On
Saturday morning I finished placing the chords for “My Chérie Jane” by Serge
Gainsbourg and ran through the song in French and English.
There was a general email this
morning from my Aesthetic and Decadent Movements professor letting us know that
our marks have been posted. She mentioned to everyone a point that I had
corrected her on in class and acknowledged that I had been right. She thanked
me for my comments and my research. This was interesting because it’s a
striking contrast to the backlash that I’m getting for the exact same behaviour
in Indigenous Studies in response to which the teachers bristle about being
disagreed with and blame me for being “disrespectful”. Indigenous Studies seems to be academically
disabled and needs special assistance to help it hobble along beside the other
Social Sciences.
It had been raining hard all morning
and so I was dreading going to stand in the food bank line under a downpour. At
around sunrise the rain stopped and there was some marbled purple and blue
appearing on the eastern horizon. But by the time I was getting ready to leave
it had started up again.
I stepped in behind Robbie’s
rollator. Robbie was nowhere in sight at that time but his sister was nearby
and standing out of the rain in front of the PARC doorway. I opened my baby
blue umbrella. The only other person actually standing in line was a woman with
a pink umbrella that complimented mine. She was talking on the phone, or so I
thought, until she turned around and I recognized her as the one who talks to
herself in Chinese.
Everyone else had either taken
shelter in the entryway of the food bank or was smoking in front of the door.
There were wide and muddy streams
heading south on each side of Queen Street and four straight canals in the
middle, one beside each streetcar track.
People began lining up behind me and
almost everyone that came started off their wait by lighting up a cigarette.
Maybe it’s my imagination but it seems to me that smokers feel more compelled
to smoke when they are standing in the rain than they do when it’s sunny.
A Wheel Trans vehicle and unloaded
two women that I’ve seen hanging out together for years. One of them is a very
big woman with a rollator and the other is much older and thin. The large one
sat down on her rollator in front of PARC and the older one took a place in
line behind me. I realized that they are closer than friends when the big woman
called the skinny woman “Mom.” The both lit cigarettes at the same time and so
I stepped out of line. There were smokers everywhere I walked and so I stood on
the street just off the curb to avoid the smoke as best as I could.
The rain stopped and I wanted to
read my book but I was waiting for Mom to finish her cigarette, which was
taking forever because she only took a puff on it once every minute. When she
finally threw her butt away I came back to my place, took my book out, put my
umbrella and my gloves in my backpack and opened up the book. Then it started
raining once more and so I put my book away and opened my umbrella again.
There was an altercation between
Robbie and a large and very angry mentally ill man. Robbie kept shouting, “Fuck
off!” while the man kept barking things that I couldn’t make out. Then the man
stormed down the line telling us all “Fuck you” several times as he went along.
But then he turned around to go back and challenge Robbie to fight. Robbie
didn’t meet the challenge but from time to time he would lunge slightly forward
while repeating, “Fuck off!” The man charged back down past us and called
Robbie, “You fucking piece of ball sack piece of shit!”
It was about 10:50 by the time
people came out into the rain to take their places in line. An older man who
looked like he might be from Vietnam and who had a very long hanging moustache,
stepped into line from the doorway where he’d been standing when I arrived.
Suddenly Robbie’s sister shouted at him because he’d taken the spot three
places ahead of her. Valdene the manager came over and told her that the man
had been there since 7:30. Robbie’s brother, who never lines up for the food
bank, but who was chain smoking nearby while waiting to go into PARC for
breakfast, shouted to Valdene that it was favouritism. Valdene, who’d been
walking away, turned and came back to confront him. She asked him if he’s the
one that controls the line-up. He just repeated that it’s favouritism. Valdene
said, “Go take a shower!” and walked away. He called after her, “Go take a …
bath!” Baths and showers? Jeez! It was already raining. Did any of us really
need to get any more wet?
Veronica had been inside the whole
time and came out to let me know that she was ahead of me. Martina had four of
us that were at the front of the line go to and wait in the entryway. Veronica
told me that Graham had been there before I’d arrived and she was surprised
that he had left. I told her that he’d probably decided that it wasn’t worth
standing in the rain. She said she was disappointed that he’d left. I told her
that I doubted that he shared her disappointment. She explained that she’d
wanted to find out if he’d gotten the apartment he’d been hoping for.
Downstairs I asked the receptionist
if the food bank has gotten its millionth client yet. He said he didn’t know. I
said that I’d heard that the millionth customer would win a lifetime supply of
taco kits.
On the top of the first set of shelves
the most interesting item was a bottle of Braswell’s gourmet orange chipotle
sauce. I was allowed two items from that shelf but there was nothing that I
needed and so I just settled for a second Braswell’s product. This one was
tangy lemon caper sauce. I realized at that point that both products were meant
for cooking fish fillets, but it seemed to me that at least the orange chipotle
sauce might also be good with meat and especially pork. Looking this up later I
see that I was right and that there are even pork chop recipes with lemon caper
sauce. Braswell’s is mostly a jam, jelly and preserve making company in
Statesboro, Georgia that has been around since 1946.
On the lower shelves there was
mostly a wide variety of crackers, of which I had plenty. At the bottom there
was granola but I’ve lost my taste for heavy cereals.
Further over I got the usual can of
chickpeas, a tin of tuna and a carton of chicken broth. I also took a couple of
bottles of cucumber lime mint infused water.
Angie offered me a frozen ham or a
pack of frozen bacon. I still had some of the ham she'd given me the week
before and so I took the bacon to change things up a bit. It’s a little known
fact that bacon and ham come from two different animals. Bacon pigs were first
bred by Francis Bacon, hence the name; and ham pigs were developed by William
Shakespeare. It’s a little known fact because it’s only metaphorically true. I
also accepted three eggs from Angie.
While I was at Angie’s station
Valdene was standing at the bread section and holding a multi-grain loaf in her
hand. She asked me if I was going to get some bread. I said I would be looking
at the bread in a few seconds. She inquired again if I was going to take some
bread. I said, "If I like what I see.” She said, "Whatever", put
down the loaf she'd been holding and walked away.
I took a packaged flat bread from
the bread section because I planned on making pizza.
Sylvia was very friendly this time.
She called me “dear" once and later, "my darling". She gave me
two yellow peppers, two orange peppers, two onions and four clementines. She
tried to give me potatoes but I’m still finishing off the bag of little
potatoes she gave me before Christmas and I've yet to open the bag of PEI spuds
she gave me two weeks ago. She apologized for not having any tomatoes, although
I hadn’t asked for them.
I noticed that there was no longer a "take what you want"
section by the door. I don't know yet if that's temporary or the result of a
change in policy.
I made pizza later on and all of the ingredients except for the meat
and the cheese came from the food bank. It was delicious.
It was still raining when I left the
food bank on Saturday. I went home to put my food away and headed back out
through the downpour to the supermarket. At No Frills I bought two bags of
grapes, a bottle of mouthwash, some Sunlight dishwashing liquid, a can of dark
roast coffee and … There had been an item that I’d wanted but after I’d gotten
to the last aisle I’d forgotten what it was. Suddenly I remembered that it was
olive oil and I got some.
I had a toasted cheese and ham
sandwich for lunch.
I worked on writing my Food Bank
Adventure.
I fried four strips of bacon, added
a chopped onion, a pack of ground chicken and a chopped yellow pepper. While
those were cooking I put the flatbread that I’d gotten from the food bank into
an oiled flat pan. I used the garlic pizza sauce that I’d gotten from the food
bank a few weeks before. I spread the contents of the frying pan all over the
pizza and it was piled up fairly high. I put cheese on top of that and put my
pizza in the over for fifteen minutes. I had a quarter of it for dinner with a
beer while watching two episodes of Zorro.
At the beginning of the first story
a soldier named Lieutenant Santos is travelling from San Francisco to
Monterrey. He is ambushed and shot by Pablo and his accomplice Anastacio. His
white horse Phantom is a fighter and persists in attacking the men by kicking
with its front hooves but it is finally driven off. Anastacio takes Santos’s
uniform and identity, as he is to be the soldier meant to escort Verdugo and
the money from the California investors to Spain. Verdugo, his daughter Anna
Maria and their friend Romero leave with the fake Santos for the coast. Diego
and Bernardo head back to Los Angeles but on the way they encounter a riderless
white horse. It blocks their way and calls to them while standing on its back
hooves. Diego follows it but it is faster than Zorro’s horse Tornado. Diego
gives up chasing and returns to the trail but the white horse follows him and
calls to him again. Diego once again pursues the horse and this time is led to
the dying Lieutenant Santos who asks him to take care of Phantom. Meanwhile
Verdugo, Anna Maria, Romero and the fake Santos have camped for the night. The
impostor signals to the other bandits to attack. Just as they do so Zorro
arrives riding the white horse. There are sword battles and then Pablo escapes
again. Suspiciously, Romero shoots Anastacio before he can talk. Anna Maria
asks Zorro how she can thank him and he kisses her.
The
second story begins with Anna Maria coming home to find the house ransacked and
her father missing. She is confronted by Pablo who tells her she must pay the
40,000 pesos given Verdugo by the California landowners. She is warned not to
call the authorities or her father will die. Diego arrives and figures out that
Verdugo has been kidnapped and much to Anna Maria’s grief notifies the
soldiers. Anna Maria is determined to pay the ransom but she can’t find her father’s
strongbox. Finally she finds it behind a secret panel. She tells Sgt Garcia to
deliver it to the kidnappers. At the drop off point Garcia is knocked out and two
of the kidnappers take the money. But Zorro arrives, and after hearing them say
that Verdugo is being held at the blacksmith shop, easily defeats them. He goes
to rescue Verdugo and defeats the blacksmith but Pablo has a knife to Verdugo’s
neck. Zorro is forced to let them leave disguised as monks. Zorro returns the
money to Anna Maria and tells her that her father is safe as long as she has
the money. He promises her he will rescue him.
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