Émile Genest

            On Thursday after midnight I put down more carpet tape on the edges of my mattress where it had gotten less sticky but ran out of tape, so I’ll need to go back to the hardware store soon. I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow and picked up a few of bedbugs from the curtains. I didn’t shake out my sheet and comforter on the deck because it was raining. I went to bed at 1:45 and slept until the 5:00 alarm. After yoga there were a few bedbugs on the walls and on the baseboards around my bed. 

            I memorized the fifth verse of “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg and finished revising my translation. There’s just one verse left to learn and I should have that done on Friday. Then I’ll start working out the chords. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since October 10. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            I started working on a letter to my landlord demanding action to eliminate the bedbugs. 

            I weighed 91.45 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta but slept 45 minutes longer than planned. It was too late for a bike ride but I still rode to Freshco. I was prepared to do a price match on grapes to the Food Basics price of $4.15 a kilo but all of Freshco’s grapes were too mushy. I got three packs of blueberries, some bananas, a container of skyr, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, some shaving gel, and a lint roller. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos at 17:55. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching episode 6 of Daniel Boone. 

            A pioneer father, mother and daughter are on their way down river in a barge to Boonesborough when a man on shore named Lac Duquesne asks for a lift. But when they steer ashore to pick him up his pirate band emerges from the bushes and hijacks their boat. The family is put ashore where they are found by Mingo and escorted to Boonesborough. 

            When Lac first came from France he saved Boone’s life and they were friends but now Lac has turned criminal. 

            It turns out that 50 rifles they have been expecting at Boonesborough were shipped on that river raft and now Lac has them. He plans on selling them to the Shawnee and so Boone, Tad, and Mingo go after him. 

            They catch up with him when he makes camp but Lac has more men in hiding and they are able to capture Boone and his friends. They take them prisoner on the boat and then set them free in Shawnee country where their chances of survival are slim. 

            They follow the boat to where Lac meets with the Shawnee chief. They find where the rifles and gunpowder are stored and take some. Boone sabotages Lac’s armoury by running a trail of gunpowder to the cache. They recapture Lac and force him to help move the rifles back to the boat. Boone arrests Lac and makes him come on the boat but the Shawnee are following. Lac warns that they will follow all the way back to Boonesborough so Boone decides to let Lac go as they take the rifles back to the fort.

            Lac Duquesne was played by Canadian actor Émile Genest, who served in the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII. He became a bilingual sportscaster for CBC Radio. He co-starred in the CBC radio drama La Famille Plouffe and reprised his role in the TV series. He co-starred in Nikki Wild Dog of the North, and Big Red. He starred in The Incredible Journey, and a four hour film update of La Famille Plouffe.