Some of the symptoms of the cold that I
thought that I was coming down with on Thursday were still there on Saturday
but they were barely recognizable as a cold. It was as if the cold that went
away in October had sent me a little postcard from wherever it went.
I
started learning the chords to Serge Gainsbourg’s song “Jane B”, the music for
which is actually Chopin’s Prelude in E-Minor,
Opus 28 Number 4. I don’t have much time to learn it because there are only a
few more Chopin days till Christmas.
I was on my way to the food bank
when I realized that I’d forgotten my phone and so I went home to get it. In
terms of the length of the line-up, whether I come at 9:45 or 9:55 it doesn’t
make much difference. About one person takes a place in line every ten minutes.
About ten minutes after I arrived, one of the regulars, a tall, thin guy in a
poor-boy cap and a slim, knee length overcoat, took his place behind me, but
left a space of about two meters and stood on the west side of the steps of
1501 Queen Street West so as to let tenants come and go. Ten minutes later a
woman arrived and parked her cart directly behind the cart that was in front of
my place in line. The guy behind me told her to get behind him but she argued
that the space should be filled up because other people would use it as an
excuse to butt in. I told her that we wouldn’t let anyone go in front of her
but she wouldn’t buy it. She insisted that the guy move his cart ahead to take
his place in line ahead of her. He finally gave in and the woman, satisfied
with her little victory said, “Good!” Then she left her cart and went inside
the entryway of 1499 Queen to sit. When I passed through there to go downstairs
to use the washroom there must have been twenty people hanging out in there. It
was like a down and out cocktail party without the cocktails.
I re-read about half of the first
act of Percy Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”. It seems to me that Shelley is
drawing a parallel between Prometheus and Jesus, except that he's taken that
"God, why hast thou forsaken me moment” from the Jesus myth and extended
it over thousands of years. Also, just as Christ’s mother was said to be
consoling him at the foot of the cross, Prometheus’s mother, the Earth is also
there with him. There is also piercing, as the spears of glaciers have
penetrated Prometheus’s body. Prometheus was being punished by Zeus for having
given humanity the internet just as Jesus was crucified for having created the
hands-free phone device.
At 10:30 everyone swarmed out of the
entryway to get in line. A few places ahead of me in line a woman with glasses
and black hair was telling a woman with long and prematurely snow-white hair
that last year she had weighed 125 kilos but lost 35 kilos. She met her
boyfriend after losing the weight and now she’s gaining it back and he’s
complaining that she’s fat.
The guy behind me complained about
people that leave their carts in line and then go elsewhere. He thinks people
should be forced to stay with their carts. Like me, he’s one of the minority
that misses the system of drawing numbers.
He said there’s a church here in the
west end that has a Christmas food hamper that might be a monthly food hamper.
He named the church but I can't find anything about it. I told him that there's
a pay-what-you-can supermarket in the junction. Looking it up now I see that
it’s called “Feed It Forward” and it’s at 3324 Dundas West, just east of
Runnymede. It’s run by a chef named Jagger S. Gordon. On their Facebook page I
noticed a couple of people complaining about having been asked for a $5
donation for their food hamper but most of the reviews are positive. From what
I’ve read the “pay-what-you-can" really is "pay-what-you-can",
including nothing. There is certainly nothing officially posted about a
minimum.
The guy behind me said that Parkdale
Community Legal Services is being evicted from their location at Noble and
Queen. They have been told by the Usher family that they have to leave by
January 1, 2019. A new building is being constructed at the site and Parkdale
Legal had been scheduled to move into an office on the third floor.
Negotiations continue and the clinic says the landlord has breached the lease
agreement. One would think that with a building full of lawyers they should
have a judicial advantage.
I remember when the Usher family used to have a surplus food store in
that building. It seemed to be stocked with canned and packaged items that had
been acquired from other stores that had closed. There were often rare items
and everything was cheap.
I told the guy behind me that 19 years ago it was with help from
Parkdale Legal that I beat my then new landlord in his attempts to evict me and
everyone else in my building. He’d just bought the place from the guy I’d
rented my apartment from and he tried to use the old trick of claiming that he
needed the building for his family to live in. Of course what he really wanted
to do was clear everybody out so he could renovate and yank up the rent. Anyway,
we won and that’s thanks to Parkdale Legal.
I think I made my companion feel bad when I told him that I only pay a
little over $600 for a one-bedroom apartment. He said that he pays $600 for a
room with a shared kitchen and bathroom and that his fellow tenants steal his
food from the fridge. He complained that they especially take the milk that he
gets from the food bank though they would never be seen going to the food bank
themselves.
I’ve shared kitchens and bathrooms before but of the two I am particularly
thankful to not have to share a bathroom with anyone.
Across the street from where we were standing is a store called “In
Vintage We Trust”. In their window they had large letter-shaped balloons
hanging that spelled out “DEPOP”. I said it out loud and wondered what that was
about. He explained what “Depop” is but either I misunderstood or he had the
wrong info. I thought he was telling me that Depop is a line of vintage
clothing, but it seems to be a shopping app for an online marketplace. Maybe In
Vintage We Trust sells their clothing through Depop or maybe they provide a
space for people selling through Depop.
I got downstairs at around 11:00. The tall, shaved-headed volunteer,
whose name I think is Steve, was at the reception desk. As I handed him my card
I told him, “You were wrong!” I reminded him that we’d had an argument a couple
of years ago at the old location and that he’d insisted that marijuana would
never be legalized in Canada. He didn’t look up at me but looked bored and
responded, “But then Justin came in.” I told him that Trudeau was already the
prime minister at the time. He just shrugged and said that if the Conservatives
get in they could repeal it. I told him I didn’t think they’d do that.
My volunteer was the young woman who’s been volunteering there for about
a year and a half and usually works at the reception desk.
We started at the bottom of the first shelf where there were two kinds
of granola. One was a vanilla almond flavoured cereal and the other was the
better-known brand of Dorset granola. She recommended the Dorset because it had
sunflower seeds. I added, “And moonflower seeds, and Jupiter flower seeds …” I
don’t know why I was being so silly. I don’t think I was entertainer her and I
was barely entertaining myself. Anyway, I took the Dorset. It had raisins,
dates, almonds, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, banana and of course, sunflower
seeds.
We moved to the top shelf and she asked if I wanted any Kuna Pops. I
told her I had some already and they’re really just flavoured air.
Also on the top were little plastic jars of teriyaki sauce. The jars
looked like the containers in which I get prescription creams at the drug
store, except that they were transparent. The brand name on the teriyaki sauce
is Chef’s Plate, which seems to be another online store. You order from a list
of recipes and they send you the fresh ingredients and the instructions on
assembling the meal. I assume the
teriyaki sauce comes along with certain recipes. I took one of the containers
but she gave me another three.
They haven’t had any health bars at the food bank for a few months but
this time the Larabars were back. These ones were apple and also had dates,
raisins, almonds and cinnamon.
There were a variety of canned vegetables and soups but I just took a
can of chickpeas. I’d had a bad experience with the last can of chickpeas that
I’d gotten from the food bank, but that was the first time in many. The
garbanzos had hard outer skins on some of them that came off in my mouth and
when I pulled them out they resembled toenail clippings. It was disgusting and
on top of that I think I got food poisoning. The company name was Arz and I
don’t think I’ll take chickpeas with that label again.
The last item I selected was a litre of pure apple juice.
I finally remembered to ask the name of my helper whom I’ve seen so many
times. She said it was Stephanie.
At Angie’s station there was lots of milk, both chocolate and white, but
I didn’t want 2% so I turned it down. The small yogourt containers on display
were Astro 0%, which I think has sucralose in it. Angie pulled some small
containers of Activia: four lemon and two pineapple and so I took those. I
didn’t take any of the frozen generic ground chicken, hot dogs or bologna, but
Angie gave me an extra bag of three eggs.
The guy ahead of me was bent over and really loading up from the bread
section, picking up various muffins and buns with the tongs. He was taking so
long that Sylvia said she’d serve me and I could get my bread afterward.
She offered me some chanterelle mushrooms, but I didn’t have a plastic
bag handy and so she said I could take one of the big paper bags piled up
beside the door. I was still holding the eggs that Angie had given me because I
didn’t want them to be crushed under something else but when I reached for a
paper bag I dropped one of the bags of eggs. Sylvia kindly and patiently got me
another bag of eggs and a plastic bag for the mushrooms. She also gave me two
onions, five carrots, ten potatoes, two somewhat dried up cobs of corn, a kiwi
that was too soft and an apple. From the bread section I just grabbed a bag of
six rosemary focaccia triangles to toss in my freezer.
I assume that next week they’ll be giving out tickets for Christmas
turkeys.
As I was riding away from the food bank I got a song in my head as I
often do. I was silently singing “Where Do You Go To My Lovely”, the 1969
ballad by one-hit-wonder Peter Sarstedt but I suddenly segued into Billy Joel’s
1973 song “Piano Man” and realized that they are pretty much exactly the same
song in structure, right down to the chorus and that there is only a slight
difference in the notes. Either lyric could be interchanged and sung in the
style of the other.
Of course Sarstedt’s song is better because it’s slightly more lonely and because it mentions Zizi Jeanmaire.
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