Puttered down to the southern part of Main street today, being Vaishiki and all. The greatest holiday event in town by far. Nearly everyone in the Indian community sets up a table, business or individual, and hands out free food, drinks, produce, various goodies, which ever.
Just attending the event make you a nicer person.
Politicians love it, and tents from the main three provincial parties can be seen without fail handing out flyers, food, and balloons.
Gordon Campbell came out, dressed fully in traditional clothing, flanked by strar candidate Wally Oppal. Their table was rather crowded as they were handing out t-shirts and shaking hands.
Have to admit, I couldn't resist the temptation, starkly against my partner Natalie's sharp advice to the contrary, to go up and meet good ol' Gordo.
And to be quite honest, he didn't seem to enjoy the situation any more than Natalie did. I doubt he was able to recognize the insignia of the Venezuelan Communist Party adorning my bright red baseball cap in the short time he directed his attention my way, but his smile certainly disappeared, and he seemed hesitant to shake my hand. I guess he's become fairly astute at identifying potential public embarrassments, and was likely expecting me to make some sort of a scene. This is the fella, remember, who hasn't been able to appear anywhere in public without thick security in over 3 years.
For my part, I was extremely well behaved. I shook his hand, smiled, said that it was nice to meet him, accepted his T-shirt, (which will be a great tar catcher on the roof at work) and went on my merry way.
It isn't every day that you get to shake hands with the devil, and I was happy to take part in the opportunity.
2 comments:
You showed such restraint. I'm so surprised.
I love it when you write about me in your blog. It's like there's two me's...there's the real me, and then there's this character who occasionally shows up in the stories on your blogs, infinitely cooler and more sophisticated than the real thing.
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