Penelope

Happy news: my niece, Penelope, was born on Wednesday to Mary & Martin.

Today she was discharged from the hospital. Alas, I am ill – still – as are Samuel and Daniel (who are much perkier). Who knows when we’ll be well enough to meet the wee lass.

Even so, we’re very pleased that she is out and about. Samuel ran up and down, shouting: “A girl baby cousin! A girl baby cousin!”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Daniel, who hates to wear his own shoes, has “shoe envy.” He spent much of the week howling and trying to put his feet into Samuel’s shoes. So, we’d help him into those shoes. It would please him for about thirty seconds. Then he’d realize that he didn’t want to take any steps with his feet so constricted, so he’d howl and try to yank the shoes off of himself.

Tonight he put empty Cool Whip containers on his feet. Then he realized he didn’t want to walk in them, either. So, he howled and shook them off.

Children are strange.

The bloodletting

Karin, Samuel, Daniel, and I all got into the car early this morning and went to the South Bend Clinic so I could have blood drawn for some routine tests. Good thing I didn’t take the bus: I had to be poked twice, and almost fainted. I lay on a bed in the clinic and the nurse revived me with orange juice and two or three cold packs.

“You can keep them,” she said. (They aren’t re-usable.)

Having blood drawn is one of those Supposedly Fun Things I’ll Never Do Again.

Meanwhile, Karin took the boys to McDonald’s and got us all some breakfast, for which I was grateful: nothing gives one an appetite like nearly fainting. Karin had plenty of time to go to McDonald’s because the lab at the clinic was crowded with patients who surely wanted to get tested early so they could go home and watch the World Cup.

Here is the bracket. The first two knockout games were played today.

I’d be glad to see the two African teams reach the semifinals on the right-hand side of the bracket. It’s not farfetched. Say what you will about Qatar as a host nation, the Islamic teams have benefited from playing in the Middle East. It’s only fair that they should be allowed to play where it feels like home, as the Western countries so often do.

On the left, I’d like to see Argentina play against Brazil. But I’d settle for Croatia.

On leave; personal limitations; quietism; body-text fonts, pt. 1: Cochin

The weather has turned, dramatically. Temperatures approach the sixties (F).

Karin has been on leave for two weeks:

0.5 weeks in the hospital;

1.5 weeks at home, in front of the TV (all of us, not just Karin), with the occasional visit to the doctor.

We are quite fattened up, due to well-wishers’ generous gifts of food – mainly, pastries and pasta – and our failure to exercise. Daniel, who has been jaundiced, is swallowing more milk now that his tongue-tie is severed.

Samuel loves Daniel. He is, if anything, too affectionate.

I have been reading about Russia’s war with Ukraine; and I’d begun to write about it, when I decided I have nothing of value to say about this distressing event. I daren’t even repeat which pundits’ remarks I’ve found interesting. (This is not meant as a comment on anyone who has been remarking on the war or relaying others’ remarks. It’s just a comment about myself.)

It’d be better if I only talked about what I had for lunch (meat loaf, potato salad, pie), or if I started a new, utterly trivial series of posts. “Body-text Fonts, with Samples from My Own Bookshelves.”

Yes, that’s more my speed. This month’s font is Cochin.