If none of you know, I have a bookclub. Well, a new one that I think I tried to form, but it turned into a being of itself. I mean, I am not as excited as the other ladies about it, but I do enjoy it. For our first book we read A Thousand Splendid Suns, then we read three short stories by Wilkie Collins (I did not pick it), then we just polished off Gone with the Wind. Oh for crying in a bucket. The woman (who is a friend of mine) who chose the book is obsessed. I just went to the meeting held at her house and we had a "GWTW Teaparty". I have never been to something more over the top. Well, maybe, but not recently. Her house is full of GWTW garb and she had more Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler figurines, framed pictures, movie posters, board games, coloring books (a haunted one, at that), supplemental reading books, cook books, framed quotes, paintings, knick-knacks, you name it, she had it----than you could shake a freaking stick at.
Tea was amazing. She had a million things to eat. She had delicacies of all sorts: scones, short bread, cakes, cucumber sandwiches. She had four different teas---one with a literal flowering bud in the pot that wowed all the guests. It was the best tea as well. It tasted like drinking a rose, straight up. She had out her best china, dainty forks and butter knives, beautiful tea cups. She had a bowl full of clotted cream so we could dollop to our heart's content.
Then she brought us up to her room to view the Gone with the Wind shrine she created there. I won't even begin to describe it to you. A whole wall was blocked out so she could put all her goodies there. Afterwards, she took us downstairs and gave us a folder (mine had my name on it) with several Gone with the Wind exams in them. She also had charts and handouts of all sorts. After our examinations were complete, she went to a room and brought out ziploc baggies full of something with a giggle. You will never guess what I got in my hand. A flipping Gone with the Wind cookie. Somehow, she found a Scarlett O'Hara cookie cutter and created these huge cookies and frosted them to look like the woman herself.
Then---to top off the evening, she handed out prizes of all sorts and her husband came down from his lair and made us a popular cocktail from the thirties: the Scarlett O'Hara. Yep, a cocktail. Apparently the Rhett Butler did not become as popular. And I am not kidding, there really is a Rhett Butler. Our hostess laughed the whole time and laughed as we all walked out the door at 1:00 a.m. That was more like a soiree, now, wasn't it?
Our next book, to my utter sadness---Pride and Prejudice. The problem with having every other book choice be a classic is that I have read most of them. The average reader will want to pick books that are the more popular on the classic scale and here I am, having read most of them already. However, I have not read The Old Man and the Sea, or Oliver Twist (among many others----but no one wants to read those).
Green Cathedral
Madness in a high-ceilinged building.
Followers
People in my Holy Place
The Professor----Formerly known as Dear Sir, my husband, the man of the house
The Oldest----Known in younger years as Mickey Mouse, and now he is embracing adulthood by being over 18.
Eraser Eater----Well-known for his old habit of eating erasers and whining about ridiculous things. Now he eats Tabasco sauce and says little in his 15 years.
The Girl---The one who is still more mature than I am at 13.
The Oldest----Known in younger years as Mickey Mouse, and now he is embracing adulthood by being over 18.
Eraser Eater----Well-known for his old habit of eating erasers and whining about ridiculous things. Now he eats Tabasco sauce and says little in his 15 years.
The Girl---The one who is still more mature than I am at 13.
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19 comments:
hmmm...i know someone with scarlett & rhett collectibles also. prettttty scary.i personally don't like collectibles of any kind. except maybe rocks. anyway, i (and many others, too) think the the Old Man and the Sea is a worthwhile read.
just my recommendation. it will make you re-think deep sea fishing and striving.
i was laughing when i read your post because my husband just finished teaching Call of the Wild to a bunch of completely inattentive 8th graders. in a Call of the Wild quiz, a girl kept calling the book Gone with the Wind!!!! Matt was like, what have you been reading for the last nine weeks?!
HAHAHA! You crack me up. Did she have GWTW toilet paper? A Rhett Butler poster on the ceiling above her bed? I'm sure she did....At least she didn't love War and Peace. You can be thankful for that.
Oliver Twist is really dreary. My daughter just recommended to me the City Of Ember. It's going to be a movie this year!! I could not be more proud.
Why don't you just stay home, barefoot and pregnant, in the kitchen like the rest of us? ~snicker~
See? You get out. ;-)
The food sounds yummy. What was in the cocktail? Never mind, I'll google it. Ever had a duck fart? Yum. Oh, sorry, didn't mean to change the subject. Duck farts have nothing to do with GWTW.
A haunted Gone With the Wind coloring book? I'm confused. Does this mean the coloring book itself was haunted, as if it were the property of ghosts, or maybe even a ghost itself, in material form? Or, does it mean it was a coloring book about Gone With the Wind with ghosts pictured inside? Like, maybe, the scene where Mammy is trying to pull Miss Scarlett's corset real tight, with the help of an undetected ghost pulling Mammy from behind ? Or maybe with the scene of a ghost actually causing Scarlett and Rhett's daughter to fall off the pony and die?
Personally (and it's just me) I would not want to attend a soiree which was based on a discussion of Old Man and the Sea. I imagine there would be huge hunks of some fish served up with brine cocktails by bushy bearded men in yellow rainslickers. Not my cup of tea.
Mabcat, boy do I understand your aversion to collectibles. Dust collectors, I say.
Will try OM&tS
Emma---She did have a framed picture of Clark Gable in GWTW garb with a plaque that said "Clark Gable" below it. She got some style, sista.
Groovy---Southern Comfort, whatever that is. Some whiskey, I think. I don't know. Yeah, I do get out, but nowhere slightly dangerous.
Muley---Where have you been all my life? Good grief, do you know every book backward and forward enough to comment in the extent that you do? Tell me all about Return of the Native. LOL
Yes, this coloring book is supposedly haunted. Apparently the lady that sold it to my friend on ebay claimed that the spooky sound of children laughing would ring through the house when the coloring book first appeared and ever afterward. Some friend or sister's friend got a tape recorder and recorded it, and it was so. Who the heck really knows. All I know is that my friend hears no children laughing, at least no phantom children laughing. No spectres, no spooks, nothing of the sort. Does that straighten the confusion?
The Old Man and the Sea is awesome. Love that book. Own Oliver Twist, haven't read it, but I was in the musical version!!! I got sing about funerals. :)
This was quite the entertaining entry. If I had been there I think my eyeballs would haven bugged out of my head.
i had issues with my spelling on that comment. sorry. :)
I don't know many women who like Hemingway, but I loved The Old Man and the Sea. But I've never gotten into Dickens. Read it in school, and never picked it up again. But it would be nice if they'd attempt something outside their comfort zone.
And that GWTW junkie? Creeeeeepy! But funny. ;o)
Clark Gable kissed my mom's hand.
Way cool.
Natalie---I have those days, don't worry.
I worked on a solo for Oliver but never got to sing it. I didn't produce "enough volume" Gee whiz, I do now!!!
Avery---I know, creepy, but funny. We had fun with the creep. No, she is actually the coolest, but it is fun to poke at her. I like Hemingway alright; I really liked A Farewell to Arms in highschool----but that is because I am rather depressing to be around.
Anonymous---that is way cool. John McCain winked at me. Not so way cool.
I saw Mel Gibson on TV.
Thank you for the kind compliment. I'm an old cyber friend of Emma's, and I came lurking after you from a comment you left on her site.
Actually, I have never read Gone With the Wind. I've just seen the movie version, which as you know often differs greatly from the book. For example, I heard that in the final chapter of the book version of Gone With the Wind, Scarlett and Rhett leave Tara and ride off into the sunset together to start their own real estate firm in Atlanta.
Muley---I think you got it right. How did you guess? Gee whiz.
The book is much better than the movie, but you knew that already.
Hey Emma---I saw Mel on TV too! How rare!
I think we are twins.
By the way, here is the plot of Return of the Native in a nutshell:
The main character in the book, "Native," is called that because he's lived in his suburban neighborhood longer than almost any of the other yuppie types who reside there. When the book opens, he has resolved to attend a weekend flea market in a nearby town and maybe scope out some single women.
One sunny Saturday morning, he hops in his car and proceeds to drive toward the town where the flea market is. However, about 15 miles from home he realizes that he doesn't have a map and therefore doesn't know whether to keep on I-95 or take the Jonesboro cutoff.
Since he's a man (and therefore can't ask for directions) and because he doesn't own a GPS unit (that's what he was going to look for at the flea market), he turns around and heads home, only to be killed instantly after crashing into an 18-wheeler on the highway.
It's really a pretty bad book, but English teachers keep assigning it because the 18-wheeler is a nifty metaphor for the fickleness of death, or something like that. Personally, I'd stick with P.G. Wodehouse.
I would love it if Clym Yeobright drove a car up 95. Then he could drop by and say hello---but first I would have to get him some glasses because the man is blind. I think that is the reason why he crashed into the 18 wheeler anyway.
Return of the Native is my favorite book of all time. Ha ha. Seriously.
There is a bit of fickleness of death going on in the book though. Well, we don't know quite what Eustacia did. Did she throw herself in the weir or did she fall in on accident? Only Mr. Hardy knows for sure and he is done dead.
Darn.
But her blind husband makes it and becomes a preacher. A blind one.
Huh.
You created an amazing story. Where do you write?
Bathroom walls?
Well, I'm one of those unpublished writers who blogs partially out of a need for release, sort of like a wannabe rock star who attends karaoke night at the local Beef McGristle's sports bar.
I have been a reporter in the past and am a PR writer now, but I assume you meant real writing.
I should not make fun of Return of the Native, since it's one of the many classics I haven't yet read. I have like most of the Hardy I have read (although in a poorly-taught Victorian literature class I took in college I had a bad experience with Hardy's final novel, and ended up wishing Jude had been even more obscure). I actually have Return on my list of "To Reads" for 2008, so we'll see.
I don't know what a weir is. Is that some kind of Porta Potty found on the moors?
I think when you reach four back-and-forth exchanges, you automatically are assumed to be having a proper conversation. Nice to meet you.
I think the GWTW lady sounds even scary than clowns. EEK
Muley--That's good writing. My own husband is a tech writer but aspires to write or at least be published for other writing abilities in the future, so he would understand your plight.
ROTN is a great read, much better than my least favorite of Hardy's: Jude. It was way over the top (with the mass suicide of Father Time and all his siblings) and extremely bleak. I hope that Hardy wasn't meaning the story to be "literal". That is my only hope for that one.
A weir is a low dam built across a stream. Ouch. I assume if she fell in it there was much water. I hope.
Nice to meet you as well!
Lisa--Yeah, she is a bit scary, but tons of fun.
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