Susan Bay Nimoy

            On Saturday morning I finished memorizing “Amour puissance six” (Love to the Power of Six) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one had posted them and so I worked them out for part of the intro. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 85.2 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since December 13. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I bought seven bags of grapes, a pack of strawberries, a pack of blackberries, bananas, four bags of avocadoes, a bunch of scallions, mouthwash, Clamato juice, and two bags of plantain chips. Once again I forgot to buy tomatoes. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. I had a lettuce, grape tomato, avocado, and roasted seaweed salad with sun dried tomato dressing. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and had to stop to pee at the McDonalds on Yonge north of College. They have a sign on the door that reads, “No live animals”. I guess it would be okay to drag a dead dog into the place. The state of the washroom is ironic considering the sign on the wall that brags about their commitment to hygiene. I stopped at Freshco to buy the tomatoes I forgot to buy earlier. I had to use the washroom again there. An elderly woman ahead of me at the cash was buying eggs and tomatoes. She looked at my tomatoes and poked one with her finger. Then she poked one of hers and told the cashier in Portuguese that she was going to go get the vine tomatoes that I had instead.

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:45. I haven’t been that light in the evening since January 13. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:45. 

            I read chapter 3 of Bored of the Rings. Frito and his companions go to a tavern in Whee for dinner where they meet a clumsy Elf named Stomper who is a friend of the wizard Goodgulf and is there to warn them they are in danger. They are attacked by Noztrals, agents of the wizard Sorhed who is after the ring that Frito is carrying. Stomper steps up to defend them but he stumbles several times and his sword falls apart. The result is that the Noztrals are rolling on the floor laughing so much that it provides Frito and his companions an opportunity to hit them over the head with objects and then escape. 

            I read chapter 4 of The Hobbit. Bilbo and his companions are spending the night in the mountains when two thunder storms hit. They take shelter in a cave that turns out to be the front porch of a colony of Goblins who capture them. Gandalf rescues them and they go deep inside the mountain with the Goblins in pursuit. 

            I had a lettuce, cucumber, scallion, mushroom, tomato, avocado, and roasted seaweed salad with sundried tomato dressing and a glass of Clamato juice while watching season 2, episode 28 of Burke’s Law. 

            An actor named Roland Trivers (played by Bobby Darin) is rehearsing Hamlet’s soliloquy in an empty theatre when he is killed with a spear. Meanwhile Burke is nearby on a date with a newspaper reporter named Eileen when he gets the call. Eileen wants an exclusive and Burke invites her into the car. She gets in thinking they are driving to the crime scene but Burke has Henry drive her away. 

            Burke arrives and interviews the caretaker of the theatre who discovered the body. He says anybody who heard him recite Hamlet would want to kill him. Tim found an envelope on Trivers with a woman’s picture and the words “Love remembered”. 

            Eileen tracks Burke to the theatre. Burke takes her to his office where she falls asleep with her eyes open. Les brings in Milo James the producer of Hamlet. Eileen starts questioning Milo so they lock her out of the office. Milo says that at the time of Trivers’s murder he was at home contemplating killing him. He says Trivers’s only enemies were those that knew him. Milo suggests they talk with Sandra Prentiss who was being coached by Trivers. But Sandra left her apartment with two suitcases this morning. Burke and Tim go to Trivers’s apartment, which has been turned upside down and the burglar, Eileen is still there. She got in through the French doors which had already been forced open. She found a locket on the balcony with a miniature of the same picture of the young woman. She says she talked with Milo and found out Sandra has an urge for Roland’s understudy Stephen Collins.

            Meanwhile Stephen is auditioning to Milo for Hamlet. Stephen is a hipster biker who is there with his gang. He does a hipster version of the soliloquy until Milo is too disgusted to hear any more. He tells Stephen to leave but Burke stops him. He says Sandra told him she was rehearsing all night with Trivers. 

            Burke goes to see Pauline Moss. She says she’s surprised someone didn’t kill Trivers a long time ago and she should have. She is called to rehearse Act 3, Scene 4 of Hamlet. She drinks the wine and then falls dead. 

            Milo says he hates Shakespeare but an anonymous backer paid for the production. It was arranged by a lawyer named David Williams. The caveat was that the backer picked the actors who would be in the production. Two of those are now dead. 

            Burke goes to see Wilbur Starlington. He’s rewriting Shakespeare to take out all of the versified and lyrical language. He identifies the photo as Aaron Dawn and says she was supposed to play Ophelia but she quit and moved away. She drowned and her body was sent to David Williams. He received a brochure from Ferndale Cemetery this morning with the note “Love remembered”. Burke learns there is no lawyer named David Williams. He goes to the Ferndale Cemetery and finds an unmarked gravestone with the inscription “Love remembered”. The plot was purchased by David Williams. “Love remember” is from Hamlet. Whoever Williams really is thought that the actors were responsible for Aaron’s death. Stephen wants to meet Burke at a beatnik bar called Blue Passion. Stephen takes him to a table where Sandra is sitting. She was at Roland’s apartment the night he was killed and was afraid she’d be a suspect. Aaron was her friend. She was Aaron’s understudy and Trivers was in love with her. The locket is Sandra’s. Burke wants to take her downtown but Stephen and his gang try to stop him. Then Les shows up with several cops and so Sandra leaves with Burke. Aaron was pregnant with Roland’s baby but he had gotten engaged to someone else and so she committed suicide. Starlington refuses to go on stage until the murderer is found because he is on the list and so Burke takes his place as Polonius. He wears two breastplates front and back. On stage, when Hamlet plunges the sword through the curtain someone plunges another one from the back. Burke goes after him up to the fly loft where in the struggle the killer falls over the railing. The killer is the caretaker and he is mortally injured but has time to explain. He’s Aaron’s father.

            Eileen was played by Susan Bay Nimoy, who started as an actor in theatre and film. Her first TV appearance was on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1963 and her film debut was the same year in The Skydivers. Her first co-starring role was in The Big Mouth in 1967. She played Admiral Rollman on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Later she became a producer, TV director and documentary filmmaker. She was a member of the Original Six, the women’s steering committee of the Directors Guild of America. She directed and starred in Eve. She’s on the board of directors for the foundation of National Progress that publishes Mother Jones. She was married to Leonard Nimoy from 1989 until he died in 2015.