Book Club

Last night was my first all-base spouses' book club meeting. We gathered at a Starbucks in Oak Harbor (yes, I drove from work at one Starbucks... to yet another Starbucks). The book of the night was The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins... a detective novel written in 1860. I dutifully got it from the library and made it 32 pages in before admitting defeat and realizing I was not going to finish the book in time.

So, I was that girl when I went to the meeting - the girl who shows up at book club without having read the book. I don't like that girl. My old book club in Wisconsin had that girl (who was also annoying in other ways); she would without fail, show up at every book club meeting with some elaborate sob story about how she hadn't finished the book, and HistoryGirlie and I would roll our eyes at each other, sighing at that girl's ridiculousness.

Hence, I was slightly nervous about going to my first meeting without having read the book; luckily, the book club leader hadn't finished reading it either!!! It ended up being a book club meeting with just three people (myself, the leader, and NatalieW), and 2/3 of us hadn't gotten past the second chapter :) Luckily, we're all book nerds, so we had a nice time just chatting about possible selections for future months, reminiscing about recent books we'd read, and "talking shop" (aka, chatting about life as Navy wives). The book club leader is a more seasoned Navy wife, who's actually lived in both Japan and Scotland, so she was giving Natalie and I some perspective on aspects of Navy life we haven't been through yet.

I kept Natalie at Starbucks long after our leader had to go home and tidy up before her housekeeper came the next day (every silver lining has its cloud...). She and I just kept chatting about our lives, our husbands (who share similar loves of geekery and nature documentaries), and our attempts at navigating the Navy. I always enjoy hearing other how other wives view their husband's service and the Navy lifestyle, so it ended up being a fun evening... even if we never actually talked about the book club book!