Harry Lauter

            On Thursday morning just before song practice the road crew started tearing up Queen Street outside of my window. I thought I was a bad musician but these guys can't keep the beat of any of my songs. 

            I memorized the fifth verse of "J'ai pas d'regret" (I've No Regrets) by Boris Vian. That puts me at the halfway mark of the song. 

            I worked out the chords for the intro, the first four verses, and part of the bridge of "Rupture au miroir" (Crack in the Mirror) by Serge Gainsbourg. I'll probably have that done tomorrow and then I need to revise my translation of some verses. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning in seventeen days. 

            There was a notice slipped under my door from the landlord notifying me that pest control will be coming on December 14 and December 28. There was a form for me to sign giving Orkin permission to enter my place. That's something new. It was attached to a letter from the landlord saying that he will also be coming into my place. I signed the form but added a note that Raja does not have permission to enter. He can talk to the technician when he is finished but the landlord has no authority to inspect my apartment without my agreement. 

            I put all of our English in the World class's presentations into one document and arranged them into an order that I will use for the listicle I'm supposed to do for my take home test. I need a ten-point listicle and I think I'll do one on forms of English, because I can pull ten of those from out of the presentations and put them in a certain logical numbered order. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I've been at that time in eleven days. 

            I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought four bags of red grapes, a double pack of raspberries, a pack of blueberries, some organic bananas, two packs of five-year-old cheddar because they are on sale, three bags of skim milk, a container of Folger's coffee, and a jar of salsa. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:55. 

            I worked a little over an hour on my listicle, which I guess means "list article". I've got it down to two and a half pages and I think it's in the basic order I want it to be. I still need to number the items and then present a title for each item. Hopefully I'll have it done tomorrow so I can move on to my Medieval Literature essay. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching season 2, episode 33 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            This story begins with a cab driver bringing Granny back to her house from downtown. The problem is that she does not understand the concept of a taxi service and thinks that the man picked her up out of the goodness of his heart. When he asks, "What about the fare?" she thinks he is inviting her to the fair and she runs to tell Jed that she's going on a date. When she finally understands that he wants money from her she thinks he has taken advantage of her. She becomes angry and grabs her shotgun to chase him away. 

            After he leaves, Granny tells Jethro to teach her how to drive. This is followed by a lot of driving around town out of control in the old open truck. When Mr. Drysdale hears that Granny is driving he calls the police and arranges for an officer to escort her home, then he straightens things out with the captain. 

            While Granny is driving, the cab driver comes back for his money. After his encounter with Granny and then hearing strange things said by Elly and Jed, he concludes that the house is some kind of private mental hospital. When he hears Drysdale giving instructions to Jane and hears her say, "You're the doctor" he figures that Drysdale is the psychiatrist in charge. Drysdale gives the cabby $10 for his fare. 

            Granny drives across the lawn and stops when she hits the front door. The motorcycle cop asks for her license and she says, "Hunting, fishing, or wedding?" Drysdale invites him inside to clear everything up but first the cab driver explains to the cop that it's a mental hospital and that Granny has "bubbles in the think tank". He says Jed thinks he's Abraham Lincoln because he says he used to live in a log cabin in the woods. When the cop sees Skipper the chimpanzee walking down the banister, he hurriedly leaves. Then Skipper drives away in the truck. 

            The cop was played by Harry Lauter, who started out as a model and became a rodeo rider. His first movie was a small part in The Magnificent Rogue in 1946. He tended to play bad guys in B movies. He co-starred in the TV series Tales of the Texas Rangers. Later in life he became a painter and ran an art gallery. 

            I searched for bedbugs and found three. One I dug out of a crack in the plaster and two had fallen from the wall at the head of my bed. It's the first time in a long time that I've seen that many. Fortunately pest control is finally coming on Wednesday.