Thaddea Graham

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “Poupée Poupée” by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one had posted them and so I worked out the first few chords of the intro. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I took everything down from the top of my shelves above the kitchen sink and counter to prepare to wash the top. But first I had to repair it, The right front corner of the top board has been sagging for a long time because the fibreboard has broken around the nail that was holding it in place. I drove some new nails in and secured it and then started cleaning the top. It was pretty dirty and so I didn't finish it before the water in the bucket got dirty. I'll complete that tomorrow and then move down to clean the top shelf. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Shaw, then went south to College, west to Dovercourt, south to Queen and then west to Gladstone where I stopped at Freshco. 

            I bought two half-pints of blueberries, a half-pint of raspberries, a pint of strawberries, two bags of oranges, three pomegranates, a bag of plain kettle chips, a bag of barbecue kettle chips, a bag of naan, two jars of apple sauce, a large container of skyr, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, a jug of orange juice, a jug of raspberry lemonade, Ritz crackers, a dark chocolate bar, six bars of Irish Spring soap, and a pack of Sponge Towels. 

            Since I had the $50 gift card that my upstairs neighbour David gave me I left my bike at Freshco and walked across the street to Metro. I got vanilla bean ice cream, white chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream, eggs, ground beef, a whole free-range chicken, dill pickles, and a pack of hot Italian sausages. I went $2.05 over the gift card. I really don't like the atmosphere of Metro and I don't find the staff as friendly as those at Freshco. If not for the gift card I wouldn't shop there. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos when I got home. 

            I got caught up on my journal a little before 19:30. 

            I searched for video footage of fluorescent light. I found some of the lights themselves although I wanted more of the glow and how it makes flesh look cold. I'll see if anything I've bookmarked would look good in the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy.” 

            When I started to make dinner I realized the one thing I'd forgotten to buy at the supermarkets is a sack of potatoes. It's lucky I had frozen french fries. I ate some with gravy and two sirloin tips while watching episode three of the thirteenth season of Doctor Who. 

            I found this story pretty confusing. In the Temple of Atropos on the Planet Time the Doctor, to protect Yasmin, Dan and Vinder from Swarm, Azure and the Passenger, jumps into the time storm and hides Yasmin, Dan and Vinder each in the past of their own time streams. They each remember their future and see each other in the bodies of the people they interact with in the past before they knew each other in the future. The Doctor is trying to divide herself between all the separate time streams but she also gets sucked into her own time stream in which she is the “fugitive Doctor” from her own forgotten past commanding an assault on Atropos which has also been occupied by an older Swarm even though it happened long before. The Passengers are humanoid vessels that can absorb and contain hundreds of thousands of lives. The Fugitive Doctor defeats Swarm by having the Mouri priests become absorbed in the Passenger. The Flux has caused the Santorans, the Daleks and the Cybermen to divide up the places it has ravaged. In Vinder's timeline his world has been devastated by the Daleks. His pregnant girlfriend Bel is looking for him. Dan's love has been trapped inside a Passenger. The Doctor promises Dan she'll get her back. They return to the Tardis, Yasmin looks at her phone and sees a Weeping Angel. The angels infiltrate the Tardis through her phone. The Doctor tells everyone not to blink but Dan blinks and the angels are able to take over the Tardis. 

            Bel is played by Thaddea Graham, who co-starred in the TV series “Letter For the King” and “The Irregulars.”. 

            Diane is played by Nadia Albina. 

            Dan Lewis is played by John Bishop who is one of the biggest names in British comedy. He's done several shows and specials for the BBC and Sky1.

December 24, 1991: My Dad was happy to meet his new grandchild

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday morning we changed buses in Riviere du Loup but we didn't have to in Edmundston. We pulled into Grand Falls at around 8:15 and my brother Allison was there to meet us. He took us to Dad's place and my father was very happy to meet his new grandchild. 

            Dad didn't seem as sick as I'd heard he was. We talked and looked at pictures. We went up the hill to Aunt Pearl's trailer and watched TV. 

            On Christmas Eve we gave my father his presents.

Rochenda Sandall

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the tenth verse of “Arthur, où t'as mis le corps?” (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?”. I have one verse left to go and if I don't have it nailed down by Friday I'll just take the time on Christmas morning to finish it. 

            I almost finished memorizing “Poupée Poupée” by Serge Gainsbourg but didn't quite get the final verse. I should have that done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning, David knocked on my door and gave me a $50 Metro gift card as he's done every Christmas for the last few years. He says he still hasn't gotten in touch with his family in Ethiopia but his brother in Vancouver has gotten word from them in a roundabout way. He said again that when things calm down over there he'd like to take me there for two weeks and I wouldn't have to spend any money. 

            Around midday I pulled the stove out and washed the tiles on which it sits. There were a couple of patches of caked in grease that I had to use steel wool to get rid of. As usual when I clean I also cut myself, this time on a sharp ridge of something run ning along the floor that seemed more like glue than grease, but I cleaned that up too. I also washed the tiles in front of the kitchen counter. Tomorrow I'll start cleaning the kitchen shelves, from the top down. That might take the rest of the holidays. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with five year old cheddar. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Ossington, then went south to College, west to Dovercourt, south to Queen and home. As I was coming in Benji was going out. He said he thinks covid is caused by immigration. But my research shows there are and always have been new viruses popping up that usually just die off quickly. This one just had a perfect storm. Someone with the virus showed up in a crowded market when they should have stayed home. If not for that covid might not have spread at all. 

            I went out to to buy a twelve-pack of Creemore. The price must have gone up. I previously paid less than $20 for six but this cost more than $44. 

            There was a poster for a lost animal on the streetcar shelter but it was a picture of the dodo, which went extinct 400 years ago. The poster claims that the dodo was hunted out of existence and that a vegan lifestyle would save animals from going extinct. I would imagine that plant based agriculture has probably caused thousands of extinctions. Habitat loss and invasive species had a lot to do with the dodo's extinction so even if every human in the world was vegan it probably wouldn't have saved it. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos when I got home. 

            I worked on my Movie Maker project of creating a video for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy.” I edited the footage of electroshock therapy from the 1940s to make a clip of dipping electrodes into a saline solution to correspond with the line, “Put some on the electrodes and we're soon ...” For the next word “prepared” I was trying to synchronize the studio audio with the concert video. But I realized that would make it out of sync with me singing “for shock therapy” right after that. It makes more sense to show me singing “shock therapy” than “prepared” and so I just had “prepared” be sung during the electrode footage and lined up the video with “shock therapy.” It goes out of sync again after that when I sing “under fluorescent glow” so I need to find or shoot some video that fits with “fluorescent glow.” 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood In A Bug.” 

            I worked on editing my “Anti Gravity's Rainbow” photo. 

            I made pizza on naan with Sorrentese sauce, a cut-up sirloin tip, and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the second episode of the most recent season of Doctor Who. 

            This story continues from where the previous one let off. The Flux was closing in on the Tardis and it looked like the end of the universe but the Doctor Yasmin and Dan are transported to the Crimean war. But reality has changed as the Russians have been replaced with the Sontarans and Russia is now Sontara. The Doctor and her friends meet Mary Seacole who is there to administer to the wounded and General Logan who is in command of the British troops. The Doctor tries to tell him he can't fight the Sontarans but he won't listen. Suddenly Dan and Yasmin start fading away. He is transported back to Liverpool where the Sontarans have taken over. He runs into his parents who inform him that a Sontaran can be knocked out with a blow to the back of the head. Dan decides to sneak onto the Sontaran base. Meanwhile Yasmin is transported to the Planet Time where the Mouri or time guardians are in disrepair. The Doctor and Mary sneak onto the Sontaran base in the past and the Doctor gets Mary to spend some time observing the Sontarans. She finds out that they require 7.5 minutes of rest every 27 hours. General Logan engages with the Sontarans and almost all of his men are killed. Dan is captured but rescued by Karvanista. The Doctor forms a plan to defeat the Sontarans during their rest cycle by dissipating the gasses they require. The plan is successful and the Sontarans agree to retreat but while doing so Logan uses gunpowder to blow up their base and kill many of them. The Doctor is disgusted by his action. The Doctor finds the Tardis and then she retrieves Dan. Together they go to the Planet Time where Swarm, Azure and Passenger have already taken Yasmin captive. Destroyed one of the Mouri and placed Yasmin in her position. 

            Mary Seacole was played by Sara Powell.

            Azure is played by Rochenda Sandall, who starred in the series “Criminal: UK” and “Love Lies and Records.” She co-starred in “London's Burning” and “Line of Duty.” She played Chesille Sabrond in “The Rise of Skywalker.” 

            As I was getting ready for bed I saw a bedbug on the door above the head of my bed at about eye level. It didn't seem very healthy and the blood inside was dark red and greasy. Later I did a search and poked my skewer into a small hole in the wall near the foot of my bed and impaled a small one that looked even more sick and was black inside. They were the first I'd seen in three weeks and the three I found three weeks ago also looked like they were dying but still moving around.

December 23, 1991: We took a walk and got lost while waiting for our bus in Montreal but made it back on time

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I was up fairly early and I was ready to go by 11:00. Nancy had said she wanted to make the noon bus. I was there before her and got in line for the tickets. She showed up just before I got to the front and so I gave her my money and then took the baby in the carriage and went to stand in line for the bus. When it came Nancy still hadn't gotten there and so I asked the driver if we could get on and take a seat while waiting for the tickets. The aisle was too narrow for the stroller and so I had to struggle with taking my daughter out and holding her in one arm while collapsing the carriage with the other. A middle aged maternal woman offered to hold the baby while I got that done and found a seat. There were two sisters occupying the back seat and I arranged for them to have another seat together so we could take the back. When I returned to get my daughter Nancy was boarding the bus. 

            We stopped outside of Kingston for lunch and then arrived in Montreal at around 18:30. We didn't have to catch the next bus until 22:30 and so we walked up St Lawrence until Nancy got cranky. We crossed Prince Arthur to St Denis and got temporarily lost but found our way back to the bus terminal.

Annabel Scholey

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the third and fourth verses and the chorus of “Poupée Poupée” (Dolly Dolly) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are just two verses left. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            The email that I'd sent to to Professor Morgenstern requesting that she review my essay came back because I hadn't put a period between “naomi” and “morgenstern”. I corrected that and sent it again. 

            In the late morning and almost until 13:00 I returned to my kitchen cleaning project that's been on hold since September. I finally finished cleaning the storage drawer that goes under my stove and put away all the pots and pans that have been piled up on the kitchen table for the last few months. Tomorrow I'll move the stove and clean the floor underneath it. Then I can start washing the shelves above my kitchen counter. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Dovercourt. I weighed 86.2 kilos when I got home. 

            There was an email from Professor Morgenstern reminding me that the proper procedure for an essay review is to first have a meeting with my TA to discuss it. After that if I am still unsatisfied she said she would be happy to read my essay. Since the university is closed until January I'll have to wait until January 10 to contact Sarah and talk with her about the horrible mark she gave me. 

            I was caught up with my journal just before 18:00. 

            I inserted the clip of electrode jelly being applied to a patient's temples into the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy”. It corresponds to the studio audio of me singing, “then rub electrode jelly there.” Following that is the line, “Put some on the electrodes and we're soon prepared.” I tried to synchronize the concert video with me pronouncing “prepared” but it's still slightly off. Once I get that lined up I'll have to see if anything before “prepared” is in sync. If it's not then I'll insert a clip from the same 1940s video of the electrodes being dipped in saline solution. I'll work on it some more tomorrow. 

            I worked on my poem series, “My Blood In A Bug.” 

            I translated a bit more of the screenplay for “Les Enfants du Paradis.” I'm not quite halfway done after all these years. 

            I had my last potato with gravy and two sirloin tips while watching the first episode of the latest season of Doctor Who. 

            This is a pretty complicated story. It begins with The Doctor and Yasmin suspended upside down over an acid ocean on a planet that will be destroyed by a supernova in four minutes anyway. The one who put them there is Karvanista and he leaves them guarded by two attack drones as he leaves for Earth saying something about its imminent destruction. But the Doctor and Yasmin manage to flip upright and hang on to the bar they'd been suspended from as the drones attack. They get free of their cuffs and fall into the Tardis. They head for Earth to save it from Karnavista. Meanwhile some prison guards somewhere in the universe check on Swarm who has been imprisoned there since the dawn of time. Swarm has somehow figured how to nullify his stasis field. He absorbs the energies of the guards and then instigates The Flux, which dissolves everything in time and space it comes in contact with. On Earth, Dan Lewis, who volunteers at the food bank comes home to an empty cupboard. It's Halloween and he gives his last candy to some trick or treaters. Then there is another knock and someone who looks like a human dog is at the door. It's Karvanista. He puts Dan in a cage and takes him on his spaceship. The Doctor tracks Karvanista to Dan's house but Karvanista has boobie trapped it. The Doctor escapes and tracks Karvanista to his ship. Karvanista is a Lupari and it turns out there is a fleet of seven billion Lupari ships orbiting Earth. Each of them is there to collect one human because Earth is doomed because of the approaching Flux. The Lupari are there to save humanity because dogs are man's best friend. Swarm comes to Earth and frees his sister who has been trapped in a human body and life. There is also someone named Claire who meets the Doctor and has met her before but the Doctor doesn't remember because they haven't met yet. The Doctor also meets Swarm who she also doesn't remember but apparently they are old enemies and Swarm has made the Doctor forget. Claire faces one of the weeping Stone Angels and the Sontarans are back, happy about the Flux. The episode ends with the Tardis carrying the Doctor, Yasmin, and Dan trapped by the Flux as the universe is about to end. It looks like Dan is going to be the Doctor's new companion. He reminds me of Jamie who was one of the second Doctor's companions because he's unsophisticated and has a simple outlook on life. 

            Claire is played by Annabel Scholey, who starred in the movie Walking On Sunshine, and played Contessina de Medici in the mini-series Medici: Masters of Florence.

December 22, 1991: I stayed up late getting my stuff together for the trip to New Brunswick

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday I met Nancy to finish our shopping. We went to Eaton's Centre where I got a hunting magazine and some chocolates for Ken. Nancy went to Pier 1 to buy a basket for Dad. We bought frames for the pictures of the baby we were giving everyone. We purchased one dolphin poster and one whale poster for Nicholas and Aaron. We picked up some coloured popcorn for the kids as well. 

           We had dinner at Toby's and then headed home. 

            I stayed up late doing my laundry and getting most of my stuff together for our trip.

Lucille Ball

            On Monday morning I memorized the second verse of “Poupée Poupée” (Dolly Dolly) by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I weighed 88.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I'd been putting off doing my laundry and I've just hand washed my underwear for the last week until my exam was over. Today I finally took my stuff to the coin laundry. There weren't many people there but I had to dry my stuff in the back room because the couple who manage the place were cleaning the filters and vacuuming. I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. 

            Since I'd already been out riding my bike back and forth to the laundrymat I decided not to take an afternoon bike ride.

            I got caught up on my journal at 17:30. 

            I inserted the razor-sharpening scene from “Un Chien Andalou” into the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy” at the point in the studio audio when I'm singing, “Now take a razor and shave the hair.” Then I cut a bit off the end of that and some from the concert video so that the concert video is in sync with me singing “around the temples.” But it goes out of sync again when I sing “then rub electrode jelly there.” So I pulled the real footage of electroshock therapy from the 1940s to the end of the timeline and edited everything out but the part where they apply electrode jelly to the patient's temples. Tomorrow I'll insert that clip into the video. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 18:30. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood In A Bug.” 

            I found that my mark has been posted for my US Lit essay and I was very disappointed to see that I only got 70%. That's the lowest mark I've ever gotten on an English term paper. I don't think it's fair but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to appeal the mark with Professor Morgenstern. Since the professor is on a first-name basis with the TA it might be futile to try. Maybe I'll wait for my grade for the whole course first. I decided to go ahead and ask my professor to review the essay. The worst that could happen is I'd get a lower mark but that's never happened. It usually either gets upped a bit or it stays the same. 

            I grilled a pack of sirloin tip steaks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching the 1966 TV special “Lucy In London.” 

            This special was sort of a side trip of Lucille Ball's “The Lucy Show” in which she played a bank teller named Lucy Carmichael. That character arrives in London for a one-day tour after winning it in a raffle. She is greeted at the airport by Tony her tour guide but she is somewhat disappointed that her vehicle for the tour is a motorcycle with a sidecar. Tony convinces her that this is the best way to see London. He first takes her to the River Thames, then inflates a raft so they can go punting. But while they are out there they get into the path of a rowing race and the raft sinks. Tony takes Lucy to the fashion district where Lucy is involved in a musical number written by Phil Spector and she is shown posing in various mod fashions. Tony takes her to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum where she falls behind the tour and while she is touching one of the figures she thinks it has come to life but it's really the curator of the museum who takes her to the chamber of horrors. Thinking she is going to be tortured she hits him over the head and runs away. Tony takes Lucy to a garden where Shakespeare performances are given and she ends up playing Kate in a scene from The Taming of the Shrew. But she finds Petruchio is a little too enthusiastic with his whip as he attempts to tame her and she runs away. On London Bridge Lucy and Tony sing “London Bridge is Falling Down” while the members of The Dave Clark Five, dressed in top hats and tails, sing “Pop Goes the Weasel” in counterpoint. Tony finally takes Lucy to a theatre where he puts on a show for her. Tony is played by Anthony Newley who co-wrote the song “Feeling Good.” He performs songs from his show “Stop The World I Want To Get Off.” It had its moments of charm but generally, it was kind of lame. It was the most-watched TV show of that week but critics didn't like it. Lucy had planned on doing three travel specials but decided to only do this one. 

            Lucille Ball performed for the first time in a chorus line when she was 12. When at 14 she started dating a hoodlum her mother, to change her focus, got her enrolled in a drama school. But she was told there that she had no talent. She did some modelling, became the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl, worked for Ziegfeld Follies and then went out to Hollywood. Two of her first films were “Three Little Pigskins” starring the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers film “Room Service.” In 1940 she starred in the musical “Too Many Girls” where she met Desi Arnaz. She signed with MGM and became known as Queen of the Bs for movies like “Five Came Back.” In 1948 she was the star of the radio series “My Favourite Husband.” In 1950 when they decided to make it into a TV show Lucy insisted that her real life husband Desi Arnaz be her co-star. CBS didn't think a Latin actor would be accepted on TV but after Lucy and Desi took their show on the road and it became a Vaudeville hit CBS signed them to do “I Love Lucy.” It was the top show for pretty much its entire run. Even before this Lucy and Desi had formed the production company Desilu. After their divorce in 1960, Lucy bought out Desi's half. In addition to Lucy's own projects, Desilu was the company behind The Untouchables, Mission Impossible, and Star Trek.