fun night out!

I think I've mentioned my library system's participation in the Big Read on this blog before. Well, I was invited to a dinner last night with the library system director, another librarian from our main library, and my friend V who is doing the lion's share of work on the bus trips to Monroeville. Our special guest was Mary Badham, the actress who played Scout in the 1962 film starring Gregory Peck! She was in town to make appearances at 3 of our biggest scheduled events and left town today. Our library system director wanted to take her out to dinner at a fun, local restaurant before she left so we went to Nabeel's in Homewood.

It was a pretty special time meeting her. I could still clearly see that little girl in her very pretty face. She was a lot of fun, had tons of great stories to tell about her life now and drank her Southern Comfort on ice. The rest of us had wine and we all shared Nabeel's Y-U-M-M-Y baked feta appetizer and a hummus dip. There was lots of laughter, a few sad stories and second glasses of wine along with (for me anyway) a fabulous serving of baklava oozing with honey. I was pretty proud of us all, no one talked about the movie, or Harper Lee, or anything else she's probably grown tired of discussing. We were all over the place from Japan to Hurricane Katrina to 9/11. I am very glad I went and will have that memory for as long as my brain holds :)

I went over to V's house beforehand since I didn't have time to go home before dinner and we had wine and nibbles there first then headed over to the restaurant. Needless to say, V and I were pretty giggly by the time dinner was over...at least I was :)

I was fun to have a night out and with people I have not socialized with before. I had to dust off my conversational skills and I feel like I did pretty well. I let myself get in a rut of just making do with a minimal amount of conversation outside work and I really felt the deficit last night. Just goes to show me that I really do need to get out more. Luckily, the Birmingham Museum of Art's Art on the Rocks monthly summer night programs start next month so I have that to look forward to until fall.

eeek! the library's closing! I gotta go!