I finished memorizing “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll look for the chords.
The new warm mist humidifier is much more comfortable than the cool mist one but all that steam gets to one’s head. The humidity was plenty high and so I turned it off during song practice. I won’t let it get that high next time and I think it will be fine.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions.
I weighed 84.4 kilos before breakfast.
I rushed to shave and shower before leaving for the U of T Grad School of Dentistry for my quarterly deep cleaning. But then I realized that I was thinking I had to leave at noon when I didn’t have to leave until 13:00, so all that rushing was a waste of panic.
On the way out I checked my mail and my ten free author’s copies of my book had arrived.
My hygienist Villie was at the desk when I got there, I guess filling in for the regular receptionist while she was perhaps at lunch. I thought that the new Federal dental plan covered all my cleanings but it turns out it only covers four units of cleaning a year. I was fully covered for the last cleaning but only for a third of this one so I had to pay $144. Villie suggested I get Dr. Xia to request an extension of the insurance by letter because of the importance of my gum treatment. This time I didn’t need any needle freezing because the really sensitive area is where I had the surgery and she was going to avoid that part. She just rubbed some numbing stuff over my gums. There were brief moments of pain but nothing that really needed freezing. Villie said that the two teeth in the back of the upper left haven’t improved and there is a very deep pocket between them. Dr. Xia has suggested those teeth should be removed. Villie says the rest of my mouth has gotten better. She gave a bigger interdental brush than Xia gave me and showed me some areas of plaque I need to get at with them. My next appointment for cleaning is January 30. I asked the receptionist if I would be covered then but she didn’t know if the number of units a year applied to the calendar year or 365 days after the last coverage.
I took some pictures of my printed book. I’ve never been formally in print before and so it’s exciting. Only one of the books arrived damaged on the lower right and upper right corners.
I weighed 82.35 kilos at 16:20.
I took a siesta at 17:00 and didn’t wake up until 20:00. That’s twice as long as normal but I guess that’s the sleep I didn’t get last night.
I weighed 82.85 kilos at 20:30. I’m pretty sure that’s a low record at least for this year.
Because I got up from my nap so late I started an eye of round roast almost three hours later than I had planned.
I didn’t have dinner until almost midnight. I had a potato with the last of my gravy and two slices of roast beef while watching season 2, episodes 23 and 24 of Branded.
In the first story McCord arrives in a town in a buckboard and asks for Dr. Miller. Anyone who goes to Dr. Miller is suspect because the doctor that everyone trusts is Doc Shackley, even though he’s only really a barber and his only treatment for any ailment is doses of homemade elixir that contains mostly alcohol. Dr. Miller on the other hand is a real medical doctor but she is female and British and so the populace does not trust her as a physician. On the back of McCord’s wagon is a friend of his too sick to walk and covered in a blanket. The town leaders think that it must be a criminal and storm into Miller’s office. By that time McCord’s friend is dead from diphtheria. The townsmen back away and Miller says McCord has the disease too. The townsmen say he has to leave town but she says he’ll die if he does. They say he can stay but there has to be a quarantine sign on her office. Later, even though McCord is very sick he shoots at some bank robbers from Miller’s door and kills the one carrying the loot. Miller injects McCord with her diphtheria serum but this is historically inaccurate. This is the 1880s and a diphtheria serum wasn’t developed until more than a decade later and that was in Germany. Miller is planning on giving McCord his next injection at midnight but one of the bank robbers comes and forces her to come and treat one of the men that McCord wounded and also makes her bring the vaccine even though he doesn’t know what it’s for. She leaves a note for McCord in Latin that tells him where she has gone and that there is danger, Although he can barely stay on his horse, McCord rides to the cabin. Miller has removed the robber’s bullet but he dies. McCord staggers in and the crooks recognize him as their friend’s killer. They start roughly handling McCord before Miller can warn them that he has diphtheria. The dead man’s brother wants the serum first and tries to draw on McCord but he kills him. The last crook drops his gun. McCord is cured and now the townspeople trust Dr. Miller and Shackley will have to go back to being a barber.
The second story is the first of a three part tale. McCord meets a train carrying President Grant. Grant has summoned McCord because he was friends with Armstrong Custer at West Point. Custer went on to become the youngest Major general in the history of the US army. Now he has presidential ambitions (It’s not historically clear that Custer was working toward campaigning as a Democratic nominee. Apparently he did consider running for Congress). Grant says Custer has antagonized most of the First Nation leaders. Grant wants McCord to renew his friendship with Custer and spy on him to find out if he can still be depended on. He’s still the best field commander in the cavalry. McCord refuses to spy on his friend. But then they see Custer riding up to the train and Grant tells McCord that he will change his mind in thirty minutes. McCord listens from behind a curtain while Custer argues that there is no need for more troops to defend against the Natives because they would only outnumber them as a fighting force if the tribes were to work together but they won’t. He says “these dog eaters need a lesson”. He adds “They are 20,000 years behind our civilization”. He says the word “Sioux” means “Cutthroat”. But it doesn’t mean that. First of all “Sioux” is not their name for themselves. “Sioux” is a name given to them by the Ojibwa meaning “Little Snakes” because they were traditional enemies. He says the Cheyenne symbol is cut arm because they collect limbs. Crazy Horse wears the symbol of a bloody hand. I don’t know if that’s true. He tells Grant that if they can’t keep the Sioux on the reservation then they should eliminate them. After Custer leaves, McCord tells Grant he’ll take the mission. Later out on the trail Jennie Galvin’s wagon has lost a wheel. A young Sioux stops to help her but Custer’s scout Charlie Yates rides up and starts beating the Sioux warrior. Then McCord rides up and beats up Yates. When McCord arrives at Custer’s home Custer and his wife Libby are overjoyed to see their old friend. He offers McCord the job of his new scout. Custer invites McCord to the Bachelor Officers Tavern where Jennie is tending bar. Some men recognize McCord as the coward of Bitter Creek and start a fight with him. Meanwhile in the back room some men are plotting to overcharge the Sioux at the trading posts enough to make them want to attack. That will give them an excuse to eliminate them so they can get at the gold in the Black Hills. McCord takes on a lot of Custer’s men until Custer arrives and stops the fight. Then he introduces McCord to them as their new scout. Then he leads the men in singing “Gary Owen”.
Libby Custer was played by Jacquelyn Hyde, who co-starred in The Dark, for which she was nominated for a Saturn Award. She played Miss Blair in Take the Money and Run and Jackie in They Shoot Horses Don’t They? She played Lucretia in the TV series Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.
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