Blog #463                                January 22, 2026

 

Somebody mentioned Shake Shack the other day.  I will never forget the week that Shake Shack came to town, and we just HAAAAD to go.  I mean, how could we allow a new restaurant to come to town and not eat there before the first ketchup spill had dried on the floor?  (And don’t tell me it’s catsup.  Ketchup is what normal people put on their fries.  Catsup is what strange people from Long Island put on their scrambled eggs.)  So we drove twenty miles and stood in a line outside in 34^o cold for 40 minutes with a bunch of perfervid college students who thought we were the cast from Cocoon III.  The atmosphere was frenetic and fun, the burger was ok, the fries were terrible and the prices were outrageous.  But it was the new thing, the place to be, the scene, the in place.  And besides, you know the old saying; nothing ventured, nothing shivered in the cold for 40 minutes just to get an average burger and cold fries.   

 

I like Italian food better than burgers and fries, and I especially like Sicilian food with lots of olive oil and lemon and garlic.  A Sicilian restaurant is an Italian restaurant with pictures of criminals hung in the Men’s Room.  They usually have Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in pics from The Godfather and James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.  Why do they display pictures of murderers and gangsters?  Are they proud of them?  Do you go to a Jewish deli and see pictures of Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff?  Do German restaurants have pictures of Hitler?  It wouldn’t surprise me.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Did you know that last week was National Bagel Day?  To me, it was a big zero.  And did you know what

perfervid means?  It’s an unfamiliar word, but I know you like strange words for your Weekly Word.  Perfervid means very intense and impassioned. 

 

Actually, I have become very perfervid over something my oldest daughter just shared with me.  First, let me remind you that last week’s blog started with my frustrated confession of how difficult it was for me to replace some fluorescent bulbs in my bathroom and continued with a frustrating experience with a new hotel room.  Well, apparently my daughter has some setting on her phone which causes an Artificial Intelligence app to provide a short summary of any lengthy emails she receives.  What a world, right?  Anyway, here is the AI summary of my blog from last week:

 

Michael sent a blog post detailing his struggles

replacing a bathroom light fixture and his

wife’s refusal to help.  Michael complained

 about the overly complicated, frustrating

 technology in a recent Los Angeles hotel room.

 

That’s it.  That’s what AI gives you, dull prose with no humor and no irony.  So tell me, would you rather read the AI summary and be done with it or would you rather read my blog in all it’s wordy and humorous glory?  You’d better come up with the right answer.

 

I think the old man talks too much, but it doesn’t matter.  The only part I read is the Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat.  That old poet, the one named after me, said, Silence is the perfectest herald of joy (Much Ado About Nothing).  I would never bore you with too many words.  In fact, all I say is Meow.

 

Sorry if my cat is a little grumpy.  I bought him a new toy the other day.  It’s a little ball with a tail and some feathers, and there’s a motor inside the ball.  When you push a button, the ball rolls around and shakes its tail.  And Shakespeare runs away in terror and hides under a bed.  But if you don’t activate the motor, he loves to play with it.  See, he’s a Luddite like me; he doesn’t like new technology either.

 

I have a little puzzle for you.  Try putting six Xs on a tic-tac-toe grid without getting three in a row.  Answer later.

 

Prices for medicine seem to have gone up a lot in 2025.  I just got a new prescription for my arm and my leg.  It cost me an arm and a leg.

 

These tablets will act as a cure

Please take before bed to make sure

Dilute with some juice

‘Cause repeated use

Will cause you to be very poor.

 

When one of the side-effects on the label is “Bankruptcy”, it’s time to look for a generic. 

 

We are firmly into Winter now and it is very cold.  I hate the cold, and, as I age, I seem to be getting less tolerant of it.  Why did God have to invent winter?  As a contrast?  John Steinbeck wrote, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”  Maybe God made winter so we could marvel at the beauty of snow.  Or maybe He just wanted to make us shiver.

And yes, I called God a He.  Do I really need to apologize for that?  It seems that God has been called Our Father, Our King for almost 6,000 years, but in the past 25 years we have changed God to Our Parent, Our Ruler.  Why can’t God be a man?  Mother Nature hasn’t been changed to Parent Nature.  Have you ever heard of Parent Goose stories?  Or the Siblings Grimm?  Or Parent Theresa?  With all the scandals going on nowadays, I guess it’s not so good to be a man anyway.  So let’s just pray to Whoever for a mild winter.  Amen!  Oops, I guess I should have said – A-person!

 

And speaking of The Brothers Grimm.  Why isn’t it the Grimm Brothers?  It just sounds strange.  Have you ever heard of the Brothers Everly?  Or the Brothers Righteous?  Or the Brothers Smothers? 

 

And speaking of Parent Theresa, she once said, “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”  Thanks for joining me today.  I hope I have left you a little better and happier.  Maybe a smile or two.  Who needs that boring AI summary?  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Here are the six Xs placed on a tic-tac-toe grid that don’t make three in a row. 

 

X  X 

X     X

   X  X

 

 

 

 

Blog #462                                         January 15, 2026

 

The light went out in the bathroom.  It’s one of those long tube-thing lights.  Is that too technical for you?  Carol was out at a luncheon or something, so I was on my own, a position that usually leads to disaster.  But, somehow, I pried the plexiglass cover off, got the two tubes out and took them to the hardware store where I sheepishly asked for help.  I left with the two replacement tubes and then it hit me:  I had to get them home unbroken, install them and replace the Plexiglas sheet all by myself.  I considered that to have about the same likelihood as my getting hit by a falling cello.  Plus, my wife was gone.  I was alone!  I could fall off the stepladder and break both legs and die of starvation!  I could have a cardiac event and not be able to call 9-1-1!  I could get hit by a falling cello! 

 

Well, I got home, took out the stepladder and screwed up my limited courage.  I took a deep breath, told myself that I was a capable and clever man and had to do what a capable and clever man should do – wait for his wife to come home.  When she did, I asked her to hold the stepladder.  She refused.  You see, she remembered too well when her father was replacing a lightbulb and her mother was holding the ladder.  They were younger at the time than we are now.  Well, her father fell and broke a hip – not his hip, the mother’s hip.  So Carol said, “I’m not going to let you fall on me.  You’re on your own, Buster.”  And so I was, but then I remembered what the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev said -- “If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”   So I pressed forward and got it done with only two band-aids and a little crack in the plexiglass that almost no-one can see.

 

And now I can concentrate on writing this week’s Limerick Oyster.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  I am sick when I do look on thee (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  What he really should concentrate on is playing with me.  He spends so much time reading all those books and writing all those stupid blog things and going to his card games – well, he doesn’t spend enough time playing with me.  I mean, what’s more important than a man’s cat?  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  And speaking of limericks, let’s speak of limericks.  You know by now that I have been writing a letter to my three daughters every week for 28 years.  I still do, and each one contains a limerick, sometimes two.  And, of course, I have kept a copy of each one and a running count.  I am frighteningly anal, am I not?  The total as of now is 1,499 limericks, so I decided that my fifteen hundredth limerick should be about my fifteen hundredth limerick.  I guess that makes it a meta-limerick.  I wrote it about 4:00 in the morning while lying in bed.  Here it is:

 

I don’t juggle or do magic tricks

I just sit here and write limericks

I’ve written you rhymes

One-point-five thousand times

In two years, it’ll be one-point six.

 

Not my favorite limerick, but it got the job done.  My favorite limerick was inspired by the 2007 story of Lisa Nowak, an astronaut who had a boyfriend who was fooling around on her.  So she drove 900 miles to confront the miscreants, and to save time, she wore diapers so she didn’t have to stop.  True story.  That inspired me to write this:

 

To follow the man she sought

She went to the store and bought

A box of Depends

It’s perfect, my friends

To cover your astronaut.

 

Miscreant, our Weekly Word, means a person who behaves badly or in a way that breaks the law.

 

Have you been to a hotel lately?  The last time I was in a hotel, in Los Angeles, it was a bizarre and humbling experience.  They really should put up a sign:  NOT RECOMMENDED FOR OLD PEOPLE.  Unlocking the door to my room was the first challenge.  There’s this little card and you don’t stick it into anything.  You just swipe it in precisely the right place at absolutely the right angle for exactly the right number of mini-seconds, and it opens.  Well, it’s supposed to.  I was about to ask the desk clerk for the right Hindu mantra to use when Carol finally showed me how to do it.  Once the door was unlocked, you had to open it.  It weighed 800 pounds.  I had to get two bell-hops and Arnold Schwarzenegger to help me push.  Who designed this place?  Mengele?  Then you have to turn on the lights.  There was no light-switch.  What happened to light switches?  Instead, there was a white, plastic plate with a picture of a light-bulb on it and if you touched it in the right place, some lights got brighter or dimmer.  All I wanted was to turn on the light, not engineer a New Year’s Eve light show in Times Square.  And, of course, the likelihood that we would figure out the television set was the same as the likelihood of Joy Behar asking Kristi Noem to a sleepover.  And don’t even get me started about how to work the shower.

 

Why would you replace a thing as simple and obvious as a $2 light switch with a $90 touch-plate with arrows and pictures of light bulbs that only Elon Musk knows how to operate?  It was obvious that all these highfalutin, new-fangled gizmos cost a lot of money, because, even though the room was $350 a night, it clearly was not enough to pay for toilet paper wider than a roll of Scotch Tape.

 

You know, I’m not sure all this technology can improve on the old, reliable things they purport to replace – simple things like light switches, paper towels or light bulbs that actually cost less than a BMW.

 

Or simple, unassuming, friendly little blogs I send you each week.  I hope you enjoyed this one and will be back next week.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #461                                January 8, 2026

 

Well, I’ve done it.  I turned 80 yesterday, and, according to my grandchildren, I am now officially old.  You know you’re an old man if your cell-phone still has the factory installed ring-tone.  You know you’re an old man if you spend more time shopping for deals on pills than on cars.  You know you’re an old man if your PSA score is more important than your golf score.  You know you’re an old man if installing a light bulb is the technological highlight of your day.  You know you’re an old man if you have read 900 books.  And you know you are a ridiculous old man if you have kept a list of all those books.  I read a lot because it fills up my head with a bunch of things I never knew before.  Don’t worry, I still have room up there.

 

I really do read quite a lot

And learn things more often than not

I learn, I might say,

Something new every day

To replace all the stuff I forgot.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Please do not send any birthday cards.  However, if you are overwhelmed with magnanimity, a light-blue Mercedes convertible would be nice.  I hope you’re feeling well and getting used to writing 2026 on your checks.  Yes, I have a list of all the books I’ve read since 1979.  That’s the year my wife suggested I should start reading more.  I agreed, and she handed me The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye.  Since then, 47 years ago, I have read 939 books, over 408,000 pages.  That’s not really so crazy.  I think Carol has read more than that and many of you have too.  What is crazy, lunatic, batty and actually frightening is that I’ve kept a list of every book, it’s author, number of pages, the year I read it and my rating.  Last year (2025) I read 34 books and my favorite was Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry.

 

Movie Review:  On New Year’s Eve, we went to see Song Sung Blue with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson.  I enjoyed it very, very much and recommend it to you.  It’s the story of a Neil Diamond impersonator and it’s full of music that you will all know.  After the movie, we had a wonderful dinner with wonderful friends.  A very nice evening.

 

I feel like I know something about a lot of things – history, astronomy, evolution, poetry.  I can even talk a little about Calculus or Sponge Bob.  But there are just some things I do not understand at all, and, as your weekly griot, I feel compelled to share them with you.  First, why is “phonetic” not spelled like it sounds.  Or why is “abbreviation” such a long word.  Or why a woman who drives a $100,000 Mercedes and wears a diamond ring as big as a cinnamon roll will go into a casino and play the penny slots.  Or my cable bill.  Now, I won’t bore you with all the details of my cable experience, but here’s the bottom line:  if we get rid of HBO, we can save twenty dollars a month, but if we keep HBO, we can save thirty.  Does that make any sense?  Well, that’s what the cable man told us.  You know the expression “my Mama didn’t raise no fools”?  Well, my Mama raised nothing but fools, but at least this fool had the sense to marry a smart woman.  So Carol took that thirty-dollar deal faster than Nicolás Maduro was siphoned out of Venezuela, and we left as happy as a turkey on the day after Thanksgiving.

 

Did you notice the word griot?  That’s our Weekly Word.  It’s pronounced gree-oh and it means a traveling poet or storyteller.  I’m proud to be yours.

 

I read a news story today about a man who has been on Death Row since 1990 and is scheduled to be executed next June.  This is what we call a non sequitur.  One second I was talking about dinner with friends, and the next second I was talking about Death Row.  Actually, they do have something in common – food.  You see, the condemned is suing the State because his food is not prepared to his religious standards.  He does get his special food, but he complains that it’s not good enough.  Well, I have the perfect solution – kill him now.  Why does it take so long to execute an execution?  I don’t like the death penalty, but if we’re going to have it, we should do it!  If you have been found guilty of murdering your wife, who gives a Flying Frankfurter what you eat?  We as a society have determined that you are not fit to live among us.  But you get to complain about the menu?  Maybe the food’s not hot enough?  Well, let’s get this over with and, where you’re going, I’m pretty sure the food is always hot.

 

I have noticed a family of phrases being used more and more.  They are phrases like: You gotta do what you gotta do.  It is what it is.  Cheap is cheap.  It’s not over till it’s over.  I can only do what I can do.  All of these phrases have the same meaning – nothing.  They really mean, “I have nothing to say, but I was going to exhale anyway so I figured I might as well pass it over my vocal cords.”

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side. (As You Like It).  How come I never get hot food?  I mean, I can’t complain.  I get wet food and dry food and I get it every day and it tastes good. 

Hey, it is what it is.  Purr.

 

My friends, we have been with each other now for more than eight years.  You know everything there is to know about me and my wife, my cat and my daughters – even the chickens.  And I feel like I’ve come to know you too.  So I think I have the right to make this request: don’t make any New Year’s resolutions. I like you just the way you are.  Please stay well and count your blessings.  And even though it’s not over till it’s over – it’s over.  See you next week.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #460                                January 1, 2026   

 

Did you all have a nice Christmas?  I hope so, and no matter what our religious persuasions might be, I’m certain that each of us was visited by our favorite Christmas icon, that bearded fat-man we call on every Christmas to bring us the things we want -- General Tso.  I hope your gifts were loving and your chicken spicy. 

 

Another year has gone, and it was a strange one indeed!  Have you ever seen anything like 2025?  Hurricanes, fires, mass shootings, sexual scandals, politics, politics, politics!   It seems like the most prevalent form of hatred now is political.  We thrill when something bad happens to “their” side.  We mope when something bad happens to “our” side.  We’ve stopped talking to family members and friends because they didn’t vote the right way.  I think it is very sad.  Don’t we have something better to do?  Well, I have something better to do.  I have to clean up a whole bunch of things I’ve been wanting to tell you.  First of all, hi there and welcome to the 2026 version of Limerick Oyster.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Let’s talk about shoes.

 

Some time ago, my wife and I went to a play.  At the end, as the standing ovation waned, she said to me, “I’m missing a shoe.”  I bent down and looked under my seat.  There was a shoe, and I picked it up and handed it to her.  “That’s not my shoe.”  What?  Am I at a play or a sale at Nordstrom’s?  She quickly found hers and I was left holding a red shoe.   What was I going to do with a red shoe?  Soon, of course, the shoe was claimed by a churlish woman who I’m certain suffered from athlete’s foot, toe fungus, plantar fasciitis and warts.  And probably gout.  I gave the red shoe to the woman with a pleasant reminder that, “There’s no place like home.”  Then I drove home as fast as I could and scrubbed my hands in turpentine.  Why does it seem so disgusting to touch someone else’s shoes?

 

Or take pills prescribed for a dog?  I was having some arthritis a while back and my daughter Jennifer said she had some arthritis pills she got for her dogs.   The canines didn’t like the pills, so she offered them to me.  Of course I refused such silliness, but I went to the internet anyway to see what these doggy-pills were all about.  It’s really amazing how many canine illnesses there are.  You knew there was a list coming, didn’t you?  I love lists.  Here are some doggy diseases:

 

·        Ulcerative Collie-itis

·        Barkinson’s

·        Dysenterrier

·        Restless Tail Syndrome

·        Itchy Pomeranian

·        Rin Tin Tinnitus

·        Mastiff Neck

·        Aarfritis

·        Irritable Bow-Wow Syndrome

 

I like dogs.  I like to talk to them and have them around.  But I don’t want one.  I watch many of my neighbors walking their dogs, and I just am not up for that any more.  Besides, I have Shakespeare and I have my wife.  She’s like a high-strung little poodle with curly black hair and skinny legs. 

 

Message from Shakespeare:  It warms the very sickness in my heart (Hamlet).  There he goes again, that old fool, saying he likes dogs.  Dogs are big and loud and sloppy and have to go outside.  Cats are soft and quiet and smart.  And, by the way, cats have diseases too.  I think I have purr-sitis and cat-aracts and kit-zophrenia.  Purr.

 

You know that a bunch of cows is called a herd and a bunch of wolves is a pack.  But there are a few offbeat names for groups of other animals: a crash of rhinos, a dazzle of zebras, a journey of giraffes, a pride of lions, a parliament of owls.  All of these are real, and I would like to propose one more – a Cacophony of Women.  Well, have you ever heard Carol and four or five of her friends all talking at the same time?

 

I often pick on my wife here, but it’s really the husband-wife conflict that I am exposing, not her.  The truth is we have a great relationship.  She does what she wants and I do what I want.  For instance, a few years ago three of my friends and I planned a golfing trip to San Antonio.  All by ourselves.  This was our trip, our time, just us men!

 

The guys all developed a plan

To go where a man is a man

Where we can be free

To be all we can be

As long as our wives say we can.

 

They said we could.  Actually, my wife is wonderful and  very easy to deal with.  I just have to make sure never to allow her to become miserable.  When my wife mentions the word “miserable”, something had better change!  And that means now!  Like the Holiday Party we went to recently.  After about an hour, I could see that she wanted to leave more than a CNN reporter wants to leave a Trump rally.  You can always tell when she wants to leave.  She starts to make comments like, “Do you think your car door opener will work from here?”  Or, “Do you remember where you parked?”  It works every time.

 

Let’s do our Weekly Word.  It’s churlish, which means irritable and rude.

 

I hope you had a nice New Year’s Eve.  We went to a movie and dinner.  I’ll give you the movie review next week.  We didn’t stay up until midnight.  Not any more.  Youth is when you are allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you are forced to and old age is when you don’t want to.  You can say that another way.  Youth is when you watch the ball drop in St. Louis and then go out and party.  Middle age is when you watch the ball drop in New York so you can go to sleep at 11:00.  Old age is when you watch the ball drop in Paris so you can turn in right after dinner.

 

Charles F. Raymond said, Another year! Use it kindly; you will not have it long, and almost ere you are aware, it will be past.  I hope the new year treats you kindly.  Stay well, count your blessings, and don’t be churlish.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #459                      December 25, 2025

 

Merry Christmas to all my loyal friends and readers!  And Feliz Navidad!  If you celebrate the birth of Christ, my Christmas Carol and I wish you a wonderful, safe holiday.  If you don’t celebrate Christmas, you can still enjoy the lights and the music and the spirit.  It’s 73^o here in St. Louis, and the only white things you can see on this Christmas are the sheets of paper that the Jeffrey Epstein files are written on.  I’ll get back to that.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May (Love’s Labour’s Lost).  Purry Christmas.  Deck the halls with bowls of cat-food – meow, meow, meow and purr, purr, purr.

 

Did Santa and his ten reindeer land on your roof last night and drop presents down your chimney?  Ten reindeer, I hear you query?  Yes, ten.  There were Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen.  And, of course, Rudolph and Olive.  Olive?  Yes, Olive was the other reindeer, the one that was mean to Rudolph.  Olive, the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling festive and well.  I promise this blog will contain no Epstein Files. XXXXXXXXXXX.  There, I’ve redacted something for you.  Does that make you feel better?  I don’t get it.  The only issue in the last ten years that our Congressional representatives have agreed upon in a bi-partisan landslide is that they want to see more dirty pictures.  I guess salacity crosses party lines.  Why are we paying them?

 

And yes, salacity is our Weekly Word.  It means the expression of undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters.  Let’s move on to something more wholesome, like grandchildren.  Do you ever sit around with your grandchildren and tell them how life was when you were a kid?  Things like:

 

·        In my day our telephones were attached to the wall?

·        I remember when there were only three television channels.

·        Back then, our flag only had 48 stars.  Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states yet.

·        And it only cost four cents to mail a letter.

I wonder what our grandchildren, 40 years from now, will be telling their grandchildren.

 

·        When I was young, we had little copper things called pennies.

·        Back then, our flag only had 50 stars.  Canada and Venezuela weren’t states yet.

·        And people actually drove their own cars.

·        And people actually sent other people pieces of paper, called letters, which were delivered by something called the U.S. Mail.

·        Go ahead and play now, kids.  They just released another six million Jeffrey Epstein photos.

What with all the scandals involving powerful men caught in sexual misbehaviors of one form or another, my wife asked me if, in the many years I had been in business and had many women working under me (that’s a bad phrase, isn’t it?), whether I had been involved in any harassment.  “Well, in all honesty,” I told her, “there was one little incident in High School.  You see, the high-school girls were playing softball and I just couldn’t take my eyes off the shortstop.” 

 

I thrilled to her figure and grace

And loved every view of her face

So I tried to make sport

With the girl who played short

But I couldn’t get past second base.

 

It all worked out fine in the end -- I married her.

 

It’s time for the Award shows.  The American Music Awards is Sunday.  And then Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, Tony, Golden Globe, People’s Choice, Critic’s Choice, SAG.  It seems that every week there’s an extravaganza where gatherings of rich people give themselves awards.  Have you ever really looked at the audience at these award shows?  I certainly hope Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are watching, because if they want to tax the rich, this is the place to be.  There’s violence and antisemitism in the streets, poverty in every large American city, war in the Ukraine. But what do we see at these award shows?  A bunch of Barbie dolls strutting around in their Versace’s and Jimmy Choos, signing $20 million contracts for their next movies.  And a bunch of fat, male directors looking for aspiring starlets to jump on their casting couch.   And when they accept their awards for being rich and skinny, or their awards for being ruthless and powerful, they always take the opportunity to tell us how to live our boring and normal lives.  They wouldn’t know what a normal life was if they ran over one with their Maserati.   Where is the Occupy Oscars crowd?  Where is the outrage?  Is there anybody disgusted besides me?

 

And the funny thing is -- we really don’t care who wins the awards.  We only care about “who” they’re wearing.  It seems to me that all these starlets are either too skinny or too large, and they’re either wearing Bulimia Blass or Oscar de la Tenta.  Which brings up the following question: why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

 

I celebrated a birthday yesterday.  You see, it was sixteen years ago yesterday that they brought me back to life with that most delicate and clever of medical tricks – massive electric shock.  I truly thought it was all over for me then, but I’m still here and the pacemaker-defibrillator does not seem to have had any residual effects.  Except, of course, that when I cough, the garage door goes up.  But the fun part is that if I’m driving and want to honk the horn, all I have to do is rub a balloon on my hair.  And, of course, there are certain things I have to avoid, like vacuuming, cross-country skiing and getting run over by a reindeer.  I can just picture myself, up in Heaven with a twelve-point rack up my you-know-what.  No electric shock is going to bring me back from that!  And I can just imagine what God would say – MICHAEL, I TRIED TO KILL YOU SIXTEEN YEARS AGO AND THAT DIDN’T WORK.  THIS TIME I SENT RUDOLPH.

 

Alright, you have better things to do, so I’ll let you go now.  Have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful week.  Be sure to stay well and count your blessings.  See you next Thursday

 

Olive                                        Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #458                                December 18, 2025

 

I have not seen a Marmatod in fourteen-hundred years.

A Marmatod is like an ox with feathers in its ears,

But somehow still it hears.

 

Well, it’s not really like an ox because it has four eyes,

A dozen antlers, sixteen legs, two flippers and it flies.

At least it really tries.

 

I think that I remember what a Marmatod has got,

But it’s been fourteen-hundred years and that is quite a lot,

So maybe I forgot.

 

That is probably my favorite poem.  It’s whimsical and silly and all the things that I’m not, at least on the surface.  On the surface I’m logical and organized and practical and reserved and dull.  But underneath, somewhere, is a Marmatod, writing poetry and trying to get the feathers out of his ears and looking for someone to play with.

 

Hi there.  Wanna play?  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying the Christmas music.  Yes, radio stations everywhere are playing Christmas songs non-stop.  We all love Christmas songs, but sometimes I just get overloaded with them.  I mean, how much Burl Ives can one person take?   I think we need some Christmas songs for old people.  You knew that was coming, didn’t you?  How about Grandma Got Run Over by a Wheelchair or All I Want for Christman Is Some New False Teeth.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Give thanks for what you are today (Twelfth Night).    I like Christmas music too.  I’m Dreaming of a Cat Christmas.  Santa Paws Is Coming to Town.  Litter Drummer Boy.  Pops bought me a present, some little thing that shakes and rolls around on the floor.  I don’t like it.  My best present is just to have my Pops to take care of me.  Purr.

 

I hope you all are enjoying the December holiday atmosphere?   Are you out shopping?  My wife loves to shop.  I mean she loves to shop, and when she’s really on a roll, you couldn’t pry her away from the stores with Shaquille O’Neal’s shoehorn.  Now, Carol does everything fast.  She plays cards fast, cooks fast, cleans fast, walks fast.  We even have a special nickname for her -- The Princess of Lickety Split.  I think I have it figured out why she does everything fast.  It’s to make more time for her favorite thing. 

 

She’s moving at light speed non-stop

Her pace – well it makes my jaw drop

I found out at last

Why she does things so fast:

It leaves her with more time to shop.

 

It’s nearing the end of the year, and I have a whole gallimaufry of unused thoughts that I need to express before their use-by dates – things like toilets, llamas, famous Jews and cabbages and kings.  But first, I have to tell you what our Weekly Word, gallimaufry, means.  A gallimaufry is an unorganized collection of various things, like a hodge-podge.  I bet you didn’t know that one.

 

Let’s start with the public toilets, by which I mean toilets in restaurants or Walmart or the airport.  FIRST: What happened to flushing?  Is that one of those jobs that “Americans won’t do”?  Was it such a complicated process that we had to turn it over to an intricate and expensive droid?  I want to flush when I’m finished, not when R2P2 has decided I am far enough away?  SECOND:  I want some soap and water.  What happened to faucets?  They’re gone.  Instead, I have to wave my hands under a spout and wait for water to come out.  It doesn’t work the first time – or the second.  Sometimes, I have to conduct the entire 1812 Overture before a brief gush of water comes out.  THIRD:  What happened to towels?  I want a towel, not hot air.  I get enough hot air listening to talk radio.  And besides, the only thing that hot air does is turn the cold water on my hands into hot water on my hands.  What could be more simple than to have a bathroom with a toilet, a sink, some soap and some paper towels?  But instead, we have a fully-automated factory that whisks you in, flushes you out, soaps you off and blows you out.  I hate public toilets.

 

As you know, my oldest daughter has chickens, and she is always concerned about hawks and foxes and other predators.  Recently, some so-called bird expert told her to get a llama, and that would keep the predators away.  A llama!  You see, those animal-specialist types live in their own dream world where crickets sing to puppets and white rabbits wear pocket watches and llamas grow on trees.  Where exactly do you go for a llama, Llamas R Us?  Nacho Llamas?  I remember years ago when a Great Horned Owl showed up on my porch, and I called one of these animal guys and asked what I should feed the creature.  He asked, “Do you have any dead mice?”  Sure, I said, I keep a box in the freezer in case Monty Hall drops by.

 

I read a lot of history, and from my readings I have painstakingly compiled a list of historical figures who, though you didn’t know it, most certainly were Jewish.  You can tell just by the things they said.  For instance:

 

We knew King Arthur was Jewish when he said, “I want a round table.”

We knew the Wicked Witch of the West was Jewish when she said, “I’m not going out in the rain and getting wet.”

We knew Joan of Arc was Jewish when she said, “I’m cold.  Can we turn the heat up?”

We knew Attila was Jewish when he said, “Yes, Hun.  Whatever you say, Hun.”

We knew Venus de Milo was Jewish when she said, “Damn, I broke a nail.”

We knew Helen of Troy was Jewish when she said, “Menelaus, take me to Paris.”

We knew Goldilocks was Jewish when she said, “This bed’s too hard.  I want a new room.”

We knew Little Red Riding Hood was Jewish when she said, “We’re going out with the Wolfs again tonight.”

 

Well, have I wasted enough of your time?  I know that was silly, but it’s the holiday season and I knew you would tolerate a little of my goofiness.  And what about the cabbages and kings?  Maybe next week.  Goodbye for now.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com