In the late morning I went to No Frills. They had no grapes or cherries at all so I got three bags of oranges, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, a container of Greek yogourt and a jug of orange juice.
I had planned on stopping to pay for my February phone plan on the way to the supermarket but I forgot and so I went there on the way home. When I was putting on my mask one end of the left earpiece broke and so I had to improvise. I tied it in a loop and hooked it over my ear and so the mask stayed on just securely enough to complete that task. When I got home I threw that mask away and washed the only other black one I had.
I had saltines and old cheddar for lunch.
In the afternoon I didn’t take a bike ride or do exercises since I'd already been out on my bike to the supermarket.
I spent a couple of hours finishing my notes on “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" by John Keats. Since yesterday I have put down fifteen hand written pages about a fourteen line poem.
I started typing up my notes. I transcribed the first page but as often happens these days with a new Word document, it suddenly shut down and so I had to go into the Task Manager and close Word for Windows before opening the document again. I only lost a few lines of the second page of notes and so I copied them again, but it’s annoying to have to do that.
I decided to have pasta for dinner and since I thought I didn’t have any sauce I started making it from scratch. I chopped up a lot of garlic and sautéed it. I used the rest of the frozen diced onions but they were covered in ice and so I put them in the steamer for a while until the ice was gone so I could add them to the garlic. I used chili flakes. I poured in a whole can of Molson Canadian that’s probably been in the fridge for two years, I mixed that with tomato paste, put in Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, piri piri and a few other herbs and spices but the sauce tasted bitter. I tried to soften it up with corn syrup but then it was too sweet and I had to add paprika and more hot sauce but it was still a touch bitter in the end. I noticed while looking through the cupboard for ingredients that I had a can of organic pasta sauce in the back after all. I had the sauce I made on spiral macaroni topped with cut up pieces of cheddar and drank a beer while watching Andy Griffith.
This story begins with Barney saying goodbye to Thelma Lou on the street because he sees a car parked in the wrong zone and he goes to give the driver a ticket. But the driver turns out to be an extremely gorgeous and charming southern belle and Barney is immediately overwhelmed. When she says she's looking for the post office Barney gives her a police escort with the siren blaring, even though the post office is just across the street. The problem is that Thelma Lou is standing there and watching the whole thing and sees Melissa take by the hand as he shows her in and around the post office. When Thelma Lou confronts him about it he becomes very defensive while Andy keeps advising him to change the subject. Thelma Lou finally storms away. Later she won’t answer his calls or the door when he comes. Barney tells Andy he’s through with women but then the phone rings and it’s Melissa. Barney melts and then she invites him to dinner. Barney is entertained at the house that she‘s recently rented with her father and they seem to enjoy his company tremendously.” The next day Andy advises him to stop messing around with that girl and to make up with Thelma Lou but Barney goes up there again that night. Then the father leaves the two alone. Melissa snuggles up to Barney, turns out the lamp and then says, “Wouldn’t you like this to last forever?" He says, “Yeah, I guess." Suddenly Melissa gets excited and calls her father. She tells him that Barney has just proposed. The next day the engagement announcement is in the paper. Obviously Thelma Lou is even more upset now but Andy helps Barney explain that it’s a mistake that he will correct. Barney breaks off the engagement but then Andy gets a call from Melissa’s father telling him that he and Melissa are suing Barney for breach of promise. Melissa and her father come to the courthouse the next day and Andy suggests they settle out of court. Mr Stevens says that she really wanted to marry Barney but a cash settlement might help. Andy tells Barney to stand beside Melissa and then he begins performing a marriage ceremony. Suddenly Melissa and her father don't like where this is going. Melissa says, "You must be out of your mind if you think I’m gonna marry that squirt!" Then Andy asks, "Could it be that he’s not your daddy and that you can't marry Barney because you are married to each other?” The cat is out of the bag. Andy tells them he won’t lock them up if they just leave Mayberry and so they do, with Mr Stevens calling Melissa "Gladys". Barney makes up with Thelma Lou.
Melissa “Gladys" Stevens was played by Beverley Tyler, who at the age of fourteen was on a day trip to New York from Pennsylvania with some friends. When they were walking by the MGM offices her friends dared her to go inside and audition. She took the dare, was given a screen test and signed a contract. Shortly after that her mother moved with her out to Hollywood. After grooming she made her first picture at sixteen and had her first co-starring role at 19 with "The Green years" and another at twenty with "My Brother Talks to Horses." She was also a singer and was in a couple of Broadway plays. She was mostly cast in B movies and her last films were in the late fifties and in 1962 she married Jim Jordon Jr. the son of Jim and Marian Jordon, the stars of the very popular radio show Fibber McGee and Molly which ran from 1935 to 1959. They were together for thirty six years until he died.
Melissa's father and Gladys's husband was played by the great Jackie Coogan, who would soon be famous again when he played Uncle Fester on The Addams Family.
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