Nan Martin

            On Sunday morning I finished my initial translation of "Sans blague" (No Joke) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords to "Lavabo" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through the song in French. Then I worked on revising my translation. 

            There was a wicked rainstorm at the beginning of song practice and it was like night outside for about an hour longer than normal. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before breakfast, after finding a fresh battery for my scale. 

            Around midday, I read the translations of the Early Irish Lyrics in my Medieval Literature textbook. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before lunch. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It started to sprinkle around the time I got to Yonge and Bloor. The sprinkles turned to intermittent splashes around Yonge and Queen and then it started seriously raining at Queen and Bathurst. The rain stopped around Ossington but by then I was wet. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:10. 

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

            I read the essay prompt for our English in the World course and I think it might qualify for a Guinness world record as the longest essay prompt in history. I think that my interest in writing a paper on how English is used in Chiac fits mostly into the first of the eleven categories she lists. But maybe it's an alternative category that I need special permission to pursue, so I'll have to ask her. 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 25 of Ben Casey. 

            In this story, an apparently upper-class woman named Liza Bowers lives in a nice house in an upscale neighbourhood but seems to have no money. The maid from next door has just brought her some food out of charity when Liza takes a tumble down the stairs and is knocked unconscious. The first person she sees when she wakes up is Dr. Casey and she fixates on him as her personal physician.

            Meanwhile Casey's friend Dr. Ted Hoffman is behaving strangely and forgets to follow some instructions that Casey gave him. Casey is annoyed while everyone else recognizes that there is something wrong with Hoffman. After being placed in a room, Ted thinks that he might have polio since he didn't have the whole series of shots. But his symptoms don't fully fit polio and then it comes to light that he also forgot to get his tetanus vaccination and that is what he has. The serum is less effective after the infection but they use it and Casey also performs a tracheotomy. Things are scary for a while but if someone survives tetanus for four days they are usually in the clear. 

            Meanwhile Liza continues to tell stories of her world travels and social status. She says that her husband was a pilot and explorer whose plane crashed in the arctic. She claims that she is in a public ward rather than a private room because she dislikes being alone, but in reality, she is a charity case. It is discovered that she has a lump on her breast but she refuses a biopsy because she only wants to focus on beauty. 

            Then Casey is approached by Liza's husband Curt, who is not a pilot but a grade school math teacher who left her after her delusions became too difficult for him to deal with. He doesn't approach Liza because he doesn't want to upset her. Casey gets Curt to check on Liza's medical history and he discovers that she does indeed have breast cancer and needs surgery immediately. 

            Finally Curt does talk to Liza and unrealistically is able to talk her out of her fantasy world and into having the operation. 

            Liza was played by Nan Martin, who made her Broadway debut in 1950. Her first movie was "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" in 1956. She co-starred in "The Mugger" in 1958. She was nominated for a 1959 Tony Award for her role in "J.B." She co-starred in "For Love of Ivy" in 1968. She played Ali McGraw's mother in "Goodbye Columbus" and Freddie Kruger's mother in "Nightmare on Elm Street 3". She won a handful of awards for her work in theatre. On television, she was a regular on "Buck James", "Mr. Sunshine", and "The Drew Carey Show". 

            For the sixth night in a row, I didn't find any bedbugs. I don't have my fingers crossed but if I believed in that kind of magic, now would be the time to keep them crossed.