Marguerite Ray

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the third verse of “A tous les enfants” (To All the Children) by Boris Vian. 

            I ran through singing and playing “At the Risk You’ll Get the Blues”, my translation of “Au risque de te déplaire” (At the Risk You’ll Have the Blues) by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog and started preparing it for publication. I should have it posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice and it went out of tune quite a bit. 

            For about an hour a car was parked in the Dollarama parking lot closest to the sidewalk and it was covered with Canadiana. There were little chrome sculptures glued to the top and front as well as silhouettes of Canadian symbols like moose, hockey players, snowshoes, etcetera along the side. Almost everybody stopped to look as they passed and some were taking pictures. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought the stepladder in and sanded the northern half of the western bathroom wall above the tub. I had hoped to do the whole western wall but I got started a little late. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of low sugar iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. My upper left tooth is hurting more and so when I got home I took the first of the ibuprofen that I was prescribed over eight months ago after my oral surgery but never took any then because there was no pain. It doesn’t always hurt but it does when I eat or sometimes when saliva flows over that tooth. If Dentistry on Queen West doesn’t have a referral for me by Tuesday with a specialist I can see soon I’ll look for a dentist that can do all the things a dentist is supposed to do rather than just fillings. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos at 17:45. 

            At 18:45 I was caught up on my journal. I could feel the painkiller kicking in my head but not so much on the tooth. 

            I worked on adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 23 of my rainbow wave animation. There are just six more shades to add and then there’ll be five frames left to do. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, genoa salami and five-year-old Canadian cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 5 of The Bill Cosby Show. The painkiller was more effective once supper was underway but I think the beer helped.

            Chet needs a valve needle to inflate basketballs for his gym class. He’s been searching his office for one all morning and Marsha comes by to remind him that he missed the meeting of the Holmes High School Committee to improve Student-Faculty relations. They appointed a sub-committee called the Student-Faculty Grievance Committee, and because of his absence made him the chairman. Whenever the students have a grievance they will come to him. He tells her about his need for a valve needle and she suggests he put in a supply requisition. He says that takes a month and instead he’s going to see Mrs. Beal. Marsha says nobody ever gets anything from her unless one goes through the proper channels. He insists he will have his valve needle by the end of the day. Marsha asks if he wants to make a bet. It starts at $1 and then goes to $10. Marsha adds that if he loses he’s the chairman of the grievance committee and if she loses then she’ll take the position. She warns that he can’t cheat and get his valve needle from a sporting goods store. Chet walks into Beal’s office followed by a student who complains that he just got a pink slip for trying to come to the office to get a white slip. Beal tells him he got a pink slip because he was trying to pass through the halls without a white slip. Even if he was coming to her for a white slip he should have had it before he got there. He protests that he had to get a white slip from her but she says it’s no excuse. He asks if he can have a white slip so he can go back to class but she says not if he has a pink slip. He says if he tries to go back without a white slip the hall monitor will give him another pink slip. She says he should have thought of that before he started, then tells him to go back to class. She asks Chet what she can do for him and he tells her that her hair looks great. She says her hair has looked the same for years. He says she looks great and she says she has the flu and does not look great. He says he needs a valve needle and she says they’ll have to put it on a new supply requisition. He says he’s hoping for a special requisition with her signature that he can take himself to Supply. She says she only has two Special Requisition forms left. One is for a filing cabinet that she needs the other is a requisition form for more special requisition forms. He offers to give her his filing cabinet. After some resistance she accepts his offer. Outside her office he finds the student who was there earlier, hiding around a corner to avoid getting another pink slip from the hall monitor. Chet tells him he can help him move the filing cabinet. While tipping the cabinet onto a dolly Chet jams his finger between the cabinet and the wall. In the hall, the bell rings and the student goes to class. Then the janitor comes and offers to help Chet with the cabinet but says first he’ll need to show a work order. Chet says he’ll do it himself but the janitor says he still needs a work order. Chet asks how he can get a work order and the janitor shows him the form that the two of them will have to sign along with Beal and then the file cabinet could be moved in a week or so. The janitor says that meanwhile he has to take the cabinet back where it came from and so Chet lies and says that it came from Mrs. Beal’s office. It gets delivered to Beal’s office and she is about to give Chet his requisition form when she notices his swollen finger. She says he’ll have to go to the nurse first and return with a slip saying his hand has been checked before she will give him the requisition form. It turns out that the nurse is someone he’s been dating and who he stood up because he was busy with a basketball game. He promises to call her then brings the slip to Beal. She gives him the form and makes it to supply. He gets the valve needle but when the bell rings he is jostled by students in the hall and loses it. Later he is blowing up basketballs when Marsha comes to his office. He shows her the forms to prove he won the bet but then admits he lost the valve needle and had to buy one from a sports store. Marsha accepts that she lost the bet and is now chairman of the grievance committee but when the student comes in with a petition against the pink and white slip policies Chet decides he’ll take the position after all. 

            The nurse was played by Marguerite Ray, who had a BA in Recreation and Theatre Arts. She played Sanford’s girlfriend on the sequel to Sanford and Son. She played Mamie Johnson for ten years on The Young and the Restless and was the first black regular on that soap opera. I took another ibuprofen before I went to bed.