On Thursday morning I finally finished
posting “J’suis snob” by Boris Vian on my Christian’s Translations blog.
I
finished translating “Banana Boat" by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the
first verse.
I
pulled my couch out from the wall and washed another eight boards of the living
room floor behind it. Part of it was an area that still had traces of fur caked
in with body fluids left over from when my last cat Jonquil died back there. I
had wiped back there after she was gone with a damp cloth and some detergent
but obviously not very thoroughly.
I
had a chicken wing for lunch and some yogourt. Instead of four heaping
teaspoons of yogourt, starting from this day I decided to cut it down to three.
I
did some exercises in the afternoon and then took a bike ride to Bloor and
Spadina. Riding the mountain bike in easy gears it seemed to take forever. I rode down Spadina to Queen and
headed west.
I stopped at
Freshco on the way home. The black grapes were on sale and so I took four bags.
I got a field tomato and a real basket of Niagara peaches as opposed to the
plastic baskets they’ve been selling. They had watermelons for $3 and so I
tried the watermelon test I’d learned online. I looked for the yellow spot,
picked up the watermelon and tapped the spot while listening. The first one had
a drum-like sound while the second and third sounded dull, so I went with the
first one. The one I’d bought two weeks before without testing it was overripe
in places, so I was interested to find out if I'd joined the elite that know
how to pick a good melon to eat. It turned out that the melon I’d picked was
under-ripe. One-year-old cheddar cheese was on sale for $6 and so I took two.
There were frozen back ribs on sale and a late middle-aged couple were looking
at them. The man had a rack of ribs in his hand but the woman pointed out to
him that they were back ribs. He tossed the rack back down contemptuously. I
guess he prefers spare ribs but I couldn't find any meat experts online that
have a negative review of back ribs. Most people prefer them to spare ribs.
The cashier said,
“So you raided the grape section!” I always get comments from cashiers about
how many grapes I buy. Are four bags of grapes a lot?
When I got home I
worked on my journal.
I had three little
potatoes, a chicken breast and some gravy while watching Wagon Train.
In this story, an
old friend of Flint’s arrives at the wagon train. Cliff is an adventurer, a
teller of tales and a prospector. While telling stories of his wild life to the
other members of the train he announces that he’s finally become a millionaire
and that he wants to travel with the wagon train to stake his claim. Cliff goes
out with the other men to hunt buffalo but the rookie he’s with causes a
stampede and Cliff is severely trampled. It is certain that he will die in a
matter of hours. They are in dangerous Sioux territory and the Major says that
for safety sake they have to move on and leave Cliff behind. Flint insists on
staying behind with him till the end and so a tent is set up with a cot for
Cliff to lie in and they have a barrel of water and some food. A man named
Manson tells Flint that he’s grown fond of Cliff and he would like to stay with
him as well. But Manson has an ulterior motive as he is hoping that before he
dies Cliff will tell him where his gold mine is. Flint comes back from
collecting firewood and finds Manson shaking Cliff to get the information.
Flint takes Manson’s gun away from him. A couple of days pass but Cliff still
hasn’t died. He becomes conscious and asks for water. After a couple more days,
when Cliff starts asking for food Flint knows that he’s not going to die after
all. One night Manson clubs Flint over the head, kicks over the water barrel
and makes off with the horses and guns. When Flint tells Cliff all this and
that they’ve been spotted by the Sioux, Cliff says, “Let’s get movin” and gets
out of bed. It would be a four-day walk to the nearest fort or half that if
they cut through the mountains but Cliff is weak and keeps collapsing. Flint
coaxes him by calling him a coward and he gets some energy back but they have
no water until a rainstorm comes. Flint is attacked by a bear but Cliff tackles
it with a knife. For some odd reason they don’t eat the bear even though they
have no food. Finally they both collapse and can go no further but Flint hears
horses and thy get up in hope of help but it is a band of Sioux. Next we see
Flint and Cliff as healthy as can be in a saloon, drinking whisky and talking
about what a good thing it was that those missionary Sioux came along. They
discover that Manson’s dead body is in the back room with a Sioux arrow in it.
Flint gets his gun and horse back. As he is about to leave Cliff confesses that
his “gold mine” was a metaphor for a wealthy woman that he’d found that wants
to marry him.
No comments:
Post a Comment