On Wednesday I had to
do my laundry, so a little after noon I headed just east of Lansdowne with a
bag of clothing and bedding. I realized on the way there though that I’d
forgotten to bring soap but I decided I’d load my stuff and then go home for
the detergent. The Laundromat was empty. I’d never seen it that way. Even the
attendant was not out being busy. I found him in his closet sized office,
perhaps keeping warm. I explained that I had to leave my laundry for ten
minutes and he nodded. When I came back and started putting coins in the
machine, the coins must have recently been cleared out because each one echoed
a little as it fell into the slot, adding to the spooky feeling of the empty
room.
I went two doors over to the
Salvation Army and looked for pants. A young, blonde worker said “Hi” to me. I
don’t think anyone has ever greeted me there before other than from behind the
counter. I found a pair of pants that might fit me but they were $13.00 and I
had been hoping for a Christmas sale. I’ll check back closer to Christmas or
after to see if the price goes down.
There’s a bike stand on the other
side of the parking lot from the Laundromat, but it hasn’t been free on either
side for a few months. I think there are a couple of abandoned bikes chained up
to it. I walked a little further west to lock my bike and then walked over to
Shoppers Drug Mart. I walked around the whole store twice looking for petroleum
jelly, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. The most logical place was in the baby
section, but I couldn’t see it there either. Then the second pretty blonde
woman in half an hour said “Hi” to me. This one was a little older than the
previous blonde and she was dressed for business in a black suit, with her hair
tied back. She was a little prim but probably almost sincerely friendly though
not enough to override what was obviously her position as management at
Shoppers. I asked her where I could find petroleum jelly and though she wasn’t
sure, she led me back to the aisles and said that if she were looking for it
she’d check the baby section or first aid, which happened to be in the same
aisle. I told her I was going to feel pretty stupid if she found it there. She
didn’t find it. She looked in some other aisles but also came up cold. Then she
asked a uniformed staff member, who also didn’t know. She said she was curious
now and so she said she was going to follow him. The three of us became a petroleum
jelly search party parade. Finally though, she broke off and found that there
was another aisle separate from the baby aisle that had diapers and at the very
end of that aisle, on the bottom was the petroleum jelly.
I still had five minutes left when I
got back to the still empty Laundromat, so I read a bit of “The Complete Works
of Billy the Kid”. There was a piece about a guy that was dying of thirst in
the desert and so he killed his horse and bathed in its blood just to be wet
again. I put my laundry in the dryer and went home for a few minutes. The
landlord had a new cylinder put into our front door lock yesterday and now it
takes even longer for me to get in, and once the key finally turns it gets
stuck in the hole and I have to fiddle to get it out.
On my way back with my laundry, I
was at the light at Jameson when a young man waiting at the streetcar stop,
looked at me and made a short sound with his voice that sounded half like a
horn and half like a game show buzzer and then said, “Excuse me sir, what’s in
the bag?” “Laundry” I answered, almost following with, “Why do you ask?” He
nodded and told me, “I just did my laundry!” Then he asked, “Are you on ODSP?”
I had actually forgotten in that moment that ODSP was the Ontario Disability Support
Program, so it registered in my head that he was asking if I was on Ontario
Works and I responded that I was. He seemed glad to hear that and responded,
“Me too! I’m just on my way there now!”
That night I seared the pork
tenderloins then set them aside. Then I sautéed three sliced apples with three
sliced onions. I rubbed Dijon, paprika and thyme into the tenderloin, and then
I put the meat on top of the apples and onions in the frying pan and put them
in the oven for about 45 minutes. Then I mixed the whole thing with the rest of
the soup I’d made before, turning it all into pork stew. The soup had been okay
in terms of flavour but the ground turkey had some gristle in it.
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