May’s poem

My precious History of Art by H. W. Janson remained intact for one month. Samuel climbed the bookcase yesterday and hauled it down, ripping off its cover.

Our superglues have all dried out.

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Our household, minus kitties, went to the zoo with Karin’s mom, who is making the most of her grandparental season-pass (she went again the next day). In the African section, the wild dogs were in fine form, running laps, in contrast to our by-then-unenthused children. Lions, gators, snakes, and sloths practiced immobility. Kangaroos stirred more than usual.

My favorites are the huge animals: the bison, the rhino, the giraffes. The latter, in zoos, often languish down in some ditch, on the same eye-level as their observers; but at our zoo, one can walk up to their feet and let oneself be towered over.

This month’s poem, in honor of Mother Karin’s Day and our wedding anniversary (May 21), is “Pharaoh Story”; the lyrics are by Tim Rice. I’ve come, reluctantly, during our marriage, to like it.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Pharoah, he was a powerful man

With the ancient world in the palm of his hand

To all intents and purposes he

Was Egypt with a capital “E”

Whatever he did, he was showered with praise

If he cracked a joke, then you chortled for days

No one had rights or a vote but the king

In fact you might say he was fairly right-wing

When Pharoah’s around

Then you get down on the ground

If you ever find yourself near Rameses

Get down on your knees

Down at the other end of the scale

Joseph is still doing time in jail

For even though he’s in with the guards

A lifetime in prison seems quite on the cards

But if my analyis of the position is right

At the end of the tunnel is a glimmer of light

For all of a sudden indescribable things

Have shattered the sleep of both peasants and kings

Strange as it seems

There’s been a run of crazy dreams

And a man who can interpret could go far

Could become a star

Strange as it seems

There’s been a run of crazy dreams

And a man who can interpret could go far

Could become a star!

Could be a star!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Another World Cup

Ecuador has been playing in its second World Cup of this year: the U-17 World Cup. We made it through the group stage with one defeat, against Nigeria, and two victories, against Australia and Hungary. On Thursday, we’ll play our first knockout game, against the Italians; should we progress, our next opponents will be either the Chileans or the Brazilians (the hosts).

This tournament is hardly the most prestigious or the most predictive of long-term success. Still, it matters. It generates some lovely “human interest” stories, such as this one about a man who walked many miles, over mountains, so his son could play.

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Karin will continue staying at home with Samuel all through November. I’ve been learning to care for the boy. Often, when I hold him, he doesn’t cry. He listens when I talk – and sometimes smiles.

Karin has been leaving him with me for short periods. Today she went shopping and then to the zoo to see South Bend’s new rhinoceros. The rhino stayed out of view. At home, I watched Lina Wertmüller’s World War II movie, Seven Beauties; Samuel slept.

Tomorrow, I’ll turn thirty-eight.

Events of the weekend

Friday night, we had quite a rainstorm. It was loud and flashy and lasted several hours. Jasper and Ziva hid.

Karin took this video from our living room window:

The next day, when Karin & I went to the zoo, hardly anyone else was around, what with everything so wet. I’m glad we waited until this weekend to use our free tickets.

One of the lions was in fine form:

Tonight, Karin’s dad bought us chicken wings for Karin’s birthday:

The two youngsters in the photo are Julian, Karin’s stepbrother from one of her dad’s previous marriages, and Lily, Karin’s sister.

It seems Karin & I won’t be moving to Muncie. I was notified of my rejection this morning.

A visit to Indianapolis

Our anniversary is today. Karin & I were married two years ago.

On Saturday, we took a trip to Indianapolis. We stopped at the Dutch Café near Peru, Indiana, and ate several plates of food. This affected all the walking that we did at the Indianapolis Zoo.

It was a mediocre zoo on the whole. Some of the buildings were overly grand. They called attention to themselves rather than to the animals. The animals were minimally described by their placards, and many weren’t described at all. (I wistfully recalled the much humbler Austin Zoo, which gave heaps of information about each species, and, often, about an individual’s life history.)

Still, the zoo had four redeeming features:

(1) The parking lot design. Not all the lanes were parallel or perpendicular to each other. They seemed to be staggered diagonally.

(2) The elephants and rhinos. One male rhino, in particular, caused the ladies to blush.

(3) The suckling warthogs, whom Karin recorded:

(4) The pettable dog sharks. This, easily, was the best thing about the zoo. The sharks would swim around in a shallow tank. We visitors would reach in and pet them lightly with two fingers as they passed by. If a shark failed to receive a petting, it would make a u-turn and swim by again. The sharks seemed almost mammalian in their desire for affection. And their skins were wonderfully smooth; petting a shark felt like petting a loving, living hot dog.

Lest you worry that petting was forced upon the sharks, let me reassure you that there was a part of the tank where they could rest undisturbed.

Here’s a video from the Dodo about petting a somewhat larger shark:

Unfortunately, there was no traditional, farm-like petting section in the zoo. I guess the zoo could afford elephants but not goats.

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Afterward, we drove around downtown Indianapolis and saw the state capitol building. Without especially going out of our way, we have now seen the capitol buildings of the following states:

Utah
Wisconsin
Texas
Indiana

On the way home, we stopped at Half Price Books in Carmel, the ritzy suburb. We were one week too early. Next weekend, for Memorial Day, a sale will be held.

Austin, pt. 1: the outskirts

Though I’d known that Austin was hilly, I hadn’t expected so much of it to look like a gently undulating sea of trees – green trees mixed with scrubby, gray ones, sloshing over an occasionally exposed bed of brown-red soil.

David says the climate is Mediterranean, and I suppose that’s right. The air has been dry, the skies have been clear, and the temperature’s been in the fifties and sixties, Fahrenheit (in the summer, it’ll rise into the hundreds).

The buildings in Austin are incredible. Not beautiful: just very new, comfortable, and expensive-looking. Viewing them from the freeway, and now and then from regular city streets, I can tell that I’ll never be able to afford to live – or to work – in them.

Ana’s & David’s apartment near the edge of town is small but spiffy. Across the road is a private school that one of George W. Bush’s daughters used to attend.

We stayed near the outskirts yesterday (no downtown; no hipsters). David and Karin & I visited the zoo, all of whose animals had been “rescued.” My favorite animal was a gigantic Yorkshire hog named Babe. It was elderly and cancerous.

Then, we took a short hike to look out over the Pedernales River.

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In the evening, Ana joined us and we set out for the town of Marble Falls. We intended to visit the town’s cascadian namesake, as well as its state park and its legendary café, the Blue Bonnet, which is known for having a “wall of pies.”

We drove for an hour. When we reached the town, we found a pretty little lake and a city park, but no state park or falls. We asked Google to direct us. Finally, we came to a bit of cemented land with a distinctive topology of curved ramps and trenches, among which loitered some helmeted youths.

A sign proclaimed: “Marble Falls Skate Park.” Skate park, not state park. So much for that destination.

Next, we tried to visit the falls. This time, Google took us to the entrance of a gated residential area. A guard came out to meet us. We told her that Google had brought us there to see the falls. “Yes,” she said, “Google does do that. Unfortunately, the falls were covered over many years ago, when the dam was built.” (In 1951, we later learned.)

There remained the Blue Bonnet Café to visit. This, at least, existed, and regular diners already were queueing up to go inside. But our wait wasn’t long, our food wasn’t bad, and, afterward, we certainly ate a lot of pie.