In May of this year, one of the book club girls, Rosalie asked me for some of our recent book lists to share with a friend. I took the opportunity to put the entire list together and realized that we would read our 100th book together in August. It was really an exciting moment to imagine how long we’ve been together! (I’m not good at long-term commitments — though my third marriage has lasted 16 years — I guess I’m getting better.) It called for a celebration, so I started by making these posters.
I framed them for the girls and had them all ready in a box throughout June and July trying to keep my mouth shut about them. When I went to Canada in the summer, I sent an email to all the girls telling them that in case I wasn’t allowed back into the country because of my Facebook posts, there was a box in my bedroom labeled Book Club that they should find before August! Closer to the date I baked 100 cupcakes. I’d made little books to tape to toothpicks to push into the cupcake but I’d planned so far in advance, I FORGOT to affix the books to toothpicks before taking them to Melissa’s! She of course has toothpicks, she has everything — it was the time it would take to tape them all on that made me forgo the books on top. Here are the cupcakes. The picture is a little dark — we were on her roof deck and it was the end of the evening.
And here are the unused book tags — don’t count them — there are not 100 because I lost or gave away some of the envelopes they were in at the gathering.
We are so lucky to have such a great group. As I explained elsewhere on this site, some of the girls couldn’t be at the August meeting. When I gave them their posters in September I told them I looked forward to our second hundred books together. Geri looked at me so perky and bright-eyed asking “What number are we on now?” as though it had been several months maybe since August. I said “101” and the idea of this site was just a day away.