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.