Second Meeting

On Saturday, April 30, 2011, our second meeting took place.  I am happy to announce that we finally have a name!  The name that we all agreed upon is BookMarks!  So, from now on, we are the BookMarks Book Club!  This last meeting went a little bit long – three hours too long!  It lasted six hours total!  I have to admit, I got carried away with one of the activities.  I also underestimated the discussion time.  We had lots to talk about.  The discussion went really well.  When the members arrived, they signed the roster sheet and grabbed their supply boxes like they did last time.  But this time, they also signed a birthday card for Sookie.  I am glad Sookie was okay with having the book club meeting on her birthday.  I just hope she had a good birthday!  Since it was her birthday, she had to wear a lei that said Happy 36^th Birthday.  I thought it was cool but I think she was embarrassed.  Romantix noticed that she took it off just to go outside to her car!  Rabbit took a picture of her under the Happy Birthday banner wearing the lei and holding the Happy Birthday message written on the chalkboard.  After we settled in, we answered the sharing jar question which was written on an index card in the supply box just like last time.  The sharing jar question this time was, “From the reading, you can see that Julia had an appetite for life.  What do you have an appetite for?”  We weren’t allowed to discuss our answers – we had to put them in the sharing jar right away.  At the end of the meeting, we played Loaded Questions.  Loaded Questions is an actual game that can be bought in stores.  It is a really fun game.  I read off all the answers to the appetite question and then each person had to guess who said what answer.  I said “volleyball”, Sookie said “creating art”, Rabbit said “my hot coworker!”, Romantix said “appetite for all foods, shopping, spending time with family and friends” and Dead to the World said “nursing, chocolate, reading.”    For Romantix and Dead to the World, I only read one thing and chose ‘appetite for all foods’ and 'chocolate' because the other ones they listed would have been dead giveaways.  Earlier, I had predicted that we would have to do another round since we all know each other fairly well. So, I assumed we would all get 5 out of 5 correct.  I was wrong.  Only Sookie and Romantix got 5 out of 5 correct.  I then asked Sookie and Romantix, out of the three of us remaining, who said ‘reading’.  They both had correctly written ‘Dead to the World.’  So we had to do another round where Rabbit, Dead and I went to the other room and came up with three more appetites we have.  I said "sweets", Dead said, "Bejeweled Blitz" and Rabbit said "Girl Scout Cookie Martinis".  They still tied!  So, after the suggestion to do so, I decided to give out two prizes this time.  Note to self:  buy another prize for the 7^th Julia Child meeting.  So, Romantix picked the long box and found out it was aluminum foil after she unwrapped it.  Sookie unwrapped microfiber dishcloths. 

After the Sharing Jar, we handled some official business.  We talked about the book club name again but didn’t actually make the decision until the end.  I passed around photos of the last meeting so we could all look at them.  Earlier, Romantix had wondered why my TV is always playing black and white shows.  I watch Three’s Company at night and I leave it on TVLand channel.  Andy Griffith comes on in the afternoon on this channel.  So, when the photos were being passed around, Romantix noticed that Andy Griffith was indeed playing on the TV at the last meeting!  Then I passed out the Zuppa Toscana soup recipe (I made this soup last time). I passed out the typed mission statement and the list of members with their nicknames and the rules of the club.  No one had a problem with it, so I passed out the member contact information sheet.  No corrections were needed.  The KW (of KWL) sheet looked fine for all of us, so moving on, we looked at the minutes of the last meeting.  We performed an official approval of the minutes with “motion to approve”  and “I second” terminology.  Copies of this blog were passed out.  There was an edit needed with this one.  Dead to the World noted that she didn’t love the Skittles.  In fact, she really didn’t like them all that much.  It was Rabbit who thought that they were okay.  I also passed out a Book Club Notes sheet for us to jot down anything we wanted to remember.  After this, we started discussing the book.  We pulled out our homework sheets.  We started out with someone sharing what they wrote down for the summary of the section.  Next, I handed Sookie a dictionary so she could look up the words as we announced them.  These are the terms that we were unaware of the meanings of.  An edit to the homework sheet is:  we should have written down what page number the vocab word was on so we could quickly reference the original context of the word.  A funny story is: I am terrible with vocabulary words.  The reason is I don’t read that much.  Lesson learned.  Anyway, a word came up that someone didn’t know.  The word was verdant.  I was just being funny and said it meant green.  Someone knew what I was thinking and said, “No, Turtle, you are thinking of 'verde' in Spanish.”  The funny part is that verdant means green and grassy and growing!  After the vocab, we discussed the questions we had.  Then we shared what we liked and disliked.  We also mentioned what we were surprised at.  Then we discussed what we learned and the new knowledge that we related to our existing knowledge or to our lives.  Also, our feelings and goals were discussed.  Here is another edit to the homework sheet:  Many members didn’t know what I meant by “I plan to . . . “  (goals).  I explained that it is what you plan to do now that you have learned a lesson from the reading.   See a later post for the details of the homework sheet discussion.  We ended with the Show and Tell.  Each of us shared the information we brought about a historical aspect.  Sookie shared information about the Rose Bowl’s history which is in Pasadena where Julia was born and raised.  Rabbit shared info about the OSS and how it transformed into the CIA.  Romantix read about the term 'Anglophile'.  I shared the meaning of scientific eating.  Dead to the World didn’t have a chance to obtain any information.  We all understood that final tests are coming soon for her classes.  Interesting information!  Thank you for sharing all of the interesting info BookMarks!  After that we filled out the Bloom’s Taxonomy worksheet and then discussed our answers.  See a later post for the main points of this worksheet. 

After the book discussion, we decided to eat.  I made Tempura asparagus.  Rabbit made this Apple Jack/pecan mix.  She also made garlic pretzels with garlic dip.  Dead to the World brought fruit pizza which we didn’t get a chance to eat and cream cheese/black olive tortilla rolls.  Sookie brought fried ravoli with spaghetti sauce and vegetables with dill dip.  Awesome food and a good variety!  Thank you BookMarks for bringing the food!  After snacking, we got back to the book.  We had an activity where each member read 11 statements. If we agreed with the statement, we raised our green hand.   If we disagreed, we held up our red hand.  And, of course, if we weren’t sure, we showed our yellow hand.  (I bought colored cut-outs of hands.)  The members who raised a color that was in the minority were the first to discuss why they felt that way.  For the visual, we made a family tree.   One book club member mentioned to me before the meeting that it was really confusing with all the names of Julia’s family.   So, in our supply boxes were 6-7 colored post-it notes.  Each one had a name of one of Julia’s family members.  On the front of the post-it we had to find out when this person was born and when they died, if the information was available.  We also wrote down their nickname if they had one.  Their heritage or where they were born was also found.  Also, on the front, we added one piece of relevant information so we can easily remember them.  On the back, we wrote down who they married and the year they were married.  Also, we included the number of children they had.  And last, the relationship they were to Julia was recorded.   There were page numbers listed on the back of each post-it note to help find the information quickly.  We stuck these post-its to the blank family tree template I had drawn earlier.  It was fun – like putting together a puzzle!  I think this helped us keep everyone straight – at least I can now.  After the visual, we made a craft.  The craft was actually a party favor.  This was a quick craft since the other activities took so long.  In the supply boxes were six white address labels.  Using rubber stamps, we decorated the labels.  Then we wrapped each address label around a Hershey chocolate nugget.  Silver ones are milk chocolate and gold ones are milk chocolate with almonds.  They turned out really good.  We have some artists on our hands!  After the craft we took a group photo.  This will be used for the profile picture for this blog.  Romantix baked a cake for Sookie’s birthday.  I found some candles – one was a 3 and one was a 6.  They were actually sparklers.  They were really cool but smoked up the entire house!  I had to open several windows.  Someone asked me if they were supposed to be used outside.  I looked at the package and sure enough it said, “Not recommended for indoor use.”  Rabbit took a picture of these directions on the back of the package.  We forgot to sing to Sookie so after we were sitting eating the cake, we sang.  Very good cake.  Chocolate!   Sookie couldn’t blow out the candles but hopefully she made a wish!  Before we left, we planned the date of the next meeting.  I promised the members that it wouldn’t be as long next time!  (I hope).  Next time, for show and tell, we are to bring a kitchen item (not food.)  Also, we decided to bring an ingredient or two for tacos.  Great idea.  I can’t remember if it was Romantix’s or Sookie’s idea.*  I am bringing the meat since it is easier to make at my house.  I am also going to supply the shredded carrots even though I will be the only one that eats them since the other members stuck up their nose when I suggested shredded carrots on tacos!  Sookie is bringing the salsa and a dessert.  Rabbit is bringing the tortilla shells (both hard and soft) and onions.  Dead to the World is bringing the sour cream, tomatoes and black olives.  Romantix is bringing the lettuce and cheese.  Most of the Learning/Enthusiasm matrix sheets said that we loved the meeting and learned quite a bit!
*See correction in a later post.