Melissa Sue Anderson

            On Thursday morning I memorized the second verse of “Allons z'enfants” (Join the Ranks Kids) by Boris Vian. There are twelve verses left to nail down. 

            I finished memorizing “L’Amour à deux” (Passion for Two) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them and so tomorrow I’ll start working them out. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions, although for the previous two sessions I played mostly the Martin as well because of a string breaking each day on the Gibson. I video and audio recorded the session and I made it through “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” after a few takes but got at least one chord wrong. I don’t know if I recorded any keepers from any of the songs. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I texted my upstairs neighbour Sean to ask if he would witness my signature on my publishing contract. He got back to me saying he would later today. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I bought five bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a whole chicken, Full City Dark coffee, salsa, a pack of toilet paper, and a lint roller. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos at 18:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since August 23.

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:30. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “The Next State of Grace” I established the end of the timeline and deleted all the extras I’d put on the end as clip material. To some of the clips of the boots hanging from the power line and dancing in the wind I added an ease-in effect and to others I used a zoom-in effect. I then copied the project and named the copy “The Next State of Grace (with drums)”. I deleted the audio track and replaced it with the master track that I’d synchronized with the drum track. I was worried that it would be out of synch with the video but everything was lined up. I published both projects and tomorrow I’ll upload them to YouTube. 

            I grilled two T-bone steaks and had one with a potato and gravy while watching season 8, episodes 19 and 20 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha asks Serena to babysit and while Serena is sunning herself in the back yard Larry comes by to return Darrin’s putter. Serena flirts with Larry and tells him she’s wild about grey hair. He says, “Watch it Serena, you’re gonna turn the old grey fox into the red devil of yesteryear”. She says, “I can do it too”. She gives him a vitamin V pill, which she says will put the colour back in his hair and the bloom of youth back in his cheek. He takes the pill and she turns up the flirting and so he runs away so he won’t be tempted. By the time he gets home his hair is red like it was before it became white. Larry comes back to tell Samantha and Darrin that they have to find Serena because billions of dollars can be made off of that pill. Samantha suspects that Serena gave Larry a youth pill, which will continue making him younger. The next day Samantha summons Serena and asks her to find Dr. Bombay so he can prescribe and antidote to the pill. Louise comes by in distress because Larry has become so vivacious that she can’t keep up with him. After he wined, dined, danced with her and took her to Lovers Lane until 3:00, she collapsed in exhaustion and he called her a party pooper. Then he turned on the TV and looked for the Jack Paar Show, which had been off the air for ten years. When Darrin arrives at work Larry thinks it’s his first day on the job and that he’s never met him before. Darrin calls for Samantha and she pops right over but when they get to Larry’s office he’s now a confused man of about twenty wondering what he’s doing there. They take him home but by the time they arrive Larry is ten years old. Serena has returned with the antidote and they get Larry to drink it. Samantha tells him to lie down and take a nap. Shortly after that Larry looks like his old self but he still wants to turn on the radio and listen to Fibber McGee and Molly. 

            This was the last appearance of Serena.

            In the second story a representative of the Board of Education comes to tell Samantha and Darrin that Tabitha is of school age and that they are half a year late enrolling her. She warns them that they are breaking the law by not putting their child in school. The next day Samantha brings Tabitha to her first class, having made her promise not to use magic. But Tabitha immediately encounters a bully named Charlton who makes fun of her name and then pushes her when she responds in a way that makes him seem silly. He puts a frog from the terrarium in her desk and gets her in trouble. Then he pulls her hair. Samantha sees that and electrifies her braids so he gets a shock. When the teacher punishes him for pulling her hair he blames her, then waits for her after school and grabs her arm. Tabitha turns him into a frog, then the teacher thinks Tabitha is trying to take home the frog from the terrarium and makes her put it back inside. But she sneaks the frog away and takes it home. She tries to change the frog back into Charlton but it doesn’t work. When Samantha hears what happened she tells Tabitha that she should have punched him in the nose rather than use magic. Samantha calls Charlton’s mother and she says she’ll pick him up in ten minutes. Samantha figures Tabitha can’t change the frog back to Charton because Tabitha took the wrong frog from the terrarium. So she pops back to the school to change frogs. She gets back just as Mrs. Rollnick arrives to pick up Charlton. Since he’s not in view she thinks he’s hiding to avoid his piano lesson and so she starts screaming threats to get him to come out. Tabitha changes him back but his voice is still that of a frog. His mother thinks he's mocking her and gets angry. Samantha takes her aside to reason with her while Tabitha fixes his voice. When his mother asks where he was he says he was a bullfrog. When she demands that he tell the truth he repeats that he was a bullfrog. She asks why he keeps saying that. Samantha suggests that it’s ego identification because “bullfrog” suggests “bully”. She says without love and understanding children can turn into bullies. Suddenly Mrs. Rollnick decides to be nice to Charlton as if someone’s parenting could change that quickly. After they leave, Samantha asks Tabitha how she’s going to deal with her. Tabitha says, “How about a little love and understanding?” 

            One of Tabitha’s fellow students was played by Melissa Sue Anderson in her first TV role. She studied dance as a child and then began doing Mattel and Sears commercials. She is best known for playing Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie (for which she was nominated for an Emmy). She wrote a memoir about her experience on the show. She starred in The Survival of Dana, Midnight Offerings and Happy Birthday to Me. She co-starred in The Loneliest Runner. She won an Emmy for her performance in Which Mother is Mine? She co-starred in Chattanooga Choo Choo in 1984 and won the award for NATO Female Star of the Year. She was the associate producer of Where Pigeons Go to Die. She became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 2007 and at that time was living in Montreal.