things that made me smile today

PARENTS KILLED BY NINJAS. NEED MONEY FOR KARATE LESSONS.
These were the words on a sign carried by I assume a homeless man on Granville St in Downtown Vancouver today. One has to admire his sense of humour when life doesn't seem to be going his way. It made me smile.

A former colleague from the paper, Kellíe O'Brien, has a blog (Three Li'l Princesses) and writes regularly of the things for which she is grateful. In similar fashion, I will share things that made me smile today.

On the window of the #8 bus heading downtown

It was an unremarkable Wednesday. In typical Vancouver fashion, it was raining. Rather than cosy up in bed all day, I limited that behaviour to just the morning and around lunchtime ventured Downtown to explore Gastown, an historical and hip area of Vancouver. I took my seat on the bus and looked out the window, only to be staring at this piece of graffiti. It might be harsh to label such a friendly message as such, but it is what it is. Either way, it made me smile as intended.

Walking through Gastown, a sushi place called Momo looked popular and cheap so I took a table. There wasn't much conventional about this particular sushi place. It was more retro than ramen. But the Spongebob Squarepants placemats made me chuckle.

After lunch I explored Gastown, which borders on a not-so-desirable part of town. As such several homeless people beg outside Gastown's up-scale stores. I wasn't carrying cash, which meant I wasn't lying when I told the beggers I didn't have any change. One begger told me that was OK as money wasn't everything. He told me what an incredible job his mother did because it isn't easy to raise someone to the age of 57 and left me with the challenge of thinking about what the most important thing in life. He also made me promise to keep smiling. So I did.

A poster on the side of a bus said something about Elton John. Another poster outside an arts theatre filled in the blanks. Love Lies Bleeding is a performance by the Alberta Ballet inspired by and featuring the songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. A ballet to Elton John songs? Yes thanks. Smile.

My day got rather mundane from here, but still plenty of reasons to smile.

• Finding the brand of rice cakes the girls at work have been raving about. I've been searching every supermarket I can find for the last three weeks without success until today.
• Using the rewards card I signed up for at Save on Foods supermarket so my French couchsurfers could get a discount when we were there a couple of weeks ago to save 50% on the frozen fish I have for dinner most nights.
• Hearing that my Mum is given a stuffed toy to squeeze at the dentist so she doesn't attack anyone.
• Realising that will be me in 30 years.

The night is still young so no doubt there will be more reasons to smile. The most recent one came through a Facebook conversation with my friend Joe. Joe had a gruelling 17-hour drive to San Fransisco the other weekend. I told him there were only so many times one could sing The Wheels on the Bus before you even yourself.
His answer?
"That number is 576".

I will not be going on a roadtrip with Joe.