Self-care checklist

Things I didn’t have time for yesterday, due to parenthood:

• the “All Ten” puzzle
• the NYT “Connections” puzzle
• the (NYT) Athletic “Connections: Sports Edition” puzzle

(I don’t “Wordle.”)

• showering
• reading
• posting

Once the children had started dropping off to sleep, I drafted a tedious account of the night’s culinary failure. But I couldn’t bring myself to post it. Even my banality has limits.

I slept well for a change. I awakened with time to spare, and now I’m posting first thing this morning. Or, rather, sixth thing. The routine must be maintained, or the ship goes to pieces.

That’s not true.

About those Internet puzzles. When you solve one, you want to solve another. Then another. Then you start looking around for other puzzles. It could go on indefinitely. When the urge is very strong, I give myself the equivalent of a cold shower: I take the “Agatha Christie Novels” quiz. And if that doesn’t cure me, I do a crossword. That usually tires me out.

Well, I must stop now. We just opened a bill for $888, for an emergency-room procedure that took 20 seconds and, due to insurance, should have cost $0. I must make a call.

Q.E.P.D.

Samuel’s winter holiday has begun. He doesn’t sleep in; he gets out of bed, puts the hall light on, and chatters to himself until I go out to him. I do gain 30–60 minutes of sleep because I needn’t take him to the bus. I’d say this improves my well-being; on closer inspection, however, I may actually feel worse.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Ecuadorians who died yesterday:

(a) Rodrigo Borja. The first politician I supported. I was seven when he became president.

(b) Mario Pineida. Decent fullback for Barcelona. Shot in broad daylight, outside a butcher’s shop. Partner murdered, too.

Housebound

It’s only mid-December. Already, more snow has fallen than in an entire “average” winter. Or so I was told in church, and I believe it.

Nearly-four-year-old Daniel has cabin fever. He suggested we go strolling around the block. I explained that it was very cold (single digits, Fahrenheit). He suggested we wear clothes. I explained that I wouldn’t be able to push Abel’s stroller through the deep snow. Daniel didn’t know what to say to that.

It’s now been well over a month since I last took the children to the library, which, in fair weather, can be walked to in less than ten minutes. Two days ago, I went without the children; the clerks just smirked at me. Ah, well, let them enjoy the quiet a little longer. I realize my sons are notorious hellions. Abel, of course, is well-received; but now that he walks, who knows what havoc he might cause.

“Housebound” is a misleading title – I do leave the house. I’ve taken Samuel to his bus stop and attended church services and reading-group meetings. And last week, our family piled into the car and braved narrow, unplowed streets to watch Samuel sing in his school’s winter concert. (This was one of the songs.)

I had intended to try Kafka’s Castle again during this confinement; instead, I find myself caught up in a balmier book, Owen Wister’s Virginian.

December’s poems

Say it isn’t so! Loveless by My Bloody Valentine has been removed from Spotify.

John-Paul: “What’s Spotify even for, if Loveless isn’t included?”

Karin: “A lot, considering how many hours Spotify is used in this house.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Here are reggae lyrics from The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole. Bear in mind, the diarist/​poet is in his younger teens.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Hear what he saying by A. Mole

Sisters and Brothers listen to Jah,

Hear his words from near and far,

Haile Selassie he sit on the throne.

Hear what he saying. Hear what he saying. (Repeated 10 times.)

JAH! JAH! JAH!

Rise up and follow Selassie, the king.

A new tomorrow to you he will bring. (Repeat.)

E-thi-o-pi-a,

He’ll bring new hope to ya.

Hear what he saying. Hear what he saying. (Repeated 20 times.)

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Not a Christmas poem, exactly, but certain themes are characteristic of the season.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Another quasi-Christmas poem:

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Little boy, O so small,

Please don’t pull upon my mole.

It’s attachèd to my neck.

When you pull, it hurts like heck.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Karin wrote it.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Mother Goose:

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

When good King Arthur ruled this land,

He was a goodly King;

He bought three pecks of barley-meal,

To make a bag-pudding.

A bag-pudding the King did make,

And stuffed it well with plums,

And in it put great lumps of fat,

As big as my two thumbs.

The King and Queen did eat thereof,

And noblemen beside;

And what they could not eat that night,

The Queen next morning fried.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Not only have I run out of “mole” poems, I must give up the “Christmas” pretense.

Body-text fonts, pt. 46: Albertina

This’ll rankle people: “2026 World Cup ‘Pride Match’ to Feature Egypt and Iran” (BBC).

A 2026 World Cup fixture designated by organisers as an LGBTQ+ “Pride Match” will feature two countries where homosexuality is illegal. …

The plans were put in place before the teams involved in the fixture were selected or the draw for the 2026 World Cup was made.

The moral of this story is … [I leave it as an exercise for the reader].

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Re: the font.

In a not-too-wild alternate reality, universities decline less severely, and I obtain gainful employment. I teach classes and publish ten-page articles: some, in top journals; others, in Curaçaoan semi-annuals. Each article is repeatedly anthologized.

In time, I issue a pithy book. Then another. Then a third and a fourth. (I write bestselling mysteries on the side.)

I’m respected enough that it doesn’t matter with whom I publish the fourth academic book. Perhaps I choose Indiana, out of loyalty to the state; perhaps, a trade press (Norton? Penguin?). Perhaps I self-publish and do all the typesetting myself.

The first book, I publish in the “Cambridge Studies in Philosophy” series; the third, a dauntingly terse work, with “Princeton Monographs in Philosophy.”

What interests me tonight is the second book, issued, obligatorily, with Oxford. (“Obligatorily” because Oxford has just about cornered the market of the best academic books. The alternate reality isn’t so different that the major players have changed.)

The trouble with Oxford, as a publisher, is its meager font menu and tiny print size.

My Oxford font choice is Albertina for its long-tailed lowercase “y.”

(This specimen is from Barry Cunliffe’s By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia, a lovely book that I got from the exchanging-box outside my library, for free.)

World Cup groups

… have been drawn. Gratifyingly, there are no weak groups: all are groups “of death.” Literal death.

Just kidding. These are not the groups. (Besides, the tournament has been expanded from 32 to 48 teams.)

(I should acknowledge that I didn’t create this image; I found it on the Internet.)

The actual groups are these:

Group A

Mexico

South Africa

South Korea

TBD: Czechia, Denmark, Ireland, or North Macedonia

Group B

Canada

TBD: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Italy, Northern Ireland, or Wales

Qatar

Switzerland

Group C

Brazil

Morocco

Haiti

Scotland

Group D

USA

Paraguay

Australia

TBD: Kosovo, Romania, Slovakia, or Turkey

Group E

Germany

Curaçao

Ivory Coast

ECUADOR

Group F

The Netherlands

Japan

TBD: Albania, Poland, Sweden, or Ukraine

Tunisia

Group G

Belgium

Egypt

Iran

New Zealand

Group H

Spain

Cape Verde

Saudi Arabia

Uruguay

Group I

France

Senegal

TBD: Bolivia, Iraq, or Suriname

Norway

Group J

Argentina

Algeria

Austria

Jordan

Group K

Portugal

TBD: DR Congo, Jamaica, or New Caledonia

Uzbekistan

Colombia

Group L

England

Croatia

Ghana

Panama

Locations and times have been decided, too. Ecuador will play in: Philadelphia, against the Ivory Coast; then, Kansas City, against Curaçao; and lastly, East Rutherford, New Jersey, against Germany (in what will be Ecuador’s first World Cup rematch; the countries first played in 2006).

Our Aunt Linda in K.C. is keen to host any relations who’ll attend the Curaçao game. But tickets are rapaciously expensive. I can’t imagine I’ll attend unless I win a sweepstakes out of a cereal box.

Besides, if I travel to K.C., I’ll have to spend precious hours away from the television. I’ll miss Japan vs. Tunisia or some other partidazo.

A note on Curaçao, the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup. This hardly ever happens, but … I didn’t know Curaçao’s location on the map. I knew that Curaçao is one of the Dutch Antilles, but, mentally, I grouped it with islands southeast of Puerto Rico. Actually, it’s off the coast of Venezuela – practically in South America.

I’m ashamed not to have known this. In my defense, Curaçao became a sovereign nation only in 2010.

Happy birthday to Abel

He turned one. He slept most of the day because the doctor gave him five shots.

More appealing, if less vital, were these gifts:

Cupcakes.

Onesies (i.e., bodysuits).

Wagon, Radio Flyer, plastic, small. For giving rides to stuffed animals. (Did I mention he walks now?)

Dog, white with black spots, plastic, noise-making, profoundly disturbing to Samuel.

Literature: Fortunately, by Remy Charlip. Not really meant for Abel’s age-group (he doesn’t object). Amusing to Samuel. Mildly disturbing to Daniel. Both reactions are correct.

Most of these gifts were from Karin’s dad’s family.

Abel was to have had a little party at my parents’ house, but my mom slipped on some ice and broke her arm. She’ll have surgery later this week. Last night, when I called, she was in high spirits: adequately drugged, surrounded by other progeny.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Here is another quote about the postman Courtney Elliot, from The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole:

Courtney Elliot has offered to give me private tuition for my “O” levels. It seems he is a Doctor of Philosophy who left academic life after a quarrel in a university common room about the allocation of new chairs. Apparently he was promised a chair and didn’t get it.

It seems a trivial thing to leave a good job for. After all, one chair is very much like another. But then I am an existentialist to whom nothing really matters.

I don’t care which chair I sit in.

I don’t think I would leave a university if I didn’t get a Chair, but I might if I didn’t get a chair. Some intellectuals (e.g., Victor Hugo, Sam the Architect) stand before a desk to work, but I’m not so vigorous as to do that.

Not just any chair would do. I would need a sofa, or at least an armchair from Goodwill.