2 points

Pulpwood QUEENS book club

Several years ago Laura stumbled on a story about a book club called Pulpwood QUEENS. It was started by a free spirit named Kathy Murphy who combined her hair styling skills with her love of books and opened a beauty salon/book store aptly called Beauty and the Book. From there, it grew into an international book club with 725+chapters, including ours: The Collin County Pulpwood Queens. This month the QUEEN herself (Kathy Murphy) came to our meeting to discuss Gentleman of Moscow and show us her new line of art and clothing. 

What we definitely enjoy most is Kathy’s yearly Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend. Hundreds of fellow, tiara-wearing book lovers get together each year to hear authors talk about their books. However, unlike any other book festival, we really get to know the authors personally. They even serve dinner one night. Authors are our movie stars; meeting Alice Hoffman and Jamie Ford was more exciting than if we were to meet Ryan Reynolds. And who can beat the zany Great Ball of Hair on Saturday night? Last year’s theme was Bohemian Rhapsody and, as former hippies, we knew just how to dress. We’ve also had fun with Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend . And who could pass up the experience of going into a gas station to get directions in these get ups?!

This coming January, the theme is How the West Was Won, so you know we’re brushing off cowgirl hats and polishing up our boots. We’d love to wrangle some more of our friends into the group – so don’t be shy about moseying on down to Nacogdoches with us! Check it out at http://www.thepulpwoodqueens.com/

2 points

QUEEN OF SHEBA Restaurant

When we were little girls, if anyone, including us, were to act like they were “all that” our mom would ask: “Who does she think she is, the Queen of Sheba?” Never once, until Q month, did we stop to wonder who the real Queen of Sheba was. From exploring the internet, we can see where the expression originated since she came to Solomon with all kinds of rich gifts – spices and gems.

So imagine how excited we were that there is a restaurant named QUEEN OF SHEBA and it serves Ethiopian food, which was a new experience for us, albeit it not a Q. Ethiopian food definitely is reminiscent of Sheba in that it has a rich dose of spices in everything from the veggies to the coffee (which Laura just had to buy a pound of!). We enjoyed it but the one thing that took us a bit of getting used to was the bread called Injera. Looks a little bit like a squishy brick colored pancake, rolled up like a taco but the consistency and taste is hard to describe. If any of you try it, let us know what you think.

We’d like to think that Mom would have gotten a kick out of our eating here.

The Quirkiness of Q

1 point

Laura: In thinking about what I wanted to study for the month of Q, the first thing that came to mind was the question: “Why is Q almost always followed by U?” I figured that long ago, Q chose U as its best friend and a pact was made to appear in public most of the time. Obviously, it was not that simple so I found a great little video on youtube with delightful cartoonish drawings that explains it best. To sum it up, Q and U got together to replicate sounds in the language of the Normans, the French, the Etruscans and the Phoenicians. If you’re interested, check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9GJzn_0U9U. But one thing I find extremely Quirky is that when S precedes QU, you get most words that have a slight negative twist to them. Consider squalor, squish, squash, squeeze, squander, squeamish, squirrelly, to cite a few. I wonder what squabble set this in motion?

Barbara: Q and U are obviously close friends but P has been vying for Q’s attention for quite some time. I checked to see where the expression “Mind your Ps and Qs” originated.  Surprisingly there was not a good consensus but instead several interpretations. Mind your pints and quarts was one since bartenders had to tally up their take; there’s really nothing to support this, though, so I attribute it to the drunk bartenders. Mind your pea and queue came from the 18^th century but since a pea was a coat and a queue was a wig only someone who was Quackers could confuse those.