Mechanical Soap Opera

            On Friday morning during song practice, my denture actually came out while I was singing the very first song. My dentist had assured me that was not going to happen. I had pushed it in securely at the beginning and yet it came loose. Mind you, all through the rest of the hour of singing without holding back, plus more than half an hour after that of practicing the piece that I will be performing on June 3^rd, it didn’t come out. I wonder if it disengaged the first time because I hadn’t drank enough water yet. If it happens again I think I’ll have to go back to Dr. He for a solution.

            I was thinking that this cycle building project is like a mechanical soap opera in which each session at Bike Pirates ends with a dramatic cliff-hanger such as: “I’m sorry Christian, but the operation on your back wheel axel went terribly wrong!” Will Christian’s wheel ever be cured? Will his frame be reunited with its wayward derailleur? Find out tomorrow on The Parts of Our Bikes.

            That gave me an idea for a hospital drama called “Brain Pirates”. At Brain Pirates we don’t perform your surgery. We teach you how to do it yourself. Doctor Dennis says: “You’re doing a great job sawing off the top of your skull! I’m goin for a smoke and I’ll check on you when I get back.”

            Or “Interpirates”: We don’t fix your bike for you but through interpretive dance we show you how to repair it yourself.

Three Steps Back, Four Steps Forward

            On Thursday I took my cycle building project to Bike Pirates. I was about five minutes ahead of their official opening time and there were four people ahead of me. They opened relatively close to on time but the only volunteer on the floor was the little guy in his seventies who looks like a cross between an elf and Santa Clause. He told us that he could only take care of three stands at a time, unlike Dennis, who manages four when he’s alone. So the rest of us had to sign up and then lock our velos outside. Since I live five doors down the street, I just took my machine home, took a pee, grabbed some writing paper and then came back.

            I thought that since the first thing that I planned on doing was to find a bolt and nut for the unfilled hole on my crank set, that I might be able to look through what they have since I wouldn’t need a stand for that. The volunteer was a little annoyed when I asked him and stressed again that he could only handle helping three people at a time. I shrugged and said, “Okay” and then I went to the couch near the entrance and did some writing.

            There was an A-frame blackboard sign sitting just inside the entrance and positioned to be one of the first things anyone would see when they walked in. The message that had been chalked onto it though was obviously left over from Tuesday night, because it read, “No more repairs today. Sorry”. While I was sitting there, two people came halfway in the door with their bikes looked at the sign and then backed out again. When the elfin volunteer came up to the front desk, and stopped to ask himself out loud why he had come up there, one of the people waiting pointed out the sign to him and I told him that two people had just left because of it. He went outside and managed to catch at least one of them, then he closed the sign and turned it around and went back to wondering why he had come to the front.

            After about half an hour he decided that things were going pretty smoothly and so he could handle one more machine on a stand, so that put me to number one on the list. After another fifteen minutes one more volunteer arrived and so the elf said that I was up. I went to get my bike and he told me to put it on stand number five. The volunteer that had just come in was the one that helped me. He sounds like he might be from Russia, some Eastern European country or even Israel, though I have overheard him mention that he also speaks French. I think his name is Dan.

            My first half hour was spent searching for a bolt and nut, although it was Dan that found the bolt I needed. I later found a nut that fit, though it was a little thicker than the other two nuts on the crankset. He told me to tighten everything up and then we’d put the crankset on. When we did so though it turned out that the crank set was too close to the frame. Dan’s solution was to find a longer version of the same kind of axel. That meant that I had to open up the bottom bracket again. For some reason it had gotten dirty in there, even though I’d cleaned it all out thoroughly before carefully placing the ball bearings. The only reason I can think of is that dirt eventually got knocked down there from the side tubes while I’d been doing work on other parts of the bike. So I had to remove the ball bearings, some of which fell down the side tubes and so I had to flip the bike to knock them back out. I cleaned the bracket out again and was going to replace the ball bearings but since I still couldn’t remove the cup from one side, it was too difficult to put that half’s ball bearings in while the cycle was upright, so I tried to do what I’d done a few weeks before, which was to take the bike off the stand and lay it on its side on the table. But when I did that before it was just a frame and it still fit on the table, whereas this time with a headset, wheels and a seat on, it just wouldn’t fit on the table, so I laid it out on the floor. The elf came up and almost chastised me about it until he realized what I was doing and walked away.

            When it was time to install the axel, I inserted it but then Dan changed his mind and got me another one of the same length that wasn’t as corroded. But I had already knocked free some ball bearings again and so I had to once more lay the machine out on the floor to put them back in place.

            Finally we got a working crank on and then it was time to install the arms. The original pins that I’d knocked out were bent and so we had to replace them. It took Dan a while to find the right size, but in the end I had a crank and arms. I had hoped on being there for only a couple of hours, but I started an hour late, and on top of that I basically had to take three steps back and then four steps forward again just to get one new thing installed on my bike.

            I brought my old Phoenix over to show Dan and to ask what more could be salvaged from it for the project. He said I could use the pedals, maybe the chain and he thought that I could use the cassette from the old bike, though it seemed to me that other volunteers had said it wasn’t compatible. Dan encouraged me to keep working that afternoon because the axel on the back wheel hadn’t been put in right. He asked who’d helped me with it but when I said it had been Alain, he didn’t seem to believe me, because Alain wouldn’t have made that mistake. I felt that I’d already been there too long, and I planned on coming back on Saturday anyway to I cleaned up and left. Since all I’d gotten were the pins I only donated $10.00 this time.
            

Frozen Pizza Tastes Like Garbage

            I had a dream that a certain part of my project bike required a Native American system that would not function unless I accepted defeat.

            I spent a lot of time on Wednesday working on my review of Tuesday night’s Shab-e She’r poetry reading.

            By the late afternoon my ass was getting pretty sore from having been sitting at the computer for so long. I was very grateful when I suddenly remembered that it was Wednesday and so I could have a beer with my dinner. That meant that I was able to get off my ass, get dressed and go out to the liquor store to buy a can of Creemore.

            For dinner I made the frozen goat cheese and veggie pizza that I’d gotten from the food bank. I tend not to buy those kinds of frozen prepared food at the supermarket, for one thing because I think that the more ingredients there are the greater the risk of food poisoning. Another reason is because they taste like borderline garbage. Especially if it’s a multi-veggie frozen pizza, not all of the ingredients are going to come out all right. Food that is frozen raw, like fish and meat tends to be okay though. 

Eroticism Versus New Age Cliches

            On Tuesday morning when I got up I was still depressed about how slow the progress has been on my bike building project. I hadn’t really put a time frame on it when I started but on some level I think that I expected it to have been finished by now. I was in a funk while doing my yoga and it hung on during song practice until it got tired of me and gradually dropped away.

            About half an hour into the afternoon, Nick Cushing came in to town with some gifts, such as a rim and a tire for my unfinished bicycle. He also brought me a box full o various tools that consisted mostly of wrenches, ratchet wrenches and attachments, Allen keys, plus a tying-down mechanism that consists of a sturdy fabric tape and a ratchet that I think might be called a Smartstrap.

            He stayed and chatted for a while and accidentally broke the about to break leg from my kitchen table. It had come undone from the top a few years ago and back then I had to glue wood shavings into the screw holes so the screws would catch again. It had been secure again for a few years but then started coming loose again. I was able to prolong the inevitable by knowing not to treat it like it was secure, but Nick didn’t know how weak it was. We turned the table around and propped the side with the now missing leg against the radiator casing. He offered to screw that corner of the table into the wood of the casing, but I told him I’d try to fix it once my bike was built.

            We argued for a while about Donald Trump and Steve Banning. Nick doesn’t think they are as bad as the media makes them out to be. While I think that Trump has a mental illness that makes him dangerous as both a businessman and a politician and Bannon is a guy that has compared women’s empowerment to cancer in addition to turning Trump’s ear with several extremist conspiracy theories. Nick argues that things would be far worse in the States is Mike Pence were in charge. That’s possible but Pence is second in command because of Trump choosing him, so he’s effectively just another result of Trump’s personality disorder. Somehow I think Pence wouldn’t be as much of an asshole for his brief stint in power if Trump were to be impeached. As an actual politician, unlike Trump, he probably knows when to keep his mouth shut, even if he wants to say something extreme about Gays and women.

            On Tuesday evening I headed out for my first time at the Shab-e She’r reading series since before Christmas. I hadn’t been able to attend from September to November or from January to March because my Tuesday nights had been tied up with the Canadian Poetry course I’d been taking at U of T. On my way to the St Stephen in the Fields Anglican Church I rode over webs of cracks in the concrete of College Street that had been given as a gift from winter to spring and which seemed to prove Leonard Cohen a liar, since I didn’t see any light getting through.

            When I walked into the church, Bänoo was standing by the greeting table behind which Giovanna Riccio and a new volunteer named Sara were sitting. Bänoo gave me a hug and I commented that it was my annual hug. Then Giovanna got up and embraced me as well. I said to her, “I hear you’re going to Italy!” George Elliot Clarke had already told me that they would be spending the entire month of June there but Giovanna elaborated on that to tell me that she would be giving a talk at a university there and that George would be working on his memoirs. I had been under the impression, based on what George said, that they would be travelling all over the country, but she informed me that they would be renting a place and not touring while they are there in June but that George would be doing a lecture tour for one week in May. I mentioned that I knew he would have to be in town on May 20^th. She asked if I meant for the Haiku Canada event at the University of Toronto in Mississauga campus. I affirmed that a friend of mine had invited me there as his guest. She inquired as to whether I would be reading any “haikus” there. I answered that I hadn’t been told that there’d be an opportunity to read anything but that I might bring something along just in case. She disclosed that she’d be reading some “haikus” and at that point I decided to be a know-it-all and gently instructed her that the plural of “haiku” is “haiku”. She wondered how many other words don’t use an “s” to indicate their plurals. I suggested that likely no Japanese words would use an “s” for multiples but there was also “deer” and “moose”.

            She asked how I’d made out on the final assignment for George’s Canadian Poetry course. I shared that I had chosen the poetry manuscript option over an essay, but had been disappointed that I’d only received an A-minus. Giovanna consoled me with something that George had declared to her while marking the papers. He rarely gives out A-minuses and considers anything for which he gives an A-minus to be publishable. That made me feel a lot better. I divulged that George made some funny comments beside my poetry. Beside two poems he’d noted that they reminded him of Al Purdy. I found that odd, since I haven’t been influenced by Purdy in any way. I added though that the poems had been inspired by Susan Musgrave and that both she and Purdy are autodidacts, like me. “And me!” Giovanna piped in. We were interrupted by guests arriving, so I went to take a seat in the front row.

            A few minutes later my old friend, Tom Smarda arrived. He didn’t want to sit where I was sitting during the readings but he brought a chair over from the side and sat in front of me to chat, promising Bänoo that he’d move the furniture back when the show started. While he strummed his guitar, we talked about what I’d been up to in terms of poetry and bike building and also about my upcoming gig on June 3^rd, to which Tom unfortunately can’t make it. Bänoo was sitting nearby in conversation with someone else, and Tom informed her that he’d known me since 1979 in Vancouver. Bänoo exclaimed, “That’s a lifetime!”

            Sidney White arrived, telling Tom about her upcoming conspiracy lecture at U of T on the subject of “gender”. Then she mentioned the amount of Roundup that can be found in women’s wombs. She didn’t elaborate but I assume that she agrees with Alex Jones’s claim that atrazine causes changes in gender expression, although the active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate which does not have this effect. Additionally this sex changing result has only been found in frogs, which change their gender far more easily than humans. So atrazine overexposure may only trigger changes in amphibians that could possibly happen anyway.

            Sidney also expressed doubt about global warming because she hasn’t seen evidence. The thing is that the evidence of global warming is very hard to see where we live, which is the temperate zone. The effects of global warming become very obvious to people that live in the arctic. Sidney keeps on saying that she’s an investigative journalist but it seems to me that she tends to settle on the things that she wants to believe and doesn’t do any research beyond that point.

            The event started at about 17:20 with Bänoo’s usual introduction that explained to newcomers the goal of Shab-e She’r. She wants to bring groups of pots together that are separated by marks of identity. She observed that if months were years Shab’e- She’r would be older than she is now. She shared that a lot of the volunteers on her team have PhDs. She added that since they were now in a church, if poets want to come and talk to “god” this was the place to do it. She informed us that next month’s featured poets would be Allan Briesmaster and Katherine Hernandez.

            The first readings, as usual were from the open mic and the first poet that Bänoo invited up was Ian French, who said he would be reading “a poem about the important institution of marriage … counselling” which is good “like having your appendix removed is good … climbing Mount Everest blind folded and naked with a mini-bus strapped to your back? Big deal! Try marriage … Should my next wife be a trophy … No, because it was you who rolled the stone from my tomb … So I will go every week to the relationship garage … Call it love …”

            Bänoo announced that there is a Slovenian event happening at the church on the following day (April 26^th) with Miljana Cunta and Gorazd Kocijancic with Giovanna Riccio and George Elliot Clarke.

            The next open stage poet was Matthew Johnston, who stated that he was learning Hawaiian and read a short poem that he’d written in English, then delivered it again in Hawaiian and finally gave us back the English translation of the poem that had been altered by its having been rendered into Hawaiian. From the original – “Pre-dawn … the ripples in the sheets … mounded by sleep …” After translation to Hawaiian and back again to English – “The indefinite period of early light continued … that had lain flat into heaps of ripples … tell time like a fence … to chronicle the passing of the seasons … to show the distance yawning between two things.”

            Next was Sarah Crookall, the new volunteer – “My breath is drawn from me … Compared to the softness of your lips … I love you and the future you but I am still in the photograph of the past you … Your cadence chisels and pierces the expanse …”

            Then came Norman Allan with a poem called “When Lucky Met Chase” – “When my dog Lucky met Chase they rolled in the hay … Falling in love, losing my heart … She was so cute … If this is home, I’m healed … When Lucky met chase, they nuzzled … Arriving at her door … I wondered what reality I would meet … Walking my dogs through the quarry … Now I avoid the quarry … I’m angry of course … I thought she was my Chase …”

            Norman was followed by Teresa Hall, who gets around with a cane, and so she walked to the far end of the steps to get to the stage with the help of the railing. Her first poem was called “This Land of Freedom: Canada” – “ … Here in this ancient land of Inuit and native son … This land of human grace … northern lights, musk ox and polar bear … This land of quiet strength will break away those chains …”

            Teresa’s second poem was “Clayoquot Sound” – “There was a place where I could go where forests grow … A place once wild … But oh when I returned not a single tree remained …”

            Her final offering was “Victory” – “Where a village stood once … Where a woman had fled with her newborn babe, now a tomb …”

            This was the end of the first half of the open mic and because Bänoo was fighting a cold she passed the hosting of the features over to Kate Marshall Flaherty. The first announcement that Kate made was that Bänoo Zan has been short-listed for the Gerald Lampert memorial Award for her book, “Songs of Exile”.

            Kate then introduced our first feature, Diana Manole. Diana, whose first language is Rumanian, chose not to use the microphone and began by disclosing that since 2013 she has been both dreaming and writing in English. She also reported that Shab-e She’r is very special to her because it was the first reading series where she had ever read her poetry.

            Diana had earlier handed out copies of a survey that she is taking about first and second language speaking, but I wasn’t interested at that time in filling it out.

            She began her set with readings from her book, “Black and White”, which she wrote in Rumanian and then translated but she predicted that it might be the last book that she will write first in Rumanian.

            I looked to my left and noticed that Norman Allen was doing a coloured sketch of Diana as she read.

            From Diana’s first poem – “ … Immigrating made me a hyphenated person … I became remaining … I became Canadian when the US took my fingerprints … I became white when you put your black hand on mine …”

            From “Lady in Waiting” – “The sweat on our foreheads turned into communion wine … nailed us to the wooden floorboards … When I wipe your forehead my tenderness takes you by surprise … The sugar from plantations we will never see dissolves in our blood … Transforms the uterus into a prison … Your hand slides down my thighs, longing for a cross to crucify me …”

            From “Making Love in the Name of the Past” – “ … Like a bird blinded by city lights … Dreaming of the sound of words … A blind man imagining the colours of the rainbow … I’ll show you what it means to be merchandise … Your skin whiter than mine.”

            Of her next poem, Diana revealed that it’s one that she particularly likes to read and she dedicated it to all the poets of all accents and skin colours – “Friends from all over the world question my right to tell stories of another race … You carve words directly on your skin like a monk … Changing you from victim to self executioner … The lusty smell of African flowers … An intercourse that lacks the least tenderness … Your eyes full of wonder like a first grader … When the angel comes his colour doesn’t matter.

            At this point Diana switched from her published book to her manuscript and she stepped closer to the edge of the stage.

            From “Kiss” – “January 26, 2013. You kiss me on a frigid Saturday night, arms covered in tattoos and hearts covered in scars … You kiss me, never mind the cleaning lady … You kiss me while security guards with Masters and PhDs cannot help taking us as adulterers … Children without sin ready to have their first religious experience … You envelope me in royal blue … As frail as the last breath of a virgin saint … You hug me with glass arms … until my marrow starts shivering … The desire to have sex becomes the desire to be.”

            From her next poem –“I recycle poems … I stopped handwriting my love in 1996 … I recycle fleeting images from textbook sonnets … the milk in my breasts … a Rumanian-English dictionary …”

            Of her following piece, Diana communicated that it was about Canada, which for her is a land of contrasts. She divulged that one of the lines was inspired by Bänoo. From “Canada 150, Six Words at a Time” – “ … Toronto a peaceful Babylon of accents … Magna cum laude … Visible minority … Single mom … Shared addictions … Ethnic cooking … take out dinners…”

            Diana’s last offering was entitled “A Book” – “You fill me with words and give me a book when any other man would give me a child … Still fighting for people’s right to be vulnerable … An invasion of maggots eating up the rancid past … Squinting at my computer screen … Late penalties … you call … you are a very powerful woman … stumbling through the strange words of O Canada.”

            Diana Manole’s poetry is often thoughtful and erotic, with a stream of consciousness flow and some strong imagery. Interestingly, the work that was written in Rumanian and translated into English has a more poetic feel than that from the manuscript that she composed entirely in English.

            Kate returned to the stage to introduce Léonicka Valcias, who would be telling us of an upcoming event, but a lot of people, including Diana Manole, were talking during the intro as if we were on a break.

            Here is some of what Léonicka imparted to us – “When I come to events like this I know you are supporting each other … I know it’s important to give writers opportunities … Self-publishing is great but not if it’s your only option … Who is left out of the picture? People of colour, queer people, immigrants … She told us about the FOLD (Festival of Literary Diversity) which would be taking place from May 4 to May 7. We want to make sure young people are involved as well … spoken word … We have a poet’s gallery … We are inviting several poets … Each stop will be a poet … Saturday at 8:30 …” Then she announced that the event was in Brampton and she could tell that it was a bit of a let down. She insisted though “It’s not far. It’s downtown  … Writers hub, publishers, magazine editors …”

            Kate proclaimed a short break and I headed for the washroom. The first one was occupied with someone else already second in line, but I knew there was another washroom adjacent to the gym, which was just through another door. It turned out there were two washrooms, but I couldn’t find a light switch for the one that was not being used. Maggie Helwig, the St Stephen’s minister was having a meeting in the gym and she came to flick the switch for me, which turned out to be across the hall from the washroom door.

            I came back to the main room, but Tom was engaged in another conversation with Sidney. I don’t know if he buys all of her conspiracy “research” but I know that he doesn’t trust either the government or corporations so I guess maybe he wouldn’t put it past them to cover stuff up.

            I went and chatted with Cy Strom about a song that I asked him to translate for me and about the top front denture that I have to wear these days to keep from looking like a hockey player and to keep from slushing my “F”s when I sing or speak.

            After the break, Norman set a very fragrant cup of mint tea on the seat between us.

            Kate introduced Anuj Rastogi, who was dressed entirely in dark clothing except for a pair of neon purple sneakers that didn’t seem very sneaky. Anouj had impressively memorized his entire set and said that he would start off with a cosmic theme because we were in a church.

            His first piece had the title of “Breaking News” – “As the petals of a flower wither by the hour … with nothing more than a deep connection to be made … a man’s ego becomes deceased and he cooks his wife’s meal … Lead yourself on a journey for all others to follow … Through the wonder of my soul’s destination … You see, my quest for salvation has been interrupted … For every finger that points, three others point back …”

            Before reading his second poem, Anuj commented about what an honour it was to share a stage with Ian French, whom he referred to as “uber poetic royalty”.

            Anuj shared that he is not particularly religious but he thinks there is a universal force. His next poem was written from the point of view of that force – “If I had my way I would hold you back before you smother every inch of your lands … I would not just stand idly by … I would snag the coat of every man who is about to walk out on his family … I would fly airplanes with skywriting and banners … I would hit reboot … I’m not even sure I exist.”

            It was fairly clear from his first two pieces that Anuj is a slam poet, but his encouragement of people to snap their fingers during the recitations if they liked something he said, edged him more solidly into that culture.

            Anuj recounted how he went to Washington a while ago and visited the Lincoln Memorial. He realized while he was there that he was standing in the same spot from which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. It inspired him to write a piece that also began with “I have a dream” and continued with “that one day we will celebrate the … hues … We will embrace all those around …no one separate …”

            His next piece was written for his son – “My boy, while you were sleeping the world changed … like a trip cut short by a flat tire … fortune made other plans … A drop of water, a hint of sand … We are beings of one flesh … That old world, I have just burned …”

            Anuj explained, “Most of these poems are a lot longer, so these are all excerpts.”

            Of his next poem he asserted, “In an alternate universe it came down to one moment”.

            From “I Wish I Had” – “Looking back, I once said I had no regrets. I stood at a fork on life’s path and went right … paralysed in fear and wrapped in a straightjacket of words … I was a master musician … Like an hourglass of promise turned on its side … Armed with nothing but a boarding pass and the baggage of my shattered dreams … This is the poem that I could have written … I don not regret, for on that day I did say Hi.”

            From “Part 2” – “Hi. One little word, two simple letters … In that moment … I saw the most haunting smile … You look at me with a gentle shake of your head … Time is a cycle, not a line … Only to realize he, until this very moment, had only ever been alone … I shivered nervously and whispered ‘Hi’… The wave that is you ravaged the shores …”

            Anuj declared, “Every person here is a creative being!”

            From “The Seed” – “It germinates from a moment of synapse … a new potentiality that is about to become a reality manifests … To learn to grow that idea that you have been ignoring is your seed …”

            Anuj related that he’d once had a teacher who thought he’d amount to nothing and his next poem reflected on that – “My tenth grade English teacher said I should never start a sentence with the word ‘because’ … Because sometimes you need to get your point across …”

            For his final offering, Anuj invited violist DOORJA to the stage to accompany him. He began with an atmospheric introduction while using the bow and then he picked out a rhythm to which Anuj recited his poem, “Baby Girl” – “Baby girl, let me tell you, when you first entered this world … as I cut that cord … the first blade releasing a flood of emotion … Why should I feel compelled to write you a second poem … You will be both glue and surface … because the damsel in this dress is not a damsel in distress … Through the prison of your intellect … you will … set many new precedents … Be married to your dream … One day my dust will float off into the air … You will be you … You are the seed … Now please go and clean up your room.”

            Anuj said in closing, of Shab-e She’r, “If there was more of this in the world there would not be as many missiles!”

            Anuj Rastogi’s writing is extremely positive, somewhat reflective and occasionally creative. In many ways it is like a hybrid of spoken word style with that of the sentimental poeticization of clichés that is the fodder of Country and Western lyrics only with a backdrop of new age themes replacing pickup trucks, beer and fenceposts. On a couple of occasions he used decades old clichés, such as the idea of pointing a finger and having three fingers pointing back at you, and presented them as if he had originated them himself. He really should have at least introduced these phrases with something like, “As they say …”.

            I think that it would have been better to have started with Anuj and for Diana to have been the final feature. That way the energy of creativity would have been a bit higher to usher in the second half of the open stage.

            As usual, we moved directly from the final feature back to the open stage, and there was a changing of the hosts as Bänoo returned to the stage.

            The first open miker in the second half turned out to be me.

            I read from a very short story – “I like to masturbate in my car at morning rush hour with my hand on the head of my dick like a nervous butler polishing a brass doorknob at ten minutes to high tea when the Queen has been announced as a last minute guest. I never get pissed off in traffic jams because I always have something to do and far from it being anti-social I always include the drivers next to me in my fantasies on my way to work …”

            Next came Yesid Ortega with two poems. The first was called “Drop It” – “Come on man! Why did you do this? Coffee all over me … I said drop it now … I love you …”

            His second poem was “Almost Became” – “I’m sorry for taking your spot … Now I am the one that needs to focus … I just realized how beautiful your eyes are.”

            Then we heard from Simon, who read three poems.

            From “Almighty” – “You’re a page filled with ancient talk … You’re a temple wall … an empty rock … You’re a divine hack … You should be better.”

            From “Pentimento” – “I’ve been thinking what it is not to love … Not to love the grey, deserted road … Not to love what might never come to be …”

            From “Travelling Poem” – “In the shadow of a sierra Nevada … in the din of an Indian traffic snarl … One night I woke at 3:00 AM … Love is a long conversation among our various selves … One of the things that scared me to death was how old Jane was … I wished she’d changed her hairstyle … It may not have simply been a moment … It may have been the apogee.”

            Simon was followed by Sidney White, who read, “The Truth is No Defence” – “The claws of a moneylender rake the Earth … The whirring hiss of financial Iagos … No messenger who is not killed … There was a teacher who lashed out at this slavery … He died on a cross … He was a Palestinian.”

            I’ll have to disagree with Sidney on that final claim that Jesus was a Palestinian. That would be like saying that King Kamehameha the Great of Hawaii was an American because those Polynesian islands later became a territory of the United States. While a large swath of the Middle East was referred to as Palestine centuries before the alleged birth of Christ. Technically, Jesus, if he existed would have officially been a Roman subject but at the time of his birth the Roman Empire had not yet established the Roman province of Palestine. Jesus may have never in his life even heard the word “Palestine” and if he felt the need to identify himself with a region he probably would have referred to himself as Judean.

            The open stage continued with Dona Robati, who chose to sit on the steps that lead to the stage and eschewed the microphone. He clued us in on his expertise at smelling bad attitude and remarked that such an odour was nowhere to be smelled there on this night. He shared with us the first three poems that he had ever written in English.

            From the first – “Till quarter to autumn was the leaf green …My picture was upside down in your teardrop.”

            From the second – “Presence makes me full of silence … When presence is absent I make silence full of me.”

            From the third – “I broke myself. You got broken.”

            After Dona was Justin Lauzon, who read half of a poem that he said would be too long for the open stage in its entirety. From “The Bloom” – “She was slim … nude … the surf spouted confessional … I was a thief of moments … I learned low calorie vocabulary … My tawdry tongue … There was breath spilling frenzy … in the wretched music of her hips … he purchased his end … and licked a little at the places she pointed to …” That was the end of the first half of his poem.

            Thereon it was Chai’s turn and because he has a tendency to always do two poems, Bänoo stressed to him as they met on the stairs, “One poem!”

            Chai reminded us that three days before it had been Earth Day. Then, oblivious to Bänoo’s request, he informed us that he would be reading two poems.

            From the first – “To be or not to be was a princely question. Waiting for an answer, I cared a hoot … To be is not to eat … To be or not to be is now a planetary question … Bees are dying off … Pesticides … Ever tasted their sweet, nourishing honey … I urge you all to join in that question.”

            He was about to start his second poem when Kate came towards him and calling his name, began to verbally put the kibosh on his second poem, when he defended that it would only be a “small haiku”, so she nodded and moved back.

            Chai’s “haiku” – “The lord created this planet 70% for the fish, but two monkeys hijacked it”.

            On the heels of Chai came Mizan, who read a poem that I’d heard from him at least once before – “World ruled by so many systems … Human dignity is under threat … Outcome remains the same …”

            Ensuingly we heard from Norman Perrin, who recited a story that he said he’d overheard in the sandpit of the Spiral Garden. I had to look this up, but I assume that the garden he referred to is at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.

            From the story – “There were three brothers who came to the rabbi … To each one he gave seeds … The first two did very well … The third grew only weeds … When it came time to go to market the third decided that since he had nothing then he would sell nothing … He called out ‘Nothing for sale!’ … Through the marketplace came a very wealthy man … The doctors had told him that his daughter was dying … Suddenly he heard the failed farmer calling out ‘Nothing for sale!’ … He smiled and pulled out a bag of gold, which he tossed to the man, declaring, ‘I’ll buy your nothing!’ … When he went back to his house, his servants told him that his daughter had miraculously become well.”

            The penultimate poet of the night was Alexandra and as she approached the stage, Bänoo announced that after her, last but not least we would hear from Tom. Tom though didn’t hear the first part and thought that he’d just been introduced and he ascended the stage with his guitar. When he realized his mistake he returned to his seat, having been around long enough to not be very embarrassed by small errors.

            Alexandra read “In Parallel” – “ … parallel the prevailing winds … our spirit animals … there are no parabolic crossings in our stars … invisible to the far away winces and lovers for the bones of winter to remember.”

            Finally it was Tom’s turn. From his song – “Shut up and do as you are told or get out … Of course I can see that you wanna be boss in your own house … You will no longer have a home … You’re not willing to compromise and I don’t blame you … I’m afraid that you will encroach upon my space … When discussion is impossible, I can’t live like that …”

            When Shab-e She’r was over, I stood up and when Ian French was walking by he shook my hand and told me, “Great stuff!” I told him that I’d enjoyed his piece as well. Then Matthew approached to say that the poem I’d done was lots of fun. Of his poems I offered the view that it was interesting to hear things translated into other languages and then translated back, and that I’d thought about doing that with French translations. He informed me that the Hawaiian language is interesting because it does not have the sound “ka”. This puzzled and so I asked him to explain King Kamehameha then. He just smiled and said that was a whole other thing.

            I chatted with Cy again and he told me that he’d enjoyed my story. He said that he’d found Diana to be quite humorous and then we discussed whether it was a Rumanian thing. I think we agreed that might not the case since we’d both had exes that were from Rumania and they weren’t particularly funny people.

            We discussed the non-secular venue again, since I hadn’t been to Shab-e She’r since the very first night it had been in the church, I wondered if Cy had noticed a change in audience. He said that St Stephen in the Fields seems to attract a slightly different crowd but that in terms of volume, the audience hasn’t changed.

            Still on the subject of religion, we talked about cults, and Cy asked if I remembered the The Process. I did remember them from when I was seventeen and a street person in Toronto. Cy thought they had a very cool way of dressing. I recalled that their doctrine was based on some kind of pact between Jesus and Satan. Scientology also came up, but I don’t think either of us knew that the Process had come about as a splinter from L. Ron Hubbard’s church. I shared how when I was on the street there were lots of these cults such as Scientology, the Process, the Unification Church and the Hare Krsnas that would invite street people over for food and indoctrination. I offered the view that the Moonies had the worst snacks of all and that the Hare Krsna’s not only had the best munchies but also the best films and music.

            I noted aloud that when I was there in the church the last time, it was the St Stephen’s minister, Maggie Helwig that I’d seen walking around quickly closing doors and shutting off the light switches, but this time it was Bänoo who was performing those duties. Cy joked that Bänoo had left her clerical collar at home this time.

            I left with Cy, Bänoo, Sarah and Norman and walked with them the short distance to my bike before saying goodnight. 

Slowgress

            On Monday afternoon I took my cycle building project over to Bike Pirates. I was the fifth one there but Dennis told me I was a special case so I could go right back and find a stand. The first thing I wanted to do was to get the wheels functioning properly, since they weren’t rotating freely, but that was just a matter of balancing the brakes. Dennis told me though that my rear rim needed to be trued, so we started doing that but found that one spoke was not turning. He had me put some “magic juice” on it and let it sit for a while.

            While I was waiting I decided to see if I could find a second hand seatpost to fit my frame. Dennis measured the diameter of the seat tube with a digital calliper and so I took it over to the seatpost drawers to see if I could find one that fit, but I couldn’t. Finally Dennis went and got a new one that was the right size. He said it would cost me $8.00.I don’t like getting new stuff at Bike Pirates if I can avoid it but it looked this time like I had no choice. While trying to tighten the post in the seat tube I discovered that the nut was missing to compliment the seat-tightening bolt. Another volunteer found me a tray of nuts to sort through but none of them seemed to fit. I was about to conclude that the bolt was stripped when I finally found a nut that threaded smoothly around it.

            I took my old bicycle seat, which had been quite comfortable until it had started to tear and went looking through a couple of large bins for a comparable but not damaged seat. I found one that looked brand new and mounted it on my bike.

            I returned to the trueing wheel with Dennis but when the spoke we’d soaked didn’t click when it was turned he concluded that the spoke needed to be cut and replaced. However, he decided to try one more thing. He started spinning it with a pair of pliers and discovered that the spoke actually does tighten and loosen even though it doesn’t make a noise when it does so. Dennis didn’t really spend a lot of time showing me how to true, though he did tell me that he would be giving a seminar on the subject at Bike Pirates at a certain date. Soon he said the wheel, though not perfect, was passably true. I would like to learn how to do it but I figured in the future other volunteers would give me more hands on instruction, and I really wanted to make progress with getting this velo built.

            The next step was to work on the crankset. Before I could mount the chainrings onto my bottom bracket, the two chain-rings that came with my frame were missing one of three bolt sets. What was needed was something with the head of a bolt but which at the other end has an internal thread that receives a more conventional bolt on the other side to secure the two chain-rings together. Dennis showed me a large tray full of such bolt sets and told me to dump the whole thing out on my worktable and then to go through them until I found a match. Right away he found what he said was the regular bolt part of the combo but after searching through the pile for the last of the three hours that I wanted to be there I couldn’t find the match. Just before 20:00 I decided that when I came back on Thursday I would forget about looking for a bolt set and just simply try to find a bolt and nut combo that held the damn chainrings together.

            I cleaned up my station and went home in time to make myself dinner. Even though I left there with progress having been made: I had a seatpost, a seat, a trued back rim and my wheels rolled properly down the street, I was a bit depressed because of how long it had taken me to get that far and because it was probably going to take at least another week before I’d have my bike built.

            

Barbaresco Bersano 1986

            I’ve fully learned to recite by heart the piece that I plan to perform on June 3^rd, which allows me to begin editing parts of it in my head. If nothing else, all memorizing that I do might help keep Alzheimer’s at bay.

            At around 10:00 on Sunday my phone rang and I knew that it was probably the guy calling about the camera. For some reason though my phone went black before I could answer it. By the time I got it back on it had stopped ringing. I tried to go to my calls to access Ed’s number so I cold call him back but then he called again and I didn’t know how to answer it from inside the list. When that ringing stopped I finally got to his number and was able to call him back. It turned out that he was already at my door, so I went down and let him in.

            I showed him the Pentax and he checked it out, realizing that it needed batteries. My ad on Kijiji had specified that batteries were not included and fortunately Ed had been smart enough to bring a couple. The camera had no lens but Ed found that everything was in working order and he paid me the $30.00 that I was asking. I showed Ed the way out and then since it was Sunday I figured David would be home so I could give him half the money according to the deal we’d made. The closest that I had was $16.00 so I took that upstairs and knocked on David’s door. He had either the radio or television playing extremely loud some sort of science show. I figured that he just couldn’t hear me so I kept on knocking several times before I heard him respond.

            He opened the door and it was the first time I’d seen David for months. He bumped fists with me as he does and I told him that I’d sold another camera and I held out the money but he told me to keep it. Then he handed me a bottle of Italian red wine. We chatted a bit and then he went back to finish his breakfast.

            The wine was Bersano Barbaresco 1986. I looked it up online and Vivino.com said the average for that wine is $138.51. I suspect that might be in US currency, which means that the average price in Canada might be $187.80. Knowing how expensive the wine is, now I feel uncomfortable just cracking it open and drinking it by myself. That means I’ll have to have someone over for dinner sometime and I’ll have to cook. The more I think about it the worse it gets. What an asshole David was to give me that quality bottle of wine.

            I went on Kijiji and deleted the ad, then I placed another for an early 70s Minolta automatic camera. I started the price at $50.00 but I’ll drop it by $10.00 every two months until someone bites like Ed did. A couple of hours later someone texted me about it, but I hate texting, so when he asked if it was in working order I said, “I don’t know”. The person texted “Hmmm” and didn’t say anything more. If he’d emailed the question I might have said, “As far as I can tell, everything is working fine”. 

Centre-pull Brakes

            After the food bank on Saturday I immediately rode down to King and Dufferin to get some money from the bank machine so I could afford to work on my bicycle-building project starting noon at Bike Pirates. When I got home I still had almost half an hour before I had to take the velo to the shop, so I put my food bank groceries away and drank the now cold coffee that I’d made earlier.

            I carried my project down the stair of my building and noted how much lighter it was than any bike that I’ve had. I briefly owned a new Raleigh International, which I bought for $500.00 in Toronto when I was 19, which might have been comparatively light but I never really developed a relationship with it at that time because I didn’t use it enough. I took it with me to the yoga ashram in Val Morin, Quebec, where I moved early in 1975 and after that to Montreal, but I ended up selling it for $200.00 to pay my rent when the dregs of my small inheritance ran out.

            I had to wait outside Bike Pirates before they opened about five minutes late. The first volunteer was Derek, who was assisted by the young volunteer in training, Sebastian, who has been there for two or three years.

            I was the first customer in though there were others close behind me and soon the shop was full. I clamped my unfinished machine to stand number three and when Derek came around to ask what I was doing I told him that I’d installed front brakes on the frame on Tuesday, but had later remembered that I had a set of Weinmann brakes, matching the ones at the back, that had been dangling from the frame by its cable when I bought it. I asked Derek whether the ones already on the bike were just as good or if it would be better to switch. He shared that his personal preference would be for the Weinmann brakes but he added that was an individual choice. When I asked him why he preferred them he seemed a bit defensive at first, but finally told me that he likes how quickly they release the grip of the pads after one applies them.

            I made the decision then to install the original brakes, but Derek told me that meant that I had to remove the headset stem because that kind of brake system requires that the cable runs from the left handle to the stem and then vertically down to the brakes. That meant that I either had to remove at least one of the spacers I’d piled up along the stem or we could cut the stem. I told him I’d like to keep the handlebars high and so I removed a spacer and went to look for the part through which the brake cable was supposed to run. It took a while to find in one of their bins the part that I needed that also fit. The one that I found was aesthetically pleasing but the next problem that arose was that the locknut that I had left very little thread at the top, which he said wasn’t safe, so I had to find one that fit better. When I finally found that, Derek offered the view that my headset looked a lot better then without all of those spacers. I told him that Melissa had said it looked like something from the Jetsons. He agreed that it looked futuristic but argued that the future is not always good.

            I asked Derek what was the next thing I should do and he inquired about my work sheet. I told him I didn’t have a work sheet and he said I needed a work sheet, even though my project was one that I took home with me. It turns out that everyone that starts a project bike from a frame that they get at Bike Pirates is given a work sheet. Derek insisted that I needed to get a work sheet from the front desk, so I went to get one but the guy at the desk couldn’t find them. Finally Derek got me one. It contains a list of things for someone to check off as they are building a bike. Frankly, I found both the work sheet and Derek to be a bit anal. It seemed strange to me that after my bike was almost finished I would suddenly need a work sheet. I think though that Derek misunderstood when I asked him what I should do next. I assume that he thought that I meant after I get the brakes done whereas I meant within the context of fixing the brakes. A worksheet seems useless to someone like me that doesn’t even carry a grocery list with him when he goes to the supermarket. After all of that, which took up half an hour, Derek finally answered my question and told me that I should put the headset back on.

            After the headset was back on, I wasn’t sure how exactly to run the cable from the lever to the brakes. The place was getting pretty busy and in addition to the people working on their bikes there were a lot of curious people coming in that Saturday to ask questions at the front desk and Derek seemed to revel in the role of answering them more than helping with bikes. He would come back from time to time to help if I called to him but his style of helping tends to be to tell you what you should do, then to walk away without demonstrating or even waiting to see if the person understands what he’s talking about. There were quite a few volunteers helping by that time but the one that noticed me the most was reluctant to muscle in on Derek’s territory and explained that he might take me in a direction that would be different from what Derek had in mind. Derek seemed to spend more time helping the young woman using stand number two and asked her if she wanted a coffee. In all my many times of coming to Bike Pirates no one has offered me a coffee and only Dawn has ever offered to feed me. During one period of standing on hold for Derek, I made a point of watching the clock and it was half an hour before he returned. The volunteer that noticed me most went up front twice to remind Derek that I was waiting for him.

            I would have preferred it if Derek hadn’t been my helper. I don’t think that he’s a very good teacher because I think he’s forgotten the time when he didn’t know what he knows now. Finally the other volunteer decided to help me and tried to show me how to use the cable stretcher. I started to get the hang of it but the problem was that whenever I stretched the cable it came off the carrier that pulls up the cross cable of these centre pull brakes.

            I asked the short, tough, serious looking volunteer in the mechanic’s cap about my problem and he told me the kind of cable carrier that I was trying to use is problematic. He went to a drawer and came back with one that had a wider catch on it with a deeper hooking groove and that didn’t come off when I tightened it. I was able to get the cable tight enough but then it was too tight and so I had to gradually loosen it until the front wheel would move. I asked the volunteer who’d paid the most attention to me if he would check my work and he said it was fine. Then it was time to cut the excess cable and instead of using a metal cap for the cable’s end and crimping it, he showed me that they had plastic caps which he likes to use because that way if the cable has to be readjusted one doesn’t have to shorten or replace it.

            At this point I’d been there for three and a half hours when I had wanted to only stay for two. I told the nice volunteer that I was done and asked what I should do with the cable for the back brake that was coming out of the right lever. He suggested that I could loosely tie it to the headset as long as I didn’t crimp it. But then he urged me to just connect the cable and insisted that it wouldn’t take very long. I argued, “Look how long I’ve been here already!” but he countered that now I knew how to do it and it wouldn’t take long. He demonstrated and ended up doing most of the work, for which I was grateful. I asked his name and he told me something that sounded like “Eefee”. I inquired as to how it was spelled and it turned out to be “Ife”. I wondered if when people read it they pronounce it as if it rhymes with “knife” and he confirmed that they often do. I questioned him about the origin of his name and he shared that the source is Nigerian because that’s where both of his parents came from.

            On my way out I had to deal with Derek at the front desk, who wanted me to write down every single part that I used. I had already bought the cables the time before and the brakes were mine, so all I could think of were all the little things that I dug for out of the bins like the lock nut, the cable carrier and various nuts and bolts. I donated $15.00.

            I noticed as I rolled my bike home that the back wheel was rubbing against the frame; so getting that adjusted would be my next job.

            When I got back to my place there was an email asking about the Pentax camera that I’d put up on Kijiji almost a year ago. It started at $80.00 but every two months I’d shaved $10.00 off. The price now was $30.00 and the guy said he would come by that night. He called me later though to say that he wouldn’t be coming until the next morning because the Don Valley Parkway was closed.

            I went out to the liquor store and picked up two cans of Creemore for the weekend, then I rode to Freshco where globe grapes were cheap, I got a bag of oranges, four chicken legs that would have to be cooked that night, a frozen rack of ribs, two litres of milk and some yogourt.

            I watched two episodes of Leave it to Beaver. In the first one Beaver decided that he wanted to be a writer when he grew up and when the family were discussing it at the dinner table, Beaver’s father told him that he should keep a daily journal like Somerset Maugham did. Beaver asked if he was a writer, to which his brother replied, “What’d you think he’d be with a name like that? A linebacker?” Ward bought Beaver a diary with a lock on it and told him that they wouldn’t read it without his permission. But one day when Beaver didn’t come home from school, they went out looking and couldn’t find him anyplace. They finally decided to pick the lock on his diary to see if they could find a clue as to his whereabouts. What they found were accounts of him getting into fights and doing handstands on the railings of bridges. When he did come home and they confronted him about his dangerous activities he confessed that he’d made them up to make his journal more interesting. His parents were very embarrassed to have invaded his privacy after hearing that.

            

Waiting on the Dark Side

            Just after midnight on Saturday I accessed my bank account online and discovered that my income tax return had been deposited. That meant that I would be able to continue building my bicycle starting at noon.

            I was excited when I got up that morning about soon having money to work on the bike. But I don’t like being excited while I’m doing my yoga. Anticipation does make for a very good song practice afterward though.

            I finished memorizing another French song and I’ve also almost fully learned by heart the ten-minute piece that I plan on doing at the Smiling Buddha on June 3^rd.

            At about 9:45 I headed over to the food bank. The sun was shining on me as I drove west on Queen and there didn’t seem to be as big a line-up as usual. I was behind an Eastern European gentleman with whom I’d had a philosophical conversation at the old food bank location back in the winter. We shook hands and discussed the new place. He thinks it’s much nicer than the previous layout. I commented that the space that food bank clients access now is actually smaller than before. Because they are already in the basement now they no longer have a basement for storage and so they are spread out over a larger area on the same level, which I guess makes for less work since there are no stairs to climb in order to stock the shelves.

            It was a windy day, which caused some of the shopping carts that were marking people’s places in line to tumble onto each other like dominoes. While it hadn’t been cold while riding there on the sunny side, we were on the south side and it was quite chilly in the shade. Several of those that had marked their places in line were standing in the sunshine on the north side of Queen while others were defying the rules and warming up inside. It seemed that the only people in line were the smokers, including the guy with the electronic cigarette, who was close enough for me to breathe his second hand fumes as well. The research on second hand e-cigarette vapour is far from complete and though the studies that have been done so far show that inhaling it is considerably less harmful than taking in second hand tobacco smoke, it can’t possibly be equal to fresh air. The comparison might be more similar to concluding that a fifth of a teaspoon of rat poison in your soup is less harmful than a full tablespoon.

            My Eastern European line-mate went inside to warm up, but his friend, who seems to be from the same place and similarly septuagenarian, held their spot in line. Though not as proficient in English as his compadre he expressed curiosity to me about the e-cigarette and was wondering if it was full of herbs. He told me that he was very glad to not have smoked for the last twenty years but confessed that he was still burdened with the vice of drinking.

            One consolation of it being a breezy day was that I could just move upgust of the most windward smoker and then I wouldn’t’ have to breathe what they were blowing.

            I was reading the first tale in a dual-language book of French stories for which each page has the translated version on the opposite page. I find it to be a valuable learning tool. The first story is “Micromégas” by Voltaire and it’s an 18^th century work of science fiction about a godlike being that visits earth from the Sirius star system. I was just two pages into the fantasy though before the cold made it too uncomfortable to read.

            Some people just behind me were complaining about having to line up outdoors on the main street. I repeated what I had been told by food bank volunteers before they moved of how there were not going to be any more outdoor line-ups at PARC. I suggested that they did not anticipate how difficult the PARC staff is to get along with. One guy who said that he used to volunteer at PARC offered the view that PARC people don’t get along with anybody.

The same guy, who was missing several teeth, though probably only in his fifties, mentioned that they have a dentist once a week at PARC and he had to take advantage of that. I can’t find any reference to a visiting dentist at PARC on their calendar, but if it’s true I wonder what facilities they would have there on a once a week basis and what exactly a visiting dentist would be able to accomplish within those limitations. I assume they’d just be able to do an exam and then a referral to an actual dentist’s office.

            When the line started to move I did so more slowly than at the previous location, simply because there was a much shorter distance at the other place between the door and the food, whereas now it’s about ten times further, with lots of twists and turns to slow people down. I was the last in a group of five to be admitted but as soon as I entered the building I saw that my Eastern European friend had been waiting in the entryway and since he was ahead of me in line I sopped and let him go ahead. Meanwhile though, the line behind me had advanced into the building as well and so I had to back them up in order to back up myself. I was only moderately successful, resulting in the first five people in the line bunching up in front of the entrance.

            While standing there I noticed a message that the Tuesday food bank would be cancelled after April 25^th, leaving only the four days from Wednesday to Saturday.

            I was at the head of the next wave of five and since the door guy recognized me as knowing the way down, he had me lead the way so he could go back to watch the door.

            Once I’d wound my way to the food room, things ran fairly smoothly. I went up to the desk and after they checked me off on the computer, I got number 19, which proved my perception was off when I’d assessed that the line had been much shorter than last time. The previous week I’d gotten number twenty.

            From Angie’s cold section I received a litre of milk. She offered me four fruit flavoured, kid’s yogourt cups, but I saw to their left some Astro fruit bottom yogourt cups and asked if I could have those instead. She let me have them but confessed that she shouldn’t have brought them out until the other ones were gone. She gave me a small bag of McCain’s frozen Masala fries. Those McCains sure have come a long way since I swam in their pool in Boy Scouts and my best friend played hockey with their kids back in New Brunswick. She passed me an unbranded bag of small, frozen samosas and assured me they were delicious. Then she offered me a choice of meat or pizza. I asked what the meat was and since she showed me it was that generic ultra-ground mystery meat they often hand out, I decided this time on the pizza, which was a boxed frozen Dr Oetker Ristorante “ultra thin” goat cheese and vegetable pizza. Pizza makers must have made a killing on the thin crust craze, since they don’t have to spend as much on dough and they can charge more for it. It’s basically pizza toppings on a big cracker. Angie’s offering were rounded out with a plastic bag containing six eggs, which I held onto while the vegetable lady filled up the rest of my backpack with potatoes, carrots, a big onion, a yam, a nearly perfect pear and the rare treat at the food bank of two vine ripened tomatoes that had not gotten soft at all.

            From the shelves I took a crumpled bag of President’s Choice All-dressed potato chips, a box of non-flavoured gelatine and a handful of lemon flavoured, fruit and nut Larabars. There was no spaghetti sauce but there were a few cans of crushed tomatoes, which I guess is close enough if one has tomato paste and a good spice rack. There was a good selection of canned beans and as usual I grabbed some garbanzos. There was also lots of tuna and so I got a can of that. From the soup section I picked another carton of chicken broth. The cereal offerings were of chocolate, peanut butter or honey nut Cheerios so I determined the Honey Nut to be the least disgusting. My helper said that I could take two boxes this time. In the baked section I asked the bread lady for raisin bread and she located some raisin buns for me. They were beside a big bag of pretzels, which she offered and I accepted. That was already enough bread for me, since I don’t eat very much flour made stuff anymore, but I guess we were on a roll and so when she handed me a multi-grain loaf I didn’t reject it. She said, “I know you like the healthy stuff, right?” I nodded and thanked her.

            On my way out of the food room, the door person was standing there, and so I asked him if they were ever going to have indoor line-ups. He told me that it wasn’t possible because of all the fire codes at PARC. Even though there was probably enough room in these long twisting halls to contain the usual food bank line-ups, it was considered a breach of fire regulations. That means that whereas before at the old place we were able to at least stand in the sun on sunny days while we were waiting, now we would always be on the dark side of Queen on cold days. Maybe by the time of the summer solstice we would almost have some sunshine touching the south sidewalk on Queen at the time of the late morning when we line up. But in the summer we would probably want to be in the shade anyway. Next winter though was going to be another very cold and shadowy story.