Joan Shawlee

            On Sunday morning I memorized the first verse of “Malaise en Malaisie” (Malaise In Malaysia) by Serge Gainsbourg and made more adjustments in my translation. There's just one verse left to learn.

            I weighed 87.8 kilos before breakfast. I seem to be gaining weight again. 

            I cut the text for my Primitivism presentation down from 10.5 to 9.5 pages. I have 7.5 pages to lose with about a day and a half before my presentation in class. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch. I had a croissant toasted with melted five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Ossington. It was about minus two outside so some more of the snowbanks have puddles around them. The Bloor bike lane was passable but pretty messy with slush and puddles. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos at 17:00. 

            By 19:15 I'd gotten the text of my presentation shaved down to seven pages. I had five pages left to chip away. It was down to six pages by dinnertime. 

            I mixed ground chicken with skyr, a crumbled slice of Bavarian sandwich bread, chopped onion, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, salt, and pepper. I made two burger patties and grilled them in the oven. I had one between two halves of a slice of toasted Bavarian sandwich bread topped with ketchup, Dijon, dill pickle slices, and scotch bonnet sauce. I ate it with a beer while watching an episode of Adam-12.

            This story begins with Malloy sending Reed to gas up the car but he returns with a dent. Because Reed is a rookie on probation he spends the whole workday worrying over what this will do to his record. 

            Meanwhile, the main issue on patrol is that Mrs. Getz is being harassed. Most recently someone threw a dead cat through her window. She suspects Joe Claver, who she says is mad at her for testifying against his son. She has never seen him do more than drive by and glare at her and so she can't prove anything. 

            Later a man with a gun is holding a baby hostage and threatening to kill it. Malloy talks him down, first gently and then challengingly in an unrealistic manner. The man is either unwell or on drugs but eventually, he drops the gun. 

            Near the end of the shift, they get called back to Mrs. Getz's place because someone threw two rocks through her window. They catch Joe Claver in the alley but Malloy explains that since this is a misdemeanor an officer can only make an arrest if they've witnessed the crime. Mrs. Getz's neighbour Mrs. Freeman did witness the crime and so Malloy asks her to make a citizen's arrest. 

            Mrs. Getz was played by Joan Shawlee, who lived in Vancouver from the age of five. She started out as a model at 14. She got a contract with 20th Century Fox but they found out she was underage before she did any films. She was singing in New York nightclubs at 16. She was proclaimed one of the six most beautiful girls in Manhattan. She went back to New York and was rediscovered at 19 singing at the Copa Cabana by Lou Costello. When she got back into films she began to specialize as wisecracking comedic tough girls. In the 60s she was in a nightclub comedy team with Mitzi McCall. She was Sweet Sue the leader of the all-girl band in Some Like It Hot; she was the prostitute Amazon Annie in Irma La Douce; she was Momma Monahan in The Wild Angels; she played Pickles, the wife of Morey Amsterdam’s character on the Dick Van Dyke Show. She starred as an accident-prone fashion model in the British sitcom The Adventures of Aggie and her co-star was Patrick McGoohan, who would later star in Danger Man and The Prisoner.