Olga James

            On Friday morning I was still getting used to my upper left tooth being gone but it was nice to be off the ibuprofen. I memorized the second verse of “Al Cassel’s Air” by Serge Gainsbourg and that’s half the song. During song practice I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar. I was worried that having the tooth extracted would affect my singing but it doesn’t seem to. It feels like there’s meat in the hole but I assume that’s just clotted blood or maybe just my gum. I weighed 86.2 kilos before breakfast. Around midday I called 311 to get the city of Toronto to compel my landlord to get a Green Bin. I found out that Raja is not required by law to provide a green bin for his tenants. He’s one of the 33% of landlords that choose to remove waste privately. He doesn’t recycle but just puts all of the waste (organic or not) together in big garbage bags and carts it in his van to the dump. The person I spoke with suggested that I call the Landlord-Tenant Board. I did but didn’t reach a live person, but only got recorded information about filing a maintenance complaint. I predict that wouldn’t do much good. I did a bit of research and learned that this year the rules will be changing and landlords may soon be required to provide green bins. Raja’s system of taking everything to the dump is very common but when organics are put in landfills they produce greenhouse gasses. A lot of tenants throughout Ontario are complaining and supposedly the laws will be changed soon, so I might as well just wait. The next time the landlord complains about me putting grapes in the garbage I’ll just remind him the problem would be solved with the green bin that he’ll have to get soon and so he might as well avoid the rush. I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. I avoided crunchy food today and just made some not crisp oven fries that I had with salsa and skyr. In the afternoon I took a bike ride and passed on the Bloor bike lane the folk singer Elizabeth Block. At the light I turned and said hello. At Yonge and Bloor there was a “Free Palestine” demonstration and so I assume that’s where Elizabeth was headed. The last time I saw her was when I rode past a demonstration and she was wearing a “Jews Against Israel” T-shirt. I stopped at Type bookstore on the way back to ask about them ordering my book. The manager, Clare said she’s still nudging Kyle about it so she said to call in a couple of weeks. I weighed 86.6 kilos at 18:00. I was caught up on my journal at 19:15. I continued adding shades of blue to the sepia copy of frame 25 of my rainbow wave animation. There are four frames left to do after this. I was only supposed to eat soft food today after my extraction so I didn’t heat up any of the pork ribs I’d grilled on Wednesday. I made a new batch of gravy with the pork drippings. I’d marinated them in salad dressing and so the gravy tasted a little vinegary but after I added paprika it was delicious. I had some with a potato and skyr while watching season 1, episode 10 of The Bill Cosby Show. Chet is at home preparing a romantic dinner for Beverly, his new love interest, when his brother Brian barges in with a suitcase. He says he’s left his wife Verna and he’s moving in for a while. Chet says he can’t because he has a date but Brian says he’ll keep out of the way. Beverly arrives and they are just about to relax on the couch when Brian starts shouting in the bedroom at Verna over the phone. Then he storms out and tells Beverly that Chet thinks all he has to do use a little finesse and he can get a woman any way he wants her. He tells her that Chet thinks he’s an expert on women and doesn’t know there’s a difference between single and married women. He says single women are agreeable because they are desperate. Suddenly Beverly confronts Chet and accuses him of agreeing with Brian and she leaves. At bedtime Brian refuses to sleep on the couch and reminds Chet that they slept in the same bed when they were kids. Brian takes up most of the bed and the covers and on top of that snores and puts his arm around Chet in his sleep. At 13:00 the doorbell rings and it’s their father who says their mother woke him up because Verna told her Brian left. He says he has Verna in the car and tells Chet that his mother won’t go to sleep until Brian goes home and that means he won’t go to sleep until Brian goes home. He accuses Chet of encouraging Brian. Then Verna comes in and she and Brian immediately embrace. They leave together and before his father leaves he tells Chet to stop getting involved in everybody’s personal affairs. Later Chet has another but more intimate dinner date with Beverly at his place when the doorbell rings. This time Chet ignores it. Verna was played by Olga James, who studied opera at Julliard in the same class as Leontyne Price. Her stage debut was in the opera Four Saints in Three Acts in 1952 in Paris. Her film debut was in Carmen Jones in 1954. Her Broadway debut was in Mr. Wonderful in 1956. She was married to legendary jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and they were together from 1962 until he died in 1975. She married folk singer-songwriter Len Chandler who wrote “Beans in My Ears” and they were together until he died in 2023. She died in 2025.