Midge Ware

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the seventh verse of "Sans blague" (No Joke) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing "Trompe d’érection" (Missed Erection) by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. No one had posted them and so I started working them out for the intro. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I hand-washed some underwear because I don't have time to do laundry when I have an essay deadline approaching. 

            I spent some time on my essay but also dozed off while working. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch, which is the most I've weighed at that time in ten days. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was drizzling a bit and almost cold enough to start wearing my winter gloves. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 17:40. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:43. 

            I worked on my essay for about ninety minutes. 

            In terms of word count, I'm about a page short of what's required, but it's also not really an essay yet. I've got two days left before the deadline. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a piece of roast pork while watching episode 20 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            This story begins with Jethro running to the house with mail from Tennessee, but he's so excited that he runs right through the house and into the swimming pool. The water causes the ink on the letter to run and so all they can make out is that their old friends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs are coming to visit for an engagement. In this fictionalized version of their lives, Lester and Earl used to be in competition for Pearl's affection. She could never decide between them and so eventually they gave up, moved to Nashville, and became famous. Jed thinks that Lester and Earl are coming to get a final decision from Pearl. Jed decides to throw a wingding in honour of Lester and Earl's visit and sends them an invitation. 

            But then we see Lester and Earl on the plane to Los Angeles and they are traveling there with their gorgeous wives for a musical engagement. But Gladys Flatt and Louise Scruggs have heard that their husbands used to be in love with Pearl Bodine and they are curious to know how much competition Pearl is. After landing in LA and leaving their husbands for the beauty parlour, Gladys and Louise go to the Clampett mansion so they can check Pearl out. They pose as cosmetics sellers and Jed tells them that Pearl might want some beauty products from them and that she'll be down the stairs shortly. But the beautiful woman who comes down the stairs in an elegant gown is Jed's daughter Elly May. Gladys and Louise think Elly is Pearl and they immediately leave to go back to the beauty parlour.

            Because of this, Lester and Earl arrive at Jed's place without their wives. They sing "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", "Pearl Pearl Pearl" and "Down the Road". Everybody dances, including Lester and Elly's dogs. Pearl decides that she won't marry either of them because she doesn't want to cause them to fight and break up the musical duo. Lester and Earl decide to ask the Clampetts to dance on stage with them for their show but Pearl still thinks they are asking her to marry them and she says no. Lester and Earl leave and the Clampetts think they've left in dismay over being turned down. But they come back hours later with their wives and Jed thinks that they married the two cosmetics ladies on the rebound that day. 

            Lester and Earl's wives really were named Gladys and Louise but in this case, they were played by Joi Lansing and Midge Ware. 

            Joi Lansing was a top model and in most of her movies she served as eye candy. But she proved that she could act in her recurring role as Shirley Swanson on the Bob Cummings Show. According to a book by Alexis Hunter, Lansing and Hunter met in 1969 and lived together as lovers while pretending to be sisters until Lansing died in 1972. 

            Midge Ware was also a very popular model. Like Joi, in most of her movies, she appeared as only a gorgeous showpiece. Her first movie was "Bedtime for Bonzo" starring Ronald Reagan. She co-starred in the film "All Woman". 

            I searched for bedbugs and found a well-fed adult on the wall above the foot of my bed. It was waiting for me to kill it and it had dark blood inside. It looked like it might have been ready to lay eggs.