Coronavirus Makes the World Very Small

I appreciate the kind words I received after writing about the unnecessary, preventable death of my gentle little friend Maynard. Thanks, everyone who left a comment.

Things are slowly getting better, but I have waves of grief when I’m not busy doing things. The life of an animal can’t be as important as the life of a person, but you can certainly love an animal more than a person and grieve harder when he dies. These things are particularly true when you know your errors helped cause the death.

Marvin, my other bird, doesn’t miss Maynard at all. Not one bit. They lived next to each other for 25 years, and Marvin didn’t bond with him in the slightest way. That’s a blessing. I wouldn’t want to see him pull his feathers out because he was lonely.

He likes certain people, so it’s surprising he never felt anything for Maynard. Nothing positive, I mean. When he was young, he assumed Maynard liked him, but Maynard bit him as a reward for his advances. I guess Marv took the hint. Maynard was originally very friendly to other birds, but my first African grey, Frank, was nasty to him and changed him.

Marvin actually seems happier now. His attachment to me seems stronger. He becomes very emotional when I take him out of the cage. I didn’t see that coming.

Bird maintenance is easier now. One cage to clean. One poop tray to empty. Two dishes to clean, instead of four. No looking at the clock when Marvin is out, to make sure I leave time for Maynard. Every time I notice these things, I feel sad.

I feel sad when I bless Marvin at night. I used to decree that God was ending his hatred of Maynard. I don’t have to do that now. When I pray for God’s protection over me and all I have, I don’t have to say, “Marvin and Maynard” any more. Just “Marvin.”

Maynard’s death was made more painful because I had spent a lot of time using the birds to help me project love into the world. I didn’t have a wife or kids, so I made a special effort to pour love into the birds, just to open up the channel. I would hold them against my face and focus love on them. I asked them if they felt loved. I guess they thought I was crazy. From being near God, I knew love poured from him, and I believed it should pour from us, too, so I didn’t hold back. That left me more open to grief.

Maynard was not one to resist affection. Sometimes I held him against my face as long as I could, just to see how long he would stand for it. He didn’t protest at all. I always gave in first. He was happy to be held and loved for as long as I could manage it.

I would say I feel somewhat worse than I did when my dad died. I’m not sure. If so, it’s probably because my dad made his own bed, I tried to do right by him, his death was expected, and we were together at the end so I could say what I wanted to say. Maynard died young, I wasn’t as good to him as I wanted to be, his death was mostly my fault, and he was killed in a locked room in a veterinary hospital, where he could not see, hear, or feel me.

So much for that.

Today I’m working on arranging my marriage. The coronavirus picture keeps changing. Suddenly, it’s possible for Rhodah and me to go to countries that were locking us out a week or two ago. To my surprise, I found that even places like France and Switzerland were available.

We were thinking of Iceland, but I ran into what seemed like a roadblock. “Stronghold” is the word that will pop into the minds of Christians.

To marry in Iceland, you have to produce proof you’re not married already. In many countries, it’s simple to get what is called a “no impediment” certificate. Rhodah already has one. In the US, the federal government does not provide them, and many states don’t offer them, either. It’s stupid, because marrying abroad is not very unusual.

I researched a lot, and the best information I found said Florida would not give me a certificate. I contacted Iceland, and although the people who corresponded with me responded at length, they were not that helpful. They didn’t answer the questions I actually asked. They told me what they thought I should know.

I can understand that. People from Northern Europe can be very rigid. It’s a fact of life. I’ve dealt with it before.

Iceland said it would accept documents from every state I’ve lived in since I was 18, saying a search had been performed, and that nothing had come up. Having lived in several states, I was not happy about this. I started looking at state websites and making calls.

It turns out New York will give me a document, even though their website clearly says it’s impossible. I also ordered one from another state. A third state doesn’t answer the phone, so I left a message.

Regrettably, I didn’t check Florida first. Their website is not great, but when I called, they directed me to a page where I was able to download a form ordering a certificate proving my single status.

This means the money I sent Texas was wasted. On top of that, they take up to 25 business days. Now I have to try to cancel. They even provide apostilles which are tailored to various countries.

I will ship the Florida application out today, and I should have my marriage-ready document in maybe 2 weeks.

Iceland is looking good.

Before I got help from Florida, I was looking for alternatives. Gibraltar’s website seemed to indicate that they would accept Rhodah as a tourist, and they would also let us marry using an affidavit from me, notarized in Gibraltar. I started planning a trip.

Gibraltar is too tiny to hold much interest, so I thought we might take trains up into Europe. We can go to Spain, France, and Switzerland right now, unless I’ve misunderstood things. Right now you can check different “authoritative” sites and get differing information on coronavirus restrictions. I thought we could hit Marseille and then spend some time in Lucerne, where I spent part of a summer when I was in high school.

The first time I visited Lucerne, I fell in love with a cheerleader named Debbie. She seemed to be on board briefly, and then she started running around with a guy who played football in Calera, Alabama. I thought the world had collapsed. I thought love was supposed to be forever.

Of course, this girl was wrong for me. There was no way she could have been a good wife. I was young, though, and no one had taught me anything at all about women and marriage. I really believed God would put a boy of 16 and a girl of 14 together for life.

I didn’t eat for 13 days. I lost weight. I didn’t move fast enough when the cheerleader’s roommate showed interest. On the night before we left Europe, she asked me to dance and planted her lips on mine. I flew home on a high note, but I wished I had done something instead of waiting.

Visiting Lucerne with my new wife would feel like a victory lap.

Today I learned that Gibraltar is not accepting Zambians after all. That kills my plan. Maybe we should marry in Iceland and then fly to the continent for our honeymoon. Iceland looks great, but I can’t imagine spending more than a few days there.

Missing Spain will be a bonus. I’ve heard enough Spanish for a lifetime, and there is something dark about Spanish and Hispanic culture. It has a similar feel to Muslim culture, which should not be a surprise, given that Spaniards and Hispanics have so much Arab blood.

Spain is bigger than it looks on a map, so getting out would have taken at least two days.

I was disappointed to learn that the trains in Europe had changed. I knew there were fast new trains in Europe, but I didn’t know how common they were. I had been hoping for comfortable cruising on the nice, old-fashioned trains I remembered from over 30 years ago. It looks like Star Trek trains are all over the place now. You zip along at 200 mph in a double-decker car.

I’m not interested in speed. I enjoy watching the countryside roll by. I liked stopping in little towns and leaning out the windows to buy food from vendors. I guess those days are ending, except maybe in America, which has a backward passenger rail system.

I suppose a person can drive in Europe. Maybe we could fly to Marseille and drive through the alps. The gasoline would probably cost hundreds of dollars.

Jeremy Clarkson says Switzerland is like hell for drivers. The speed limits on many roads are very low, and being the kind of people they are, the Swiss enforce them. It’s strange the Germans don’t have the same policy. Maybe the highway is the only place where Germans can cut loose. But for the Swiss speed limits, people like Clarkson would probably spend every weekend in the alps, driving Porsches into guard rails.

My two favorite hangouts in Lucerne–Fugi’s restaurant and Pickwick’s Pub–appear to be gone. Fugi’s had nice, fatty Swiss food, which I liked. Pickwick’s was where I learned to drink way too much beer, at the age of 16.

I have looked at restaurants online, in Lucerne and other European cities, and I have been disappointed. Many, many places are full of the same nouveau garbage they serve in America. Cold kale and blue corn soup with locally-sourced squid ears. News flash, Europeans: no one goes to your countries to eat pretentious food they can get at home. They want the food your parents ate. I’ll have to screen restaurants in advance in order to avoid being buried in Gordon-Ramsay-wannabee gastronomic science projects.

Food doesn’t actually have to be creative to be good. A rib eye steak, prepared correctly, is still as wonderful as it would have been in 1905. In fact, most restaurants prepare steaks and other simple foods badly, after centuries of practice. It’s still a big deal to walk into a restaurant and get a perfect steak, a fluffy baked potato, and a proper martini without disgusting olive juice in it. I’ll bet I would have to drive 90 miles to get that meal, unless I wanted to cook.

Update

It’s frustrating, trying to get solid information on travel, especially for Zambians, because no one really cares whether they get to go anywhere. I have three sources for information on Switzerland. One says Rhodah will have to quarantine for 7 days. That’s no good. Another, the official Swiss travel information site, claims she does not have to quarantine at all. My third source, the Swiss government, has not responded to the email I sent.

France doesn’t look good. One source says Rhodah would have to quarantine for a week. I would not. I’m not sure why a vaccinated Zambian has to be treated differently from a vaccinated American. We get the same shots. Is the delta variant more likely to accompany a Zambian? I don’t know.

I just found a claim that Iceland has a 5-day quarantine requirement, but it sort of looks like it only applies to unvaccinated people. I see indications that if you’re vaccinated, you only have to quarantine until you get the result of a post-flight test.

Maybe we can marry in Iceland and then fly to Switzerland so we can honeymoon in a more pleasant location. I’ll have to delay applying for proof that I’m single until I know where we’re going.

My friends Alonzo and Teri have announced that they want to come. That will make for an interesting trip. I never thought they would want to spend that much.

Anyway, God will get us married one way or another. Getting the answers is a challenge, but it’s a nice problem to have.