In The California Sun

Won'tYouTakeMeTo....
FunkyTownVille

Until very recently we lived in Vancouver's upscale, creme de la creme/kid-cloistered Westside.

Now we live in the Eastern Townships which, while slightly downscale, are definitely more interesting.

And if I knew that intuitively, at least from a grown-up point of view, one of my kids knocked the concept out of the Park this morning.

****

On Saturday mornings our 6 year old goes to tap dancing class.

The tap school is way out on East Hastings near Renfrew which is a stone's throw from that old hockey barn, the Pacific Coliseum, where the Vancouver Canucks used to play before little Lord Arthur borrowed high from, and was subsequently forced to sell low to, those wily McCaw boys awhile back.

But that's a different story.

And an even more different story is the time I saw DOA front for, and slamtrash, the Clash at the nextdoor Gardens in 1981.

****

Anyway.....

Lately on these Saturday morning treks our 12 year old kid has come along for the ride.

At first I thought it was just because she liked to come to the Laughing Bean to get a treat from the tatoo lady at the coffee bar.

But this morning, with our goodies in hand from the little coffee place that could, and will (ward off the predatory drive-through Starfcukers that just opened down the street), my kid and I wandered out into the blazing, late spring, no sign of rainforest, Left Coast Canuckistani Sun and she said something pretty interesting.

'These mornings remind me of California. "

"Because it's so sunny and warm?" I asked, stupidly.

"No," she said. "It's because this place is kind of cool. I mean, when we lived in Dunbar we couldn't go to a place like this. It's like Cafe Roma in Berkeley*."

That floored me.

We used to live in Berkeley and we go back often.

But it wasn't nostalgia my kid was talking about.

It was eyes-wide-open, open-world-funkiness that she was noticing.

The tatoo lady....the obsessed kid with the drawing pad....the old rubbies sitting in the corner nursing their caffeine till the government jar store opens at the midway point between the Bean and the Evil drive-through Empire...the crazy Italian guys arguing about gardening and tomato plants....the tap-dance Moms babbling on about sequins and bows, the cop on a 10-7 reaching down to scratch the ears of the anarchist's twin beagles....the motorcycle leather boy waiting for the tatoos to bring him his heated cinammon bun.....all of it.

Life's rich pageant.

And after that we had a great, good talk about life in general, and teenagerhood rising in particular.

Which is something that is way harder to do when you're hopping in and out of the minivan as you race between classes, swimming lessons, and protective custody playdates in the so-called cleaner, safer, better part of town, I reckon.

Maybe.




____
*Don't get me wrong. It's not like my kid's off-the-deep-end weird or anything, because she does use 'like' about a million times a day the wrong way. It's just that she knows how to use it, like, the right way too.

.