Molly Dodd

            On Thursday morning I memorized the fourth verse of "Au bon vieux temps" (In the Good Old Days) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords for "Plus doux avec moi" (Sweeter with Me) by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing the song in French. I played most of my translation but the English in the final verse doesn't feel like it fits. I'll revise the translation on Friday and then upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I finished four days of playing my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice. On Friday I'll start two days with the Kramer electric. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Bay-Bloor Radio was scheduled to deliver my speakers between 10:00 and 12:00, but the driver called me at 9:22 to say he'd be here in twenty minutes. I rushed to tidy up, sweep the living room and to clear the area where my old speakers are. I didn't disconnect the old speakers but I moved them away from the wall. The guy arrived in twenty five minutes. There was one guy who brought my speakers upstairs and another who just handed me my paperwork and went back to the vehicle. Josh, the guy who sold me the speakers said there was free delivery and set-up, but the delivery guy said there was no set-up. Maybe "set-up" means for whole systems. 

            Since I'd interrupted my morning postings on Facebook and Twitter to prepare for the delivery, I didn't set up the speakers right away. I finished my postings, finished breakfast, did some personal stuff and then shaved and showered. I did the dishes, tidied up the kitchen and then started unpacking the speakers. 

            The speakers were fitted with metal stands that add about three centimeters of height, but I needed to fit the left speaker onto the bottom shelf of my tall bookcase to the left of the mantle. My old speakers are 83.8 cm tall while the new ones without the stands are 97.8 cm tall. Without the stand the left speaker still wouldn't fit so I had to raise the shelf above it that holds the amplifier one peg higher and then it fit perfectly. I had to remove the amplifier from the shelf. I'd been playing an Eddie Cochran album but the music stopped. I checked all the wires and everything seemed connected and so I was puzzled until I realize that the Input dial on my amp had been switched to Dock instead of CD, which is the connection to my computer. I switched the wires from the old left speaker to the new one and the distortion in the music was gone. The old right speaker was still connected and it had no distortion and so it looks like only the left speaker had blown its sub woofer. I might as well keep the right speaker and maybe figure out a way to connect it through the wall to the kitchen so I don't have to play my music so loudly when I'm working out there. 

            While I had a screwdriver in my hand I did something that had never occurred to me to do but should have done a long time ago. I removed the disk feet from my amp so it sits more evenly on its shelf. The amp is wider than the shelf and so the front feet have always stuck out, making it so I had to try to level the amp with a book. 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos before lunch, which is the lightest I've been around midday in nine days.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride through the very hot air downtown and back. 

            I weighed 84.2 kilos at 18:00. That's the least I've weighed in the evening in ten days. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:51. 

            I reviewed the videos of my performances of "Megaphor" from July 13 to July 15 of this year. On July 13 I played the electric and the take at 4:00 was okay. On July 14 and 15 I played the acoustic and on July 14 the first take was okay. On July 15 some of the chords were off. Now I have to re-review twenty three of those videos to determine which of the acoustic and which of the electric takes are the best. I'll start with the ten videos in which I play the acoustic. The first ones I'll compare on Friday are June 8 and June 15. 

            I only had a few minutes before dinner to work on my Sleep in the Snow project in Audacity. I moved the vocal waveforms of the two tracks closer together. 

            I had a potato with gravy and the last of my pork ribs while watching season 3, episodes 30 and 31 of Petticoat Junction. 

            In the first story Betty Joe doesn't come home from school. Somebody saw her leave home with a suitcase and wearing makeup. Her sisters remember she had her favourite green dress and her nightgown. Kate finds Betty's notebook and she has written "Mrs. Betty Joe Latimer" in the margin. Then Sam tells Kate that Betty and Pete Latimer were in the store after school and he had his father's car and they were talking about heading for the state line. Now everyone is sure that Betty Joe has eloped. But then we see Betty and Pete across the state line at Schroeder's Flats playing catch. They went out there so she could coach him in private so he could prepare to try out for the team without anyone knowing he was being coached by a girl. Betty dives for a grounder and seems to sprain her ankle. Later back at the Shady Rest Kate and the girls see Pete carrying Betty into the hotel and they think they are married. But everything is explained and Pete stays for dinner. After he leaves Betty skips across the lobby because she was faking a sprained ankle so Pete would carry her. 

            In the second story Kate runs into Vera Wilson and she tells Kate that she's been dating a bookkeeper named Ronnie Beckman but he hasn't gotten romantic yet. Kate happens to run into Ronnie on the train and she talks to him about the situation. He confesses that he's never even had parents and so he doesn't know if he's ready to marry Vera and become a father for her two kids. He gets the idea to get off the train at the Shady Rest and stay with Kate and her family for a while to get a feel for family life. Kate finds her daughters quarreling over sister things and she explains the situation to them. She wants them on their sweetest behaviour in order to sell Ronnie on family life. Everyone but Joe is sickeningly sweet beacuse Joe thinks that Ronnie is after Kate and so he tries to paint a dark picture of family life and Kate's hotel. After Ronnie checks out everyone is relieved so they can argue again and they do so. But then Ronnie walks back in during the quarrel because he forgot his briefcase. Kate confesses to him what they've been trying to do. Ronnie says he first left having made the decision to not marry Vera because he couldn't possibly live such a peaceful life. But now that he knows he can blow up every now and then he feels encouraged about being part of a family. 

            Vera Wilson was played by Molly Dodd, who started her acting career on stage at the age of 18 in "The Cradle Song". She got good reviews in the performances that followed. She only appeared in four feature films and her first was Hitchcock's "Vertigo". In 1965 she and Robert Lansing formed The State Repertory Theatre. She had many guest appearances on various TV series. She was married to writer Henry Farrell who wrote "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" 

            After dinner I removed the stand from the second speaker, connected it and set it up on the right side of the mantle where the old one had been. I put all the screws from the stands in a baggy in case I need to put the stands back on in the future. I put the Sony cassette player back under the amp and now both of them are level with no need for books to prop them. I collapsed the boxes and put them behind the credenza in the kitchen. There's a little bit showing. I didn't have any place to put all the packing foam though and it made a very large pile. I decided to take a chance and put all the foam packaging out with the garbage along with the busted speaker. They were gone by morning so I assume the garbagemen took them.