Closing credits

Everyone in the house has been ill. We’ve missed church two Sundays. We did go to a special Christmas service in the middle of the week (it seemed, briefly, that we were OK).

My fever broke last night. I’m still coughing. Please excuse the less-than-effusive presentation of this year’s credits list.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I thank:

Karin;

Jasper and Ziva;

Samuel, Daniel, and Abel;

other relations;

Samuel’s teachers and bus driver;

Daniel’s teachers (the Numberblocks);

our church;

our neighbors;

our librarians;

my reading group;

the Psmiths, for their book reviews (see their latest);

fontsmiths, for their fonts;

poets, for their poems;

Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, for domestic fiction;

Sue Townsend, for her “Adrian Mole” books (see, also, the “secret diary” of fourteen-year-old Margaret Thatcher …

… a work of hilarity, not charity);

the Ecuadorian national soccer team – especially, Moisés Caicedo, Pervis Estupiñán (whose year was actually rather poor), Alan Franco, Hernán Galíndez, Piero Hincapié, Willian Pacho, and Enner Valencia;

the Criterion Channel, especially for the Chinese crime dramas Black Coal, Thin Ice (now unavailable) (Harbin) and Only the River Flows (rural Jiangxi);

the Fox Corporation (!) for Tubi – especially, for Crime Stories, Da Vinci’s Inquest, From Hell (now unavailable), Lake Mungo, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry (esp. cartoons with Droopy), and, way back in February, the Super Bowl;

just about every streaming service, for Peppa Pig;

Goodwill Industries, for books and stretchpants;

Jarritos, especially for Mineragua;

and

Taco Bell, for soft tacos with potatoes, lettuce, cheese, spicy sauce, and supplemental guacamole.