Florida seems like a dream to me now. Or was that Saginaw?

A couple observations: if you are heading to The Villages by air, it might make sense to fly into Tampa, which is about the same distance as Orlando, and does not have the throngs of Mouse Seekers. It is always true that the best and most uncomplicated flights happen when you have to get out of a place you don’t really want to leave.

“TSA-Pre,” the certification that you oppose the imposition of Sharia Law and the promise that you will refrain from blowing yourself to smithereens on the jet, is also useful when contemplating the hoard of vacationers clogging the endless lanes that snake across the access to the securing screening points.

It reminded me precisely of the signs at Disney World that helpfully tell you it is only six hours to the ride from this point in the line.

Anyway, everything was smooth as silk and the flight back was a breeze.

I raced around the house unpacking- unsnarling all the cords to the four devices with which I had traveled, sorting the dirty laundry from that which was still clean, trying to clean the place up enough so that the Book Group I was hosting the next night would not be horrified.

I completely forgot that I had noticed a slow leak on the left rear tire of the Panzer, and when I got in the car way to early the next morning, dressed in Business Casual for the big offsite meeting I did not want to go to, the dashboard raged at me in the starkest color of crimson and ominous warning chimes sounded with menace, which in my experience is not what you want from your iridium-silver steed.

The tire indeed had a problem and the on board sensor made no bones about telling me that in German and English. I had to switch to the police car, and that had its own set of problems, which included a failed motor for the port mirror and the lack of an EZPass transponder for the Toll Road and I began to hyperventilate.

So that started book group day, and by the time the sun was lowering in the West, I was miles away from where I needed to be and I needed to be cooking, putting out the wineglasses and decanting some inoffensive vintages in Red and White for my guests. Escaped from a side door once the project that I used to manage was pitched to the auditorium. I was home in reasonable time to figure out what to cook.

I decided on a modified quesa dip, and sautéed some sausage to give it some gusto, with Wickles hot relish and sweet chili pepper sauces and some got out some little Hebrew National mini-wieners wrapped in some dough blankets. Some cold-cut and cheese platters balanced the dining table, and then I pulled the chairs out into the living room so everyone could sit down. I made a decorative liquor station on the corner of the table, not so much because anyone besides me would be drinking it, but I think it looks cool and retro and that is important in a literary discussion.

I added some of that good Alouette spreading cheese with garlic and Carr’s Table Water crackers, just in case, and opened the can of cashews to have on the coffee table.

I glanced at the clock as the television in the background was muttering something about Hillary and Donald, I don’t know what. I turned off the flat-screen and put on some classical music as Letitia knocked on the door. She had made some vegetable quiche, and was followed in shortly by The Queen of the Dogs, who had a neat little chafing dish in a wire rack filled with some aromatic kind of meatballs.

“Those smell delicious,” I said, “how do you make them?

She smiled. “Bourbon,” she said.

“Almost everything goes better with Bourbon. It is almost like bacon. Both ‘B’ words. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

” Someone knocked on the door, and I pulled it open to see no one. The rapping came again, and I realized it was the back door that opens to the patio. I limped over and opened it to see C with two Brick’s pizza boxes that she wanted to drop off before dumping her coat and things upstairs.

We were placing them artfully on the table when Sweet Margaret arrived, the most thoughtful woman in the building. She had tortilla chips shaped like little scoops, which were going to be perfect with the quesa dip, and hummus.

“Marty One isn’t going to make it. The Funeral Home called her and Doc is in Florida,” she announced. “So this is everyone for this month.”

I got everyone wine in the color they preferred, and we all got plates of food. The five of us were clearly not going to make a dent in what was on the table, but all of it was good and we munched away as we took our seats.

Margaret is the chairperson, so we eventually got around to the subject after doing what we do all summer at poolside, which is ensure that we are all current on everything that is happening at Big Pink where we all live. That was the real reason we have a book group, since there is no one to talk about or be scandalized by during the winter when we are stuck in our units like gophers in their dens.

At some point before the second glass of wine, we got to this month’s topic, which was “Everything That She Forgot,” by Lisa Ballantyne.

We agreed on just about everything: All the guys in the book were jerks, including some that that were the gold standard for jerk-dom, that sometimes murder is justified, that it wasn’t just me who missed the big plot device for a while, and that some Scottish Presbyterians really do have it coming.

The Queen wrapped up the discussion with the observation that a pivotal character early in the book just vanished, and she provided a much better ending that unified everything and made us all feel better.

Book Group doesn’t get any better.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Editor’s note: I am dropping the Twitter citation. I may keep my account, but their new Trust and Safety Council, populated by the usual suspects who get to ban users, makes me leery of their objectivity. If Twitter is going to represent only one side of the discussion, screw them.