Blog #440                                August 14, 2025

 

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dante’s Inferno, but Dante describes nine separate levels of Hell.  Level 7 is the Denver airport.  We arrived on time, but our luggage apparently arrived in a different Zip Code, because to collect it we had to walk half a mile, then board a crowded subway train which zips you to a luggage area approximately the size of Pennsylvania.  The signs directed us to Luggage Area 4, Carousel 2 where our one bag was hopefully waiting patiently for us.  It was not.  In fact, it was waiting on Carousel 3.  After 20 minutes, we were notified of this aberration and located the bag.  Ready to go.  Now, we had to find Level Five then exit and locate Island 5 where we could contact Uber for our ride.  Discovering America was easier than this.

 

You know me well enough by now to recognize that using Uber was an unfamiliar, unwanted and terrorizing prospect.  But, after much coaxing and some training by my daughters, I did it, it worked and six minutes later Mohammed arrived.  I was as proud as if I had discovered fire.  One problem -- Mohammed spoke only Arabic.  Well, I managed to say hello in Arabic (yes, I can) and discovered that Mohammed was from Mauritania (I know where that is).  But there was no other communication, and there we were, two old Jews in a strange state, in a strange car, with an unfamiliar and uncommunicative man.  Well, Mama GPS got all of us to where we should be and everything turned out fine.  But, I thought, next time I don’t want to be picked up by Jerry the Jihad who can’t speak English.  I want to be picked up by a guy named Bernie who knew my wife’s cousin in Florida.  Let’s start a new ride service.  We’ll call it JUBER.

 

When we owned a home in Phoenix, I met a cab driver named Fariborz from Iran.  We became friends and he would pick me up from the airport every time.  When I travelled to Turkey, I bought Fariborz some saffron, which he really treasured and his wife made me an antimacassar which I still have.  On our Turkey trip, we also travelled to Greece.  Now the Greek cab drivers are the worst in the world.  No matter where you want to go, they take you to their brother-in-law’s jewelry story.  Every time.  Even when you told them not to, they took you to the jewelry store.  I hated them.

 

I remember when our children were young, there was a cab-driver named Maxi.  Naturally, everyone called him Maxi the Taxi.  His wife was actually named Minny.  Maxi and Minny.  Maxi was a midget.  Ok, that’s about as much as I can say about taxis. 

 

I am writing you today from Boulder, Colorado.  I have only been here once before, briefly, and yet I have seen it a dozen times.  It’s Asheville, NC, it’s St. Louis’ Central West End, it’s Greenwich Village and Berkely and every other college town or ski resort.  It’s seedy and tacky; it’s edgy and artsy and chi-chi all at the same time.  Where ragged street jugglers, magicians and string quartets compete for tourist dollars on the street corners.  Where every restaurant is dog friendly, gluten free and vegan.  Where the forgotten culture, the counter-culture, the homeless culture, the drug culture and the artist culture merge somehow to become the avant-garde culture.  Where every night has an art festival, a revival and an exhibition.  Where a store charging $2,500 for a flower vase is next to a Himalayan gift shop that smells of incense and yak dung.   Where a double-decker bus is turned into a chocolate restaurant. Where everybody accepts everybody and loves everybody no matter what they are or believe.  It’s loud and exciting and troubling and expensive and fun.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone? (Macbeth).  I am not in Boulder.  I am home, alone, with no lap to nap on, nobody to wake up at 4:00 in the morning, nobody to scratch my ears.  I hope the old man isn’t gone for long.  I’ll just watch the birds play outside.  Purr.

 

Hi, there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and keeping busy.  The last few weeks, I have looked at my calendar and found it as blank as P. Diddy’s dance card.  Still, I somehow make it through the day.

 

Each morning I wake with the sun

And spend the whole day on the run

I’ve found that it’s true

When you’ve nothing to do,

You don’t really know when you’re done.

 

The one thing I don’t want to spend my time doing is watching the news.  The news is horrible – shootings, stabbings, legislators fleeing the state to avoid having to vote, tariffs, Epstein.  You shouldn’t even watch the news.  Take this crazy story.  Multiple lunatics have taken to throwing sex toys onto the court during WNBA games.  That’s ladies’ basketball.  One was arrested and charged with:

 

·        Disturbing the peace

·        Tresspass

·        Indecent exposure

 

Listen, instead of making up these silly charges, can’t they just charge someone with being Galactically Stupid?  It should be a crime just to be that ignorant, inconsiderate and insulting.  See, I told you not to watch the news.

 

I’d better get to a Weekly Word.  How about antimacassar?  It means a piece of cloth put over the back of a chair to protect it from grease and dirt.

 

Boulder was great fun.  I just came home last night.  We saw lots of cute stores and upscale restaurants and gorgeous mountains and a bunch of moose.  What’s the plural of moose?  Meese, mooses, moosies.  Maybe it’s just moose.  How about we just say I saw a moose and then I saw another moose?  Every time I see a moose, I think of Bullwinkle, and then I think of myself.  Carol and I are so like Rocky and Bullwinkle.  She’s just like Rocky --fast and smart and totally in charge, and I’m like Bullwinkle – slow, mostly incompetent, loyal but goofy, often lost.  We make a perfect pair.

 

But now I’m back to my home and my cat and to you.  So stay well, count your blessings and come on back next week.

 

Bullwinkle                                         Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #439                                August 7, 2025

 

My six-month check-up with Dr. Skin.  Naturally, I brought a map of all my skin’s bumps, blisters, bulges, blemishes and protuberances for her to slice and dice.  She ignored a few, froze a couple and decided one spot on my leg was suspicious.  I’m not kidding about the map.  It’s like the chalk outline of a body at a crime scene.

 

Anyway, she sliced off the suspicious spot, painlessly and sent it away for biopsy.  My leg responded by bleeding and she called for a cauterizing device.  Do not fear, I was not watching any of this.  I was reading the signs on the wall and trying to rearrange the letters to make new words.  That’s what I do to take my mind off the blood and guts and gore and misery of anything medical.  The cauterizing device must involve some electrical discharge because she said, “You don’t have a pacemaker or defibrillator, do you?”  Yes, I replied, I have both.  “Well, this shouldn’t set them off,” she said and proceeded cavalierly to zap my skin.  The bleeding stopped and my heart did not, so everything was fine.

 

I have had that defibrillator go off once, due to an electrical discharge in an underwater light while I was swimming.  It was kind of like getting whapped by Moby Dick’s tail.  But that was a long time ago, and my heart is doing fine.  In fact, my doctor just received the report that the pacemaker sends him every month or so, and he sent me the following:

 

We just have to give you some props

Cause your heart diagnostic is tops

Your heart will stay strong

And keep humming along

That is, till your battery stops.

 

Yes, it’s time to change the battery.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another, said Roseanne Roseannadanna, and she was right.  Getting old is not just a physical experience, but a mental one as well.  However, I finally have a solution for this feeling old thing.  As soon as we reach Medicare, we should change our ages to Centigrade.    I’m serious now.  Listen up.  I am 79 years old, but in Centigrade (let’s see, subtract 32 and multiply by five ninths) -- that makes me 26.  Now doesn’t that sound better?  85 would become 29.   I bet you feel younger already.  Once I had a nurse tell me my temperature was 37, so why not my age?  I’m 26! 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Now don’t you feel better saying your age in centigrade?  I feel so good, I’m going to tell you a joke.  Fritz and Pedro are out walking their dogs.  Fritz has a big, beautiful German Shepherd; Pedro a tiny Chihuahua.  It’s a warm day and Fritz says, “Let’s go into that bar and get a beer.”  Pedro replies, “The sign says NO PETS ALLOWED.”   Fritz says, “Watch this”, puts on dark sunglasses and saunters into the bar with the German Shepherd.  A few minutes later he comes out looking refreshed.  “Well?” asks Pedro.  “No sweat,” says Fritz, “with the dark glasses they thought I was blind and that Buster was my seeing-eye dog.  The beer was great.” 

 

So Pedro borrows the dark glasses and heads into the bar where he is immediately accosted by a burly bouncer.  “No dogs, Mister,” he barks.  Pedro responds with confidence, “Can’t you see I’m blind?  This animal is my seeing-eye dog.”  “No chance, Bozo,” growls the bouncer.  “That’s a Chihuahua.”  “What?” shrieks Pedro.  “They gave me a Chihuahua?”

 

We used to have a dog named Alex.  Somehow his memory came up the other night, and I commented that Alex was a wonderful dog and that I missed him sleeping on my pillow.  Carol said, “That’s alright, you’ll see him in Doggy Heaven.”  Doggy Heaven?  First of all, I’m not even sick.  And second, is that where she thinks I’m going?  Doggy Heaven?  I guess I’m nothing more than an Alta-Cocker Spaniel to her.  Probably on our wedding night she thought to herself, “What! They gave me a Chihuahua?”  Well, alright Alex, wait up for me, Boy.  We can share a pillow for eternity.  Such a good boy!

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  To bed, to bed! There’s knocking at the gate (Macbeth.)  What?  Some dog is going to share his pillow?  I thought I was my Pops’ best buddy, and I’m certainly not going to any place named Doggy Heaven.  I need to talk with that crazy old man.  Purr.

 

I just opened the mail, and there was a bill for an echo-cardiogram.  The charge was $7834.  The insurance paid $495.  The “adjustment”, what the hospital wrote off, was $7,309, and I had to pay $30.  The hospital received a total of $525, less than 7% of the original charge.  So, in effect, 93% of the charge was fake.  What is the purpose of this flim-flam shell game?  What blind, third-level Ottoman clerk devised such a bizarre hoax.  “Step right up, ladies and gents, I have a cantaloupe for sale.  Today only, the price is $129, but if you give me $4, I’ll forget the rest.”  I can be stupid sometimes, but not stupid enough to understand that.

 

At the end of each blog, I always encourage you to send your comments.  I love to hear your thoughts, whether they are good or bad.  Recently, I have received two separate comments unmercifully, but lovingly I hope, excoriating me for the misuse of the word “less” when I should have used “fewer”.  I agree.  See, I told you I could be stupid sometimes.  Karl Popper said, wisdom is “realizing more fully the infinity of my ignorance”.  I was wrong and thank my humble readers with due obeisance. I will try to make less mistakes in the future.  Or is it fewer?

 

I like that my readers teach me things, just as I try to teach you.  Like our Weekly Word which today will be obeisance.  It is the acknowledgement of another’s importance or superiority.  I could have made it cavalier or excoriate, both of which appeared above, but those were our weekly words in previous blogs.  You think I don’t keep track of all this?

 

And I also keep track of the time, which is now over.  Stay well, count your blessings, and be back here in a week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #438                                July 31, 2025

 

I just came up with a great name for an architect – Joaquin Closet.  And speaking of closets, I don’t have any.  First of all, the woman takes the biggest closet.  My wife’s closet is so big it has a food court.  Then she takes the second biggest closet.  Then (you know I’m right) she takes the third biggest closet.  I have a drawer by the front door and a manila envelope under the couch.  I don’t care.  The less clothes I have, the less choices I have to make in the morning and the less chance of hearing, “If you’re going out dressed like that, I’m not going with you.”

 

Because who really looks at a man the most?  That’s right, his wife.  And who looks at his wife the most?  Well -- she does!  The bathroom wall is 100% mirror.  There are makeup mirrors and hand-held mirrors, magnifying suction mirrors and full-length mirrors.  Next to the front door is a “decorative” mirror.  Decorative my behind! It’s so she can get one last look before she goes out. Then to the car which is loaded with mirrors.  The only reason the rear-view mirror swivels is so she can look at herself while she’s driving.  The only time she ever looks in a man’s eyes is when he is wearing mirrored sunglasses.  With assorted sun-glazed store windows, polished countertops and backs of spoons, she is never too far from a mirror.  Too far from a mirror?  Horrors!

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and staying cool.  It has been stunningly hot here in St. Louis.  It’s hotter than a Taylor Swift ticket, hotter than a Caitlin Clark rookie card, hotter than the Jeffrey Epstein list, hotter than Joy Behar’s temper.

 

I know you all love Joy Behar, but every time I see her, I tell my wife I’m moving to Mudville.  Why Mudville, she asks.  Because, I reply, there is no Joy in Mudville.  If you don’t get that reference, it’s from a famous poem called Casey at the Bat, one of my favorites.  My favorite poem is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.  You knew that, of course.  But did you know that I can recite the whole thing?  A few years ago, I just decided to memorize it.  I might have been seeing a psychiatrist at the time, which makes some sense.  I started with the first line, and when I had repeated it hundreds of times and had it down pat, I moved to the second line.  It took me six or eight months to get all 108 lines memorized, and I keep the memory fresh by repeating the entire poem at least once a week.  It takes about 6½ minutes.  Now, please, if you happen to see me out in the real world, don’t ask me to recite The Raven.  It’s happened before and I start and then they get bored and make me stop.  That gets me Raven mad.  Nevermore!

 

I have a new idea for a book, a steamy, sensual, scandal-filled exposé of a high-priced Texas accounting firm.  I’m calling it Debit Does Dallas.  Then. I’m going to write a self-help book for overweight Catholics.  It’s called Original Thin.

 

Speaking of books, I went to the library to pick one up, a 900-page hardback called The Arms of Krupp.  Nine hundred pages!  I asked the librarian if I could have the book longer than two weeks as I didn’t think I could finish the monster in that time.  You never know, she said, maybe you won’t be able to put it down.  Put it down? I said.  I can barely pick it up.

 

Here, in my Wonderful World of Weirdness, I like to tell you stories, mostly about my family and mostly true.  Here’s one.  My grandson Austin is 15 now, but when he was in pre-school, he was proudly showing off his alphabet skills to me one day.  He was perfect until he reached “P”.  Then he stopped; he couldn’t remember the rest.  “Poppy”, he said apologetically, “I only could get up to P”.  I told him it was ok.

 

He did all his letters just right

Then he stopped, but I said “That’s alright

“You got up to P

“And that’s OK by me

“I get up to P every night.”

 

I know that sounds contrived, but it is absolutely a true story, and the last three lines of the limerick were exactly what I said to him.

 

Here’s another story.  My daughter in North Carolina, Jennifer, is an animal lover with a motley collection of dogs, cats and chickens.  A few months ago, I was driving and she was in the back when I heard her say, “Oh-oh”.  I turned around and she pointed out a spider the size of a blueberry pie resting on the back of my seat.  I hate spiders. I hate spiders worse than Trump hates CNN.  Spiders and cement mixers, but that’s another story.  “Kill the damn thing,” I shrieked.  Well, Sister-Save-The-World wasn’t about to destroy a fellow creature, so she coaxed the puppy-sized monster out of the car and onto a nearby lawn.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Weaving spiders, come not here (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). My Pops loves animals.  He loves me.  But if he sees a spider, he always says, “Shakey, go get that thing.”  I never do though.  I hate spiders too.  Purr. 

 

I met a friend and classmate this week and in our discussion the word motlier came up.  I think we both made it up at the same time.  He suggested I should include that as the Weekly Word.  I always try to keep my loyal readers happy, but I looked up motlier and it doesn’t exist.  But motley does.  So, Neil, here it is.  Motley means greatly diversified or multi-colored.

 

Last week, I told you I hated shots.  That elicited a response from another friend and classmate, Joel, who told me the Marine Corps would have taught me how to deal with fear -- and then I would be scared all the time.  I told him I am scared all the time – I’m married.  But I’m brave enough to come back next week with some more drivel.  Don’t miss it.  Meanwhile, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #437                                July 24, 2025

 

I have not been ashamed, in these weekly messages, to reveal all my quirky eccentricities and special peccadillos.  It’s fine.  I don’t mind sharing with you.  You are part of my electronic family, after all, so I might as well share a few more examples of what makes me what the rest of my family likes to call “that crazy old man”.  Hey, families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts.  So, eccentricity #1 – I do not trust anything saved electronically.  I don’t trust backups, the cloud, Carbonite or any other form of document security.  I have them all; I pay for them all, but I don’t trust them, so for everything I have written – 1,400 letters to my daughters, 1,500 limericks, several hundred poems and songs, 437 blogs to you – I have a hard copy.  Call me Ishmael!  I know it’s a waste of paper and I hate to waste paper, but it’s my stuff and I want to make sure it’s all there when I die so my family can save it for a year and then throw it in the trash.

 

Eccentricity #2 -- I really do hate to waste paper.  I tear whatever is blank into little squares and use them for scratch paper.  It’s good for the planet.  I wish you would do it too.

 

I’m asking you down on my knees

To re-use your scratch-paper please

So listen to Michael

And always recycle

‘Cause paper does not grow on trees.

 

Does it?

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  What should we talk about?  I never start to write with a plan.  The topics just kind of intrude themselves into my brain.  How about I tell you how brave I am?  A while back, I went to Dr. Skin for a treatment and she asked me to participate in a study.  I like Dr. Skin, was happy to help her out, and, a few weeks later, was back in her office, undressed and waiting for whatever.  The nurse came in and looked at me. “You know you’re going to get stitches,” she said.  “What?” I cried. “Yah,” she continued, “we punch two holes, one in an affected area and one in an unaffected area and then we have to stitch them up.  “What?”  I replied.  My vocabulary becomes very limited when I’m petrified.  John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”  Maybe so, but this little cowboy galloped out of that office faster than Rosie O’Donnell at an Irish Trump rally.

 

Ok, I’m a wimp.  Let’s just get it out of our system and say it all together now:  YOU’RE A WIMP!  Well, you didn’t have to scream.  I don’t like stitches or drawing blood or shots.  I remember when I was a little kid and the family doctor, Dr. Golub, liked giving shots so much that he would come to my house with Nadine, his nurse, and the two of them would chase me around the bed just to stick a needle in me.  Now, when I get a shot from Dr. Hand or Dr. Knee, I try to work through my fear by telling jokes to whatever medical personnel are around.  The jokes pass the time and sometimes even get a laugh.  “I went to a doctor who told me I was fat.  I said I wanted a second opinion.  He said – you’re ugly too.”

 

 I actually did get a shot in my knee this week.  I was a little anxious about it, and I told the PA and her assistant.  The assistant said, I’ll sing you a song.  And she did, a children’s song about a kitten.  As soon as I heard it, I started to tell her about Shakespeare and by that time the shot was over.  I told you I was a wimp.  And the shot?  Didn’t hurt a bit.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Blood will have blood (Macbeth).  I love that old man, but he is certainly a wimp.  Sometimes I scratch him a little or give him a bite, and he has to run for a bandage.  What a baby!  Humans!  Purr. 

 

Did you think peccadillo would be the Weekly Word?  You were right.  A peccadillo is a small, relatively unimportant offense or sin.  You probably have your own.

 

Let’s share some more random thoughts.  How about award shows?  I hate them.  Plus, I hate that ubiquitous red-carpet question: Who are you wearing? I’m too old to know who these people are.  They ought to have an award show for old people - The Golden Years Awards, hosted by Dick Clark.  He must still be alive somewhere.  They could give awards for the Oldest Tie or the Most Organized Pill Carrier or the Smart Phone with the Least Apps or the Longest Number of Days Without Losing Your Reading Glasses.  And “who” would all these famous oldies be wearing?  How about:

 

Oscar de la Yenta

Jimmy Choo Slowly

Donna Medi-karan                          

Diuretic Von Furstenberg

 

Calvin Coolidge was well-known as being a man of few words.  At a state dinner once, he was seated next to a woman to whom he had not spoken all evening until she turned to him and said, “Mr. President, a man today bet me that I couldn’t get you to say three words to me.”  The President looked at her and replied, “You lose.”  I, on the other hand, am a man of many words – 1,066 words to be exact – and we’re nearing that threshold now.  Just one final thought.

 

“Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it.  You may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."

That is a quote from the movie Inherit the Wind.  I am reminded of it often by the ever-growing pace of technological growth and the plethora of new gadgets and ways to download and upload and monopolize your time.  Sometimes it’s nice just to think about a quiet place where the birds are beautiful and the crickets hum and the clouds don’t smell of gasoline.  And you can grow older – and shorter – in peace.  I hope you find that place.

 

Join me again next week.  Please stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #436                                July 17, 2025

 

Hamlet was wrong.  He said there were a “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”.  Now Hamlet may have been good at soliloquies, but his math wasn’t so hot.  He couldn’t even remember what apartment he lived in; he kept saying, “2B or not 2B.”  Anyway, he sorely underestimated the natural shocks that human flesh must deal with.  It seems that people I know are coming up with more exotic and previously unheard-of symptoms, syndromes and diagnoses.  Heart stuff, esophageal stuff, brain stuff, headaches, rashes, back aches.  All of a sudden “ablation” has become a household word.  It’s all very troubling and frightening.  But, here we are, in whatever shape we are, doing the best we can and doing our damnedest to enjoy the world.  I hope I can add to that enjoyment every once in a while.

 

In the past week or so, I’ve had two friends, men in their 80s, tell me they shot their age in golf.  To shoot your age, you must be two things: you must be a really good golfer and you must be old. 

 

Talking about golf makes me think about my father, but before I embark upon this story, I must admit of two probablies.  First, I’ve probably told it to you before and second, you’ve probably forgotten it.  So let’s go.

 

My father loved golf and was pretty good at it.  For about 20 years, from my late 30s to my late 50s, I played golf with my Dad every Friday, weather permitting.  I never beat him, but by the time he was in his late 80s, his vision worsened and he had to give the game up.  He moved into an assisted living facility and got himself prepared by buying a phone (yes, a plug-it-in-the-wall phone) that had large number pads which were easy to see.  Then he memorized every phone number he would need – mine, Carol’s, his three granddaughters, the liquor store, so that by the time he went blind, he could cope.

 

One day he tried to replace the phone receiver into its cradle and put it, instead, in a glass of liquid.  We were never sure whether the glass contained water or vodka, but the result was the same.  He needed a new phone and engaged me to get a replacement.  He insisted it had to be the same one – white, with the big number pads.  Where did you get it, I asked.  Famous-Barr, he replied.  Famous-Barr, for those of you too young to remember, was a department store.

 

So I went to Famous-Barr, but they only had black.  I knew he wanted white, but what difference did it make?  I bought the phone, brought it to him and set it up.  “Is that the same one I had before?” he asked.  I told him it was.  “Is it white?”  Now, I could have lied to him, but he’s my Dad, so I just said, “What difference does it make?  You’re blind.”  “But the white looks better,” he insisted.  Ok, I returned the phone and got him a white one.  Of course I did.  He was my Dad.  He’s the one who taught me how to play golf and baseball and basketball.

 

And speaking of golf.  Were we speaking of golf?  Oh yes, to shoot your age, you must be two things: you must be a good golfer and you must be old.  I qualify in only one of those categories, so I’m not expecting to shoot my age.  I’m happy if I shoot my blood-pressure.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Do you ever have problems with the IRS?  Last week, the mail included a notice from that miserable, draconian agency informing me that I did something wrong and owed them $1700 in penalties.  I was upset, mortified, horrified.  What was I to do?  I took a deep breath and remembered Alice.  This is a story for another time, but there was a period in my life when for two years, every night, every single night, I listened to a song called Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  The song lasts 22 minutes and used to calm me down.

 

Whenever I’m bitter and callous

And filled with depression and malice

I can always calm down

With the comforting sound

Of 22 minutes with Alice.

 

So I listened to Alice, took another deep breath, found the number to call and prepared myself for the inevitable and endless torture. You know, it isn’t so much the waiting that I mind.  I’m sure all of the vicious, greedy and evil employees of the IRS must be very busy stealing and cheating us poor slobs out of our money.  Plus, I’m certain that each sadistic, sinister agent gets a demonic thrill making us wait on the phone.  No, it isn’t the waiting I mind; it’s the music. Where do they get that crap?  If that’s elevator music, the elevator is on its way to Hell.  I believe most of the mental health problems in America are caused by “hold” music.  Over and over, never-ending, loud and horrible.  But I had no choice, and I punched in the number.  Six minutes later a very polite gentleman answered the phone.  He listened to my story and decided to waive all penalties.  The entire call lasted eleven minutes.  Don’t ever say anything bad about my friends at the IRS.  Thank you, Alice.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  When the sea was calm all ships alike showed mastery in floating (Coriolanus).  He doesn’t need to listen to that song any more ‘cause he has me to calm him down.  When he sits down to read, I jump onto his lap and we purr to each other.  Most of the time, we both fall asleep.  Purr.

 

Mortified is our Weekly Word.  It means embarrassed, ashamed or humiliated, kind of like I feel when I, a college graduate, law-school educated, Phi Beta Kappa member, have to ask help, in order to get a friggin’ sandwich at a fast-food kiosk, from a minimum wage teenager who thought second-grade was the best three years of his life.  Wait, I need to calm down.  You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

 

I’d better go now.  Stay well, please, and count your blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #435                                         July 10, 2025

 

After dinner most nights I begin my evening activities, which mostly consist of finding a room in which my wife is not watching television.  Oops, too late.  She has both televisions blasting on different channels.  I searched for reasons not to blow my brains out and I found one – writing to you.  I like it, and you do too, I guess.  So, let’s get started

 

I am considering coming out of retirement and becoming a Marriage Counsellor.  You see, I have a unique ability to view a domestic conflict from both sides.  A few years ago, I had a cornea transplant and the donor was a 62-year-old woman from Kansas City.  Thus, my left eye is female.  My right eye, therefore, gives me the male perspective while my left sees things from the feminine point of view.  Hence, the marriage counselling gig.  “Yes, Mr. Smith, I can see with my right eye that you are a dedicated and caring husband.  But with my left eye I see that you always get lost and wear linen in November.”  The first candidate for my transplant was a 50-year-old man who had died of a heart attack.  They told me that was great because the guy was healthy.  Healthy? I asked.  How long had he been healthy before he died of a heart attack?  We switched to the lady from Kansas City.

 

The eye surgery was performed by a local physician named Dr. Blinder.  Seriously!  Now what perverse sense of fate would lead someone with that name to that profession?  My Cardiologist is named Dr. Sewall, which is pretty close to See-Well.  He should have been an eye doctor.  Anyway, I have mentioned the odd coincidence to friends and have been rewarded with other doctors who maybe should have chosen a different specialty.  Apparently, there is a dentist named Dr. Payne and a surgeon named Dr. Butcher.  Someone told me that in Florida resides a plastic surgeon named Dr. Pricey.  In Texas, there is a urologist named Dr. Dickey and an OB-GYN named Dr. Fingers. Unless my friends are fibbing to me, these are all real.

 

But you wouldn’t fib to me, would you?  Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and that you had a nice Independence Day holiday.  You know, I really think that the Founding Fathers made a huge mistake.  They should have put the Fourth of July in the middle of December.  That way, the fireworks could start at 5:00, when it gets dark, and everyone could be in bed by 9:00.  In July, it gets dark so late that by the time the fireworks start, I’m drowsy.  Just a thought.

 

Here’s another thought.  What’s all this kerfuffle about P. Diddy?  Who is he anyway?  The first time I heard “P. Diddy”, I thought it was a diagnosis from a urologist.  Aren’t there more important things to worry about?  Politics, the Big Beautiful Bill, Iran, Israel, what Oprah wore to the Bezos wedding.  Those are important.  But P. Diddy?  Enough.

 

And even more preposterous and puerile is the hotdog-eating contest that many of my friends were talking about.  I don’t give a flying frankfurter about some clown eating 70 hotdogs in ten minutes.  It’s disgusting and stupid and insulting to all the hungry people in the world.

 

Ok, I’d better calm down.  Let’s talk about puerile, the Weekly Word.  It means childishly silly and trivial.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Unquiet meals make ill digestions (Comedy of Errors).  That hotdog thing must have been won by a dog.  If you put a truck-full of hotdogs in front of a dog, the silly thing would eat until it exploded.  A cat would just walk by and order some salmon paté.  Purr.

 

Now back to doctors.  I visited a doctor recently, Dr. Hand, to get a shot for trigger finger.  I love this guy; he’s so entertaining and friendly.  But he’s also late.  He made me wait 45 minutes this time, and I decided to give him some advice.

 

Now talking with you has been great

But it makes your appointments run late

You should know that your patients

Do not have much patience

And we would prefer not to wait.

 

I actually did say that to him, albeit not in rhyming form, and he responded with a smile and said, “I don’t care; I like talking to my patients.”

 

I got a call the other day from some marketing company that wanted to pay me fifty bucks to participate in a 2-hour focus group on radio preferences.  Why not?  I have time between taking pills, reading books, writing letters to my kids, writing a blog, taking pills, doing my errands, visiting doctors, writing a limerick, playing with Shakespeare and taking pills.

 

I even had time to start writing a book about old people.  I got as far as coming up with some potential titles.  Here they are:

 

·        The World According to AARP

·        Rheumatism at the Top

·        To Kill an Early Bird

·        Cataract on a Hot Tin Roof

·        A Clockwork Prune

·         A Tale of Two Colonoscopies

·         Atlas Limped

·         Into Thin Hair

 

Back to the radio marketing.  They started by asking my age, and as soon as they found out I was older than Methuselah’s uncle, they booted me. They don’t care what radio stations old people listen to.  Seniors probably just listen to NPR and Golden Oldies.  And anyway, who cares about old people in general?  They clog up the highways by driving slowly.  They waste our country’s medical resources by taking too long to die.  They pester their children about the simplest technological task.  Who needs these silly old people anyway?  Unless you’re a four-year-old or six or eight or ten, and you want a really cool bedtime story about dinosaurs and princesses and silly old men who fall all over themselves and make you giggle and who never stop loving you no matter what.  That’s ok, I didn’t have time for the stupid survey anyway.

 

Besides, it’s bedtime now, so goodnight to all my grandchildren.  Sleep well, my darlings.  And to all my loyal readers, don’t get all jealous on me.  I’ve told you plenty of stories already, and I’m pretty sure some of them have put you to sleep.  So goodnight, Gracie.  Stay well, enjoy your Summer and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com