On Wednesday at 11:00 I went to the
foodbank to get a number. There was already a line-up. The red faced woman with
the grey hair was smoking on the fire escape, as usual. She was talking to the
guy in front of me, who also had grey hair, but he wasn’t in bad shape. I guess
he’d been talking about people that he doesn’t get along with and she kept
saying, “I like ya!” She also told him he had a cute face. I got number
eighteen and went home.
When
I came back I was annoyed to see that both sides of the bike stand on King
Street, in front of the food bank were occupied. I went around to the back and
locked my bike on a tree.
The
red-faced woman was still smoking on the fire escape. I don’t know if she’d
ever left. As her number was about to be called, she came and stood by the
door. She said to a dark haired woman who was sitting by the door, “You’re a
pretty girl, eh?” She said to the door person, “Dr. Oz says carrots are good
for the eyes!” The door person responded, “They’ve been saying that for years.”
“I don’t know, but that’s what he says! Do you watch that Dr Phil?” “No, I
don’t like watching Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil.” “I don’t really like them either, but
I watch them anyway!”
There’s
usually a choice between canned soups or a carton of broth, and I always take
the broth. The volunteer I had always likes it when I make that choice, but
each time lists for me some of the possibilities of what I can cook with it.
There
was no milk or meat this time around, only a choice between four small
flavoured soymilk drinks and a two litre carton of cranberry-Raspberry
cocktail. I took the juice. There was also a weird rock-hard, flourless cake
made out of grains, nuts, honey and agaves syrup. Hilariously, instead of as
part of a list of ingredients, the ingredients are listed after the words, “May
contain”.
The
bread lady had a replacement this time around and he gave me a lot of bagels.
The
pickings were pretty slim this time around.
That
evening I rode north to St Clair. The clouds were pleasant and soft and were
gold tinted from the sunlight. To the west, with the sun shining around and
through them they were much more dramatic.
Riding
east on St Clair, my shadow was stretched to the limit.
I
rode up Mt Pleasant to Millwood and through a lower middle class neighbourhood to
Bayview, back down to Davisville and then west again. On the way to Yonge I
found a box of books. I took Salman Rushdie’s “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”,
Douglas Coupland’s “Life After God” and Johnathan Goldstein’s “Ladies and
Gentlemen, the Bible!”
It
was dark already and I turned my front and back flashers on, which are both
getting a little weak. I considered stopping to buy batteries but decided I
could make it home this time, but promised myself I’d do it soon. I was worried
though about my visibility all the way down Yonge Street.
On
Queen Street I felt better after passing a parking enforcement officer with a
back flasher just as weak as mine. His was larger though and so more visible.
At
Bathurst and Queen there was a young drunk guy in a pork pie hat lying spread
eagle on the sidewalk with his legs sticking out on the road. He wasn’t
unconscious though, as I heard him talking to some people behind him who were
sitting on the steps of the West Neighbourhood House.
I
watched the Buster Keaton silent film, “Neighbours”. Keaton and his girlfriend
are neighbours across a courtyard, but her father doesn’t approve of them seeing each other. There are a lot of acrobatic
displays on the part of Keaton as he uses the community clothesline, power
lines and a wooden fence to get to her. Near the end, two guys help him elope
with her from her third story window. One guy comes out of the first story
window and another onto his shoulders from the second and Buster on his from
the third. They cross the yard and buster carries her away on top of the two
other guys.
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