New Year’s Eve

It’s the last week of the winter holiday. I’m sick. Worse, my thoughts have been woeful. But thanks to Karin, it hasn’t been a woeful year.

I’m grateful, also, to the Ecuadorian soccer players for winning all four of their World Cup qualifiers. Here are their goals, set to stirring music.

More of the same music.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My “best of 2015” prizes:

Best Movie. This year I saw only three new movies: Minions, Ex Machina, and Paddington. Each was good in its way. But the award goes to Minions. The Best Supporting Actress prize goes to Queen Elizabeth II, of Minions.

Best Song. I haven’t listened to very many new songs (let alone albums). But clearly the best song of the year was “Hotline Bling.”

Best Music Video. “Hotline Bling” – there were many excellent videos of this track, but this one was the best.

Best Philosophy Book. Tom Hurka’s British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing. Fascinating. Breathtaking. One hundred years of insular reasoning, distilled with Hurka-l-ean effort.

Best Fiction Book. I’ve not read anything from this year. I started reading Slade House, but what with my illness, I couldn’t hold myself up against the blast of David Mitchell’s authorial voice. Maybe when I feel better.

Ana & David never came up from Houston; Edoarda & Stephen are in Nicaragua; Martin & Mary are going to a New Year’s Eve party. I await my Sweetie for a peaceful evening on the couch.

Some gluttony

Mary was given a new used car. Our Uncle Stan brought it as near to us as Indianapolis, and so I went there to pick it up with Martin and his parents.

Close to the Grissom Air Reserve Base, we stopped at a roadside café. Martin’s parents bought us breakfast.

It’d be ungrateful of me not to describe this meal. I’m no food writer – but here goes.

It was the Babette’s Feast of breakfasts. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet. The biscuits. The bacon. The casserole. The sausage. All were made from old Amish recipes. I knew, from the first bites, that this would be one of the greatest breakfasts of my life.

Caveman dieters, Martin’s parents ate just a few fried eggs. But they enjoyed the other food vicariously, keenly watching Martin and me. Their eyes took in every detail. They listened closely as we described what we were eating.

It was the first day of our Christmas break.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Yesterday, for most of the high school students, I photocopied crossword puzzles about Christmas (also, a few “Winter Wonderland” word-searches, for the heathen). Teacher after teacher came into my office and gave me money, cards, and sweets. Then, after school was over, Martin and I went to the staff members’ Christmas party. I ate hors d’oeuvres and watched the teachers drink a lot of beer.

In a relationship

“Come here, you fat thing,” Karin beckons.

The candor of this remark is lovely. I sit down next to her on the couch.

I put on an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s the one in which Mac is suddenly very fat. He eats chimichangas and injects himself with insulin.

Karin isn’t prepared for this. Nor is she prepared when Charlie vomits blood all over the limousine. But, on the whole, she isn’t too repulsed.

Later, she puts on Grimm – itself rather bloody, but more respectful of decorum.

R.I.P.

A difficult, computerless week – I killed my Chromebook with a glass of water. The new one should arrive tomorrow.

The return leg

On Sunday, we returned to Indiana. For lunch we stopped in hilly Hannibal, MO, at a Subway.

The after-church queue was too long. We pressed onward to a Wendy’s.

The Wendy’s was being remodelled. We retraced our steps to a KFC.

Edoarda ate mashed potatoes without any gravy. (She’s a vegetarian.) Suddenly, a crowd came in for the lunch buffet. Edoarda was a little startled. She’d never seen so many Missourians.

Martin also felt out of place. He noted that the people of Hannibal would likely go home to watch the Rams, not the Bears. (And not the Colts, either, remarked Edoarda.)

Mary was troubled by the country music. …

Stephen … I think he was mostly concerned about Edoarda.

Edoarda was doing just fine. She ate plenty of potatoes, and on the way out she picked up a brochure for tourism in Hannibal.

Leaving town, we took a wrong turn and drove around some of the hilly neighborhoods. Finally we made it onto the highway. We crossed the river into Illinois, and all at once everything was desolate and flat.

Around Joliet, my knee started hurting badly. My leg needed to be stretched out. Edoarda was sitting next to me, and so I asked her if I could stretch out my leg upon her lap. It was an indelicate request. Edoarda refused, and not just a little vehemently. Martin permitted me to rest my leg upon the center console.

And now we’re back in Mishawaka. The next order of business is to choose presents for our gift exchange.