Female Flash

            Monday was a very hot day for May. I took some pictures on the deck of myself in my new shorts and also snapped some of my amethyst rock. I uploaded all the images from my camera to my computer but I wasn’t able to go through and edit them all before I took a siesta. When I got up it was time to get ready for my bike ride.

            I drank a tall glass and a smaller one of water before leaving but it wasn’t enough for the over heated ride.

            There were more cyclists than usual from Yonge Street to Broadview. It felt like there was a continuous line of riders that I had to pass along the Bloor Viaduct, calling out “Passing! Thanks!” over and over again. After Broadview there was hardly any competition though.

            I stopped to pee at the Firkin at Woodbine and then continued on. Ahead of me was a little blonde woman, perhaps in her twenties, riding like a dynamo. I passed her and went on to Victoria Park. On the way north I was stopped at a light and just when it changed, who shot passed me but that same woman. I passed her again just after Dawes Road but when I slowed down to edge onto St Clair she didn’t slow down and she got ahead of me again. I wondered if it was just a coincidence that we were both on Danforth, Victoria Park and St Clair or if she’d just decided to follow me and beat me. I could probably have caught up with the female Flash again but I’d only planned on riding three blocks east of Victoria Park and down Westbourne so I could get home and post my blog, and so that’s what I did.

            I didn’t feel the need to stop and use the washroom at Starbucks this time.

            At Yonge and Wellesley, in front of the Starbucks there was a young panhandler who was obviously mentally ill. He was panhandling by angrily demanding dollars from people. A taller, homeless looking man with a beard stopped and perhaps wanted to beg there too but the younger man started shouting and threatening to punch him in the face.

            A section of Yonge about half a block long was blocked off by the cops, so I had to walk a bit. One policeman was taking photos of a motorcycle that looked slightly damaged from behind.

            Yonge Street is all broken up in stretches of concrete where the road meets the sidewalk, so I have to be very careful to keep my bike wheels from slipping into a crevice.

            When I got home I posted my blog entry about Saturday and then started writing about Sunday.

            I watched two episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story Thalia concludes that Dobie will never amount to anything in their town because the only outstanding character trait that he has is that he is loveable. She decides that the only way he will ever become successful is if he surrounds himself with rich people who will be influenced by his loveable nature. She suggests that Dobie go to a renowned private school full of rich kids but he refuses to go away and be separated from Thalia. She goes to the grocery store and makes a pitch to Dobie’s father convincing him that Dobie will wind up in the poor house without the help of rich friends. Desperate, Dobie gets Thalia to make a deal that if he gets 100% on the next day’s math quiz she’ll agree that Dobie has proven he can accomplish something on his own and so she won’t ask him to go away to private school. Dobie goes to the house of his lovely math teacher, Mrs Adams for help to prepare for the quiz. It just happens to be that her and her husband are looking for a baby sitter so they can go to the movies (Their kid is played by a five year old Ron Howard who only has one line: “I hate school!”). When Dobie shows up at the door Mr Adams convinces Dobie to babysit. Dobie accidentally finds the math quiz and studies for it, but the next day, after getting 100% he confesses that he cheated. Days later, on his way to leave for private school, Maynard shows up with a suitcase, explaining that his parents are letting him become Dobie’s roommate. Dobie’s father cancels the whole thing because he knows Maynard will kill Dobie’s chances of making rich friends.

            Mrs Adams was played by Jean Byron who was Patty’s mother on The Patty Duke Show.

            In the second story Thalia dumps Dobie because he does not have a dominant personality. The idea presented here is that every woman wants to be dominated. Dobie is taken in by a conman who writes books telling people that they can become dominant by channelling the magnetic force of the Earth. A couple of coincidences happen that make Dobie think that he is using the power that Professor Dobkin has told him about. He convinces Dobie to let him use his father’s grocery store as a lecture hall to sell his book. Dobie helps him and believes in it so sincerely that he makes an impassioned pitch to the audience that sells the books. The professor, on seeing that all it took was sincerity rather than chicanery, is inspired by Dobie and confesses to him that his own system is all a scam. 

Yvonne Craig

            Early Sunday morning it took me a long time to get to sleep because I’d taken such a late siesta the previous evening.  Got up to masturbate twice just to try and make myself tired. When I got up at 5:00 I forced myself to stay awake until the early afternoon so I could grab back my regular sleeping pattern.

I spent a lot of time writing about what I did on my birthday and taking self-portraits of me wearing what I’d bought.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. There wasn’t much cycle traffic along Bloor or the Danforth. At Woodbine I stopped to take a pee at the Firkin but when I went to lock my bike I realized I’d forgotten my chain and lock on my kitchen table at home. I remembered seeing it there earlier that day, underneath the clothes that I’d bought the day before and I’d been so sure that I would have time to put everything away that I didn’t think the lock would be hidden from my attention when I was rushing out the door. So, without my lock I couldn’t stop to use the washroom after all. I didn’t have an excruciating urge to urinate and so though I was uncomfortable I continued on to St Clair and Maybourne and then home. The discomfort maintained itself at a tolerable level all the way out and during the whole trip home but it wasn’t all that enjoyable because of the nagging urge that was gently raking at the inside of my bladder.

            On the way back there were two thundering little three-wheeled one-man spaceships in traffic that looked like they could almost slip underneath the cars ahead of them.

            On the Bloor Viaduct there were two guys riding side by side in the bike lane and enjoying their togetherness so much that I had to shout “Excuse me!” two or three times before I finally got their attention and they went into single file so I could pass.

            My plan had been to stop at the supermarket on the way back but without my lock I couldn’t do that so I just went home, peed, grabbed my lock and went back out again. Before hitting the street I ran into my upstairs neighbour David. He said he had some electric guitars for me to either keep or sell.

            I rode up the hill to the No Frills at Dundas and Lansdowne. The main thing I needed was fruit and so I bought four bags of grapes, hoping that these ones were going to be okay. The five bags I’d bought at Freshco on Friday were all rotten. I also got strawberries, some yogourt, a loaf of whole grain sandwich bread and a package of ground pork.

            When I got home there was still enough light to take some pictures in the back with my tripod and the self-timer. While I was doing that the landlord came to take out the garbage and clean the cans. He seemed like he was in a foul mood.

            David came by a little later and took me upstairs to give me the guitars. I’d never been all the way into his place before other than when being in his hallway while Nick was fixing his doorframe. He had lit candles on the floor of his hallway this time. I guess it was meant to be atmospheric. Other than being cluttered with junk, his apartment is fairly clean. At one end of the bachelor he has a single bed at the foot of which is a big screen TV. He gave me a Rocker electric guitar and a First Act electric guitar. I think Rocker guitars are considered to be starter electrics. First Act has some endorsements from well known musicians but music schools have complained that they are low quality and irreparable because it’s so hard to find parts for them. First Act sued a musical instrument distributor for referring to First Act guitars in an ad as “instrument shaped objects”. They won something like $16 million and put the company out of business. David tried to give me a broken bass too but I told him it’s not worth taking. The First Act guitar has a pretty good gig bag that might fit my acoustic.

            David says he’s taking a holiday to go back to Ethiopia for a few weeks and that’s why he wants to get his place in order. I remember that he had bedbugs four years ago. I sure hope he doesn’t have them now.

            I made burgers and had one with a beer while watching two episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. In the first one Dobie declares that he is going on a hunger strike unless Thalia becomes his girl. All the girls at school besides Thalia think it’s very romantic and refuse to date their boyfriends until they go on hunger strikes too. This makes all the boys in school angry at Dobie. Meanwhile, though Dobie’s parents also think he is fasting, at night Maynard sneaks in through his bedroom window to bring him food. Finally, all the guys surround Dobie in the park and gang feed him pizza. When Dobie comes home his father also force-feeds him. Then his mother comes to him in his room and spoon-feeds him an entire casserole. In the end Thalia arrives and says that he’s won and that she will be his girl, then she proceeds to feed him one of her own concoctions consisting of everything she can cook: frankfurters, sauerkraut, chilli and dumplings. After it’s all been fed to him he tells her that if that’s what she can cook he doesn’t want to be with her after all.

            The second story was kind of bizarre. Dobie falls in love with a new girl at school named Aphrodite Millican, who’s only been in town for one day. He takes her to Charlie Wong’s malt shop where she speaks to Charlie in fluent Chinese and refuses to partake of the unhealthy menu, makes Dobie promise that he won’t drink any more milk shakes and then she proceeds to crack nuts with her bare hands. She takes Dobie back to her place and her father has long, curly blonde. Her two brothers have long brown hair and it turns out that the entire family is a troupe of acrobats called The Flying Millicans. Her father is very liberal and keeps on encouraging Dobie to kiss his daughter. When he finally does, Aphrodite declares to her father that Dobie is the one for her. Any future husband of Aphrodite must join the troupe and so they begin to try to train Dobie, but he’s too weak and all the work causes him to change his mind about Aphrodite.

            Aphrodite Millican was played by Yvonne Craig, who later played the role of Barbara Gordon-Batgirl on the Batman TV series.

           

Here's Me At Sixty-Three

            On Saturday morning after yoga I did a somewhat different song practice than usual. This would have normally been a day of me singing mostly in French but I sang all but one song in English. I also didn’t do most of the songs that I’m fairy competent at performing unless they had difficult guitar parts or whistling. There are a few songs that I only sing every few days, only doing a verse and a chorus, just because if I did them every day it would take a lot of time. So this time I did them all the way through.

            I didn’t go to the food bank this time because I didn’t fancy standing around in a line-up and breathing second hand smoke on my birthday. Instead I did some writing, had a normal breakfast, took a shower and then headed out to shop.

            I went first to the Salvation Army thrift store in my neighbourhood. As I locked my bike I saw a woman in her car bouncing up and down to dub Reggae.

I swear there are pants and shirts on the racks at the Sally Ann that have been there for years. The only item that I bought there was a black faux furry cushion for my computer chair, with slightly elevated lines of fluff making them look like furrows. I took that home, took a pee and then rode up to Value Village. Thrift stores always have the same musty smell and I’m wondering what the common factor is. Is it the old clothes? I don’t think any thrift stores wash anything before they put it on the rack.

            The previous times I went to Value Village or any other second hand clothing stores I didn’t know my size and so it took forever to browse for clothing. It wasn’t until I carefully picked and bought new pants on Boxing Day that I finally came to understand that my pants size is 38 or 40 around the waist and 34 down the leg (It feels weird being bigger around than my legs are long, especially since I have long legs). So, because of knowing my size I was a lot quicker going up and down the aisles because Value Village marks the sizes on the racks. The only thing I found that was right for me in the store was a pair of extra large sweat pants. The ones that I bought new at the Dufferin Mall on Boxing Day are okay to wear while doing yoga but they don’t look very nice because they’re 100% polyester and after a wash or two ended up with pilling all over. I’ve never had a piece of clothing that got those little thread-knots in the fabric before. The ones I bought this time are only half polyester and half cotton, so I’ll be surprised if they pill. I’d better turn them inside out when I wash them from now on though, just to be sure.

            I rode to the Salvation Army thrift store on Bloor just east of Lansdowne but the only thing out got out of that visit was a picture I took while locking my bike of an interesting old round stained glass window set into the brick wall of a building across the street.

            I continued on to Brock and then south to the back of the Dufferin Mall. After using the washroom, since I was in the neighbourhood I went to Winners, but found nothing there. At Walmart I got ten pairs of light socks to replace all the ones that now have holes and six pairs of briefs. As I was there already, I grabbed two pairs of heavy duty Kodiak socks in preparation for next winter.

            My main reason to be out shopping that day was to find shorts because every pair I had was ripped in some crucial place, but I was also interested in getting another pair of trousers because the pair I’d bought on Boxing Day have a tiny rip in the leg now. I’d found that the best place to shop for pants was Marks Work Warehouse and so I headed there, fairly confidant that I’d find what I needed.

            On walking in I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had a door crasher sale on cargo shorts for $21. I also found a pair of cargo pants for almost $40. I took a size 38 of the shorts and 38-34 of the pants into the dressing room. The cargo trousers fit fine but the shorts were tight in the legs, so I went back to get size 40 of those, but they were also small around the thighs. Cargo pants are also tighter on the legs because of the pockets they put there, but that the kind of snugness that goes all the way down the leg looks better than it does with shorts. I looked around some more and saw that they had chino shorts as well. I tried both sizes 38 and 40 of those and although these were looser in the leg, both sizes were tight in the crotch and size 40 was floppy around the waist. I gave up on getting shorts at Marks, but they have a good selection of socks so I had a look at them. They had some very light wool socks that were three pairs for $15 but they didn’t have a third pair, so I only bought the cargo pants and walked a few doors down to The Gap to see if they had any. Their casual shorts were on sale for $20.00. I tried on both size 38 and size 40 and found size 38 to be a good fit with a pretty nice cut, so I bought two pairs. I don’t know how long they’ll last though because they’re 55% linen and 45% cotton and they feel so light and thin that I wonder how much bike riding they can handle before they wear holes in the ass.

            After that I was tired, hungry and done with shopping. I rode home to drop off my goodies and to hang my bike up, then I went up the street to Ali’s to buy a spicy potato roti. I was surprised to see a Tibetan woman working behind the counter, since for the last 30 years everybody that’s worked there has been from the West Indies. She had two very cute kids with her, a girl and a boy that looked like they might be half Tibetan and half Indian.

            I planned on making a quick flatbread pizza that night for dinner and so I went into the Lucky Supermarket next door to Ali’s but they had a very limited bread selection and no flatbread other than the kind one has to deep fry. I walked west and across the street to the Queen Supermarket, but their bread was pretty much the same. Finally I went back towards my place and went to Fullworth, where they had packages of soft tortilla bread, which I figured would probably work as a thin crust for pizza.

            My last stop before going home was the liquor store, where I bought three cans of Creemore. I had one beer with my roti for a very tardy lunch in the late afternoon. There were other things I planned to do but by the time I finished eating I really needed to sleep for a while, so I took a siesta.

After I got up at around 19:30 I took the amethyst clustered rock that I found last year in a box on the curb of Victoria Park, out onto the deck with a hammer and chisel to try and knock the clusters free of the rock. That didn’t work because the little bit I hammered off from what I thought was a long way from where the amethyst is, also had amethyst that I ended up breaking. I decided to give up on that plan and find an alternative.

I made pizza on a soft tortilla with marinara sauce and extra old cheddar cheese. I used a little too much cheese because it was like a cheese pond on top after it had been in the oven for a while but once it cooled down it was manageable and very tasty. I had it with a beer and watched the Justice League movie. It had its moments, like the beginning with the flying bug men that feed on fear; the idea that the flash is always hungry; the moment when Aquaman just starts spewing everything that’s on his mind when he accidentally sits on Wonder Woman’s rope of truth; and when Batman says that his super power is the fact that he’s rich. I liked the Superman vs. Batman prequel of this story with the death of Superman, but DC seems unable to put together a good super hero team movie in the way that Marvel does. They tried so hard to make Aquaman a lot cooler and more powerful than the comic book version that he came out closer to Marvel’s Submariner in terms of strength. Cyborg was a horrible character from the start when he was in the Teen Titans comics. I guess the film version of The Flash is supposed to be DC’s wet behind the ears version of Spiderman, but they didn’t find any clever lines for him. I still hate this idea of Batman having guns when he’s supposed to be agile and smart with tools to swing on and things to throw. They should have brought Superman back to life more gradually and mysteriously like they did in the comics and done it over several movies. I liked Wonder Woman better in her solo movie and even in Superman VS Batman. Steppenwolf is an uninteresting villain since he’s only a strong god with an axe. He’s one of the least unique of the New Gods villains. I think Granny Goodness would have been a much better bad guy for this movie. I assume they are building up for a battle with Darkseid because I guess in this world he has to be brought back to life by uniting the Mother Boxes but that didn’t happen. So who teleported Steppenwolf and the bug men away with the Boom Tube in the end? They should have at least given some kind of hint as to the other forces behind the scenes. DC just does not know how to make a team movie.

Afterwards I went online until after 1:00 and looked up ways of etching rocks to reveal crystals underneath. There are a lot of videos of people using muriatic acid, which does the trick in a matter of an hour or so, but that seems scary and dangerous and it’s not recommended for amateurs. From what I can tell, the cheapest vinegar will do the same thing but in about a week or so rather than an hour. I think the slower process is more my speed.

Salvation Laundry

            On Friday morning the time of year began when it was warm enough to do my yoga in my underwear. Well, not the poses where I’m standing in front of the window, but the floor work, which is most of each session.

            I decided in anticipation of my birthday the next day that it would be nice to lay in clean sheets and so I did my laundry. They’ve raised the price of the big machines from $3.50 to $4.50 and the smaller vertical washers are now $3.25. I can usually do all my laundry in one big machine but one of them was in use and the other two were out of service for maintenance and so I had to split my stuff between two machines. For more than twenty years I’ve washed my things with dish detergent because it’s basically the same thing as laundry detergent and so why buy two products when you can use one? The manager came up to me and told me that I shouldn’t use dish detergent because it would cause more suds, which would come bubbling out of the top of the machines. I told him that I’ve been using it for a long time and that’s never happened. I said maybe there would be more suds if I used hot water but I tend to set it to “warm”. He seemed okay with that, admitting that would make fewer suds. Really though, even when I’ve used hot water I haven’t seem suds overflowing from the top of the washer. People online agree with me on this issue but they just say that one needs less dish detergent to do the job of laundry detergent. Dish soap is also cheaper.

            Once my laundry was done I called up “Sole Survivor” on Dundas to ask if they could repair or replace a buckle for a sandal. They said it costs about $50 per buckle, but they also said they are closing down their store in my neighbourhood on May 31^st and so they are not taking any new orders. I was told that I could go to their Kensington Market store to get the job done.

            I looked up “Shoe repair Parkdale” and saw that King Shoe Repair is still listed and it’s also just down the street. I remembered that it’s been there a long time but lately it hasn’t looked like there’s any shoe place there. I took my sandal and rode down there. What I found at that address looked like a women’s clothing store with dresses in the window. I decided to go in anyway to inquire if the shoe place had moved to a nearby location. A young woman who looked of Southeast Asian origin was sitting at a sewing machine. I asked her about the shoe repair place that used to be there and she told me that she does shoe repair. I realized that this was the same place but that she seems to do a little bit of everything, including clothing alterations and shoe repair. She looked at my sandal and said it was just a simple matter of replacing the prong. She told me it would cost me $7 but that I would have to wait a week because she’s all by herself with lots of orders for work to be done. She insisted on a $3 deposit. I wonder if that’s because so many people have brought things in to be repaired but then never came back for them.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride.

            At Brunswick and Bloor there were three boxes of books on the curb. Most of them were romance novels and some were actually Harlequin romances in hard cover. I found “Dancing Girls”, a book of short stories by Margaret Atwood, “Broca’s Brain” by Carl Sagan and a hard cover called “Young Edgar Allan Poe” by Laura Benét. It turns out to be a library book from Fredericton High School, but the last lending date on it is January 1965.

I went up to St Clair and Victoria Park. I drank a taller glass of water before leaving because last time I’d only drank a small glass and had been very thirsty halfway out. This time I was still parched, so maybe I’ll try two glasses next time.

            I slurped some water off my hand from the washroom tap at Starbucks on the way back.

            Before going home I stopped at Freshco where I did my regular shopping but I also bought some things for my birthday. I haven’t eaten ice cream in a few years but I bought some Hagen Das salty chocolate truffle and some strawberry ice cream bars dipped in chocolate. I also don’t usually buy things like limeade or ice tea, but I got a couple of jugs of each as well.

            That night I watched the 15^th and 16^th episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Neither of them was that interesting.

            The 15^th had a competition between Milton (Warren Beatty) and Dobie in a run for junior class president. Dobie was on the way to winning because everyone loves a simple, man of the people in politics. Milton’s mother reluctantly tried to fix the election because she had been the “hatchet man” for her late husband’s political campaigns even though she considered her husband to be a “nasty man” and Milton to be a “nasty boy”. She tried to bribe Dobie’s father with large grocery orders if he would influence Dobie. At first he gave in and so did Dobie but then his father changed his mind. In the end Milton’s mother gave all of her business to the Gillis grocery store anyway. She was played by Doris Packer, who was the school principal on Leave It To Beaver.

            The 16^th episode had Thalia on a kick of only dating athletes because she found out how much money top athletes make. Dobie is not athletic but since the school has no boxing team he concocts a plot to become a famous fist fighter. He goes to see Moose McCullough, the greatest athlete in Central High School history, now graduated, married, with a baby and another on the way. Moose will do anything for love and so he agrees to fake a fight with Dobie in the malt shop and to have Dobie knock him out with one punch. It works and Dobie becomes the big man on campus with all the girls fawning over him. But then Milton challenges him to a fight. Before the fight though, Moose, covered in bandages and walking with a crutch goes to see Milton and puts a scare into him. Milton shows up for the fight with his arm in a cast and so does Dobie.

            

Doc Martin Problems

            On Thursday I got around to poking holes in the straps of the Doc Martin sandals that I found so they would fit my comparatively little feet. I certainly have bigger than average hooves but whoever owned these sandals originally was at least a size larger. I got them so they felt pretty secure.

            I washed three pairs of underwear and put them outside and they were dry by the late afternoon when the sun moved around to kill the southeastern shadows.

            Since I had to work that evening at Artists 25 and wanted to have something quick to eat when I got home late, during the early afternoon I grilled the three steaks that I’d bought on Sunday.

            When it was time to leave I put the sandals on and buckled up the straps but the prong of the back strap buckle for the right sandal broke. I was able to wear them anyway because the strap was fairly secure just from slipping it in the buckle and out the other side.

            It was weird riding my bike with sandals on though. I think I might be able to make them more secure by adding more holes to tighten up the top strap. There’s both a sense of freedom and insecurity that seems to go along with wearing sandals.

            There were just two artists drawing me for most of the night. I told them about finding my Doc Martin sandals in a box on the curb. I forget the woman’s name but she is a regular. She exclaimed, “Those are worth a fortune! The universe gave you a resent! It does that sometimes!” I responded sceptically, “Sometimes it gives children cancer!” She said something about how there might be reasons for that, which basically meant she didn’t know. Why do people have to think the universe gives a fuck about them? It so much more logical that shit happens, good or bad. It doesn’t serve one’s mind at all to think one has a relationship with the new age version of god.

            Artists 25 has existed since 1981 and it was one of the first places that gave me work when I began modeling in 1982. During that time they’ve continuously run four drawing sessions a week in a well equipped studio, plus sometimes drawing and painting courses have also been given. Cy told me that they are looking to move forward as a corporation but a corporation needs three directors. They have two and need one more director if anyone is interested, and it could be pretty interesting.

            We talked a lot of Tom Phillips, who died two weeks ago, was the heart of Artists 25 and its most active member. Part of his will was set aside for preserving his artwork, and his cousin Lisa has the task of making that happen. It sounds like an impossible task given that Tom left behind thousands of paintings. It seems to me that the ideal situation would be to turn his house in Etobicoke into a Tom Phillips museum but the problem is that a different faction of Tom’s family inherited his house and they plan on selling it.

I don’t know if it was the temperature, the atmosphere, the mood, the memories of Tom or all of those, but it was a very pleasant session and I hardly felt like I was working at all. When I left the studio the temperature was nearly perfect and coasting down the hill on Brock was very pleasurable on such a sweet night, with moon hanging above and ahead of me.

When I got home I slipped some frozen fries in the oven and heated up one of the steaks. Then I watched the 13^th and 14^th episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

These stories are not particularly well written but they sometimes throw in an interesting character or a clever situation or two. In the 13^th episode Dobie’s father is having trouble understanding his son. One of the town’s most prominent psychiatrists was shopping the Gillis grocery store and Herbert thought he’d get some free advice my engaging the doctor in a casual conversation about a situation between a father and son. The doctor tells him that a boy might think he hates his father and if he admits it verbally it might be a breakthrough. The doctor’s groceries amounted to $20.75. The doctor gave Herbert 75 cents and said they were even because he charges $20 for a session.

Herbert tries to get Dobie to tell him that he hates him but Dobie refuses. He offers to give Dobie $6 to take Thalia to the prom and he’s tempted but still refuses to tell his father he hates him. Finally Herbert threatens, “You say that you hate me or we’re through!” Dobie tells his father what he seems to want to hear. Then Herbert is upset that his son hates him. He begins to treat Dobie with indignation and then Dobie brings him a gift. He cancelled his date with Thalia and spent the entire amount on a tie for his dad. Herbert is so touched that he pays for Dobie and Thalia to go to the prom.

The 14^th episode involved a student from Argentina renting a room at the Gillis place, but the guy is so polite, gallant and charming that all the girls at the school and also Dobie’s mother are nuts about him. Dobie has to get rid of him and so he teaches him rude expressions that would be considered insulting to most women, like calling them “tubby”. Thalia still finds him charming but Dobie’s mother doesn’t appreciate it.

           

           

Far Out Girl

            On Wednesday I got caught up on my writing.

            It was a very warm day so I opened the back door again and wore shorts for my bike ride. I usually stop to pee at the Firkin at Woodbine and Danforth but saved some time since I didn’t feel like it this time. I felt the slight twinge of a need to urinate but not enough to bother gratifying. I rode to Dawes Road and Pharmacy Avenue, then back down to Danforth. I did stop at Starbucks to use the washroom on the way back and also to slurp cold water from my hand a few times because my mouth was feeling very dry.

On Queen Street a skateboarder just ahead of me got clipped by the mirror of an SUV that was trying to pass between him and the streetcar. The skater started shouting and trying to catch up with the driver. When I passed him he was angrily rapping. He got ahead of me again because he didn’t stop for the open streetcar doors, but before I got to Bathurst I saw him walking back and carrying his board.

When I got home I went out and bought a can of Creemore for later. I checked the mail on my way back in and there was a letter from the Ontario Ministry of Housing containing the form I need to fill out in order to reapply for the Toronto Housing Allowance. I won’t forget it this year. That money has helped to keep me from being broke since last September.

I cooked pappardelle pasta for dinner but my saucepan had gravy in it so I had to heat the sauce in the oven in a Pyrex loaf pan. I ate the pasta while watching the 11^th and 12^th episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Uniquely, neither story had Dobie mooning over a girl.

The 11^th episode was one of those formulaic birthday stories in which the lead character stays away from home on his birthday because he thinks no one remembered or cared. Meanwhile they are all waiting for him with a surprise party.

A five-year-old Ron Howard was in the story too. Dobie would steal empty pop bottles from his father and get Ron’s character to bring them in for the deposit. He got him to do it with the same six-pack of bottles three times. 

The only really interesting thing about this episode was the introduction of a new character named “Far Out Girl” who is a hard-core Beatnik way beyond Maynard G Krebs. She married rich and so she’s free to be as far out as she wants. She’s shopping at Riff Ryan’s Records and he’s introducing her to stereo headphones, which are blowing her mind. As soon as he puts them on her skull she says, “Like crazy big daddy, give me a sec!” So Riff leaves her alone. Maynard walks in; not realizing Far Out Girl is there and wonders why the store volume is so low. He cranks up the knobs, causing Far Out Girl’s glasses to shatter. She starts walking out of the store. Riff calls after her, “Where you going Far Out Girl?” She answers, “Farther out”.

Ryan kicks out Maynard for chasing away his best customer and complains that Maynard plays his records till they’re so thin they play both sides at once.

Although we’ve never heard of her until this episode, apparently the Far Out Girl is a legend in the Dobie Gillis universe.
            Far Out Girl was played by Janice Carroll.

The 12^th episode was featured Dobie’s grocery store owner father and the hassles that he has to deal with from his family and customers as Christmas approaches. The beginning shows Herbert Gillis in jail and refusing to leave till after Christmas even though he is free to go. There’s one customer that always asks for her groceries to be gift wrapped and claims the items are presents but it’s just a scam to get free wrapping paper. The funniest part was the woman that brought back a turkey that she’d bought in June saying she doesn’t need it now because she will now be having Christmas with the people that were going to have Christmas at her place. She wants her money back. He finally gives in but then she wants her money back at the current, higher price for turkeys and not the price she paid. Finally he uses the turkey to smash the window of his own store and is charged with disturbing the peace. In the end Herbert’s wife and kids bring Christmas dinner to his cell and he’s so touched that he says, “Let’s go home!”

Dobie’s older brother Davey is played by Dwayne Hickman’s actual older brother, Darryl.

That night there was a bunch of loud people drinking in front of my building. There have always been people hanging around but this seems to be a new group that has started to make it a regular thing.

Penney Parker

            On Tuesday it rained in the morning and since it looked like it could rain in the late afternoon and since also had writing to do I didn’t take a bike ride.

            I talked in the hall with my next-door neighbour, Benji. He was complaining that modern immigrants to Canada don’t have the same work ethic that they did when he came here from Guyana in the 70s. He used our Sri Lankan landlord as an example and said that they all come here geared to take advantage of the government. He also mentioned all the Africans from Somalia and Ethiopia that hang around getting drunk outside of our building. I don’t think the few fallen immigrants that we see on the street reflect the entire immigrant population. Statistics show that immigrants tend to contribute to the Canadian economy more than people that were born here.

            Benji said that the donut shop downstairs isn’t doing very well and may not renew their lease and added that is worrying the landlord. The Coffeetime always looks busy to me and even if they do leave it’s prime retail real estate. He can easily hike up the rent and get another commercial tenant right away.

            That night I watched episodes 9 and 10 of he many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

            The 9^th episode co-starred Warren Beatty as Dobie’s rival, Milton. Dobie wanted to get a part in a school play because he was in love with the lead actress and the play had a kissing scene, but Milton won the audition. However, since Dobie was the only other one that tried out for the part, even in losing he became Milton’s understudy and so plotted to get Milton out of the play. A trap door onstage was involved. Dobie actually put in a good performance and got the girl in the end.

            In the 10^th episode Dobie falls for a new girl in class. While a lesson about genes is going on Dobie is trying to ask her to go steady. Poppy says it depends on something she would need to explain and so he invites her to dinner. Dinner takes place in Dobie’s father’s grocery store after closing and it consists of the most expensive food he sells, like canned caviar. Poppy explains that they can only go steady if Dobie wants to have lots of children. He tells her he wants anything she wants. She’s also concerned about the lesson they’d had in school that day about genetic inheritance. She says if Dobie’s father is a mean and angry person then that could be passed on to their children. Dobie sets about to arrange a meeting between Poppy and his parents and so for the first time he begins to help out in the grocery store in order to put his father in a good mood. He does the deliveries and takes Poppy with him, but they eat some of the food and he screws up some of the orders. By the time Dobie brings Poppy to meet him his father has been given three subpoenas to appear in three different courts at the same time on Monday. He chases Dobie angrily around the store.

            Poppy was played by Penney Parker, who for a season was Danny’s daughter on Make Room for Daddy. 

Victoria Day Traditions

            On Monday I spent most of the day writing.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. As I rode up Brock there were a lot of cop cars with sirens flashing and the fact that they were turning east on different streets suggested that they were trying to surround somebody. On Croatia, just south of Bloor there was a muscular man wearing a white tank shirt, on his knees with his hands cuffed behind him. He was calling out in a loud, clear voice, “Guys! Guys! Please! I am not resisting arrest! My name is …” I think he said it was Brian something. “Call my mother …” He gave her name and number and the last name was “Sousa” which would indicate that the guy was of Portuguese descent. “I should not be arrested!” At first I thought he was talking to the cops but I think he was very sensibly calling out to any witnesses to make his situation clear and in the hopes that someone would call his mother.

            There were a many more cyclists out on Victoria Day than there were the day before and a lot of people were just walking on Bloor Street, despite the fact that only restaurants and bars were open but no stores for shopping.

            I rode to Bexhill Avenue and Dawes Road. On the way back I stopped at the friendly Starbucks to pee. There were two sets of cops in there buying fancy drinks.

            I had expected a bike ride on Victoria Day to be quiet, but traffic-wise it was actually quite a loud and hectic day. There were also a shitload of motorcycles roaring around either individually or in packs and I wondered if there was some special biker event going on in the city that day, but I couldn’t find anything listed online. Maybe Victoria Day weekend is a traditional time for people to start riding their motorcycles again.

            That night I watched the 7^th and 8^th episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

            At the beginning of the 7^th episode Maynard showed up. Dobie asked how he could be there since he was supposed to be in the army. “They called it a hardship discharge.” “Whose hardship?” “The army’s.”

            Dobie is in love with a new girl named Pearl Arnold. Maynard is knocked over by her in the park and then when he looks up at her, in a breach of character, his heart his heart is knocked over and he falls in love with Pearl too. He tells Dobie he’s in love but doesn’t know what to do. Not realizing that Pearl is the object of Maynard’s affections he offers to help him win her. After finding out Maynard is in love with his girl, Dobie remembers his promise and decides to do the noble thing and break up with Pearl for Maynard. But Pearl sees what Dobie is doing and likes him all the more for it. Dobie starts trying to convince Pearl what a great guy Maynard is while Maynard argues how much better Dobie is. Pearl gets up to dance with someone else, explaining, “You fellas don’t need me! You’ve got each other!”

            The very pretty actor that played Pearl was Diane Jergens, who’s been married to singer songwriter Randy Sparks since 1962. She retired from acting at the time of her wedding. Sparks founded The New Christie Minstrels and wrote both “Today” and “Green Green”.

            The 8^th episode was about Dobie and Maynard stealing a goat that was the mascot for a rival high school football team that always beats Dobie’s school, Central High. The idea was that the goat was good luck. The goatnapping was a success and all the girls were impressed with Dobie’s ingenuity, but the day of the game the other team was so mad that they beat Central even worse than before. All the girls were suddenly mad at Dobie.

Maynard G Krebs

            On Sunday I spent a lot of the day writing about my latest food bank adventure.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. It was not a hot day, so I wore jeans and at first had on my long sleeved shirt unbuttoned. Once I was up on Bloor though I stripped to my undershirt.

            There wasn’t much velo traffic, especially after Yonge Street. It was nice to have a functioning bike again after having to stay at home on Friday and working on it too late at Bike Pirates to be able to ride on Saturday.

            I rode as far as Westbourne and Dawes Road and then headed back. I went all the way to Dovercourt along Bloor, and then headed south to Dundas and west to Lansdowne. I wanted to see if I could make it to the No Frills there before it closed. I made it with half an hour to spare, just as another guy was running in.

            I got a watermelon, grapes and strawberries. They were all out of cinnamon raisin bread so I got cinnamon raisin English muffins instead. I bought milk and found a very good deal on a package of three strip loin steaks for $8.33. The guy that had run in at the same time as me must have been from the States because he came up to ask me if 633 grams was six ounces. I wasn’t really thinking and said yes but it’s really 22 ounces. He thought it was a pretty good deal anyway. It would have been a lousy deal. I told him that there are two meat sections at this No Frills. The other one is run by a butcher shop that sells its own meat separate from the No Frills meat. Their stuff is always marked “special” while the real specials are the No Frills deals like the steaks we were looking at.

            After I left I was unlocking my bike when another guy that was unlocking his said something. I asked, “What was that?” but he was apparently talking to someone on a hands free device and he told me that he hadn’t been speaking to me. Then he asked, “How are you?” and I looked up to see him looking straight at me. I said, “Oh, now you’re talking to me?” He told me that he liked my bike and commented how it was very high. I said it works for me and he nodded, indicating with his hand that I’m tall. He left before me but I passed him after the railroad bridge.

            I had my last egg, sunny side up for dinner, plus some toast and cheese, with a beer. I watched episodes five and six of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

            Episode 5 is about Maynard G. Krebs. Although he’s a faithful friend, because of his carefree nature he’s undependable and Dobie is getting tired of it. He’d given Maynard a note to give to Thalia to meet Dobie in the park and asked Maynard if he’d given it to her. He answers, “Sure!” “What did she say?” “I don’t like remember!” “Do you remember me giving you the note?” “Sure! I got it right here!” Dobie tells Maynard he has to take a break from hanging out with him. “Where will I go?” “Why don’t you go to the record store?” So Maynard goes there but the Beatnik owner kicks him out, telling him “Like I sell new records man, but when you’re through playing them 200 or 300 times, I’m like in the second hand business! You’re cool, you’re hip and you dig man, but I got a wife and kids to support! I don’t mean to lower the boom on ya dad but it’s a definite split! I mean like don’t come back no more!”  He complained that Maynard had taken all the grooves off a Dizzie Gillespie record he had. Maynard goes to Charlie Wong’s ice cream parlour and hears a bunch of guys playing the piano and singing Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In”. He exclaims, “How square can you get?” and pushed them away so he can play jazz. Charlie stops him and tells Maynard that when he plays people don’t sing and when they don’t sing they don’t get thirsty. “Maynard, I dig you the most, but go!” Maynard goes home and as soon as his father sees him he puts his head down and begins to moan painfully. Maynard’s father asks him about a long distance call that he made. Maynard thinks and then he remembers that he’d called Dizzie Gillespie. “Why did you call him?” “I had to! When I heard that new album I flipped my whole skull! When a man plays like that you just gotta tell him!” “Why did you talk to him so long?” “It wasn’t so long. Like ten seconds! He hung up on me. I think he was sore because I woke him.” “What time did you call him?” “7:00 pm.” “He was still asleep?” “It wasn’t 7:00 pm where Dizz was playing in Copenhagen.” Maynard’s father begins to moan again. His mother tells Maynard to go outside for a while. On the way out Maynard finds a letter addressed to him. It turns out that it’s from the draft board. Maynard tells Dobie goodbye and thinks it’s for the best because nobody wants him around anyway. Suddenly Dobie realizes how much he’ll miss Maynard. He organizes a going away party and Charlie Wong’s is full of people giving testimonials about how much they appreciate Maynard. Charlie hopes Maynard will come back soon so he can start throwing him out again. When Maynard reports for duty he is told he’s not drafted. He had only been sent a classification notice like all 18 year olds receive. He may never be actually drafted. Maynard insists that he has to join because his friends only love him when he’s leaving. So Maynard enlists in the army and ridiculously he does so well that they make him a corporal and when Dobie goes to visit he seems him commanding a squad of privates, all wearing chin beards like him. Dobie goes to tell Maynard’s parents how well Maynard is doing and then hears bongos from Maynard’s bedroom. It’s Maynard’s beatnik cousin, Jerome. Jerome is played by a familiar and very distinctive face from the 60s: Michael J. Pollard, who later received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the sidekick of Bonnie and Clyde in the 1967 film.

            Jerome is in episode 6 as well, though it’s a very silly story. Dobie gets tonsillitis and after his operation, even though he normally has a horrible singing voice, he can suddenly sing like Elvis Presley. He becomes a hometown sensation. Thalia becomes his manager but he gets a swelled head and because so many girls want him he can’t be tied down to one girl. She storms away but while he’s shouting after her his voice changes back to being lousy again.

            

Zelda

            After I got home from the food bank on Saturday I had about half an hour to chill before taking my bike to wait in front of Bike Pirates for the shop to open. I finished my cold coffee, did a bit of writing and then left. I was there half an hour early because I really don’t like having to be on their waiting list.

I was the first one there, propped my bike against a tree and began reading my book. Some people looked at me funny for standing there and reading but their reaction wasn’t negative. Some of them looked like they thought I was going to ask them for change but then they were puzzled by the book.

The second person to arrive was a very amicable Australian guy who chatted with me briefly and wanted to know if anyone besides me was ahead of him. He said he was going for a coffee and actually offered to bring me back one. That was nice and I thanked him but declined his offer, explaining that I live nearby. When I thought about it afterwards though my explanation didn’t make much sense. What would be the relevance of living nearby? I guess I meant that I could go home and get something, but really the truth was that I’d just had a coffee and didn’t want one. If I had wanted one, living nearby would not have kept me from accepting his offer.

A couple more guys came and then more and more until there were at least twenty. We all kind of remembered the order, although there wasn’t much of an ordered line-up. It was more like a gauntlet through which pedestrians had to pass made of people with bicycles. It was quite a contrast to two days before when there were just two of us waiting when Bike Pirates opened at noon.

The fourth guy to arrive was looking at his phone and asked how to spell “disdain”. I told him it was d-i-s-t-a-i-n. He wondered if “distain” was an adjective. I told him that “distain” is a noun but “distainful” would be an adjective. He wondered what it means if you say, “He looked at him with distain”. This set off a discussion as several people joined in with their opinion. I told him it’s like a kind of contempt in reaction to something someone has done but it doesn’t have to be because it can come from a sense of superiority over someone. I found out later that I was right about the meaning but not the spelling.

Dave arrived about ten minutes late and explained that he’d woken up late. He went inside but as some of us grabbed our bikes he told us, Not yet!” and closed the gate. About five minutes later he let the first four of us in. Den was already there, so I assume he’d been waiting in the alley for David to arrive.

I put my bike on stand #3 and I knew that I’d have to remove my back wheel before anything else and I didn’t need any help to do that. Then I had to unravel the spoke that had snapped on Thursday and which I couldn’t remove and so had just wrapped it around my axel.

While I was working I heard a woman shouting angrily at David at the front of the store. She said that everything she’d bought at Bike Pirates the last time she was there failed and she wanted her money back. David tried to explain to her that she hadn’t paid for anything but had rather made a donation. She said she wanted to talk to someone else because she didn’t understand anything David was saying. I think she was referring to the fact that David has a pretty extreme lisp, but I’ve never had any problem understanding him, so I think she was just trying to be an asshole or being one without trying or perhaps she was mentally ill. She said she wanted to talk to the owner and David tried to explain that there is no owner. At the next stand, the Australian guy commented to Den, “You guys are saints!” Den told him that he’s dealt with that person before and she’s an idiot.

I had to remove my gear wheel in order to get the spoke out and then I put my rim on the truing wheel. I mentioned to Den how just a few hours after he’d helped me true my rim on Thursday the spoke had snapped and he got a little defensive. He told me that the only volunteer there that is an actual mechanic is David and he passed me over to him to help me change my spoke and true my wheel. Once I’d found the right size spoke and did the little basket weave manoeuvre from where it hooked in the centre then under and over to where it screwed into the rim, then it had to be trued. David got me to tighten or loosen the spokes but they didn’t need a lot to get the wheel back in true.

I asked David if there was a connection between my wheel suddenly going out of balance on Thursday and the spoke breaking. He assured me that the two things were coincidences.

I inquired about something I saw online about balancing a wheel while it’s still on the bike. I had thought that it meant centring the wheel in the frame by truing but he said they just mean truing. One wouldn’t balance the wheel that way. He explained that a truing wheel is just a more accurate version of the wheel being on the bike.

I once again struggled with getting my tube and tire back on together. David came along after a while and showed me that I should put only the nozzle of the tube in first, then put only one edge of the tire into the rim, slip the tube in and then the rest of the tire.

Then when David saw me having problems balancing the tire he told me to always get the tire in the slots as far as possible, then to fully tighten the right side and to only try to tighten the left side after balancing the wheel. That seemed to work.

My next problem was to get my back brakes balanced. A young and pretty man of Indian descent with a high voice and who seemed quite knowledgeable about bikes came to help me with that. After wrestling with it for a while he, like Den had done on Thursday, concluded that the springs were too weak on my brakes and I needed a new set. David came along though and said that all I needed was a new cable and a new housing. I took his advice and found that he was very right. The high voiced guy guided me through installing the cable and housing and afterwards my brakes were balanced easily and worked like a charm.

I took my velo for a test drive but almost immediately my chain jammed in high gear between the gear wheel and the frame. My volunteer helped me adjust the height by having me loosen the “H” with a screwdriver but he said that I should also clean all the guck that’s accumulated on the pulley wheels from dirty chain oil. I did that and then took another test drive. Everything seemed fine.

At the stand next to mine there were a couple of women that looked like they might be a couple but then again I got the impression that the shorter one with the makeup and braids was flirting with me. Maybe she was just being friendly. They were there because the taller woman had borrowed her friend’s bike once a couple of years ago without asking and had gotten into an accident that wrecked her bike. After two years she’d finally taken her friend to Bike Pirates to get a bike for her to fix up. They had been there for a couple of hours before the short woman concluded that the Supercycle from Canadian Tire that they were working on was going to be too slow so she changed her mind about taking it and left.

I was at Bike Pirates for three and a half hours. I paid $1 for the spoke, $5 for the brake cable and housing and then gave a $14 donation.

When I got home I had a late lunch and a late siesta. I ended up sleeping about an hour longer than usual for an afternoon nap. It was about three quarters of an hour before it being time to make dinner when I got up. For dinner I made fried eggs but was out of olive oil so I used flax oil. I checked online while the eggs were being made and found out that one is not supposed to cook with flax oil because the heat renders harmful some of its parts. I didn’t die or get sick but I guess I’ll only use flax oil for salads and such from now on. 

I was just about to take my eggs out of the frying pan when there was a knock on my door. I took the pan off the stove and went to answer it. It was the landlord and his wife, who’d come for the rent two weeks after the last time he’d missed me. He told me that he was going to put a mailbox in the hall so he wouldn’t miss my rent payment but I’d have to pay by cheque or money orders from now on. I told him that cheques and money orders cost extra money so I wasn’t going to do that. We argued for a while until his wife suggested an email transfer. Raja claimed a couple of tenants already pay that way. I said I’d do it if there’d be no charge. His wife said that I could deduct any service charge from my rent, so I took her email. Anything to not have to see the landlord as much, but I expressed concern that if he’s not coming for the rent then he won’t come to take out the garbage. He claimed that in the summer they would come once a week to avoid maggots but in the winter two weeks is enough. I said the garbage bin overflows but he insists it doesn’t. I know it does because I live here and see it, but we’d be arguing all night and my eggs were getting cold. I paid my rent and told them to slip the receipt under my door. 

I had a beer with my eggs and toast and watched the third and fourth episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Episode three introduced a new character that would have fit right in with the Big Bang Theory. Dobie meets Zelda Gilroy after Thalia, in one of her many schemes to turn Dobie into a financially worthwhile romantic investment, decides on a future career for him. He has just read her a poem that he wrote for her and she asks, “How long have you been writing poetry?” “All my life!” “When are you going to stop? Name me one rich poet! You can’t because there aren’t any. That’s why you’ve got to give up poetry! It’s either poetry or me! Think it over!” He decides to pick her and then she tells him that he’s going to be a doctor. She makes him start science classes at their high school. He takes them and begins to fail miserably. One day while he is trying to dissect a frog he begins to complain out loud, “Why did I ever get mixed up in this whole grizzly mess? Why? Why? Why?” Then he turns to Zelda, the young woman next to him at the lab table and adds, “And as for you, you don’t make things any easier! A whole month I’ve been sitting next to you and I haven’t heard one word out of you! Not one single word! Not even hello! You just sit there doing everything right and giving me a big freeze! For Pete’s sake say something! Speak to me! Say anything!” She looks up from her work and says in a clinical voice, “I love you.” “I beg your pardon?” “That’s right, I love you.” “Zelda, I am of course flattered …” “Now don’t get a swelled head. You’re nothing so special. You’re dumb as a post, you’re pigeon toed and you’ll be bald before you’re thirty.” “Is that so? You’re not exactly a traffic stopper yourself!” “Yeah, we’re a couple of dogs all right. But still, we’re not too repulsive. Anyway, what’s the difference? We’re victims of propinquity.” “What’s that?” “Nearness, closeness …” Then she cited a Harvard study that proved that 87% of married couples fall in love because of propinquity. “You put a boy and girl close to each other long enough and it’s bound to happen. It’s a scientific fact.” “No offence Zelda, but I don’t love you!” “You will. You’re Gillis and I’m Gilroy. Don’t forget that they seat students alphabetically in science classes. You’ll be sitting next to me all this year and next, and then when we go on to medical school, eight more years of propinquity. Don’t fight it Dobie, you can’t beat science.” Dobie fails his next test and Thalia won’t date him unless he does well. Zelda offers to do his homework for him and that goes well but then he gets a zero after she coaches him on the next test. She explains that she’d deliberately given him the wrong answers because she’d read a poem that he’d written to Thalia and left inside his homework, plus he’d lied to her about not being able to study with her because he had a job and she’d seen him in the malt shop with Thalia. Dobie admits he had it coming but decides to give up science classes. He storms out of the lab, shouting, “If I can’t have Thalia, at least I’ll have Shelley and Keats!” At the end we find him in front of the Rodin statue in the park, quoting Shelley, “Out of the day and night / a joy has taken flight.”

Zelda was played by Sheila Kuehl, who later became and still is a politician. She was the first openly gay California legislator.

In the fourth episode suddenly Dobie has an older brother who is away at college. David is smart and smooth with women. He comes home and gives Dobie romantic advice. There’s a new girl in town but Dobie can’t get in her good graces so David says they’ll have to try the Lombardie approach, named after the Italian exchange student whom Italy refuses to take back. The approach appeals to a trait inherent in all women: weltzshmerz. “You know everything don’t you?” “Well if a guy doesn’t know everything by the time he’s twenty he might as well throw in the towel! You invent a past for yourself, trouble, hardship, poverty, misery!” “I’ve got all that now!” “Well then what you need is an older woman in your life!” “What older woman?” “The mysterious Mrs. X!”

The next day Dobie approaches Felicia, the girl he wants to get to know and begins to tell her about his troubles with the mysterious older woman, Mrs X. He tells her she is very much like that older woman and Felicia likes that. “What’s her name?” “Let’s just refer to her as Mrs X.” “She’s married?” “Are you shocked?” “Of course not! I read a lot!” “She’s taken every penny I have! When will it stop?” Felicia invites Dobie to the malt shop and says she’ll pay. Dobie says he’ll have to go to the park and think about it. Felicia watches him from the classroom window. An attractive older woman approaches Dobie in the park and asks him for change for a quarter. Felicia sees Dobie giving the woman money and assumes she is Mrs X. She is also their new math teacher. Felicia is rich and she begins spending money on Dobie because she feels sorry for him and probably because he is fascinating because she thinks he’s in the thralls of an older woman. There are box seats at the ball game, rides in her convertible, picnics in the country and so on. The math teacher keeps Dobie after class to help him improve his work which means Felicia has to cancel their drive in the country. She storms into Dobie’s father’s grocery store and tells him about the older woman. Mr Gillis goes to confront Mrs Adams. They have a conversation that each thinks is about something else. He’s talking about what he thinks is a romance between her and Dobie while she’s talking about Dobie’s education. He’s telling her to leave him alone and she says she won’t because he needs her but if he gives his son love then Dobie won’t need her. He agrees and leaves, then tells Dobie that he got him out of his mess but if it ever happens again he’ll take an axe handle to him.

After Legalization, will Someone Donate Pot Brownies to the Food Bank?

            After locking my bike in front of the food bank on Saturday, I went to the back of the line and asked the East Asian woman that was sitting on the steps of the apartment building at 1501 Queen if they’d handed out the numbers yet. She jumped up and shouted, “Where?” and started running towards the front. I told her, “No, no! I was just asking!” She came back to sit down. I assumed from her reaction that the answer to my question was “no”.

            It was raining lightly, but just enough to keep me from taking my book out of my backpack. It stopped for a while and I started taking it out but then it started again. Later on I was able to read for a page but then my brain got tired because it’s hard work for me to translate French.

            Near the end of the line, a man was sitting on the sidewalk with his hood over his head and a fedora on top of that.

            A nervous older man wearing a McGill University jacket was pacing up and down the street and smoking as he waited for PARC to open. He threw his butt out onto the street and it narrowly missed me on the way. I would have considered it rude if I’d thought he was that conscious of his actions. He bummed another cigarette and kept on walking.

            The elderly man who still comes very early despite the random number system that renders coming early useless, told me that Martina, the door keeper had gone for coffee with Valdene, the manager. He speculated that they’d be opening late.

            The former film technician and the toothpick-skinny chain-smoking lady came to smoke together on the steps. She was smoking with a hash pipe but whatever she was smoking didn’t smell like either pot or hash. I suspect she was smoking cigarette butts. She was wondering what is going to happen to medical marijuana dispensary at King and Dufferin where she gets her weed after the federal government legalizes marijuana. He told her that it would be closed because only special stores run by the Liquor License Board of Ontario will be allowed to sell pot from that point on. She commented that the dispensary she goes to has never been busted. He informed her that the only dispensaries they bust are the ones near schools and young families.

            I guess the dispensary she was referring to would be the Relief Centre. It looks like he’s right that legalization will shut down or cause the Ontario government to try to shut down the dispensaries. The western provinces may have made a much smarter decision to simply legalize and regulate the already existing dispensaries rather than set up their own dealers because the prediction is that the Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation won’t be able to keep up the supply for the demand that will exist after legalization, nor will they be able to provide the variety of product that the illegal places manage. This will cause a marijuana black market to continue and perhaps even thrive in Ontario because the illegal sources might be able to provide pot cheaper than the government. I would think that in not going into business with dispensaries the government will be missing out on the years of experience and knowledge that the people that run them have to offer. By supporting and protecting the good dispensaries they could also screen out by squeezing out the ones that are run by gangs.

            A guy came and sat on the other end of the steps. He asked them what time the food bank open but it sounded more like a demand and he was swearing a lot, so the other two got up and left. His lack of social grace was clearly the result of mental illness. I told him what he wanted to know, though I don’t think he stuck around to get a number.

            Martina came up the line with the box of numbers and I was pleased to draw number 6, though not as happy as the guy that got number 1. He walked around showing to people and saying, “I’ll leave some food for the rest of you!”

            I was in the first group to be called. Downstairs I might have forgotten to return my number if the receptionist hadn’t asked for it. She said they’ve lost a lot of numbers that way.

            My volunteer was the elderly, extremely short and very pleasant Filipina.

            The top of the first set of shelves tends to hold a lot of odd items that don’t fit the categories that most of the food on the other shelves falls under. I was surprised that the two people ahead of me didn’t take any of the 500 gram squeeze-bottles of Burke’s raw Ontario clover honey that were on that shelf. The Burke family honey business has been around for 109 years and though the bees have to get from blossom to blossom with walkers they must know what they are doing by now.

            My helper said I could take something else from that shelf as well so I grabbed a bag of chilli-cheese popcorn.

            Further down I got three oats and chocolate chewy bars and several packets of turbinado sugar. The sugar in the raw was welcome because the brown sugar I have at home gotten so hard that every time I want some for my cereal I have to scrape granules off the rock with a cheese grater.

            For the last few weeks the only cereal they’ve had were family size boxes of Chex, which I don’ like very much. This time though they had a wide variety. I’d been eyeing the carton of spoonsize shredded wheat but the old guy in front of me snagged it. Fortunately though I was able to reach to the very back and pull out the only other box.

            Moving on I got a bag of tea bags, just when I needed them. There were lots of canned beans and soups and the usual choice of sardines, tuna or peanut butter. I took a can each of refried beans, clam chowder, tuna and tomato sauce, and I also finally took another bag of fusilli pasta after finally finishing off the previous one.

            Angie offered me 2% milk but I turned it down because as long as I can afford it I’ll stick with 1%. I also eschewed a quarter block of margarine, because I have plenty and didn’t want the frozen ground chicken, veggie cheese or chicken hot dogs either. She gave me a litre of peach-passion fruit drink. I took the three eggs; the two single servings of fruit bottom yogourt and a coconut chickpea curry lean cuisine. My last choice was between a toaster strudel and a package of soft papardelle pasta. She seemed pleased with my selection and declared, “This is amazing! It’s the closest thing to real pasta!”

            Sylvia gave me two onions, a red pepper, an apple and a bag of frozen green chickpeas. I turned down a bag of potatoes because I have enough to last me until next time I come. She asked if there was anything else I wanted so I pointed at the big bin of cabbages between her and I and asked if I could have one. As she handed it to me she commented with a shake of her head, “I don’t know how to cook those things!” I was puzzled by what she said because I’m pretty sure people cook cabbage in the Caribbean, where Sylvia is from.

            I forgot to ask Sylvia how the food bank garden is doing this year. I remember that last year it died because of heavy rains in March. I’ll have to inquire, but not next week, because next Saturday is my birthday and I don’t plan to stand around for two hours breathing second hand smoke on that occasion.

            I’d noticed on the way in to the food bank that there were more than just white loaves in the bread section this time. After leaving Sylvia I walked over there and Lana said to me, “We’ve got man’s bread today!” She was referring to the darker, round loaves that I’d been eyeing. I’d always figured that men prefer white bread while women might be more likely to eat whole grain bread because they like healthier choices. I put a dark loaf in my bag.