Father’s Day

Here is my little boy in one of his most affecting poses, slumped over with sleep.

On this, my first Father’s Day, I played the role of third-tier father. We took Samuel to Goshen, in Elkhart County, to pay tribute to his grandpa and great-grandpa (on his mother’s side).

That county has suffered a recent spate of COVID. We tried to stay out of doors, but when a rainstorm broke out, ten or fifteen people huddled together in the kitchen. Samuel was passed from relation to relation.

I hope we haven’t caught the virus.

Samuel with his great-grandpa:

And with his grandpa:

A few of the relations, before the rainstorm:

In two days, Samuel will be eight months old. Here we are on the back porch where we live.

(This picture flatters me. I’m not usually so handsome. Samuel is smoothing out my belly.)

I also have enjoyed feline affection today. Happy Father’s Day to me.

Birthdays; visitors; dinners; autumn; Ray Bradbury; hyphens

Happy birthday to Karin! She looks about to burst, but the doctors say she could remain pregnant for three more weeks.

Tonight’s dinner was provided by Karin’s mom and grandpa.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Happy birthday, also, to our sister-in-law Ana, who has flown up from Texas with Ada, our new niece.

Karin & I saw them yesterday, and then we were all fed by our Aunt Lorena & Uncle John.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Not many leaves have fallen, but the weather is unambiguously autumnal.

I remarked that this is Ray Bradbury Month.

Mary: “What? You’re going to name your child Ray Bradbury?”

John-Paul: “No.”

When a nosy person asks what our child’s name will be – as Karin’s mom did, again, tonight – I say, “His name will be John-Paul-Karin.”

Back to the salt mines

On Sunday, we attended a large, Amish-style meal for the birthday of Karin’s grandpa. Then, yesterday, we entertained visitors from noon until five. We liked those visitors, but it was a tiring conclusion to the weekend (what with our sitting in chairs all those hours).

Now that Labor Day has ended, the real labor must begin.

No, not the kind that produces a child. That can wait another month. What I mean is, tomorrow I’ll have another job interview – the fifth one of this job search (I guess I’m not so impressive in the flesh).

Tonight, Karin & I went to our church’s small group meeting. One of the children who’d tagged along volunteered to pray for us:

“Dear God, I pray that John-Paul gets hired so that he and Karin can have lots of money to buy things for the baby.”

Mary took me to the store to help choose some clothes for tomorrow’s interview. After I brought them home, Karin realized that the security tag was still attached to one of my new shoes. She spent an hour figuring out how to pry it off without spilling ink everywhere (that’s what the tag is designed to do to shoplifters). I offered to help, but she was intent on doing it herself.

She watched YouTube videos about how to pry it off with a couple of forks. In the end, she managed with a flathead screwdriver, the claw of a hammer, and some pliers.

Iterations

Karin & I hosted a dinner party last night. The guests were Karin’s grandpa, Karin’s mom, and Brianna. We had to spray Jasper with water to keep him away from the food. Even shy little Ziva came out of hiding a few times, and we had to spray her, too.

We discussed the Vikings’ dramatic playoff victory, which, in solidarity with Karin’s stepdad, we all had witnessed. (Here are some rather lengthy highlights, as well as the game’s winning play and the same play from a field-level perspective.) Later in the evening, Karin’s mom told me that “buffalo” is a verb. To buffalo is to baffle. Researching this, I learned that grammatical sentences of n words can be formed simply by saying buffalo out loud n times, for any cardinal number n; and that the writing of such sentences requires minimal punctuating. Here are a few examples:

“Buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing.

“Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to buffaloes.

“Buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing.

“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing to buffaloes.

“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that Buffalo’s buffaloes do buffaloing.

“Buffalo Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to Buffalo’s buffaloes.

And so on.

I stayed out of bed until one o’clock forming longer and longer sentences from iterations of buffalo. Then I lay awake in bed until three o’clock. This morning, bleary-eyed, I went to my first regular tutoring shift of the new semester.

Thanksgiving

It’s my Thanksgiving break, so I stayed at home. Karin went to her job. I read all morning. I missed the armed robbery that occurred at IUSB. In the afternoon, I performed some chores and wrote in my dissertation. Ziva and Jasper were glad to have me with them.

In the evening, I watched Grêmio defeat Lanús, 1–0, in the first game of the Copa Libertadores’s final round. It wasn’t a beautiful game. I turned it off after the first half and watched Midsomer Murders with Karin. In that show, there was one especially nice camera shot. It was from the point of view of a murderous shovel.

For tomorrow’s holiday dinner, we’re planning to eat Greek food, not Chinese. Then we’ll go to Karin’s grandpa’s house to play Phase 10 for several hours.

I’m grateful, this Thanksgiving, for my wife and kitties.