Heather North

            On Friday morning I went down my list of Boris Vian songs to find the next song to learn. But of the next two on my list: “Ce n'est que l'ombre d'un nuage (It’s Only the Shadow of a Cloud)” and “J'ai donné rendezvous au vent (I Made a Date with the Wind)”, neither of them have audio samples available online. I’ll have to search a few more songs before I find one that I can use.

            I worked on memorizing the first verse of “Gloomy Sunday” by Serge Gainsbourg but wasn’t able to completely nail it down. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second session of four. 

            I weighed 85.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I used up most of the rest of the white gloss paint on the Masonite that I’d glued to the kitchen floor in front of the counter. In the long run I think this was a bad idea because paint on the floor seems to pick up a lot of dirt. But I’ll follow through and begin adding the black gloss to make a checkerboard pattern. It can’t be worse than the hole in the floor that had been there for years. 

            At 13:00 I went for lunch with my upstairs neighbour David. We ended up walking all the way to Roncesvalles. Queen Street in Parkdale is saturated with Tibetan restaurants and there’s nothing wrong with that but one gets tired of the same kind of restaurant food all the time. We settled on Easy, which has an all day breakfast and wasn’t crowded. I had the eggs Florentine and a beer. David had an omelette but only ate half of it and said he was full. He said women are drinking more these days and I wondered what was wrong with that. He said alcohol affects women more and I was skeptical but apparently it’s true of biologically female people because they have less water in their bodies. 

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

            I weighed 85.1 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:30. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “L’accordion” and “The Accordion” from September 8 to 12. On September 8 I played “L’accordion” on my Kramer electric guitar but on this day the camera battery had a shorter waking time and I didn’t get to record this song. On September 9 I played “The Accordion” on the Kramer but I broke a string and had to play the Fibson. It didn’t sound good. On September 10 and 12 I played “L’accordion” on my Martin acoustic guitar. On September 10 the take at 20:30 wasn’t bad but the light wasn’t great. On September 12 it was okay but the light was bad. On September 11 I played “The Accordion” on the Martin and the take at 19:00 was one of the best and it looked great. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I synchronized the concert video with the studio recording for my line, “When I saw you in the café there you seemed nervous and alone”. But after that in the concert video I sing “Ohhhhhhh” where there is none in the studio audio and start singing the next line before I do in the studio audio. That means that I need to find a brief video clip to push the concert video back. I searched for “Girl alone in a café” and found a clip from the Greta Garbo film Ninotchka that shows her sitting alone but she doesn’t look nervous but rather stern and angry. I’ll look some more tomorrow. 

            I finished scanning my last seven negatives and started on the first of eight boxes of slides. This is time consuming because all of the slides are in frames and so I have to remove each one to scan it. I scanned eight slides, most of which are shots of my daughter on her second birthday. There are a few shots I took of an art student. The latter are nice photos but they seem slightly damaged chemically. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of pork loin while watching season 5, episodes 10 and 11 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story the principal of Hooterville High School asks Oliver to give a talk to the senior class on the legal profession. A student named Kathy Baxter develops an immediate crush on Oliver and begins to stalk him. Kathy’s steady boyfriend Alfred informs Oliver that Kathy does this with every man that gives a talk. Last time it was a psychologist that she fell for. Oliver solves his problem by suggesting to a veterinarian named Dr. Livermore who is new to the area that he give a talk at the school. Kathy gets a crush on Livermore and forgets about Oliver. 

            Kathy was played by Heather North, who started her acting career at the age of 11 with guest appearances on several TV series, including Gidget, My Three Sons, and The Monkees. Her film debut was at the age of 21 in the movie Git. From 1967 to 1972 she played Sandy Horton on Days of Our Lives. She married Wesley Kenney the producer of Days of Our Lives and they were together for 44 years until he died. From 1970 to 1985 she was the voice of Daphne Blake on the Scooby Doo cartoons. Later she returned to do Daphne’s voice on two direct to video films. 

            In the second story Ralph tells Oliver and Lisa that Hank has finally proposed to her. She relates the story that it happened after they went to a drive-in movie. Hank got into the wrong car and got beat up, then sent to the hospital where he proposed before the drugs wore off. Without consulting Oliver, Lisa says they will pay for the wedding. Justice of the Peace Sam Drucker performs the ceremony and Hank and Ralph leave for their honeymoon. Then Sam realizes that he forgot to renew his justice of the peace license and so now technically Hank and Ralph aren’t married. Hank and Ralph check into a hotel and Ralph is nervous about the nuptials and tells Hank to take a fifteen minute walk first. Next there is the sound of a woman screaming as Hank walks into the wrong motel room and then a man beats him up and puts him in the hospital. Later when Lisa tells Ralph she’s not married she faints at the prospect of what might have happened if Hank had walked into the right room.