Another treadmill

Some church friends who no longer run indoors have given us their old, ornery treadmill. The motor has a mind of its own. It goes faster than I instruct it to do. Yesterday, I had to keep reducing the speed until the display said I was running ten-minute miles; but surely I was going much faster, and when I dismounted, I was so tired I almost collapsed. I have no such trouble when I exercise out of doors.

Still, I’m glad to have this contraption. What with Halloween, Thanksgiving, our COVID quarantine, and the cold, November was the first month since July of 2020 in which I gained rather than lost weight.

Some days, I’m within 15 lbs. of my final target. At least, I think I’m within 15 lbs.; like the treadmill’s display, our scales are inaccurate, probably because the floorboards in this house are not evenly laid out. Each day I must take different readings until I get the same reading several times. Never before, in my personal experience, has the mode of any series of measurements been a more useful average than the median or the mean. Live long enough, and everything happens to you at least once.

Never been overweight? Just wait. Never been overweight and then lost that weight? Just wait.

In the seventh or eighth grade, I wrote a story about a thin man who drinks some delicious chicken noodle soup, decides that his life has been lacking, turns into a glutton, and becomes hugely and famously fat. At the apex of his fame (and size), he stops liking chicken noodle soup. He ends up thinner than before. I was reading a lot of Ray Bradbury when I wrote this story.

Spotify has compiled the statistics of my usage in 2021. I listen to Spotify more hours than 97% of all subscribers. Money well spent. I listen to Vangelis more than all but 0.05% of Vangelis’s listeners. Vangelis is whom I often choose for Samuel’s napping-time.

November’s poem

I haven’t been contagious since Wednesday or Thursday, but Samuel needs me to stay indoors with him (he’s not allowed to go out until Monday). Today, with Karin at home, I left the house for the first time since I learned I had COVID. I ran the usual number of miles, with dismaying slowness. My plan for this afternoon is to visit the library.

I am dealing with my “cabin fever” just in time to endure another bout of it. Yesterday, we had our first snow of the year. More is expected.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1938):

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I wonder if Breugel (he had dropped the “h” from his name) painted the landscape first, and then thought, This sea looks kinda Greek; I’d better put something Greek in it. How about Icarus.

Probably not.

Venezuela 2, Ecuador 1

This is the second qualifier we’ve lost to a team at the bottom of the standings.

This defeat is especially galling. We were ahead 1–0 and seemed to have the Venezuelans under control. I guess we were excessively confiados.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin & I continue to unpack. Today I cleared out about half of the kitchen and nearly all of the front parlor. It was like a super long game of peg solitaire – I’d clear away one “peg” to make room to clear away another, so I could access yet another “peg” – only, these “pegs” were liquorbox- or bananabox-sized and filled with dishes or books, and the empty spaces were on three different storeys of the house.

I was glad for the workout since I didn’t run. Yesterday, though, I did try out a new route: eight laps around a nearby school. The sidewalk was uneven and hard, and on the last lap I injured a groin muscle. But I toughed it out: I needed to burn extra calories: I was to go to a restaurant with Karin’s dad’s family.

Here is our group portrait, with little Samuel at the end of the table:

After the meal, Karin & I stopped at my parents’ house and retrieved the food we’d left in the freezer. But when we got back to our new house, the power had gone out.

I had to sleep without using my CPAP machine, and so I woke up many times.

Last days in Mishawaka

Happy birthday to Karin, who is thirty.

As she pointed out, our ages start with the same digit. For now.

The grownups’ books – not Samuel’s – have all been transported to the new house, except the 35–40 vols. that I’ve set aside for imminent use. I miss the books that are out of reach. Until lately, I’d never had such an urge to read “The Canterville Ghost.”

The furniture, including the beds, will be moved on Saturday. This will be our last week at my parents’ house.

Like a good addict, I worry about where in the new neighborhood I’ll exercise. I’ll miss Mishawaka’s riverwalk. Its pavement once seemed too hard, but my legs have gotten used to it, and I have no trouble covering an extra mile on little more than a whim. Some mornings, I go incredibly fast, faster than I would have dreamed, because I have to get back to the house before Karin can leave for her job.

Self-care

Well, here I am out on the porch at five in the morning. This is another of my routines. I’ve been waking two hours earlier than Karin and Samuel: it’s the only quiet time guaranteed to me.

I alternate days of exercise and days of rest; on the days of rest, I sit out on the porch, in the dark. The porch bulb doesn’t work.

I daren’t remain inside the house – I daren’t make noise or inspire the kitties to make noise – I daren’t wake the boy.

The sun rises pretty late (we’re near the time zone’s western edge). Even though it’s dark, I take plenty of reading material with me. Today I have four volumes, and a printout of a philosophy article. I won’t be able to see any of it until fifteen minutes before Karin and Samuel wake up.

I hardly ever watch TV at this hour. All I do, besides pray, is type on the computer, drink tea, and listen to insects and trains.

It’s lovely. No wonder it has become a habit.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

100 Days of Dante (hat tip: Mr. Quiring) – a schedule for those who like to read the same thing as many other people. One hundred days, one hundred cantos.

The philosopher Eleonore Stump has taught a two-semester sequence pairing Dante with Aquinas (fall and spring). That schedule, also, is an intriguing possibility. It is not all bad to be out of collegiate work; I can read whatever I choose.

Now, if only I could change that porch bulb. …

Sacrilege; renovations; our new neighborhood; the “frankly” book

When I did my little jog this morning, I was not alone. A church was holding a fundraiser. I saw signs for a five-kilometer run and for a one-mile walk. There seemed to be four people running and twenty people walking, the walkers all in one clump.

Messages of inspiration were posted around the course. The most obnoxious message, at a watering station, said “‘I thirst’ (John 19:28)” – as if a 5K fun run were comparable to the crucifixion. This is the sort of sacrilege I expect to see on unbelieving (but biblically literate) British TV, not in the pious middle of the United States.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin left her job early so we could do some renovations in the house we bought. Mainly, we pulled up filthy old carpet downstairs. The underlying hardwood is in good condition. We discovered that one of the (less filthily) carpeted upstairs rooms has bare, unvarnished planks underneath, so we left that carpet in place.

We both got some nasty scratches from the carpets’ staples. Samuel wandered around and got into trouble, as usual, but after a time we were able to distract him with Internet videos (a technician came who set up our Internet connection).

I took a brief walk. Several of my new neighbors were out of doors; quite a few of them were speaking in Spanish. My mission was to return “Frankly, We Did Win this Election”: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost to the local branch of the public library. What I read of that book was entertaining. The back cover has a nice blurb by President Trump, praising the author for his wavy hair. Alas, I didn’t have time to finish “Frankly,” and a hold had been placed on it, so I couldn’t just borrow it again. This is what comes of reading too many different books when I’ve checked out a book in high demand.

House hunting, chapter the last

Since Monday night, I’ve been limping due to a painful blister upon one of my toes. (The cleats are to blame.) I haven’t been able to run or even mow the lawn.

How is such a small injury so debilitating? This feels less like a flesh wound, more like a broken toe.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s just as well that I’ve been confined to the house. Lightning has been striking nearby, and violent winds have been blowing; yesterday they blew the screen off Samuel’s window and carried it as far as the neighbor’s fence. Karin brought the screen inside and propped it against a kitchen wall next to the onions, potatoes, and Gerber meals.

I limped around the yard and picked up fallen branches as a prelude to the mowing that I was unable to do.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Soon, I’ll have to mow the lawns of two houses: the one we live in now, into which my parents plan to move; and the one across town that Karin & I just bought.

Yes, we now own that house; although, due a technicality, we haven’t finished buying it, because it’s still possible for us to add to the down payment – which, indeed, we plan to do.

For now, I’m glad to have a place in which to live, and that it was providentially priced. Of the houses we bid on, this was the cheapest by $30,000; we obtained it for what most houses like this one would’ve cost before prices skyrocketed.

Also, among the houses we tried to buy, this one had the most bedrooms.

What is more, this is the only house where we were greeted by a neighbor. He offered to mow our lawn, for a fee. We might employ him until we move in.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

While we waited for the sellers to finish signing their documents, our realtor showed us this grim YouTube video of what the housing market has been like these last months. I guess he felt comfortable sharing it because we came away with a decent deal instead of an overpriced heap of rubble. This wasn’t due to any virtue on our part, however. All we did was lose the expensive bids and win the cheap one. Providentially.

A renewed athleticism

Thunderstorms and flash flood warnings tonight: no pickup soccer, despite the fervid wishes of the twenty or so nerds who like to run around on an unpainted, undersized field with lots of gnats. My muscles are getting more used to the sport. Alas, I’ve had a three-game goal drought. That’s what comes of playing fullback while lacking the will to cover more than twenty yards.

Hmm. Facebook says people are playing right now. Well, good for them. I am at home in bed.

I have been running again; that, too, is increasingly easy, though the concrete surface of Mishawaka’s running trail is painfully hard. The trail goes along a scenic riverfront. Unfortunately there are many geese, and the crows have been attacking me.

Tomorrow the building inspectors will look at the house we intend to buy, and so we’ll find out if it’s habitable.

A little sunlight

Lifting Samuel, I pulled a muscle in my back. It was painful … debilitating … and so, yesterday, rather than work her half-shift, Karin stayed home to care for us.

This made for a lovely weekend, especially after Karin introduced me to the miracle of IcyHot.

Today I am mostly recovered. Karin & I did a seventy-minute stroll along the river (Samuel rode in his chariot). I’d hardly been in sunlight this year; I expect my skin to turn a little pink.

Or even a little orange, what with the meals I’ve been inventing for the rice cooker. The latest one is made of bacon, butter, whole-grain mustard, onion, and a pound of carrots. Samuel begged to taste it. I was reticent – I’d also put in cayenne powder and jalapeños – but he insisted.

What can I say? The boy likes spicy food. He did a fair amount of panting, with a wry grin.

Puffin rock

A day in the 40s (F) – a nice temperature because the snow melted and I didn’t have to shovel. The next days will be in the 20s, so I made sure to go strolling. I’m afraid Samuel doesn’t enjoy these cold-weather strolls. When he saw I was going to put his coat on him, he tried to crawl away, which he’d never done before. But, of course, I caught him.

Though the temperature wasn’t piercing, the wind was. Samuel was glad when we came home.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Samuel’s favorite TV show is Puffin Rock. Karin & I have begun saying “P-U-F-F-I-N-R-O-C-K” to one another because if Samuel hears the words “Puffin Rock” he gets a little wild. The show itself is not very wild. Two pufflings, Oona and Baba, live with their parents and various other small animals – foxes, frogs, owls, bunnies, shrews, hermit crabs, etc. – on an island off the southwest coast of Ireland. Their gentle adventures are narrated by Chris O’Dowd.

Oona is a kind soul. Baba is so infantile that he looks like a fluffy white tennis ball with big eyes. He expresses himself in a lively but inarticulate fashion (he reminds me of Woodstock, Snoopy’s bird friend in Peanuts). I wonder if Samuel is in especial sympathy with Baba; in any case, he laughs and laughs whenever the puffins carry twigs or fishes in their beaks.

Here is a scene in which the puffins guide a lost frog back to its pond.

Tonight, Karin & I put on an episode of Wallace and Gromit – A Matter of Loaf and Death – and, alas, Samuel was terrified. Which was a proper reaction, since it really is an unsettling little movie.

Moving, pt. 5

We did our last big move today. Family members and fellow churchgoers again helped us, completing the operation within two hours. Virtually everything, save dust and cat hair, is out of the apartment. Karin & I will return as often as possible before January’s end to clean. (We spent two hours there tonight.)

In the carpeted apartment, I found myself gasping and coughing. Not so in the new house, which has laminated floors.

One thing is sure: I’ve gotten more physical exercise this month than in any other since, oh, 2013.

A plan for success

So here’s the plan.

(1) Karin takes the day off from work; maybe goes to the mall, walks up and down, prepares her muscles.

(2) She takes tomorrow off, too, for more of the same.

(3) If, by 7:00 tomorrow evening, she hasn’t begun laboring, we check in to the hospital.

(4) On Wednesday, someone takes our car to get an oil change. Karin produces our son.

Our dwelling is about as ready as we’ll make it. Today, looking for more to do, we separated unexpired grocery coupons from expired ones. Then we slept a little. Karin is still sleeping. I might put away our ironing board.

The gynecologist’s; Milkman; Silver Blaze

I went with Karin to her gynecological exam. A lot of men were there with their WAGs. They looked as if they absolutely did not want to be there. I’m sure I looked the same. On the whole, though, the experience wasn’t too bad (from a spectator’s perspective). The doctor was very nice. “Girl power” music – Katy Perry, etc. – was piped into every room.

Also feminine is the newest Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Milkman by Anna Burns. It offers a taxonomy of men. Being categorized unnerves me as a masculine reader. The book is set in a nationally and religiously divided city in Northern Ireland, where the constant fighting allows men to behave in manly ways and turns the women into collateral damage. But I’m sure the narrator, “middle sister,” will overcome her powerlessness and invisibilty (or, rather, her undesired visibility). She’s a voracious reader, for one thing, which means she’s smarter than the other characters, especially the men (or is she?). And she’s quite a runner, which means she’s physically tough.

Inspired by “middle sister,” I rode Silver Blaze, the bike, yesterday, which was not so painful as when I’d try to run after months of inactivity. I endured moments after the bike ride when I was unable to stand, but I suffered no blistering, no aching of joints. Alas, I didn’t burn nearly as many calories as when I used to run, but one must begin somewhere.

Silver Blaze

We got a new stationary bike. When we aren’t pedaling on it, we store it between an armchair and a sofa.

A coupon lowered the cost from $89 to $77. Ordinarily, I’d mistrust such a cheap piece of equipment, but the reviews won me over.

We named it “Silver Blaze” after the horse in the Sherlock Holmes tale. Other names I considered:

• “Orcrist the Goblin-cleaver”
• “Glamdring the Foehammer”

The bike is supposed to weigh only 40 lbs. If you need to, you can pick it up and wield it like a sword.

The kitties were very keen. They wanted to play with all the different parts of the bike. After I assembled it, though, they lost interest.

I pedaled for five minutes, mostly on the toughest setting, and now I’m very sore. Karin pedaled rather comically for ten minutes. The bike’s pedaling mechanism seems quite good. The screen, which is powered by two triple-A batteries, gives the basic facts: distance, time, pulse, and kcals burned (I suppose this last measure is fallible).

Towards elevator

Agatha Christie has a novel, Towards Zero, in which a murder is committed in a hotel by putting an “Out of Order” sign next to the lift (“lift” is British for “elevator”). The murder victim reads the sign, climbs the stairs, and dies of a heart attack.

I’ve recalled this novel often during the last few days. “Out of Order” signs have been posted onto the elevators in my building at IUSB, though at least one of the elevators seems to function well enough. The effect is that the students wheeze when they arrive to be tutored. (The tutors also wheeze.)

This tutor also snores when no students are with him (though he does so only for a few seconds at a time).

Indeed, in the last couple of days, it’s taken all my effort not to snore during the late afternoon. It isn’t even that I’m fully asleep; I’m quite aware of what’s happening, and I’m doing all I can to resist it. Still, the snores come out.

Karin thinks it’s because I’m a little sick.

The wedding planner

It hasn’t been so bad at Planet Fitness. I’ve still got plenty of stamina from a couple of years ago, when I weighed forty fewer pounds. Speaking of whales, Martin and I are reading Moby-Dick, one chapter every day. Today is the fourteenth day. You are welcome to read it with us.

I suppose I’d better report some things about my wedding.

It’ll take place on May the Twenty-first.

There is some pressure to change the venue: the guest list is too large for our church. I’m all for casting out a good many of the spectators. But my future in-laws keep on suggesting more spectators to bring in (which is tiresome of them).

Of course, I’d like to include all of our near and distant family and friends – and some enemies, for gloating over – but, in the end, having the wedding at our church is more important to me. (What are Karin’s feelings? I don’t presume to state them.) Besides, after our honeymoon, we might have a casual party for the cast-outs.

I hear them, my detractors. “Only John-Paul would write so cynically about his wedding.” Well, you should have heard what I used to say about weddings, when I thought myself a paragon of rationality. I have become much more marriageable than I used to be.

Back to PF

I stopped going to Planet Fitness some time ago. But now I’ve joined again – not as an athlete, but as a humble exerciser. Tonight I’ll make reacquaintance with the treadmill. It should be dreadful. Karin joined last week. She likes to borrow my shorts. It occurs to me that the colors of Planet Fitness are like the colors of our wedding.

Mary is cooking some delicious Indian food, which I can’t eat right now because I have to go to Planet Fitness.

I lost the prompt for my first history assignment. How lame.

The good thing is, now that I’m taking a course at IUSB, I’m eligible again for Amazon Student. My textbooks arrived just one day after I ordered them. Ah yes. This is the life.

I lose a race

You play like an old man, Brandon tells me as I limp off the field (not that he’s very limber). I am an old man, I answer. But the truth is, I’ve let myself go; I could refurbish my motor if I wanted to.

This morning, by the river, I run five miles (I can do that any day, irrespective of my rustiness). Half a mile ahead jogs a slim young woman. Slim but slow. Ten minutes later, I’ve passed her. Another slim young woman appears in the distance; five more minutes, and I’ve passed her, too. On a bridge I pass another woman. This one is walking her dog. The bridge is narrow, but the dog is leashed, and the woman pulls it close to her. Comfortably ahead, I slow my pace. This is the life.

Just as I relax, though, I’m passed by a crafty old man: one of these “health fiends.” This won’t do. (A year ago I was on the trail constantly, and no one ever passed me.)

I speed up: for a while I keep pace behind this presumptuous old man. But eventually he pulls well ahead. His legs are toned, but not more than mine. Last year, I would have lapped him.

At home, worn out, I sleep for several hours.

The gym rats

Mary cancels her old gym membership, and the entire household (minus Bianca) signs up at Planet Fitness.

“There should be a sitcom episode about this.”

“Yes: ‘The Gang Joins the Gym.’”

“There already is one. It’s called ‘Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack.’”

We tour the building. Very nice. There’s purple everywhere, and a lot of fat people.

There aren’t a lot of weights; this is to keep out the bodybuilders and the fitness nazis. A “lunk” alarm goes off whenever you grunt too much or you brag about your workout or about shedding your toxins. If you set off the “lunk” alarm very often, you lose your membership. The gym is trying to be a safe place for “regular people.”

Slogans:

NO GYMTIMIDATION

NO LUNKS

JUDGEMENT FREE ZONE

At first we wonder how we’ll manage without judging people, but soon we’re putting the ideal to good use.

At Wendy’s:

“Are you really going to eat all of that?”

“Hey, I can take it over to Planet Fitness and eat it there. It’s a Judgement Free Zone.”

The other day I was on a treadmill, running next to a very slow man. I did not judge him.

It’s kind of lovely, actually, what capitalism is achieving here. No judgment + just $10/month + free pizza + lots of purple → lots of people exercising who ordinarily wouldn’t.