6 feet in the rain

 There’s a puddle on the floor just below my coat and it’s shedding a slow drip-drip of water.  It’s seriously raining and Hank and I arrived back to my place soaked. We of our matching purple coats. It’s a funny coincidence really. I’m a big fan of purple but I didn’t buy his coat. And even though we have matching coats he attracts a lot more looks than I do. He’s really quite handsome and a lot of people want to pet him. Yes, Hank’s a dog. A very striking little Jack Russell and I take care of him for a friend. We’re walking from his place to mine and I do my best to avoid some of the biggest puddles since he travels only about 6 inches from the ground. The route we walk today is different from the last. It’s different every time. I like to walk the half hourish distance a different way every time. There’s so much I discover on these journeys and it’s all my newly adopted neighbourhood. When I lived downtown before I lived across town by the park and I didn’t really come over this way. I especially didn’t spend a lot of time anywhere near Railway town where Hank lives except for the odd foray into Gastown.

Today our trip takes us more through Chinatown and I notice how gentrified it really is becoming. I mean, I know it’s happening but to really see the scope of it is sort of jarring. Expensive coffee shops, restaurants and shops have cropped up that I probably wouldn’t go into. They are the arenas of hipsters.

Normally, spending a lot of time in this sort of weather would make me walk all the faster to get out of it, but with Hank it’s OK, even though we are getting soaked. Although I imagine he isn’t enjoying today as much as he does the sunny days we walk through even if he’s a dog wearing a coat. 

Easy like…

I went for a walk this morning, not willingly. I had to force myself out of the house. The sun is still hiding behind a thick layer of grey and I wanted nothing more than to curl up into the softness of a blanket and begin binge watching something. I went before my second coffee or crosswords or any distractions could give me an excuse to put it off or not go at all. At first it was just going to walk around the block to say I’d done something but I forced myself down to the sea wall. My hands thrust in my pockets I passed groups of eager runners and the occasional dog walker as the clouds dispensed a pit pat of misty rain. I managed 25 minutes of striding with some purpose before looping around back toward home. As I neared the paper box I realized the paper’s not published on Sunday although the happy reward was that someone had left the display paper behind. I’ll get some brain exercise as well. Look at me go.