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.

Ecuador 3, Bolivia 0

The goals were scored in the first twenty minutes, and the rest of the game was a cool-down session for our starters and then a tryout for various bench players. Énner Valencia broke Ecuador’s career scoring record.

Afterward, Bolivia’s captain, the goalkeeper Carlos Lampe, was interviewed.

He said: We were our own worst enemy – or something to that effect.

Let the scoreline not cause us to forget the solid defending that we did in the second half.

I’m afraid he was deluding himself.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We’ve moved to South Bend. Kind church friends helped us; so did Sam the architect; so did my parents; so did Karin’s dad & Carol, his girlfriend. Samuel was parked in front of the TV for many hours in a mostly happy state, but he would cry whenever I’d leave to move things into the new house. When I’d come back, he’d hug me and whimper, “Don’t go.”

The new house is crammed with disordered furniture and boxes. The rooms are impassable. Karin’s dad & Carol helped us to tidy up our bedroom, so at least we’ll have a place to sleep tonight.

Jasper and Ziva are distressed, of course, but they have been venturing out from their hiding places in the basement.

House hunting, pt. 2001, a specious odyssey

We have a winner! And the winner is us! You’ll have noticed that on the real estate websites a certain property is listed as “pending.” That would be due to Karin & me.

Actually, I am more of a winner than Karin, because her commute will lengthen by approximately ten minutes each way. But we’re both winners in terms of price – and in terms of the house itself, which we like.

We’re winners, that is, if the sale goes through.

Samuel also likes the house, but he is less discriminating. Our other friend Sam, Sam the architect, saw the house and said its construction was sound.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I finished reading The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, which was pretty lightweight despite its frequent allusions to classical literature. It had many funny scenes with loquacious landladies and back-alley women, and a truly horrifying deathbed scene. Marco Denevi, who wrote the excellent Rosaura a las diez, is said to have been influenced by Wilkie Collins; but I shouldn’t be surprised if he also studied The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.