White Room

            On Thursday morning I finished running through my translation of “Variations sur Marilou” in English. It took almost forty five minutes because it’s such a long song and I always attach the chords to the French lyrics so I kept going back and forth from memorizing four lines to scrolling up in order to sing and play them.

            Around midday I washed and scrubbed the kitchen side and the edge of the bathroom door. I cleaned all the grease and hair off while listening to Disraeli Gears by Cream. Jack Bruce was such a great singer and songwriter!

            For lunch I had half a bowl of cocktail peanuts and some yogourt.

            In the afternoon I skipped my exercises and took my bike ride half an hour early so I could stop at Freshco on my way and still get home at the same time. There was a strong smell of rotting garbage on Bloor Street between Christie and Bathurst. A lot of restaurants have fenced off patios two meters onto the street that obviously won’t exist when the social distancing is done.

            At Freshco the cherries were very expensive but I got three bags anyway. I also grabbed three bags of grapes, a pint of blueberries, a bag of naan, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, two containers of Greek yogourt, another of raspberry skyr, dish detergent and a pack each of toilet paper and paper towels. I wanted a bag of kettle chips but all they had on the shelf were low sodium. Low sodium is not a big deal for most products but one can’t really add salt to potato chips. Overhead I saw a box of regular kettle chips underneath another of salt and vinegar. I reached up, moved the salt and vinegar carton over and took down the ones with salt.

            The cashier reminded me that the cost of the cherries was $44 altogether, but she said she was going to do a price match. She needed someone with a key to come and adjust the price but told me that if she asked for me to say that I’d already shown her a coupon. She saved me $17 on the cherries. That was nice of Khushnuma. I’d never had a cashier do that for me before.

            I watched and listened to nine video recordings of me performing “Un jambon, un violon” and  eight of me singing and playing my translation, “Hang Above Your Doorway A Ham and a Fiddle”. The camera cut off four times on the French version and three times on the English but all the ones completes were very good. This seems to be the one song that I rarely screw up and so I’ll have a hard time deciding which recordings to upload to YouTube.

            I worked a bit on my collection of poems “My Blood in a Bug”.

            For dinner I had a potato, a chicken leg and some gravy while watching the last two episodes of the third season of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

            In the first story Little John is depressed about the prospect of spending a fourth winter in Sherwood and so Robin takes him on a hunting trip to cheer him up. Meanwhile Marian comes to visit the camp and takes charge, getting the men to tidy up and helping them with the cooking and the mending. When Marian learns that Lord Northeave will be holding an archery tournament with a ten crown prize she suggests that the men have a shoot off to determine which one of them will go. When everyone else has shot they offer Marian a turn and she out shoots everyone. She goes to the contest disguised as a boy although she just looks to me like a woman in men’s clothes but then again Clark Kent looks obviously like Superman with glasses on. But the twist is that Prince John has come to visit Lord Northeave and when he hears of the archery contest and knowing that the Northeave state is not far from Sherwood Forest, he is sure that Robin Hood will come to compete. Prince John prepares to capture Robin. Meanwhile Robin returns early from his hunting trip and when he hears that Marian has entered the contest he decides to go there in disguise. He arrives just in time to see Marian win the competition. He asks her if she is game for an additional competition and she is and so it is announced that the winner will be challenged. Meanwhile Tuck collects the prize money on Marian's behalf and overhears Prince John say he is certain the challenger is Robin Hood. Marian shoots her arrows and as Robin is beginning Tuck tells Marian about Prince John. Marian signals to Robin as Tuck prepares horses and they escape back to Sherwood in a big chase scene.

            In the second story the new archbishop visits the Sheriff of Nottingham and tells him he is looking for a priest to put in charge of Sussex parish. The sheriff suggests Friar Tuck would be perfect for the appointment, although his motive is to get rid of him. The sheriff pretends that he dearly loves Tuck and will hate to see him go. Tuck tries to gently argue that he would rather stay in Nottingham but his dedication to his flock in Nottingham only proves to the archbishop that Tuck is perfect for the job in Sussex. Tuck accepts his fate and begins to say goodbye to everyone and all of his friends and the common people are sad to see him go. But when Robin learns that it was the sheriff that suggested Tuck to the archbishop, he knows he has to foil his plan. Robin forges a letter from the sheriff to the archbishop inviting him to a private going away dinner for Friar Tuck. When the archbishop responds to the sheriff that he will come, the sheriff has no choice but to pretend that he sent the letter. During the dinner some serfs come to tell Tuck how much they will miss him. Suddenly Robin Hood bursts in to threaten and rob the poor serfs. Tuck stands up to Robin and forces him to give back the money and to go away. The sheriff suddenly blows his cool and declares that this scene had been all a sham and that Tuck is in league with Robin Hood. The archbishop says that what he saw was that when the people needed protection it was the friar and not the sheriff who stood up for them. The archbishop decides that Nottingham needs Friar Tuck and he withdraws appointing him to Sussex. After the sheriff storms away the archbishop says he knows that Robin Hood does not rob the poor and that his pantomime of cruelty was performed to convince him that Tuck should stay.