Thursday, September 2, 2010

Kitsilano High

I am at Arbutus Coffee on Arbutus and West 6th.  I'm sitting on a bench at a wobbly table outside the coffee house.

I'm trying not to get a free high from the fellow around the corner smoking weed.  Luckily, he is away from the main entrance of the coffee house.  Because I am going, in an hour, to the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, I don't want to be even slightly stoned.  That stuff is pretty potent--I still smell it. 

My table is right across the street from another old building, probably a store in the original incarnation, now set up as apartments. It has bay windows and has been maintained well by whoever owns it with great respect for the time it was built. 

Talk about a high--I"m looking at a side of Arbutus with a long row of cottage-style old homes, mature trees, and a pinscher cross, who trots happily towards me even though he is on a leash.  He becomes a friendly companion for a short time and I pet him, his intelligent eyes looking up at me.

There are modern apartment buildings in this area as well, but they do not grab my imagination or yearning.  Then again, anything to someday live here, sitting outside a coffee house, feeling high without weed.