The housing search

Ecuador lost, 2 to 0. Our chances of winning this World Cup are trickling down the drain.

I didn’t work today, so Mary offered to drive me across South Bend to visit the different apartment sites. I told the landlords that the city was evicting my wife, my kitties, and myself to build a fire station. The landlords sympathized. Near the end of the tour, I visited a cheap place not far from IUSB and very close to the river. I reported about it to Karin and she approved. Tomorrow, before I go to my job, I’ll turn in our application to live at that site.

An impending life-change

Today, Karin went “out on the town” with her little sister, Brianna. I stayed at home. Karin and Brianna were going to eat lunch at a buffet that I suspect of having made me ill (with vomiting and the like) not long ago. Also, they planned to visit the kitties at the Humane Society. My own eagerness for going to the Humane Society has been weakened since Ziva came to live with us. Two kitties are enough for me.

This time, Karin took to a large, orange-white male. She photographed Brianna holding him.

“He looks like Jasper,” I said, examining the photo.

“I guess he does,” said Karin.

(Notice, also, Brianna’s blue eyebrows.)

We aren’t going to adopt this feline. This isn’t our impending life-change. No, the city has decided to tear down our building to make room for a new fire station (you can read the news here). We’ll have between 45 and 50 days to find somewhere new to live. This affects me most – our current building is very near to where I work, and I don’t drive – but it’s bad for both of us. We won’t find a cheaper rental. We won’t be compensated by the city: We’re renting month-to-month, and the city isn’t kind to monthly renters. We may have to accept an unfavorable new lease.

I often ask for prayer for Ecuador. Please pray for our country to defeat Colombia on Tuesday. Pray for Ecuadorians to elect a good president on April 2. But pray, also, for Karin & me to find a decent place in which to live.

Matchday 13, pt. 2

Well, we lost. All credit to the Paraguayans. They ran hard, troubled our best passers, blocked our lanes, and converted two scrappy goals. Moreover, they were expert time-wasters. When the “Topo” Cáceres became injured, the medics took a good while to cart him off, making several changes of direction. The ref had to toss one of the medics out of the game. Also, crucially, the Paraguayans were much taller than the Ecuadorians. Toward the end, our coach brought on skillful little Matías Oyola. It was a mistake. Whenever Oyola had to jump for a high ball, he was dwarfed and ended up committing a foul, allowing the Paraguayans to waste more time. (I am not complaining. Time-wasting is a fact of life.)

Meanwhile, the Brazilians demolished the (very good) Uruguayans in Montevideo. After several woeful years, the Brazilians again look to be world beaters. They are trouncing the other South Americans, and no one in Europe seems as good.

The Colombians squeaked past the Bolivians. Argentina defeated Chile. Draws in these games would have served Ecuador better. In the sole unimportant game, Venezuela squandered a two-goal lead, drawing against Peru.

Matchday 13

Tomorrow night, Ecuador will play its thirteenth Russian World Cup qualifier, against Paraguay in Asunción. The prognosis is good. The Paraguayans have lost four of their last five games, with home defeats to Colombia and Peru. Ecuador’s record during this time consists of two victories, one draw, and two defeats.

What’s better is that our players are confident and healthy. Last weekend, in the English Premier League, Énner Valencia played some fifteen minutes and tallied a goal and an assist. Antonio Valencia tallied a goal that showed that he was “full of running” (as the British say). And Walter Ayoví scored a golazo two months ago, in Mexico.

Pray for Ecuador to win.

The fourteenth qualifier will be played on Tuesday, at home, against Colombia.

A busy holiday in my chair

I had my Spring Break this week, and I made good use of the time, sitting at home in my armchair. I wrote and read and kept company with the kitties. I applied for one full-time job (the response, so far, has been perfunctory) and plotted to apply elsewhere. I wondered if I could get a scholarship to do research in Scotland. … Tonight I read Larissa MacFarquhar’s 2007 essay about Barack Obama. I typeset it into a handsome 13-page, 2-column PDF, using William Addison Dwiggins’s neglected font, ITC New Winchester. (The relevance is that this font is like Dwiggins’s Eldorado, and Obama’s maternal grandfather hailed from a Kansas town named El Dorado.)

Karin went to work each day and played video games each night. On Tuesday, we ate supper with our old pastor’s family, and, last night, we washed our clothes.

Karin has been trying to interest the kitties in their mirror reflections. Ziva is downright alarmed by hers. Jasper at first feigned indifference to his reflection, but tonight I noticed him perching on the bathroom sink, looking at himself.

The Isle of Man

Today’s adventure with Google Earth took me to the Isle of Man, which I’d been reading about in Armadale. Its scenery resembles that of Ireland (it’s in the Irish Sea). With relative ease, one is able to use Google’s “street view” function to trace the entirety of the A18, which connects several of the important coastal towns. This route also approaches the Isle’s tallest mountain (of some 2000 feet). The change in scenery, therefore, is dramatic in a small way. Occasionally, sheep appear along the road; the little towns, also, are nice to look at, and one infers from billboards that the motor racing is distinguished.

In honor of the Isle of Man, tonight I listened to the Bee Gees, who lived there before moving to Manchester and Australia. Here is a video of their underrated song, “Fanny (Be Tender with My Love).”

Idolatry … and the ark

“I feel that there is this moral high ground in higher education that is just sitting vacant.”

So laments one interviewee in The Hunting Ground, a documentary about the rape epidemic at colleges and universities across the USA.

When I heard that line, I rewound the video and listened to it again.

It seems to me that the moral high ground is indeed vacant. The schools pay lip-service to it, but do they actually dwell there?

One test is: What do they promote more? A self-sacrificing culture, or a self-serving one?

The movie depicts the horror of campus rape. Even more vividly, however, it details the idolatry – that’s the Christian term for it – of big-time higher education. The viewer is subjected to wave upon wave of athletic pageantry, of architectural pomp, of student servility. A poignant initial sequence shows highschoolers reading their acceptance emails, overjoyed to tie themselves to these lofty institutions.

This was my own feeling in 2000 when I was admitted to the University of Notre Dame.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I dodged that bullet. I ended up going to Bethel College, a rather campy school. Not long ago, Bethel’s homepage proudly showed a photo of the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, which a Bethel graduate helped to design.

Noah’s ark, of course, rests upon the highest ground of all.

Armadale

One of my tutees at IU is writing a term paper about Wilkie Collins’s longest novel, Armadale. I’ve been scrambling to read the novel. I don’t want it spoiled for me.

It’s a page-turner. I’m already on page 76 of 680.

Alas, today my student brought in a draft containing many spoilers. Now I know which characters get married and to whom, and who dies, and the intricacies of various double-crossings.

You can read Armadale here. I’m reading the newest Penguin edition.

The routines of beasts

If ever I use the toilet in the night, little Ziva follows me to my bed for a good petting. Last night, I didn’t use the toilet. Ziva showed up anyway, at 5:00 a.m., and so I gave her a thorough petting (I’m being trained for fatherhood, I tell myself).

At 6:00, I was still awake. I went to the living room to watch YouTube. I watched this nice video about the classic Scottish movie, Local Hero.

Ziva and Jasper ran around the living room, wrecking the décor. They often do this in the early hours.

Q: Why is it perilous to go into the jungle between 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon?

A: That’s when the elephants are jumping out of the trees.

Q: Why is the crab the flattest of God’s creatures?

A: The crab went into the jungle between 3:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon.

Karin was surprised by my early rising (she usually gets out of bed first). Tonight I’ll be too tired to go to the laundromat, I told her. But no, Karin won’t let me weasel out of going to the laundromat. Our clothes-washing routine is set in stone.

Ana & David have acquired a dog named Russell. Mary and I confer: Where would Russell stay if he were brought to Indiana? The options are meager. Because of our own pets, neither Mary nor I could admit Russell as a guest.

Our fear is that Russell won’t be brought at all. We’ll only get to see our nephew if we go to visit him in Austin (Ana & David are quitting Houston to live in the Texas capital). And then, what would our pets do?