No Meat and Not Much Dairy

            Saturday was the coolest morning of the summer. During song practice I saw a car pull into the Dollarama parking lot and getting out of the passenger’s side was the first sign that the Caribana parade was happening that day. The woman was wearing a short metallic pleated skirt and a black bikini top and she was hugging herself because of the cold.

            I recorded my song practice, though I didn’t have room enough on my computer to upload the video. In a few days there would be some space freed up. The battery in my guitar tuner had been fading over the last few days but fully failed about halfway through this session. I was forced to tune with harmonics and would probably have to keep doing it that way for the next five days. Nonetheless I did have a fairly good practice and put some strong energy into a lot of the songs.

            I went to the food bank on Saturday morning as usual. Traffic was heavy on Queen Street because Lakeshore Boulevard was closed for the parade, so I couldn’t just cut across on my way west to dismount in front of the line-up. Instead I had to go Beaty and cross when the light changed. Before locking my bike I inquired as to who the last person in line was and Bart spoke up. I asked if it was him but he pointed at the shopping bag on the sidewalk behind him. I like to know which person belongs to their markers so I questioned him about that and he indicated the man with the white moustache and the baseball cap who was standing right behind him.

            Bart, in his complex way, asked me if I had a cigarette. I told him that I don’t smoke. He said, “A kick in the nuts would have been enough!” I assured him that I don’t kick people in the nuts either.

            The woman with the red sleeping bag in the cove to the left of the door and didn’t wake up the whole time we were there.

            A car full of yellow-feathered bird people passed on it’s way to the festival.

            I took out my book and looked inside for where I’d left off reading, when I noticed that Mohammed was a little further back in line, so I went to chat with him.

            He told me he’d probably be going to Caribana later. It’s funny that they changed the name of the parade and the other related events six years ago to the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, yet I have never heard anyone call it anything but Caribana. I guess officially they have to use the other name in the media because the original organizers own the name “Caribana”, but they could have come up with a better title. Maybe it should be “Caribival”.

            Mohammed commented that there will be a million people there and that it will bring a lot of money into the city. I nodded in agreement but told him that I don’t like parades very much. I said, “I used to go to Caribana when I had a girlfriend from St Kitts.” For myself though I can’t think of many things more boring than standing around in a crowd and watching floats go by.

            Mohammed had mentioned before that he’d served in the Canadian military, so I was wondering if he was getting a pension from that. He said not until he’s 65 but informed me that a military pension isn’t that great anyway, unless you’re in the upper ranks.

He told me that he gets the THAP allowance. I didn’t recognize the initials, but when he explained that it was a rent subsidy I realized that he was talking about the Toronto Housing Allowance Program, though the name didn’t come to mind. I told him that I’d recently applied for that, though I’d first received a call about it a few months ago and that they’d sent me an application form but I’d forgotten to fill it out until after the deadline. But a couple of weeks ago they called me again to tell me it wasn’t too late, so I completed the form and mailed it. I thought that what they give out is something like $250 a month but Mohammed told me that he gets $550. I think he said something about it paying 80% of his rent. The government website says it’s $250, so maybe he’s getting something else. He said that his social worker arranged it for him. Whatever. If I could get an extra $250 a month it would help me a lot.

Mohammed asked if I’d ever been to Montreal. I informed him that I’d lived there for three years. He stated that he’d heard that with the recent influx of refugees from Haiti, “There’s too many Black people there now.” I was surprised by his phrasing. “There are ‘too’ many Black people?” I repeated. He confirmed his statement. I have met some people, mostly from Africa, that have used the word “too” synonymously with “so”, as in “so many” or “so much”. But for those guys English was a second language but Mohammed was raised speaking English and Guyanese English Creole, and while there are big differences, the word “too” seems to mean the same thing down there as it does up here. There are 100,000 Haitians in Montreal and there are 100,000 expatriates from France. I’m sure both groups enrich the city very much.

A short guy in a red shirt passed, and without looking at us, said in a low voice, “Anybody want any dope?”

The women in line between Mohammed and I started smoking, so I moved away for a while. Bart looked at me and said, “Del Monte fruit cups …” and then he went on to list several items that it seemed he thought would be available that day, until the man with the white moustache barked, “Who cares! Can you just shut up for two minutes?” Bart said “Sorry!” declared, “I hate waiting in line!” and then he started singing.

The woman behind me was talking about the growing popularity of electric cars. Mohammed insisted that automobiles would never be exclusively electric because people like to rev their engines. He started trying to remember the name of the famous electric car czar. I said, “Musk” but he shook his head. Then he tried to think of the name of the car and started with “T …” Bart said “Toshiba”. I already knew what the name of the car was but I ran off in Bart’s direction of thought and said, “McDonalds!” Mohammed was still thinking about it when I said, “Tesla”. He nodded and then tried again to think of the name of the builder when I repeated what I’d said before, “Elon Musk.” He said, “That’s it!”
            The only way that electric vehicles will ever replace gas-powered automobiles is if they become cheaper than fossil fuel burning cars. Even being as cheap might not be enough, since there’s still the inconvenience of long charge times compared to the five minutes it takes to refill a gas tank. I really doubt if being able to rev an engine is the selling point for gas-guzzlers, but if it is for some, such frills could probably be electronically simulated.

Bart pointed at the sky to the west and commented about how black the clouds were, and then declared, “It looks like when Charlie Murphy farted on the world!” I asked, “Who’s Charlie Murphy?” and several people laughed.

The food bank opened at around the usual time, which is about fifteen minutes later than their official opening time. I was the last of one group of five and ahead of me after we’d gotten to the bottom of the stairs, the man with the white moustache barked at Bart again as he was opening the door, “Come on! What are you waiting for? Christmas?”

A lot of the regular food-giving volunteers were absent, but the reception people at the computers were the same as usual. I wondered if Angie, Sylvia, Samantha and some of the others were taking the day off to take in the Caribana festivities. One of the computer guys asked the guy with the white moustache if he wanted to take a quick survey, but he didn’t. I got number 17 without being asked to take a survey.

I had seen the volunteer behind the meat and dairy counter perhaps on one or two previous occasions. She was there with her son, who looked about ten. I got the usual half litre of milk, which is enough for one glass to drink or to have with two or three bowls of cereal. There was a choice between four eggs and a frozen dinner, so of course I took the eggs. I got two small containers of yogourt but forgot to check if it was artificially sweetened. I found out when I got home that it was, so I would have to give it away to someone else later on. There was a package of breakfast Bagel Bites that had bacon, egg and cheese. The final item was a package of “Canadian flavour” lactose free cheese slices made from mostly soy beans. I guess “Canadian flavour means” that it tastes sort of like Canadian cheddar.

From the vegetable section I got a large carrot, four potatoes, three onions, a package of three romaine hearts, two cucumbers (one of which turned out to be almost entirely rotten) and a choice between one orange, one apple or one banana. I picked the orange and ended up with two anyway.

My guide through the shelves was an elderly gentleman that I had never seen there before.

From the cereal I picked a package of brown sugar “flavour” Mini-Wheats. I wondered why they just don’t say that it has brown sugar in it, since commercial brown sugar is white sugar with some molasses. Maybe they have less than the required 4.5% of molasses and so they can’t legally call it brown sugar.

I didn’t take any crackers or cookies, though maybe next time I might have room for crackers. I eschewed once again the pasta and rice but I did grab a small can of garlic and basil pizza sauce.

The canned beans were back after being gone last week and so I selected a can of chickpeas. I got one can of tuna. The soup choices were only cartons of chicken broth and cans of condensed tomato. The broth is more useful in the long run.

Misplaced among the cans of vegetables I found a small jar of Patak’s sweet mango chutney. My helper pointed out that chutney is English. Actually it’s Indian, but some of the sweeter types were influenced by English colonial tastes.

There were two custard cups with sliced fruit that were probably peaches. I snagged two bottles of Bruce Cost ginger ale with blood orange and Meyer lemon (they were very good).  He gave me five chocolate cherry chewy trail mix bars and five single peanut butter cups.

For the first time in a long time, my helper picked up the tongs and protected the bread from my grubby paws. I asked for some of the multigrain buns that were in the bin and he picked out four. There wasn’t a lot of choice in the way of bread, so I pulled out a baguette and bent it into my bag.

The only meat offered this time around was what bacon was on the eight little bagel bites and they were pretty low on dairy as well. The only greens, which was the lettuce was actually in pretty good shape for a change. While there were a couple of interesting and flavourful products on the shelves, this was a pretty slim trip to the food bank.