A Special Evening

I had a lovely night out recently at the Gardiner Cafe, inside the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art downtown. I was invited to a women's financial seminar which included guest speakers, and a 3 course dinner with wine pairings prepared by chef Jamie Kennedy in the Gardiner Cafe inside the museum. We were also able to do a tour of the museum. It holds collections dating from 700 AD.

I went with a girlfriend and we had a great time at the upscale dinner. At our table, the lovely young woman who sat on one side of me was a film producer and an aspiring author. She had started this book and got the idea to use Google Earth to visit 'locations' that would help her set the scene. You can zoom in on a railroad track in Vancouver, for example. She was a married mother of two young children and unfortunately had to leave before the main course to attend another event.

Another young woman had a busy job involving a lot of travel to the U.S. We spoke about the X-Ray scans versus the 'pat downs'. She said she missed a flight once just being stuck in security, because they don't move you up anymore if you are in danger of missing your flight. I mentioned I was happy at home simply raising my kids. Admittedly, I said, some people get their self-esteem from their job. The young lady assured me that while she had a good job, she didn't get her self-esteem from it and that she would be perfectly happy not to work! We laughed, but she did say she wished she had a job where she was actually helping someone, as opposed to working for pure corporate profit. It was interesting that she had already come to that self-knowledge and that was certainly a good thing.

The other ladies at the table were just as interesting, with different stories to tell, but this is not a book! Of course, we also spoke about finances, as boring as that can be, it's necessary to have knowledge of your financial affairs and indeed a will, because life can change at any moment. As we left, Jamie Kennedy presented each lady with his autographed cookbook. The weather was mild (-2C) and the big city, night time atmosphere was a great break from the daily routine. Oh, I had the pickerel for my main course, but I heard the squab (a deboned kind of pigeon) was equally delicious.