A few months ago, the wonderful Maryam Scoble invited me to be part of a new women's book group she was forming. It seemed like a great opportunity to meet other interesting women here in the area, and I love spending time with Maryam, so of course I said yes. But I forgot how bad I've always been at doing "assigned" reading. It's not that I don't love to read. But I can never seem to anticipate when the book reading bug will bite (and it usually coincides with travelling, since that's enforced time sans electronic devices). I made it halfway through the first book we read, and after that it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to do it. I wasn't the only one, though, so Maryam came up with the excellent idea of alternating book club meetings with a movie night. My kids were pretty amused by that--a book club for people too lazy to read the book was how they saw it.
Last night the movie group met chez Scoble, where we were all looking forward to watching Brokeback Mountain on the Scobles' brand new HDTV. There were five of us, and we started the evening with some red wine and a delicious potluck dinner--lemon-rosemary chicken, slow-cooked pulled pork in a Tuscan sauce, enchiladas, garlic bread, a delicious strawberry shortcake dessert, and more. (Yes, for five of us. We overcooked a bit...)
But then the conversation at the table got so good that we never actually watched the movie. We laughed and talked and gossiped and shared and encouraged each other...and the next thing we knew it was 10:30pm and those of us with kids had to hightail it back home.
When I walked back in the door, my boys (whom I'd said could wait up for me) asked how the movie was. I told them we had ended up talking instead, and Lane thought that was really entertaining. "Geez, not only can you not read the books, you can't even watch the movies you're supposed to watch instead of the books!" Yeah, I guess we're failures...
But failure never felt so good, I'd have to say.
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