Honey Laundering

            I arrived at the food bank at a little before 10:00 on Saturday. This was the first time I’d used my new bike cable with the padlock, and it was a lot harder to finesse than the cable with the built in lock that I’d been using for years until it died the day before and I’d had to saw it off. The new cable has a lot more spring to it and so it’s harder to wrap around things and then the padlock doesn’t dance all that well in my hands. Hopefully I’ll get used to it and it’ll be smooth sailing, because it’s nice to be able to quickly lock and unlock my bike.
            There was an actual line formed and I walked to the back of it, asking the elderly woman at the end if she was the last person in line. She responded in Polish, maybe hoping that was my background, but I shook my head. I asked the woman in front of her who the last in line was and she pointed to the Polish lady, who suddenly seemed to understand. She pointed to herself and said affirmatively, with an additional nod of her head, “Da!”
            The loudest conversations always seem to be near the front of the line by the door.
            Over on the steps of the building next door, a middle aged blonde woman was smoking a cigarette and chatting with a woman who was standing on the lawn and tossing a ball to a black German shepherd named “Heidi” that was enthusiastically chasing it, bringing it back to her feet and watching it intently for the next kick or throw. Heidi’s caregiver was getting tired of the game though and was getting annoyed with the dog, though this playing and not playing, then giving in again seemed like it might have been a routine part of their relationship.
            A couple of women from the Caribbean that I recognized from Thursdays at the food bank took their places behind me. One of them mentioned that there had been a shooting the night before at Brock and Queen. I’d wondered why I hadn’t heard anything. Checking it out online later on, I found that it had actually happened north of Queen, just south of the railroad bridge. I commented that shootings don’t really happen in Parkdale very much anymore and that it’s more of a Riverdale thing.             The woman with the dog, tied Heidi to the chain that keeps cars parking on the lawn of the building across the driveway from the food bank, and went inside to get a coffee. As soon as her caregiver walked away, Heidi started barking, and didn’t stop until she returned.
            I was able to spend most of my time in line, but there were people further behind and ahead that were smoking, as was the woman with the dog and her blonde friend, so sometimes I stepped out and went with my book across Cowan, where the sun was pleasant shining through the leaves.
            I was reading “70 Canadian Poets” and a couple of times laughed out loud at some poems by Lorna Crozier about “The Sex Lives of Vegetables”. The poem that particularly made me chuckle was the one about carrots “fucking their brains out” in the earth.
            There was a sudden gust of wind that rattled the tree nearest to the northwest corner of the driveway, sending hundreds of yellow leaves fluttering to the concrete.
            The woman with the dog was discussing with another woman the time change that would be happening when Saturday turned to Sunday. They couldn’t agree on whether we lose or gain an hour. The other woman told that we “fall back” so that means we lose an hour. It is confusing, but what happens with falling back is that we gain an hour. While the sun comes up on November 5th at 7:32, it comes up on November 6 at 6:33. But if there are 23 hours between sunrises of the fifth and sixth, how are we gaining an hour? When the clock is moved back by one hour on the morning of November 6, we gain an hour, but we don’t end up with 25 hours between sunrises, but rather 24, so we don’t really gain anything other than an extra hour of sleep based on a construct.
            The line began to move at a little past 10:30. Heidi’s caregiver tied the dog up near the door and she began barking before the woman was a meter away. The woman came back and grabbed Heidi by the collar and pulled her close, then gave her a slap on the side of her face. It certainly didn’t help when she walked away again though. I noticed that the dog was well trained when her caregiver was around. She would sit or lie down when told, but as soon as she was tied she began to bark.
            It was about 10:45 when I got number 27 and went home.
            I only had time to finish the coffee I’d left by the computer and to check to see if I had any money in the bank, which I didn’t. I had fifteen dollars in cash, and I planned to go to the supermarket after the food bank to get some of the basics that the food bank didn’t provide after I’d found out what they hadn’t provided.
            When I got back to the food bank, Bruce was calling the first five numbers. There were quite a few people smoking near the door, which drove me back out by the sidewalk, where it was harder to hear what numbers were being called. I think that the food bank is due for another complaint call from me to City Hall. I’ve really got to find out why a “no smoking within nine meters of the door” sign has not been enforced.
            Heidi was barking again while tied to the underside of the fire escape, near the door. He caregiver came out and told her, “Your being a real asshole today!” I assume Heidi heard that as, “Blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blahblah!” because she kept on barking. Bruce, commented, “Man that dog is loud!” The woman was one of the four that went inside with me and she called for Bruce to shut the door so people inside wouldn’t have to hear her dog barking.
            I wasn’t sitting long inside before my number was called by the young guy who I hadn’t seen work there on any day but Saturday.
            I took a box of sesame Melba toast, another of cracked pepper and olive oil Triscuits (both boxes had been crushed around the top). I got a bag of sunflower seeds in the shell, which I found out later were dill pickle flavoured, of all things. I hadn’t tried them yet as of this writing, but still can’t wrap my head around either the flavour choice or even how one flavours something that’s in a shell. He gave me eight caramel flavoured chewy dipped Fibre-1 bars, which come in handy when I’m falling asleep in Philosophy class or to keep me going during the half-time break in poetry class on Tuesday nights. There’s no danger of falling asleep during George Elliot Clarke’s lecture, but the break sometimes needs to be filled with a snack.
            I got a small can of Rio Mare tuna in olive oil and a can of chickpeas.
            He asked if I wanted “honey”, as he indicated some small containers at the bottom of a shelf. I was suspicious after the honey mustard sauce I got a few weeks before that had been referred to as “honey”. I asked if it was really honey. He admitted that it was actually “honey spread”. He added that it’s “good on toast.” There’s nothing about ingredients on the containers, but they rather just show the distribution company’s name, “Bonté”, located in Victoriaville, Quebec. I assume that if it were pure honey they wouldn’t call it “honey spread” so perhaps it’s a legal requirement. One site says that if honey has been so ultra-filtered that it no longer contains pollen, it is no longer honey. Ultra-filtering involves heating honey, sometimes adding water and running it through very fine filters. Without pollen, the source of the honey cannot be traced. The little containers also say, “prepared for” Bonté, but it doesn’t say by whom. Apparently China has illegally sold pollenless honey on the North American market for years, most of it containing illegal antibiotics that are used to keep unhealthy bees alive, sugar and corn syrup. The process is cleverly called, “honey laundering”.
            The only choices for cereal were bags of Cheerios Plus honey-almond or single serve packages of Fibre-1 cereal. I took the Cheerios, even though past experience has been that the almonds tend to taste like they’ve gone stale.
            In the cold section, Angie was dealing with the Polish lady. Because the items are arranged along a table, she wanted the lady to move down so she could serve her the next items, but the woman didn’t move. Angie became impatient, then began to signal with her hands, and almost shouted several times for her to “Move down! Move down! Move down!” until she finally moved.                 She gave me a half-liter of milk, four small fruit bottom yogourts that she’d almost forgotten, and a choice between bologna or chicken wieners. I took the hot dogs, but they were probably made of the exact same parts as the bologna. Angie almost passed me on to the guy that was handing out the boxes of pepperoni, sausage and green pepper pizza form Pizza Pizza, when I reminded her that she hadn’t given me my five eggs. She apologized and said she’d thought she’d given them to me already.
            In the bread section, the woman in charge said I could only have one loaf from above and some buns from below. I balked on the below buns but bagged some raisin brown bread from above.               The Saturday vegetable lady gave me a few carrots, potatoes, and several limes. She offered me beets, but the only thing I like that’s made of beets is borscht, and making good borscht takes hours. I would have to be entertaining dinner guests to bother.
            I rode immediately to No Frills at Jameson and King, where they had one-kilogram bags of imperfect apples for one dollar each. I took three. All of their bananas seemed overly ripe, but I took two bunches anyway. I bought some cinnamon-raisin English muffins and some whole grain sandwich bread. The main thing that I needed was coffee milk, which was also the last thing that I could afford.
           That night I watched a funny episode of The Lucy-Desi Hour in which Talulah Bankhead moved next door to them. At first Lucy was worshipful of the star, but Lucy made a few bumbling errors and wound up on Talulah’s bad side. Talulah forgave her though but when she accidentally had her sit in wet paint while wearing her best dress, Lucy thought she’d done it on purpose and began to insult and imitate her. Bankhead told her to leave. Lucy said, “I’ve been thrown out of better places than this!” Talulah countered, “You’ve never been in better places than this!” Talulah said, “You do a revolting imitation of me!” Lucy barked back, “So do you!”