Seagull Folding Guitar Stand

            On Wednesday, December 20th in the late morning I headed downtown to run some pre-Christmas errands and do some shopping. Riding up Brock, under the railroad bridge was a dead brown and white rabbit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen rabbit road kill in Toronto even though there are plenty of rabbits (I read tens of thousands).

            The first thing I wanted to do was stop at She Said Boom on College to see if they had a copy of George Elliot Clarke’s Canticles Volume One part two. It’s mostly a record store but they have a pretty good selection of second hand books as well. They had a couple of George’s books but not the one I was looking for, so I made my way up to Bathurst and Bloor and then east to BMV Books. The also had some GEC books but not Canticles. Before unlocking my bike I decided to look for a washroom. The most convenient place I could think of was the Tranzac Club because the toilets were on the main floor. On the way there I was surprised to discover that Ye Olde Brunswick House is gone and that now there is a Rexall Drug Store in its place and all that’s left to indicate that the Brunswick had ever been there is a plaque. The Tranzac was closed so I used the washroom at the Future Bakery.

            I continued east to the Remenyi House of Music where I looked for bass strings for my daughter. There was one kind called “flat strings” that were smooth instead of wound but a lot more expensive. The salesperson asked what kind of music Astrid plays and I said that I think it’s a type of Punk. He said the smooth strings are more for soft rock like The Beatles and advised me that the cheaper ones are more conducive to a Punk sound. I bought a kind that was slightly more expensive than the cheapest and that are supposed to be easier on the fingers.

            I asked about rechargeable clip-on guitar tuners but he said he’s never heard of them. He said the ones they have will last a year but I didn’t believe him, since they were very much like mine, for which batteries last about two months.

            I was interested in a guitar stand. There were several cheap ones that I wouldn’t be able to carry in my backpack but they had one that folded up to fit into a container the size of a box of tissue and was made of African Sapele hardwood. It’s called a Seagull and I bought it for $50. 

            When I later took it out of the box it was in a nice little black velvet tie-bag that smelled of musk, but apparently that’s the smell of the sapele wood itself. 

            The stand will hold anything from a ukulele to a cello. 

            Still looking for George’s book I went to Indigo at Bay and Bloor. I walked around for a while before finally asking for directions to the poetry. The employee told me where it was but he didn’t tell me that there is no section labelled “poetry” there anymore. It took me ten minutes of wandering around the area that he’d indicated before I discovered that poetry was included in the “Arts and Letters” section. Once again, I found some George Elliot Clarke works, but not Canticles.

            I went out into the mall of the Manulife Centre to find a washroom but had to search around two levels. I remember when mall-like places always had signs with arrows pointing to their facilities. Even the directory did not indicate the toilets. I was just about to approach the security desk to inquire when I saw the washroom sign behind them in the adjacent hall that led to a downward stairway.

            I drove down Bay Street to College and west to King’s College Circle and then up to University College because I wanted to pick up my English test. They were supposed to have been returned to us on the last day of class but since the instructor was sick he’d emailed us about retrieving them at UC. The problem was I’d forgotten the course code and hadn’t thought to bring it with me. I told the woman in the office that the number ENG205 was in my head but when she couldn’t find that I remembered that it was a third year course. Finally she found my test and I thanked her for her trouble.

            I looked inside the booklet hopefully but was disappointed to see that I’d gotten 74%, which just a B. Hopefully I’ll do better on the term paper. I don’t like getting Bs. Bs are BS.

            My next stop was the U of T Bookstore where I easily found part one of George’s Canticles but part two didn’t seem to be around. I asked at the help desk but I’d thought that I was looking for volume two and the guy told me he didn’t think it existed. I went back to the shelves and looked some more, and then looked inside the book I’d found to realize that it was part two and not volume two I wanted. The staffer looked it up and then took me to a shelf I hadn’t checked and the book was there, so I bought it.

            After another search for a washroom I made my way for St Lawrence Market. The Sausage King still has the spicy pepperoni sticks but they don’t sell them individually anymore. I bought a bag of ten for $5 and then walked over to Placewares, but stopped to buy some four-year-old cheese on the way. Placewares have a wide variety of kitchen items but nothing that jumped out at me as a proper gift for Astrid. Her and Lauren have had their apartment for long enough that there was too much of a risk that anything I bought for their kitchen might already be something they have. I looked at the various shapes of cookie cutters and noticed one shape that was absent that I think would sell: cutters for bat shaped cookies.

            I went downstairs and found a bakery with some interesting, colourful and very expensive French macaroons. It cost over $2.50 for a little thing the size of an Oreo so I only bought two. I then walked over to the bulk store where I bought a variety of candy.

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco where, as I was locking my bike I saw the Sobeys truck pull in. On the sides of their trailers they have recipe suggestions and this one said, “Dribble raspberries with a splash of balsamic vinegar”. Aren’t a dribble and a splash two different things?

I bought a small bottle of maple syrup to send to Astrid. I also got an apple pie and took advantage of the sale on coffee, even though I still had half a large tin. I picked up some fruit, bread and yogourt and then headed home. As soon as I’d put my groceries away I rushed out to the post office to buy a small shipping box and found out that if I could get back there in half an hour I could mail my daughter’s package by express and still have it get to her by Christmas. I hurried home and packed as fast as I could. I think some truffles and the French macaroons might have gotten crushed a bit. I dashed back with my parcel but there was a line-up. The clerk told me I was too late but then he looked at Astrid’s postal code and then said that it was a part of Montreal that express should reach before Christmas.

I went home relieved but exhausted. I decided to take a one and a half hour siesta but I put the ham that I’d gotten from the food bank in the oven first. The problem was though that I woke up four hours later. The ham was not ruined. The skin was tough but the meat was still tasty underneath. The main inconvenience was that I had to eat so late. There was no point going to bed at midnight so I waited till about 1:30.