Dinner with in-laws; another couch; September’s poem

Another dinner at Karin’s mom’s house. We watched Notre Dame lose, and then the conversation turned to how contemptible Joe Biden is and how “they” (the bad guys, i.e., the liberals) are coming after “us.”

“Personally,” McKenzie declared, “I’m looking forward to ‘the purge.’”

Karin’s mom had previously mentioned that she and her new husband intend to build a “family compound” in Kentucky.

“With whom does she expect to live in this compound?” I asked Karin.

“With all of us,” Karin sighed. “With all of her family.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Back at home, we have a new old couch. It was free for the taking. My parents happened to notice it while passing through Bremen, and some locals offered to haul it over to us in their truck (they were heading toward our part of South Bend, anyway). The couch is brown and plaid, and it’s from the 1980s. It looks like the furniture of Quito’s old Missionary Church Dorm.

Even more than our previous old couch, it “ties the room together.”

The cats already have peed on it.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This month’s poem, by Rudyard Kipling, is “Recessional.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word –

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(For the Diamond Jubilee of 1897)

January’s poems

The previous entry got many, many more views than my entries usually get. It’s gratifying, but I can’t rely on McKenzie and Uncle Fred for copy every time.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

“After Henry” by Joan Didion (R.I.P.) is the Library of America’s newest Story of the Week.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This Christmas, Karin’s friend Nora bought some Mother Goose books for Samuel. They are illustrated by Rosemary Wells and edited by Iona Opie (who, along with Peter Opie, compiled that pleasing folk-book, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren).

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

My mother said

That I never should

Play with the pixies

In the wood;

The wood was dark,

The grass was green,

Up comes Sally

With a tambourine;

I went to the river,

I couldn’t get across,

I paid ten shillings

For an old blind horse;

I jumped on his back

And off in a crack,

Sally tell my mother

That I’m coming right back.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I could read these rhymes to Samuel all day long.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Donkey, donkey, old and gray,

Open your mouth and gently bray,

Lift your ears and blow your horn

To wake the world this sleepy morn.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Karin bought some cheap musical instruments for Samuel. I played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the recorder for him. He thought it hilarious and walked around panting the notes like a laryngitic dog (which is how that recorder sounds, more or less).

A wedding

Continuing on the subject of gluttony, yesterday was my “last hurrah,” at least for the season: I made two trips down a Polish buffet line. (If anything has a claim to being “South Bend cuisine,” it’s Polish food.) The occasion was my mother-in-law’s wedding. You’ll recall that she was widowed in 2020. Now she is married to Scott, her dead husband’s ex-roommate. It was a canny move. When Rick died, she griefstrickenly bequeathed Rick’s guns to Scott; now, presumably, she has got them back. Karin and Samuel and I rode to the wedding with McKenzie, Karin’s mom’s ex-foster daughter. McKenzie wore sweatpants and swigged from a half-gallon of milk and talked on her phone to her imprisoned boyfriend. “I have a gift card,” she told him. “I’m going to sell it to buy you another phone card.” It was a cheerful conversation. Like Scott and unlike the rest of my mother-in-law’s family, McKenzie is a happy-go-lucky sort of person. She gleefully told her boyfriend that her tattoo artist had just been jailed.

We also had a delicious venison stew, courtesy of my mother-in-law’s Uncle Fred, who shoots deer and hangs them up in his front yard. Uncle Fred preached the sermon. Karin said it was about sin (Uncle Fred is another happy-go-lucky sort of person). I didn’t hear it; Samuel started howling as soon as the bride walked up the aisle, so I took him to a Sunday School room where he played with toy cars and I read Agatha Christie. Karin told me not to bring a book to the wedding, but I did anyway; one never knows. I don’t think Karin’s mom noticed. She seemed to be relishing everything else that was going on.