Sneeze

            Of course since I had gone to bed an hour and a half early the night before I woke up that much early on Friday. I stayed in bed for half an hour and got up at 4:00.

            Maybe the cold that started on Tuesday, that was milder on Wednesday and that seemed to be almost gone on Thursday had just been faking its mildness. Or maybe I had subconsciously held the cold back because I didn’t want to miss meeting Brian on Thursday. For whatever reason I woke up on Friday with a full force, coughing and sneezing cold. 

            I finished posting “L’hippopodame” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog and started working on memorizing Gainsbourg’s “Sensuelle et sans suite” (Sensual and Senseless).

            At 8:20 I felt overwhelmingly tired and went to bed. I didn’t wake up until 10:00, which put me too far behind in my normal activities to work on my floor cleaning project.

            I had the rest of my squash, mushroom and fava bean soup for lunch with hot sauce.

            I felt tired again and went back to bed for an hour.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. I skimmed through the Christmas 1947 episode because they seem to have only a slightly varied Christmas script every year about Andy becoming a department store Santa.

            The one I listened to all the way through begins with Sapphire telling Kingfish that they are going to Georgia for two weeks for her sister’s wedding and that Kingfish has to come up with $100 for their train tickets. Kingfish learns that Andy wants to buy a car but that there is a long wait in 1948 for new US made cars. Kingfish talks to Henry who tells him that he went to a January wedding and since there are no rose petals in January to throw at the bride and groom they painted potato chips red. He finds out from Henry that there is less of a wait for foreign made models and so he comes up with a scam to get $100 from Andy. He pretends to have a new job as a car importer and promises to get him a French car in a few days for a down payment of $100. Kingfish finds out from Shorty that he has a friend that built his own car that looks kind of foreign but it doesn’t have an engine. The guy will let Kingfish have it for free if he tows it away. Kingfish takes the label from a cheap bottle of champagne and sticks it on the car so it says, “Made In France. Sparkling Burgundy”. But it also says “Vintage 1934”. Kingfish tells him that means 1934 horsepower. “How can they get 1934 horse power in that little car?” “They use smaller horses!” Andy wants to see the motor but Kingfish explains that the motor is sealed in to protect it from dust. He asks how it can be repaired and Kingfish explains that long armed mechanics reach in and fix the engine through the exhaust pipe. Andy wants to take it for a spin but Kingfish says that French cars don’t run on gas but rather on petrol. There is no petrol in the United States but he’s ordered some for Andy that will arrive when he gets back from Georgia. Andy gives Kingfish the $100. After Kingfish leaves Amos shows up and convinces Andy that he’s just been gypped again by Kingfish. Later Kingfish tells his wife that he’s ready to take the train to Georgia but Sapphire tells him she’s found a cheaper way to travel there. She’s just bought a car but they have to wait a few days for the petrol to arrive from France.

            I had a mailing box that I’d bought a few months ago but I was out of packing tape. I got dressed and went out to the hardware store because although it would be more expensive there it was worth it to avoid the line-up at the Dollarama. I was surprised to see the hardware store closed at 19:30 on a Friday night, especially during Christmas season. I had no choice but to go to the Dollarama. The old security guard looked at me suspiciously as I walked in and maybe it was a coincidence but he seemed to follow me before I went down an aisle. They've moved the area where the hardware items were for years and so I wasted time walking around. The packing tape was $1.25 plus tax. The final price didn’t appear on my side but the cashier held out her hand as if I should have worked out the tax. Finally she said it was $1.40. I gave her the exact change and she didn't even thank me. What a shopping pleasure the Dollarama is! The most pleasure I ever got from Dollarama was when I looked out, saw someone smash the window then grab and get away with a cartful of stuff.

            I packed the things to send to Astrid, addressed and taped up the box.

            I had three potatoes, my last two chicken drumsticks and some gravy for dinner while watching Zorro.

            In this story a British man named Brighton comes to see Varga. Varga is very deferential towards Brighton it seems because he is financially backing his movement to unite California. Varga wants to find out the names of those that vowed to be part of a citizen’s army that would resist his tyrannical uprising. He gets one of Don Alejandro’s trusted servants to deliver a message to the other dons that there would be a meeting at Alejandro’s house that night. All he needs is one to show up and he is certain he can torture the other names from him. Don Diego has overheard this and writes a message of warning to the servant. He trusts Sgt Garcia to deliver it and tells him that the future of California is at stake. But Garcia gets distracted by food and forgets. When Diego discovers this he is very angry with Garcia and tells him to get out of his sight. As Zorro he heads out to intercept the servant but Don Alfredo does not get the message. When he arrives Varga and his man Hernandez try to extract the names from him but he refuses to talk. He is tied up and Varga is about to use a candle on him when Brighton walks in. He had been obviously unaware of Varga’s brutal methods. He protests the treatment of Alfredo but Varga defies him and says he doesn’t need him. Brighton leaves and suddenly the candle goes out. When it is relighted Zorro is there untying Alfredo. Alfredo runs but Hernandez goes after him. Zorro ties up Varga. Hernandez tackles Alfredo and is about to attack him with a scythe when Garcia intervenes. Garcia and Hernandez fight sword to scythe until Garcia moves in and grabs him in his arms to knock him into a wall and stun him. But Hernandez pulls a knife and attacks again. Garcia flips him and he lands on his own knife and dies. Zorro tells Garcia he’s a good man before riding away.

            All through the day I’d had fits of violent sneezing and I sometimes felt like I was going to blow my face off.

Make Sure Your Correctness is Accurate!

            On Thursday morning I finished working out the chords to the first part of “La complainte du progrès” by Boris Vian. I think the rest basically repeats the same chords.

            I also completed chord construction for “L’hippopodame” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I worked on developing my bedbug diary, “My Blood in a Bug” into a poem sequence.

            At noon I got ready to go downtown to meet my friend Brian at the Black Bull and left around 12:30.

            I’d initially invited Brian to my place, since her hasn’t been there in more than fifteen years, since the first time my place had bedbugs. It’s been over four and a half years now since I’ve seen a bedbug. His excuse this time for not coming was that in the winter he doesn’t like to go places that he has to get to by bus or streetcar. To get to the Black Bull he said he just has to walk from the subway.

            I got there before Brian and at first I picked the booth in the southwest corner. I sat down in the seat facing the bar so Brian could have the window view. But the cushioning under the vinyl seat was thin and my ass went down to the springs. I was just moving my stuff one booth north when Brian arrived. Over the next four hours we each had two pints of Creemore. He had sweet potato fries and I had regular fries. The Black Bull is Kind of cheaping out these days and serving food in disposable paper bowls.

            Brian is composing a wind quartet on his computer and when it’s done he hopes to shop the music around to live groups to play. He’ll also put the electronic version up on Soundcloud.

            We talked about work, my projects and school and me getting banned from Shab-e She’r. He thought that both the ban and my difficulties with my teaching assistant for Indigenous Studies are examples of political correctness gone haywire. I’m all for things being politically correct but not if the meaning of "correct" deviates from its meaning of “accurate".

            Brian paid for the beer and the food. I think I paid the last time we got together, which was at least a year and a half ago. It tends to be that I have to initiate our meetings. He says it’s not that he doesn’t want to get together but he gets caught up in himself and the social things don’t happen.

            We talked about me recently having listened to both the Jethro Tull and Yes discographies because he’s a big fan of both bands.

            Our only disagreements were about Star Trek Discovery and Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor in Doctor. He thinks the writing on Discovery is not very good and that although he thinks Whitaker is a good actor he thinks she’s very stiff as the Doctor.

            Since I was downtown already I wanted to kill as many errand birds as I could, so after saying goodbye to Brian I headed down to St Lawrence Market. In the basement I took my usual trip to Domino Foods.

            Upstairs I got a dozen sesame seed bagels and eight hot pepperoni sticks.

            On the way home I stopped on Queen to buy a couple of things for Astrid. I had one heavily made up and exuberant salesperson on me as soon as I walked in. Once I’d found the table with the things I wanted another person came to make suggestions and then later another as I walked around looking. I bought something called Black Rose and another named Shoot for the Stars.

            Closer to home I went to Freshco where I bought a couple of bags of black seedless grapes, another of red globe grapes, which have seeds but they were too cheap to pass up. I got two half pints of raspberries and another half pint of blueberries. I also grabbed a loaf of cinnamon bread and a sirloin tip roast.

            When I got home there was a message from Nick Cushing that he was in town. I let him know that I was home and five minutes later he was I knew he was coming over that evening but I’d hoped I’d have time to degrunge my bathroom before he got there. I excused myself while he was settling down at the kitchen table and I did a quick clean of the toilet and the sink.

            Nick brought us each a can of a Polish beer called Okocim, which has more alcohol than most beers. With the two pints I'd had earlier and this gift from Nick, I hadn't drank so much in a long time. I didn't feel overwhelmed but it just seemed like a lot.

            Nick also brought me a belt sander with some extra sandpaper and a can of wipe-on poly, which he said I could use to protect my wood floors.

            We talked about his new job delivering chicken and how he’s traded in his van for a little Toyota.

            It was interesting that in conversation with Nick, as with Brian earlier that day, my situation of getting banned from Shab-e She’r and my frustrations with communicating about residential schools with my TA, also came up and both Nick and Brian expressed similar views on the matter.

            After Nick left I started making dinner and had three small potatoes, two chicken drumsticks and some gravy while watching Zorro.

            This story begins with Don Diego learning that Jose Varga, the new administrator for Southern California is coming to Los Angeles and he is using his authority to requisition Diego’s father’s house. At first Diego is angry but decides to play it cool in order to find out what’s really going on. Varga arrives and we recognize him as the Eagle from a previous episode, but Diego doesn’t know this. Varga tells him it is within his authority to fully take possession of Don Alejandro’s property but for now he will be generous and allow Diego and his father to live there. Utilizing the secret passages in the house, Diego grabs a satchel that Varga has left unattended. In it he finds several yet to be cut eagle feathers. He realizes that Varga is an agent of the Eagle. Varga and his secretary Greco are searching the house for secret passages and under a stone in the mantle find a box containing a list of men that have signed up to form a militia to fight the oppressive forces that threaten Los Angeles. Zorro suddenly arrives and warns them that if they read a single name he will kill them. He ties them up and then the soldiers discover that Zorro is there. He fights them until he escapes through a secret passage. The soldiers hear Don Diego calling for help and they see Zorro is riding away. Really it’s Bernardo dressed as Zorro. Later Diego finds an unposted latter from the Eagle and realizes that if it hasn’t left his house then Varga must be the Eagle.

            Perhaps because of a combination of not having had a siesta earlier that day, the riding my bike all around downtown and having drank three beers, I felt very tired and went to bed an hour and a half early. 

Floor Show

On Wednesday morning I was still a bit sick but it was pretty mild. This may be the shortest cold I’ve ever had.

The homeless couple hadn’t made a bed in front of the doorway of the Dollarama. They had kept their stuff piled up on the sidewalk at the front of the store until I went to bed but when I got up there were only two pillows lying there.

            I found a set of chords for “L’Hippopodame” by Serge Gainsbourg and saw that several sites just repeated the same ones. I found them to mostly fit when I used them, but I added a few in between. I just have the last line of the first verse to complete and all the verses are the same, with no chorus.

            I worked on My Blood in a Bug.

            I washed another six-board section of the west side of my kitchen floor. I’m working my way north and in another session I'll be at the beginning of the hallway leading to the door.

I had a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch.

A week or so ago I sent an email to Safia my TA with a link to the 1927 amendment to the Indian Act which seems to me to make it clear that residential schools were not strictly mandatory. It says that all “Indian" children between 7 and 15 must attend a day school, an industrial school or a boarding school designated by the superintendent general.

She got back to me today and seemed to ignore my link as she just restated that residential schools were mandatory. I responded with the suggestion that she read my link and I also stated its main point. Her answer was that day schools were the same as residential schools except that the kids went home after school. I said if they weren’t residences they couldn’t be residential and if kids could go home every day they went home to their culture and so obviously they were not the same thing. She finally said she didn’t have the desire or time to debate with me and just reasserted her claim that residential schools were mandatory. I have never come across such a pig headed instructor in my entire university career. For her information seems to be dogma and she doesn’t need to back it up. Indigenous Studies is supposed to be a Social Science and therefore part of the scientific study of human society and social relationships. Where is the science if we ignore the facts?

I searched for the matching computer recording to the video I shot of my rehearsal on August 5, 2017 but I had neglected to date it. There was one marked Recording 10 that had "a date modified" about a month later. August 5 was the last rehearsal recording I'd made and so I guessed that this might be the right one. I had to listen to both the video and the recording back and forth. The fact that I’d spent three minutes tuning after the song on both recordings clinched it. I changed the name of the file so I wouldn't make the same mistake again.

In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire's brother Leroy is staying with her and Kingfish and Kingfish doesn't like it. She argues that her and Leroy have always been close and it’s like he’s a part of her. Kingfish says, “I hope it doesn’t hurt your part when I kick him out of the house!” Kingfish tells her, "I'm going to go to the lodge to take a nap and then I’ll be spending the afternoon shooting pool. When I get home tonight I don’t want to see no bum in my house!” Kingfish tries to get Leroy to leave by pretending he has the bubonic plague but Leroy informs the board of health and Kingfish is forced to go to the hospital for three days to take tests. Sapphire wants to write about their problem to the relationship columnist Lena Dixon. Kingfish gets an idea and so he agrees to follow whatever advice Dixon gives. He goes to the newspaper mailroom and intercepts her letter. Then he replaces it with his own declaring that Leroy is a psychopath. Two days later the answer comes in Dixon’s column that they should let the poor man stay with them so they can take care of him. Kingfish storms out the door and then we find out that Sapphire is really Lena Dixon.

I went out to the liquor store to buy a six-pack of Creemore. An old man with a cane slowly hobbled out into traffic against the red light. Someone that called him Max came up and helped him finish his walk.

Outside the store a panhandler said, “That case looks pretty heavy but I’m a lawyer and I’ll take it!”

I had an egg, toast and a beer for dinner while watching Zorro.

In this story Don Diego is still trying to figure out what happened to the stolen jewels from South America and he looks for them again at the tannery. Meanwhile young Pogo, working for his sister Dolores’s delivery service brings another crate of boots to the Murietta brothers. They accompany him to the tannery. When Bernardo warns him they are coming he leaves and notifies Sgt Garcia that the tannery has been broken into. Garcia goes to investigate. As the Muriettas are carrying the crate of boots into the tannery it slips and breaks open to reveal the jewels in the false bottom. Pogo promises not to tell but they bind and gag him just as Garcia arrives. They have covered the jewels and are evasive but he is smart enough to figure out that something is fishy. Suddenly he sees some of the jewels peeking out through the blanket, The Muriettas draw their swords on Garcia just as Zorro arrives. They each sword fight with one of the Muriettas. Garcia is about to back up and slip into the well when Pogo gets free and warns him. He steps aside just as Pedro Murietta lunges and tumbles down the well. Maybe he grabs Pogo’s pant leg as he falls because Pogo falls as well but catches himself on the bag of gems that had been hanging from a rope halfway down. Garcia pulls him up. Carlos pulls a gun and takes the bag of jewels. Zorro rides after him and catches him, leaving him tied up by the road where Garcia captures him and is hailed as a hero. 

Hanging Around the Strip

            On Tuesday morning I woke up with a cold that had been coming on for a couple of days. I was stuffed up and had a sore throat but my energy wasn’t drained and so far it was pretty mild.

When I got up there were people sleeping across the street against the doorway to the Dollarama. It looks like a pretty good place to sleep because the roof extends over to offer shelter in case it rains or snows and there’s shelter from two walls as the door is in the corner. I’d noticed that the couple had their stuff piled up on the sidewalk in front of the store for several hours before it closed on Sunday night. One of the two was in a wheelchair. They were totally bundled up under a white blanket when I got up and I could see the blanket rippling in the wind. During song practice I wondered what was going to happen at 7:00 when the manager arrived to try to get in the door. It turned out that they were able to step around the sleeping couple. Shortly after that the guy got up, got in his wheelchair and rolled down to the alley behind the Dollarama, I assume to pee. About ten minutes later he came back and got under the covers again. At about 7:30 they both got up and I saw that one of them was a woman. They sat in front of the store for a couple of hours with a sign asking for money. Later they were gone but had left their blankets piled up, so I assumed they’d be back again that night.

I finished memorizing “L’Hippopodame” by Serge Gainsbourg. It will be interesting to see if anyone's posted the chords for this one. It wasn't a hit while Gainsbourg was alive but it was one of the songs featured in the 2010 movie “Gainsbourg: Une vie héroïque.”

I washed, brushed and scraped another section of my bedroom floor in the walking area of the room. I was just eleven boards away from the north wall when I’d finished.

I emptied a can of fava beans into the squash and mushroom soup I’d thrown together the night before and had half of it for lunch with a bowl of potato chips.

I did my exercises in the afternoon while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish gets an old washed up racehorse from his brother-in-law and talks Andy into buying it for $300. Then he becomes the horse’s trainer and charges him for that. So far Andy has yet to even see the nag. Kingfish presents Andy with a bill for expenses and one of them is a pair of shoes from Florsheim, meaning Kingfish has bought himself shoes on Andy’s bill. He also says that he bought the horse a chicken for a companion but the bill just says “Chicken breast $3.50”. Finally Andy goes out to the racetrack and insists on seeing the horse. He finds that it has no teeth and it has the mange on its neck. Kingfish insists that those are just scratches from being decorated with roses after winning so many times. Andy fires Kingfish as a trainer and Kingfish has heard that he’s hired someone else and that he’s entered it in a race. Kingfish scoffs at the possibility of it winning but he goes over to Amos’s place to listen to the race. The race starts before Andy gets there and Kingfish is surprised to hear Rover has won and that Andy had just won $1500. When Andy gets there Kingfish asks if he’s been listening to the radio and since he hasn’t heard about his horse’s victory Kingfish says he wants to buy the horse back from him for $450. Andy takes the deal and gives Kingfish the horse’s papers. Kingfish reveals that Andy’s former horse has just won the race. Andy reveals that he had a record made of someone announcing that his horse had won and that’s what Kingfish had heard.

I looked at my rehearsal videos to see which one to edit next. I decided on “Les feuilles mortes” from August 5, 2017. There was another date in August with an okay version but this one is better and more expressive. There’s a lot of traffic noise but hopefully once I mix it with the voice recording from the mic I can minimize that background noise. Since I don’t rehearse this song anymore it’s my only chance to put it on display. Plus I already uploaded my English version, “Dead Autumn Leaves” so it seems appropriate for the French to be up there as well.

I worked on “My Blood in a Bug” and on a couple of translations.

I had three small potatoes, two drumsticks and gravy for dinner while watching Zorro.

In this story Carlos Murietta’s brother Pedro arrives from South America. Just as Carlos is an expert with a whip, Pedro is adept at throwing the bolas. Meanwhile Don Diego is trying to solve the mystery of what happened to the stolen jewels at the tannery. Bernardo had found them in the false bottom of a crate of boots but then he had been knocked out by Jose. Jose had put them in a bag and lowered them on a rope into the well before dying in his fight with Zorro. As Bernardo was unconscious he does not know what happened to the gems. Don Diego sends Bernardo dressed as Zorro back to the tannery to search for them while Diego is obliged to be a guest at a party thrown by Sgt Garcia. Garcia tries to court Dolores and asks Corporal Reyes to dance with her and extol his virtues but Reyes and Dolores are enjoying themselves more than Garcia had anticipated. The brothers go to the tannery to look for the jewels. They are trying to get the mute Bernardo to talk when Zorro arrives. They fight with swords. Bernardo knocks out Pedro with his own bolo. Zorro and Bernardo leave the two locked in the tannery.

Snowrow: a Canadian Hero

            On Monday morning I memorized the first two verses of “L’Hippopodame” by Serge Gainsbourg, which is half the song.

            I washed, brushed and scraped a six board wide section of the west side of my bedroom floor. I’m just eleven boards away from the northwest corner now.

            I want to get back into editing my 2017 rehearsal videos but I had to go back in my diary to find out where I left off in July. Now I know I was almost finished with “Jeunes femmes et les vieux messieurs”.

            I finished reading the chapter on the Inuit and Nunavut in Ways of Knowing by Yale Belanger. I figure that while I’m off from school I might as well get ahead in a relaxed way.

            I think there should be a Canadian version of Zorro called Snowrow. The hero has a canoe that can go in the snow and gives enemies a good paddling. The mark left behind is a yellow "S" in the snow.

            I finished editing my July 28, 2017 rehearsal video of me singing “Jeunes femmes et vieux messieurs”.

            I did my afternoon exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish announces to Amos and Andy that he and Sapphire are about to have their twenty-fifth anniversary but he’s not happy about it. He recounts how four years ago Sapphire bought a piggy bank and said that they were going to put all their loose change in it every day until their silver anniversary. The only problem is that Kingfish has been robbing the piggy bank every day and replacing the coins with lead washers. Now he’s worried Sapphire will leave him after the bank is opened. Kingfish and Andy go talk to Gabby the former lawyer and now politician. They ask him what made him decide to go into politics. He explains that he noticed a horrible condition in the ward where he lives. All the money was going into the ward boss's pocket. He tells them he decided to do something about it and then says, "Shake hands with the new ward boss!" Kingfish tells Gabby his problem and Gabby advises him to cash a cheque from a far away place like Australia and since it would take two weeks to clear he’d have time to make it good. He goes to the bank pretending to be an Australian sheep rancher and the banker is about to cash the cheque when Andy shows up and tries to help Kingfish out. He says that they raise kangaroos together. The banker says to Kingfish, “I thought you said you were a sheep rancher. Kingfish explains that they cross the sheep with the kangaroos because there'd been a problem of baby kangaroos dying of pneumonia and so now the pouches are lined. The banker says he’ll have to call the Australian bank first. Kingfish and Andy go to see Laguardia the lawyer to ask him for advice. He tells them to get someone to steal the piggy bank and then the problem would be solved. He says he has to go for a court case to defend a guy that was arrested for driving too slow. “How can someone get arrested for driving too slow?” “It was a stolen car and the cops caught up with him!" Kingfish arranges to take Sapphire out to a movie while Andy gets in with the spare key and steals the piggy bank. When they get back they see the bank is stolen but then there is a knock on the door and a cop returns it, saying the thief got away but dropped it. Meanwhile Andy has a bump on his head from going over a fence. He goes to get help from Baldy the druggist who us on the phone with the emergency ward at the hospital. He wants to make sure he gets the ingredients right for their order and asks if they want it on whole wheat or rye. Finally Andy goes to Sapphire and tells her the whole story but explains that each time he took money out it was for her. Sapphire understands. Meanwhile Kingfish has pawned all his best suits and raised two hundred dollars, which he has converted to change and put into the piggy bank. On their anniversary Sapphire announces that she wanted to save Kingfish embarrassment so she took the piggy bank as it was and sold it to a junk man for $2.

            I uploaded “Jeunes femmes et vieux messieurs” to Youtube.

            I’ve wanted to ride up to Topcuts at Yonge and St Clair but it needs to be on a Monday afternoon because that’s when Amy works. I couldn’t go last Monday because of snow and couldn’t go today because of rain. Maybe next Monday it’ll be a dry day.

            I did a French grammar exercise.

            I grilled eight chicken drumsticks. I sautéed the mushrooms that I got from the food bank but I’d washed them beforehand and so they’d absorbed a lot of liquid, which came out in the pan. I added the squash soup to it since it was already looking soupy. I was going to have some of the mushrooms with my dinner but now it would be too much so I would save it for lunch on Tuesday. I boiled three little potatoes and steamed the spinach I got from the food bank. I had those with two drumstick and gravy while watching Zorro.

            This story begins with Dolores Bastinado and her younger brother Pogo arriving in Los Angeles on business. She sends Pogo to the tanner to deliver a crate of boots from Argentina. On learning that Dolores is a rich landowner Sgt Garcia tries to court her. Murietta goes to the tanner with further Eagle Brotherhood business. He finds that the tanner Jose allows a homeless man named Pasqual to sleep at the tannery. He says to get rid of him. Pasqual refuses to go because he had been promised a place to sleep. Murietta whips him and he runs away. When Don Diego learns of this he offers Pasqual a place to stay. Diego suspects that the tanner must also be involved with the Eagle Brotherhood. He arranges for Zorro to search Murietta’s room while Bernardo searches the tannery. Zorro finds the cross of the Andes in Murietta’s drawer. When Murietta enters his room Zorro overpowers him and ties him up before leaving. Meanwhile Bernardo discovers at the tannery the crate of boots that Dolores brought and finds that under a false bottom are the rest of the jewels that go with the cross of the Andes. Jose sneaks up and knocks Bernardo out. He sees the jewels and decides to take them. In the middle of the floor of the tannery is a very deep pit. Jose is trying to throw Bernardo down it when Zorro arrives. They fight with staffs until Jose falls back against a sharp point and dies. You can always tell a bad guy is about to die if they find out Zorro's identity.

Rubenesque

                                  

            On Sunday morning I finished posting my translation of “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Poppet that makes Peepee) by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog. I started memorizing Gainsbourg's “L’Hippopodame”, a song about a Rubenesque woman.

            I worked on updating my journal.

            I washed a six-board section of my kitchen floor on the west side of the room in front of the mantle.

            For lunch I had a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire announces that she is going to spend the summer in Philadelphia with her sister. She says that her brother is going to stay with him in New York but Kingfish puts his foot down, even though he hasn’t met her brother. She agrees not to invite him. Later Kingfish is at his office when a man comes in looking for directions to a certain rest home. He explains that he is paying $750 to spend the summer at a quiet place. Kingfish gives him fake directions and says that the rest home is right on top of the subway to convince the man that it would be too noisy for him. Kingfish then tells him that his name is Dr. Stevens and he just happens to also have a rest home that he can stay at. He gets Andy to pose as a nurse. After the patient moves in Sapphire returns home explaining that she had a fight with her sister. Kingfish confesses the situation and Sapphire agrees to help take care of the patient. Kingfish tells the patient to make sure he does everything Sapphire tells him. After Kingfish leaves the room she tells the patient to make sure that he doesn’t tell her husband until the end of the summer that he is really her brother.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I translated a few paragraphs of “Les Enfants du Paradis”.

            I had an egg with toast and a beer for dinner while watching Zorro.

            In this story a man arrives in Los Angeles who shows himself to be very skilled with a whip. He checks into the inn but gives smart aleck answers Sergeant Garcia’s questions about his name and place of origin. He signs the register as Carlos Murietta and goes to his room. Don Diego happens to be in the inn at the time and tells Garcia that Murietta was wearing a gaucho hat, suggesting that he has just come from Argentina,

but he did not have an Argentinean accent. A local tanner named Jose comes to see Murietta. It turns out that they are both part of the Eagle Brotherhood. Murietta shows that he has stolen the cross of the Andes that some of its jewels will be delivered to Jose’s tannery. Meanwhile a young man named Don Rudolfo arrives at the inn and sits at a table, as he apparently does every day, to moon over the barmaid Maria. Rudolfo hast just turned eighteen. Murietta and Jose come down to the inn to drink a bottle of wine but Murietta tries to kiss Maria and Rudolfo comes to her defence. He unwisely challenges a far better swordsman to a duel at dawn. Diego takes him to his place and tries to give him some fencing pointers without revealing he is Zorro but Rudolfo is far too inexperienced. Zorro comes to Murietta’s hotel room to point out the error of his ways in having insulted Maria and challenged someone that is barely a man to a duel. They sword fight and when Murietta’s hat comes off Zorro sees the eagle feather inside. They fight some more until Zorro wounds Murietta’s duelling hand and leaves. The next day Murietta sends an apology to cancel the duel because of his injury.

            I think I got the cloth that I use with the wood soap mixed up with the one I use to wash the dishes. My coffee didn’t taste right.

Demonic Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law

         

            On Saturday morning I woke up at about 3:30 and laid in bed for a while before getting up half an hour early. I made use of the extra time to flush the wax out of my ears before starting yoga.
            I finished working out the chords for “La poupée qui fait pipi" (The Poppet that makes Peepee) by Serge Gainsbourg and started posting it on my Christian’s Translations blog.
            My computer froze at around 8:30 and so I shut down and started again. When I looked at my torrent list everything had disappeared. Some of those files have been there for a year. I looked at some forums and there’s no quick fix. It seems to happen sometimes after crashes, although it’s never happened to me. Anyway all the files are in my downloads and it looks like Bit Torrent recognizes them so it won’t try to download whole files all over from scratch. It makes it difficult to seed files though because I can’t tell right away if I’ve seeded as much as I’ve downloaded so I can feel like I’ve been fair when I remove a file from the list. For instance, the second season of Zorro is about nine gigs but it only shows after re-downloading as four megs. Some incompletely downloaded files with unrecognizable names that couldn’t be searched on Pirate Bay just had to be deleted, but chances are they wouldn’t have fully downloaded anyway.
            I worked on my writing project, “My Blood in a Bug”.
            At 9:30 I started getting ready to go to the food bank for the first time in two months. Back in the summer and early fall it was a simple affair to get dressed for the line-up since I usually only needed a single layer of clothes and I could be there by 9:45. Now I had to put on four layers on top, two layers of scarves, three layers of socks, two layers of pants, plus my winter gloves and my Kodiaks and it took me an extra ten minutes.
            Food bank clients were still lined up from west to east as they started being instructed to do the last time I was there. Veronica was all bundled up with a heavy winter coat with the hood up and with the addition of the surgical mask she wears to filter out the cigarette smoke she looked like a Canadian Egyptian mummy from Jamaica.
            She exclaimed, “Oh my god!” when she first saw me and told me that she'd thought she was hallucinating. I explained that I couldn’t come from the beginning of October on because I had five essays to write and only just handed the last one in on Monday. I said that there would be a pretty heavy assignment workload in the New Year as well and so after the holidays I probably wouldn't be coming much to the food bank until April.
            She updated me by saying nothing has changed at all. As an example she pointed and said, “She’s still angry all the time!” I looked and saw she was indicating Valdene, the food bank manager who was just arriving behind the wheel of the food bank van with a cigarette clamped between her lips while she jerked the van into its parking spot in front of the food bank. I agreed that she did look angry.
            I saw that Robbie was there as usual, and his rollator was a few places ahead of us but Veronica informed me that he'd had a fall a few weeks ago and has been in physiotherapy.
            I asked about Graham and was surprised to hear that he’d been there last week. Apparently he’d only just gotten his job back as it took several weeks for the mistaken identity issue that had come up after the criminal check to be cleared up. He’d had to start all over again with the first paycheque having been held back again for two weeks. Hopefully now everything will be fine for him.
            Veronica told me she wants to start an “Overcomers Group”. She explained that her mother, who died last January, had been an overcomer when she came here from Jamaica and faced all of the obstacles that stood in her way when she settled in Canada. Veronica wants to gather people who make things into a group so they can sell their crafts together.
            Suddenly Veronica told me that I was going to write up the proposal. I insisted that I really don’t have time for something like that. She assured me that it would only take ten or fifteen minutes but I knew that if I got involved it would be much more time consuming than that. She argued that I have lots of time now that school is over until January but I guaranteed her that I still have lots to occupy my time. It was only after telling her that I don’t want to start things that I can’t excel in that she understood.
            Veronica said she’s at a loss to find people that will help her. Everybody just says, “That’s a great idea! Good luck with that!” but no one wants to help her. I'd recalled hearing that she'd worked at a computer before taking medical leave and so I was surprised to find out she’s not computer savvy enough to set up a Facebook page. She said that she’d only worked with Word and Excel to do her job but she isn’t a techie at all.
            I suggested that she talk with a counsellor at a community centre like PARC or the West Neighbourhood House and see if they can advise her on how to approach it.
            A short, late middle aged woman with white hair showing through under her hood walked down the line carrying a stainless steel beverage canister. Veronica called out to her, “Where’s our coffee?” The woman held up her canister and said, “This is for asthma!” "Coffee for asthma? What do you think of that Dr. Christian?” The woman insisted that for some types of asthma coffee is medicine. I said I’d have to look that up.
            It turns out that she’s sort of right. The caffeine in coffee or black and green tea works in a similar way to the asthma medication theophylline in its ability to open up the airways and improve breathing. The only problem is that to match the effect of a dose of theophylline one would have to drink 150 cups of coffee a day.
            Veronica asked the woman how she’s doing and she said that she tries to keep a positive attitude despite the people that want to kill her. She said that she’s been threatened with death by four different people over her life and the first was her sister who wanted to kill the entire family. But really, I would say that any kid that doesn’t want to kill their family or at least one of their parents at some point in their childhood is dangerously abnormal. When asked why her sister wanted to kill her she said that her sibling was possessed by demons. Four of them to be exact and she saw them because she has that ability.
            I suggested that very few people believe in demonic possession any more but she said that in the Orthodox Church in which she was raised a lot of people still believe. I’ve read that in the Catholic Church every diocese has to have one priest that is trained in performing exorcisms but the "possessed" person is required to first undergo thorough medical examination to find out that the person’s behaviour is really a manifestation of mental illness. In the Roman Church the last major case of supposed demonic possession occurred in the mid-70s when a German woman underwent sixty-seven exorcisms. Several years later the German bishops retracted the claim that she was possessed.
            In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which includes the Greek Orthodox Church demons are still associated with disease and there is an exorcism ritual included in every baptism.
            At 10:30 we all took our places in line but nothing happened. We were still standing out in the cold at 11:00.
            I did some reading about the history of the Inuit people from my Indigenous Studies textbook. There were several displacements of communities by the Canadian government over the years. The feds set up a $10 million compensation fun in 1996 and apologized in 2010. Nunavut makes up 20% of Canada’s land mass.
            There was an eastern European and perhaps Romani couple there but the woman was standing in line with the cart while the man was in the entryway with their two children to keep them warm. Marlena the doorkeeper had the impression that the couple were attempting to shop separately so as to get extra food. She kept on telling the man to go to the back of the line. Later Valdene came up and was also acting like the couple were doing something wrong.
            It was almost 11:30 by the time I got downstairs. Valdene came storming up to the receptionist and wanted him to check the names of the couple waiting on the street and to make sure that they shop as a couple and not separately as she said they’ve done before. She made a comment about, “People trying to steal from us!”
            As Veronica and I were waiting in line for the reception desk she pointed out the shelves to me and said, “You see? There’s nothing there!” Maybe I had the advantage of having not been there for two months and remembering just how bare the shelves had been at the beginning of October. Back then the soup shelves had been almost empty and below that I’d barely seen a can of tuna all summer. Now there were a large variety of soups on two shelves and several stacks of tinned tuna and other kinds of fish underneath.
            The receptionist asked me if I wanted the Christmas turkey or the ham in two weeks when they give them out. I chose the turkey and he gave me a ticket.
            There were very few volunteers working, which helped to explain why the line had moved so slowly. A couple of volunteers were discussing Larissa, the older volunteer who usually helps people shop the shelves. They said that she’s probably on a beach right now so I guess she took a holiday.                  Marlena the doorkeeper doubled up her duties to serve me at the shelves.
            From the top of the first set of shelves I took a small bag of Peruvian coffee that is a product of Canada but distributed by a US company. And people say the nations aren’t getting along! The name brand of the coffee is Rykoff Sexton and the package doesn’t look twenty years old but according to Wikipedia, Rykoff Sexton stopped using that label in 1998 when it became US Foodservice.
            I got a can of jellied cranberry sauce with the label upside down. I hope the sauce isn’t upside down as well because then I would have to put the turkey on top of the sauce.
            Marlena said she really likes the Kashi Joi chocolate banana energy bars with almond butter and so I took two of those. Kashi was formed in 1984 by a young married couple named the Taubers and they got the name from a combination of “kashruth” (meaning kosher) and the name of macrobiotics guru Michio Kushi. They sold the company to Kellogg’s in 2000. Early in the 2010s they got sued for using the word "natural" on their products when some of the ingredients were artificial and others genetically modified. I notice that these bars are not labelled the words “natural" or “organic” but I don’t see any chemicals in the ingredients list.
            Marlena also gave me three little bags of chips, one ketchup flavoured, one all-dressed and one bag of nacho Doritos.
            As I was walking away from that set of shelves Marlena asked if I didn’t want some cereal. I’d forgotten about it probably because they don’t normally have any cereal I like. I looked and saw that they had spoon size shredded wheat, which is my favourite. When I grabbed a carton I saw that it was dark chocolate flavoured. I’m not big on sweetened cereals but I shrugged and took it anyway.
            There were a wide variety of canned beans and I grabbed a tin of fava beans. I didn’t notice until I got home that the brand name was Arz and I’d sworn I wouldn’t pick that product again because I got food poisoning once. But I guess one time doesn’t make a trend and so I’ll give them another chance. Arz started out as a Middle Eastern bakery and grocery store in Toronto and it was bought by Loblaws in 2009.
            I picked a can of Ocean’s albacore tuna. Ocean is owned by Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison. He also owns, after paying $4.8 million, the dress that Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang happy birthday to JFK. He’s 91 now and still works full time. He says the secret to a happy marriage is to marry someone from Saskatchewan.
            From the soup section I took a carton of golden butternut squash soup.
            As I finally ran out of pasta in November I selected a box of Barilla rotini. Barilla has been run by the Barilla family since 1877. In 2013 after Guido Barilla spoke out against gay couples adopting children and refused to use gay people in advertising, a boycott was threatened. A year or so later the company apologized and became an LGBTQ advocate.
            There was a young woman minding the cool section and Veronica had told me that Angie has been sick lately. I didn’t take any milk or yogourt but I accepted a container of tabouli salad, three eggs and a bag of frozen burgers. The burgers were beige coloured so they couldn’t be beef. Hopefully they aren’t vegan.
            Flash forward briefly to lunch the next day when I was looking forward to that tabouli salad. I noticed that the plastic lid was ballooning out from inside, which suggested that the wrong kinds of gasses were having a party in the tabouli. When I opened it up one little taste told me that the tabouli had gone kablooey and I had to throw it out.
            Sylvia gave me a 2.27-kilo bag of red and yellow mini potatoes and four apples. She said for me to help myself to the stuff by the door and so I got a bag of six tomatoes and a bunch of baby spinach.
            In the hallway between the food bank and the Tool Library there was a table set up. Veronica was sitting there and she called me over to encourage me to take the survey that a young man and woman were doing to help improve the food bank service. I picked up the form but the when the guy said it would take ten or fifteen minutes I put it back down again. I wasn’t going to waste any more time after spending one and a half hours in the cold. They should have invited people an hour before to come in and warm up while taking a fifteen-minute survey.
            It was almost noon by the time I got home. I put my food away and then headed back out to No Frills. I bought two bags of red grapes and a half pint of organic blueberries. I picked up an apple pie and a large wedge of two year old cheddar. I was pretty sure that the cheddar was $10 but I got charged $13. I got a little jar of basil pesto, some mouthwash and some Murphy’s Oil Soap.
            I had a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch. I worked on my journal.
            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story begins with Sapphire arguing with Kingfish about how she needs new accessories. He says they can’t afford it. Later while Sapphire is out he finds an alligator bag in their home and thinking that Sapphire has spent their money on something extravagant he takes it. Wanting to teach her a lesson he sells it to Andy for $5. He tells him that he’s an importer of alligator handbags from Egypt and that alligators have pouches like kangaroos and so one just cuts them off and has a handbag. Later however he finds out that a delivery man had brought the bag for their upstairs neighbour for their upstairs neighbour and since she wasn’t home he left the alligator handbag with Sapphire. Kingfish tries to get the handbag back from Andy by telling him that the handbag was smuggled and that he'll go to jail unless he sells it back to him. Just then Amos drops by, sees the bag and comments that it’s probably worth $50. Andy realizes Kingfish had been trying to scam him. Andy takes the bag and offers it as a gift to the mother of his girlfriend Carolina as a way of getting in good with her. She accepts the gift and he asks her if she’ll mention to Carolina that he’s not such a bad guy. She says she will. He asks her also to mention to Carolina that he’s thoughtful. She says of course she will. He asks when she’ll tell her. She answers, “As soon as she comes back from her honeymoon. She was married last night!” She won't give back the handbag. Andy and Kingfish go to Laguardia the lawyer and find him with a client. He says to her, "You say you want the marriage annulled?” "Yes it’s been a horrible mistake and it took me ten years to find out!" “With me on the case it’ll be a cinch! Meet me in court tomorrow morning at 9:00." "Thank you very much! Goodbye!" She leaves and Andy asks Laguardia who it was. He says, “My wife!” About the handbag Laguardia suggests that he go to Carolina's mother posing as a secret service agent and then arrest Andy in front of her. He goes there and when she asks for identification he shows her a blank card because secret service agents keep their identity a secret. He hides when Andy comes to the door and then arrests him. He slaps on the handcuffs but accidentally put them on himself. Fortunately Andy has the key in his pocket. Mrs Adams is convinced to sell back the handbag for $40 and Kingfish returns it to Sapphire. It turns out though that the handbag was actually a gift for Sapphire from the Women’s Auxiliary for all her hard work.
            I worked some more on my journal.
            I had an egg, toast and a beer for dinner while watching Zorro.
            In this story, convinced that Sgt. Garcia’s life is still in danger, Diego tries to subliminally warn him about Raquel and Quintana without revealing he is Zorro. He goes to Garcia and tells his fortune with cards. He says that they show his life is threatened by the dark lady, the ten of cups and the single cup or death card. He explains to him that the ten of cups could represent someone that keeps a lot of cups, like an innkeeper. He tells him not to go anywhere alone. The next day Raquel asks him to go somewhere alone but on his way he sees a single cup and rides back to the fort. When Raquel asks why he has returned he says he knows all about the dark lady and the keeper of the cups, Raquel suddenly thinks he is onto them. She goes to pack her things. When Quintana confronts her about it she says she wants out but he forces her to stay. He takes her to a winery where several other Eagle agents tell her that the Eagle had always planned on killing her husband because he is an officer in the king’s army. She had joined them because she thought that it would be a path to her husband’s greatness. Now they plan on killing her. Zorro arrives at the winery and sends his horse with a message for Bernardo. He goes in the winery alone. He fights the men and Raquel helps him. They escape and lock themselves in the storage room but there is no way out. As they are trying to break down the door Zorro reminds them that they are in the room where the gunpowder is being stored he lights a fuse and tells them they have just a few seconds to leave. As they leave the building Zorro stomps out the fuse and the soldiers arrive to arrest the men. Because she has seen the error of her ways Zorro does not expose Raquel.