Puppy Trainer

            On Saturday I woke up a bit and checked my phone for the time. It showed 2:55, but that seemed off to me because it was 2:44 when I went back to bed after I’d gotten up to pee. Then the alarm went off, which it’s supposed to do at 5:07, but the phone had gone black so I couldn’t see the time. I got up and saw from my computer that it was 5:10, which is the latest I’ve gotten up for several months. The phone display had been freezing for the last couple of days and showing times and battery power percentages that were far behind what they were supposed to be. Once I woke it up it would jump to where it was supposed to be. That meant that I should have restarted the phone earlier to avoid the alarm not going off at the right time. I did reset it later on.

            I was about three minutes behind my usual schedule but I cut some corners and unconsciously counted faster to measure my yoga poses and so I ended up ahead of my regular time. But then I fell several minutes behind again during song practice when the battery in my guitar tuner died and I had to tune my B and E strings by harmonics, which I can do but it takes me a lot more time. Fortunately I only had to do it a couple of times before practice was over but I didn’t want to have to deal with it the next day so that meant I would definitely have to go to the bank later that day to take out my last $20 so I could buy a battery.

            At 9:45 I went to the food bank line-up. The elderly Portuguese lady who’d been just ahead of me last time was in front of me again this time.  The guy who I usually see sucking on the e-cigarette was sans device on this occasion I think, since I didn’t smell his familiar vanilla vapour. He is apparently a dog trainer and I vaguely recall him mentioning it to people in the line-up before. A guy arrived with a golden Lab puppy. The man with the leash was chatting with another guy and standing with his back to the red Canada Post box while the pup was under his legs and behind him it peed on the letter box and almost on the caregiver’s sneakers but he didn’t notice. The vape guy was later patting the dog and assuring the leash holder that with one hour a week he could train their dog in a month. Another person with a much larger young dog arrived and the two dogs took great interest in one another from the front. The vape guy explained that this was just puppy love and nothing to worry about. Then the lab went behind the larger dog and tried to mount her. The vape guy warned that such behaviour would have to be nipped in the bud while he was still young.

            During the wait I continued reading the story “Micromegas” by Voltaire in both French and English, which I only read while I’m in the food bank line-up. The story, written more than 250 years ago, is about a super advanced giant from the Sirius star system. While living on Saturn for a few years, Micromegas makes friends with one of the much smaller Saturnian scientists and they decide to travel together. They ride a comet that’s passing over earth and then climb down the northern lights to the Baltic Sea. They eat two mountains for breakfast and then over the next 36 hours walk around the planet. The ocean comes up to the Saturnian’s calves but barely gets the Sirian’s feet wet. After searching the whole world and feeling around with their gigantic hands they don’t find any evidence that there is life on Earth.

            A semi regular food bank customer was sitting and smoking on the steps of the apartment building next to the food bank and telling another woman in line about her health problems in between moments when she had to stand up to let tenants out because she was blocking the door. She recounted how her doctor keeps telling her that she needs to quit smoking, but she argues that she wants to get everything else fixed first. She pointed out that she’s just starting to eat right and she wants to save tackling smoking for later.

            Someone approached me to ask for a light but I told him that I don’t smoke. His very quick response was, “You could be an arsonist!” I agreed that was a possibility. As he was getting a match from someone else I thought that this probably wasn’t the first time he’d used the “arsonist” line. Then as if reading my mind he told me, “That’s my stock answer!”

            The line started moving about fifteen minutes late. The door person announced that the food bank would be closed for Canada Day and advised us to come on Thursday instead.

            Inside, the volunteer who’d said while minding the door a couple of weeks before that she would be trained to use the computer was working reception this time. I got number 26.

            I saw Angie working in the back but no one was behind the dairy counter that she usually handles. I stood there for a moment and then asked Sylvia if we were supposed to help ourselves. “No!” she responded and came over to give me a half litre of 2% milk, ¾ of a litre of cottage cheese, three small containers of fruit bottom yogourt, five eggs and a package of Luvo steel cut oatmeal with quinoa and mixed fruit. It’s frozen in a pouch that’s supposed to be prepared by steaming.

            From Sylvia’s vegetable section I received a handful of potatoes, four carrots and two small onions.

            At the shelves I was helped by a young man of about thirty whom I hadn’t seen before.

            There was no cereal on offer for the first time that I’ve seen but I didn’t really need cereal anyway.

            I took a bag of multigrain tortilla chips, a jar of Chinese soybean paste with chili paste (it looks like a dark red salsa but slightly thicker and a bit sweeter, but mostly it’s pretty hot), a package of Second Cup Paradiso Dark coffee for machines (I don’t have a machine but I can open the pods and pour out the grounds. The package says it equals twelve cups, so I guess maybe six for me), a can of tuna, a small bag of soybeans, another of oatmeal, three Brookside dark chocolate cranberry almond blood orange bars, one Brookside chocolate fruit and nut bar, a carton of organic chicken broth, a can of white kidney beans and a bottle of mineral water.

            The bread lady, knowing that I tend to pick multi-grain, admitted that there wasn’t any this time. I asked if there was any raisin bread but answered there wasn’t. She tried to sell me on what she said were fresh buns but I let her know that I had enough bread.

            So this trip to the food bank provided no meat at all but the five eggs would be good for two or three meals, the can of tuna for one and the cottage cheese they gave was a sizeable amount. As usual though there was nothing in the way of fresh fruit, so after leaving the food bank I rode directly to the bank machine at King and Dufferin to take out $20. I then went to Freshco where green seedless grapes were on sale, so I bought a couple of bags, but man were they sour! I also picked up a bunch of bananas, a container of zero fat yogourt and a loaf of raisin bread. I still needed to buy a battery for my guitar tuner so that was all I could get at the supermarket.

            When I got home I put my groceries away and then walked over to Young’s Fine Foods to get a CR2032 three-volt battery. That cost me $5.50. On the way home I stopped at the liquor store to buy two cans of Creemore. The guy in front of me asked the cashier if the liquor store employees strike was going to happen. She said they wouldn’t know until the last minute. It doesn’t really matter to me since I could always go to the Beer Store.