Book Club

As book clubs go, everyone who participates in one thinks hers (or his) is the best. Evidence in the Saturday Chicago Tribune who publishes a Chicagoland Book Club every week. There is surely a wait list for that space.

Our book club, Ladies of the Evening, or LOTE was formed almost 20 years ago as an offshoot of parenting classes that were held at Ogden Avenue School. We all had kids at school at the time and the start time of our monthly meeting was 8:30 to ensure bedtime was met for the kids. 8:30 sometimes stretched into 9:00 actual start time, but we were younger then...like 20 years younger!

When I got married in 1977, my mother-in-law played bridge with a group of ladies in her neighborhood. She told me that they have 'granny showers' in honor of each grandchild that is born to one of the ladies in the bridge group. I tucked that idea away, hoping that someday I would have a group like hers and that we too could celebrate the births of our grandchildren.

Happily, our group has a few grandchildren and we have thus had a few granny showers. Gifts can be either for the grandbaby or the grandmom - books, picture frames, hooded towels, photo albums, anything fun to celebrate the grand event.

But we had a special occasion to celebrate this year:  a wedding! Lori Sands married Cris Martinez in October and at the next monthly meeting, we decided to have a wedding shower. The hostess of the evening, Maureen Hernandez, went digging around the basement and found an old Skipper doll of her daughter's already dressed for the day. Maureen fashioned a bundt cake with an extra layer on a beautiful footed cake stand, frosted in white buttercream and adorned with fresh raspberries.



And the gift for the new bride? Flannel pj's with matching slippers...we are, after all 20 years older!

Proud members of the Ladies of the Evening are: Shelley Cameron, Maureen Hernandez, Judi Kaminski, Marian Lynch, Lori Sands Martinez, Marcia June Scharnweber, Nancy Schwerin, Pat Sirchio, Betty Waterman, Pam Zadak and me.