Book Club Gathering for Water for Elephants- Part I

Our book club pick for July was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It was a perfect book for a summer read and it was great inspiration for a fun circus theme book club meeting.


Reactions to the book were quite mixed. While the details about young Jacob's life in a circus train in the 1920's were interesting to many of us, what moved us were the scenes of Jacob (the main character) in his nineties living in a nursing home.

Jen, (the roasted peanuts gal-see below) shared her sadness about how realistic the author's depiction of life in a senior home is and talked about what she has seen in the many years she's worked with the elderly.



Many of the scenes in the book actually happened or are based on real events and the author shares her research for this book on her website. So check it out.
http://www.saragruen.com/water.html









Suzane (left), and long time friends Pam and Kim((right).

Kim, an avid reader joined us for the first time and got our discussion started. Please come back Kim, I'm glad you joined us.















June loved this book--My favorite was when she said that she could almost hear the circus music while reading this book. That's the beauty of books; they have an ability to transport us to a different place and time.








Well--what can I say about the FOOD?

TOTALLY CIRCUS!!

My friend Suzanne(above) is starting to wonder if I'm using the food type in novels as the main criteria for selecting the books we read.

I'll have to be honest-- I like a good read almost as much as I like a good eat!

So, it's hard to tell what comes first.

Here's Jean and I with a plate of delicious hot soft pretzels.







You think Maria liked these pretzels? This active and vivacious grandma really knows how to live and savor every minute of it.








Suzanne brought some of the carnival toys in her kids' collection for a little arcade fun.
This is one of the reasons why I don't really drink alcohol. I can be this goofy entirely without altering substances. You imagine what can happen if I drank.

I had a ball playing ---it was a good reminder, though of why I don't pay to play such games at the fairs--I'm really bad at them.




June(right) and Jody (left) enjoying a delicious cake that June's mother-in-law baked-not exactly for us initially--but it was amazing.

The cake was supposed to be for June's wedding anniversary and she told her mother-in-law about bringing it to the meeting instead.

Her mother-in-law loves to bake and got worried that her cake wasn't "fancy enough" for our gathering so she designed an elephant freehand with crushed nuts for June to to bring to our gathering. The cake had to match our circus theme. You gotta love it!!




Sometimes a word, just one, is all we need!

When I turned thirty, some time ago, my friend Sally gave me this bowl with 30 glass pebbles in which she wrote inspirational words.

Years later, the words are a little faded but I had my "sisters" at the gathering close their eyes and select one. My word was honesty--thanks goodness--God knows I need all the reminders I can get.











Here are some of the foods we ate. Rosie the elephant in the book was stealing the lemonade from the consession stand. So guess what we drank.

In addition, we laughed and ate the night away. Let's see--we had funnel cakes, nachos, caramel popcorn, and too many other unhealthy things.

Fun, fun , fun! Homemade carnival style funnel cakes were delicious, if I might say so myself ( recipes in another post Part II) .











Jody at the arcade--see-- it does not take much of us moms to escape-love, love it!!
Jen (left )made out-of-this-world delicious, hot out of the oven, roasted mixed nuts. A total hit. The roasted, mixed nuts lady outdid herself.







Jen's roasted mixed nuts-- crazy good!!


Thanks to my book club sisters for another terrific night. Check next blog for the next read and details about the next September 19th meeting. Have a terrific rest of the summer.