May 2010 Newsletter
Sunday, April 25th, 2010A note from our President…..
It’s hard to believe May is almost here—seems like we’ve been given a rare head start on spring! Soon it will be summer and with it comes the end of ENC’s year. May’s events will be your last opportunities to participate in our activities until next fall—so come out and enjoy the fun things we’ve planned—just for you!
Coffee Break—May Day treats await at Margie’s home
Lunch Bunch—the “ ladies who lunch” will meet you at “the club”
International A.M.—tours the Hindu Temple of MN and lunches at Rush Creek Golf Course
International Night—takes in “Arabia” at the Science Museum
Brunch–-celebrate Spring at Lina’s
Ladies Night Out—enjoys a potluck BBQ on Sally’s deck
Bookclub—discusses “Loving Frank at Ann’s
My deepest appreciation to our wonderful Board Members for all their time, energy and great ideas. ENC would be nothing without you! Many, Many thanks for another great year!
Sally Sally@Edinanewcomers.org
ACTIVITIES
INTERNATIONAL A.M.: Friday, May 7th, 9:00AM Departure—Hindu Temple of MN.
10530 Troy Lane N., Maple Grove 763-425-9949
In the early 1970s, Hindu families in Minnesota sought a place of worship where they could connect, teach their children about religion and culture, and preserve their identities, as Hindus. With no location for such activities, several families began to meet in homes. This tradition continued and grew so large through the years that 35 years later they constructed the this new Hindu Temple. There is a $5 suggested donation and you will be asked to remove your shoes.
Our group and another Dianne has organized (limited to 15 total) will tour the temple together. RSVP ASAP to secure a spot (there may be a waiting list until the other group’s count has been determined.)
We’ll be having lunch nearby at Rush Creek Golf Course at 11:15AM, following the 10:00AM tour.
A carpool will leave at 9:00AM from Edina
RSVP by Monday, May 3rd to Sally@EdinaNewcomers.org
Directions: Hwy. 100 North to #62 West to #494 North to #94 West to Maple Grove Pkwy. Exit. Left on Maple Grove, Left on 95th Ave., Right on Brockton Lane, Right on 101st Street, Left on Troy lane to temple. more info at www.hindumandirmn.org
INTERNATIONAL NIGHT: Monday, May 10th, 6:00PM Departure— “Arabia”
Science Museum of MN, 120 West Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul 651-221-9444
This 45 min. film will take us on a journey deep into the heart of Arabia, visiting the lost city of Madain Saleh and exploring its ancient tombs, joining a camel caravan, traveling back in time to the Islamic Golden Age where Arabian science and scholarship flourished, enduring a desert sandstorm, and diving to explore the ancient shipwrecks of the Red Sea. Arabia also takes you on the hajj—an annual pilgrimage where three million Muslims travel to the holy city of Mecca to reaffirm their faith. In this largest single human gathering on Earth, you’ll see stunning humanity and powerful spiritual renewal. Tickets $8/$7 seniors.
A carpool will leave at 6:00PM from Edina. Or, meet us in the lobby for the 7:00PM showing.
RSVP by Friday, May 7th to Sally@EdinaNewcomers.org
Directions: Hwy. 100 South to #494 East to #35E North to Kellogg Blvd. Right on Kellogg
COFFEE BREAK: Wednesday, May 12th, 10:00AM––at the home of a member
Please bring a “May Day” treat to share for this last Coffee of the year.
RSVP by Monday, May 10th to Sally@EdinaNewcomers.org
LUNCH BUNCH: Thursday, May 20th, 11:00AM Departure–Woman’s Club of Minneapolis
410 Oak Grove Street, Minneapolis
Built in 1928 this beautiful facility, has been designated by the City of Minneapolis as a Historic Treasure. We’ll choose from the menu which includes salads, sandwiches, soups and warm entrees. Weather permitting we can eat on the roof top with a wonderful view of Loring Park and downtown Minneapolis. Payment: individual with credit card.
RSVP by Monday, May 18th, to Sally@EdinaNewcomers.org
A carpool will leave at 11:00AM from Edina. Or, meet us there at 11:30AM. www.womansclub.org.
Directions: Hwy. 100 North to #394 East to Dunwoody Blvd Exit. From Dunwoody turn RIGHT at Lyndale Ave. Take the 1st LEFT onto 15th St. Turn RIGHT at Oak Grove St. Free parking next to building or further up Oak Grove to the right in Woman’s Club lot.
BRUNCH: Saturday, May 22nd, 10:00AM—“Welcome to Spring” Celebration
at the home of Lina Dajani, 5712 Long Brake Trail 952-944-9415
Spring has sprung and it’s time to celebrate. Join in the fun as we toast the season.
RSVP by Sunday, May 16th to Sally@EdinaNewcomers.org indicating what you’d like to contribute to the party: quiche, salad, pastry, fruit, champagne, dessert, appetizer, etc. She’ll balance the menu as RSVPs are received.
LADIES’ NIGHT OUT: Monday, May 24th, 6:30PM—Potluck BBQ out on the deck
at the home of a member
Grilled burgers will be provided. Please plan to bring an appetizer, salad or side, dessert, or buns and all the fixin’s to share. Sally will balance the menu as RSVPs are received.
RSVP by Thursday, May 20th to Sally@EdinaNewcomers.org
BOOKCLUB: Wednesday, May 26th, 7:00PM—Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
at the home of a member
“This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.”
RSVP by Monday, May 24th to Sally@Edinanewcomers.org
BOOKCLUB READING AHEAD: The March and May 2011 titles have fairly long waits at
HCLib.org—plan to reserve your s early.
September 2010 Discussion: The Florist’s Daughter Patricia Hampl
During the long farewell of her mothers dying, Patricia Hampl revisits her Midwestern girlhood. Daughter of a debonair Czech father, whose floral work gave him entre into St. Paul society, and a distrustful Irishwoman with an uncanny ability to tell a tale, Hampl remained, primarily and passionately, a daughter well into adulthood. She traces the arc of faithfulness and struggle that comes with that role from the postwar years past the turbulent sixties. The Florists Daughter is a tribute to the ardor of supposedly ordinary people. Its concerns reach beyond a single life to achieve a historic testament to midcentury middle America. At the heart of this book is the humble passion of people who struggled out of the Depression into a better chance, not only for themselves but for the common good. Widely recognized as one of our most masterful memoirists, Patricia Hampl has written her most intimate, yet most universal, work to date.
November 2010 Discussion: Lord Grizzly Frederick Manfred
Hunter, trapper, resourceful fighter, and scout, Hugh Glass was just another rugged individual in a crowd of rugged men until he was mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by his best friends. They never expected to see him again. But they did, and he was not just Hugh Glass any more. He was Lord Grizzly. Lord Grizzly is the second volume of Frederick Manfred’s acclaimed five-volume series, the Buckskin Man Tales.
January 2011 Discussion: A place where the sea remembers Sandra Benítez.
Winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction. Sandra Benitez invites us into a mesmerizing world filled with, love and betrayal, tragedy and hope. This rich and bewitching story is a bittersweet portrait of the people in Santiago, a Mexican village by the sea. Chayo, the flower seller, and her husband Candelario, the salad maker, are finally blessed with the child they thought they would never have. Their cause for happiness, however, triggers a chain of events that impact the lives of everyone in their world.The hopes, triumphs, failures, and shortcomings of the novel’s enchanting array of characters create a graceful picture of life that is both a universal portrait and an insider’s look at life in Latin America.
March 2011 Discussion: The Latehomecomer Kao Kalia Yang
In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America. But lacking a written language of their own, the Hmong experience has been primarily recorded by others. Driven to tell her family’s story after her grandmother’s death, The Latehomecomer is Kao Kalia Yang’s tribute to the remarkable woman whose spirit held them all together. It is also an eloquent, firsthand account of a people who have worked hard to make their voices heard. Beginning in the 1970s, as the Hmong were being massacred for their collaboration with the United States during the Vietnam War, Yang recounts the harrowing story of her family’s captivity, the daring rescue undertaken by her father and uncles, and their narrow escape into Thailand where Yang was born in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. When she was six years old, Yang’s family immigrated to America, and she evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language.
May 2011 Discussion: The Tale of Halcyon Crane Wendy Webb
A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling modern ghost story. When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James’s mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie’s father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago? In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family’s dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception—a coffee-shop owner and the family’s lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there’s the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her—maybe it’s the eerie atmosphere or maybe it’s the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can’t shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen . . .In The Tale of Halcyon Crane, Wendy Webb has created a haunting story full of delicious thrills, vibrant characters, and family secrets.