Homeless in Vancouver: It was a Frosted Flakes kind of morning

Waking up this morning in my parkade and getting out of bed(ding) was very nearly like how I remember it was as a child, waking up in an unheated cabin on a weekend ice fishing trip in northern Saskatchewan.

It just after 6:30 a.m. when this homeless person poked his head out from under the cover of a toasty warm sleeping bag and un-zippered to feel the sudden in-rush of 1° C outside air.

“Brrr” is right!

When you wake up outside on a day like today, you really wake up!

I will say this for the cold though; the crisp, clean air instantly cuts through any wooly headedness that I might otherwise experience and I’m instantly awake and focused on getting dressed. I have to be quick about dressing too, before every bit of precious body heat dissipates.

It minimizes the shock to my system that I sleep up against my folded duds so that everything is close at hand and considerably less than ice cold.

This is not to say that my 50-something year-old engine revs up to speed as fast as a 20-year-old’s would—it certainly doesn’t.

A modest grade of hill that I’ll normally pass without even thinking leaves me feeling a bit winded when I climb it first thing after leaving my sleeping spot.

However, by 7:30 a.m. when I found myself crunching through mounds of thickly frosted leaves—such that I thought to stop and take some photographs—I was all fired up and ready for adventure.

Or at least ready for breakfast and a cup of coffee. And wouldn’t you just know it, it’s free small coffee all week at McDonald’s, so my medium breakfast size only cost a mere 50 cents!

It’s good to be alive, isn’t it?

It’s true that if I could today, I’d probably just loiter inside and avoid the chill outside. It’s just as well that I have to go out and earn myself some money.

I look forward to another interesting day exploring bits of Vancouver in my quest for returnable beverage containers and tonight I expect that I’ll again sleep like a lamb and tomorrow morning I’m all but positive that I’ll wake up refreshed and eager. And so on and so forth.

Here’s hoping that Everyone else feels at least as fortunate as I generally do.

And a special thought to all my peers who will be hunkering down tonight in one of Vancouver’s regular overnight shelters or those opening specifically because of B.C. Housing’s extreme weather alert:

Have a good night, sleep tight, and, for goodness sakes, I hope that the bedbugs don’t bite!