Wonder Woman shirt. The shirt and the sketch were from one friend to another.
On recent walks, when we stop to talk to passing neighbors, Layla likes to join the conversation with a cheerful hello howl. She has a reputation in the neighborhood.
Our next door neighbor, Jane, recently celebrated her daughter’s wedding. She and Neil met later in life after their children from previous marriages had taken flight. The cream colored vintage Rolls arrived with driver dressed out in livery like the royal coachman to whisk Cinderella away. One by one, members of the book club along with other neighbors arrived–maintaining our masks and social distances–to send them off to the church. We stood blocking traffic–it’s a narrow lane with no sidewalks–and probably caused a minor scene in the process. What we all commented on was how much alike she and her daughter looked, the entire scene being brought to us by the pandemic. Though we indefatigably social creatures were all smiling.
Michelle’s Rolls—photo by William E. Evans, © 2020
I don’t know diddley about viruses. The nuns didn’t talk about them–there was a lot they didn’t talk about. OK, you don’t learn everything in elementary school, but when politicians start arguing science vs. non-science, I switch it off. Just pay the folks who know this stuff and I’ll take the shot. It’s come down to this, and summer’s not so far away.