Marianne Gaba

            On Sunday morning the candle was still going but its scent was starting to feel obnoxious during yoga and so afterward I moved it to the far window in the kitchen and cracked it open a bit. It was less oppressive at that distance. 

            I worked out the chords for the fourth verse of "J'ai pas d'regret" (I've No Regrets) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords for "Entre autre, pas en traître" (I Took You for Other than a Traitor) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through the song in French and English and then I uploaded it to my Christian's Translations blog to prepare it for publication. 

            Since yesterday there's been a squirrel with the tip of its tail turned white crossing the wires. I suspect it's not a new squirrel but that something happened to it. Maybe it got shocked, experienced some kind of trauma, or got its tail accidentally bleached while digging around in some garbage that had chemicals in it. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos before breakfast. I reviewed the videos of me singing and playing "Joanna" in French and English that I recorded from June 17 to June 22 of last year. June 19 was the best of the French ones so far and it has the advantage of already being synchronized in Movie Maker, making it easy to isolate and upload to YouTube. June 18 and June 20 were the best of the English versions so far. I was present and smiling while singing. 

            I used 4K Downloader to download the YouTube video of the trailer for "Daughter of the Wolf" because it shows a wolf threatening to attack. I can use it for my Movie Maker project to correspond to the line, "a delayed attack is coming around". I converted it to WMV so it will open in Movie Maker. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before lunch. I had Mexican salami and five-year-old cheddar on toasted Bavarian sandwich bread with a glass of half lemonade and half cranberry juice. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos at 17:30, which is the heaviest I've been at that time in a week. 

            Twenty four hours after lighting it, the candle was going nova and really on its last legs. But it was also at its most beautiful and the flame was dancing up to half the height of the glass. It finally went out just before 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:46. 

            I scanned some negatives from the fall of 1987, a few from 1991, and a set from the late 1990s. I sorted through my files and found that I have hundreds of uncategorized negatives. I put them all in one folder so that I have easy access to them when I start digitizing them. I think it's going to take years to do them all and after that I have a lot of slides to develop as well. 

            I had an egg sunny side up and toasted Bavarian sandwich bread with a beer while watching season 3, episodes 27 and 28 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Shelley Epps the beatnik returns, this time with his friends Shaky, Wiggy, Squirrel, and Horace. Horace is the guru of the group and does nothing but lie on his back and think. They come to the Clampett mansion to ask Jed for "bread", "green", and "lettuce to feed the kitty" meaning they want money, but of course the Clampetts think they mean food. 

            The beatniks have rented a space in the basement of a building owned by Drysdale and have turned it into a coffeehouse called The Parthenon West. But they don't have the rent and so he's going to evict them. Granny fixes Shelley a big basket of food but when he says he really wanted money Jed gives him a big roll of it from his pocket. But Jed asks Shelley for a favour. Jethro still has the dragoon's uniform that he got from the countess and he wants to get a job marching back and forth in front of an establishment while wearing the uniform. The beatniks pay the rent and Drysdale is disappointed because he still wants to get rid of them. 

            When Jethro arrives at the Parthenon they think he's pretty square but Squirrel thinks he's cute. Shelley tells her that Jethro can be her cool school project and so she tries to turn him into a beatnik. He ditches the dragoon garb and begins to dress like a beatnik, but he keeps getting the lingo wrong. When Elly sees what Jethro is doing she wants to join cool school too, so she becomes a beatnik as well. 

            They are all dancing when Jed and Granny come to visit but suddenly the lights go out. Drysdale has cut off their power illegally despite the fact that they've paid the rent. But Jed has a solution. They light the place with lanterns and then Jed, Granny, Elly, and Jethro all make beatnik music with spoons, a jug, a washboard and a homemade kazoo. Drysdale walks in and has to like it because he realizes Jed is the sponsor of the Parthenon. 

            The second story is a continuation of the previous one. Jethro has glued a fake goatee to his chin that he has cut from Granny's Sunday go to meeting muskrat muff. Squirrel has made an abstract sculpture of Jethro but the others don't like it because it doesn't capture his inner Clyde. Elly punches down on the wet clay to turn it into a shapeless lump and now everybody thinks she's an artistic genius.

            Granny comes to fetch Elly and Jethro to do their chores. She tells the others that they should be home digging taters. They misunderstand because in beatnik jargon to dig is to like so they ask her to explain digging taters so they can dig them too. She mimes what digging taters looks like with an invisible shovel and they all think it's the coolest new dance. They put music on and start doing it. Granny tries to explain that it's not a dance but then she gets into the groove and starts dancing the tater digger too. 

            When Granny comes home she's a beatnik too and she's going to make the kids a possum pizza. Shelley asks Jed for more money and he says he'll give it on the condition that they work to uncool Granny. So next time Granny and Jethro arrive at the Parthenon they find it transformed into a fancy and very upscale and square dinner club. Shelley has shaved his goatee and he and Wiggy are wearing suits. The girls are wearing dresses and everyone is waltzing. Even though Horace is still lying down he's wearing a suit as well and when he sits up he talks for the first time. Granny and Jethro think it's squaresville and so they leave. 

             Squirrel was played by Marianne Gaba, who was crowned Miss Illinois in 1957. She wrote a gossip column for TV and Movie Screen Magazine. She was Playboy's Playmate of the month in September 1959. She had mostly eye candy roles in various films and TV shows of the sixties. 

             I searched for bedbugs and didn't find any.