Iris Adrian

            On Wednesday morning I had a touch of food poisoning that could only have come from the organic chicken that I bought at Metro yesterday and cooked last night. 

            I memorized the third and fourth verses of "Entre autre, pas en traître" (I Took You for Other than a Traitor) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I washed and scrubbed the inside top and the inside hinge side of my bathroom door frame. The other side is a lot more dirty. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before lunch. I had a toasted slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with Mexican salami and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of half lemonade and half cranberry juice. 

            In the afternoon it was raining but I decided to try to take some kind of a bike ride anyway. It was coming down too heavily to go any further than around the block.

            I weighed 85.5 kilos at 16:10.

            I was caught up on my journal at 16:49. 

            I got an email from the professor for the course on the Bildungsroman that I'm starting next week. She posted the syllabus and so I downloaded it. The texts we'll be reading are Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (the 1831 edition), Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I found digital copies of all of the books but I'll also get hard copies at the U of T Bookstore, since in the seminars we'll probably want to be all on the same page when we're talking about the books. I have the 1818 edition of Frankenstein but I guess it's different in some way. 

            I worked some more on fixing my old Christian's Translations blog posts and made it to the beginning of 2019. In 2020 I started adding the names of my translations to the titles along with the copyright notice, so I only have one more year to go through. I should have that done tomorrow. 

            I poached an egg and had it with toasted Bavarian sandwich bread and a beer while watching season 3, episodes 19 and 20 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Mr. Drysdale wants to expel Clifton Cavanaugh from the bank's board of directors because he has been living like a playboy and soiling the company's reputation. Drysdale's idea is for Jed to join the board just as a way of getting him more adjusted to the Beverly Hills lifestyle so he won't be tempted to go back to Tennessee with his money. He pitches the idea to Jed by telling him he can go to parties with the other widowers on the board. But Jed wants Granny to join the board so she can hook up with one of those widowers. That's not what Drysdale had in mind but it gives him an idea. He tells Cavanaugh that he won't fire him as long as he romances Granny. 

            When Cavanaugh meets Granny he tries to get away but Drysdale is there to stop him. Cavanaugh says he has a dinner date with his Aunt Phyllis but Drysdale says Jed can be Phyllis's date. Phyllis arrives and she's obviously too young to be Cavanaugh's aunt. She was rather Cavanaugh's intended date. They go to a fancy nightclub and Jed and Granny are having a great time but their behaviour is embarrassing Phyllis until Cavanaugh tells her that Jed is worth $50 million. Suddenly she's on the dance floor with Jed and they end up dancing all night from club to club. 

            Phyllis was played by Sylvia Lewis who was a professional dancer and choreographer. She looked pretty good dancing with Buddy Ebsen who was also a pro. 

            The second story is a continuation of the first. Jed is very sore the next day from dancing all night but then Phyllis calls and invites him to the racetrack. Jed had planned on staying home but when Granny starts taunting him about Phyllis he decides to go out with her after all. They go to the bank to get a sack of money. Drysdale doesn't like the idea but can't stop them. 

            At the racetrack each horse that Jed picks wins its race. He's not betting but Phyllis is. Meanwhile the guy named Fred behind them played by Don Rickles keeps losing his wife Marge's money. He asks Jed how he always picks a winner. Jed explains that he always chooses the one that will run the fastest. 

            Drysdale checks up on Phyllis and finds she's a notorious gold digger and gambler. Granny goes to the track to save Jed from the evils of gambling but by the time she gets there Jed has left to take Phyllis shopping. Granny hears Fred ask Marge for the grocery money but she refuses and leaves him alone at the track. Granny thinks Fred needs money for groceries and gives him $5. He bets the money and wins, then splits it with Granny. Suddenly Granny is enthusiastically betting and winning until the last race. Meanwhile Jed and Phyllis are back at the mansion. Elly takes Jed aside and says she heard that Phyllis is a gold digger. He says that he knows that and he's just dating her so that Granny will have the pleasure of being right. But Granny comes home depressed after losing money from gambling and she has no energy to pick on Jed. 

            Marge was played by Iris Adrian, who made her Broadway debut as a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies. Her first short film was Chasing Husbands and her first feature was The Vagabond King. She was a regular on the Abbot and Costello radio show. She played mostly sexy and tough but funny women in supporting roles but invested her money in real estate and retired comfortably. She was also an expert in astrology. 

            

           

            

           I searched for bedbugs and found one in the corner where the south and west walls meet just above the foot of my bed. I edited some more of my old Christian Translations blog posts and made it to March of 2019 before bed.