This thing they call...book club

I had my first book club experience last night. Book clubs are popular in the Twin Cities, often growing into whole other things over time (like music groups). Sara and Cari (from work) are part of the same book club, which they described with disarming honesty as "sucky." Seems the members are often not able to attend or haven't read the book if they can attend. Sounds about right.

The book was "Anagrams" by Laurie Moore. It was...interesting. The writing was generally good and she's funny, often with pithy or witty comments. But the structure was strange and as a group, we could not decide if the ending was depressing or sort of happy. (Not to ruin it, but it turns out the protagonist is crazy, she admits it, but at the end of the book she retreats into her fantasy world. I figured she was happier there anyway.)

Anyway, it was nice to sit around and talk books and swap ideas on new ones. I've got 3 more trips east coming up before the end of the year so that's 6 new books to buy pre-boarding. For the group, I recommended we read Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell for next time. Assuming it's available, it should be a safe bet. I'd hate to pick a clunker my first time out of the gate.

quiet weekend

Quiet, but nice. It appears I'm somewhat allergic to Saturdays, in that I usually wake up sniffly, that turns to sneezy, then I require antihistimines to subdue the beast. Which does make for a nice afternoon nap. I also paid bills, did dishes, talked with my folks, normal stuff like that. Watched some bad TV and cheesy movies. I love the month before Halloween because everyone runs their monsterfest stuff.

Sunday the choir sang two songs; Calypso Alleluia (pretty much what it sounds like - but fun and toe tapping, not cheesy) and Sanctus et Benedictus, a cappella, which was so huge and moving it gave me chills. A smaller group from the choir also sang Kake Lambe, which a song of praise to the god of the harvest. It was fitting since this was the Sunday to make pledges. Ha.

Ghost town

Most of the exhibits staff have left for the ASTC (Association of Science and Technology Centers) conference. I'm not going this year since I'm still setting down and since I'm spending most of my travel money on getting to and from the East Coast. In fact, my friend Kim is getting married at the end of this month and I'll be flying to Northern Va for that.

What this means for me is that it is going to be super quiet around here for the next few days. I'm not sure what I'll do with this, but hopefully it will be fun.

Brilliant in theory, fails in execution

I'm pretty much recovered with whatever illness took advantage of me last week. I slept lots and took it really easy on the weekend. I did work up the energy to go to Game Night at Sara's. We played Scattergories - I was the only one who had played before, but that didn't really give me an edge, and Mexican Train Dominoes - which is my new favorite game. I crushed the competition. Seriously. But I was all John Robert's humble about it.

I also organized my hall closet which had gotten so bad that I could only open it slightly and slide things in and out. If I opened it fully, everything fell out. Now it's organized with the least used stuff on the *new* top shelf and lots of other organizational planning stuff. Now I'll open the closet occasionally just to remind myself that I can make order out of chaos, even if only in small spaces.

I'm still making an effort at meal planning before shopping, but it tends to fail in execution. I appreciate that I have less to carry home if I only buy what I'll be making that week. But when the time comes too cook, it's either too late, or I'm too tired, or I don't have enough time, or I don't want what I've planned for. So there's a half a roast chicken in the fridge because I haven't taken it off the bone to make into a curried chicken salad. On the good side, I did manage to make stuffed shells last night and I went ahead and portioned them out in to leftovers for lunch at work. Then I wrapped the rest in portions and froze them. Let's see if I ever use them again, or if I throw them out in a year.

My brush with DEATH

Sorry for the delay. I've been recovering from MY BRUSH WITH DEATH.

Last weekend, I went canoeing. It was a beautiful day, sunny, warm, with a light breeze. We were there to see the changing colors. I had a charming young woman as my canoe-mate and we chatted easily as we paddled up the river. We stopped on the banks of the river for a snack in a bucolic setting.

Then...on the water...Disaster Struck! No one knows what happened, but we capsized. We surfaced, sputtering, from the freezing water. Fighting the cold, we grabbed the ribs of the canoe and kicked feebly towards the banks of the river.

It really was scary, but with a weeks perspective, I may be exaggerating the danger slightly. We had on our life jackets. And since the day was warm, we were spared the greatest danger, which is hypothermia. It was embarrasing of course, but the folks we were with were very nice about it (and even snapped this picture for us). I'll share the other pictures soon.