I finished memorizing "D'un taxiphone" (From a Payphone) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one had posted them and so I worked them out for the intro and most of the first verse. I might have the whole song chorded tomorrow.
I weighed 84.2 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning in a week, but it's pretty light over the long term.
I got up to page 203 in David Copperfield. The head of the family with which David has been renting a room has to go into debtors prison. David helps his wife sell various items to pay for food for the family. Once the man is free the family moves to Plymouth. David decides to run away from the job at his step father's warehouse and to try to locate his Aunt Betsey in Dover. Pegotty sends him half a crown and he tries to hire a young man to cart his trunk to the station, but the boy steals the trunk and all of David's money. David sells his waistcoat and his coat for a few pennies and sleeps in haystacks as he walks to Dover, dealing with tramp thieves along the way. he makes it to his aunt's house. This is the aunt who was there when he was born but stormed away in anger as soon as she learned he was a boy. She receives him and feels some obligation towards him but doesn't quite know what to do with him.
I went upstairs to check on David's place. His rosemary still doesn't require water. His fridge was making a lot of noise. I looked inside and the only cool part is his freezer, which is about half as cool as the main part of my fridge. The main part of David's fridge is as warm as my cupboard and I suspect it's been that way for a long time. He should ask the landlord for a new one like I did five years ago. I think that immigrants like David who have been refugees and had to leave their homes behind don't feel a sense of having a right to ask anything of their landlords.
I sent a text to David about his fridge. He got back to me later and said he knows about the fridge and he'll talk to the landlord about it. He said he'll be in Switzerland for two weeks and then will be going home to Ethiopia.
I weighed 83.9 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I left for a bike ride. As I poked my front tire out of the door, a guy was passing and spoke to me as if I'd been walking beside him and we were in the middle of a conversation, "Yeah, time for a ride …" Just after passing me he turned and added, "You know?"
Just after riding under the railroad tracks on Brock I looked up and saw a guy standing behind the fence in the grassy triangular area between the bridge and the tracks. Then I saw near the wall one of those little yellow dome tents. I wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been standing there and so he might have been living there for a long time.
I rode downtown and back.
I weighed 84 kilos at 17:10.
I was caught up on my journal at 17:55.
I finished reading chapter 15 of David Copperfield, which takes me to page 235. David's aunt thinks that David had a sister that was born and died the day that he was born. This is the girl that she had expected instead of the boy that was born. She does not trust boys because they grow into men who marry and mistreat women. But she nonetheless takes David in to her care. Aunt Betsey has a roomer named Mr. Dick who is extremely gregarious but also has the delusion that the thoughts that left the head of King Charles I when it was chopped off keep trying to enter his own head. David and Dick become friends. David's stepfather Murdstone and his step aunt Jane Murdstone come to take David back, but Betsey won't allow it. She tells the Murdstones off and sends them away. She then finds a good school for David and a fine place for him to board while attending it.
I started reading the biographical section on Charles Dickens in the back of David Copperfield. It's part of the required reading for our next class. It turns out that David Copperfield has more autobiographical elements than any of Dickens's other novels.
I had a small potato with gravy and some pork ribs with chili sauce and maple syrup while watching season 4, episode 7 of The Beverly Hillbillies.
In this story Mr. Drysdale's maid Linda has made Jethro think that she is sweet on him because he has a colour TV. She wants to watch the football game because she has a crush on some of the players and can't watch it at Drysdale's place because he's too cheap to buy a decent TV. After Linda spends a night in the parlour with him only watching the game, Jethro wants to kill himself. But Jed convinces Jethro that if Linda likes football players then he should become one. He gets dressed like a player and learns something of the game but on his next date with Linda she is now obsessed with hockey players and wants to watch that game on his TV. So Jethro tries to become a hockey player but he's discouraged by the equipment he has to wear that would interfere with smooching. Jed asks if there's anything that football and hockey have in common and Jethro says they have commercials. Meanwhile Drysdale figures out what Linda is doing and promises to buy a 635 mm colour TV if she is nice to Jethro. She agrees but when they go into the parlour Jethro begins to shave because he thinks that's what she likes. She pretends to like it for the TV.
Linda was played by Nina Shipman, who I've already mentioned in a blog.
Marie the Drysdale's cook was played by Beecey Carlson and she looked like a pretty good comic actor but there is very little information about her and no photos.
I searched for bedbugs and for the second night in a row found one on my bed. It was not moving and it had blood inside but it was dry and rusty.
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