Penny Santon

            

            On Thursday morning my cold felt a little less strong than the day before and so maybe it’s on the way down. 

            I finished posting “Wha’d Ya Do Wha’d Ya Do Billie Boo?”, my translation of “D’où reviens-tu Billy Boy?” by Boris Vian on my Boris Vian Facebook page and on my personal Facebook page. 

            I worked out the chords for all the verses of “Amours des feintes” (Feinting Romance) by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s only one chorus left, so I’ll probably have this song uploaded to my Christian’s Translations blog tomorrow. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I sanded the edges of the casing of my bathroom door frame and the head casing. I might be able to finish sanding the frame tomorrow. 

            I weighed 87.45 kilos before lunch. 

            Richard Olafson has made the last correction I requested for the text of my book. Then he shocked me by saying he’s thinking of having the launch on October 27. Holy crap that’s soon! It doesn’t give me a lot of time to prepare my performance or to promote the event. I would need to change my daily song practice to a whole new set of songs. I had planned to record audio and video of my regular set from September 1 to October 15 but if I change my set until the end of October then I will be two months out of practice for the set I planned to record and so I might have to wait until June to be back in practice. We’ll see. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. Their green grapes were on sale for $3.17 a kilo and that seems to be the best deal in town. I only found five bags in which the grapes weren’t too soft. I also got a pack of raspberries, bananas, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, a pork tenderloin, a pack of sliced turkey, a pack of corned beef, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, and a pack of whole wheat flour. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos at 18:30. I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. 

            I made gravy from beef drippings but it turned out a little thick and so I’ll have to add some more liquid after I roast chicken legs on Friday. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last slice of roast beef while watching season 8, episodes 5 and 6 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha and Darrin are renting a villa in Pisa but they visit Rome for a museum tour where they see the statues of Venus and Adonis. As Samantha stops to admire the antique dolls in a cabinet one of the dolls turns out to be her mother. Darrin has to leave for a business lunch but as he walks away his head is turned by a gorgeous woman. Endora notices this and says she’s here to protect her daughter from Darrin’s wandering eye. So she brings the Venus statue to life and directs her to introduce herself to Darrin. She appears at his café table where he is waiting for his meeting and says her name is Vanessa. He is hypnotically enchanted by her beauty and when she suggests taking him on a tour of Rome he decides his business meeting is not important. He brings Vanessa home to Pisa and introduces her to Samantha as their new maid. Samantha tells her to put on an apron and she returns with nothing on but the apron. Samantha tells her to walk out of the room backwards and she’ll find her a uniform to put under the apron. Samantha knows there is something strange about Vanessa and she suspects that her mother is behind it. That night Samantha and Darrin are having a dinner party with Darrin’s boss Larry and Mr. and Mrs. Valdoni. It’s Mr. Valdoni who Darrin stood up earlier. As soon as the men see Vanessa they are charmed to distraction, much to Mrs. Valdoni’s chagrin. Valdoni gets a call from the director of the national museum because he is on the board of trustees and he is informed that Caravaggio’s Venus statue is missing. Suddenly Samantha realizes that Vanessa is Venus come to life. Samantha transports herself back to the museum in Rome where she brings the Adonis statue to life and brings him back. As soon as Venus and Adonis see each other there is recognition and they come into each other’s arms. Mrs. Valdoni is as affected by Adonis as her husband is by Venus. Samantha takes the two deities out in the garden and calls again for her mother. Endora sends them back to the museum as statues holding hands, which is not how they were originally. Samantha asks what are people going to say when they see them that way? Endora says, “What’s one more miracle in Rome?”

            Isabella Baldoni was played by Penny Santon, whose film debut was in Interrupted Melody. She played Laverne’s mother on Laverne and Shirley, Captain Furillo’s mother on Hill Street Blues and Mama Rosa Novelli on Matt Houston. She was in the original production of Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo. 

            In the second story Samantha and Darrin are now visiting Paris while Endora is babysitting Tabitha and Adam. But Samantha’s father Maurice comes to visit Samantha in the States only to learn that she is in Europe. He is now angry that his daughter has been in Europe for weeks and has yet to visit him and he blames Darrin. Endora turns a plant into a copy of Darrin for Maurice to focus his anger. The copy is extremely agreeable and complimentary of Maurice, which is really the opposite of the real Darrin. He presents Maurice with a portrait of him by Picasso. Maurice enjoys the flattery but even he finds it to be a bit too much. Maurice decides to help Darrin develop a backbone. But then the real Darrin walks in and so Endora has to get rid of the copy. Maurice realizes from his difference of manner towards him that something is amiss. Darrin says he and Samantha want to see Paris alone, so Maurice transports him to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Samantha goes to bring him back. Darrin stands up to Maurice and Maurice says he admires that but at the same time his anger causes objects around him to shatter. When Maurice isn’t looking Endora turns Darrin into a bust of Napoleon in the corner to hide him but Maurice sees through it and smashes the bust. Samantha demands that her father put Darrin back together but she says he doesn’t have the power. Endora says she’ll have to move back in with him to help him regain his strength and that motivates Maurice to make the effort to fix Darrin. Later Maurice invites everyone out for dinner at Maxim’s. Then Darrin’s client Monsieur Sagon comes and shows Darrin his picture at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Sagon says he can’t trust his Europa Tours account to an executive who would pull a stunt like that. But Maurice comes to Darrin’s rescue and says that this was a clever way of demonstrating the new slogan Darrin has for Sagon’s company, “Europa Tours Towers Above Them All”. Sagon loves it.