Christopher Buckley at the American Library, etc.

The other evening, Christopher Buckley spoke at an "Evening with an Author" event at the the American Library. He read from and spoke about Losing Mum and Pup: a Memoir. I haven't read that one, yet, but I did read about it when it first came out and I'm interested. I was never a William Buckley fan, but I remember his name from conversations my parents had. I think they enjoyed reading his stuff. I read an article or two when doing papers in college, I think, and didn't agree with anything. I remember how strange William Buckley sounded. Someone in the audience asked about that and we learned that English was not really his first language. The home language was Spanish because the family had spent several years in Mexico and even after leaving Mexico they kept Spanish-speaking staff. After Mexico, they came to France and William learned French. He didn't really start speaking English until he was sent to boarding school in England. Other people asked about Pat Buckley, Christopher's mother, who was very big in the New York social circles of the 50s and 60s.
My own interest was in Christopher Buckley. We're about the same age (me 1951 and him 1952). I've read Thank You for Smoking (I also saw the movie) and No Way to Treat a First Lady. I enjoyed both of them. They are good novels. And they are fun to read. I'm going to read the rest of his books. One of the advantages of volunteering at the library is that I'm sure to go in every week and I see books coming and going, so if I forget that I wanted to take one out or reserve it if its already out, it'll probably come through my hands soon and I'll grab it then.
I had lunch with Pascale, Christiane, and Violaine before heading off to the library on Wednesday. It was good to see them all. Violaine is finishing up a masters' degree on lobbying, but is in a sort of rut right now because of the job market; Chris is flying high on her successful completion of an executive MBA at ESSEC; and Pascale is making good contacts, but the market has not yet picked up for her qualifications. Violaine picked the restaurant, a vegetarian place near the Place de Contrescarpe.
On Thursday, I had lunch with Judith Merians (Night at the Movies events). We met a few years ago at one of the WICE Money Matters for Women conferences. It was a good, long lunch with lots of conversation. She's been able to work out her dream of spending several months a year in Paris. She's returning to LA soon, but will be back in September. Judith is often mentioned in Adrian Leeds' "Parler Paris" newsletter and I knew they are friends. Since Adrian announced that another friend had died (Suzy, a friend of mine from Ile de France Walks) just recently, I made a Judith-Suzy connection. I mentioned how upset I was that with Christine last month, Paul's mother and now Suzy, I was hoping for a couple of months with no one dying. Judith, however, had not read Adrian's most recent newsletter and did not know about Suzy. And they were not friends via Adrian. They went back to when their kids were growing up, in LA! They were both very surprised to find each other in Paris a couple of years ago. And I was upset with myself for having sprung the news on her like that.
Yesterday evening, the AARO investment group met. That was fun. We're not really a club as we don't have any investments together, but we get together once a month to pool our knowledge. Some have some good things to say, like B, who was a banker, or S, who is a member of a French investment club. I enjoy it. It's been a busy week!
Tomorrow, I'm going to try to get up early to go to the farm and help out. We are members of a coop association. Every week we get a bunch of veggies from the farmer our association is helping out. But he needs to real help, too, so every Saturday, some members go out to help him for a few hours. The vegetable distribution was yesterday: spinach, Swiss chard, long radishes, turnips, potatos, salad, beans. It's fresh; it's local; it's "bio". (The French say "bio", which is no better than Americans saying "organic". There's got to be a better term to describe that kind of food.)