On Wednesday at 10:00 I went down to the food bank and took the exact place in line where I’d been the week before. Once we were inside, the guy three places ahead of me complained that the elderly gentleman behind him should be behind me. The receptionist kicked the old guy out because she said he’d been there, left and tried to take the same place in line that he’d had before.
The receptionist knew my name so I
just gave her my birth date. She mumbled something that I thought was a
question, so I said, “Pardon me?” She smiled and said, “I know, it’s Christian
Christian! I only look like I’m asleep!” She handed me number 15 and said,
“There ya go, honey!”
When I went to unlock my bike,
Marlon was standing beside it. As I approached, he reached down and squeezed my
back tire. That made me wonder if it was soft, so I squeezed it too. I told him
that I’d spent nine hours at Bike Pirates and then had to explain why it took
so long and also what is Bike Pirates. I’d had to move my brake system from
pedal level to crossbar height and Bike Pirates is a do it yourself bike shop
run by volunteers that teach you how to fix your bike.
On my way home along Dunn Avenue,
traffic was stopped by a crew that was picking up branches from the street
underneath a towering tree clipping machine. I rode to the western sidewalk and
got off my bike, just as a very tall man was passing on my left. He stopped
when I started walking, and seeing him, I stopped and said, “Go ahead!” while
at the same time indicating the same with my hand. He started to go, then
stopped and backed up, grumbling, “Why did you stop beside me?” My impression
was that he seemed to have a mental illness and so I just went ahead, walked to
the other side of the rubble, got back onto the street and rode home. I
recognized the tall man, as I’d observed him many times from my window. He
quite often wears a baby blue suit with a long white vest, an outfit that’s
quite striking and even disarming on one so tall, and looks like he’s ready to
jam with Earth Wind and Fire.
A few hours later, when I was
locking my bike on the crooked, dwarf bike stand in front of the food bank, the
vegetable lady came out from inside to have a cigarette. She said to me, “How
are you honey?” I asked her how she was and she answered, “Horrible, but life
is good!” There was an ironic statement if I ever heard one. “Horrible?” I
repeated. She assured me, “”Just for a minute.”
That was the second woman from the food bank that day that’d referred to
me as the same kind of food. I kind of like it, but I doubt it would be
considered acceptable if I were to start calling women I don’t know, “sweetie”.
There seems to be a gender bias at work. I guess it would seem pretty weird if
guys started addressing me as “honey”.
I went around to the back to wait for my number to be called.
People were enjoying with warmer weather. A loud and very talkative
woman with long grey hair and wearing a sparkling gold top, was holding court
while sitting against the wall of the building on the other side of the
driveway from the food bank. She told the four or five people who were
listening that when she was twenty-one she learned that her worst enemy was a
guy named Murphy, as in “Murphy’s Law”. At one point she called out, “There’s a
strong man! You can help me move out of my place anytime!” I looked up and saw
that she was addressing one of the people who live above the food bank. He was
at that time coming down the fire escape from the roof, holding his bike high
as he made his descent. He didn’t respond to her friendly shouts. I’ve yet to
see any residents of the building interacting with or reacting at all to food
bank customers. They seem to want to keep their emotional distance from this
social inclemency that they’ve found themselves living above.
A sixty something man who seems to have Parkinson’s Disease always comes
early to the food bank on Wednesdays and so he’s always one of the first ones
to leave. I’ve never seen him without him wearing his bicycle helmet. He moves
maneuvers slowly but competently against the involuntary countermotions of his
body and hooks a bag of groceries each over the handlebars of his bike before
riding off. This time before leaving though he went over to the talkative
woman, called her by name and asked her for a cigarette, which she gave him.
The big, friendly woman who had been standing and chatting with the woman in
gold, commented, “Someone’s wearing some nice men’s cologne!” That set the gold-topped
woman to talking about how she finds women’s perfume too heavy and actually
prefers wearing men’s cologne. She suggested a brand, the name of which I
didn’t catch; that she said has a light scent and that can be bought for a low
price at a local store.
Once my number was called, there were better choices than lately on the
first stack of shelves. It was a tough choice between the Frontera Hot Salsa
and the package of gourmet Earl Grey tea, but I decided on the salsa. There
were little bags containing three each of carrot muffins, and I chose one of
those instead of a bag of chocolate; a little bag of ground anise. I once again
skipped the pasta, rice and sauce shelves. I took a can each of lentils and
refried beans; and I took two small cans of chicken breast chunks, one chipotle
and the other barbecue. Sue wasn’t in this time, so my volunteer escorted me to
the cold section. She gave me a half litre of 3.5% milk, which is what I use
for coffee cream these days; four single servings of vanilla yogourt; and two
packages of Eastern Chef Quick and Easy Meals. Both of them were chicken green
curry with jasmine rice and the box is designed to evoke the kind of cardboard
take-out boxes that were common in Chinese restaurants before Styrofoam became
the norm. In the bread section I took a loaf of foccaccia and a loaf of sliced
multigrain. I looked over the vegetable lady’s wares. She had onions, potatoes,
cherry tomatoes, some ripe fruit and bags of chopped onions. I assume she’s the
one that does the chopping, so I hope she has a machine. I guess if one were to
use it right away, pre-chopped onions would be very convenient, but it seems
like something that would go bad pretty quickly. I prefer to chop my own when I
want them. She asked if I wanted anything, and once again I had to disappoint
her.
On the way
back up Dunn Avenue, the towering limb clipper was gone, and in its place was a
dump truck full of very large logs. One doesn’t usually see that much lumber in
the city. A tired looking young blonde woman in yellow overalls was putting the
tree debris from the street into a dumpster container.
That night I watched an episode of I Love Lucy in which Ricky and Fred
bet Lucy and Ethel that the husbands could handle living a pre-twentieth
century lifestyle better than they could. Ricky allowed Lucy to compromise and
use the electric stove though when he caught her trying to light a fire with
wood in the electric oven.
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