My Three Things: an appreciative blog

Crossing the street is an addictive risk.

Perhaps I’ve been living in the city too long, but I enjoy the challenge of racing against an oncoming bus or truck or SUV–sometimes halting traffic, setting of an onslaught of honks, or suffering the occasional motorist glare.

It’s all part of the battle that is navigating city streets.

A family of geese crossing Chinatown’s Keefer Street one afternoon stopped everything–cars, cyclists and pedestrians paused for a just a moment.  A temporary ceasefire.

Broadway is one of Vancouver’s major thoroughfares.  

Starting admist the desolate warehouses the city’s eastern border, broadway heads west towards the dense and shiny boutiques of one of the city’s most affluent neigbhourhoods.

My strip of this four lane road lies right in the middle, five blocks of small, rundown businesses—the abandoned Chinese restaurant where some kids were shot a few months ago, and a handful of convenience stores.

And that’s what I like about it here.  It’s the kind of place where a man can nestle into a corner for the night assured that he will not be harrassed by security gaurds and that the 99 B-Line will keep an eye on him.

I’ve been seeing all variety of road kill on my bike ride to work of late—rats, squirrels, a seagull, and most disturbingly, an emerald-headed mallard.

I admit that my first instinct is to consider whether I should take a photo of the latest victim, but I always decide to peddle on instead.  There is already a massive bank of disturbing images available on the Internet and I don’t like the idea that I might be adding to that.

But I wonder if the sight of a freshly cut watermelon sitting on the side of the road would be considered equally as revolting as my shiny dead duck in cultures where food is precious and not so easily abandoned? 

According to the papers, there are a lot of places like that. 

I followed a skunk around a school playground this morning–hypnotized by his shiny black coat and playful demanor yet immobilized by fear: how exactly would I explain to my boss that I couldn’t come to work because I needed to burn my clothes and take a clamato shower?

First the cute little stinker tunneled under the slide, then galloped across the four-square, and finally found a trees to scratch at under the window of the grade two classroom.

But he’s so playful, I thought, drawing ever near, he wouldn’t squirt me. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice I was there–until I flashed him with my camera.

One skunk stare was all it took to send me scampering on my way.

The city is engaged in a constant cycle of production and waste–with usually ugly consequences: the irritating drill of downtown construction sites, or the putrid smell seeping out of the chicken plant just off Hastings street.

But even in an oil slick slipping down the sewer, I sometimes find a flash of rainbow.

Last weekend, the street celebrated my eighth birthday. The cars came dressed in pink party dresses and the sidewalk was carpeted in cotton candy confetti.

And the old lady with three small, wiener dogs was wearing a cardboard party hat.  Or maybe that was just my imagination. 

What’s the difference between a pigeon and a dove? Not much, it turns out.

The common pigeon is considered vermin by most, thanks to their prolific and pest-like presence in urban centres. Yet, they are technically only distinguishable from their much more prestigious kin in size (and colour according to popular opinion). And even then there are inconstancies in classification.

Evidently, the real factor determining whether a bird is a flying rat or ‘face soap icon’ is what we make of it.

Sea-bears and Sasquatchs are charming and all, but the real, unofficial mascot for my 2010 winter Olympics is the shopping cart.

Given that mascots are supposed to be indictive of the local landscape, the shopping cart makes perfect sense: Vancouver is home to a thriving population of the metalic, four wheeled creatues.  Some live a domesticated life as faithful companion to the homeless, whilst others roam wild in abandoned places–industrial sites, behind dumpsters and rail yards.

And besides, everyone knows there’s no such thing as Sasquatchs–at least not in Vancouver.

I saw a woman walking a ferret down the sidewalk, or rather,pulling it down the sidewalk, today.  Every few steps the creature would stop, pressing its head against the concrete as if cowering from the immensity above it: trees, tall houses—a pair of people legs.

Dogs, in comparison, move through the urban space much differently—inquisitive, unafraid, and with an obvious sense of belonging. Even cats occasionally greet passer-bys on my street, instead of running for shelter under parked cars.

Poor ferret, the city can be quite a scary place if you don’t trust people–at least a little bit. 

An outsider complained that no one makes eye contact with her on the street.  She says the residents of our city are insensitive.

Insensitive, or hyper-aware?

I think part of the urban condition is muliple vision.  Walking down the sidewalk I am simultaneously monitoring the approaching pedestrian, checking out the new awning of a sandwich shop, scanning the ground for broken glass, and glancing overhead to make sure I don’t walk under any pigeon nests.

She’s right: I don’t smile at the people I pass, but my fragmented attention does manage to catch other, unexpected things.