Some days are full of them. Others not so much. But we notice them and often give them more than their due. Especially when one follows another and another and another in rapid succession. This can be particularly devastating after one of those days when everything has gone particularly well. And yet they are small irritants and only and exactly that. Small irritants. Today, for example, everything was going just smoothly, tickety-boo, following a lovely three mile walk through Vancouver's wealthy neighbourhoods, Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale, or Kerrisdull, as I like to call it, and while walking back along Angus Drive (or Anguish Drive as I also like to call it) I noticed three women on bicycles and one asking if they were still in Kerrisdale and I nearly replied, "Oh, Yes, we are doing the mean streets of Kerrisdale. It has also become a byword, to me anyway, for the phenomenon of gentrification that is stretching its creepy slithery tentacles into the poorest neighbourhoods in Vancouver. I call it Creeping Kerrisdale.
While admiring and revelling in almost everything (this time of year I particularly obsess over these tiny delicate flowers that grow in the grass, pale blue tinged with mauve. I do not know what they are called but I love these flowers and anticipate them with joy every spring. It seems odd to admire such gently coloured little flowers when in Mexico I get absolutely psychotic about the psychedelically hued bougainvillea) that there is to admire and revel in about a fine day in Spring, short of getting oneself hauled away and arrested for disorderly and indecent conduct I walked among the budding, leafing and flowering trees and gardens as far as my destination, a lovely Bean Around The World coffee shop in South Kerrisdale where I whiled away an hour and a half working on a full colour drawing of a peacock feather while savouring an iced decaf Americano served in a real glass (my insistence when I am in coffee shops. I will not drink out of paper or plastic, partly because I hate environmental waste and degradation and also because it is so déclassé when glass or porcelain are already available, then walked back even further, more than four miles to No Thrills, or rather No Frills to pick up a couple of things when I afterward missed two buses in a row and, anticipating a longer wait than what would seem fair, walked on to a different bus stop, cussing under my breath, lugging a ten pound sack of potatoes. I believe that I missed the buses because when I was at the check out at No Thrills, or I mean No Frills on Fourth Avenue I had to struggle and search diligently through my crowded knapsack for a recycled No Frills plastic bag to hold the carton of tropical juice I also bought. I try to remember to carry at least one reusable plastic bag with me in case I need to buy groceries and partly because I love the environment but also equally love having a bit of room in the cupboard underneath my kitchen sink I am trying my utmost not to accumulate any more plastic bags, which has made me very staunch about reduce, reuse and recycle. I also prefer the No Frills bags because they are particularly strong and durable and, being an obnoxiously bright shade of yellow it is very easy to locate one in my ridiculously packed knapsack. (It carries my paperwork from work, sketch book, sixty or so coloured pencils rolled up in my keffayah, which I no longer wear as a scarf, maybe because I just no longer want to be seen as taking sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It isn't that I no longer support the Palestinians, I still do, but I believe that the Jews have an equal stake in the Holy Land and vice-versa and I am still waiting to see people on both sides to come to their senses and make like grown-ups and actually learn how to share their famous and symbolically laden piece of real estate. Until that happens I am not wearing my keffayah, which suits me fine because it is quite dandy for storing coloured pencils. As well as that, I have two packages of coloured ball point pens, ten colours each. You see, I love to do art work while seated in cafes or in the staff room at work. There is also in my knapsack a novel, it is a Spanish Translation of Herman Hesse's Under the Wheel, which I tend to read while riding the bus. There is also a book on the art of living, in Spanish, which I bought from a vendor on the Metro subway train during my last visit to Mexico City. They generally have to sell stuff on the Metro and elsewhere because legitimate jobs tend to pay very little and people do want to survive and perhaps do a bit better than survive. I think there are also some other pieces of paper of reading interest, along with my pencil sharpener, a small photo album of photos of my paintings, in case I want to approach someone in a café about doing an art show or if someone is curious about what kind of painting I do or simply for the unfettered praise and adulation of what a wonderful artist I am, though I'm sure that sometimes they merely say what they think they want me to hear. It also contains two day timers, including last year's in case I need to refer back to earlier information about one of my clients, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer because the world is a dangerous place crawling with nasty little greebies, especially on the bus, and I'm sure my hands must smell now perpetually like a badly made martini. Anyway, while I was searching through my crowded knapsack for that offensively bright yellow plastic No Frills Bag to carry my carton of juice (a lovely tropical blend of pure pineapple, guava and passion fruit) out flew my pencil sharpener and the cap came off as it hit the floor and pencil shavings scattered everywhere. I did get home okay.
When I arrived on my floor I noticed that once again my Mexican neighbour across the hall, more or less, has her door wide open once again while cooking and entertaining her extended family. Naturally I can hear their racket and smell their cooking when I'm in my apartment, which is annoying, so I phoned in a complaint on the voice mail of our new manager and I hope he addresses her on this. Her excuse is that her apartment gets hot and stuffy but she does have a window and she can learn how to open it and if the noise coming from Granville Street annoys her she does have the racket from her extended family to distract her and drown it out. I wonder why she needs to do this. Perhaps force of habit? Maybe this is her way of boasting to her neighbours that she has a wonderful extended family, unlike the rest of us she has a life, and isn't she just so special.
I have had the kitchen exhaust fan on since I arrived home and the radio is playing a bit louder than usual so I haven't heard anything from her though every forty-five minutes or so I open the door to check if she's closed hers or not so I can turn off the fan but in the meantime I'm coping well, I had some of the pineapple-guava-passion juice and it is absolute ambrosia and I have just enjoyed a particularly great dinner: a salad made of a diced large tomato with wine vinegar, soy sauce and dried basil, half a baked potato stuffed with Asiago, leftover coconut yam, sweet potato and plantain curry with tofu made from scratch like everything else that goes into my pie hole, and steamed cabbage that I actually didn't burn (just very slightly singed) for a change and I am about to dig into some fresh strawberries.
Absolutely nothing to complain about.
My Mexican neighbour has finally closed her door.
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