Comic Books from the 1990s

            I spent a lot of Sunday finishing my journal entry about my trip to the food bank on Saturday.

            In the afternoon I started my bike ride. The homeless woman who lives between the Brock Avenue sidewalk and the Beer Store parking lot was sitting on her large pile of rags with her umbrella open to keep the sun off.

            I rode up Broadview and stopped to use the washroom at Whistler’s. The only problem with weeing at Whistler’s is that the people from inside that come out for a smoke always seem to stand right beside the bike post rings. There are plenty of other places they could stand.

            It seems to be quite a bit faster to take Broadview to O’Connor rather than taking the Danforth to Woodbine and then travelling north to O’Connor. I rode from Westview to Amsterdam Avenue, took that east, dipped briefly down Glenburn, then continued to Victoria Park and south to St Clair. I give myself a minimum of 52 minutes to explore each new section, but when I got to St Clair I was so used to being over that time at the end of a street that I didn’t look at my watch to see that I actually would have had time to do Holland Avenue as well. I felt like I owed it to myself to finish that whole area on my next trip.

            Riding west on St Clair I was almost back at O’Connor when I saw a couple of boxes across the street that looked like they had books inside. I stopped and crossed over. One box was full of comic books, mostly from the 1990s. There were a lot of X-Men and X-Men related books, several Image comics, including some Spawn related material (all of which I already have) plus some of the other characters of that comic line. The rest were non-X-men Marvel comics with a few DC comics and four Simpsons comics. Altogether there were more than 100 comics, though about a quarter of them were not in great shape.

            The other two boxes were full of books, mostly science fiction. There was a shitload of stuff by L. Ron Hubbard. I actually hadn’t realized until then how much that guy had written, including books from the Western genre. I wouldn’t be surprised if every non-Scientology book that Hubbard ever wrote was in these boxes. Whoever threw these paperbacks away was clearly into authors. There were a large number of novels by Robert Ludlum, including the Bourne Identity. Additionally there were a few books each by Philip Jose Farmer, Terry Goodkind, Frank Herbert and single books by various other authors. I picked The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain; You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming; The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie and The return of the Black Widowers, which is a collection of detective stories written by Isaac Asimov of all people.

            I put about half the comics in the laptop pocket of my backpack, all the books in the main part, and the rest of the comics in one of the President’s Choice bags that I carry around, which I hung over my right handlebar.

            My ride back was heavier than I’d expected. I was especially careful on O’Connor at the rough patch where I’d wiped out before, jut north of the bridge over Taylor Creek. I stopped at Whistler’s to pee. There were a couple of young guys with guitars on the patio entertaining mostly three old guys drinking at a nearby table. They played “Squeeze Box” by The Who (perhaps the worst song that Pete Townsend ever wrote and Happy Together by the Turtles. The old guys were bobbing their heads and happily singing along.

            I watched the first episode of the third season of Maverick. It was kind of a silly story in which Bret and Bart went back to Texas because their “pappy” was about to get married to an 18-year-old woman. “Pappy” was played by James Garner with a lot of makeup.

Not a Good Idea to Tell Your Partner that She's Shitty at Something

            When I left the food bank on Saturday it was already almost 11:30 and I wanted to be at Bike Pirates by then to ensure that I wouldn’t have to wait for a stand. I rushed home and shoved only the milk in the fridge and the frozen peas in the freezer. I tend to refrigerate the fruit, vegetables and bread as well, but all that could wait. I took my velo to Bike Pirates and fortunately found that only one person was ahead of me. Another guy came by with his bicycle, looked at the closed gate, then looked at us and asked, “They open?” The guy ahead of me walked impatiently over to the hours sign in the window and pointed to Saturday, telling him, “They open at noon!” The man frowned and walked away. The other guy explained to me that this was the third time in ten minutes that he’d come by and asked the same question.

            There were six of us gathered by the time that David opened the gate at noon. He said that the first four of us could go to the stands. I told him that I’d been there last Saturday and that I’d dropped off a donation for that on Thursday. “Awesome!” he responded. I confessed that I wouldn’t have any money for a donation for this time until the end of the month. He just looked bored and said, “Whatever.” Then he told me to take stand number two.

            Before I’d even put my bike in the clamp, Den came and asked me what the problem was. I told him that it was the same problem that I’d had at the end of June and similar to last week when I also had to change the cotter pins. He said the only possible solution he could think of might be to change the axel. He got me the pin press and I set about removing he cotter pins.

            Meanwhile, Dawn arrived and came to the back, saying hi to me cheerfully as she went to talk to her husband, Den. I didn’t hear the conversation, but it seemed to be something practical relating to their common domestic interest. She was about to leave him to start working in the kitchen, but he called her back because he said he wanted to tell her something. Whatever he told her made her upset and they argued quietly before she turned and left.

            Den came over to tell me, “I think I just ruined my marriage! I told my wife that she’s a shitty drywaller!’ He explained that they were doing some renovations in their home and she was trying to do a lot of the work herself. He stressed that the problem is that she plasters and then sands all the plaster off again.

            Den got a couple of new cotter pins for me but they wouldn’t fit. He expressed that he couldn’t deal with it. “My marriage might be over! I’m gonna go ask David to help you!” He went to talk with David but he seemed occupied so he came back. Ted came around to help me and he and Den agreed that another axel might be the solution.

Den told Ted about what he’d said to Dawn. Ted wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help smooth things over. I asked if flowers would help, but Den assured me they wouldn’t. Ted suggested a certain procedure of sweet talk but Den guaranteed him that Dawn would not fall for anything like that. Den went back and forth between expressing regret for what he’d said and asserting just how true his statement was. “She really is a shitty drywaller!” he insisted and declared that he was an excellent drywaller. I told him that where I come from we call drywall “gyprock”. Den confirmed that’s one of the names for the stuff. Ted asked where I was from and I told him New Brunswick. Den told me that he was from the States. I asked what the origin was of the name “Den” but felt pretty stupid that I’d missed the obvious answer that it was short for Dennis. Ted pointed out that there was the Heavy Metal character named “Den”. I reminded them that he was also in the movie. Ted said that he still remembered the line, “There was no way I was gonna walk around this place with my dork hanging out.”

“She’s an amazing cook!” Den said of Dawn. I was surprised that in 40 years of marriage he’d never criticized her like that before. I told him that I’d once insulted my ex-girlfriend’s gardening. He suggested that was why she was my “ex” girlfriend. It had not been my intention to hurt her feelings. She had been detailing to me how she’d designed her garden and had pulled up and killed some plants because they hadn’t fit with her vision. I made the lighthearted comment in response to this that she was “an aesthetic idiot.” It upset her so much that I never heard the end of it and she reminded me of it during other arguments for the rest of our relationship.

Den started looking for a cotterless crankset for me.

                I removed the old crankset and axel, clawed out the old ball bearings and cleaned up the bottom bracket. We used caged ball bearings this time, though I’d heard Dennis declare when I’d put the loose ball bearings in that cages are useless. From looking at forums I see that the general opinion seems to be that loose ball bearings make for smoother movement. I greased the cages and the cups generously though. We tried several different lengths of axels until we found the right one. The first crankset that Den found didn’t fit but he found another that worked and he even found a left side crank arm that matched the one that was attached to the crank ring.

                I think that during the time that I was there, Den must have told everybody in the shop about his ill-fated comment to his wife. Perhaps he was hoping that one of the people had the answer. Maybe he would have gotten it if one of the customers or volunteers on this day had been a woman.

            The crank ring was slightly larger than my old one, so I had to raise the derailleur a bit. Den helped me to adjust the gears. At first Den thought that my old pedals would not fit the new crank arms but I was relieved that they did. I put the whole thing back together and took my bike for a test drive. It rode smoothly, but then again it did the same on the previous Saturday. The general opinion on the forums is that cotterless cranks are better because they are lighter and less of a pain in the ass to maintain.

            After cleaning up my table I thanked Ted and then Den on my way out. Den apologized for how long it took. It took a little over three hours, which for anything other than just a flat tire or a brake adjustment seems to be the average time that I spend at Bike Pirates anytime I go there.

            That night David knocked on my door to give me a little 200 ml bottle of Royal Crown whiskey. Now I have two bottles of wine and one bottle of booze from him. I’m building up quite a little bar. If he’d given me beer I would have drank it.

           

           

           

           
            

Rainier Cherries

            I didn’t get much sleep from a little after midnight on Saturday morning till the alarm went off at 5:00. I think I was still upset at the Toronto Transitional Housing Allowance Program for rejecting my application for a housing allowance on the grounds that I’d sent my application in past the deadline, even though a worker had called me after the deadline to tell me it wasn’t too late.

            I got leg cramps during some of my yoga exercises but perhaps that resulted from the lack of slumber.

            I had trouble completely hearing the pitch of my voice during song practice because my left ear was a bit plugged.

            Later that morning I went to the food bank. The line-up was normal for a week and a half into the month. It would probably be longer next week and sill longer the next and then shorten again at the beginning of September.

            The homeless Native woman was still in dreamland to the left of the door, with one bare foot and her black cane sticking out from under her sleeping bag.

            I was behind the big Jamaican woman who never stands in line but always finds a place to sit until it’s her turn to go inside. She was inside the entryway on the built-in window seat.

            The dancing man with the cigar was a little further ahead in line, though I’m not sure if he was really in line for the food bank. As usual, he had his headphones on and was moving to music that I couldn’t hear.

            Muhammad arrived and asked how my week had been. I sighed and he laughed. If I’d stopped to think about his question I’d actually had a pretty good week with lots of good weather for velo riding. But I told him that I’d been having bike problems even though those hadn’t arisen until the day before. My crankset was misbehaving again. It started at the end of June, but I’d fixed it by installing new cotter pins. Last Saturday I had a bent crank ring and ended up changing the cotter pins again just so a new crankset would fit. Then on Friday evening I ended up with the same crankset situation that I’d had at the end of June with the crank arms not rotating smoothly but skipping during each turn. He told me that he had a bicycle in his back yard that I could have for parts and then he said he could give me his number. When I started writing it down he told me the name was “Moe”.

            I asked him if he preferred Moe to Muhammad. He verified that he did because of the reactions. He added that since his full name is Muhammad Ali people often associate him with Mohammed Ali, the boxer. He asserted that his answer is always that the fighter is dead but he isn’t.

            Moe mentioned that he went to Caribana last Saturday but that they’d reversed the route this year so that instead of starting on the Exhibition grounds and ending at Sunnyside Beach, it started at the beach and ended at the Ex, with the result that people had to pay $30 to see the floats. It’s true that they’d changed the direction of the parade but I didn’t quite understand what he meant about not being able to see the floats. I assume people still lined the route and saw the floats as they passed without having to pay. He offered the view that the city is nicer to the Pride parade than it is to Caribana.

            I remembered that Moe had referred last time to receiving a rent subsidy from the TTHAP. I told about my application having been rejected because I was past the deadline, even though a social worker had told me that it wasn’t too late. He explained that he was lucky that he didn’t even have to apply because his worker had done everything for him. He pointed out that he’s in a fortunate position because he was in prison and that an apartment was found for him by social workers even before he was released. He boasted that his landlord couldn’t even bother him with any disputes because everything has to be done through his worker.

            It turned out that Moe wasn’t even there for the food bank that day. He’d just stopped to chat with me, so he headed east and I started reading my book. I moved away a lot because the people ahead and behind me in line were smoking a lot.

            I went downstairs to use the washroom and the entryway smelled like pee.

            An SUV police car drive by and the dancing man started singing “Drugs in my Pocket” by the Monks, though I somehow doubt that song was playing in his headphones. Then he said something about an “overdose of Ex-Lax”.

            A woman and her two children came up the street and pushed the button to cross Queen. The dancing man walked over and handed the mother a roll of candy, similar to Lifesavers. She thanked him and opened it up to give one each to her kids. Then she urged them to, “Thank Wayne for the candy!” They each called out, “Thanks Wayne!”

            I usually see Wayne at least once a day through my window when he stops at the metal oil drum beside the A+ Sushi and Bibim and bangs out a simple rhythm for a while with a stick. I’ve yet to see that guy in a bad mood.

            The food bank opened at least twenty minutes late and when it did there was a protest by the big woman who sits with the older gentleman on the steps of 1501 Queen. When the line started moving she returned to her spot near the front and complained to the doorkeeper about a guy that was far ahead of where he was supposed to be. After a few minutes the man from Guyana, who I’ve seen in Parkdale for twenty years, walked sadly to the back of the now fairly long line while Wayne started singing “Get Back” by the Beatles with his own improvised lyrics about getting back in line. The woman behind me wondered aloud why they were making him go to the back when she’d seen him there when she arrived. She told him that he could go behind me and in front of her. I remember chatting with that guy two decades ago when I first moved into my place above the donut shop. He was quite coherent back then but now he seems to be always in a daze.

            I was still in line at almost 11:00 when Moe came walking back west. He was surprised that we were all still there. He suggested that I call him after the food bank and come over to look at the bike he’d mentioned earlier. I told him that I had to go to Bike Pirates right after I brought my groceries home because there’s usually a big line-up on Saturdays and I didn’t want to have to wait. He argued that I could fix my bike at his place because he had all the tools but I declined. He seemed very disappointed as he left.

            Downstairs I got number 23. Instead of Angie handing out the meat and dairy it was the nervous volunteer whom I hadn’t seen for a while. I put my number in the can as usual, but she asked me what the number had been and fished it out so she could find out if I was there for family or just myself. She gave me a one-litre bag of milk and choice between four eggs, a pack of frozen chicken wieners and a box of frozen breakfast Bagel Bites. The hot dogs looked like the brand of halal chicken wieners that were recalled recently, but I guess since they were frozen they could have been from a different batch. I’d had the breakfast bagel bites last week and though the bacon part was all right, the cheese and egg layer was kind of disgusting. I took the eggs. She also offered me a six-pack of single servings of yogourt, but I saw that they contained Sucralose so I turned them down.

            Sylvia’s vegetable section had a lot of frozen sweet peas. She put five 400-gram bags in my backpack. She also gave me four potatoes, three parsnips, one carrot, an apple, an orange, the equivalent of one onion in two and a bag of Rainier cherries.

            I think I’d seen the muscular young volunteer that was my guide for the shelves once before at the previous location. He barely spoke at all but would just wave his hand in the direction of the items that he was offering. It looked like all the cereal they had were boxes of some kind of Despicable Me themed banana concoction. I commented that it looked disgusting and he pointed to the corner of the shelf where there were a few boxes of Dorset muesli, with raisins, dates, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts and multigrain flakes.

            I skipped the pasta and rice. I might have taken some sauce if they’d had any but there were only cans and a jar of crushed tomatoes.

            There were no canned beans, canned tuna or any kind of soup or broth this time. Instead of jars of sugar infested peanut butter they had restaurant sized individual servings of the same stuff. I didn’t want any of that. I did take a can of grapefruit sections in syrup.

            I found on one shelf a package of Korean seasoned seaweed. They usually come in packs of three at the supermarket, but this was only one. They do make for a good light snack though.

            He gave me a handful of lemon Larabars. I like the Larabars because they are only sweetened with dried fruit, but the lemon is my least favourite. He also gave me a king-size O’Henry cookie bar and a Nature Valley roasted almond crunchy bar. Then like a stage magician’s assistant he waved his hand at the bread to indicate that I should help myself and then he disappeared.

            I took two sliced loaves of brown rye bread, one with seeds on the crust.

            There was once again a shortage of protein at the food bank, except for the peas, especially considering that the litre of milk was sour and that I wasted half a bowl of muesli to find that out. It was nice to see a little more fruit than usual. I don’t recall having eaten Rainier cherries before. They didn’t taste as good as red cherries but their flavour was interestingly wild.

Bureauctopus

            On Friday morning I had a functional guitar tuner again, which saved a lot of time and on top of that my guitar didn’t go out of tune very much, so I was way ahead.

            Since the beginning of the summer a short school bus has stopped in the Dollarama parking lot at the same time every morning. The driver, a man that looks like he’s in his late 60s, turns on all the flashers, extends the crossing arm, then walks all around the bus to do a safety check. He even uses a flashlight to see if everything is hunky dory underneath. His assessment takes about ten minutes and then he drives away.

            I looked online for images of the Fullworth store to post with my blog about the day before but there weren’t any good ones, so I went out to take my own. It’s not a very photogenic store, especially not in the glare of almost midday.

            I spent about an hour working on my book cover.

            It looked like it was going to rain in the early afternoon but it didn’t and the sun came out at the time I would normally go for my bike ride, so I went. The Waste of the Danforth festival had Danforth blocked off, so I rode up Broadview to where it becomes O’Connor, continued on to Woodbine, across the bridge over Taylor Creek to St Clair and then north past Yardley, which I’d ridden on the day before but now the pavement had been stripped. The next street was Galbraith, which I followed to Victoria Park.

            On one of the side streets off Galbraith there was a rattling little car that had been punched in where its left headlight used to be. It was obviously not a recent wound because the crumpled metal was all rusted in its wrinkles.

            I went back by way of O’Connor also. At Pape it started to lightly rain and it kept it up till Mortimer where I stopped at Whistler’s to use the washroom. When I came out the sun was shining again.

            At Yonge Street my crankset started to behave strangely again. It wasn’t the same warped movement as last week but rather more like the problem I’d had at the end of June when I needed to change the cotter pins. The thing was though that I’d just changed both pins the week before. Was one of the new pins faulty or is there something wrong with my crankset? It looked like I’d be spending another Saturday at Bike Pirates, even though I wouldn’t have any money to donate for another two and a half weeks.

            When I got home there was a letter from the Toronto Transitional Housing Allowance Program. I opened it hopefully only to read that I was not eligible for the program. The reason for rejecting my application though was absurd. They said that my application was sent after the March 21^st deadline. I knew that I had missed that deadline and that’s why I hadn’t sent in the application, but on Monday July 24^th I got a call from someone that told me she was contacting people that had missed the deadline in order to tell them they could still apply and that it wasn’t too late if they did it right away. That afternoon I filled it out. I attached a copy of my 2015 notice of tax assessment. I downloaded and filled out a direct deposit form from my bank. I would accept just about any excuse for rejecting my application, but not because I was past the deadline since someone called to tell me it wasn’t too late. I thought this was probably a bureaucratic error resulting from one section of the same government office not knowing what another is doing. I was angry and ready to fight this, but it was Friday night and I couldn’t call them till Monday. I hadn’t deleted the list of phone calls made to my phone for a long time so I scrolled back to the morning of July 24^th. The number that had called me was 416-397-7438. I did a search on the number and found that it was from Social Services. So it was I assume a Toronto social worker that had called me and not someone from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Somehow it seems the two offices got their wires crossed. I guessed the Ontario people might be able to just claim that the Toronto people got it wrong. I would have to call both offices on Monday and see what could be done.

            One assumes that since the worker told me on July 24^th that she was calling everyone that had not sent in their applications by March 21^st, there must have been a lot of people whose applications were turned down based on her call. I’ll bet that I sent mine in a lot sooner than the others that she’d called.

            There was one funny segment in the Maverick episode I watched that night. The sheriff of Virginia City told Bart maverick that he had to leave town in 24 hours unless he’d become gainfully employed. The next day when the sheriff came to kick him out Bart announced that he couldn’t legally make him leave because he had found a job. When asked what the job was he told him that he was a camel spotter. Every hour he had to look outside to see if there were any camels and if there were he would notify the state department about the invasion.

Cheap Batteries!

            On Thursday I used the AP Tuner on my computer for the first time but I hardly even needed it. Since we seemed to be out of the extremely muggy part of the summer my guitar hardly went out of tune at all from when I tried out the software the night before.

            Around midday I rode down to the bank machine at King and Dufferin because my Trillium Benefit had come through and there was $60 in my account. Then I went directly to Queen and Westlodge because I wanted to buy a CR-2032 battery for my clip-on tuner. I locked my bike to the signpost in front of the store but found the store locked, with a note that read “Back in 3 minutes”. I went up a few doors the street to the Lucky Supermarket, but they didn’t have that kind of battery and I remember that they never have. I went across to Fullworth and the place was empty, except for the checkout person and the manager, who was scratching a lottery card. I showed him the battery and he led me to where they were. He took down a package of two and I was about to say that I only wanted one when he surprised me by telling me that it was $1.99 for two. They charge twice as much for one battery at Young’s Fine Foods, but I guess they sell a higher end brand. These were Camelion brand, which I’d never heard of. Possibly one won’t last as long but I have two now.

            Next I took my bike home, put it in the hall and then walked to Bike Pirates to put $10 in their donation box. It wasn’t much for four hours of work and a crankset but I’m poor.

            I had $48 left to buy some groceries, so I headed for Freshco. Their grapes were very cheap so I grabbed a couple of bags. I got two bunches of bananas, one ripe and one less so, a watermelon and a package of mini-packs of raisins. The Ontario peaches were out, so I picked eight of those. I got a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread. I was sorely in need of meat since I hadn’t had any for about a week. For the last two days I had been eating a thick soup that I’d made with navy beans, beef broth, onions, tomato paste and spices. It was actually quite tasty but I’d been farting like crazy as a result. There was a pork sirloin half on sale for a little over $8. That would be delicious and good for several meals. I also needed coffee and I’d brought with me a No Frills flyer so I could do a price match on 920 grams of Folgers, which Freshco was selling for $10.99, but No Frills had for $6.88. I took three containers of yogourt and a tub of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” with buttermilk. It seems to me that it would be more appropriate if they came up with an ingredient called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttermilk” to add to their margarine.

            At the checkout I was surprised to find that the total was more than I had. I usually work it out in my head while I’m shopping and round it up so that it’s always less than I have. I gave back the margarine and one of the yogourts so I could pay for everything. I only remembered when I left the store that I hadn’t miscalculated at all. I’d just forgotten to do the price match and so I’d ended up paying full price for the Folgers coffee. I don’t even like Folgers enough to pay full price for it. I could have had an extra $4 in my pocket if I hadn’t been ripped off by my own forgetfulness.

            That afternoon I took a bike ride up to O’Connor and St Clair and then further north to Yardley and Westview, which I took to Victoria Park. It probably would have only taken a few minutes for me to finish exploring that area but I decided to get home as soon as possible and start cooking that roast.

            When I got home I started preparing the pork sirloin. I stabbed it a few times all around, and then I mixed gargarine, rosemary, paprika, salt and leftover flat beer and rubbed the mixture into it. I roasted it for an hour, but there were still red parts inside so I gave it another thirty minutes and it was fine.

            I watched an episode of Maverick that guest starred Connie Stevens as a kooky, happy go lucky girl with a tragic past who attaches herself amorously to Bret Maverick and won’t let go no matter how hard he tries to get away. One of the bad guys was played by Adam West, who I didn’t recognize at first through the moustache, but finally after hearing him speak for a while I thought, “That sounds like Adam West!” He was very slim back then and so he was hardly convincing as a tough guy, but it was comical the way that he was so polite when he and another crook were brutally beating Maverick up.

Quest for the Holy Tuner

            The online tuner failed me again on Wednesday morning, so later on I tried to find an actual download of tuner software so I could have something more dependable. There was a free one in Google apps but when I clicked to download it I couldn’t find it. I looked at various lists of tuners that were available and typed their names into the Pirate Bay search window. I tried downloading one called “gStrings” but nobody was seeding it. Finally one simply called “guitar tuner” came through. It turned out though to not be chromatic like I wanted. It only produced the tones for each string.

            I went for a bike ride in the afternoon under beautiful but threatening clouds. I rode up Westview north of St Clair to Tiago and then cruised east to Victoria Park. From there I travelled south, exploring all the side streets that sloped west to Glenburn as far down as St Clair.

            I decided to use the washroom once I was on the Danforth again but I missed the first Starbucks, the second one had no free post rings for locking my bike and in the third on they’d just cleaned the loos so they wanted the bleach to settle before they let people use them. I walked east to the Black Swan and felt itchy as soon as I got inside.

            There were a couple of fast riders on the College bike lane on my way home. I couldn’t get past them, though I wasn’t too far behind.

            I had pasta with Alfredo sauce and mushrooms for dinner.

            I downloaded a second guitar tuner but that turned out not to be chromatic either. Finally I found an app called AP Tuner and that was chromatic. I found it very complex at first though, with all kinds of numbers that I didn’t understand. I kept tuning my guitar according to the needle being at zero and yet the guitar was still out of tune. In the end I figured out that the column to the right of the needle was highlit on the string the program though I was trying to tune and when it was off it was because my string was tuned out of the range of the note it was supposed to play.

The program always opens with a registration window but there is an option to not register and a note that says one can use the software as long as one wants.

            So I finally had a chromatic tuner to use as a backup when I ran out of batteries for my clip-on. 

Buzzy Bugs Taste Like Lobster to Birds

            On Tuesday morning when I tried to use tunerr.com to tune my guitar it didn’t work. I accessed the site and the digital image of the guitar tuner was on the screen but it showed no notes at all. Fortunately it wasn’t a very humid day, so once I did get my guitar manually in tune it stayed there for most of my song practice.

            The soy cheese slices I got from the food bank taste like horse sweat.

            I took a bike ride in the late afternoon. Cruising up Squires Avenue, just north of St Clair and about halfway between O’Connor and Victoria Park, from behind me a sparrow was flying erratically and low to the ground. At the same time an angry buzzing sound was coming from its beak. At first I thought its behaviour was directed at me because perhaps I’d ridden past its nest. But then I saw that there was a fat bug in the bird’s beak and the buzzing was being made by the wings of the insect as it desperately tried to escape. I’ll bet big fat buzzy bugs taste like lobster to a sparrow.

            I rode up to Tiago, turned right and went back down Glenburn, where two teenagers, talking in Russian, were walking their bikes up the middle of the road. As I was looking at them the one closest to me looked back, said something in Russian and shoved his bike slightly in my direction. What a putz!

            I’d had a mild ache in my chest since getting up that morning. It didn’t get any worse when my heart rate went up and it actually disappeared during my bike ride.

            I stopped at the first Starbucks on Danforth and a very perky young employee greeted me as I came in. I told him I just needed to use the washroom and he asked if I knew the password. I told him I did.

            I had to pass a very long line of westbound cyclists on my way home on College Street.

            When I was about to hang my bike up, my upstairs neighbour, David came in. I didn’t have to remind him that he still had my pilsner glass. He brought it up and told me he’d bring it back, though he didn’t bring it that night.