Saturday night the Banjo Band took Olympia's First United Methodist Curch by storm. They have a "dinner and a program" every other week, and this Saturday, we were that program.
The benefiit of the dinner part was we all got to take part in the potluck. Let me tell you, there is no finer eating than a church potluck. Not only are you exposed to the culinary heights of mac-n-cheese with summer sausage mixed in, devilled eggs and QFC Fried chicken, you are risking food poisoning because non-professional cookery is the number one way people get that stuff, which makes eating kind of like an extreme sport. It is fascinating what people cook, too. The best thing I ate was what appeared to be a rhubarb bar. Like a lemon bar, but with a different, rhubarby top. It was spectacular.
Obviously my eyes were bigger than my stomach, which was pretty big (I'm not sure why I was so hungry, since the extent of my day had been sleeping in, returning my books to the library and powernapping). But I needed to sugar up before hitting the banjo.
The organizer told us this was the biggest crowd he'd seen at one of these potlucks, and man, they ate up every song, from "Carolina in the Morning" to "Bicycle Built for Two." They even screamed for Linda to do the Charleston. If there had been a venue where banjo-smashing was appropriate, this might have been it. Except we all love our banjos. Best of all, they actually knew the protocol for the service songs. And although this was a United Methodist Church, they hollared with appreciation for Frank Andy's "God Bless you and God Bless America." Frozen Chosen? I don't think so.
Ray and I listened to French tapes (well, mp3s on the iPod) on the way up. Maybe something sunk in, but the instructions are a little confusing. Although he took French back in the day, Ray said he is expecting me to be the primary linguist on the honeymoon. The tenses are giving me a sad, however, because I thought (why?) they'd be like Spanish and Portuguese, which have virtually identical verb conjugations, tenses and moods. Le sigh. Anyway, I can now say "bouteille de champagne," which I already could, except I can say, "Je achete une bouteille de champagne," which only sounds more moronic with the verb in place.
Finished "A Fraction of the Whole." Tres, tres bon. I recommend it wholly. Also demolished "The White Tiger" which won the Booker. I was not as impressed with it, but it's not bad. The symbolism is more obvious, the plot less ambitious than FOTW, but it's got a lot of description. I'm in agreement with the Guardian writer who was like, "The White Tiger got the Booker? Say what?"
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