Brett Somers

            On Saturday morning my stomach was bothering me. It's more uncomfortable than painful but yesterday during a bowel movement I had some pain, so I'm a bit worried. I guess it might be irritable bowel syndrome, which may or may not go away. 

            I memorized the second verse of "Lavabo" (Washbasin) by Serge Gainsbourg, and almost nailed down the chorus. 

            I cut song practice short so I could get my morning posts out of the way and then start working on my English in the World assignment. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            I finished my assignment and uploaded it before noon: 

            This Montreal Gazette article tells how musician Lisa LeBlanc returned home to southeastern New Brunswick during the pandemic. Upon being re-emersed in her Acadian culture and the unique French-English-Miꞌkmaq hybrid dialect of that region, she was inspired to write her new album, "Chiac Disco". The stories that her aunts told her of the 1970s when they would dress up in glittering disco clothing and platform shoes and then drive to the disco in a pickup truck can be analogized with the hybridity of the Chiac dialect. Participating in attractive and stimulating aspects of the dominant Anglophone culture that surrounds them, while maintaining at the same time one's root culture has resulted in interesting blendings, and created new ways of using both languages. Chiac then is Francophone flamboyance driving an English pickup truck. 

            This article is linked to a previous interview in which LeBlanc speaks more about Chiac. It developed in rural areas of southeastern New Brunswick where the border between Francophone and Anglophone communities is extremely porous and where the interaction of the two cultures is both practical and desired. Since Chiac uses anglicisms, some purist critics have accused the use of Chiac of contributing to the deterioration of the French language. Certainly, no Anglophones complain of Chiac causing the deterioration of the dominant English language. 

            From the examples that LeBlanc gives of Chiac phrases, it can be seen that English words in Chiac often take on French spellings, such as the French noun "halle" meaning "a market" being used to express the same meaning as the English verb "haul" in a phrase like, "Halle ta frame!" Again, "frame" is not a French word but an English word that is used here to mean "body". This is an interesting expansion of colloquial English because we would not normally call someone's body their frame, and yet if someone told you to "Haul your frame!" in the right circumstance you would probably understand the meaning perfectly. 

            https://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/lisa-leblanc-combines-old-school-disco-with-her-chiac-culture 

            I saw that my Medieval Literature professor has finally posted the syllabus for the course. Some of the literature is exactly the same as that which I studied in Introduction to British Literature Part 1. I was disappointed to read that due to circumstances beyond the professor's control, our classes may be online. I hate online classes. If we have to do it I think I need to buy a new webcam now that I have a computer that can handle the better ones. 

            Around midday, I went down to No Frills where I bought five bags of grapes, deodorant, a jug of orange juice, Folger's Coffee, spoon-size shredded wheat, and skyr. 

            On the way home I saw my neighbour Shankar sitting in front of our building, so I stopped to chat. Then our neighbour Benji came out and we ended up talking for at least an hour. They were still conversing when I left. 

            I weighed 84.8 before a late lunch at 14:20. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            I took a siesta at 14:49 with the plan of getting up at 16:19, which would have still given me time to take a bike ride. I ended up sleeping until 17:00. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:08. 

            I got caught up on my journal at 18:13. 

            I searched around for a copy of Lee Maracle's story "Charlie" and finally found a pdf that I was able to convert to Word. I have the story in the textbook but I also like to have digital copies for easy quoting. I read the sad story of "Charlie" who runs away from a residential school in the winter and tries to get home but freezes to death. 

            I started reading Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People from the early 8th Century. He didn't like the Britons much because he saw them as godless in a Christian sense. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with Basilica sauce, a beef burger sliced lengthwise, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the 13th episode of Ben Casey. 

            In this story, Barbara Thurman is pregnant in her thirties and she is also having fainting spells and numbness on one side. She has another spell and so her husband Walter takes her to the hospital. As she undergoes tests it becomes more and more certain that she may need brain surgery. 

            Barbara and Walter make it clear to Casey that they have opposite views. Barbara wants the baby to survive at all costs and so she will not agree to surgery. Walter says the most important thing is Barbara and he reveals to Casey that the baby is not his. 

            Meanwhile there is some tension between Casey and Dr. Hoffman. As Ted's boss, Casey has been riding Hoffman unreasonably hard, probably more due to stress from overwork than anything else.

            Barbara tells Casey about how she got pregnant. She and Walter separated and she didn't hear from him for two months, so she thought their marriage was over. She went to a party and hooked up with a guy which led to a one-night stand. Then Walter returned and Barbara confessed. At first, Walter said he would treat the baby as his own but later fell away from that feeling. 

            In the hospital, Barbara has begun to have convulsions. Casey tells her that every convulsion cuts off oxygen from the fetus and could cause the baby brain injury. Barbara finally agrees to have surgery. It is successful and shortly after that, she goes into very early labour. The baby is born small but healthy and Walter sees himself as a father. 

            Meanwhile, Casey takes a comical tumble and it breaks the ice between him and Ted. Casey apologizes and they are friends again. 

            Barbara was played by Brett Somers, who was born in Halcomb, near Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada, and grew up in Portland, Maine. She ran away to New York at 17. She was a member of The Actors Studio from 1952. She married Jack Klugman in 1953. She started out in theatre and branched into television through shows that presented teleplays. She appeared on several episodes of The Odd Couple as Oscar's ex-wife Blanche. When Jack appeared as a panelist on The Match Game, he suggested that they have Brett on the show. She became a very popular member of the cast and stayed on for nine years. At the age of 79, she had a one-woman show called "An Evening With Brett Somers", which won a Bistro Award. 

            I went to search for bedbugs but didn't even have to dig into any cracks to find one. It was sitting still at the top of the old exit door. It didn't have much blood inside, but it wasn't black on the outside.