August Book Club

I joined a local book club. I miss the great discussions in class about the books; the discussions always added so much more to the book. Other readers had ideas and interpretations that I didn't think of, so I figured a book club would be fun. Literary discussion to enrich the text in a social grown-up setting! Wow!

I googled "book club Murrieta" and bingo, found one. From their website, which was awesome, I found out they were reading Wicked by Gregory Macguire for the August meeting. No problemo! I read it, Loved it, and saw the play. Then I read other books by the same author because I loved Wicked so much.

I read this book quite some time ago, two or three years maybe? I then lent it to my friend who saw the musical three times and was hungry for more. Every time I asked her if she liked it, or if she finished the book, she told me she hasn't finished it yet. I finally stopped asking. So, I never did get my copy of Wicked back. I called her last week for it and she didn't know where it was but she'd find it and bring it over "tomorrow". Uh huh. I checked around town for the book and didn't find it; I went to the public library and they didn't own a copy. How does the library not own a copy of this book? Anyway, I went to the book club without being able to refresh my memory on the nitty gritty details, but that's ok. I remember enough. I hope.

We met at this awesome little book store, Eclectic Books. I love it! I had no idea it was tucked back in the corner of the shopping center, maybe because I never go to that shopping center, but it was a gem of a find! Of course, the bookstore owners knew Katie and told me to wish her well. Katie played a show there before she moved to South Carolina.

There were eight ladies there including me. And three of us were named Mary!

I walked into the book store and found a group of ladies sitting around and walked up to them and said, "Hi. Is this the book club?" and one of them said "That's us" so I introduced myself and sat down between two Marys. Someone said, "Did you like the book?" Of course I responded enthusiastically, "I loved it!"

There was a collective groan. They went around and said how they all hated it. Most of them didn't even read to the half-way point. What? Seriously? My big balloon of enthusiasm deflated.

The bookstore owner, Tess, came to the group and handed out bookmarkers and explained the store specials and offered her help to the group. She was nice. She also started to read Wicked and didn't get very far. Ugh. Another one.

At this point, I was very disappointed. I got up to get a cup of coffee that Tess made for the group and I needed to take a moment and shake off the shock. How on earth could anyone not love this book, let alone a group of people! Shock and dismay!

Back to the group. Fine, lets talk about why they didn't like it. I gotta figure this out!


[Gracie wants some attention... this post will be continued... stay tuned!]


Part II...

I got my coffee and sat back down, then another gal showed up. She was perky and happy. She said she liked the book! Yes! I was so outnumbered! Still outnumbered, but not alone now.

We went around and discussed the novel. Mrs. Laid-Back, she said she didn't understand it. Too much politics and religion and ah phooey, so boring. Miss Quiet said she finished it but struggled to the end, just hated it. She gave no reasons why and she never spoke again. Another speechless one said she didn't finish it, it was boring. One of the Marys said she didn't like the tone. The other Mary said it wasn't her genre. (Finally, one of them gives a reason!) On the other side of that Mary, she said she was bored, she almost got halfway through, she just didn't get it.

There were comments about how the book lacked romance, it had too many adult elements, politics was boring, it was hard to follow, the characters weren't like they were in the Wizard of Oz movie, and there were too many big words.

This conversation was just killing me! The group was throwing out all these excuses but they weren't giving examples and they weren't backing up their statements with anything specific. They didn't seem to want to discuss it.

The other lady who liked the book talked about why she liked it. I agreed with her and we talked a bit about how great it was that it is an adult book, had deep characters, involved politics and religion, included geographic imagery, and was complicated and twisted. We talked about the characters, some of the events that took place in the story and some of the characters' traits. We compared the story to the movie Wizard of Oz.

A couple of ladies mentioned they saw the play. I saw the play too, a year ago. It was an amazing musical! So, were these ladies thinking they would be reading a musical? The lady who liked the book hadn't seen the musical. Hmmm....

Conversation quickly turned to Stephanie Myers' Twilight series. They all perked up and got excited, even the two quiet ladies sat up a little taller. I guess they read two of the books in previous months, and the third book they read on their own. Now it was my turn to lose interest. I haven't read any of the Twilight books; I think I'm the only one on the face of the Earth who hasn't.

The next book for the book club is The Time Traveler's Wife. The ladies all decided to go see the movie. Really? Is this a book club or a movie club? Are they all going to like books for young teens and books that are current box office hits? I'm not too sure about this book club. I picked up the book, and I hope it is a good story, but I don't really have my hopes up about this book club. I left the bookstore feeling disappointed.

Does this mean I miss college? Ah, Shucks.

Wicked Awesome Date!

Last night my husband and I had a wickedly awesome date! We went to see Wicked! It is being performed in Hollywood at the Pantages Theater until January. We've never seen a play, not a real play. We've seen the Missoula Children's Theater plays as they came through our town and starred our children, and we've seen Shakespeare in the Park plays... but a "real" play... we've been deprived.

It was so amazing! I can't even describe how wonderful it was. Beyond words! Everything about it was spectacular. The dialog, the special effects, the music and voices, the dancing, the costumes and sets, everything! The storyline veered from the book a bit, but it was mostly the same and had the same effect as far as telling the story from the Wicked Witch's point of view. I loved the book, so of course I totally loved the musical performance!!!

The actors were fantastic. One of my husband's dream girls was in the play: Jo Anne Worley. She played Madame Morrible. She must be in her 70s by now. She was a regular on Laugh In (remember that from the late 60s ~ early 70s?) He was thrilled to see her in action and we even saw her after the performance as she came out of the back of the theater. She was right there, up close and real! Hubby was thrilled!


My husband bought tickets for some great seats. They were $100 each, but wow we had great seats. Only people who had better seats were the season ticket holders. And I didn't want the very front row anyway, I'm sure I would get a crick in my neck being that close up. So, the seats were definitely the best! This date was my early birthday gift, and wow what a present!

The Pantages Theater in Hollywood is really beautiful inside. Can't say the same for the streets of Hollywood. It was pretty hot out. But, by the time we got there it was cooling off. Before we went inside the theater we went for a short walk on the stars. That was kind of fun. The "Walk of Fame" is pretty neat to see, but... We had to dodge tourists and freaks, otherwise it was a nice stroll. We looked in the shop windows at bongs and other interesting bizarre things, noted the Hollywood homeless, and it wasn't long before we were both feeling really creeped out.

Before we went to Hollywood we had dinner. It was 102 degrees then. Blech! But of course, we didn't eat dinner on the sidewalk or anything; we ate at On The Border. Yummy Mexican food! Had Tums for desert. I put them in my purse and ate them like popcorn in a movie theater. It was worth the deliciousness though.

In the theater, I had to use the Ladies' Room. I'm 34 weeks pregnant and my bladder is squished and takes a lot of kicks and jabs. So, the Ladies' Room was very important to visit at every given opportunity! My first trip was uneventful. I stood in a long line but it moved along well. There is one restroom in the whole theater for all those people! And it only had 8 stalls. yikes! Good thing there was an attendant in there keeping people moving right along.

Next trip to the Ladies' Room was during intermission. Since we had great seats near the front, that put me at the end of the mile long restroom line. An attendant came up to me and said "Come with me". Crap! I have to go! What'd I do now? Oh no!!! Naw... the attendant took me to a different restroom hidden down another hall and around a corner... the handicapped restroom. Awesome! only three people in line! Score! That was sweet!

The two old ladies with canes and the one young woman on crutches let me go right to the front of that little line. Wasn't that nice! They said "oh, you are pregnant, you better go first!" I gotta say, the people attending the play were some of the nicest I've met! My big belly got me a special pass to use the secret handicap restroom and a front of the line pass to that! Good Baby!!!


Speaking of the belly.... I had a hard time finding something to wear over this huge protuberance. Back in June, I went a little nuts shopping for our vacation and bought plenty of dresses to get me through the summer. Or... so I thought.

So I got out three dresses.... hmm... which one do I wanna wear? Little did I know that the decision wasn't mine to make.

I put on my all black dress, it has a velvet sash and it looks nice. I struggled, but I got it on! No way was I gonna get it zipped and I couldn't sit. After wrestling to get out of it, that dress was eliminated from my choices. Felt like Houdini trying to escape the impossible underwater chained up box, dang thing trapped me!

That's ok, I really kinda decided that I was gonna wear the yellow flowery dress anyway. I like that one, it swishes and sways and its a pretty happy color, sleeveless, very nice. Oh my stars, it's tight! How the helk do you outgrow maternity clothes!!! It's a maternity dress and it has a lot of flair so who would think a person could get too big for that. Even though I had more room in it than the black dress, it was just tight enough on the sides that it wasn't comfy. Rats! I used my newly discovered dress wrestling moves to get out of it and moved on to my last choice.

No, not the white dress. I outgrew it a couple of weeks ago. And no, not the plum colored dress cuz it was laying in a wad in the bottom of the dirty laundry basket.

Me and my belly faced that last dress...I put on the black and white. Size Large maternity. It's gotta fit! I prayed that I could sit, it would go over me smoothly, and I wouldn't have to resort to a crying fit. It went on nice, still flows over my belly, and omg, it felt great! Fabric feels good too!

How sad is that? I didn't get to choose what to wear, it came down to the process of elimination. And the belly had the only vote.

After all the dress wrestling, Ladies' Room visits and waddling over the stars in Hollywood, it was a fantastic date with my husband! We had a great time together in addition to the good meal and wonderful entertainment! My husband even said we should go again and take the teens! I know they would love it!