Towards elevator

Agatha Christie has a novel, Towards Zero, in which a murder is committed in a hotel by putting an “Out of Order” sign next to the lift (“lift” is British for “elevator”). The murder victim reads the sign, climbs the stairs, and dies of a heart attack.

I’ve recalled this novel often during the last few days. “Out of Order” signs have been posted onto the elevators in my building at IUSB, though at least one of the elevators seems to function well enough. The effect is that the students wheeze when they arrive to be tutored. (The tutors also wheeze.)

This tutor also snores when no students are with him (though he does so only for a few seconds at a time).

Indeed, in the last couple of days, it’s taken all my effort not to snore during the late afternoon. It isn’t even that I’m fully asleep; I’m quite aware of what’s happening, and I’m doing all I can to resist it. Still, the snores come out.

Karin thinks it’s because I’m a little sick.

Karin & I show appreciation

Just a little more rain has fallen. Some floodwater has receded, though the river is still quite high. Our front street remains impassable. This isn’t a problem for us, however, since we have back streets galore upon which to drive.

Tonight, Karin & I bought dinner for the nice young woman who watched over Jasper and Ziva while we were in Kansas City. About halfway through the meal, it dawned on me that not everybody would consider being taken out to dinner to be an especially pleasant treat. For example, not everyone could comfortably eat the entirety of his or her order in front of other people, in one sitting. (I certainly could, though.)

Afterward, Karin & I hopped over to Fazoli’s, where Karin’s sister, Lily, is employed. We meant to wish her a happy birthday. She’d been called in at the last minute for a five-hour shift. She was the only counter worker, and she was running hither and thither, taking orders and distributing breadsticks.

We bought a cheesecake for ourselves, wished her well, and left.

A flood!

The St. Joseph River has flooded, what with all this raining and this melting of snow. Elkhart and Goshen (Indiana) and Niles (Michigan) seem to have been hit the hardest. South Bend also has been affected.

IUSB canceled its classes today. For the second time this week, I’m at home, not earning money.

I took this photo yesterday, through a window in the library at IUSB.

Let me explain a little. The school’s dorms are on the other side of the river. The footbridge that connects them to the main campus is partly under water. You wouldn’t know it, but several walking paths and a field are pretty well submerged.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The apartment complex where Karin & I live, just across the street from the river, has remained dry. The water covers our street one block to the north of us and one block to the south.

Last night, we went out to look at the encroaching water, and Karin took this very dark photo.

You can see ducks swimming in the street (look where the light is reflected). They were quack-quacking all the lovely while.

“Let’s bring out the kitties,” we said.

We didn’t do that.

Yesterday and today have been dry, but more rain is supposed to fall tonight.

Jury duty; a rainstorm; Messi vs. Kanté; a trip

Today I performed my jury service, or I would have done, except that the trial was canceled. I was absent from work and lost a day’s wages. But it was just as well that I didn’t go to IUSB. The walk would have been miserable: out of my living room window, I saw rain pouring down, hour after hour.

In the afternoon, I watched Chelsea and Barcelona play the first leg of their UEFA Champions League home-and-away series. I was especially interested in the duel between Lionel Messi and N’Golo Kanté. Kanté defended against Messi as well as anybody I’ve seen has done. He didn’t allow Messi to dribble past him or to make penetrating passes. Once, I saw him guard Messi for a few feet, then switch off from him, and then cunningly intercept the pass that Messi gave.

I decided that Kanté is a better defender than Real Madrid’s Casemiro, who resorts to fouling Messi. Messi likes to bully Casemiro by dribbling directly at him; however, when Messi was guarded by Kanté today, he respectfully dribbled from side to side.

One other bit of news: Karin & I have bought plane tickets to Austin, Texas, to visit Ana & David during my spring break.

February’s poem

This month’s poem is “The Good Man in Hell,” by Edwin Muir.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

If a good man were ever housed in Hell
By needful error of the qualities,
Perhaps to prove the rule or shame the devil,
Or speak the truth only a stranger sees,

Would he, surrendering quick to obvious hate,
Fill half eternity with cries and tears,
Or watch beside Hell’s little wicket gate
In patience for the first ten thousand years,

Feeling the curse climb slowly to his throat
That, uttered, dooms him to rescindless ill,
Forcing his praying tongue to run by rote,
Eternity entire before him still?

Would he at last, grown faithful in his station,
Kindle a little hope in hopeless Hell,
And sow among the damned doubts of damnation,
Since here someone could live, and live well?

One doubt of evil would bring down such a grace,
Open such a gate, and Eden could enter in,
Hell be a place like any other place,
And love and hate and life and death begin.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

It’s like a B-side of The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, which I recently re-read.

A slushy Valentine’s

My mother’s new passport was issued in the nick of time, and so she flew to Ecuador.

Goodbye, Mother.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s been warmer in South Bend. Today, it rained, and the snow slushed itself away. Icicles came crashing down from the awnings of our building. (I’d gaze up fearfully whenever I would pass under them.)

Last night, a giant water droplet slid down an icicle and plunked me in the eye.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

For our St. Valentine’s meal, Karin & I drove hither and thither, looking for an emptyish restaurant. All the parking lots were full. We settled for the food court at the mall, which, that night, was like a ghost town.

My buffet server was ecstatic to have a client. He heaped the food up in my styrofoam box.

“OK,” he said, “for three items and one drink, we give you one dollar off. ‘Valentine Special’.”

I tipped him two dollars.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin just figured out our taxes. This year, we’ll get a refund. 😊

An inheritance

The snowstorm did hit us, and hard. Side streets were made impassable. Businesses, libraries, churches, and schools were closed. Every so often, we’d see people pushing their cars to release them from the snow; on one occasion, I had to push out Karin’s car. It was a pleasantly easy thing to do, due to my fat (I used to struggle mightily to push cars).

Karin has long desired for me to view Frozen with her. I had a different hope for this evening, but, what with this weather, I shall have to “let it go.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My mother slept two nights on our cot. Then she moved to the house of Edoarda & Stephen (she’ll go to Martin’s & Mary’s next). All during her visit to South Bend, she’s been at the police station or on the phone, trying to recover her missing documents. She’s scheduled to fly back to Ecuador on Wednesday. If she can’t obtain a new passport by then, she’ll have to stay in South Bend at least another week.

She brought many of her dead father’s belongings to distribute among her children. Before she arrived, I had almost no fitting dress shirts; now, I have about ten. I also inherited a large photo of the Atshuara chief, Tsantiacu, which was propped up near my grandpa’s casket at his funeral. I remember having been affected to see that portrait. I think that my grandpa will be glad to be reunited with his friend, who gave up blood feuding for Jesus’s sake.

A visit from Mother

After my grandpa’s funeral, my mother stayed in Kansas City with her mother and siblings, but now she’s in South Bend visiting her children. I, Stephen, and Mary all will take turns hosting her (my turn is first). All’s not well, however. When Mother got off her train last night, she forgot the knapsack in which she’d been carrying (1) her laptop, (2) both of her passports (Ecuadorian and estadounidense), and (3) other valuable documents. She called Amtrak, but its officials didn’t find the knapsack. So our family’s mood today has been rather glum. We aren’t even glad that Mother will be forced to remain in the U.S. with us until a new passport is issued to her.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making Mother watch episodes of Toast of London.

A snowstorm is predicted to slam us tonight and tomorrow. I plan to stay at home and to watch more TV with Mother.

Disco JP

Somebody at work filmed me with his cell phone. He used the “disco ball” effect.

Little did he know, this really is what it’s like to be John-Paul.

Hockey night

Karin & I watched Hockey Night, a modest, Canadian sporting flick from 1984. Everything on the screen reminded me of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (the movie’s actual setting is Parry Sound). Megan Follows (Anne of Green Gables) gives a compelling performance.

What a tenderhearted movie this is. We associate sport with youthfulness. The best sporting movies are about coming of age or finding acceptance (or both): think of Breaking Away, Chariots of Fire, Hoop Dreams, Hoosiers, Lucas, My Life as a Dog, Rocky, Rudy …

Though Hockey Night is not quite as good, it conveys a similar feeling. Amidst the high drama of competition, the climax of a sporting movie can be surprisingly gentle, as if clouds were parting to reveal the sun.

This reflects the denouement of actual sport. There’s a moment when we quietly understand that all is settled. A scoring play is imminent, or the tide has irreversibly turned; we feel victorious even while we’re still losing (or we foresee defeat while we’re ahead).

Hockey Night understands this. It bypasses the crucial game and goes directly to the locker room.

I’ve viewed no leaner sports movie. Only the first hockey match is played out in detail; the others are hardly shown. We know their outcomes because they are logical consequences of the heart.