Monday, October 16, 2006

That's love

Last night we ordered in sushi. I had a mind blip and only tipped the driver $3 measly ass dollars. First off I gave the restaurant the store address so he was confused and out in the rain across the street, second off he was in a cotton kimono and third it was pissing rain.

I felt SO bad about stiffing the guy, which was bad enough without the fact that it was raining. I kept seeing his face in my minds eye and feeling rotten about giving him such a poor tip. As we were eating our dinner I mentioned this a few times to Dane asking if it made me a horrible human being. Dane is honest so he said it was a pretty bad tip, but whatever. I stewed some more over it and then Dane, my knight in shining armor, decided to go up to the restaurant to give the driver a better tip despite my many protests. I didn't really want another thing to feel all guilt ridden about (thanks Mom!)

He drove to the restaurant, got the waitresses to break a $10 bill into two fives much to their confusion. They don't really speak English at this restaurant so they didn't understand why this guy was there trying to give them $5. Eventually he managed to get them to understand that it was for one of the drivers because his wife felt bad about giving him a bad tip.

I felt better about the delivery guy, but pretty bad about Dane being out in the rain over it all.

That is love my friends, when your sweetheart wants to take away your pangs of guilt and is willing to go out into the elements to do it.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

8th Avenue

Rarely do my friends believe me when I tell them about the kinds of things that happen on 8th Avenue right out front of the store and beneath my apartment windows. Like the day I woke up and there was a Mariachi band playing bellow my living room window.

Vancouver has this reputation as being a pretty dull place. We have less festivals than any other Canadian city and every time we do get something kinda cool thing going it somehow gets shut down....I admit it...sometimes it's like a retirement village. There is one exception to this, and that is on 8th Avenue between Main St and the first parallel alley where there is some kind of bizzarro fault line in the earth where weird shit happens. It's not an orginized festival, but it's certainly a festive street.

Like yesterday when I was working, minding my own business chatting with a couple of friends and I look up and there's this guy unloading pig carcasses from his truck onto a dolly. It just seemed kinda out of place, what is usual in Kensingtom Market in Toronto is not so usual in this somewhat sterile and rule bound city. You just don't have chicken trucks driving by leaking chicken juice all over the road here like you do there.

So Dane figures it would make for a interesting picture, he ran out the door and found the guy in the alley behind the store and asks to take a photo, the guy says "You're not taking a photo of my pigs without me" and grabs a pig to pose for this photo (If you are sensitive to death don't scroll down!)




And that my friends is the way it goes on 8th Avenue.