What a fabulous weekend we just had! In my Thanksgiving list for this year, I'm giving thanks for a lot of things, but near the top are giving thanks to those who made the weekend for me, Anne, and my parents.

The Thanksgiving dinner at Anne's was a triumph of organization, preparation and presentation. I helped out as best I could, but she did all the hard stuff. I haven't been at a sit-down dinner party for 16 in a long, long time, but not only was the food sufficient for the horde, it was excellent. (Special thanks also to Molly, Susan, Meredith and especially Eric, for contributing to the dinner menu: Eric's mushroom pies and pumpkin cheesecake were top notch.)

Sunday Anne and I completed the clean up, and supervised the pickup of the table, chairs and linen by the fine people of Chairman Mills. We then went back to my place and met my parents, who'd come in to Toronto to take us out to celebrate my birthday. We went to Lai Wah Heen at the Metropolitan Hotel, walking distance from my place, where after an initial concern over whether our reservation could be honoured (the front desk hadn't bothered to check that the restaurant had any spare room, and they were very busy) we were shown to a back room. We had a magnificent feast, the Premium Dinner for Four, and rolled home very, very full and very, very happy.

Monday morning, Anne gave me my birthday present, or presents: a beautiful reproduction map of Scotland, which I'm planning to hang in the study, and a copy of No One Lives Forever 2, sequel to the brilliant 2000 game No One Lives Forever. I promptly (but with her permission) got deeply addicted, sneaking through the Japanese before-the-credits level. (Sample conversation overheard: one female ninja telling a friend about and argument with her mother attacking her: they'd been arguing about whether her ninja costume was too revealing, she'd said "Mom, this is the 60's, get with it" and "Old people are always complaining", and then had to subdue her mom who attacked her with a sword). When I had to give up and return to the present, I was in the process of breaking into a secret base in Siberia to uncover a Soviet plot. Great fun.

As punishment for ignoring her for most of the day, Anne then beat me at Scrabble again.
posted by Tom at 6:53 PM | link |