Getting Unglued in the Kitchen

            On Sunday morning I finished memorizing             “Meurtre à l’extincteur” (Murder by Fire Extinguisher) by Serge Gainsbourg and posted my English adaptation on Christian’s Translations. Then I memorized the first verse of Gainsbourg’s “Marilou sous la neige” (Marilou Under Snow).

            As I began song practice some workmen were dragging the framework of a scaffold under my window and then they began putting it together. At one point while I was singing a middle aged guy climbed up to look in my window and wave at me before continuing to build the scaffold. He had a cigarette in his mouth and the place filled up with second hand smoke while I was singing, but fortunately he didn’t light another one when that was finished.

            About halfway through rehearsal my high E string broke but since one can still thinly play without that string I just kept on going.

            Later while I was at the computer I heard a noise behind me. I turned and saw that one of the workmen had run a rope in through one of my living room windows and out through the other, I guess to support the scaffold. But when he’d run the rope in he hadn’t seen the potted plant on my window ledge and he’d hooked the rope against the pot and didn’t notice it until he’d puloled the rope taut and dragged the plant halfway out the window, knocking it over and spilling some of the soil. I told him he should have let me know before running a rope into my window.

            Around midday I washed and scrubbed another section of my kitchen floor in front of the bathroom door and beside the stove. In the corner by the stove there was a lot of the same kind of glue on the floor that I’d had to deal with when I cleaned the living room.

            I had crackers and cheese for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was another rehashed story. Sapphire's brother Leonard has just gotten out of the army after twenty years and is living in California but wants to visit Sapphire and his mother in New York. Meanwhile Sapphire and her mother are going to visit Sapphire’s sister in Chicago. Kingfish says he doesn't want Leonard to live with him and so they say they'll wire him and tell him not to come. Later at the lodge a man comes in and asks directions for the Urika Sanitorium because he wants to spend $500 to live there for a month and get some peace. Kingfish tells him that he runs a sanitorium and he’ll take care of him. But just as Mr Thomas is about to move in Sapphire calls and says their flight is delayed for one day. Kingfish puts Mr Thomas in Andy’s room for one night with Andy posing as a nurse and sharing the same bed. Then he moves Mr Thomas back to his place but Sapphire comes home early. Kingfish explains the deal to her and she agrees to pretend to be a nurse but when she’s alone with Mr Thomas she tells him to make sure he doesn't tell Kingfish that he's really her brother.

            I took a bike ride and it was a really hot day. On Queen Street there was a cyclist ahead of me riding close to the white line, even though he’d just cleared the parked cars and there was lots of room on the right. I told him I was passing on his left by the just kept on riding straight and only turned his head as I squeezed between him and the streetcar tracks.

            I noticed that the tent village at Queen and Dufferin now has two porta-potties.

            I got caught up on my journal and then put a new E string on my guitar.

            I watched and listened to the only video recording I have of me performing “Joanna”. It was okay but I screwed up on chord. Even if I hadn’t though I think I’d rather wait until the next recording session when I have several attempts to choose from.

            I made a naan pizza with the last of the can of sauce I’d opened and the last of the cheese and olives that came in the party tray that I got from the food bank. I had it with a beer while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

            In the first story Duncan of Stonykirk is still in the camp of Robin and his men and driving them all crazy. Derwent and Will had gone on a hunting trip just so they could get away from him. On their return Will sees someone in a kilt standing by the river. Thinking that it’s Duncan he pushes the Scot in the water only to find it’s a woman named Jessie, who happens to be Duncan’s lass come to fetch Duncan back to the Highlands. They take Jessie to their camp but Duncan seems unhappy to see her. Robin plots to try to make Duncan jealous by flirting with Jessie but the plan backfires as Duncan considers it permission to pursue Marian. One day Marian finds Jessie alone in the camp and they exchange words until Jessie attacks Marian. Robin breaks it up and proposes an archery contest between the two women and promises to put up a five crown purse. Robin’s plan is for Jessie to win but Marian is one of the finest archers in England and so Robin tries to give Marian crooked arrows. Marian’s keen eye recognizes that the arrow is out of true and asks for a good one. But Marian thinks that Robin must have a fgood reason for wanting her to lose and so she deliberately misses the target. Jessie wins the five crowns and suddenly she’s Duncan’s lass again and they head back to the Highlands together.

            I thought that the second story was quite unique and clever. The deputy sheriff calls a truce with Robin to ask him to surrender to be hanged. When Robin asks why he would do such a thing the deputy answers because he will arrest and hang two innocent serfs every day at sunset until Robin gives himself up. Instead Robin decides to give the deputy a taste of his own medicine. He learns that Lords Beaumont and Orford will be dining at Lady Marian's that evening and so bursts in on them with his men, abducts the two noblemen and pretends to abduct Marian. Back at the camp he tells Orford and Beaumont about the sheriff’s plan to hand serfs but they don't believe that the deputy would do such a thing. So the next morning Robin dresses the two lords in rags and sets them down the road through the forest towards the deputy’s soldiers. Despite Beaumont and Orford’s manners, the soldiers only see their clothing and arrest them, gagging them and binding them. When the deputy arrives he cannot hear the lords speak and tells his men to hang them at noon. The deputy goes the the arranged location to see if Robin will surrender. Robin is there but tells the deputy that if he does not free his captives the lords Beaumont and Orford will die. The deputy gives in but when Robin learns that the execution time has been changed, he orders the deputy placed in custody while he and the rest of the men rush to save Beaumont and Orford. They are just in time and after a battle they chase the surviving soldiers away. Beaumont and Orford realize that Robin had been right about the deput’s cruelty and vow to keep their eyes on him from then on.