Parking permit adventures.
The bubbling indian lady at the city hall counter wanted to know where I'd gotten my t-shirt, the one I'd inadvertently worn, with the creative sexual positions on it.
"I don't know where to get it, it was a gift" and so she wanted to know where she could get other cool t-shirts.
I wrote down a url for her and she asked me to show her how to use that web thingie.
One minute I'm fidgeting in line for a parking permit, and the next moment I'm hangin' out behind the counters at city hall, giggling with a charming lady from Bangalor who has two daughters my age who are just going to LOVE the "open your mind, not your mouth" t-shirts that she ordered for them.
What a cool mom. What a cool civil servant.
What a cool hot dog vendor standing outside city hall.
What a cool grumpy old man at the sewing shop where I bought little red beads for the plant-hangings that I've been macram�-ing during television evenings.
What a delightful lady at the nature store where I bought coriander seeds (cilantro, chinese parsley, whatever) who promised to teach me polish if I stopped by more often.
What a delightful neighbourhood, despite the man who jumped out at me while I was out too late alone on rollerblades last night
despite the ululating stress that kept me from sleep until well into this morning.
I have a thousand awkward fears from having done so many things in my signature backwards way
but when they get too hard for even a monstre to stay cheerful and stoic
rolling over on the verge of some undefined chasm at one in the morning, there were gentle hands and a gentler voice to talk me down from the pointed height I had stranded myself upon.
And now those "gentle" hands are dragging me off to the caf�, then to go injure myself somewhere up a rock wall.
;)