Food Bank Adventures: Eat and Run

            On Saturday morning, halfway through yoga as usual I shut down my computer to give it a rest. An option to “update and shut down” popped up and since that doesn’t usually take very long I clicked on it. But when I finished yoga the updates were only at 4% and so I was forced to go back to my old schedule. About a month ago, after many years of starting song practice at 6:00 I changed it to 7:00 because the young woman in the building next door complained that it was too loud and because I found out that the city bylaw states that there can’t be any noise before 7:00. But since I couldn’t access my computer to work on my memorization of “Meurtre à l’extincteur” (Murder by Fire Extinguisher) by Serge Gainsbourg, I went ahead and started song practice at 6:00. I deliberately held back from belting out the songs and instead of singing towards the window, ninety degrees from her apartment, I faced the mirror with my back to her place. For all I know maybe the sound bounced off the wall into her bedroom and it was even louder than ever, but that was the best I could do.

            The updates took two hours and finished almost exactly when my song practice was over.

            I memorized the first two verses of “Meurtre à l’extincteur” and there’s only half a verse left.

            At 9:45 I went to the food bank and found that Graham was two places ahead of me. I put my backpack down on my spot and went to chat with him from two metres away.

            I asked him if he was still working doing computer work for the health care company but he said he’d lost the job. They had initially laid him off because of the pandemic with the possibility of coming back but then his one year contract ran out and they didn’t renew it.

            We discussed the current situation at the food bank and he lamented the fact that he can no longer go downstairs to choose what he wants. He said that often we were allowed to grab as much bread as we wanted but now he finds they don’t put enough bread in the boxes that they bring upstairs. He told me that he would be quite satisfied if they just handed him a box full of nothing but bread. He declared that he needs carbs and recounted how his second wife had put them both on the carb-free Atkins diet and he’d fainted on the subway one morning on his way to work. He said he’d been standing on the crowded train and hanging on to the overhead bar when he just lost consciousness. He came to on the floor but felt lucky that he still had his laptop.

            Since the energy from carbs comes from it turning to sugar in the body I asked if fruit works just as well. He informed me that the sugar in fruit runs through the body very quickly while the sugar in carbohydrates goes straight to the muscles. He said that’s why all marathon runners load up on pasta before every race. I’d had no idea that they did that. I’d recently seen an old comedy skit that showed the Italian Olympic broad jump team eating a big spaghetti dinner before the competition and I’d thought that was part of the joke.

            Looking this up I see that carb loading is a big deal for marathon runners but the preference seems to be things like chicken sandwiches or bagels with peanut butter than pasta. Kenyan runners drink a lot of tea loaded with milk and sugar and their main dinner tends to be corn meal with chicken or beef stew.

            I asked Graham how he go into marathon running and he said that he started it as therapy for his bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorders. He said he ran 16 kilometres every day, five days a week for several years and ran in the Toronto marathon. He tried to qualify several times for the Boston marathon’s forty two kilometre distance but he could never do it in under three hours. He said his running life ended in 1986 when his back was injured in a car accident.

            A tall, young man in a Tilley hat came down the line with a clipboard taking our card numbers. I know mine by heart now. A few minutes later they came and handed out the milk cartons full of food. I took mine over across the sidewalk from Graham so I could give him my bag of buns and make his day. He also accepted my pasta, my six eggs and the three little packs of crackers and cheese. I couldn’t get him to take the canned mushrooms, the jar of sugared peanut butter or the box of Lucky Charms. He said he had been about to offer his Lucky Charms to me.

            We each received another face mask and Graham said he was puzzled by the note on the bag that stresses that “This face covering is not intended to be personal protective equipment”. I said I think it means that one wears a mask to protect others from you and not you from others. But I added that I think they only say that to save their legal asses since anything that covers one’s will protect one to some degree.

            An elderly woman bent down and picked up the peanut butter. Maybe she’d seen me already offer it to Graham. I told her she could take it and gave her the mushrooms as well. I had a hell of a time getting rid of the Lucky Charms. I held the box up to several people that were in line behind me but no one wanted it. I jokingly argued, “But they’re lucky!” One guy said, “Yea but they’re horrible!” It’s amazing that it’s consistently one of the top ten best selling cereals. It seems that food bank clients have better taste than the general populace. A passing woman finally took the box off my hands.

            I took four chewy chocolate chip granola bars; a can of garlic pasta sauce; two half litres of milk; two small containers of fruit bottom yogourt; two eighty five gram tubs of ranch dip; a frozen double chicken breast; two potatoes; a large onion; a bag containing four small bok choy and two orange peppers; a head of romaine lettuce and a bag of grapes. The chicken was a good score and so was the fruit, since we rarely get grapes at the food bank.

            I took my food home and headed back out to the supermarket. At No Frills I bought three bags of cherries; three bags of grapes; a half pint of Canadian raspberries; a pack of three strip loin steaks; a container of yogourt and some mouthwash.

            In the line-up for the checkout the customer ahead of me had moved to the other side of the Plexiglas barrier, four metres away, to pay and I moved to the beginning of the belt to get ready to put my food down when the cashier asked me to step back behind the yellow line. That seemed to me a bit extreme and so it pissed me off a bit but I did what I was told.

            For lunch I had a toasted croissant sandwich with lettuce, cucumber and cheese.

            In the afternoon I skipped my exercises and a bike ride to work on writing my Food Bank Adventure. I finished it before dinner.

            I made a naan pizza with tomato sauce and the last of the shredded cheese. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

            In the first story Sir Geoffrey is a scholar intending to do research on outlaws in Sherwood Forest and Herbert is his manservant. They are posing as outlaws from the north, Tom of  Tedworth and Jim Stark in hopes of joining Robin Hoods band. They are stopped by Robin along the path and Robin is curious enough to pretend to let them join even though he doesn’t believe they are who they say they are. They are put to work and since Robin has heard of Jim Stark and knows he is renowned as both an archer and a wrestler, he puts him to the test. Just by luck Herbert hits the bull’s-eye on a target when he can barely hold a bow properly and he also has his eyes closed. Then he gets tossed around by Little John in a wrestling match until Robin tells him Little John’s weakness and he's able to throw him. Geoffrey secretly writes in his journal about Robin and his men and Little John happens to overhear Herbert calling Geoffrey “Sir”. When Robin announces that they will be ambushing some of the sheriff's men to free a captive outlaw and to also acquire collected tax money, Sir Geoffrey wants to inform the sheriff. But Herbert has begun to sympathize with the noble outlaw cause and he begins to assert his own will. When Geoffrey sneaks away to get to Nottingham Herbert follows and stops him. He knocks him out and brings him back to camp. Meanwhile the outlaw that Robin rescues is the real Jim Stark. Herbert confesses their true identity and Geoffrey agrees to tear up the insulting page about Little John.

            The second story features the return of Duncan of Stoneykirk. Will Scarlet accidentally shoots Duncan's bagpipes while deer hunting. Marian is brought in to mend the instrument. Duncan uses the word Sassenach which is kind of a derogatory Scottish word for an Englishman. Duncan is there for revenge against Tam McKinnon who murdered two of his kinsmen. Tam plays bagpipes for a friend of the sheriff’s named Sir Fulke Devereaux. Duncan is going to compete against Tam on the bagpipes and he wants Robin to pose as a Scotsman to go to Devereaux's castle and to help him in case there's trouble. Robin is embarrassed about having to wear a kilt. Duncan brings Devereaux a chest of gold to hand him over Tam. Devereaux asks Duncan to play the pipes and Robin to dance. Tam says of Robin, “If he’s a Scotsman then I’m a Dutchman!” Tam tosses a coin at Robin and he brings his knees together to catch it. Tam says a Scotsman would’ve spread his knees. Tam says he recognizes Robin and tells Devereaux that he could get a bigger reward handing over Robin than him. Devereaux says Duncan can take Tam and so the two Scots draw swords on one another with Duncan killing Tam. But then Devereaux says he’s going to hand them both over to the sheriff. Robin and Duncan fight Devereaux and his men with Little John and Will coming in at the last minute to help out. Robin takes the casket of gold as payment for his troubles but says he’ll give Duncan half. Duncan says it’s all his clan’s resources and so he wants it all. It looks like this story might be continued next time.