Karaoke vs BBQ
It’s election season in Ottawa and I’ve decided to attend a few local events to try and get a sense of what people are saying. It’s hard to get to many of them, given the limitations of the day job, the columnizing, the side hustle, parenting and the travel schedule. But I try. If you have an event you’d like me to attend, email me, OK? I’m at bp@brigittepellerin.com. I’ll see what I can do.
On Saturday I went to Mike Wood’s childhood home in Craig Henry. It’s really close to the place where I lived between 2018 and 2020. Lovely quiet neighbourhood, tidy and clean, full of responsible citizens who cut their grass at right angles.
I got to know Mike through his advocacy work on behalf of small businesses during the pandemic. His good friend Dylan Black was there, too, and we had a lovely time not eating any vegetables. (Inside joke; those in the know assure me it’s funny.)
It was neat to see old friends of the candidate show up for a chat and a bite. There wasn’t much political talk, which seemed like the right thing to do given the smell of charred meat and the mostly lovely fall weather.
Sunday was a karaoke fundraiser for Ariel Troster, who’s running in downtown Somerset, a seat left vacant by Catherine McKenney who is now running for mayor. The karaoke was a lot louder than Mike’s suburban sausage-fest and it was attended by people who, like me, think they can sing. Please note the flame hair. It was very much in key.
This particular race seems to be going well for Ariel, and the mood was reasonably festive. Plus it was in a neat little pub, Spark Beer on Somerset, and there were dumplings. So, you know.
I took my 12-year-old with me. It wasn’t their first political event but it was their first karaoke fundraiser. They declared it, quote, loud and gay. But in a good way, they said, because you can’t be loud and gay in a bad way. Comme quoi j’ai bien élevé mes enfants.
