Susan Tolsky

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords for the third and fourth verses of “S'il pleauvait des larmes” (If Our Tears Made the Rain Come) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the second verse of “Asphalte” by Serge Gainsbourg and revised my translation. I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. I think there’s something wrong with one of the pickups. It fades out sometimes. 

            I saw Whispering Ghost with Wings of Silver walking by. I was worried he’d left town but it looks like there’s a chance I can reshoot that video of him. 

            I weighed 88 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I created a table of contents for my poetry manuscript Paranoiac Utopia. Richard Olafson of Ekstasis Editions emailed me last night to request it. I sent him the list as a separate document but I also reformatted the page numbering of my manuscript so that the table of contents is on page 0 and the first poem starts on page 1. He said my poems look interesting and that he was going to read them last night. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before lunch. 

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

            The new deck is almost finished. It’s about a third of a meter wider than the other one and that’s really the most they could widen it because Popeyes exhaust fan equipment is in the way. There’s lots more room though because the garbage bin has been placed on a platform outside the railing and its front is lined up with the fence. There’s going to be a gate at the west end. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:00. It looked for most of the day like I would be able to shoot some videos on the street this evening but it started raining shortly after I returned from my bike ride. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my August 26, 2023 song practice I spent over an hour synchronizing the audio with the video. I got it close but sometimes the audio was ahead or behind the video. Then I realized I was trying to synchronize the audio for an earlier take of “The Wooden Leg” with the main take on video. I worked on synchronizing the next take but that was also a failure. Finally the third take was the right one and I got them lined up. I copied the project and saved it as “The Wooden Leg (acoustic)”. Tomorrow I’ll probably have the movie published. 

            I cut up a whole chicken and roasted the parts in the oven. I had a leg with a potato and gravy while watching season 4, episodes 30 and 31 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Darrin and Tabitha are playing with a toy flying saucer that really flies by remote control. I think it’s a little too advanced for 1969 because it behaves like a modern drone. Darrin and Samantha go out on a date and leave Clara to babysit Tabitha. Clara lets Tabitha play with the saucer before bed but it flies out into the back yard and disappears. Clara casts a spell to bring it back but ends up transporting a real flying saucer from trillions of kilometers away. The occupants, Alpha and Orvis are from the planet Parenthia where humanoid species evolved from dogs rather than apes. By coincidence the Parenthian language sounds exactly like English. They have N guns for self defense. Clara thinks that all she did was accidentally enlarge the toy flying saucer. Samantha and Darrin come home and also think it’s just an enlarged toy. Clara can’t remember the spell to shrink it back down and so they all sleep on it. Meanwhile nosy neighbour Gladys Kravitz peaks over the fence to see the saucer and she calls the air force. The unlikely result is that they send a Colonel Burkett and a Captain Tugwell to investigate. I doubt if the air force would send anybody in response to one call from an ordinary citizen. Darrin and Samantha manage to convince them that Darrin built the saucer himself for one of his ad campaigns. Alpha and Orvis decide to come out but when Darrin sees them and shouts in a panic for Samantha the aliens are frightened and return to their ship. Samantha pops inside the ship to introduce herself and invites them to breakfast. Meanwhile Captain Tugwell returns to the Kravitz house and tells Gladys that air force radar did track something to that area last night. He thinks if he finds aliens he will be promoted to major. He and Gladys look through the window and see the Parthenians. He goes to call headquarters and leaves Gladys there. Samantha thinks that since Tabitha was with Clara when she cast the spell that she might remember some of the words. Gladys confronts the aliens and tries to carry out a citizen’s arrest but they shoot her with their N guns. The “N” stands for niceness and the ray does not harm the victim but rather renders them at worst overly friendly. She talks to the aliens the way people talk to babies, bubbling over with affection. Alpha says he liked her better the other way. The sirens are approaching and the aliens go back in the saucer. Clara remembers the spell and sends Alpha and Orvis back just before the colonel walks in. 

            This was the final appearance of Aunt Clara because Marion Lorne died after this episode aired.

            In the second story Darrin is excited because McMann and Tate are considering making him a partner. But then a major glitch is made in promoting the financial power of a bank in an advertizing campaign that Darrin is in charge of. The copy reads, “Assets: Over $100!” Darrin is almost fired but told to take an extended sick leave. Darrin is sure he didn’t make the mistake and so he suspects that Samantha’s mother put a hex on his campaign. Darrin is very depressed and doesn’t want to work because he feels powerless against witchcraft. Uncle Arthur gives him a charm that he says will protect him from any harm, whether magical or not. It fills Darrin with confidence and he heads into work feeling invincible. Arthur tells Samantha that the “charm” is just a finial from one of the lamp shades in the living room. Darrin goes to see Markham the bank president with an idea to present the gaff as deliberate humour to show the bank is friendly. Markham’s secretary says the president won’t see him but Darrin manages to talk his way in. While he’s there a courier comes to deliver some paperwork to Markham but he turns out to be a robber with a gun. Darrin, still believing he is charmed, confronts the robber and makes him give him the gun. Markham is so impressed that he renews his contract with McMann and Tate. Darrin is on the front page as a hero. Darrin confesses to Samantha why he was brave and Samantha informs him that there was no charm. Darrin faints. 

            Markham’s secretary was played by Susan Tolsky, who made her television debut in the sitcom The Second Hundred Years. A year later she co-starred in the sitcom Here Come the Brides. Her first film appearance was in Pretty Maids All in a Row. She was a regular on The New Bill Cosby Show. She co-starred on the sitcom Madame’s Place. She was the voice of Annabell on the animated series Foofur and Aunt Ruth on Bobby’s World.