and so it goes...

as i was leaving the house to go meet my father for lunch my phone rang and it was shauna who was on her way out to langley with her niece to see marcy and the horses...a may day event for new stride. turns out the element had gotten a flat tire just after the first exit to surrey. great. ok..no problem...right...? i'll call bcaa and have them go give her a hand...nope. my membership is for me, not my car and me, or whoever is driving it, not her. great. so in order to get her help right then she would have had to buy a membership for 108.00. nice. now shauna's plenty handy and knows how to change a tire but the problem can be, and has been, that the aluminum rims i have on my car sometimes won't come off the car even after the nuts are taken off...there's a trick to it and shauna wouldn't know it if it happened...so, off to surrey i headed - giving floyd a call along the way to tell him i would be late for lunch...but then i got a call from her niece and all was well and they thought they could do it and in the end...all good...lunch was back on because they were champs...
nice. the day was back on track.
fats forward to well after lunch and i was on my way back from granville island after seeing mishi and getting myself a little coffee action when i had this exchange with a young black male - i only tell you his race because of the exchange.
......

as i'm walking home near the entrance to granville island he's walking towards me and as he walks by he says something under his breath....

"huh" i say
he says it again but i can't hear him but he's looking right at me and smiling.
he then grabs my jacket near the shoulder and says something else i can't hear.
"what?"
as he's walking away he says so i can hear him, "you heard me"
"no i didn't"
"yes you did. you know what i said."
no. what did you say?"
"i asked you if you like rap music..."
i then recognize him as a kid who had asked me this before on granville island
"no i don't"...which isn't really true but seemed like the right answer...
"why not?" he asks back
"i just don't"
"what are you a racist?" he asks loudly so those around can hear
"no."
"what next you'll be telling me to go back to africa....why don't you go back to europe..."
"what?"
now people are looking at me and he's proclaiming loudly that i'm a racist and that i had said racist things to him....and people are looking at me...
"i never said anything...you asked me if i liked rap music i said no" i say moving back towards him...now within about ten feet of him..."you wanna do something about this?" i ask him...
he starts away from me asking me if i really wanted to do this in front of the kids - some kids were with their father and watching what was going on...
"yes i do...i do wanna do it in front of the kids...he's a lair" i say to one of the kids...
"no, no...he said racist things..he should go back to europe..."
i turn and walk away. and as i walked away he began yelling and telling anyone in earshot that i was a racist and that i had said terrible things...over and over...
awesome..so great.
this has been one of the weirdest days in a long time..

g. xo