When I went to the
bank at King and Dufferin it was totally empty of customers, so I got served
right away. Since I was out already I decided to get a couple of other things
done. I went to the pharmacy to refill a prescription, and while they were
mixing it up for me I went next door to Wind Mobile to pay for my phone
service. I went back to the drug store but still had to wait for my steroid
cream. The guy behind the cash counter was wearing a tank shirt with a map of
Texas on the chest and he had tattoos on both arms. He was quite personable but
visually it was a striking contrast to the pharmacists in their white coats.
When my psoriasis medication was finally ready I was told hat they didn’t have
my drug card for that month. It was a day of things slipping my mind, so I went
home to get the card.
On my way back out of my building, Sundar
was coming in. I told him I’d be just a few minutes. He had a bit of a coughing
fit as I was riding away and I was wondering if he’d taken up smoking again
after his throat surgery last year.
Back at the drug store, even with my drug
card in their hands, there was still a delay. The woman that was putting the
codes into the computer had a puzzled look on her face. She walked away to
consult with someone. Finally I got my cream and went to unlock my bike.
My bike was chained
to a stand, the other side of which was locked an electric scooter with a very
sensitive alarm. It had gone off when I’d put my bike there and it did so again
a couple of times while I was unlocking my ride. The alarm made three different
noises each time it went off. I found it so annoying that, in hopes that the
owner was nearby, as soon as the alarm stopped I deliberately gave the scooter
a tap in order to set it off again. I did this a couple of times while wrapping
my chain around the crossbar. Just before walking away I gave it another tap
for good measure and the scooter said, “Whoop whoop whoop bip bip bip bip awooo
awooo!” as a goodbye.
Sundar came for the
rent when I was just finishing up in the bathroom. I shouted “Just a minute!” a
couple of times, then came out to give him the envelope. After that I asked him
how he was. He shook his head and told me, “Very bad!” He recounted how a day
or so before he had collapsed in his apartment and couldn’t move his arms and
legs to call the ambulance. He only got help when his friend finally came to
the door and heard him moaning. I assume from the symptoms that he had been in
insulin shock. He smelled like he’d been drinking as he told me this and he was
almost crying when he was telling me that he has no family here in Canada to
help him. Everyone is back in Sri Lanka, except for a sister that’s in England.
That evening I took
my bike ride under big, bright, beautiful clouds that made me feel solid and
singular, but not heavy. At several points along Bloor street, as I passed the
open doors of some bars, I would hear the whooshing roar of the collective
reaction to a score or a save in the football game between Germany and Italy.
I rode to St
Cuthberts and Bayview in the Leaside neighbourhood. Turning up the dead end
street of Bemey Crescent I discovered one of the nicest looking apartment
complexes I’d ever seen. This art deco style collection of buildings, courtyard
and landscaped gardens is called Garden Court Apartments and the address is
1477 Bayview. I later looked it up and found that it was built between 1939 and
1941. I left my bike on Bemey, along with my backpack and walked through the
courtyard of the complex to its entrance at Bayview, taking pictures along the
way. I thought that I might be taking a risk, leaving my bike unlocked, out of
my sight, with my wallet in my open backpack beside it, but for some reason I
was sure that no one was going to steal my stuff. There were two women and a
young man chatting in front of one of the apartments. The women were on lawn
chairs and the man was on the grass. As I passed the man said, “Hello!” I told
them that their building was one of the nicest apartment complexes I’d ever
seen. He said, “Thank you!” as if he’d built it himself, and added, “That makes
me feel better!”
On my way home I
detoured a bit and went to the No Frills at Lansdowne and Dundas, where I met
Diane Pugen, who was the very first art instructor that I’d ever posed for as a
model, back in 1982. With her was her daughter and her little grandson, who was
sitting in the kid’s seat of the full shopping cart, as they stood outside the
store waiting to unload their groceries into a vehicle. Diane introduced me to
her daughter, but I said that I thought that we’d met once many years ago and
she agreed that I looked familiar. The occasion had at a class that Diane
taught back in the early 80s in the basement of the Architecture Building at U
of T. Diane’s daughter was about eighteen at the time and had come to draw.
It’s always an interesting feeling to run into attractive women that have seen
me naked at a previous time. A car pulled up and a distinguished looking man
with a grey beard got out to open up the back for their groceries. I assumed
that this was Diane’s husband. We all said good to see you and “goodbye and
then I went into No Frills.
I bought grapes,
bananas, apples, cinnamon-raisin bagels, cream cheese and yogourt. I was
looking for a good deal on some meat but I couldn’t find anything this time.
Lansdowne was
blocked because of construction, so I went along Dundas to go home by way of
Brock Avenue.
That night I
watched an episode of Hawaiian Eye from 1961, guest starring Mary Tyler Moore.
She played one of two women claiming to be the daughter of a wealthy man who
hadn’t seen his daughter since she’d been small. Moore’s character’s only
motive in coming forward as the man’s daughter was that she didn’t like the
idea of someone else pretending to be her. The other woman was a little too
perfect at being a daughter to be real, so it turned out that Moore’s character
was the right one.
This appearance of Moore was around the
time that the Dick Van Dyke Show began.
I had thought that I’d been watching the first
season of Hawaiian Eye, but it turns out that it’s the third. Anyway, the first
season isn’t available for downloading as a torrent, so it doesn’t matter.
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