These sweaters (actually long-sleeve T-shirts) were a hit at last night’s party, and you can get them on Amazon:
Last Friday, our neighborhood — Northeast Seminole Heights, an area with trees, bungalows, and hip restaurants and bars galore — held its annual progressive dinner (or, as it’s called in the UK, a “safari supper”). It was a multiple-destination dinner party, where four different courses were served in four different houses within walking distance of each other. While we’ve gotten to know some of the people in our neighborhood thanks to the weekly happy hour at Ella’s Americana Folk Art Cafe, Anitra and I are still new to the area. We figured that this would be a chance to get to know more of people who live nearby.
Our house is a five minute walk from the Hillsborough River, on whose banks you’ll find the pricier houses. The progressive dinner’s first stop was at one of these houses, which had a large patio complete with a huge outdoor tiki bar.
We were among the first to arrive, but we weren’t lonely for long. There were easily eighty or more people on the patio in short order.
This was the appetizer course, and people came hungry! Luckily, the place was prepared.
The patio was built right up to the edge of the river, which provided a great view. I had to get a photo:
After about an hour, it was time to mosey on over to the next place. I took one last photo before leaving:
I was so engaged in meeting new people at the next house that I didn’t take any pictures there. The soup and salad course was served there, and there were several to choose from. The stand-out dish was a cold spliced pear soup, which was fantastic. I got a couple of servings of that one.
The main course was served at the third house, which had a nice large kitchen island and buffet counter:
As the place where the mains would be served, they were expecting the biggest crowd. Luckily, they had a back yard big enough to accommodate everyone and had even set up rows of tables, a fire pit, live entertainment, and a couple of off-duty police officers:
There was a break in the entertainment so that the dinner’s organizer, Christie Hess, could address the crowd. She’s been putting the event together for the past 12 years, and it’s a key part of the neighborhood’s character. I’m glad that we’ve got people like her here.
Here’s another look at the crowd. It was a cool night by Florida standards (52°F / 11° C), so Anitra wore her festive zebra-strip fun fur coat:
Finally, we made our way to the dessert house, which was also on the river. As with the other courses and houses, the food was a group effort. Our contribution to the dessert table was an assortment of brownies.
Some folks stayed closer to the house (and desserts), while others chose to get a better look at the river:
While we were done with the houses, we weren’t yet done with the party! The final stop of the evening was London Heights pub with a handful of drink tickets…
…and an invitation from Willie, one of the owners, to perform some numbers to close out the evening.
It’s been a while since I’ve lived in a place with this much of a sense of community. I’ve talked more with my neighbors here in the past five months than with the neighbors in the old place in the last five years, and I’m a schmoozy guy. The progressive dinner was a great excuse to walk around the neighborhood and get a better look at a couple of places, as well as to catch up with the people we already knew, and get to know dozens of other folks in the area. I look forward to greeting more people on the streets here by name, and hope to be at more of these local get-togethers!
Recommended reading
- Historic Seminole Heights
- Wikipedia: Seminole Heights
- Domain Homes: The History of Seminole Heights, Tampa: Why It’s a Great Neighborhood
- FED Guides: TAMPA’S NEW HIP NEIGHBORHOOD | SEMINOLE HEIGHTS
- Tampa Bay Times: Tampa’s Seminole Heights becomes ‘it’ spot for hot restaurants, bars
- London Heights’ website
- HowStuffWorks: How to Throw a Progressive Dinner Party
- Two Twenty One: HOW TO THROW A PROGRESSIVE DINNER
- Tablespoon.com: Host a Progressive Dinner Party
- Taste of Home: Progressive Dinner Party
- SignUpGenius: Planning a Progressive Dinner
- The Spruce: A Parisian Style Progressive Dinner Party
- Fit Bottomed Girls: Hosting a Progressive Dinner Party
- Love Food: Come dine with me: the return of the safari supper
Nativity 2019
Never forget that for this administration and its supporters, the cruelty is the point.
In case you need context:
- Want to know where this display is? See the LA Times piece, Claremont nativity scene depicts Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees separated in cages.
- The New Yorker: A New Report on Family Separations Shows the Depths of Trump’s Negligence
- AP: US held record number of migrant children in custody in 2019
- Vox: The horrifying conditions facing kids in border detention, explained
- Time: Here’s What to Know About the Status of Family Separation at the U.S. Border, Which Isn’t Nearly Over
- Texas Tribune: Family separations aren’t over. As many as five kids per day are separated from their parents at the border.
Thanks to Chris Laco for the find.
The Okayest Boomer
Here’s the full text of the question:
I very much enjoy your column, and you are much kinder than I am. It may be my age, but my parents weren’t expected to pay for college when I came of age. I am, yes, a baby boomer. From reading your column it seems like lots of people of varying ages seem to believe that they have rights to an inheritance, often by virtue of being a DNA relative and, sometimes, by virtue of a marriage.
I disagree with this assumption. Please educate me. Are my somewhat scornful reactions a reflection of my own age or ignorance? Or can I or anyone else write a will leaving their estate to whomever they like — say a charity, or the kid next door, or their nurse — instead of their kids and spouse? What is the law and etiquette regarding wills and inheritance?
Wow. This isn’t the only surprising question that people ask The Moneyist. A sampling:
- My stepmother told me she wasn’t required to file my father’s will — then she left his house, cars and investments to her kids
- I discovered through Ancestry.com that my biological father is someone else — can I claim an inheritance as his heir?
- My friend asked me to be her maid of honor but didn’t invite me to her wedding — am I expected to buy her a gift?
- This woman’s husband sponsored her to move to the U.S., but he kept a $200K windfall and insisted she pay all the bills
- My husband’s two children would toss me out of the house if he were to die before me — what can I do?
Thirty years ago today — December 6th, 1989 — some asshole went into École Polytechnique de Montréal (“Polytechnic School of Montreal” in English, an engineering school) and fatally shot 14 young women who were studying to be engineers. The asshole, who himself had failed to gain admission to the university, shouted, “You’re all a bunch of feminists and I hate feminists!”
I was an engineering student at Queen’s University at the time of the tragedy, and I remember the day — and the debates — that happened then. As a techie who grew up in Canada, I’m making it a point to remember the names of the women who lost their lives that day — all because they simply wanted to be engineers:
- Geneviève Bergeron (1968–1989), civil engineering student
- Hélène Colgan (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
- Nathalie Croteau (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
- Barbara Daigneault (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
- Anne-Marie Edward (1968–1989), chemical engineering student
- Maud Haviernick (1960–1989), materials engineering student
- Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (1958–1989), nursing student
- Maryse Laganière (1964–1989), budget clerk at the school’s finance department
- Maryse Leclair (1966–1989), materials engineering student
- Anne-Marie Lemay (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
- Sonia Pelletier (1961–1989), mechanical engineering student
- Michèle Richard (1968–1989), materials engineering student
- Annie St-Arneault (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
- Annie Turcotte (1969–1989), materials engineering student
In memory of this event, Canada’s parliament declared December 6th the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in 1991. Let’s not forget what happened then, and let’s remember that even today, thirty years later, will still have to contend with people who hold women in the same low regard as the asshole who opened fire on that classroom.
Recommended reading
- How engineers of the Montreal Massacre generation are changing the world: Accomplished women share thoughts on their engineering careers and impact of the tragedy.
- 30 Years Later: “To commemorate this tragic event and to promote the outstanding work of female engineers across Canada, Engineering Deans Canada invited each of the Canadian engineering schools that offered an accredited engineering program in 1989 to put forward the story of an engineering alumna who graduated within three years of the massacre (1986-1992), and whose career exemplifies the value that women bring to the engineering profession and to society.”
- ‘Hate is infectious’: how the 1989 mass shooting of 14 women echoes today. The massacre at Montreal’s Polytechnique school, fueled by misogyny, is not a horrifying memory confined to a bygone era – rather it seems like a foretelling of things to come
- Polytechnique: These women scientists are too young to remember the massacre, but it changed their lives. It has been 30 years since the deadly massacre at École Polytechnique – a time today’s young students don’t remember because they weren’t yet alive. However, the murders on Dec. 6, 1989 of 14 women, targeting them in an act against feminism, changed Montreal as a whole and sparked a greater conversation about women in science.
- In the thirty years since École Polytechnique: Seeing the connections between thirty years ago and today.
- Herstories: Book honours 14 women killed at Polytechnique 30 years ago. “But 30 years later, how much do we know about the women who died in the shooting at École Polytechnique? What did each accomplish in her short life? What hopes and dreams did she leaved unfulfilled when she was gunned down on Dec. 6, 1989? As a sombre anniversary dawns, these are among the questions addressed in a new book by journalist Josée Boileau. Ce jour-là: Parce qu’elles étaient des femmes [In English: That day: Because they were women] revisits a dark day in history.”
- Violent misogyny is a threat to half our population. We need to call it what it is: Terrorism. “The Montreal massacre of 1989 was just one in a long line of mass killings motivated by hatred of women. What would happen, and how many lives could be saved, if we treated them as a pattern of hate crimes?”
Why I don’t refer to the shooter by name, but just as “some asshole”
I wish it was my idea, but it came from Justin Pierce’s webcomic Wonderella: