Unspiked!

            On Sunday I started working out the chords for “Zig-Zag Avec Toi” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I took a shower around midday and afterwards I sat down to have a look at the puncture wound on my foot. As I ran my finger over the hole made by that finger-sized piece of wood two weeks before I felt something solid. It was too hard to be a piece of dried skin. I pressed around it and saw that with pressure it protruded a little more and then went back inside when I let go. I pressed again a few more times until I could finally get a grip and I pulled out a sharp piece of wood about the length of the span between my first finger joint and the tip. It must have been the sharp end of the larger piece of wood that I’d pulled out two weeks before. I finally realized that I’d been limping all this time because I’d been continuously walking on a spike of hardwood. After I pulled it out I was barely limping at all. Obviously there’s still a puncture wound there but now there’s nothing to prevent it from healing.

            It’s so much easier to walk now but I’ve gotten so used to limping that I still expect it to hurt every time I step on my foot.

            I had a pastrami and old cheddar sandwich with mustard for lunch. Why are the Italians so good at preparing meat?

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story continues from when Sapphire left Kingfish and went to Florida with her mother before Christmas. Kingfish sees a picture in the society column of Sapphire and her mother having dinner in Florida with a wealthy man named Smithers. The caption says that wedding bells are in the future and Kingfish automatically thinks that Sapphire is going to marry Smithers. The reality is that it’s Sapphire’s mother who is engaged. Kingfish takes his first plane ride to get to Florida only to find that Sapphire has gone back to New York where the wedding is to be held. Desperate to stop the ceremony Kingfish goes with Andy to Smithers’s hotel room on the night before the wedding. They pose as two police detectives and warn Smithers that he is about to marry a notorious husband strangler. Smithers is convinced and decides to call the wedding off. Sapphire had planned on going back to Kingfish after the wedding because her wealthy stepfather to be would have taken care of the whole family. When Sapphire finds out that Kingfish broke up her mother’s wedding she says she’s never coming back to him.

            I did some more research into the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. It seems three female chiefs that formed an organization called the Wet’suwet’en Matriarchal Coalition were stripped of their titles for supporting the pipeline. Apparently there has been a power shift among the hereditary over the last eighteen years and they only recently declared themselves against the pipeline after new chiefs assumed power.

            I made a naan pizza with sauce, salsa and the last of the Black Diamond cheddar. I had it for dinner while watching the first of the 1961 Zorro movies.

            In this story a gang of banditos from Mexico led by a vulgar but suave and somewhat noble scoundrel named El Cuchillo comes to Los Angeles. Cuchillo tells his men not to do any petty theft while they are there because he is holding out to intercept big deals. He buys a drink for Sgt Garcia and Diego and learns that Garcia will be transporting silver house wares. That night the masked bandits ambush Garcia and his men en route and tie them up. But Zorro arrives to free the soldiers and gradually incapacitates every bandit but Cuchillo. Zorro tells Cuchillo that as a stranger he is entitled to one warning and then he slices a Z into Cuchillo's vest. They duel but then Garcia and the soldiers arrive Zorro and Cuchillo separate, promising to finish their duel later. The next day Cuchillo learns from Garcia’s big mouth that a valuable collection of hides from the various ranchers is accumulating in Los Angeles and waiting to be shipped out. Meanwhile Cuchillo has struck up a romance with Chulita the local barmaid. Diego tells Cuchillo that he would like to repay him for the drink and Cuchillo says that he will be repaying him soon. That night Cuchillo shows up at Diego’s house with some of his men and with Chulita. He tells Diego he is taking him up on his offer for a drink, Chulita dances for everyone but it turns out that it was all a distraction so that the rest of Cuchillo’s bandits could go into Los Angeles, free his men from jail and steal the hides. Later Zorro catches up with Cuchillo again and they duel. Zorro wins but Cuchillo’s men return and so Zorro leaves. Cuchillo’s man Chato tries to shoot Zorro as he’s riding away but Cuchillo stops him and says a Cuchillo does not shoot a man in the back.