In the Home Stretch

            On Friday morning I translated a little more of "Complainte du progrès" by Boris Vian, but since this part is basically a list of products there wasn't that much translation involved:

Oh Gertrude!

Come and kiss me

and I will give to thee

a refrigerator

a pretty scooter

an atomixer

            I memorized two-thirds of “Kawasaki” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I washed another eight boards of the living room floor behind the couch. That takes care of cleaning up all the caked in cat fur and the next session will see the entire area under the couch done.

            The top of a truck driving by the liquor store got snagged in some power lines that cross Queen Street. The truck didn’t look high enough to have hit them if they hadn’t been already hanging low. It was a pretty big scene and Queen Street was closed to traffic at least one way for several hours while hydro came and fixed everything. The power wasn’t affected in my place.

            I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. Madame Queen has been engaged to Andy for 14 years but another man wants to marry her and take her to Cleveland. She refuses to marry him until Andy gets married and so he promises to pay Kingfish and Henry if they can get Andy hitched. They are unsuccessful because none of the prospects they come up with are very attractive. Finally they pay a woman to pretend to be Andy’s wife for an hour. Madame Queen is convinced until Andy shows up and knows nothing about being married. Finally Andy’s friends convince him to convince Madame Queen to marry the other guy because he’s more successful but she says she’s going to give Andy five more years to become a success before she leaves.

I finished my review of David Jure’s "The Patient English" and posted it on my blog.

I had three little potatoes, three pork ribs and some gravy for dinner while

watching Wagon Train.

            In this story, Mark Hanford returns home from college to find that his mother has left his father because he’s sent for a woman named Ann that he'd met in St Louis. Ann is riding out on Major Adams’s wagon train to become Jack Hanford’s wife. Mark learns that his mother has returned home to the Cheyenne village where she was the daughter of the late chief. When Mark goes to see her he learns that she starved herself to death. Mark goes to meet the wagon train and takes Ann under the pretence of bringing her to his father but instead he takes her to the Cheyenne village. Mark blames both Ann and his father for the death of his mother. He treats Ann roughly and tells her that he won’t take her back to his father until he's made her his squaw and broken her. Of course Ann and Mark fall in love but when Jack threatens a war with the Cheyenne if Ann is not returned to him Ann and Mark go to meet him. Mark tells his father he will have to fight him for Ann and so father and son have a knife fight. Jack is about to win when his friend Jake shoots him. As Jack is dying he says he wouldn’t have killed Mark but it’s all right. Mark and Ann take over Jack's business and they live happily ever after, I guess.