The Library Bar

            On Tuesday I went to bed at a little after 1:00 without updating my journal. The journal from Sunday had taken more work because of the events of my book launch and so I have yet to get caught up. 

            I woke up at around 4:15 and it seemed like I’d gotten enough sleep but I stayed in bed for a while longer and got up five minutes before the alarm went off. 

            I memorized the second verse of “A Cannes cet été” (To Cannes This Summer) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the first two verses of “Variations sur le même t'aime” (Variations on the Usual I Love You) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are four verses left to learn. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice. I didn’t get a smooth take of “Paranoiac Utopia”. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since November 2. 

            At around 12:45 I headed out to meet my daughter for lunch before she left to return to Montreal. I left a bit early to meet her at 14:00 because I wanted to get her a hygrometer in advance of sending her a humidifier for Christmas. I tried the local Home Hardware but they didn’t have them and so the plan was to pick one up from Canadian Tire where I got my own a few years ago. I took the Bloor bike lane to Bay and then went south. I started having to pee really bad and so when I got to Bay and Dundas I headed straight for the back of Best Buy where I was familiar with their washroom’s location. But they were renovating the floor of their washroom. I was told to knock and the workman would let me in but I think he went on a break. Someone behind the counter at Starbucks told me the nearest washroom was the food court and I started heading for there but it looked like it was all the way to the Eaton Centre so I just went to Canadian Tire, where the washroom was also under construction, I guess because it’s the same building as Best Buy. 

            I had no choice but to hold my bladder as I went looking for a hygrometer. None of the staff knew what I was talking about. One guy who didn’t speak English very well referred me to another guy who looked it up. He said if they had it the item would be upstairs in aisle 127, so I headed up there. Once on the second floor I asked another staff member and he seemed vaguely familiar with the instrument. He said it would be in aisle 125. I found a combo hygrometer-thermometer and bought two because I wanted one for the living room. I continued down Bay to Front and then rode west a block to The Royal York Hotel. I was impressed that they have bicycle posts outside of the fanciest hotel in Toronto. I still had nine minutes and so I went inside to use the fancy washroom. The booths are like little fully private rooms with no gap at the bottom or top like most places have and which one could crawl under or over. But not a single booth had toilet paper so I just used the urinal. 

           Astrid was on time and we went through the forest of white Christmas trees in the lobby to the Library Bar which is both fancy and rustic at the same time. At the entrance the desk person saw us walking in and asked, “Would you like to join us?” That seemed pretty obvious. She asked if we were guests at the hotel and I said no. I wonder if that changes something, but anyway she led us to a nice table. The room is very cozy, with a nice atmosphere. The waiter was formal but not snooty. Astrid sat on a comfortable couch and I faced the shelves full of antique knick-knacks. 

            Astrid had eaten before coming and so she just had French onion soup and an espresso martini. I had the LB burger with truffle fries and Trinity Bellwoods pilsner. I was disappointed that they didn’t have draft because that’s probably a deal breaker for me coming back with Brian for one of our lunches. I think wine is more the specialty beverage there. 

            I misgendered Astrid at one point when I was talking to the waiter about her order. That was embarrassing because I’d never done that before. Maybe I reverted to parent mode while looking out for her there and was thinking of her unconsciously as the little boy I’d thought I was raising all those years ago. 

            Astrid told me she was worried about me being too isolated. I was surprised because I never really thought of myself that way. I guess I’ve been isolated my whole life and so I’m used to it. 

            Astrid and I walked a bit and then I went with her to wait for her train. It was at least half an hour late. We said goodbye and then I went back to the Royal York to use the washroom again. They now had toilet paper in the stalls.

            On the way home I stopped at the new No Frills at Richmond and John in the same building as the Scotiabank Cinema. It’s the smallest No Frills I’ve ever been in and so they’ve made the aisles narrower. The grapes were in a refrigerator and below and so one had to bend over and reach back to get at them. They weren’t in great shape but I found three bags of grapes that weren’t too squishy. Unfortunately they don’t price match with Food Basics and so I didn’t get the great deal that I got at Freshco. 

            I weighed 85.25 kilos at 18:45. That’s the least I’ve tipped the scales in the evening since October 28. 

            I spent a lot of time working on my journal but didn’t get caught up before dinner. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching episodes 51 to 55 of Batfink.

            In episode 51, the Rotten Rainmaker has developed technology that controls the weather. He has caused it to rain for ten days directly over a NASA rocket and sends them a ransom note that he will stop the rain for $1 million so they can launch. NASA calls for Batfink and he finds the Rainmaker selling umbrellas from a cart. The rainmaker knocks out Karate with hailstones and Batfink with lightning. He imprisons them both in his rain chamber where it is always raining. The water is filling up the room and threatening to drown them. A small amount of sunlight is shining into the rain chamber through a window. Karate happens to have a mirror in his utility sleeve and so Batfink uses it to focus the light onto the indoor rain cloud, which causes the rain to stop. The Rainmaker sends the heroes down the drain because he thinks they have drowned but they emerge from the sewer to confront him. Batfink punches the Rainmaker and Karate chops his weather machine. 

            In episode 52, the fake Romini criminal Gypsy James is robbing parking meters. The police chief sets up a roadblock and says if it doesn’t stop James he’ll eat his badge. James smashes through and the chief eats his badge. Batfink follows a trail of emptied and discarded parking meters to James’s hideout. James sees them coming in his crystal ball and then starts sticking pins in a Batfink voodoo doll, causing Batfink pain. Batfink breaks into James’s lair and James spreads the wings of his Batfink doll, causing the real Batfink’s wings to spread so he can’t use them as a shield. James then knocks the heroes out with parking meters. James ties them up in his wagon and sends it over a cliff. But as James is getting ready to leave he inadvertently unties his Batfink and Karate voodoo dolls and so the real ones are freed and capture James. 

            In episode 53, the Chameleon is stealing art masterpieces and the guards chase him into the alley. He unravels a screen that looks something like the brick wall behind him. To the viewer of the show he doesn’t look camouflaged but to the guards he’s invisible. He runs again and they see him but then he stands in front of a hedge and pulls up a green screen that looks even less like the background than the previous one but still to the guards he has vanished. While the chief is briefing Batfink about the Chameleon, the villain is standing in front of the window holding a fake door. The chief says the Chameleon also makes a fair omelette which cause the Chameleon to correct him that his omelettes are the toast of Paris. They chase the Chameleon in the Batillac but the villain stops where the bridge is out and paints a large painting that looks like a continuing bridge, which the Battilac goes through and over the edge. They recover and follow him to a hideout where he blends in with the wallpaper and knocks them out with a frying pan. He ties them up and is about to drive a steamroller over them. But Batfink sends his super sonar to unravel one of the Chameleon’s camouflages of the grass they are tied on and to the Chameleon they have disappeared. Then they escape and capture the crook. 

            In episode 54, the thieving farmer Beanstalk Jack plants a bean on the sidewalk. A beanstalk immediately grows with him riding it up to the window of the City Treasury building and somehow comes out with a bunch of the money as if it would be just lying around. When the police chief chases him Jack causes a beanstalk to grow under the police car. The chief calls Batfink on his car phone. Batfink finds Jack’s farmhouse but Jack elevates it on top of a towering beanstalk. Batfink flies up and into Jack’s window but Jack grows a bean under Batfink that grows and pins him to the ceiling. When Karate comes to rescue Batfink, Jack surrounds him in a prison of beanstalks. Jack has them caught in an elaborate mechanism in which a beanstalk will lift one end of a seesaw to lower and tilt a spout can of acid to pour onto a rope that will release a bomb that will land and destroy Batfink. The process begins but Batfink sends out a super sonar beep that diverts the acid to burn the stalk that is trapping him. Batfink then captures Jack. 

            In episode 55, Hugo Agogo has developed an instrument that stops time for as long as he wants. He goes to a bank and freezes the customers, the tellers and the guards, then robs the bank. Batfink figures that Hugo has learned how to stop time and goes to his lair. Hugo freezes Karate and sends him down a trap door. Hugo freezes Batfink and knocks him out with a rolling pin. He ties the heroes up and puts them on a catapult to launch them over a cliff. They are launched but Hugo freezes them for suspense. Then when he tries to start the machine again it doesn’t work except to send them backward to the catapult, which they spring from and this time fly to hit Hugo. There is no explanation for why Hugo’s machine malfunctioned.