the cunty side of town

that's where i live. the avenues of top dollar realty perched hillside looking over the kitsilano basin, sprigs of downtown high-rises -- and the mountains, of course. i can gander at that about two blocks east of my house, and it was especially nice about a year and a half ago when there was a big gap in the block. there's some big minimalist-meets-nature vanoc-aesthetic house there now.

while i can't afford to buy one of these houses, i keep up with my joneses in the glorified traffic medium that is supposed to be a park. there's no sign declaring the name of the park, but i figure if it has benches, it's good enough for me. me and my buds.

while out smoking on one of those benches, some college aged guys drove up, parked, seized the other park bench and started enjoying their buds as well. 

then some lady emerges from one of the swanky houses and yells, 'hey boys, could you take that somewhere else? you know that kids play at this park,' etc. well, isn't that funny, i'd been sitting there smoking for a good 10 minutes, but those poor saps had hardly warmed up their lighters. caught by surprise, and exceptionally vancouver-ish about it all, they started apologizing, one saying that he grew up in the neighborhood and just liked to come back and hang out.

'well, take it somewhere else, we don't want your problems around here.'

hold on a second. there were zero children in the park -- but three adults. it was in the clear of daylight. there was hardly any noise and no commotion at all -- what does this lady think stoners do? there were no transactions going on -- in fact, that whole scene was mostly quiet sitting. how does that turn into 'we don't want your problems around here?'

what problem is that -- my graduate level education? my interest in social justice? my daily meditations?

sigh