Tuesday, November 3, 2009

love and the weather: Browning or Shakespeare?

By the way, the Robert Browning quote we were trying to remember last night is this:

"Ah, love, you are my unutterable blessing . . . I am in full sunshine now."

Heavy D's post of 11.3.09

Hi ladies!

We had a wonderful discussion last night about Edgar Sawtelle and missed those of you who couldn't make it. Julie shared some great insight over speaker phone from her sick bed, enlightening us with her intimate knowledge of Hamlet and the parallels with Edgar.

Our next book is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and the discussion will be at Julie's house on Dec. 14th. Please note that in Caraway's email in September, there were two dates accidentally mentioned for that meeting. To clarify, it will be on Monday, Dec. 14th.

http://www.bsintellectuals.blogspot.com/ This is the link to the blog that Kimberley set up for us a year ago. A few of us have joined as contributors. Check it out!

Thanks for a fun gathering last night and see you on Dec. 14th.

d

Monday, September 28, 2009

The Big Email From Caraway on 9/22/09

Hi Ladies,
Thanks for the fun and productive meeting last night. And welcome to our two new members, Kelly and Laura! Actually 3 new members, as we were also blessed with a visit from Edie Phelps!

Here's a quick summary:

Dates: every 6 weeks unless it's a holiday. Nov. 2 at Denison's, Dec. 14th at Julie's, Jan 25th at TBA, March 8th, April 19th, June 7th. Put them on your calendars! Summer dates will be figured out in the spring. Will continue the 7pm,Monday time. Continue to have dessert/drinks, not dinner. Hosts will volunteer for the dates that don't have a host yet.

Books: We'll choose our books as a group. We chose the next 4; at one of the next meetings, we'll choose the next few, so come with ideas/suggestions. Deni sent an email today with one suggestion for us to look into.
Next book: for Nov. 2nd --The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by Wroblewski. Can be purchased at Costco. Does anyone have time to register it at Bloomsbury this week , Bookgroup #88, October book, (can do it by phone)-- I'm leaving at 4:30am tomorrow and still have packing to do. Thanks!
Book for Dec. 14th: Eat Pray Love. Ditto on the registering-- this'll go on their books as our November book.
Book for Jan. 25th: The World Without Us by Weisman. Please register this as our Dec. book.
Book for March 8th: The Living by Annie Dillard. This can be registered as Jan. or Feb. book.

Obviously, the advance book choosing allows us to order the books from faraway sources that may take a long time to ship them to us!

Other book ideas are The Time Traveller's Wife, The Botany of Desire, and the history of women one from your email, Deni-- sorry i didn't write it down but we all hav the email.

Discussion format: We decided to not have a discussion facilitator. Rather, we all come with thoughts/questions/comments, and when we sit down to discuss, we'll go around in a circle and everyone will have their say. Maybe even use a talking stick or something. Then once we've all had our say, the discussion can be freeform. If someone's hogging the stage, anyone else can call them on it but that's not anyone's job in particular. Hopefully we won't need a gong but if one is needed, we do have a crafty artist in the group that might be persuaded to fashion one (wink, wink, Deni)

Hosting: the only responsibility of the host besides providing drinks and treats is to send out a reminder email one week in advance with directions and phone number. Maybe if we start using the blog and everyone knows how to update it we can just do this on there but for now we're going to use email.

New Members: we're still potentially open to new people if a truly interested and seemingly committed person wants to join us! Whoever "invites" them is responsible for first relaying the group's wish to them that they are at least committed enough to hopefully make it to 3/4 of the meetings.

Other ideas: a mid-year or spring potluck to hang out with each other and socialize, separate from Book Group night. Going to another play together next spring. Learning to use the blog (was that you, Kimberly who set that up?)

Also, please let us know if you are dropping out. We totally understand if that happens, but just prefer to know whether to expect to see you and whether to keep including you in emails!

I'm attaching our new phone list. Lynn's # is stil on there-- I heard from her just last week that she still really wants to join. I'll talk to her when I get back to press her for an answer though, b/c it looks like it might not be realistic for her at this point. Thanks for being patient on this!

I think that's mostly it! We're going to have a great year, thanks everybody for making this happen.

Caraway

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

rattles and gabbing

Hi. I liked Caraway's Extremely Subtle request that I craft a gong of sorts. I'm more apt to make a rattle - that would suffice wouldn't it? Perhaps I'll be inspired to make a talking stick too. Stay tuned . . .