Injuries

World Cup warm-ups. … We played one a few weeks ago, against the Netherlands in Amsterdam (1 to 1); and this afternoon, in Arlington, TX, Mexico defeated us, 3 to 1. … It was among the most unsettling games I’ve watched. Segundo Castillo and Mexico’s Luis Montes badly collided; Montes’s leg was broken, and Castillo may have hurt his ACL. … Later, Mexico’s Rafael Márquez also was taken to the hospital. …

A few tactical notes. … We didn’t use our regular forwards, and we didn’t try to pressure our opponents on their side of the field, as we usually do. A very odd experiment. … All that carnage, to no clear purpose.

I lose a race

You play like an old man, Brandon tells me as I limp off the field (not that he’s very limber). I am an old man, I answer. But the truth is, I’ve let myself go; I could refurbish my motor if I wanted to.

This morning, by the river, I run five miles (I can do that any day, irrespective of my rustiness). Half a mile ahead jogs a slim young woman. Slim but slow. Ten minutes later, I’ve passed her. Another slim young woman appears in the distance; five more minutes, and I’ve passed her, too. On a bridge I pass another woman. This one is walking her dog. The bridge is narrow, but the dog is leashed, and the woman pulls it close to her. Comfortably ahead, I slow my pace. This is the life.

Just as I relax, though, I’m passed by a crafty old man: one of these “health fiends.” This won’t do. (A year ago I was on the trail constantly, and no one ever passed me.)

I speed up: for a while I keep pace behind this presumptuous old man. But eventually he pulls well ahead. His legs are toned, but not more than mine. Last year, I would have lapped him.

At home, worn out, I sleep for several hours.

May fragments

Mary had her birthday. Stephen and I bought her an artichoke sandwich and a pie, and Martin bought her some cheese puffs. … The upstairs has been rather hot; Bianca, our dear furball, has been lingering in the cool basement. Missing her, we’ve begun conditioning the air. … This week is my week off, between school terms. I wish I could travel. “You could explore the ruins of Detroit,” say Sabby. “You could clean the basement,” says Martin (everyone’s so archaeological).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I bought The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. I agree with this reviewer:

While reading [Alexander Pruss’s] very intricate essay [on the Eucharist], it occurred to me that many medieval scholastic philosophers, if brought into the present age and given a copy of this book, would be overjoyed — while the traditional enemies of scholasticism would see most of this book as logical nitpicking.

Pruss is the leading theorist of the Real Presence (and of other Romish oddities). His Handbook essay focuses on how Christ could, at one and the same time, be in different places, e.g. in different communion wafers across the world. This problem has some pedigree; Leibniz and Aquinas offer solutions. But what non-nerd ever gave it as the main reason for doubting transubstantiation? Pruss’s own solution refers to time travel. Here is theorizing which is both inelegant and useless.

The ladies of the house