Susan Watson

            On Monday I spent a lot of time catching up on my journal.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride.

            At Ossington and Bloor I saw Dennis from Bike Pirates. I assume he was working on a project at Site 3 coLaboratory, which is in that area and that he stepped out to take a smoke break. He told me to be safe because he’d almost got clipped three times while riding his bike on Bloor earlier that day.

            At a traffic light in Korea Town a young man crossing the street while looking at his smart phone tripped over my back wheel. After he apologized he continued across Bloor while still looking at his phone.

            Further down the road the only part of a dead pigeon that wasn’t squashed was its wing, which caught the wind and stood erect to sway back and forth as if it were waving goodbye.

            The only cyclist that got ahead of me was a skinny middle-aged guy with glasses on the Danforth. I passed him again shortly after that. I was approaching an intersection with a yellow light counting down and suddenly he rode up beside me, turned his head to me, smiled and called out, “We can make it!” We did, with two seconds to spare. After that I jumped ahead of him again and he must have turned off the Danforth because I didn’t see him any more.

            On the edge of a park west of Woodbine, a little boy that had been walking with his mother suddenly sat down to play in the grass. An elderly woman that was passing exclaimed, “Oh to be young again! Just plop down anywhere!”

            I rode to Warden and Danforth and then I took Warden north to Danforth Rd, turned right and then right again on Scotia, which immediately turned to Milne Avenue. I followed Milne east to where it curved north to Mack, which goes through an industrial area and at one curve looks like it’s going nowhere because there are just bushes and open space, but it took me to Birchmount. There are a lot of big spaces between streets in that section of Scarborough and the next street south of Mack along Birchmount was actually Danforth.

            When I got home I put the still partly frozen rack of ribs I’d bought a few days before into the oven. Two hours later I had five of them while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            The first story featured the second and final appearance of Mary Miller, this time as a fellow student of Dobie and Maynard named Emily. Maynard is using the music room for a place to sleep when Emily comes in an sits at the piano to sing Henry Sullivan and Harry Ruskin’s 1929 song "I May Be Wrong But I Think You're Wonderful". Suddenly Maynard wakes up and is inspired to become Emily's manager. Maynard trains her hard, finds her an agent, an arranger and even picks her clothes. The agent insists that Emily Klauper is not a good stage name and so they change it to Kitty Fontaine. Maynard also plays a cymbal with a brush while she sings. One night on the road Maynard is on his way to Kitty's dressing room when he overhears a big time manager trying to get her to ditch Maynard so they can make her a big star. Maynard only cares about Kitty’s success and so he pretends that he doesn’t care about her so she will move on. After that they are both miserable. Maynard smothers his sorrows by hanging around in bars and eating seven-decker sandwiches until he looks like he has a beach ball under his shirt. Finally Kitty can’t go on and so Maynard comes back to her.

            Mary Miller had quite a good voice, though she sang in a typical staccato style that a lot of female vocalists used in which they'd jump up an octave for one quick note like in "Stupid Cupid" by Connie Francis.

            The song “I May Be Wrong” was written for John Murray Anderson’s 1929 Broadway Review. The story goes that he believed that the best songs are written under pressure and so he locked Henry Sullivan in a room and refused to let him out until he'd come up with a killer song. "I May Be Wrong" was the result and it was the best song in the review.

            In the second story Dobie and Nancy Sue, the girl of his dreams fall in love with one another at first sight and he proposes to her after one day. She says she would accept his proposal immediately if not for the tradition in her family that the younger sister can’t get married before the older one. Her older sister is Dr. Imogene Burkhart, one of the professors at Dobie’s college. This has got to be the most inconsistent show I've ever watched. At the beginning of this fourth season Dr. Burkhart was portrayed as a beautiful married woman. They’ve jumped back and forth with these episodes, sometimes showing her as attractive and sometimes making her nerdy and plain, depending on which story they want to tell. Now suddenly she’s unmarried and never has been. In this story she's had the same nerdy accountant boyfriend for 14 years and he has never proposed. Dobie, his parents and Maynard set about to make Dr Burkhart over so her man will ask her to marry him. They make her gorgeous but it has no effect on him. Finally they arrange for a handsome man to pretend to make a play for her but when he sees her he doesn’t have to pretend. She dumps her boyfriend and decides to play the field. So does her sister.

            Nancy Sue was played by Susan Watson who did a lot of work on Broadway in musical theatre.

Barbara Bain

            On Sunday I discovered that all of the ice from my old refrigerator that I’d thrown out onto the roof was gone. I had planned on airing it out overnight and then cleaning it off before putting it into my new fridge but obviously we have a thief in our midst. This used to be such a nice neighbourhood!

            I spent some time cleaning the inside and the outside of the old Admiral. I don’t mind so much if the things I keep and use are filthy but I don’t want what I throw away to look bad.

            I had planned on taking a bike ride in the late afternoon but around the time I would have started getting ready to go it looked like it might rain. The weather forecast predicted a 40% chance of rain between 17:00 and 18:00, so I decided to stay home and get some writing done instead.

            I had a couple of eggs with toast and a beer for dinner and watched two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story Maynard takes some experimental energy pills meant for lab mice and becomes super strong. Dobie’s father manipulates him into becoming a heavy weight champion by always telling Maynard that his opponent hates his hero, Mighty Mouse. Maynard fights his way almost to the top of the heavyweight category although no explanation is given as to how he could possibly even compete in that category when he still weighs only 48 kilograms. The night before Maynard is scheduled to fight the heavyweight champion of the world the champ’s sexy girlfriend comes to Maynard’s hotel room to seduce him and find out his secret. But Maynard cannot be seduced and so he just tells her because he is stupid. She steals the pills and so the night of the fight Maynard does not have the help of the pills. But they receive a letter from Dr Burkhart warning them that they’ve discovered that the pills have a shelf life of 80 days and after that have the opposite effect. The bout is on the 81^st day. Maynard manages to avoid being knocked out until just before the champ collapses, but since Maynard falls down one second before the champ does, the champ wins. It’s odd that Maynard doesn’t fight a single Black man. Sonny Liston was actually the heavyweight champion in 1963 and he was defeated by Muhammad Ali when he was still known as Cassius Clay.

            On this fourth and final season of Dobie Gillis, there were a few Black actors for the first time. They were usually background actors playing usually one female and one male student at Dobie’s college.

            In the second story the Gillises go to Washington with Maynard tagging along. In their hotel lobby two foreign spies, Veronica and Bruno mistake Maynard for a famous rocket scientist and plot to kidnap him and force the secrets from his magnificent brain. The beautiful and seductive Veronica does not interest Maynard but Dobie, thinking that he’s got a shot with her, does not discourage Veronica’s belief that Maynard is Dr. Fahrenheit. She arranges to have dinner with Maynard in the Gillis’s hotel room with the intention of drugging him and turning him over to their chief agent. Two FBI agents are onto the spies and contact Dobie and Maynard, asking them to play along so they can capture them and the chief. But Dobie’s mother and father know nothing about the spy angle and are just worried that Veronica taking advantage of poor innocent Maynard. The Gillises come to the hotel room posing as hotel staff. In the bedroom they find the FBI agents but think they are in cahoots with Veronica. While the Gillises are struggling with the FBI Veronica manages to drug Maynard and spirit him away. But downstairs the smell of a passing roast chicken revives Maynard somewhat and he unknowingly evades the spies while he is chasing the aroma.

            The chief was played by John Banner, who played Sergeant Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes.

            Bruno was portrayed by character actor Henry Corden who from the mid-70s on became the voice of Fred Flintstone and many other Hanna Barbera characters.

            The role of Veronica was realized by Barbara Bain, who played the sultry agent Cinnamon Carter on the original Mission Impossible TV series and later starred on Space 1999 with her then husband Martin Landau who had also starred on Mission Impossible.

            

New Fridge

After the food bank on Saturday I went home and stuffed my stuff into a fridge that gets warmer and warmer below as the ice builds up in the freezer. I could make it colder by defrosting it but I have too many things that could go bad right now in the time it would take for the ice to melt.

I rode to No Frills and was pleased to discover that the Ontario peaches are finally here so I bought two three-liter baskets. I got two containers of Liberté Greek yogourt because it's cheaper than at Freshco right now and having tried both the Oikos and the President’s Choice brands of Greek yogourt I’ve found that they taste sour compared to the Liberté.

All morning long I’d been repeating to myself, “Don’t forget to buy vinegar!” and I guess my mantra paid off because I remembered. I noticed that the pickling vinegar has 7% acetic acid whereas the regular kind for less than half the price has 5%, but I decided to get a quartet of four-liter jugs of the cheap stuff. Four of them are quite heavy so at the checkout I got a new extra large cloth shopping bag.

Shortly after I’d gotten home and put my things away, I was relaxing at the computer when my landlord called my name from my front door. I went to see what he wanted and he surprised me by telling me that he had my new fridge downstairs and that he needed my help bringing it up. I was taken aback for a couple of reasons. One was that he would get me a new refrigerator at all even though he said he would, since he’d also said he would about ten years ago. The other reason was simply that he’d given me no warning so I could prepare my place for the new appliance.

I went downstairs in my bare feet and saw that Raja had the new Samsung strapped to a hand truck and waiting in front of the building. Our first hurdle was just getting it through the front door and I wasn’t sure it was going to make it. We had to back it out again because the buckle of the hand truck strap was in the way. We had to push the fridge through the door by rolling it on its own wheels and it was still a tight squeeze but we made it. Then Raja strapped the hand truck back on and with me lifting and him pulling we climbed the stairs step, pause, step, pause, step, pause and so on until we were at the top. After that he removed the fridge from the hand truck again and we rolled it to the hallway door but it wouldn’t clear the doorknob. I had to squeeze through to go get a Phillips screwdriver from my drawer. With the doorknob removed we were able to make it to the hall in front of my apartment. I told Raja that there was lots of stuff I had to move before I could bring the fridge in, so we left it in the hall.

Raja warned me that I had to wait until the refrigerant gas settled before plugging it in. At first he said I should wait until that evening but later said three hours would be enough.

When Raja tried to open the hall door in order to re-install the doorknob but the door was locked and he couldn't fiddle it open with my screwdriver. He had to call his friend, who was waiting outside in the van to come around and open the door from the other side. Then his friend used my screwdriver to put the doorknob back on but I didn’t notice until later that evening that he hadn’t given me back my Phillips. Raja better buy me a new one if he can’t find the one they borrowed.

The final word on plugging the fridge in, on the advice of Raja’s friend was one hour. I found out later from looking it up that it’s not about the gas settling but rather the oil in the compressor flowing back into place.

            Just inside my apartment on the right is a rickety four-tier shelf that’s almost as tall as me and that was sticking out to far to allow the new fridge to pass. I took my two bikes off their hooks and rolled them into the living room, then I very slowly dragged the shelf sideways, with all the stuff still on it, just until the entrance to the living room, where it would be out of the way when I brought the fridge in.

            Next I turned off the old fridge, took my big aloe vera plant off the top and took all the food out from inside to put it in the sink, except for the meat, the milk and one can of beer, which I shoved into the freezer with the frozen vegetables.
            I had a quick lunch of crackers and cheese followed by some yogourt with fruit preserves and then I took a siesta. After an hour and a half I got up to tackle moving the old fridge to make room for the new. I decided not to take a bike ride that afternoon because there was too much work to do at home.

I slipped a blanket under the ancient Admiral and pulled it to slide the machine over against the entrance to the bathroom where it would be out of the way. I moved my four-drawer filing cabinet that has been standing snugly beside the old fridge for many years, over beside the kitchen cabinet because I was sure that it wouldn’t fit next to the bigger Samsung. I ripped out the grey carpet that had been under both the old fridge and the cabinet (and that for some stupid reason used to cover the entire kitchen floor), I swept the area and then I wheeled in the new refrigerator. I plugged it in, slid it into place and began putting all of my food inside.
The freezer, which is almost twice as tall as that of the old fridge felt a little cold right away, but it took a few hours for it to become as cold as a freezer. The Samsung, though 9cm taller and 5.5 cm deeper inside than the Admiral, was only 1.5 cm wider and it looked like I’d wasted my time moving the filing cabinet. It went beside the new fridge with no problem.

The Samsung has this mildly annoying beeping sound that starts if the doors stay open too long but the only really disappointing thing about the new fridge is that there is no egg tray on the door like the old one had. I found that extremely convenient but now I don’t know where to put my eggs.

One of the best things about the new fridge is a cutting edge feature that is going to make everyone jealous when I tell them about it. When I open the door a light comes on! Now I don’t have to turn the kitchen light on to look into the fridge! Technology is amazing! What will they come up with for the next model? A little piano inside that plays Camptown Races along with a dancing polar bear.

The landlord had left the hand truck with my next-door neighbour, Benji, and he brought it to me so I could move the old fridge out into the hall. The freezer was still packed with ice and so I put a blanket under the icebox to catch the water when it started to drip.

I grilled two burgers in the oven and had one with a beer while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

In the first story, teen movie star Valentine Van Loon has lost her dog “Booboo” and is offering a $500 for his return. Dobie wants to find the dog for the chance of romance with Valentine, Dobie’s father wants to find it for the reward, but Maynard has found it.

Valentine was played by Mary Miller, who released four singles in 1964, none of which managed to chart. One of the songs, entitled "Where's Johnny?" was from the point of view of a teenage girl that lied to her friends about having a boyfriend and now has to make up stories about him to keep from looking like a fool.

Before I watched the second story, Benji called me from the hall because the ice in the freezer of my old fridge had started to fall and there was some water on the floor. He helped me take the ice out and throw it on the roof and seemed to enjoy trying to break up with a screwdriver the ice that was still remaining. I don’t think Benji has much excitement in his life. I mopped up the excess water with a sponge and some paper towels and then went back to drink my coffee and watch the second Dobie Gillis story.

This episode features the final appearance of Zelda Gilroy on the series and in it she comes up with another scheme to get Dobie to marry her. Her plan is to get Maynard G. Krebs to propose to her because she knows that Maynard’s faithful friend Dobie will not let him go through with it. She uses her superior mind to convince Maynard that if he doesn’t marry her he will have no one to take care of him in his old age and so he proposes. The wedding takes place but whenever the justice of the peace asks if anyone objects, a different person stands up to offer a very good argument against the marriage. Each time though Zelda and Maynard argue for the marriage. Dobie speaks up but he loses the debate, Maynard speaks against the marriage but changes his mind and then Zelda objects but Maynard convinces her. Finally the justice of the peace objects to the marriage and everyone, including Zelda and Maynard cheer.

Creatures of Habit

            We are creatures of habit. I tend to arrive at the food bank at 9:45 and the other regulars are habitually faithful to their favourite times of getting there. If I were to come much earlier for several Saturdays in a row I’m sure that I would find that the first person there would almost always be the first one there, the second would consistently be number two, and so on. Robbie is usually just ahead of me, and that was the case this time. The big, friendly Jamaican woman gets there just after me and others further back in the line end up getting there at each their own specific time every week. Collectively then it’s almost as if the food bank line-up is a snaking human timepiece.

            One of the early birds is the ultra skinny sixty-something woman named Brenda. She went back to sit down on the steps of 1501 Queen St west and have a smoke. A large woman with two armfuls of tattoos who’d just arrived asked her if they were going use the number system that day. I said, “I hope so” but Brenda said that she thinks first come first serve is the best system. I argued that with first come first serve people keep coming earlier and earlier just so they can be t the front of the line. The food bank and the management of 1499 Queen don’t want people to come there at 7:00, three and a half hours before the food bank opens. Brenda declared, “8:30 is early enough for me!” I added that the random number system stops people from butting in and eliminates disputes over places in line. She continued to be adamant that first come first serve was better because that’s just the way it works everywhere else such as on the TTC or at the race track.

            Brenda then began complaining to the tattooed woman about “Orientals” that have the habit of jumping queues. She said she sees them do it all the time at the racetrack and that they even try to push people to get ahead of them. Brenda declared that she pushes right back. She explained that they do it because that’s the way life is in Hong Kong and that's why she doesn't want to go to Hong Kong.

            I looked at an online forum on this issue and certainly most westerners expressed the belief that Chinese people have a tendency to jump queues. I was more interested in Chinese responses to the question and found that they were divided, with some saying it happens a lot in China but with others maintaining that queue jumpers are frowned upon by those that wait in long line-ups in China. It was sensibly pointed out that anywhere in the world where the population outnumbers the services being offered there will be queue jumping and that happens a lot in Europe as well. An example of this in the United States is Black Friday.

            Brenda added, "And they pretend they don't understand you but they do. I know you speaky the Inglee! They’re just playing dumb!" This would be hard to prove. I would think though that if one has limited proficiency in a language, when a native speaker of that language is angry about something they speed up their voice and their enunciation changes and so it may be very possible that when non-native speakers say they don’t understand, they really don’t.

            Speaking of other languages, while waiting I read a couple more pages of Flaubert’s “The Legend of St Julian the Hospitaler”. At the point of Julian's childhood when he takes such pleasure in killing animals that he faints at their moments of death, his father decides to introduce him to the art of hunting. This family is so rich that they have packs of different breeds of dogs for every breed of animal they hunted, plus a squadron of different types of falcons for every kind of bird they would want to bring down. Hunting tended to be a social event but Julian preferred to go out alone with his horse and his Scythian white falcon with the blue feet. I don’t know if white falcons with blue feet actually exist though.

            A guy cam up to ask what I was reading and I showed him the cover. He then told me that his daughter wrote a novel called “I Think I Like You”” that is now in its second printing. He said he read it and found four errors, one of them referring to bourbon on her father’s breath. He said that’s wrong because he didn’t start drinking bourbon until he was in college in Ohio. I can’t find any reference to a novel with that title anywhere online.

            A short and stocky middle-aged man with a long beard was holding a liter bottle of tea-coloured booze. A cop car drove by and after it passed he said to someone, “I’ve been drinkin every day since I was 14 and the cops are trying to catch me on a breach of parole so they can put me back in jail and so they take pictures of me when they drive by. That’s why I hold the bottle on its side!” I couldn’t see why the bottle being horizontal would make it any less incriminating. He related how he recently was in court and the judge saw from his arrest records that since Grade three every time he’s been arrested it was because of violence. He said that he pointed out to the judge that if he were to read the transcripts he’d see that in every case he hadn’t started a single one of the fights.

            Robbie’s sister tends to arrive at least half an hour after he does but always puts her bag on his cart to share his place in line, even though they get their food separately. This is one of the many problems that the random system eliminates.

            A cop came out of the west door of 1499 Queen, got on his bike and rode west. Robbie’s sister watched him lasciviously as he pedaled. The big, talkative woman who always comes early said to Robbie’s sister, “You look like you’re about to have an orgasm or are gonna give yourself one later!” Robbie’s sister nodded and kept staring after the bike cop.

            This time, as with the last few weeks, we still didn’t use the random number system but rather the first come first serve method. Marlina started letting people in on time at 10:30 and that’s been the case for several weeks in a row.

Downstairs there were more volunteers than usual.

From the shelves I took a bag of sea salt and pepper kettle chips; some jalapeno mustard; a 311 gram bag of blueberry and pecan granola; a 450 ml bottle of orange juice; and a can each of tuna and chickpeas. There was lots of pasta and canned soup but I didn’t take any.

Angie wasn’t there but the young woman whom she’d been training last week was minding the meat and dairy station. I didn’t want any 2% milk but I took the four small fruit bottom yogourts and the tub of organic hummus. I eschewed the frozen ground chicken and hot dogs but pointed at the container of Greek yogourt with honey and was about to offer to exchange the other yogourts for it but she gave it to me anyway.

Just as I was about to step over to Sylvia’s vegetable section a box of bananas fell over with the bunches spilling on the floor. While she was picking them up I said, “The bananas slipped on themselves!”

She gave me four ripe but not rotten bananas; four vine ripened tomatoes (three of which were fairly firm); a pack of celery sticks; a pear with a couple of soft brown spots; a golden delicious apple and a vegetable marrow. She asked the person after me if she wanted mushrooms, which meant that she’d forgotten to offer me some, so I asked if I could have some and she exclaimed, “Of course you can have some” and handed me a pack of sliced cremini mushrooms.

The older Ukrainian lady, whose name I think might be Marlena, was handling the bread section for the first time and applying to it her usual businesslike manner. I settled on a package of mini-double-chocolate muffins. I’m sure that Marlena is as nice as the next person, but her manner has the appearance of being unfriendly. It’s not that I would expect her to smile but I can’t imagine that she would last as a counter person in food service if she always looked like she was tolerating you and coldly asked in the end, “We finished?”

Francesca Bellini

            Friday just after noon I did my laundry. The Korean or Japanese manager was lounging in a chair with his smartphone when I walked in. He seemed so comfortable I almost felt guilty about making him get up to change a twenty. He was gone when I came back to put my stuff in the dryer and the young, attractive and friendly woman was there. The things that I'd put in the vertical washer wee done but my shorts and my sweat pants that I’d washed in cold water in a top load washer were still spinning. I asked her how long the top load washers take and she told me 38 minutes, commenting that it’s a strange number. It seemed to me that the smaller washers should be quicker than the 32-minute vertical washers. She said, "You'd think so, but they're not."

            I started heating up a piece of chicken for lunch before going to pick up my dry laundry. It was ready when I came back.

            In the late afternoon I took my first long bike ride in several days and my first ride with my new rear wheel axle. It seemed to me that my bike went faster with the new part and I did in fact do my best time getting to Warden and Danforth. I explored the four blocks that run east between Danforth and Butterworth until Butterworth dead-ended before the railroad tracks. The houses are all at least fifty years old, small and working class. I continued along Danforth after the railroad bridge and except for Eastwood, which runs about a block north, there are no northbound streets before Birchmount.

            On the way back it felt like my back brakes were dragging a bit but it might have been the wind against me. There were mild splatterings of rain at various points on the home journey. I stopped to use the washroom at the Starbucks near Donlands and adjusted my brakes so the right pad wasn’t so close to the rim. The bike rode smoothly after than and the brakes didn’t drift.

            Around Logan there were a few people around the tributes to the people that were shot on Sunday, but the sidewalk looked a lot less crowded than it had been on Wednesday. I also didn’t see any cops around.

            I stopped at Freshco on my way home. All of the grapes were from the USA so I didn’t buy any. I got three packs of BC blueberries, a pack of ground beef and a rack of pork ribs. The Liberté Greek yogourt was more expensive than usual. The Oikos was thirty cents cheaper so I got four of those, plus a couple of cans of peaches. The cashier was very perky and friendly.

            I ate the last of my chicken for dinner and watched a couple of episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story Dobie and Gillis go on vacation to some made up Latin American country where they are caught up in a war between that benevolent country and the made up evil dictatorship next door. It turns out that Maynard is an exact double of the general, Ramon who rules the good country. When the general is kidnapped Maynard has to take his place. They end up defeating the dictator by all posing as Maynard and confusing the bad guys till they surrender.

            The sister of Ramon was played by Francesca Bellini who became the mother of Cindy Williams, who played Shirley on Laverne and Shirley. She is also the grandmother of Emily Hudson who is the half sister of Kate Hudson.

            In the second story Dobie and Mrs. Osborn’s niece Alicia fall in love with each other. Dobie, his father and Maynard spend the weekend at Osborn Manor. Dobie and Herbert see Maynard sleepwalking and later Mrs. Osborn announces that her diamond necklace has been stolen. Dobie and Herbert think Maynard may be stealing in his sleep. In the end we find out that Mrs. Osborn also sleepwalks and that she’s been stealing her own jewels.

Chlorine Gas

            On Thursday at 11:30 I went over to Bike Pirates so I’d be at the front of the line when they opened at noon. While I was waiting I read a page of St Julian the Hospitaler that told about Julian as a child being religiously devout, generous to the poor, but also cruel to animals. His first murder was a church mouse that he found annoying and his next were several small birds.

            The middle-aged Latin American guy who sells things like streetcar tokens and cigarettes out of his pockets on the street was standing a few doors west with a big empty basket on his shoulder. He'd probably just found it while walking around. Three young Latin women walked by and he spoke to them in Spanish. They gestured back to him in a friendly but dismissive way. Another young woman walked by and he said in French “Ça va bien?” and when she answered “Ça va” he pointed at her and said, “Ahh! See? I knew it!” She told him she wasn’t French and kept on walking.

            Den opened the shop and since he was the only one there he at the start only let the first two go to the stands. Once he assessed our problems and saw that they wouldn’t tax him too much he let the next guy in.

            As soon as I started removing my back wheel, half of my broken axle fell to the floor. I decided that rather than rifling through their bins for used parts as usual, I’d just buy a new axle. It was actually the first time I’d ever gotten a new axle at Bike Pirates and Den said that’s what he always does because that way all of the nuts are already on it and it would probably last much longer. The new ones were a bit longer than my old one but Den assured me it didn’t matter.

            I removed the gear wheel and the ball bearings and cleaned out all the old dirty grease, and then I generously re-greased it and put in nine new ball bearings on each side. Den helped me adjust the position of the cones to compensate for the extra length of the new axle and assisted me in arriving at the delicate balancing of friction and play between the cups of the hub and the cones of the axle.

            I noticed that a couple of my spokes were a little loose and so I mounted the wheel on the trueing stand and tightened them without bothering to true the rim.

            When putting the wheel back on my bike I saw how much longer the new axle was and anticipated that it would be impossible for me to loosen the left locknut on the road if a problem arose because my socket wrench would not be able to reach it. I looked for some spacers to go between the dropout and the locknut so that the locknut would be accessible to my socket. I found one five millimeter and one ten millimeter spacer that together did the trick.

            I tested the brakes a few times while spinning the wheel and the wheel went off balance and so I re-secured it in the dropouts and tried it again. I adjusted the brakes so that the right pad was as close to the rim as possible in order to compensate for their tendency to drift to the right. I took my velo up the alley for a test drive and it seemed to work fine.

            The new axle cost $5 and the ball bearings were ten cents each so I rounded them up to $2 and gave an extra $10 for a donation.

            I went home and had come chickpeas with garlic, salt and hemp oil for lunch and took a siesta.

            It was almost 18:00 when I got up and too late for a bike ride but it had rained while I’d been sleeping anyway and so I wouldn’t have gone out anyway.

            I’d planned to do laundry that afternoon but decided that two hours at Bike Pirates had been enough work for that day and so I put it off till Friday.

            I noticed that the vinegar in which I’ve been soaking my amethyst needed topping up and so I grabbed a jug and poured some more in. Suddenly I realized that I’d mistakenly picked up the jug of bleach instead of the jug of vinegar and so I had to dump out the whole thing because vinegar with bleach creates toxic chlorine gas. Hopefully I got it I time before causing myself any damage. At the most there was probably only about 5% bleach in the vinegar and I think even 20% won’t do that much damage. I think the liquid is supposed to bubble before the gas is produced and that didn’t happen. I rinsed the rock and the bucket to clean the bleach off, refilled the bucket with water and I’ll soak the rock in water until I can buy more vinegar.

            I watched a couple of episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story a chimpanzee named Seymour which was purchased to demonstrate learning capacity has no capacity for learning and so the dean wants to sell it to a medical lab for dissection. Maynard begs to be given a chance to teach Seymour something and so he takes him to the Gillises and tries to train him. At the last minute the chimp suddenly demonstrates an ability to recreate great paintings like the Mona Lisa.

            In the second story Chatsworth Osborn is kicked out by his mother because during a hunting trip for which he’d rented Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont he rammed and sank a Brazilian destroyer and two Australian fishing trawlers with his yacht. She says he can’t come back until he becomes a responsible human being. Dobie’s father, thinking that there is eventual profit to be made from the gesture, offers to put Chatsworth up. Herbert spends a lot of money to keep Chatsworth in the lifestyle to which he is accustomed, even to the point of letting him keep his polo pony in Dobie’s bedroom. Herbert starts to feel that he’s not going to get any reward after all. When Chatsworth suddenly gives Herbert and Winnie gifts, Herbert wonders where the money has come from when Chatsworth is cut off from the Osborn fortune. Chatsworth gets $3000 from the Osborn butler because he has dirt on him and plans to send the Gillises on a surprise holiday to the Riviera. Chatsworth has a press which he uses to make his calling cards and he is using it to make traveling cards for Herbert and Winnie. But when Herbert looks through the keyhole he sees a pile of cash on the table and Dobie and Chatsworth working the printing press. He concludes that Chatsworth has corrupted Dobie and that they have become counterfeiters. He bursts in and destroys the money before they can make him understand that it’s real.

Broken Axle on the Danforth

            Wednesday morning when I got up it was extremely humid. My body was slick during yoga and my hair felt like I’d dipped it in a pool of warm water.

            The clothes that I'd put out on the deck on Tuesday but hadn't taken in before the rain came finally dried out.

            I took a bike ride in the late afternoon, worried from the time I started that my left back brake pad was going to drift and start rubbing against the rim. At the Brock and Dundas stop light I had time to get off and check if it was still okay and so far so good. Everything continued fine until I was on the Danforth and then I started to feel a slight drag. I kept on going though because I was still passing people and I figured I’d be able to make it to Woodbine where I would stop and adjust the brakes before using the washroom at the Firkin. I got as far as just before Coxwell before the resistance started slowing me down too much and I pulled over. It turned out that my brakes were still fine but my back wheel had drifted to the left and it was rubbing against the frame. I turned my bike upside down and took out my tools, but the left locknut was too far in on the axel to reach with my socket wrench. I looked around for someplace that might have a wrench and I saw Cyclepath was half a block east, so walked my bike over there to ask if someone could loosen the nut for me. The person behind the counter said they weren’t doing any more repairs that day. I told her it would take five seconds. She offered to lend me a wrench so I could do it myself. The only reason I hadn’t asked for that in the first place was because bike shops tend to not let customers use their tools. I loosened the nut and took my bike outside and found an open space on the sidewalk to turn my bike upside down again. I pulled my wheel into the dropouts, balanced and tightened it and continued on. After a minute and a half though I felt my wheel wobbling and stopped again. I turned my bike back upside down and loosened the nuts again. While I was trying to re-secure the wheel the right lock nut looked like it was on crooked. I started unscrewing it and saw that it was actually my axel that was crooked because it had apparently snapped. I balanced the wheel and tightened the nuts so I could walk the bike to the Coxwell subway station. I changed a ten to get fare and was about to go in when the guy behind the window told me that I couldn’t take my bike on the trains until after 19:00.  A couple of months ago the streetcar driver told me I couldn’t get on until after 18:00. It’s odd that they have two different times.

            I walked west and figured I’d make it to the Starbucks west of Donlands so I could use the washroom and get the grease off my hands before I went onto the subway. I had to go into the Linnsmore tavern to pee instead. They had watered down liquid soap and no paper towels but I managed to get a lot of the black off of my hands and wrists.

            I kept walking and Danforth started to get crowded just before Pape. The throng of people got thicker and thicker as I approached ground zero of Sunday night’s shooting. There were two areas before Logan with lots of floral tributes surrounded by messages written on the sidewalk multi-coloured chalk such as “Choose Love, Gun Control and Mental Health Awareness” and “Hate cannot drive out hate”. I’m not used to travelling by sidewalk on the Danforth but I assume that this mass of people came out to see the memorials or to add to them. It was especially difficult to get through while walking a bicycle but I made progress. There were still a lot of cops around, probably mostly to deal with traffic at this stage.

            By the time I got to Chester it was 19:00, so I went into the subway and took the train to St George, transferred to the southbound train, got off at Queen and just as I carried my bike up to the street I saw a crowded streetcar leave the stop. Fortunately though there was a short and nearly empty Roncesvalles car right behind it.

            I got home probably half an hour later than I would have if I’d completed my bike ride. Once my bike was hung up I went out to buy a can of Creemore. I did some writing for a while and had the beer with some beans and toast while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story the Osborn’s discover that they’ve lost $30 million and are now poor. Chatsworth comes up with a scheme to raise money by setting up a charity for an anonymous family and putting Maynard in charge of collecting the money in a wishing well on campus. The Gillises become suspicious when they realize that Chatsworth is carting the donations away in an armoured car every night. They go to Osborn Manor to confront Chatsworth and Mrs. Osborn confesses that they are now poor. Dobie’s father says he’s out $16 that he donated and Mrs. Osborn offers herself and Chatsworth to become the Gillises maid and butler until the $16 is paid off. But it ends up costing the Gillises $ thousands to employ them because they keep bringing in expensive food and appliances and chefs and charging it to Herbert. After two days Herbert tells the Osborns that their debt is paid. They declare how much they appreciate the Gillises kindness and then suddenly they receive word that their rubber plantation in Brazil has just had a bonanza and they are rich again. Herbert reminds them what they just said about appreciation but Mrs. Osborn says they only talk to trades people on Thursdays.

            The second story featured a robot designed to be a pop music expert that could tell if any song will be a hit and to suggest what could be changed to make a song a hit. This episode also sees the return of Dobie’s cousin Virgil, who is a little bit less of a cad this time as he doesn’t lie and cheat to steal any girlfriends. Virgil goes to sell himself as a songwriter to the music publisher that owns the robot. And the robot tells him his song is a flop but explains how to fix it. Maynard though accidentally turns the robot off but has his finger inside the machine when he turns it back on and becomes electrocuted which somehow transfers not only the robot’s consciousness into Maynard but he now seems to be made of metal under his skin and only lives on motor oil. Anyway, the Maynard robot causes Virgil to be a big success with the help of Herbert Gillis and a campus DJ named Sally O'Malley (also known as Tin Pan Sally), none of who seem concerned about the fact that they are taking advantage of Maynard’s misfortune. When the Maynard robot makes a suggestion to speed up a song to an absurd degree, Herbert smashes a record over his head and he changes back to Maynard.

            The pop music robot was played by Robby the Robot from the 1956 film The Forbidden Planet. After that film the robot became a pop icon of the 50s and early 60s much like Max Headroom did for the 80s. Sally was played by Alva Celauro.

Ilse Taurins

            On Tuesday I washed three undershirts and a pair of shorts and put them out back to dry.

I got caught up on my writing and didn’t take a bike ride because of the chance of rain. It did start raining while I would have been in the east end if I’d gone riding. I’d forgotten about my clothes on the deck though, which probably would have been almost dry if I’d grabbed them before the downpour.

That evening I wanted to practice playing “Andalusian Dream” but I needed to go out and buy batteries for my guitar tuner. It was already after 20:00 and I thought Fullworth would be closed but it wasn’t and so I bought four CR2032 batteries. I played the song three times.

That night I watched two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

In the first story Dobie’s father and Maynard get their index fingers locked together in a Gypsy love link. Dobie goes looking for the Gypsy that sold it to Maynard and far out of town finds the Gypsy camp. He also finds Natasha, the daughter of the Gypsy king and while kissing her forgets what he’d come there for. Meanwhile Dobie’s father is up for the Grocer of the Year award and so the only way to make bringing Maynard with him not look stupid is to dress him in drag and have him go as his wife. The little Italian grocer who won the award falls for Maynard and keeps chasing him around for a kiss. Afterward Dobie shows them that to get free they must push rather than pull.

Natasha was played by Ilse Taurins who was originally from Latvia.

The second story was basically a repeat of a story from the first season. The original started with Tuesday Weld’s character, Thalia dumping Dobie but this one had Zelda finally decide to call it quits with Dobie. But when a new rich girl in school named Claypool wants Dobie because he’s boringly dependable, Zelda wants him back. Once she’s got him back she tries to teach him to think but when he can’t she dumps him again. This goes back and forth until Dobie finally learns to think and his thinking makes him logically dump Zelda but it makes him dangerous to Claypool so she won’t have him.

Claypool was played by Asa Maynor who was at this time married to Edd Byrnes

Maggie Pierce

            Late Monday afternoon there was 60% chance of thunder showers so I decided not to take a long bike ride, but to just ride up to the No Frills at Dundas and Lansdowne. As I took my bike out though, I saw that my back brakes had drifted to the right again so that the left pad was up against the rim. Bike Pirates had just opened and so I took it there. Alain told me that there were two people ahead of me on the list and so I thought I’d go to the supermarket while I was waiting but first I had to temporarily fix the brakes so I tried to unscrew the back nut so as to shift their balance, but I unscrewed the centre cable by mistake and so I spent a few minutes fiddling with it until Alain told me that there was a free stand for me.

            I struggled with the brakes on the stand and Alain helped me get them a decent distance apart but they were still drifting. Alain didn’t know what to do so I asked Dennis, who advised me to give the brake a good cleaning with some degreaser, a toothbrush and some oil. He said that ultimately I’ll probably have to come in for a few hours, disassemble the brakes and bend the spring to put the tension back in. I did the cleaning that he’d suggested and when I rebalanced them I took into account their tendency to drift to the right and balanced them to the left as far as they would go without the right pad rubbing against the rim. I donated $8.50 in change and then rode up to No Frills. Just as I pulled up to the bike locking area, my next roof neighbour Taro pulled up behind me, said hi, locked his bike and went inside.

            They had some good grapes from Mexico, so I bought a few bags. I also got 1.5 litres of Ontario plums and four containers of Greek yogourt. The express cashier looked extremely bored and just went through the motions of greeting and thanking me.

            Shortly after I got home I cut up the chicken that I’d bought on Saturday and roasted it in the oven. I had a leg with steamed cauliflower, a boiled potato and gravy while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story Chatsworth Osborn offers Dobie $200 to pose as him for one night in an exclusive hotel and meet some old acquaintances of his family, Cynthia Vanderfeller and her father. Chatsworth hasn’t seen them for twelve years but doesn’t want to bother because he has a date. He shows Dobie an unattractive picture of the then nine-year-old Cynthia, Dobie agrees and takes Maynard along as his chauffeur and body guard. They meet in the penthouse suite of the finest hotel in town and Cynthia turns out to be gorgeous. But her and her family turn out to be fallen bluebloods trying to claw their way back to the top. Cynthia’s father hypnotizes Dobie (and inadvertently Maynard) and convinces him to immediately leave by helicopter to a yacht on which the captain can marry Cynthia and Chatsworth so that he and Cynthia will be rich again. The hypnotism also convinces Dobie that he is Chatsworth even though the vanderfellers don’t realize that he is not. After they all leave the hotel room Maynard snaps out of it and goes to Dobie’s father for help. They go to the boat and rescue Dobie.

            Cynthia was played by Maggie Pierce, who co-starred with Jerry Van Dyke in the one-season TV series “My Mother the Car”. It’s considered one of the worst TV series of all time.

            In the second story Dobie falls on a shelf that he made for his metal work course and bends it horribly out of shape. An avant-garde student named Anastasia sees it and thinks that Dobie is an amazing sculptor. She takes him to frolic-dance in white robes under the moonlight but Maynard goes to Dobie’s parents for help. Dobie’s mother though gets everyone to join the pagan dance and they all get arrested and thrown in jail because they are trespassing on a rich guy’s estate.

            

Portable Junk Island

            I’d thought I’d heard everything but on Sunday a read a comment from someone on social media that believes that evolution is a leftist conspiracy. That would mean that 97% of scientists are liberals, which I doubt is the case.

            In the afternoon I tentatively started out for a long bike ride but there were still lots of puddles on the street from the rain that came down earlier and so I just went up Brock to Dundas, east to Gladstone and then south to the Freshco. The main thing I needed to buy was milk because that morning I opened my last bag and it was sour. I sort of guessed that was the case because the bag was bulging like a balloon before I opened it. So I got milk, but also one container of yogourt. I only got one yogourt but I should have gotten more because I didn’t find out until later that the yogourt that I’d bought on Saturday was vanilla rather than plain. It’s harder to tell with the Liberté Greek yogourt because the colouring of both the containers of the plain and the vanilla are the same colour. I also bought paper towels and a four litre jug of vinegar so I can continue soaking my amethyst rock.

            Outside the supermarket and parked beside the cars was a cute little pedal-powered two-person buggy with a roof. I doubt if it could go very fast but it seems to me it would be more romantic than a bicycle built for two. In the case of the buggy the couple are at least beside one another. Most couples wouldn’t stroll together with one walking behind the other.

            On the way back I stopped at the streetcar stop at the area known as the Parkdale amphitheatre behind the westbound Queen streetcar stop at Dufferin. It looks kind of like an amphitheatre and it's shaped like one but I've never seen it used as an amphitheatre. It's mostly used as a skate park and there are spirally rows of concrete benches where people sometimes sit. I stopped there to take pictures of a massive portable junk island that someone had parked there. It was kind of like a shaggy train with all of the stuff piled up on what might have been various carts. It didn’t look like it was made of stuff being collected to sell so much as a homeless person’s moveable house.

            I had an egg and my last two parathas for dinner with a can of Creemore while watching two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story an escaped murderer holes up in the Gillis residence and Dobie and his father do a lot of fainting out of fear of being killed. Maynard thinks the convict is their cousin and so he is totally unafraid of him and even intervenes in several plans to overwhelm him because he thinks the Gillises are just being rude. The killer’s girlfriend arrives as well although she seems to be more leopard print eye-candy than part of the story. She was played by Joyce Jameson.

            In the second story Dobie becomes the campus radio station disk jockey. Zelda Gilroy makes a jazzy record of the 1954 hit “Make Love To Me” and sings it quite well and so Dobie promotes it. 

Meanwhile some payola crooks approach Dobie about playing a record by a woman named Fifi Lavern who changed her name to Prudence Virtue to become a country singer. He says he can’t play the record right away but they start giving him money and presents, which he accepts because he thinks they are just generous people, but he still doesn’t play their record. Even though Dobie doesn’t do anything for the payola, when he realizes that he accepted gifts he confesses to it on air. He is told he has to talk with the dean and asks Zelda to go in and sing live over the air while he’s gone. But Fifi runs into the studio as well and they both start singing their very different songs at the same time. “Baby baby kiss me once again before you say goodnight ... Got my fella and I'll never let him go ... Take me in your lovin arms and squeeze me tight ... yes I got my fella and I’ll never let him go ... Put me in a mood so I can dream all night … Never never let him go ... Everybody's sleepin so it's quite all right ... ya tried to keep him but I told ya so ... Come a little closer, closer, closer, closer, make love to me … Never did but I tried I told you so!” It sounds strangely harmonious and becomes a hit.

            Both Fifi’s payola crook boyfriend and Dobie propose after their performance but Zelda and Fifi sing “Get lost!” and walk off together arm in arm.

            They dressed Zelda and had her move in a much more flattering way than in previous episodes.

            Fifi/Prudence was played by Carole Cook, who was a protégé of Lucille Ball. Lucy was the matron of honour at Carole's wedding in 1964 and she is still married to Tom Troupe. 

Is it Folly to Think My Bike is a Raleigh?

After the food bank on Saturday I took my stuff home and after that had half an hour before going over to Bike Pirates, so I went online briefly and headed out.

I was alone in front of the shop for about ten minutes before a tall guy with dreadlocks rode up on a bike that looked like it could be my velo’s big brother. The lugwork was only slightly different but the serial number was not in the same place. I asked the make of his bike and he told me it’s a Raleigh.
            Later I tried to track down pictures of Raleighs that might look like mine and found that the 1973 Raleigh Grand Prix has similar lugwork to mine and the serial number is on the left rear dropout like mine, which is a rare placement for serial numbers and apparently only the Raleigh Super Course and Grand Prix had their serial numbers located there from 1970-1973. It doesn’t fit exactly because according to the only person online that seems to be writing on this topic, all the serial numbers that were on the Raleigh dropouts started with “0”, whereas mine begins with “J”. The writer though says that his data is not complete, so maybe he’s wrong.
            I had thought that my bike was French because George, the guy that sold it to me told me so and he has a reputation for being a bicycle expert, but maybe he was wrong. I remember that I put a Peugeot bottom bracket into my bike and that I used a tool to re-thread it. I don’t know if re-threading it meant fixing the threading or reversing the threading or if the latter is even possible.

The guy with the dreads said that his is also getting on to 50 years old. He told me though that he wants to get a lighter frame because the weight of the steel one is hard on his knees.

When the shop opened up I took stand number three. I wanted to replace the locking nut for my back brakes because it had gotten all chewed up on the outside and it was difficult to tighten. Dave found one for me right away. I balanced the brakes and tightened it, then after several tests of spinning my back wheel and slamming on the brakes I didn’t see any change in the balance, and so I was done. The dreadlocked guy’s Raleigh was right beside mine on stand number four and I pointed out the similarity between our two bikes to Dave. He thought because of that that mine must be a Raleigh but when I mentioned the Peugeot bottom bracket he said that it couldn’t be a Raleigh then.

Since I was only at Bike Pirates for half an hour and had only gotten one used nut, I only donated $7.00 this time.

I rode down to No Frills where I bought three litres of yellow Ontario plums, a small bunch of bananas, two pints of blueberries, coffee, tea and a whole chicken.

For lunch I made a toasted, ham, cheese and tomato sandwich.

In the late afternoon I took a bike ride to Danforth and Pharmacy, up to Eglinton, across to Warden and then south again. That completed my exploration of all the streets west of Warden and south of Eglinton. Next time I’ll be back around Danforth and east of Warden, though I don’t know if Danforth is even interesting after that point.

On the way back I stopped at the Bank of Montreal just east of Yonge Street to take out $300 and then I went down Yonge. A couple of blocks south of Bloor I put my hand on my pocket but could only feel my phone. I had forgotten to take my money from the machine. I turned and headed back but the machine was empty. I’ve probably done stupider things than forgetting $300 but I’ve never lost or forgotten that much money in my life. I needed money so I had no choice but to take out another $300. On my way home it occurred to me that maybe after a certain amount of time the bank machine rolls unclaimed cash back insider. If that was the case I could only hope that number of seconds or minutes passed before someone else came in and found the money. I know I would have taken it.

When I got home I went out to the liquor store to buy a couple of cans of Creemore. After that I called Bank of Montreal customer service and was on hold for twenty minutes, during which time I posted my blog. The support person confirmed that the ATMs do suck unclaimed money back in but she didn’t know how long it takes. She put in an investigation and said they would check the cameras for the time of my withdrawal and if the money went back in they would have it on record. She said they’d get back to me next week.

I had two eggs and a couple of parathas for dinner with a beer and watched two episodes of Dobie Gillis.

The first story featured the return of the smooth and conniving Cousin Virgil, whose new goal is to marry the daughter of a rich businessman so her father could set him up in business. Just then Dobie’s beautiful and rich new girlfriend Cecily arrives to apologize for being late but she was downtown buying a new yacht because the old one was wet. Just like in his previous appearance, Virgil manages to charm Dobie’s girl, turn her against Dobie and then steal her away without Dobie even realizing that it’s happening. He also enrols in the same business course as Dobie, which is being taught by Cecily’s father and charms daddy as well while at the same time sabotaging all of Dobie’s efforts to do well. As before, Maynard is the only one that knows what a cad Virgil really is.

Cecily was played by Lory Patrick, who did a lot of beach moves and married both Dean Jones and Harlan Ellison.

The second story features the first celebrity guest appearance on Dobie Gillis, as The Lettermen are performing at Dobie’s college. They kick their lead singer, Tony Butala out of the group because he is too much of a ham but their contract for their concert at Dobie’s college says they won’t get paid unless they perform as a trio and so they want to find a stupid, talentless and disposable student to temporarily take Tony’s place. Dobie tries to help Maynard join the group but they choose Dobie. Dobie at first agrees but for Maynard’s sake he is about to reject their offer until an attractive student named April who is the music critic for the school paper has gotten word that Dobie is joining The Lettermen and to please her he stays in the group. April becomes his press agent. The singers Jim and Bob don’t want Dobie to sing but to just stand there and make rhythmic noises with his voice and they also don’t want him to publicize his performance but thanks to April word gets around and Dobie becomes a campus sensation. Maynard is still angry at Dobie and rents him a tuxedo from a magic shop with all kinds of tricks attached to it like rabbits and flying ping pong balls and shooting water. The night of the concert the suit does its dirty work and it’s a disaster.

            

Alien Angel Egg on Fire

            The full morning’s length of the food bank line-up varies depending on the time of the month. Just before the social service payments are sent out it’s usually a python and just after the cheques come out it usually goes back to being a boa. But at 9:45, when I usually arrive, the line-up tends to be the same length no matter what time of the month it is and my place in it is just east of the east end of the steps in front of the apartment building at 1501 Queen Street West.

The last cart in the line this time was the khaki green one belonging to Robbie. I stepped up to it but asked the two nearest people if there was anyone after the cart. The guy with the longish wavy hair who was leaning against the building and reading a book confirmed that he was after the buggy. I made some space for when he’d decide to step away from the wall and into his place in line, stood behind that space and took out my book. I didn’t stay there long though because of the second hand smoke. The breeze was blowing from the east and so I had to walk east of the people smoking in front of PARC in order to avoid their fumes. After a while those people butted out and I was able to move closer to my place in line again.

Angie came up for her cigarette and said to me, “Hi bookworm!”

The regular group that comes early and stands in a circle to smoke and chat together were also near the steps. The big woman always sways from side to side when she’s standing and talking. The skinny woman wanted to make sure their circle was far enough out from the pigeons on the edge of 1501 Queen. She declared, “Pigeon shit is toxic” and then she lit a cigarette.

Justin Zaza came out of 1501 and asked what I was reading. I showed him the cover and he read the title out loud, “English stories”. Then he said, “I read an English story once!” and walked away.

About twenty minutes later Justin came back and asked if I’d finished the book yet. I told him it would take me years because it’s in both French and English. “Do you speak French?” he inquired. “A little bit.” I explained briefly the format of this type of book and he thought it was cool that the English and French are mirrored on opposite pages.

I read a couple of pages of Flaubert’s “The Legend of St Julian the Hospitaler”. For three days after Julian was born there was a continuous party in the castle that was officiated over by the father while the mother rested in bed. On the third night the mother woke to see an old man standing under a moonbeam by her window. He said to her, “Rejoice mother, your son will be a saint” then rose up the moonbeam and disappeared. The next morning at sunrise, after the father had escorted the final guest to the gate, from out of the morning mist appeared a Gypsy who said, “Your son … much blood … much glory … always happy” and then disappeared in the fog. Neither parent told the other about their visions, but because of them they considered their son to be extra special and raised him accordingly.

I saw a guy open the door of the three-holed litter and recycling bin across from the food bank and meticulously go through the garbage. I asked him if he finds anything good. After closing the door he showed me a beer can, which he put in his buggy before continuing east. Without breaking his step he reached out and checked the coin slot of the green parking meter in front of PARC as he passed it. 

At 10:30 we all got into line and shortly after that, two women whom I hadn’t seen all morning came and said to the two guys a bit behind me, “Thanks for holding our place for us” and then they inserted themselves ahead of twenty people. Shortly after that the doorkeeper, whom I’d thought was named Martina, but somebody called her Marlina, let the first five people in. When I was close to the front I asked her when the number system was coming back and she said maybe at the end of this month. After the first group of five had gone downstairs, whatever number of people came back out she would let that number go in. I went down alone.

I didn’t take much from the shelves this time, as I didn’t need any more bran cereal, granola, or pasta; instead of granola bars they had little packs of Dad’s cookies, which didn’t appeal to me and I passed on the canned soup because it was just too warm outside to even think about eating hot soup. All I took was a bag of twelve individually wrapped Earl Grey teabags from Fairmont Hotels; a can of tuna and a tin of chickpeas and a box of Carr table water crackers. Water crackers, like Newfoundland bread are made from basically just flour and water, come out hard and were designed to last better than regular bread over long sea voyages.

Beside Angie in her dairy and meat section was a young woman who gave me a 1.75 litre carton of orange juice; four small containers of fruit-bottom yogourt and three eggs. In addition to the usual frozen ground chicken and hot dogs were frozen packs of sliced Black Forest ham, so I took one of those.

Sylvia gave me a handful of heirloom tomatoes, most of which were soft; about ten small potatoes; a dragon fruit and was about to give me some onions but I told her I had enough. She said, “If you say you have enough, I believe you!” “Why would I lie?” “Exactly! Why would you lie?” 

From the bread section I took a bag of blueberry bagels.

The dragon fruit was pretty squishy on the skin but once I’d cut the outer part away the slightly greyish white inside with its constellation of tiny black seeds was fine. Even when overripe though the Pitaya has to be the most beautiful fruit of all. It looks like an alien angel egg on fire.