I finished memorizing “Mes idées sales” (My Dirty Thoughts) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords online and wasn’t surprised that no one had posted them. I worked them out for the first verse and since all the verses are musically the same, I only need to figure the transitions.
I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast.
I called the Parkdale Community Health Centre and asked about making an appointment with a hygienist, but the receptionist said they are still diverted on the covid front. He said however that the dentist is now allowed to work on non-emergency dental work, which includes cleanings, so I got an appointment for May 19.
I went to the Lucky Supermarket to buy a couple of bags of plantain chips.
I tried to work on my essay but it’s always difficult to stay awake before lunch since I’ve already been up for more than five hours.
I weighed 85.3 kilos before lunch. I made guacamole with cilantro. I opened up a bag of plantain chips to have with it, but they smelled rancid. I cut open the second bag and they were off as well. I’d been buying that same brand of plantain chips from Lucky Supermarket for years with no problem, but Lucky seems to have gone through three sets of owners during that time. The cashier offered an exchange for two more bags but I told her if two bags in a row were bad then the rest must also be rancid. They gave me my money back and I bought three bags of the Grace brand plantain chips that had a best before date two months from now. I liked the other brand better when the chips were fresh, but maybe the company went out of business and wasn’t refreshing their stock.
The trip back to Lucky cut into my lunchtime and so after eating I didn’t take a siesta until 14:39. I got up at 16:09 and saw it had rained and it was just letting up. The Weather Network said there was a chance of showers until 17:00 and so that and the fact that I was running late made me decide to not take a bike ride.
I got caught up on my journal just after 17:00.
I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:43.
I worked on my essay for more than an hour. I found that all of the solutions that Bakha finds for his plight as an Untouchable: being spiritual, being a choosy beggar, and hoping to be liberated someday by flush toilets are passive ones. The purpose of the novel is only to bring the Untouchables into existence. Slaves who cannot be seen, and whose slavery is also invisible cannot be liberated.
For dinner, I refried the rest of the broccoli, scallions, and lima beans that I cooked yesterday, and ate while watching an episode of Astro Boy.
In this story Dr. Elefun observes that neither Astro Boy nor Astro Girl have a sense of beauty. When asked to draw a flower he just draws its atomic structure while she scribbles something with no structure at all. Astro Boy realizes that this is another obstacle to him being like a real boy and he becomes upset. Elefun decides that it’s time that they both went to school.
It turns out that the school is a school for robot children with a robot teacher named Miss Mona Lisa and a robot principal. Their first lesson is in art appreciation. The students are sent outside the school to look for beautiful art. Astro Girl wanders off with a robot boy named Lola Pollooza to a place where there are sculptures on display.
Suddenly a sculpture that looks something like a Henry Moore is grabbed by the claw of a giant robot crab and placed inside of it. The owner of the robot, Al Mechanical is collecting art because it is useless and he plans to take all useless things to his lab and rebuild them into utensils. Astro Girl and Lola decide to report him but first Lola marks him with a fluorescent red dye that he shoots from his belly. But they are also captured by the robot crab.
When Astro Girl and Lola don’t return to school Astro Boy goes to look for them. He finds them with his super hearing and is about to smash the machine that’s holding them when Mechanical tells him that he will only release them if Miss Lisa comes to personally apologize. Astro Boy goes back to tell Lisa and she leaves to meet Mechanical.
Astro Boy decides to follow but he is stopped by the principal and punished with standing in a dunce cap for trying to leave the school. Meanwhile Lisa is also captured by Mechanical and he tells her that he is going to rebuild her because she is beautiful and useless and he will reconstruct Astro Girl and Lola as well.
The principal learns that Astro Boy was trying to help Miss Lisa but he is torn between releasing Astro Boy and disciplining him. Meanwhile, Mechanical tells Lisa, Astro Girl, and Lola that he is going to melt them down. Astro Girl buys time by making a last request that Mechanic not melt them down until after the fireworks display that night. At the school, the principal is still torn between letting Astro Boy go and making him stay.
After the fireworks Lola sprays Mechanical with dye again and they run. Lisa and Astro Girl are captured abut Lola is very fast and leads the robot crab back to the school where the principal realizes he must let Astro Boy go. Meanwhile, Lisa and Astro Girl are sent down the shoot in Mechanic’s lab towards the blast furnace that will melt them. Astro Boy destroys the robot crab and goes to save Lisa and Astro Girl. He rescues them just before they reach the furnace. He then destroys the other robot crabs and then captures Mechanical. Lisa however stops Astro Boy from punishing Mechanical and says they should forgive him. Forgiveness is the big lesson Astro Boy learns that day.
I found a few bedbugs before bed but the pest control technician did say that the new spray takes a couple of weeks to infect the bloodsuckers. Strangely, the two on the wall that I killed that contained my blood gave off no odour while the bloodless one I picked off my bed had the usual stink.
No comments:
Post a Comment