10+ Women, 10 Years, 100 books

I was doing a little housekeeping on the blog today and found this unpublished little gem.  Before the year is over I figured I would publish it in honor of the great women, the great books and the ten years we have been together.  Cheers to our monthly "meetings"!

We started as a group of friends and strangers, interested in reading books and discussing them.  Ten years later we have evolved into a group of friends, who in spite of scheduling challenges, are still committed to meeting once a month and discussing our most recent read and whatever life has dealt us.  Some months we discuss more about life than we do about the book, it all depends on the book... and life!
 
In the early years we met in each others' homes, in the dining room or the kitchen.  There is something intimate about being in someones home.  This intimacy lead to some memorable discussions over the years... most of which cannot be shared on the blog.  Sharing intimate parts of our lives brought us closer.  People who know certain things about you can only be considered close friends.  Book discussions brought us to places we never expected!

Our group has seen members come and go over ten years.  There is still a core group of about five of us who have been there from the beginning and another four who have been with us for a long time.  Some members drop out because they relocate, and we still miss them and talk about them from time to time.  All good, don't worry!  Life's commitments have forced a few to bow out as well.  When I moved to Toronto for a few years I continued to participate in the club by reading the books and calling in for the meetings.  I was the phone that got passed around the table.  At the time there were a couple of new members I had not met and they only knew me as the phone at the table.  I missed out on some good times I'm sure!

Over ten years, we have gone through graduations, job changes, deaths of parents, divorce, marriages of children, becoming grandmothers, winning and losing to cancer, turning the big "0" (50 or 60) together and the death of one of our treasured members.  We still take pause every now and then and throw out a famous Debbie quote.  "This...doesn't just happen.",she would say, referring to her loveliness as she headed home early to get her beauty sleep.  She is gone but never forgotten.

After a meeting, at one of our members' homes last spring, I wrote most of this post.  I did the math and counted the books, roughly, and was amazed.  Ten years sounds like a long time but it sure doesn't feel like a long time, especially when it is full of (mostly) good books and good friends.

Inner Loop-ing

We live "outside the loop"... in the burbs.  We like living in the burbs but we also enjoy the city.  We enjoy being close enough to visit the museums, restaurants, and various activities a large city has to offer.  Do we take advantage of it?  Sometimes.... but not often enough.  Today, we did!  We were both on the same page when the post-church question was "what are we going to do today?".  I guess we were both feeling a little culturally deprived.  Museum day it is!

2 Tons of bronze  "Reclining Woman With Fruit"....
There are days I feel about the same size!

Our first stop was the Art of the World Gallery to see the Fernando Botero exhibit of "abstract realism in luminous volume".  Thankfully the signature sculpture was outside or the stop would have been for nought because the museum was closed.  We peered inside the windows and wished we could see more.  I never expected a museum to be closed on Sunday, isn't that museum day?  We moved on to plan B or the continuation of plan A.

There are some things inside the loop that we don't have in the burbs and one of them is Trader Joe's.  We happened to be around the corner from one and just had to stop to see what was in store for the Thanksgiving season.  I could have wandered the aisles for an hour and TJ was equally entertained by the unique wine section.  We are so easily entertained!  We carefully chose our few items, waited in the very long but fast moving check out line and patted ourselves on the back for mixing it up with all the trendy folks.  It took great restraint for me to leave all of their yummy cookies, candies and snacks on the shelf.  I could have set myself up for weeks of weight gain had I caved in to all the temptation.  It's probably a good thing we don't have a Trade Joe's in the burbs!

Temptation alley!

Still feeling culturally deprived we headed to the Museum of Fine Arts for the Degas exhibit.  Unbeknownst to TJ, I had dreamt the night before about going to this exhibit....so we were literally living the dream!  We paid our entry fee and headed up to the exhibit.  TJ noticed that they charged us the "senior" rate for over 65 years old...."Sorry honey", he said.  That's what I get for hanging out with a gray haired guy who was rocking his white crew socks, black sneakers and shorts!  With our egos sufficiently crushed we continued.  We were both blown away at the sheer volume of work in this exhibit.  I don't always read everything in an exhibit but this was so fascinating, I read everything.  Reading the names of the people and places in his life took me back to Paris, which is always a good thing.

A classic

Yes, he was a sculptor too!
This was my favorite.

Museum-ing is hard work, especially if you are a senior citizen, so we needed to rest and refresh after our cultural education.  We consulted our smart phones and found a nice wine bar to explore.  We found a winner!  13 Celsius was a pleasant surprise.  We had a couple of glasses of wine and some delicious cheeses with baguettes and pretended we were tourists.  We discussed art, politics (because you can't get around it this week!), wine, hopes and dreams and it was nice.  By this time it was raining and the late Sunday afternoon crowd was buzzing.  The atmosphere was the perfect end to our cultural day.  We could have stayed much longer than we did but then our car would have needed to get picked up the next day after we took an Uber home.  The down side of inner loop-ing.

Wine and visiting museums makes you see things differently...

Just a couple of old kids enjoying the afternoon.

We called it a day and drove all the way back to the burbs in the rain feeling like we had been on a mini vacation.  We really need to embrace the city we live in/near and explore like we did when we lived in Toronto.  We get very complacent living in our neighborhood doing the same things every week and going to the same places.  We need to remember, sometimes it's good to get out of the cul-de-sac!