I weighed 88.55 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Kramer electric during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune until the last two songs when I sat down at the computer. It almost always goes out of tune when I do that. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic.
At around midday I rode to Parliament and Bloor with my bike trailer, then south to Shuter, and east to AMI Electronics. On the way I stopped to pee at Long and McQuade but had to go again when I got to AMI. I paid Dr. Oscar Moz $150 in cash and so he didn’t charge me tax. He said his work is guaranteed for a year. I asked him if he’s a real doctor and he confirmed he earned a PHD in Electronics in Japan. I wanted to ask how he ended up in Japan but didn’t think we had time for a long story. He said he’s taught at universities but likes the challenge of fixing things. I thought maybe he must employ some people but he says he’s all alone doing the work of ten people. I was surprised because of all the stuff that’s piled up in his shop but he says most of that is for sale. When he found out I’m riding a bike he told me he used to deliver TVs on a bike. He didn’t have a washroom but directed me to the community centre on the corner. 
When I got home the phone rang and it was Cad Gold Jr. wishing me a happy New Year and telling me they won’t resume shooting the movie until spring. We chatted for about twenty minutes.
I weighed 88.1 kilos at 15:55, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since December 20.
I had Sky Flakes with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea.
I took a siesta until 18:00.
I weighed 89.4 kilos at 18:15.
I was caught up in my journal at 19:55.
I reviewed some more of the finale of my 20,000 Poets Under the League poetry slam hosted by Sahara Spracklin. At the same time I made pizza on naan with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, pepperoni, goat cheese, and five-year-old cheddar. I was listening to the nine finalists but one of them read a very long piece and so I had to stop listening before my pizza burned. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episode 12 of Car 54 Where Are You?
Muldoon and Toody are a couple of softies when it comes to lost causes in the community. They hold a meeting of the Police Brotherhood Club’s Helping Hand Committee. They try to convince the committee to give $100 to Charlie Adamopolis so he can open a diner. Schnauser reminds them that they’ve helped Charlie in the past and he’s always fallen back on his alcoholic ways. They finally agree to write a cheque for Charlie but he starts to reminisce about all the places where he used to drink and he seems to get drunk from just talking about them until he staggers away.
Captain Block sends Muldoon and Toody to bring in Pretzel Mary for vending without a license. They’ve been letting her get away with it for ten years but now Block is putting his foot down. We find Mary in the park aggressively selling pretzels. She grabs people as they walk past, insists on them feeling how fresh it is and then demands that they buy it after putting their grubby hands on it. Muldoon and Toody take her in but she starts shouting that they are hitting her. In Block’s office she begins screaming that Muldoon and Toody are holding her while Block kicks her in the stomach. To shut her up Block gives her the $5 for her license. Mary insists on a ride home and so Muldoon and Toody drive her to her shack by the railroad tracks.
Despite her telling them to drop dead, Muldoon and Toody are moved to pity at seeing the squalor in which Mary lives. They decide to see if the committee can do something about it. But meanwhile we see Mary going over her finances with her accountant as it turns out she is one of the richest women in the United States. She has over a million in cash in her shack and her accountant protests that she doesn’t put it in the bank. She stuffs her real estate earnings in the old couch, the money from the stocks goes inside the ragged chair, and the rent from her tenants goes in her mattress. The next day when Mary is out selling pretzels, Muldoon, Toody and the rest of the committee take away all Mary’s old furniture and deliver new stuff. They hide outside when she comes home and wait till they hear her scream with pleasure before leaving. The next day Mary comes to the station to report the theft of a $ million. Muldoon and Toody are desperate to find Mary’s furniture. They find the junk collector and learn he sold it to a guy who owns a junk yard. They learn the junk yard don sold the furniture to Charlie Adamopolis. But Mary has been following them and she learns the same. She sneaks into Charlie’s place and retrieves her cash then stuffs it into her new furniture. But then Muldoon and Toody retrieve her old furniture and return it to Mary’s shack, taking away the new furniture.
Next we see that Mary has gotten her money back and she’s dressed like a wealthy woman. She has given a quarter of a million to an orphanage and donated large sums to every charity in the Bronx. Now Charlie is her chauffeur and he drives her in her Rolls Royce to the park where she gets out wearing her old clothes to continue selling pretzels and tells him to pick her up at 17:00.
Mary was played by Sybil Bowan, of whom there is surprisingly very little information considering how good she was. She played several characters in Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook on Broadway in 1935, including Martha Washington and the girl who missed the Mayflower. She was in the original Broadway production of First Impressions in 1959; the original Broadway production of Donnybrook! in 1961; the original Broadway production of Maggie Flynn in 1968; and the original Broadway production of Jimmy in 1969. She starred in the short film Musical Airwaves in which she imitates the voices of Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Beatrice Lilly, and Mae West.
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