3. Feb. 24th. It's time to talk about the book. pages 3-50 something

9! of us have gathered at Dixie's house for a mushroom tortellini with a gorganzola cream sauce, a variety of wines, Ukrop's chocolate pie and our first fifty pages.
Almost everyone has made it to the first dinner. Lisa decided it was best to stay in bed, under the covers and get over whatever ailment made her lose her cookies at work earlier. Thank you Lisa.

After our catch up chatter we get seated and begin. It was a tight fit with all nine and Leo but we did it. However, let it be noted that Karen attempted more than once to oust Leo from the table.

Half of us read what was assigned and the other half either read some or were not able to get started yet. The good news is one had a note from her 7 year old neice.


I wouldn't call our first discussion a complete success. with 9 girls and only half read it's hard to keep focus on the task at hand. And I was a bit concerned when only 15 minutes of our 2 hour evening was about War and Peace.

So here's a little run down:

1. Our over concern for Liza's downy lip.
2. Shaun White is awesome. Go USA!
3. The Kindle which both Karen and Birgitte have and love.
4. keeping track of all the characters introduced in the 50 fifty pages
5. A recent ski trip
6. Kindle
4. Should Wendy get a Kindle?
5. An upcoming ski trip.
6. The opening at Anna Pavlovan's and how she navigates through the evening trying to keep control over the overall party atmosphere.
7. The G-D olympics
8. The G-D Kindle
9. Andrey's defense of his friend Pierre, who has aligned himself with Napolean in a room full of Russian's who think of him as the antichrist.
10. Andrey's disinterest in his wife and all things social. His encouragement to Pierre to not marry until he has concured all he wants to do in life.
11. The 10k in March
12. My suggestion for everyone to keep a little diary or log to help keep track of characters and what's going on. At least in the beginning.

We ran out of time and did not even get to the name day party at the Rostov's. This is important because it sets up our first love interests.
Some of the girls have suggested that I lead the discussions to keep us more on track. This does not appeal to me. I understand most book clubs work this way but it's not what I invisioned for our group. Don't you like it when you are out with friends, drinking, eating good food and you get into a great discussion/debate about something and you don't even feel the evening getting late? This is my dream.

Needless to say I am worried at this point in the evening. But as I leave Dixie's house, kissing her littlest giggling girl goodnight for the 50th time, I'm filled with hope. I had forgotten one very important thing. The 9 girls that showed up tonight. Thank you. You might think it was the free food and wine but I know better. And I know our next meeting will be filled with a little more War and Peace.