Ungrateful Floor

            On Saturday morning I finished posting my translation of “Tata Teutonne” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I tried scrubbing the floor just outside my apartment door but it turned out it wasn’t very dirty. It’s black in parts there because the vinyl has been scratched by the concrete block that I use to hold the door open in the summer. I washed the outside of the door and that really was dirty. Now my door is the cleanest on the floor.

            I was getting ready to go out to the supermarket but while putting a shirt on and walking from the kitchen to the living room I got stabbed by a sliver about the length of my thumb and three times thicker than a toothpick. It went in pretty far. I pulled it out5 and fortunately there were no little pieces of it still in my foot but I was bleeding. I put a Band-Aid on it and then continued to get dressed but I was limping pretty badly. The limp had subsided until it was barely noticeable by the time I had to go but it still hurt. I was not only in pain where the sliver had gone in but my foot felt cramped up around the tops of my toe joints and on the right side.

            After all the work I’ve done for my floor over the last few months it seems incredibly ungrateful for it to viciously bite me like that. If I want to get stabbed I will stab myself thank you very much.

            I noticed a rented truck in front of Bike Pirates and several of the volunteers were there loading it. I guess today was moving day.

            At No Frills I got three bags of black grapes, three bags of red grapes, two pints of strawberries, a jug of orange juice, a rack of pork side ribs, shaving gel, mouthwash and a bag of kettle chips.

            In front of me at the checkout was a woman buying a lot of stuff, mostly frozen micro-waveable items. But when she saw the price she had to send half the food back. I’ve been there a few times although not at that level. I’ve had to send two or three items back a few times but not twenty-five.

            When I got home I was limping again.

            I had cheese and whole grain crackers for lunch.

When I got up from a ninety-minute siesta in the afternoon I was limping more than before.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Andy inherits $25,000 from his uncle but somehow he has committed to give $7000 of it to Kingfish. This is a three-part story and whoever uploaded it might have gotten the order wrong. Andy is living high on the hog but hasn’t even cashed the cheque yet. A man named Simmons from the Internal Revenue Agency tells Andy that his uncle owed back taxes and so they would have to take the whole cheque. He says that he only owed $15,000 and so Andy would later get a $10,000 refund. Still expecting some money out of the deal, Kingfish calls the IRA after a few days but is told that there is no one named Simmons that works there. Realizing that they’ve been taken, Kingfish is mad at Andy and tells him he doesn’t want anything to do with him now. Shortly after Kingfish leaves Amos comes and tells Andy that he had been worried that he would give $7000 to Kingfish and so he had his friend pose as a tax man. He hands him back his cheque for $25,000. That much money in 1950 would be like having more than a quarter of a million now.

            I had a fried egg with a heated naan and a beer for dinner while watching Zorro.

            This story begins with Sgt Garcia’s birthday party at the inn. He is blindfolded and trying break his piñata when suddenly the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Andres Basilio, the king’s emissary from Spain and his second in command, Captain Mendoza. Basilio tells Garcia he should be ashamed of having parties while Spain is at war in Europe. He confiscates Garcia's piñata. Almost immediately Basilio begins to demand that the citizens of Los Angeles buy war bonds to assist Spain but the amount he expects them to buy is often beyond their means. He has the captain try to squeeze the innkeeper for 250 pesos and when he cannot pay he plans to teach him a lesson. That night Garcia tries to sneak into the tavern to get back his piñata but he interrupts the captain trying to sabotage the wine kegs. Garcia is hit from behind and the next day Basilio puts Garcia on trial for sabotage. His punishment is to be put in stocks for 24 hours in the public square. But that night Zorro comes and defeats both Basilio and the captain in swordplay and then he demands that Garcia be released. Zorro then puts Basilio in the stocks and forces him to sing a birthday song to Garcia loud enough to wake everyone up and draw a crowd otherwise he will cut the support for his trousers so he’ll be singing in front of everyone with his pants down.

            Before going to bed I put some hydrogen peroxide on my puncture wound.