Jenobi's World

Every morning I drag myself out of my warm bed and prepare for another work day, as everyone else does in numerous routines and rituals. I pop in my earbuds and tune out the nearby noise, listen to the news while doing my daily puzzles on my mobile phone on the bus, and mentally prepare my "To Do" list. Looking around the crowded bus I always look at the similarities students wear to university, checking the popular brands and styles. At one point during my employment at the university, I created a "style" Bingo game, matching brands and styles students wear, and I always tried to figure out how these younger "starving" young adults could afford Nike Air Force One sneakers, Canada Goose parkas, Blundstone boots and the like. I do this today, sneaking a quick snap of the style and Google Lens the style (no faces of course), sometimes outwardly scrunching my face at the price of the item on my screen. No wonder these kids are starving, they can't afford ...

Vancouver has never been known as a winter wonderland, well, at least the actual city center, but the weather pattern has consistently turned frigid. Usually, Vancouverites are used to the dreary gray decor, cloudy and rainy 24 - 7, making the shorter days even worse, as if the Sun is wearing shades. The streets are usually lined with puddles and the locals walk around the city with black umbrellas adding to the dark wet days of winter. I have noticed some people donning vibrant coloured umbrellas, standing out from the wave of black, but this is probably more for safety from cars, scooters, e-bikes, buses and other vehicles trying to peer through the rain. I was almost hit by a car and now I have a bright yellow umbrella, hoping I don't experience that shock ever again. This past week, the weather went from unusually warm and balmy in January to an about-face in February with negative temperatures and snow falling in the city and all over the Lower Mainland. The excitement of hear...