PANDA lives on!

Welcome to my first blog. Hope you’ll enjoy my ramblings. You’ll never know what I’m going to write about, because I don’t either.

Today I hosted my readers club. Some call it a book club. One of our past illustrious members called it PANDA. It never stood for anything that we knew of, so my wife, Sandi, came up with Philosophical and Narrative Discussion Antagonists. Yep, I know. It sounds rather high brow, but the guys that I meet with are down to earth and I enjoy being around them.

The book we discussed today was Elizabeth Warren’s “A Fighting Chance.” It became apparent that this woman was well thought of for her efforts to help protect the shrinking middle class of America. She is a fighter and does not know when to quit. In fact, she has been criticized for biting off more than she can handle. The consensus is that she is one of the few honest politicians. After discussing the book for a while we immediately got down to kicking around various subjects. Then we took the ever so looked forward to break to eat and drink.

Sandi had prepared mini phyllo cups loaded with brie and topped with either pepper jelly or marmalade. She also surprised us with a tray of hard salami imported from Trader Joe’s. One of our Hungarian members who wasn’t present, but puts out a wonderful spread when we’re at his home, now has some competition when it comes to salami, because this was a close match to his imported stuff. Also on the tray was sharp Cheddar cheese, Pepper Jack cheese, grapes, and baguettes. To top it off, Sandi made a Mexican Apple Cake topped with a cream cheese frosting that contained Cointreau and Tequila. Good stuff!

After gorging ourselves, we got back down to business and decide on our next read. The votes in and it will be “A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal,” by Ben Macintyre.

You’ll be hearing more about that at a later date.