This blog entry is for Jesús

… the nurse who gives my children their shots.

It was Abel’s turn to get poked. He glared when Jesús came into the room.

“Children recognize me,” Jesús told Karin. “I was at Walmart, and a child saw me and ran away. His parents gave me dirty looks.”

Jesús is super nice.

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It’s old news, but … Paris Saint-Germain shredded Inter, 5–0, with the best team performance in any final in the history of the Champions League. (I’ve observed just one other comparable performance: Barcelona’s, in 2009, which caused a very good Manchester United team to chase shadows. Milan’s drubbing of Barça in 1994 is supposed to have been impressive, too, but I didn’t see that game.)

Were I forced to choose, I’d name Vitinha as PSG’s standout player:

Willian Pacho started in defense and repeatedly charged into the opponents’ half to intercept or wrest away the ball. He was astounding. They all were, the Parisians.

Pacho has returned to Ecuador to play in Thursday’s World Cup qualifier, against Marquinhos – his club-mate – the captain of Brazil and PSG.

A new sister for Peppa Pig

… born in – oink, oink – the same hospital wing as – oink, oink – the Duchess of Cambridge’s children. (Reported in the Daily Mail.)

I’m fond of this gentle show.

So were my sons, for two or three weeks. They’ve moved on to “better” things.

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Karin & I have been married for nine years. Today is our anniversary.

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I watched the Europa League final: Potato Tots 1, Manchester United 0. Just abysmal. It wasn’t dull. It was kinda thrilling. But the quality of play was very bad indeed.

The Europa League isn’t a bad competition. Watching this game, I recalled a few teams from last year’s tournament that surely were better than both of today’s finalists:

• AEK
• Atalanta
• Brighton
• Leverkusen
• Liverpool
• Marseille
• Qarabag
• Roma
• Sparta Prague
• West Ham

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Habeas corpus: “a constitutional right that the president has, to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their rights” – according to Kristi Noem (U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security; former governor, South Dakota).

Good grief.

Fantasy reading

I’m reading a kind of fantasy novel, or at least a fantastical novel: How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup, an underdog tale by J.L. Carr (who also wrote A Month in the Country). Today, in real life, the FA Cup final was disputed between two quintessential non-underdogs: Manchester City and Manchester United. The Citizens won. They scored the first goal after just fifteen seconds.

I’m also reading “fantasy proper”: Harry Potter, no. 4. I kept my promise to Karin, which was to read the first two novels, and then I decided to finish the series. If I’d known that they’re mystery novels, I would have read them sooner.

We’re also viewing the movies. Tonight we finished Chamber of Secrets (or, as I like to call it, Chamber of Toilets). It took three days to watch because we kept having to pause it, what with all the noise of Samuel’s crying out how he loves Harry, Hagrid, etc., and his loudly murmuring magical gibberish.

He’s going through a curious phase. He wants the living room curtains to stay closed. If I bring the street into view, he goes to his room and lies on his bed, in the dark. He might be onto something. Today we got junk mail with a photo of our house printed on the envelope.

He’s particularly afraid of the ice-cream truck. He might be onto something there, too.

P.S. As a family, we’re reading The Princess and the Goblin.

This is not a genre in which I especially like to read, but somehow I’ve already created a fantasy reading schedule for the next two years.

The Super League

So, apparently, twelve ultra-rich European clubs have decided to form a breakaway competition called The Super League which is to rival the UEFA Champions League.

Motto: “The best clubs. The best players. Every week.”

The inaugural chairman will be Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid – the world’s most powerful club thanks to the backing of General Francisco Franco.

Among the four inaugural vice-chairmen, three are U.S. sporting owners who happen to control Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United. The company JPMorgan Chase (also U.S.) is reported to be the League’s foremost lender.

Nearly everybody who cares about soccer is outraged by this blatant “gated community”-style hijacking of the sport. Even horrid British P.M. Boris Johnson issued a powerful statement against The Super League.

What many of us hope from FIFA, UEFA, and the relevant domestic associations is that they ban these clubs and their players from all other competition.

Certainly, if this league goes forward, I’ll never watch any of its clubs again.

“A man should cut his own lawn”

Most quarantining in Indiana will end soon, but here’s something that may provide solace for those who remain at home:

Champions League classics on YouTube, from B/R Football.

Today’s video is of the final of 2009 between Manchester United and Barcelona.

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An adorable groundhog now resides in a tunnel under our front porch. Everyone advises that we remove it so it doesn’t dig holes in our foundation.

How does one humanely remove a groundhog?

As Karin & I consider this, we enjoy watching the beast frolic out on the lawn. It eats mouthfuls of freshly cut grass. It flees into its tunnel whenever a car drives by.

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The front lawn was cut by our pastor and church board chairman. Like Hank Hill and his Rainey Street friends, they’d do it for fun if I’d let them.

Both of these generous men offered to give me their spare mowers. I ended up accepting the church board chairman’s push mower. Sadly, his riding mower didn’t fit through the gate to our back yard, and so yesterday I had to use the push mower to cut most of that lawn.

But not all of it. This was the lawn’s first trimming of the season, and the grass was very tall. I was defeated by several especially thick clumps of well-watered stalks at the bottom of the slope. The mower would shut off if I cut more than a few square inches at a time. (I wonder if, on those obstinate sections, a reel mower would do better. Or a scythe.)

I’m sore all over, and my hands are raw, but I’m determined to head back out to finish the job. After a sustained period of rain, it seems as if every head of household on our street is out mowing.

A Mancunian classic

The best game that I saw last year involved a league’s second-placed team trying to keep its archrival from walking away with the title.

The game that I watched today, while not as technically satisfying, was just as dramatic and probably will end up as the best game of this season. Moreover, it was played under similar circumstances: Manchester United was looking to keep its local rival, Manchester City, from clinching the English league title with six games to spare.

In the first half, the Citizens scored twice within five minutes. Their first goal was headed in by their captain, Vincent Kompany, who’d scored in previous title-clinching matches. It was a good omen for them; more importantly, they kept United from attempting a single shot.

But United played with greater urgency in the second half. Soon, Paul Pogba had scored two goals. United’s third goal followed not long after. Suddenly, the Citizens were reeling.

The Red Devils stayed calm and earned an unlikely victory. I was proud of my compatriot, Antonio Valencia, United’s captain. In the waning moments, he expertly ran down the clock as he very slowly took the free kicks and throw-ins near his sideline.

Afterward, the Red Devils stayed on the field to celebrate (though surely City will clinch the title in the coming weeks). The Citizens’ fans were in tears. All season, the Citizens have been described as perhaps the best English team ever to play. Now, they’re in danger of being remembered as just another domestic champion. And on Tuesday, they’ll probably be eliminated from the UEFA Champions League by Liverpool, whom they trail by three goals in their quarterfinal series.

Some fine performances

Well, that didn’t last long. The young Gabriel Jesus has injured himself. The journalists are saying that he might not play again this season.

Still, I wish to recant what I said about the Premier League’s strikers being disposable. I overlooked the position’s one true genius: Zlatan.

In charisma – in style – in clarity of movement and of thought – he outdoes all the others. Witness how, with minimal effort, he guides Manchester United to victory.

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After nearly a second full week of illness, Karin’s buoyant self has been restored to her. She is now bleating upon the clarinet. She is inspired by Martin, whom tonight we heard perform, in a coffeehouse, with the Romaniacs (Martin played the bass guitar).

Karin has just run out of breath. Jasper is hiding, as he usually does when Karin plays. Amazingly, Ziva is fast asleep. Our two kitties are so very different from one another.

“En España critican el trofeo que el United dio a Antonio Valencia”

He was named the best player of the month at Manchester United.

Here he is with his little trophy.

As El Universo points out, this trophy is not being treated kindly in the European presses.

They say that it looks like a Christmas ornament.

Also, that it can be bought on the Internet for £12.99.

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This morning, due to the snow, the high school where I work was closed. I went to Bethel and trudged around to various departments, looking for blue books for the exam that I’m going to administer on Wednesday.

The students whom I talked to didn’t know what blue books were.

I suspect that the departmental secretaries whom I talked to didn’t know, either.

Blue books seem to have gone out of fashion at Bethel.

At last, I found a sympathetic professor. “I have a secret stash of blue books,” he told me.

And so my preparations for this semester have been completed. I would’ve been disappointed if I hadn’t been able to use the blue books. Giving a blue book exam is one of the few joys that remain in the academic profession.

Interpreting a funeral

Antonio Valencia poses here with the medics of Manchester United, thanking them for quickly healing his broken hand. He came back from his layoff earlier than expected. He was the “man of the match” last weekend, versus Arsenal.

On Friday, Karin’s grandma died after a long illness. The funeral was held this afternoon, and I played a large part in it: I interpreted, into English, the speech given by one señora Máxima, whom Karin’s grandparents had known when they were missionaries in the Dominican Republic.

It was a lovely and very long speech. It included:

(1) Stories of how the dead woman liked to bake. (A bake shop, named after her, is now operated in the Dominican Republic by sra. Máxima’s niece.)

(2) Accounts of the dead woman’s unfailing cheer, and of her submissiveness. (“Who is this person who is being talked about?” wondered Brianna. Indeed, my own memories are of a sassier, stronger-willed woman.)

(3) An acrostic of the letters D-U-L-Z-U-R-A which, sadly, was not translatable.

(4) Detailed greetings from quite a few members of the Dominican church.

Afterward, my interpreting was praised by many of the mourners. It was nice to be recognized, but I felt like collapsing onto a sofa. Translating a half-dozen single-spaced, typed pages in front of so many people was like shoveling a mountainload of bricks.

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Martin & Mary have flown to Houston to spend Thanksgiving with Ana & David. While they’re away, Karin & I will look after Bianca.