Tuesdays with Murder, Part Deux

Tonight I went to the meeting of the mystery book club. As mentioned as my plan in my earlier post, I made the chicken salad recipe -- not the world's best, in my humble opinion, no matter what Ms. Myers calls it! It all was eaten, though, and the others all said it was good.

There were thirteen people there, eight women and five guys. Two of the guys were husbands who came with their wives for the meal, I think. Interestingly for me, one husband-wife couple are lawyers in Baraboo that I knew by name but had not met.

"Oh, you're the Michael on the phone," Gretchen said when I mentioned that I worked for Screnock & Screnock.

People were nice, but it was not a very interesting event. I may give it another chance and hope that without the distraction of food, we will actually talk about books. Tonight there was more conversation about television programs, pets and such than about reading. It was okay, but not what I had been looking forward to doing with my evening when I signed on for a book club.

The weather report had offered possibly severe thunderstorms tonight, which would have made an appropriate background for a murder mystery dinner, but as usual, nothing came of it. We could sure use the rain, but the storms that do come our way have gone above or below or alongside without giving us much beyond an occasional flash of lightning and distant rumble of thunder.

The one bit of excitement came on my drive home. Just as I came over the top of a hill, a car turned left abruptly in front of me, and I as I drove past, I heard tires squeal and saw them go off the road and plow into a wooden fence. I found a place to turn around and came back to check on. It appeared to be a young father and two kids -- under ten, I would say -- all of whom were out of the car and clearing broken fence rails away. I asked if they were okay or needed me to call for help, but he calmly assured me they were fine. He acted like it happened every day and the kids seemed no more agitated than he was. Maybe it does happen every day...

Weird.