Julie Van Zandt

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the fifth and sixth verses of "J'ai pas d'regret" (I've No Regrets) by Boris Vian. The sixth verse that I have in text form isn't in the recording but I'm assuming it has the same chords as verse five.

            I memorized the second verse of "OK pour plus jamais" (Okay for No More Always) by Serge Gainsbourg and almost had the final verse nailed down. I should have the whole song in my head tomorrow. 

            I weighed 83.8 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I've been in the morning in two weeks. 

            So far I haven't gotten any response from my landlord demanding that I confirm that I'll let him into my place tomorrow. It's a little late to cancel the job like he did last time. I would think that Orkin would require some kind of notice before a cancelation and not the day before, so they would probably want to get paid if they send their technician out. We'll see what happens tomorrow if the landlord wants to come in and I say no. I cleaned my bathroom and swept the floor in preparation for tomorrow. I was going to do my laundry tomorrow anyway. 

            I got up to page 150 of Jane Eyre. I weighed 84 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a bike ride in the afternoon under a dark sky that was threatening to rain but didn't. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where the green grapes were on sale but I had to pick through them to get six bags of relatively firm ones. I also got a bag of black grapes and another of cherries. I bought strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and bananas. I forgot to buy Bavarian sandwich bread and naan but I'll get those on Saturday at No Frills. 

            When I came home I talked with Shankar in the hall for about half an hour. He says he sees about three or four bedbugs in a week. I assume that he doesn't look for them like I do and so he probably has a lot more. 

            I weighed 83.4 kilos at 18:15 and it's safe to say that it's been a very long time since I've been that light at that hour. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:13. 

            I read another 25 pages of Jane Eyre, which takes me to about a third of the novel. Jane's rich boss has a troubled past. He fell for a French dancer who jilted him. She left behind the little girl that Jane teaches. Mr. Rochester is not beautiful and neither is Jane but they are becoming attracted to one another. Jane wakes up hearing laughter and then she smells smoke. She finds Rochester asleep in bed, surrounded by fire. She puts it out. There is a demented servant who may have started the blaze. 

            I grilled two steaks and had one with a very small potato and gravy while watching the penultimate episode of the third season of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Granny is determined to walk from Beverly Hills back to Tennessee and leaves while pushing a wheelbarrow full of her possessions. Jed just thinks it's best to let her get it out of her system and after a few kilometers she'll call to ask to be picked up.

            Meanwhile Jethro still thinks he's an international playboy and he goes to stand in front of Drysdale's bank to try to pick up women and invite them home for sow belly and turnip greens. One woman hits him with her purse. A police woman from the vice squad arrests him and so Drysdale and Jane have to bale him out. 

            Granny gets a ride in a pickup truck to the outskirts of Las Vegas. She walks into Vegas and calls Jed. Drysdale and Jane fly to get her. Granny tells Jed about the crazy machines that people put money into just to see bad pictures of fruit. 

            Drysdale gives Jethro a job in his bank. His office is the secretarial pool but his title is Junior Executive Research Consultant, which spells J.E.R.C. under his name on the door. He is taking all the secretaries for lunch at his place but the female cop arrests him again. 

            Granny heads back to Las Vegas because she thinks she can make a lot of money introducing the town to checkers. 

            The female cop was played by Julie Van Zandt, who was in the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest needlefish ever caught. She first appeared on stage in musicals in California. She was a landscape artist and muralist and she and her husband founded the Malibu Art Festival. Her mural featuring people of the Chumash Nation hangs in the Malibu Lagoon Museum. 

            For the third night in a row I found no bedbugs. That's out of the ordinary for the last few months.