On Saturday morning, since it was the day
after the solstice I thought it would be the latest sunrise of the year but it
turns out that the latest sunrise happens a few days after the solstice. But
the sun came up pretty late anyway as sunrise didn’t happen on Saturday until
sunset. On New years day the sun will not come up until sunrise on January 2.
I posted on my
blog and on Facebook “The Canary is on the Balcony”, my translation of Serge
Gainsbourg’s "le canari est sur le balcon".
I
read a bit of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein but I got sleepy by 9:00 and
decided to go to bed for half an hour before getting ready to leave for the
food bank. I woke up 40 minutes later and rushed to get going.
The
line-up was about as long as the week before but I doubt if my being ten
minutes later than usual made much difference. The group of three regulars who
are always among the first ones in line were gathered to smoke and chat about a
meter beyond the back of the line. I wondered if they were smoking at the back
to avoid the second hand smoke at the front. With them puffing at one end and
the others sooting up the front, the line effectively became a
second-hand-smoke sandwich.
I
was behind a diminutive middle-aged woman with a Guyanese accent and beautiful
long black hair. She was holding a place for another Guyanese woman that
arrived about ten minutes later. It wasn’t that she’d been here before and
marked her place with a cart. It seems to be an unwritten rule that if you’re
all by yourself and you don’t go to the back of the line you’re the scum of the
earth but if someone is holding a place for you, even though you are really
still butting in just as much, there’s nothing selfish about you at all.
It
was quite a bit colder than the week before and so I had to turn the pages of
my book with winter gloves. I finished the first chapter of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
that I'd started earlier that morning. Victor Frankenstein is telling his
life story to the captain of an exploratory vessel that rescued him from an ice
floe in the arctic. The beginning of the book is kind of boring in that it
depicts quite a normal childhood and is not very engagingly written. We learn
that Frankenstein was interested in science but more in science that existed
before the scientific method was developed. He was interested in the disproved
junk science of Agrippa that was in great part alchemy. He also went to college
in the real school in Switzerland where the Illuminati had come to prominence,
although the Illuminati is not mentioned except by the editor of this edition.
Directly
behind me was the semi-regular food bank client who looks a bit like P. Diddy.
At one point he said he was going to get a coffee but he never came back.
Behind him was a friendly guy from Africa who was looking forward to taking
home some items that might be donated because this was the last food bank day
before Christmas. I told him that the people that didn’t get a turkey or a ham
last Saturday would probably get one of those this time.
When
Valdene, the food bank manager arrived in the food bank van, she kicked all the
people out that were trying to keep warm in the entryway. A couple of
volunteers came out with big shopping carts that had the Metro logo on them. I
wonder if the carts were donated or stolen. They unloaded the van, took the
carts down the elevator and Valdene drove away to come back later on with
another load. When Valdene was gone people went back inside to defrost
themselves in the entryway.
From
time to time individuals pulled up with their own donations.
Martina
the doorkeeper informed us that there would be a free lunch that day sponsored
by a Christian group near the Shoppers Drug Mart. I assume she was talking
about that little evangelical place called the International Christian Centre
at 1483 Queen. Personally I’d rather just make my own lunch and relax at home.
I guess my situation is pretty unique in that I don't pay much more for my
one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and bathroom than the 2715 tenants in the
198 rooming houses in Parkdale pay for single rooms with facilities they have
to share with four or more people. I’ve overheard some people say that they
don’t have cooking facilities where they live and I was trying to research how
common that is. As far as I can tell the 198 rooming houses mentioned are the
licensed ones and I think the licensed rooming houses are required to have at
least shared kitchen facilities. So anyone that says they don’t have access to a
kitchen must live in an unlicensed rooming house. It’s hard to know how many of
those there are but there may be just as many as there are licensed ones and
many of them might not have kitchens. I guess even those that live with shared
facilities might prefer to not to use them if there is a meal provided
elsewhere.
One
man who seemed to have mental health problems tried to edge his way into the
front of the line but Martina forced him to go to the back. She followed him as
he walked and at one point he turned and started screaming at her. She just
pointed like she was sending an unruly child to their room and said, “Get to
the back of the line!” About twenty minutes later he was walking up the line
and Robbie’s sister stepped out to tell him to get to the back. He screamed at
her, “I’m not stayin, so mind your own fuckin business!” He passed the front of
the line and continued east along Queen Street with his empty cart.
The
food bank opened about ten minutes later than usual and we heard that part of the
delay is that today there were about twenty kids volunteering downstairs.
About
three places ahead of me in line was a guy in an old, ragged brown woollen coat
who was marking his place in line with a large clear plastic bag full of beer
cans and one of those large, blue, woven-plastic Ikea bags, that was only half
full of beer cans, in which I assume he intended to carry his food. Every time
the line moved he came out from the entryway and dragged his cargo of cans
forward, scraping loudly along the sidewalk.
When
I got downstairs there was a line-up of people stretched down the dark hallway
past the food bank door. Perhaps they were lined up to donate because I didn’t
see them come in to shop.
The
shopping room was packed with volunteers, most of which were boys wearing
sweatshirts logoed with “West Mall” on the chests. I’m guessing that these are
kids earning the required community service hours for high school credits. They
may have been there through Volunteer Toronto, which is located at the West
Mall. The boys looked about twelve and I had two very enthusiastic kids
assisting me at the shelves, which were very full for the first time in a long
time. The boys actually offered to carry my bag for me but that would have made
me feel very old and so I turned their offer down.
I
got a 500-gram can of hot chocolate powder; a 382 ml resealable pouch (because
pouches are the new cans) of sliced pears packed in fruit juice; an 80 gram
non-resealable pouch of apple-strawberry puree; a carton of Raisin Bran; two
apple-grape juice boxes; a can of maple style beans; a can of tuna; a 900 ml
carton of chicken broth and a jar of chunky salsa. I turned down the powdered
protein shake because frankly I find them scary.
A woman I’d never seen before was minding the
bread section, but I had enough bread. I’d seen Sylvia there earlier but when I
got to her section a guy was stationed there. Since I already had potatoes,
carrots and onions from last time I just took five mandarins with the leaves
attached and two zucchini. The guy said, “Oh! They’re zucchini! I just told
somebody they were cucumbers!”
At Angie’s station
Turkeys and hams were available for those that didn’t get one or the other last
week. I got the usual four small fruit yogourts and the three eggs. I turned
down the usual frozen hot dogs and frozen generic ground chicken but she gave
me a bag of mini-omelettes about the size of walnuts, which she said were
delicious and another of little smoked sausages. I asked if there was any
Christmas octopus but she took me seriously and said she’d never heard of such
a thing, so I didn’t follow through with my ready line about eight drumsticks.
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