Here We Go Again

Happy Chinese New Year! And to those in British Columbia, happy Family Day! Handling BC insurance claims out of Ontario means I get the day off too, though it’s rather anti-climactic considering everyone else here is working…

In anticipation of my trip to Vancouver next week, I’ve been reading through my archived travel stories. It made me want to write again and, of course, to visit new places. This time two years ago, I wrote about a Chinese lady sharing her in-flight meal and making her daughter talk to me. Last year, I didn’t leave the country once. Oh well. That’s the price of finishing a degree and starting a new job.

Today, to get out of the house during viewings (it’s up for sale again), I took a corner seat in a Tim Hortons and tried to study amongst the crowd of retirees. As an update, I’m oh for three in Roll up the Rim, but one chapter closer to my insurance designation. I also caught a brief glimpse of “Walden” leaving with his coffee and a copy of the Financial Post, still garbed in an army green raincoat. That was the first time I’ve seen him since I wrote about him last summer.

I wondered if he got the newspaper from the university. I thought back to yesterday when, as I was coming home from a walk, a different homeless man came up behind me on his bike, beer in hand. I stepped to the side to let him pass and he went a couple metres ahead before dismounting and introducing himself as Anatoly from Russia (though to be honest, I thought it might be a pseudonym). I had passed by Laurier University on my walk and had taken a copy of Friday’s edition of the Financial Times. He talked me up about the newspaper and asked who I was and what I did. He wondered out loud whether he should get into insurance too. Then he offered to pay me for the newspaper and I told him he could have it (even though he seemed to have already read more of it than I had). He then offered me some beer and I politely declined, holding up my coffee. We chatted for a while more before he pointed out a friend of his coming up across the street. That’s when I thought it was a good time to leave. I took a detour home as a precaution, but didn’t see Anatoly again. Anyway, I guess that’s my roundabout way of wondering if the Financial Times makes for a good insulator during the winter and if I should carry more copies with me.

Well, clearly I need some new material. Apparently all I can write about in Waterloo is stress and the homeless population. My flight to Vancouver couldn’t come sooner.