An ode to the bookless book club, with a dab of giveaway.

Last Friday, I spent a large part of the evening manically cleaning the house. Adam followed me around, shaking his head in wonderment at my efforts. “Do you really think you need to wipe the mouldings?” he asked. “I doubt they’ll notice the dust, anyway.”

I shook my own head, swiping at my sweaty brow with the clean (I think) end of the dustcloth. “Notice?” I hissed. “Adam, this is a BOOK club. These people read BOOKS. They know about mouldings.” I paused for breath. “THEY ARE READERS.” Then I brought him the stepstool and instructed him to dust the blades of the ceiling fan.

The cleanest moulding ever.

Truth be told, this was my first time hosting the group and it had to Go Well, lest I somehow be kicked out of what I have decided is the best book club ever. When it was formed last year, the founding members declared that we would read only enjoyable books, not the depressing tomes of social woe so beloved by previous book clubs. Besides one ill-fated misstep involving a Liberian memoir, we have remained true to the mission, indulging in the fluffier New York Times bestsellers and the random hey-the-cover-just-LOOKED-good selection. We shrink from pretension. We avoid any plots revolving around inherited disease or rapid descents into poverty. We positively shudder at book reviews that mention “literary irony.” Or “heartbreakingly devastating.” That one’s the worst.

Truth be told again, we don’t actually talk about books all that much. Those of us with husbands complain about them. Those of us with children then complain about them. And then the single women in the group regale us with dating stories and we all wish we were single again. Well, except for the single women. But you get my drift.

The best meeting ever took place this past fall. In October, lubricated with wine and fresh off a rousing conversation about eyebrow waxing, we discovered we all shared a common if completely age-inappropriate love of the Twilight series. Then someone suggested that we forgo a book in November and instead meet at the movie theater for a viewing of New Moon. There was a moment of silence while we considered if this was too lighthearted a move to make, even for the World’s Most Lightheartedest Book Club.

“Well, New Moon was a book,” one member said.

“Yes! With complete sentences and everything,” someone else chimed in.

“Don’t forget the plot,” another cried. “It had one!”

Another moment of silence. Then someone whipped out the big guns.

“Yes, it definitely had an interesting plot,” she said softly. “In fact, some might call it devastating.”

That pretty much sealed the deal. We met, we bought popcorn, we catcalled. When Jacob/Taylor Lautner took off his shirt, we made comments so unsuitable that my ears burn to recall them.

IT WAS GREAT.

And so, in the spirit of book clubs and the books they may or may not read, I offer this giveaway: Leave a comment by next Tuesday night (4/6) and automatically be in the running for a $20 Amazon gift card. You could buy a book! A movie! A VAMPIRE!

Actually, I just learned vampires cost $29.99. Eh, you can scrape up that extra $10 on your own. I have werewolves to save for, myself.

Tomorrow she just gets a bottle of corn syrup.

One afternoon not long ago, in a discount store not far away, Aura may have asked me to buy her the CraZCookn’ Marshmallow Maker, a foul toy that would surely produce foul creations, the likes of which would immediately inspire a Whole Foods employee to start rending his or her fair-trade garments. Fatigued by shopping and weak from a gnawing need for a Diet Coke, I may have said yes. I will admit to nothing, except the following.

Admission #1:

Perhaps the CraZCookn’ marketing gurus were so exhausted by the Herculean task of spelling two common words with three fewer letters that they didn’t have the energy to appropriately audition box models. For if I am not mistaken, the taller girl is muttering something distinctly unChristian between her teeth to the other, dim-looking girl. Something along the lines of “Move over or I will stick this elbow into your still-developing boob, just like my older sister Shannon Doherty taught me. And then my agent will eat your agent, FOR BREAKFAST.”

Admission #2:

If a person were pressed to identify the Marshmallow Maker’s least appealing trait, that person might have to say it’s the 371 parts that need to be washed before use. After all, a mother doesn’t want her developing child to ingest factory chemicals. Except after the 52nd piece falls down the garbage disposal and has to be retrieved by hand. At that point the kid is welcome to all the nitrobenzene she wants. Godspeed, daughter, and happy snacking.

Admission #3:

Well, shoot. If I’d known about the Yellow 5 and/or Blue 1 beforehand, I wouldn’t have even picked up a sponge. Talk about freakin’ gilding the lily.

Admission #4:

Somewhere, some food safety lab is enjoying an early, CraZCookn’-sponsored happy hour. “I’ve gotta hand it to you, Gerald,” says one lab worker to another. “I thought for sure you wouldn’t find one actual mineral in that stuff. But then you go ahead and not only do you find calcium, you top yourself with a trace of riboflavin!” The Heineken flows. Or, more precisely, the HeiNekn’.

Admission #5:

The instructions tell you to add water to the marshmallow mix and then “stir to a toothpaste thickness.” I tried my best to gross out Aura as she stirred, making all kind of mentions of vomit and bird poop, but nothing. If the folks at CraZCookn’ have taught me anything, it’s that you can’t disgust a three-year-old. You can, however, make her father retch for five whole minutes, and that’s worth $11.99 right there.

 Admission #6:

I  know. EXACTLY what I was thinking: How can this white stuff possibly turn blue simply by mixing with water?

“Now THAT!” I cried to Aura. “THAT is SCIENCE!” Having already explained both mermaids and the Loch Ness Monster earlier that afternoon, I felt that it was a particularly solid day of science education. Preschool may teach her about rocket ships, but here at home SHE LEARNS THE TRUTH.

Admission #7:

When I looked down at the baggies of white powder scattered across the counter, I couldn’t help but sigh. “In another life,” I murmured, “this might have looked illicit.” I tell you:  A woman goes and has a kid, and it’s like her dreams of being a cocaine dealer just fly right out the window.

Admission #8:

If I had bought Aura the Marshmallow Maker, this would have been the end result. And it might have tasted like puffy bird poop after all.

Thank God for hypotheticals.

You better believe that I’ll serve it under glass, too.

When we reluctantly moved to the suburbs in winter 2008, many of our still city-dwelling friends tried to comfort us. “Think of all the extra space!” they’d exclaim, patting our backs supportively. “Plus you’re only nine miles outside of Boston.  It’s not like you’re in the boonies!”

Adam and I would chuckle nervously. “Not the boonies!” we’d reply. “Right you are!”

And then spring came and the man who owned the grassy lot across the street appeared and started raising a spring crop of chickens and rototilling the world’s largest and ugliest garden. For weeks, the air was heavy with scent of manure, the scratching of the neighbor’s hoe a constant reminder of the horror across the street.

“WE HAVE MOVED TO THE BOONIES!” I screeched to Adam, sounding not entirely unlike the rooster regularly cock-a-doodle-freakin’-dooing across the street. “I can’t take this, this…this RURAL LIFE,” I continued disconsolately. “I hate it here. It’s so GREEN and PLEASANT. There aren’t even any homeless people around to pick the cans out of our recycling bins. DO YOU KNOW HOW HEAVY OUR RECYCLING BINS ARE NOW?” I screamed, stomping back and forth across our disgustingly large suburban kitchen. “Plus there isn’t a single Thai restaurant in town. And everyone here is SO WHITE.” I then finished up with promises to pack up Aura and return to the city if things didn’t change.

Two years later, I’m calmer. I’m even almost used to the guy across the street, a longwinded and curiously bearded fellow who nonetheless proffers homegrown veggies from time to time. Whenever we chat, I cheerily mention “appearances” and “property values” and the benefits of “attractively walled-in gardens and fowl,” weakening him one loaded hint at a time. As it is, this year he is raising pheasants, not chickens. Pheasants are a much more attractive bird, though I am finding that their mating calls can be rather…startling. Whenever I have the windows open it’s a bit like someone is being murdered, except with more rustling and pecking.

Truth be told, I am actually getting used to all of suburbia. I still detest having to drive instead of walk, but there’s something to be said about people who smile and adequately funded libraries. There isn’t a real independent coffeehouse in sight, but there are lots of parks for Aura and lots of other moms for me and a sturdy school system for the future. And sometime in January a guy actually started driving over and picking through our recycling bins on trash day. I don’t think he’s homeless, but if you squint really hard he might be laid-off, and that’s good enough for me.

Then last week, after dropping off Aura at preschool, I noticed a new sign going up on one of the storefronts in town: “Spice Thai Restaurant: Coming Soon!” Well, for the love of God. Next thing you know, some Asian or African American family will move to town and it will be completely unnecessary to return to city life. If that happens, I guess I’ll just invite the new family to dinner. Then I’ll serve pheasant.