1/ True story:

My parents weren't keen on having kids around. They didn't like the idea of birthday parties with lots of local kids.

So one year they announced a new policy: the child who was having a birthday could celebrate by having dinner at a restaurant of their choosing.
2/ Not only that - it would just be the birthday child, not the others.

So my brother's 12th was celebrated at A&W, which we often went to for a treat after church on Sundays.

My sister's 4th was celebrated at the newly opened McDonald's.

My turn came. It would be my 10th.
3/ They asked where I wanted to go. We lived in Montréal, and they might have expected me to choose St. Hubert (chicken) or Ruby Foo's (Chinese Canadian).

I chose Le Tournebroche, a French restaurant in the Chateau Champlain hotel.

Started with the oxtail soup. Have no memory
4/ of the main course, but the pastry selection for dessert arrived on a cart. I asked how many I was allowed to have. Apparently there was no limit.

I had four.

The birthday policy was suspended after that. But decades later I still remember the red drapes and carpet, the rich
5/ flavourful soup, food that was worth eating.

Later that year I took over much of the cooking at home, and continued to be the main cook through high school and into university.

I only held one dinner party for my friends.

@PatriciaBrush was a guest - she contributed
6/ chopped liver, which I had never tasted, and I fell in love with it and still make it on occasion.

Unless I am remembering another occasion when she introduced me to chopped liver... LOLZ I say that because I get an image of a fireplace mantel, which we didn't have. So I
7/ might be conflating memories, although I know she was at the dinner party. There were 12 of us, at my parents' house.

My parents didn't mind our adult friends. Quite enjoyed them.

I am a better cook now. But those two meals, about 10 years apart, are memorable. The first for
8/ making me aware of how terrific food can be. The second for making me appreciate how amazing people can be - funny and talented and vibrant.

I never tried to recreate the magic of either event. Didn't need to. They stood alone, somehow complete and satisfying.

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More from @AndersonBooz

7 Jun
1/ As knives come out in UCP over the Sky Palace Dinner, let's spare a moment to think about how none of these MLAs broke ranks over racism, over moneylaundering, identity theft, election fraud, harassment, homophobia, attacks on the poor, the war on MDs, the

#abpoli #ableg
2/ hijacking of ATRF, the shenanigans to pervert #abpse, the compulsive lying, the widespread incompetence, the abuses of democracy - none of those were enough to make the UCP MLAs take a stand on principle.

But the Sky Palace Dinner does.

Because it's about showing the public
3/ the government's entitlement. It isn't about ideology and policy - which most Albertans seem not to mind - but about character.

Redford was seduced by it. Prentice was seduced by it. Both started with seeming genuine intention of serving Alberta, but seemed to lose their way
Read 13 tweets
9 May
1/ Yesterday I went shopping in #yeg for a modest set of adjustable dumbbells. I was checking second hand stores, pawn shops.

No luck - but then I spotted a liquidation store that advertised itself as having sporting goods.

They had what I was looking for at a reasonable price.
2/ There was another customer looking for the same thing. The sales clerk came over, chatted us up, offered a further discount if we both bought.

It wasn't the perfect model, but fine for home exercise during COVID-19 restrictions.

While the other customer and I were talking
3/ it over, a woman came in to the shop. She was a senior, struggling a bit with a walker in the rain. She was there to pawn something.

Our clerk explained to her that this was no longer a pawn shop. Then he asked if he could do anything else for her.

She hardly looked at him.
Read 8 tweets
20 Feb
1/ A Short Thread About Civility and Calling Politicians Liars.

Nice people are sometimes uncomfortable that I call some politicians "liar". And I don't apologize for it.

But I don't call every politician "liar". Only the ones who deliberately tell provable lies and do so
2/ repeatedly. A lie is different from an accidental misstatement. For example, when @michaelaglasgo lied about her church's carbon tax, it could have been a genuine mistake. But she doubled down by telling other lies. And has since been caught in more.

#cdnpoli #abpoli #ableg
3/ When @KayceeMaduYEG is caught lying, he doesn't do the right thing. He just plows ahead. As if lying doesn't matter.

So which is more uncivil: calling out people who lie a lot OR being in a position of public trust and lying to people in the first place?
Read 12 tweets
28 Oct 20
1/ This Stasi-level behaviour should be national #cdnpoli news. First, background:

In the middle of a pandemic, @shandro and @UCPCaucus have torn up the contract with AMA, deny bargaining rights and issue orders through bulletins that limit MD billings.

#abpoli #ableg
2/ While Shandro and UCP propagandists like @SteveBuick2 @tarajago @MattWolfAB insist MDs aren't leaving, the docs are posting goodbye notices and pictures of their moving vans.

Then they decide to attack health care laundry workers who are on the govt payroll. Plan to fire them
3/ all and contract private companies. Their financial projections don't make sense - besides, we already had the dishonesty of the Klein govt, whose claims of overspending on health care wete proven completely bogus - and then Klein ordered a coverup.
(see "Shredding the Public
Read 15 tweets
20 Aug 20
1/ A ring that went missing years ago was found by my sweetie this week.

We bought matching ones in Toronto in 1994, when the fight for equality and dignity was being met with hostility and ignorance and fear, much of it fed by the likes of @jkenney.
#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli
2/ Peter Evans was one of Canada's first openly documented HIV/AIDS cases - he died in 1984. Peter had been ahead of me at Ridgemont High - he embodied a Tommy Tune Broadway musical style. I didn't know he was gay - I just envied his talent. I watched his public death with a
3/ sense of great loss. Grief and awe.

In 1994, working in Toronto, I lived a few blocks away from the Cawthra Park memorial. Peter's wasn't the only name I knew - the list was growing.

Edmonton sculptor Patrick Morin - home from the hospital to celebrate 33. Emaciated and
Read 7 tweets
25 Jul 20
1/ The "Open Mind" Fallacy.

Recently a tweep expressed the opinion that I did not have an open mind about a political party. This pronouncement was based on a tweet where I made it clear I could no longer trust a particular politician who had been caught lying. A politician I
2/ had originally defended - and then I was given corroborated evidence that he had lied.

So I no longer trust anything he says. That's not a closed mind - it's recognizing the need for discernment when dealing with someone proven to be dishonest.

Here's an analogy.

#abpoli
3/ I live in an inner city zone that was ravaged by crystal meth. For a period, meth addicts were seen nightly in the alleys doing drugs and exhibiting subsequent behaviours: flailing around, yelling, harming themselves and others.

One addict had been employing the services of a
Read 14 tweets

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