Thank goodness I own a dictionary

Last week sitting at the coffee shop swapping these beautiful cards, me feeling so delighted with how mine turned out, the conversation took a turn for the more intelligent. Several of these ladies are involved in the Library's Book club. What? I didn't know our little library had a book club. And the books these ladies were discussing really had a depth to them. Not that my current reads of Raising Godly Tomatoes, Bringing up Boys and Chris Madden's Personalizing your home, do not offer something uniquely fascinating, but, seriously how much more learning to be better at what I'm already doing can I stomach without expanding my world somewhere.

So I proudly walked to the front desk at the library the next morning and asked to be part of the current book club. I felt....old. I think this is 1st time that I ever thought a book club for just pure enjoyment might be interesting. I've done plenty of book studies, but for the purpose to be a better wife, a better mom, a better Christian. But not one just to learn about the world and hone my knowledge of a whole other world.

The librarian hands me the book and while not huge, just a mere 250 pages, she also tells me the next meeting is Sept 8th. Shocked I say, "As in Sept 2008?" Yikes! I'm the world's slowest reader. I read at the same speed silently as I read out loud! So that gives me a week and a half. That's 26 pages a day. That's 52 minutes a day. Well, I might could swing that late at night.

So night 1 I wake up asleep in the book, on page 7, it's 1:30am. Crud, that means I now have to get in 33 pages a night...(OCD? Ya think?). It's not that it is not interesting, it is. Did you have to read that last sentence again? But the book is "The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo". So since I'm homeschooling my children, you'll be glad to know that 1st, I don't think I've ever read anything by Hemingway and I sure don't know where Kosovo is. I'm guessing Russia at this point.

But I'm looking forward to reading in between watching the Republicans tonight. I'm slowly making my way through this fascinating book.

I pulled out the map and found out that Kosovo is in Albania and Albania is in Europe, boarding Greece, but on the map, it's really not that far from Russia...lol.

I'm also having to read with a dictionary in hand as I was reminded that if the term doesn't revolve around birthing, potty training and caring for your husband, than I'm moving into a new area of vocabulary.

So these are the words so far that I've had to look up:
Sepulchral
muezzin
samovar
Bedlum
Kiosks
Blow and go (well this was in interruption from my husband...he just saw a commercial for some hair product that used the slogan of Blow and go, and he had to come and tell me about, "Sounds like the perfect date..ha ha) I just stared at him. What can you say? Amazing. I wonder why the appeal of an intellectual conversation caught my attention?
copse (not to be confused with corpse)
parochial

Am I the only one who had to look these up?

The book mentions that in Kosovo, chaos is normal. It's part of their life. Why do most of us in America see just daily chaos, the water heater breaking, the car dying making us late, the kids getting sick, as severe problems and gravely irritating when they interrupt our time? Are we just so busy trying to get to the next thing, next task that we don't enjoy any part of the journey?