Grand TMC's Spring Wine Party

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

~Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910)

Since joining Grand Toastmasters Club in 1986, I have made many good friends in the big family. Every year I look forward to three or four extracurricular activities in Grand in addition to two major speech contests at D67 Spring and Fall Conferences. Grand's Spring Wine Party is the most important event to me to join members and guests to welcome the new year. Many thanks to President May Hwang and IPP Gina Cheng for hosting the auspicious event at Gina's place Saturday, March 9th.

Gina was excited to announce the spring wine party after she bought the famous foie gras from Yi-lan during the Chinese New Year holidays. Toastmaster Jimmy Cheng immediately seconded that he would bring along two bottles of red wine from Germany. I joined the crowd by offering another bottle of one-year-old star fruit wine I made at home in the countryside. Helen brought her lovely twin daughters and her caring mother, with a bag of wax apples (aka bell fruits). Sharon donated a box of almond cookies. Toastmaster Kevin just joined Grand two months ago, served as the photographer.

It was a blissful party with a big vegetarian hotpot prepared by May, plus all kinds of appetizers made by Gina and me. While we savored delicious foie gras with the perfect red wine, the full house of laugher filled Gina's living room and kitchen. Seven of us drank three and half bottles of wine, with Jimmy and I did most of the drinking. After a good round Earl Grey tea with sweets, I rushed to the weekly movie gathering at Joy's place to see two great movies "Unfaithful 2002" and "Sykt lykkelig 2010".

On a windy day in New York city, Connie Sumner (Diane Lane) fell on the sidewalk trying to hail a taxi. A handsome young French book dealer Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez) offered his hand in time. An affair started. It was no one's mistake, but the destiny! Nobody wants to be unfaithful, till he or she came to the crossroads.

When Ed Sumner (Richard Gere) found a souvenir of Christmas snowball he gave his wife on their wedding anniversary on the bedside table of Martel, he went crazy, killed Martel with the Christmas snowball by accident. After Ed took care of the dead body, he went home with the snowball. To Connie's surprise, she saw the snowball and opened the bottom to find a family picture for the first time. At the back of the picture, it reads, "to my beautiful wife, the best part of every day"! The movie ends with the couple inside the car in front of the police station. What to do, or what not to do, is the question!

With the help of Joy's Filipina maid, I made a quick dinner for a group of 15 people while Mr. Hung led the discussion about the director, actors and the storyline of "Unfaithful". I like the performance of Diane Lane in the movie, her struggles between love and lust, her facial expressions and her body language.

After dinner, 8 young people left to support the baseball gathering featuring Taiwan VS Cuba in the second round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic (WBC) at the Tokyo Dome. Seven of us remained to watch Happy, Happy (Norwegian: Sykt lykkelig) a 2010 Norwegian comedy directed by Anne Sewitsky.

Happy Happy is about two failing marriages in an isolated area in Norway in winter. A sophisticated urban couple brought their adopted African son to a remote village to start their new lives after the wife's infidelity. Their neighbors are a rural couple with a young boy. The husband is a repressed homosexual, and his wife is a happy-go-lucky school teacher with low self-esteem. Dramatic affairs entwined the two lonely families. Love and lust made the matters turn for the worse or better for both couples and their kids.

It was 8PM when we finished the movie. Mr. Hung led another discussion about the life of love and lust in northern Europe and the impact of cold climate on the emotions of people. We then talked about the possible movie theme for coming April, either "destiny & decision" or "the clash of civilization".