Guardedly Optimistic

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to join a new book club that she and an acquaintance (the two of them are good friends) were putting together.  Theirs were the only two familiar names on the list, and I hesitated a bit before accepting the invitation.  We've established that larger groups of women aren't really my scene, and I'm still not sure that I have enough free time to spend it reading books I wouldn't otherwise want to read (is there anything more important than having generally compatible tastes in a book club?)  The bigger thing, though, is that your opinion of a book is a highly personal thing, framed and shaped by your own life experiences, and to discuss books is therefore to share a piece of yourself.  That being the case, the whole 'who-are-these-other-people?' element was a bit disconcerting.

The first get-together was last night.  Both of my boys were testing for new taekwondo belts last night as well (a great success!) so I ran out of the dojo immediately afterward, trying to drop the mom persona and remember what the hell happened in the book while driving across town.  There were two women there I'd never met, one of whom reminded me very much of a close friend.  I liked the other on sight as well.  A good start to the book club, and possibly some new friends as well as icing on the cake.

Speaking of sweets, today I made close to 50 spider cookies out of Oreos and stick pretzels and another 50 mini ghost-shaped petits fours for parties tomorrow.  Then I found three caches in the woods, one in a drainage tunnel and one on an abandoned train car before getting the kids off the bus and dealing with the furnace service guy, the piano teacher and a school board colleague regarding a meeting.  Never a dull moment in my life!

Off to bed.  Until tomorrow...