Life As Performance Art 89

Despite my distaste for this country, I did have a pretty good Canada Day yesterday, and not because it was Canada Day, but because it was a beautiful sunny day off. I started with a Skype visit with my friend in Colombia. We have actually become friends through language exchange after almost a year of being in contact. It's often touch and go with the Conversation Exchange page and very few respondents ever really stick, or even get as far as one single Skype or coffee appointment. I suppose that life has a tendency of getting in the way for all of us. Later, I got on the bus as far as Kitsilano (Fourth and Alma, then proceeded to walk through the Jericho lands and towards the beaches. There was a pungent stench of raw sewage in the air, and a lot of people crowding the beach, given the holiday. I still don't quite get other people's need to spend their free time in noisy, crowded areas that smell bad but I think that a lot of people are really afraid of quiet and solitude. They also have very little imagination and simply go to places that are already popular. I must have walked for over an hour till I could get up into the forest nearby. I had to avoid an off-leash dog. I'm not sure if the dog was dangerous, but after previous encounters I am not taking chances. His owner was reasonable when I informed her (she was distracted on her smartphone, natch). She acknowledged my concern, caught up with her dog, and I still waited till they were well out of sight before proceeding. Noticing the odour of cigarette smoke, I commented to another hiker, and he and I stopped for a while and chatted about a whole range of issues, from smoking idiots, to Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, to the way some people are trying to turn the forest here into a gay cruising ground (I so far haven't noticed). Later I rested on a bench. A woman would not permit her friendly dog to come over for a pat, and strangely, apologized instead for his behaviour, but she was with a rather standoffish looking group of relatives and maybe that gene pool hasn't yet been chlorinated. Altogether, I spent at least three hours hiking. The coffee shop on the campus was just closing when I arrived there, so I resumed my hike, went to the bus stop and then returned home. The young man who sat next to me had pungent body odour, so I moved to the back. A woman with her daughter, a special needs kid of maybe six or seven came on. The girl appears to be somewhere on the spectrum. The girl and I interacted a bit as she was very friendly. She asked me my name, and I asked her her name and she wanted to know if I like hotdogs. (I don't). A bit later she tried to say hi to a small group of three Latinos speaking Spanish. I could tell by their accent and appearance that they were upper class, possibly from Peru, I don't think from Mexico (though I can't always tell). They steadfastly ignored the child. I thought up a strategy. As I was moving to get off the bus, I wished the mother and her child a great Canada Day (regardless of what I might think of the occasion), then to the snooty young Latinos (age around twenty-three, or so), Y a ustedes, los latinos engreídos, un adios amable. Ella es sola una niñita. Es cómo llevamos bien. (and to you snobby Latinos, a nice goodbye. She is only a little girl. This is how we all get along here.) When I mentioned to the mother that I had just chewed them out in Spanish she gave me a very warm smile, and from the Latinos, three rather shit-eating smiles!