ANOTHER VIEW FROM STARBUCKS

No, this isn’t even near Starbucks, but I had to show you a picture taken from our balcony a few days ago, before the skies opened and it began to rain, and rain, and rain and rain! For day’s it’s been raining, and hard rain and 24 hours of it as well. I had to put this on here, just to remind myself, what sun looks like!

I told you of my last experience while sitting in Starbucks, in downtown Vancouver, while I waited for Tom to do his Healthy Heart Program of exercise. Well, here is how the day went!!

To wind back the clock a little to Tuesday of this week, Tom went down alone to the Program, and I went back to bed, because there was much sawing of wood on his side of the bed all night long, and I couldn’t sleep. I needed more Zzzzz’s!

He parked in the hospital parking lot and was 7 minutes late getting back to the car and on the windshield was a parking ticket for $45.00. He was a little ticked off!!! Honestly though, you would think there would be a few minutes of grace in a hospital parking lot with appointments running late most of the time. Vancouver needs every cent I guess to pay for these Winter Games!

So, this morning, I drove and then waited for an empty parking spot while Tom went ahead into the hospital. Ahhh, finally a spot!! Then I headed off in my raincoat and an open umbrella, heading off to a store that has everything imaginable to help keep the worse messy person able to organize their home. Except for the owner who confessed, she owns the store, but her house is a mess!

I was looking for a dish drainer tray to set in the sink to rinse and air dry all the coffee cups we seem to use throughout the day, instead of putting them in the dishwasher and always reaching for a new one each time, I thought I’d be environment conscious and not use the dishwasher so much. I took sink measurements before leaving home and thought how smart I was as I pulled out my notes and measuring tape from my pocket. But, they had nothing that would fit our sink!!! Nor, did they have the wire thingamajigs, that was suppose to reach down and clean out the dryer vent and the dust on the coils under the fridge. Damn!!

So, back out through the pouring rain and decided, I’d go into this Starbucks I had never been in before, sit at the window again and observe!!

The only place to sit was on one of those high, and hard stools, right by the window.

I take out my little pad and my camera and begin to write what I see.

Well, first, I saw a perfectly good black umbrella, laying on the sidewalk in front of me, that someone had probably dropped. Everyone was just stepping over it.

Looking across the road, is a guy sitting on a box, holding an umbrella. I can’t see, but likely there is a dish in front of him for passerby’s to throw in money. I wonder how much they make in a day!

I glance about me and lots of young men in hospital uniforms, who have run down for their daily fix, which doesn’t say much for the hospital coffee.

Oop’s…..there goes the umbrella that was laying on the ground. Picked up by a little Chinese fellow. Someone has a new umbrella!! No little Japanese fellow here to nod and smile like last time, or notice, my curly eyelashes!!

In spite of the rain, people are sitting out under the awning, chatting and drinking coffee.

An ambulance just pulled up and a guy jumped out, looking anxiously for someone, and looks concerned, but can’t find what or who he’s looking for. Hmmm interesting! Maybe something good to write in my blog will happen!

People in Starbucks are beginning to look at me, as I’m  watching out the window, writing notes and taking pictures. Just as I’m thinking about them wondering what I’m doing, I think, maybe they think I’m an undercover detective or something, and I notice that wherever, I glance, their eyes follow mine, and when I take a picture, their necks crane up to see what I’m taking a picture of.

A fellow has come up beside me, which is also right beside where the cream and sugar is located. I can feel him sort of leaning over my shoulder, trying to read my notes. I cover them with my hand and look at him. “Horrible day eh”, he says. I just reply “Yup!” He asks what I’m writing in a friendly but curious way, and because I just had the thought go through my head, and the devil was on my shoulder, I replied, “Sorry, but, I’m undercover, so don’t ask!”  I turn my head back and stare at the street. WHAAAT DID I JUST SAY??? MY GAWD LINDA!!!

Out of the corner of my eye, he goes out and speaks to one of the guys sitting outside, and then motioned to me just as I’m raising my camera up for another picture! They turned away and said something to each other, then  immediately got up and left and at the same time, what drove by? POLICE!!!

 

I couldn’t believe that I had said what I did and along came the cops!!! I started to giggle and titter at what happened, and how those guys actually looked scared and took off, maybe thinking I was on some sort of sting. Then I got thinking, how safe I might not be after I leave here, and I’d be maybe ushered into a puddle filled, dreary alley way for roughing up!! After all, this isn’t the nicest part of town!!

People are really looking at me now!!

 

Just after I took this picture, I set the camera down and was taking a drink of my coffee, when, what would have been a fantastic picture, walked by and disappeared!! A guy, carrying a whole big pig over his shoulder! How often do you see that!

Darn, but you see some strange things just sitting and observing! I glance around and everyone is on cell phones, still with one eye on me! What a nervous bunch of people in here!

The ambulance guy, got back in the vehicle and they took off with the sirens blaring! Darn, might have had an interesting story there, but it fizzled out on me.

 

I take this picture to show the Ontario people that they can’t leave flowers sitting outside with their cold weather. Funny thing is, everyone in Vancouver is praying for snow, and lots of it, for the Winter Games that are less than a month away. The snow is off the mountains, the ski hills are bare, and it’s too warm for the snow maker machine to make snow! Many worried Olympic games organizers VERY worried right now!!

Well, it’s time for me to risk walking back to the car before the ticket runs out, and soon Tom will be finished.

I’m back….no dark alley’s happened. I’m waiting for Tom and he show’s up right in time as the meter people begin checking this lot for tickets that have expired!

So, we are off to look in IKEA for this sink dish rack. It’s pelting down rain!! Tom decides, we are going to iHop for lunch first, so we set the GPS for the direction’s and set off. This gal on the GPS is going to get fired!! She led us into a residential area, right up to a back fence and a dead end, as she say’s “Arriving at iHop on the right”, some very unpleasant words, escape our lips!!!

Forget iHop, Tom say’s we are almost at IKEA! So, in we go, drenching wet and soon get lost  in the twists and turns of IKEA and walk forever it seems, and finely find the dish racks and out comes my trusty measuring tape, and none of them will fit our sink!!! By this time, we are starving, so we eat in IKEA. The whole meal cost a little over $6.00 for us both, but we are satisfied and continue on our way.

Next stop, is Wosks Coffee, where we buy those little tiny cups that fit in our Krueg coffee maker, which by the way is WONDERFUL! We love picking our coffee up there, as everyone is so friendly, especially Emond, who always gives us samples, and usually makes us a coffee with cookies or doughnuts!! He say’s a smile comes to his face when we come in, as he enjoys our joking around with him. Nice fellow!! He makes going there fun!

Off we go and decide, we’ve had enough and we are soaked by now too, and the traffic is getting bad.

When I discover the way we are heading home, I mention that maybe Canadian Tire has the dish rack! So, off we pull in there, and the water in the parking lot is like a lake!

They had the perfect fit dish rack, that now sits empty in the one sink! I’m happy!

Onward Ho

But, we decide to stop at The British Butcher Shoppe and buy some of Tom’s favourite  oat cakes. But, they are out of oat cakes until next Thursday, but we have never come out of that place without a hefty charge on our Visa, and today was no different!

Blood Pudding (ugh), Guinness and steak pie, lean ground beef, Scotch pies, and we are done!

HOME AT LAST!!