Peanuts PDFs; UK map; Midwestern wedding

All of the Peanuts strips, PDF format, $25. Offer ends in 12 days.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My UK wall map – a Christmas gift from my father-in-law – has been framed at last in a heavy, wooden contraption from Goodwill. Karin, the handy one, did the framing. My idea is to hang the map next to the TV so that we can check it when we watch homicidal/​agricultural/​veterinary programs, e.g. our latest, The Highland Vet.

Current reading: François Mauriac, Genetrix; Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (the last book in the series). And lots of other books.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I should describe the wedding we attended on Sunday. Samuel bore the rings with aplomb. The much younger flower girl lagged behind, so Samuel retraced his steps, grabbed some petals, and strewed them for her. All else went according to the script: the brief vowing ceremony; the post-vowing, pre-dining interlude for photos; the popcorn and donut tables; the soda and liquor booths; the dinner rolls, sweet corn, and mashed potatoes; the couple’s dance, the bride’s dance with her father, and the groom’s with his mother; and the Cha-Cha Slide. There was no removal of the garter with teeth – none we stayed for, anyway. When we left, I was dead-tired. I’d held squirmy Abel several hours. It was as wearying as if I’d spent the day moving house.

Samuel and Daniel loved the Cha-Cha Slide; their grandpa danced it with them. That ex-DJ was in his element. I’ve not met a more ardent ritual-relisher.

Some “life hacks”

(1) Stretch pants.

(2) Using the Internet to find out what’s avaliable at your local Half Price Books store.

This is harder than you might think.

The critical link:

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-131&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

Suppose that, at Christmastime, both sets of in-laws put gift cards for HPB in your stocking.

Rejoice! Be glad!

But also: How good is this “good” luck, really?

For it may be that you live in South Bend, on the West Side, and that HPB is in faraway Mishawaka (known, locally, as “BFE” or “near-BFE” [“E” is for east; “BF” is vulgar]). Who wants to trek out east twice in January to use both $5 discounts – each, activated by a separate $25 gift-card purchase – without prior knowledge of the inventory?

But HPB has online ordering!

Alas, it costs $3.99 to have each book shipped to your house.

But books in your preferred store can be reserved online and retrieved, gratis, in person.

Again, how are you to know what’s in your preferred store? (Besides by searching for one book or author at a time and then trawling through items that may or may not be in that store.)

By clicking the above link, that’s how. Behold a list of most of the books in the store.

Here’s the link again:

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-131&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

I’ve tweaked the search to exclude collectables and to show recent arrivals on top.

To add keywords (e.g., “Agatha+Christie”) to the search, type them into the web address between the first equals sign and ampersand:

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=Agatha+Christie&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-131&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

Maybe you don’t want to order and retrieve from Mishawaka’s store. Maybe you live in darkest Chesterfield, Missouri. Then replace “131” above – the Mishawaka store’s number – with the “120” pertaining to Chesterfied’s store.

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=Agatha+Christie&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-120&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

Voilà.

(The “store finder” page is here.)

Christmas with Boney M. et al.

We went to Karin’s mom’s house for our final Christmas party. The best part was hearing stories about Karin’s grandma, who died in 2016. (Don’t tell anyone, but she was my favorite person from that branch of the family.)

Karin’s mom used to consult a book called Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping.

Mrs. Dimwitty, Karin’s grandma called it.

Karin noted that her grandma was the “queen of ‘work smarter, not harder’.”

She liked to dump ingredients into a vessel and let them bake. Hence her fondness for cookie bars – which are cut out from a grid, not sculpted individually – and for casseroles.

And she’d start washing the dishes while everyone else was eating dessert.

That’s pretty much how I like to clean and cook, except that my appliance of choice is the rice cooker, not the oven.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It was a rough Christmas. Samuel and Daniel opened many gifts and fought over them all day long. I kept thinking of The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), in which Bushmen fight over a Coke bottle that has fallen from heaven. Would my children fight so viciously no matter what, or would they get along better with less? Some of the famous “peace” churches severely restrict private ownership. Does it help them, peace-wise? The Thomas Friedmans of the world think that competition and accumulation help to make for a more peaceful planet. I really don’t know. This is the sort of thing that ought to interest “peace studies” academics, those who talk about war-curbing and peace-building. How many of them are telling people to get rid of their possessions? I can’t imagine there’d be much incentive for that sort of message, even if it were correct, but again, I don’t know what those writers actually say.

The meeting of needs

I thank (a) Mary & Martin for reading the previous entry and, this evening, bringing us a new coffee pot (and some footlong sandwiches from Subway); and (b) Nora, Karin’s friend, who already had donated a used coffee pot. Our pots overfloweth. Indeed, dozens of people have shown generosity to us upon hearing that Samuel would be born. What we expected to be one of our leanest periods has been a quite comfortable one.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I’m rereading Agatha Christie’s Third Girl (1966), one of her least celebrated books. It’s notable for its disparagement of the Sixties’ youth. I find it raucously entertaining. Poirot’s friend, the detection novelist Ariadne Oliver, Dame Agatha’s alter ego, is made to surveil suspects across London and even receives a blow upon the head. Agatha was in her “old lady” phase when she wrote this, but she hadn’t yet gone into steep decline: her next book, Endless Night, would be one of her most acclaimed.

Harvest moon

Thanks, Martin & Mary, for paying for the clothes dresser I said I needed.

Thanks, Martin’s parents, for finding and bringing it.

There’s been good weather this Friday the 13th, and a good moon.

The second shower

On Sunday, our church held the second (and final) gift shower for our son. It was simpler than the first shower. Most donors gave money – not clothes, books, or contraptions.

We also were served so many tacos and cupcakes that I’ve been eating the leftovers ever since.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The child is due to be born in mid-October, but, as far as I’m concerned, he’s ready to come out. (Ah, well, what do I know.)

Tomorrow, Karin & I will go to another appointment with a doctor from the rotation at the women’s health center. The last doctor we met called our son a “critter.”

Just think, says Karin, what if, on the day of birthing, it’s THAT doctor who happens to be on call. “Here’s your critter,” he’ll announce.

Two appointments ago, we met a fellow patient who’s married to one of my friends from Bethel. She was going on their third child – and, I believe, their eighteenth dachshund.

A new bedroom

Perhaps our greatest gain from Saturday’s shower, apart from the gift-haul for our son, was the huge plate of cheese that the guests hardly even nibbled at.

Since then, I’ve been snacking on delicious little leftover squares of cheese.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Mary came over tonight to help rearrange our apartment for the baby. I don’t wish to brag, but, during our entire tenure at this property, one of our bedrooms has gone unused – except as a receptacle for cat toilets, books, and various exotic items.

Well, Karin & I can no longer afford such extravagance. Every inch must be drafted into service or stripped of clutter.

(There is a Shinto teacher, I’ve heard, who tells us how to do this with joy.)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

One thing I learned tonight: I need a bigger, better clothes dresser. The bottoms have fallen out of several of my drawers. The remaining drawers are bursting with clothes that survived this evening’s culling.

(NOTE: Some clothes were transported from another dresser that we emptied out to fill with the baby’s clothes.)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Notoriously, many bloggers and social media users, upon achieving parenthood, become very tedious, unable to look up from the minutiae of daily living. I shall strive to avoid this fault.

Rest assured that I’ll continue to discuss the great subjects, such as morality and metaphysics.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My favorite sentence in this entry:

“The bottoms have fallen out of several of my drawers.”

It can be interpreted in more than one way.

The first shower

Karin & I held the first of two gift showers for our son. This shower, organized by Mary, was attended by friends and family members who don’t worship at our church. (The church’s shower will occur next month.)

As the gifts were being unwrapped, I realized what a large proportion of the clothes from Karin’s wish list were fox-themed. Our boy also received some Fighting Irish onesies from my Domer cousin, Vickie; some Star Trek-themed Little Golden Books and clothes from Karin’s dad and his girlfriend, Carol, who are die-hard Trekkies; and a few tiger-themed items, including a Cincinnati Bengals outfit (the Bengals are Carol’s team).

Not only have our son’s gender, nationality, and religion – the standard identities – been settled well before his birth, but also, apparently, his mammalian, collegiate, intergalactic, and athletic preferences.

I was the only man at the shower. I tried to watch Manchester City vs. the Potato Tots on my computer, but the flash player wouldn’t work.