Alice Pearce

            On Sunday morning I finished working out the chords for “Ghetto Blaster” by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through singing and playing it in French and English. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. I should have that done tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on researching references related to mourning in the novel Pearl: 

            There is no evidence of any ceremonial use of lights in Christian worship during the first two centuries. It was considered to be a heathen practice. “They kindle lights as though to one who is in darkness. Can he be thought sane who offers the light of lamps and candles to the Author and Giver of all light?” The 34th canon of the synod of Elvira forbade candles to be lighted in cemeteries during the day-time. Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona wrote, “a rite peculiar to the pagans introduced into the churches on pretext of religion, and, while the sun is still shining, a mass of wax tapers lighted.... A great honour to the blessed martyrs, whom they think to illustrate with contemptible little candles!” Jerome however said there can be no harm if ignorant and simple people, or religious women, light candles in honour of the martyrs. “We are not born, but reborn, Christians, and that which when done for idols was detestable is acceptable when done for the martyrs. The lights which had been necessary at the nocturnal meetings were retained, after the hours of service had been altered, and invested with a symbolical meaning”. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. I had a slice of toasted Bavarian seven grain sandwich bread with pumpkin butter and five-year-old cheddar and a glass of lemonade.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was warm enough that I didn’t need a scarf or gloves but I still wore my hoody and my motorcycle jacket. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:20. 

            I worked some more on researching references and collecting quotes from Pearl: 

           

            In the parishes of Farndon, Holt, Aldford, Coddington, Tilstone, Isacoed, Gresford, and Harthill, they have a custom which has not been noticed elsewhere, that of "hilling" or decorating the graves and tombstones with rushes and flowers, in addition to dressing the church. The day observed is 6th July, or the first Sunday after, formerly the first Sunday after Midsummer Day. 

            “I did a trick I had of pinching my wrist very tight until I had a bloody blister so that I would have a marker to remember every second of it”. 

            I cooked the ravioli that I bought on Saturday and had it with Bolognese sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 2 of Bewitched. 

            The story begins with Samantha trying to make breakfast for Darrin. But the new bride has no domestic training and the meal is a disaster as her husband descends the stairs. Before he can see it she uses witchcraft to make breakfast perfect and the kitchen spotless.

            After the intro we see Samantha making a cake for Darrin while her mother Endora complains that her daughter is turning human. As Darrin descends the stairs Endora makes herself invisible so she can observe him. But now that she knows her mother is watching she is uncomfortable with kissing Darrin as passionately as usual. He’s puzzled by her strange behaviour. She says, “Some things should be kept to ourselves” and suddenly Darrin suspects someone invisible is in the room. She assures him there’s no one there. He tells her to prove it and so she gives him a real kiss. 

            Darrin reveals he’s been looking at a house in the suburbs that they could buy with a mortgage. She agrees to meet him to look at the house at 15:00. Endora tells Samantha that owning homes is not for witches. “Our home has no boundaries beyond which we cannot pass. We live in music, in a flash of colour, the wind and the sparkle of a star”. Samantha asks her mother to look at the house with her.

            Samantha and Endora arrive outside 1164 Morning Glory Circle. They are being watched by the nosy neighbour Gladys Kravitz. She wants her husband Abner to look but he’s retired and all he wants to do is peacefully fill out his crossword puzzle. Endora doesn’t like the outside of the house but Samantha says it just needs a little landscaping. Endora adds a lawn, a hedge, flowers, some window boxes and trees but she still thinks they are decorating a sow’s ear. Samantha makes some changes to her mother’s changes and Endora is impressed. Meanwhile Gladys looks through the window and is shocked by the sudden changes. She tells Abner to come and look. He reminds her that he worked for 33 years. Samantha makes all the changes disappear and she and Endora go inside the house. Abner says if there are no trees Gladys has to promise to take her medicine. There are none and so she lets him feed her a spoonful. Samantha and Endora decorate the main floor in the same way they did the outside. Then they go upstairs. Meanwhile Gladys goes over and peaks in the window only to see furniture she knows wasn’t there before. She looks away in shock. Then Samantha makes everything disappear again and they head for the patio. Gladys looks again and there is no furniture. Samantha is going to meet Darrin there at 15:00 and wants her mother to stay. Darrin’s car arrives and Samantha goes to greet him. Endora decides to disappear. Samantha says she loves the house and invites Darrin to meet her mother. Gladys tells Abner she is going to knock on the door. Samantha and Darrin can’t find Endora but then there is a knock on the door. Darrin thinks it’s Samantha’s mother and so he opens the door and embraces and kisses Gladys, freaks out and runs away. 

            Darrin and Samantha buy the house. Gladys points the couple out to Abner and tells him that’s the man who kissed her. Abner asks why he would kiss Gladys when he’s got her? 

            Gladys was played by Alice Pearce, who as a young adult began performing in summer stock and then became a successful nightclub comedian. She co-starred in the 1953 sitcom Jamie. She was already secretly terminally ill from cancer when she began working on Bewitched. She died two years later and was honoured with a posthumous Emmy.