My aunt and uncle are out from Manitoba, so we had a big "family day"... my bro took time off of work, and my mom, aunt, uncle, brother, sis-in-law, niece (6 months) and two cousins (17 and 19 years old, respectively) came over for lunch. My dog was reasonably well-behaved, which was nice.

After that we drove out to Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver, which was actually pretty cool, and went on an hour long hike or so to the bottom of the dam. The women in the group mentioned an interest in checking out Dressew (huge fabric store on East Hastings) and the men went along with it, so that was the next stop. We had to park 2-3 blocks away, and walked to the store.

So picture this. A large-ish group of Mennonite women, plus me, walking through the downtown eastside. The men have stayed behind to deal with the car parking situation. Needless to say, because of the way they're dressed, we are a fairly conspicuous group, and lots of people take a second look. Fair enough, I'm used to that with these situations, and that's fine... but I'm slightly on edge and waiting for some crackhead to think it would be funny to take a shot at someone.

Sure enough, at the corner of Hastings and somewhere, a cracked out homeless dude, REALLY rough looking, yells out, "Hey! Where you ladies from?"

There's a pause as no one knows what to say, but that's okay, because he continues, "You're from the Church of God in Christ... Holdemans!"

Sis-in-law grins and says, "Yup!"

Cracked Out Dude sways a little, steadies himself on his shopping cart, point at himself and says, "Kleefeld, Manitoba!" (For reference: Kleefeld is a town of maybe 300 people, and the COG has a church there... one of about four churches in the town.)

Fortunately the light changed then, so he didn't try to hug us or anything... but how totally random. I giggled all the way across the street.