Blog #452                                November 6, 2025

 

I have come up with an interesting collection of observations.  I’m sure it won’t rival The Theory of Evolution, but interesting nonetheless.  I have discovered a crucial and fundamental dichotomy – inside/outside.  For instance, if a creature, perhaps a spider, is outside, it is one of Nature’s creations, to be respected and allowed to exist with dignity and honor.  If it’s inside, it’s a pest and needs to be squashed.  And snow – if it’s outside, it is sparkling and thrilling and beautiful.  If it’s inside, you need a new roof.  And what about the human body?  If it’s inside it’s mucus; if it’s outside it’s snot.  If it’s inside it’s urine; if it’s outside it’s piss.  If it’s inside it’s part of the natural human processes; if it’s outside it’s Yuck.  And spiders, God?  Seriously?

 

We have two sinks in our bathroom, and when we moved in, after some weeks of intensive study and energetic debate, we decided that Carol should have one and I should have one.  Each is of pearly white porcelain.  I have noticed however that mine is sometimes marked with little black pieces of something or other.  Here’s what I think is the cause.  Carol likes her sink to be clean, so whenever she has to use eye-liner or eye-shadow or whatever eye-schmutz she uses, she moves over to my sink and gets it dirty instead of hers.  Her sink is as white and brilliant as Beyoncé’s teeth, whereas mine looks like the mephitic nesting place of a family of Canadian geese.   It’s fine; her eyes look great.

 

As you’ve probably guessed, the Weekly Word is mephitic.  Mephitic means foul smelling and noxious.  Now you know.  Don’t forget.

 

Hi there.  Welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and that you had a nice Halloween.  Halloween reminds me of costumes, which reminds me of a whole long story which leads back to the topic of women and makeup and sinks and mirrors.  It starts with a story about a costume (that’s the Halloween segue).

 

It was Purim, a kind of Jewish Halloween, and Austin, my five-year-old grandson, and I were parked in front of his Temple Pre-School waiting for one of the teachers to get him from the car.  We were early.  This, to those of you who know me well, is not a surprise.  I am always early.  Punctuality is the Politeness of Kings.  That was actually the quip under my picture in the High School Yearbook.  Can you believe that?  After three years, they did not have one nice thing to say about me except, “Ya, well, the bastard was on time.”  But am I bitter after 62 years?  Does a bear hibernate?  

 

Ok, back to the car with my grandson.  We were playing a game as we waited.  He was a Jedi and was using a soda straw as his light saber to slice up the evil Darth Vader (that was me).  I put a small, round, orange sticker on my nose to show where he wounded me and I howled in mock pain.  Great fun.  Then I heard someone at the door ready to collect Austin and take him into school.  I turned to my left to press the unlock button, when I heard Austin yell, “You’re a pig!”  Oh my god, I could not believe how rude he had been, calling the teacher a pig.  How was I going to apologize?  I screwed up my courage and turned to face the offended teacher.  She was wearing a pig costume for Purim and was hugging Austin who was laughing.  Whew!

 

From there, I went to the cable company to talk about my bill, Walmart to buy some things, the Post Office to mail a package and the bookstore to browse.  I bought a small book and, as I was checking out, the clerk said, “You know, sir, you have a sticker on your nose?”  I had forgotten.  I’m sure you had forgotten as well.  I presume that the previous three people with whom I had had close dealings did not think it odd for an old man to be wearing an orange dot on his nose. Or perhaps they thought I was a Hindu woman with bad aim.  Was I mortified?  Not a bit.

 

The reason I brought this up was because at dinner the other night, I saw Carol examining her face in the reflection on a butter knife.  Yes, a butter knife!  Who does that?  A butter knife!  You see, a woman never goes more than two minutes without examining her reflection in a wall mirror, compact, rear-view mirror, puddle, store window or, failing any of those, the nearby cutlery.  It is unimaginable that a woman could visit four stores not knowing that there was an orange sticker on her nose.  Or that she was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe.  I confess to that one too.  Well, it was dark that morning.

 

Last Friday, I met a friend for “coffee” at McDonald’s.  I meet with him about once a month, and I look forward to these meetings.  We talk about politics and mutual friends and health insurance and life and also death.  He mentioned that a local synagogue had a special on cemetery plots -- two for the price of one.  The immediate and only thought that rushed into my head was – there must be a limerick there somewhere.  Over the next 24 hours, I dug and shoveled and excavated and finally found it.  Here it is:

 

We bought plots for Carol and me

And did it as cheap as could be

We saved lots of dough

By using BOGO

That’s BURY-ONE-GET-ONE for free.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones (Julius Caesar.)  What about me, Pops?  I know I have nine lives, but when they’re all done, I want to be right there shnuggled up next to you.  I don’t take up much room.  You can fit me in a shoebox and we can be next to each other forever.  Purr.

 

Ok, Shakespeare, I won’t forget you.  And I won’t forget you all either.  I’ll be right back here next week.  If you’re not here, you’ll miss me.  Stay warm, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #451                                October 30, 2025

 

This morning, I went to McDonalds.  As I was filling my Diet Coke at the drink bar, a little Korean boy walked to the bar.  He was about 3-foot-7 and could not reach the straws.  He stood there with his hand stretched up as far as it could, but there was no chance.  I guess most people would have said, “Hi there, little boy.  Do you need a straw?  Would you like me to get you a straw?  What’s your name?  There you go; can you say thank you?”  I, being a highly trained handler of small children, said not a word.  I plucked a straw from the container and handed it down to the little Kim Jong Short.  He accepted the straw, looked me right in the eye, gave me a 3-foot 7-inch smile and walked back to his Daddy.  I smiled too and walked to my car.  A Chinese proverb says, “A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.”  Maybe I left a pleasant one.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I have so many things to talk about today, but I have to be selective because I place a limit on how long my blog can be.  I don’t want you to get bored. So, let’s talk about math.  Wait, is math not your thing?  Have you always thought that Isaac Newton was famous for making cookies?  Do you have trouble counting up the number of Barbra Streisand’s Farewell Concerts?  Ok, I’ll just mention a few scientific theories.

 

Mathematics has the Riemann Hypothesis.  Physics has the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal.  Biology has Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  I would now like to introduce an analogous principal for eating lunch at home.  It is called the Fox Conjecture of Infinite SpaghettiOs, which states that no matter how much time and effort you invest in emptying a can of SpaghettiOs, you can never get all of them out.  I just spent several minutes with a spoon, scooping and scraping out the little Os into a bowl.  I looked inside, then I scooped, then looked again and scraped and scraped until I was absolutely positive that no errant O had escaped.  But when I washed out the supposedly empty can, out came the reddened water and three smiling, clever little SpaghettiOs that had somehow escaped my efforts.  Q.E.D.

 

Q.E.D., our Weekly Word, is actually an abbreviation of the Latin words "Quod Erat Demonstrandum" which loosely translated means "that which was to be demonstrated". It is usually placed at the end of a mathematical proof to indicate that the proof is complete.

 

Ok, now to more important things – my wife.  Being a husband is challenging.  It takes a long time to become fluent in Wife-Speak.  I have been married for fifty-eight years and I still don’t completely understand Wife-Speak.  I think I have a few phrases figured out.  For instance,

 

When she says: Are you hot?  she means - I’m hot, turn on the air conditioner.

When she says: Are you going out like that?  she means - If you are, I’m not going with you.

When she says: You look tired.  she means - Take me home; I’m tired.

When she says: My hair looks horrible! she means - You have three seconds to compliment my hair. Three, two, …

When she says: I like when you go shopping with me. she means - Drop me off at the door, Hop Sing, then come inside and hold my packages.

 

Anyone who thinks that a man can control a woman – is a bachelor.

 

We all watch Jeopardy, don’t we?  It’s fun!  We get to see how much we know and how awfully much we don’t know.  I think there should be a Senior Jeopardy.  I have some ideas along that line.  First, we have to get rid of that little clicker thing they use.  Mechanical devices confuse us and we have arthritis in our fingers.  And which button controls the volume?  Second, we need more time to answer.  Who can think that fast?  And, of course, the questions have to be senior-friendly, like “What is Miralax for?”  This is stuff we know about.  I have a whole new Double Jeopardy category for you called Who’s the Dummy?  Here are the answers; you pick the ventriloquist’s dummy.

 

$200           Edgar Bergen or Charlie McCarthy

$400           Meatloaf or Lambchop

$600           Jerry Lewis or Jerry Mahoney

$800           Topo Gigio or Charo

$1000          Donald Trump or Chuck Schumer

 

How’d you do?  Did you get them all right?  The real dummies are Charlie McCarthy (held by Edgar Bergen), Lambchop (Shari Lewis), Jerry Mahoney (Paul Winchell), Topo Gigio (Ed Sullivan show) and – no, no, I’m not going there. Now you can try the Final Senior Jeopardy Answer: “She was the Indian princess on Howdy Doody.”

 

In all my life I have lived in seven different homes, yet I have never lived more than 12 miles from the place I was born.  Twelve miles in 79 years!  Doesn’t seem like much, does it?  Raccoons move around more than that.  Twelve miles!  I haven’t retired to sunny Naples or glorious Scottsdale or the fabulous Frisco Bay.  I didn’t go away to college. Twelve miles.  It never occurred to me that St. Louis was a great place to live, but now with all the disasters around us, I’m rethinking.   Hurricanes in Florida, fires in California, Joy Behar in New York.  Maybe our little town, even with its crime problem, is doing just fine.

 

To live in St. Louis is heaven

On a scale of ten, it’s eleven

The Cards and the Blues

The Zoo and Ted Drewes

And the shootings don’t start until seven.

 

Did you think I had forgotten this week’s limerick?  I’m not that forgetful, and you’re not that lucky.  I will not forget to come back next week with another one, so please stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you then.  And don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend.  Oh, the princess from Howdy Doody was Princess Summerfallwinterspring.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  O horror! Horror! Horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee! (Macbeth.)  I hope you humans have a fun Halloween.  But please be nice to black cats.  Trick or treat, you weird humans, and Purr.

 

Michael and Shakespeare       Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #450                                October 23, 2025

 

Every morning, I throw out the trash.  This consists of tying off the trash bag which has remained in the kitchen since the morning before and now contains the candy wrappers, banana peels, old strings, avocado husks, empty food containers and other sundry detritus of the previous twenty-four hours.  I tie a knot, carry the bag down the hall, open the trash chute and drop it in.  The bag drops down into something and then someone takes it somewhere.  They must care; they must have it under control, for I never see it again.  How simple.  How easy to dispose of all the physical trash and to start the new day fresh and free.  If only we could cleanse the mental garbage as effortlessly as the physical.  Just toss out the medical problems, the money worries, the anxiety for those we love, the disorientation and useless feelings of old age – throw them all in a large, recyclable, renewable, free-range, gluten-free bag and toss them down the same chute.  Let them mix with the banana peels and go wherever the empty avocados go.  And start the new day fresh and free.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling fresh and free and getting ready for Halloween – all the frightening house decorations, the horror movies that cable TV saves up for this season, the hungry and excited little urchins in their minatory costumes.  It’s all so much fun.  Our local grandkids are too old to trick-or-treat, and our condo building does not attract any kids, so Carol and I will go out to dinner.  And I know exactly where we’re going – wherever she tells me.  You know, of course, that there are two ways of arguing with a woman – and neither one works.

 

Let’s see, what shall we talk about?  How about our Weekly Word, which is minatory.  It means threatening.  I’ll bet you didn’t know that.  I didn’t either, until I read it in a book about Winston Churchill.  Learning new words makes you smart.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Lord, what fools these mortals be! (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  A few days ago, the WORDLE was CATTY.  What a wonderful, beautiful word.  Catty!  It took Pops six tries to get it.  He’s not as smart as you think he is.

 

With no sense of shame or timidity

I’ll tell you the truth with rapidity

He’s smart, you might guess

But he’s full of A-S

Which means Artificial Stupidity.

Purr.

 

Well, Shakespeare, my Artificial Stupidity says that was a pretty good limerick – for a cat.  The unstoppable advance of Artificial Intelligence frightens me. “What happens if we create a machine that is a little bit cleverer than we are?” said Lisbeth Salander, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Soon after that, the machines will figure out that the worst thing for them is to have people around.  It’s minatory.  That was our Weekly Word.  You haven’t forgotten already, have you?  Stop smoking pot.   It dulls your memory.

 

Trends indicate that the legal sale of marijuana is sweeping the nation, and soon it will be legal to buy pot in every state.  I can clearly envision McDonald’s adjusting their menu to add a Really Happy Meal which will include fries and a Diet-Toke.  They’re already training their staff to say, “Would you like highs with that?”

 

Of course, we’re going to see national chains created just to sell pot, so we need to come up with appropriate names.  I am up to the challenge.  Unfortunately, the perfect name for a national pot chain is already taken – Quik Trip.  But I have some alternative suggestions:

 

Pot-Belly’s            Toke-O-Bell          Grass Pro Shops

H & R Pot            Bed, Bath and Way Beyond

 

And if the whole pot thing works out well, then I’m sure they will quickly move all of us up to the harder substances.  A new drive-through chain for heavy drugs is already in the works.  It’s called Crack-In-The-Box.

 

And speaking of Happy Meals, I was at McDonald’s today, reading a book, when a lady my age came up to me.  “Oh,” she said, “I love old books and that looks like an old one.”  It was a nature book I got from the library, published in 1960, so indeed it was an old book – 65 years.  The sobering and depressing conclusion to that thought is that I was 14 when it was published.  How did I get this old?  There’s a lesson to be learned here -- never use an old book as a chick-magnet.  It only attracts old chicks.  Come to think of it, I like old chicks.  I’m married to one.  I think I’ll stick with the old books, the old chicks, the old songs and all that old stuff that clutters up my closet.  And if that makes all the young people think I’m “old”, well. blessed are they that can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused.

 

I like to look at other people’s books.  I can learn a lot by the books somebody reads.  I can tell what they like, whether we have similarities in taste, what interests them.  I can start conversations with a person just by looking at the book he’s reading.  But now people have “devices”.  I can’t tell what they’re reading on a device.  I don’t have a device; I have a book.  I like to smell it, feel it, hold it --   and fight off all the old chicks it attracts.

 

I met a woman today whose name was Sharifa.  She was Lebanese and married to a Spanish man.  We talked and I told her about my grandchildren.  She was much younger than me and had two young children, twin boys.  She said their names were Amal and Juan.  I asked if she had any pictures.  She pulled out her phone and showed me a photo. “This is Juan,” she said.  “Where’s the other?” I asked.  “Oh,” she said, “they’re identical twins.  If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amal.”

 

If that didn’t give you a laugh, go back to the Pot Store.

 

Well, we’ve come to the end of another adventure. I’m proud of you for staying awake for the whole thing.  I hope you enjoyed.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back next week.  And don’t be late.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog # 449                               October 16, 2025

 

Monday was Columbus Day.  Remember Columbus?  He’s the guy who founded Ohio State University.  Nobody remembers Columbus anymore except a few old Italians.  They don’t even call it Columbus Day.  Now it’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day, as if the American Indians were here when the Earth was created.  They were here before Columbus, but they displaced other peoples and tribes who, in return, had replaced other people.  None of this replacing thing was ever peaceful, fair or equitable.  It was just the ineluctable survival of the fittest.  Now the America that Columbus bumped into is populated by roughly 65% Europeans, 13% Africans, 22% South Americans and almost no Indigenous People.  And in another 200 years, it will be 80% South Americans, a few Europeans and a few Africans.  Like sand through the hourglass – right?

 

I’ll bet you guessed that the Weekly Word is ineluctable.  It means inescapable or unavoidable.  Good word to remember, though remembering things gets harder all the time.  Sometimes I forget my doctor’s name.  Often, I forget where my keys are – or my wallet or my phone or my bathroom.  Sometimes I forget what day it is.  But I can still remember the lyrics to songs I heard when I was a kid.  When I was five (1951), the Four Lads had a song called Istanbul, Not Constantinople.  I know the words.  Carol knows the words.  I think that’s why I married her.  Anytime the word Istanbul ever comes up in a conversation, Carol and I break into an annoying duet which ends with the phrase – Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.  My children hate it.  They’ve heard us do it a hundred times – at home, in a restaurant, in a taxi -- and it embarrasses them.  Last week, my oldest daughter was on her way to Croatia, and I got a phone call from her.  “Where are you?” I asked.  “Oh” she said, “we’re on the plane about to leave from Istanbul.”  Big mistake!  Carol and I reflexively burst into a loud version of the melody we knew so well, but by the time the song was through, my daughter was gone.  Either the plane took off or she hung up on us.

 

And speaking of remembering old songs, I have a Movie Review for you. Well, it wasn’t a movie; it was a Broadway show called Beautiful about singer-songwriter Carole King.  Anybody my age who remembers music from the 1960s will love this show.  I knew every word to every song and had to stifle myself from singing out loud.  Really spectacular!

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  In sweet music is such art (Henry VIII).  I remember old songs too.  Like What’s New Pussycat and How Much Is That Kitty in the Window.  Is that what it was?  Sometimes I forget too.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Or, as we used to say:  Hey there, hi there, ho there you’re as welcome as can be.  I hope you are feeling well.  We did another fast-food outing this week.  It was fun, we all laughed and enjoyed the company for two hours.  The food sucked, but at least I got a limerick out of it.

 

Let’s go eat fast food, everyone

It really will be lots of fun

We’ll meet and we’ll greet

Then sit down to eat

A whole lot of crap on a bun.

 

I just saw another crazy sign at a museum.  We’ll call it the Yummy Museum.  I am not making this up!

 

Diversity Statement:

The Yummy Museum is a community resource where all families raising young children are welcome. You are included without regard to race, age, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, family structure, citizenship, or socioeconomic background.

 

Wow, it must have taken them a long time to decide which kinds of people they will not discriminate against.  I did not see a category for People who read Moby Dick.  Why do we have to make an endless list of differences for which we will not discriminate? Why can’t we just say everybody is welcome?  Or, in Yummy’s case, everybody is welcome if you have $5.00 admission and no nuts. (It’s a peanut-allergy thing. You have a filthy mind.)  Really, a simple “Everyone Is Welcome” sign in 47 languages and Esperanto would be just fine.  And what’s with the family structure item?  Do they think we expect to be rejected because our family has two fathers, six mothers, a crazy uncle and a camel?  C’mon Yummy, lose the guilt of the world and just say everybody’s welcome. 

 

It seems like the more tolerant our society purports to be, the more we tend to cubbyhole everyone into racial, religious and sexual corners.  But what do I know?  I’m just an elderly, Jewish, third generation Russian-American, carnivorous, Midwestern, average height, Caucasian, married, straight, male United States citizen who can recite The Raven.  Pretty typical.

 

In any event, we had a wonderful time at the museum and by the time we left, my grandkids were happy and sleepy.  I guess that makes me Dopey and Grumpy.  And as Snow White used to say to all the dwarfs, “I do not discriminate on the basis of height or silly names.  But no nuts.”  Snow had a filthy mind too

 

I just heard a terrifying news broadcast on the radio that went like this:  Avalanche destroys Detroit; Flames burn Vancouver; Hurricanes rip through Florida; Lightning decimates Philadelphia.  My God, I thought, has the world come to an end?  I was relieved when I learned it was just the hockey scores. 

 

I have to go now.  I have to buy something from Amazon.  I really don’t need anything, but it’s so much fun.  Yesterday, I bought something from Amazon.   True story. The order was placed at 11:30; the item was shipped at 1:00 and arrived at 2:30. How is that possible?  Are they waiting outside with a van stuffed with things I might buy?  I think I’ll order something they can’t possibly deliver.  I’ll order a humorous and informative essay of exactly 1,066 words that has a Weekly Word and a message from a weird cat.  Let’s see them try to deliver that!  But if you want another one, I can deliver it to you next Thursday.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #448                                October 9, 2025

 

Stay well and count your blessings.  Wait, that’s what I say at the end of the blog, not the beginning.  I’m so confused.  I’m turned upside down, and it’s all because of my grocery store.  I always go in the entrance on the right, near the produce.  I start at bananas and end with bread and that’s the way it’s been for thousands of years.  It all started King Tut shopped 3,350 years ago at the local Yummy Mummy.  Well, Mrs. Tut probably did the shopping.  Her name was Ankhesenamun.  He called her Cupcake.  Anyway, Ankhe would start with bananas and work her way right to left and we’ve all been doing that for millennia.  But today they were doing some construction and the right-side entrance was closed.  I had to enter on the left side.  Well, you can imagine my disorientation.  I felt like an American trying to drive in London.  I felt like a breech baby.  I felt like the world was a tuxedo and I was a pair of brown shoes.  (Thank you, George Gobel.)  So, did I adapt?  Did I improvise?  Did I overcome?  No, I am maddeningly sclerotic, so I walked like an Egyptian down the length of the store and started at bananas.  You would have done the same.

 

Weekly Word: Sclerotic means rigid and unresponsive; without the ability to adapt.  I think that describes me, don’t you?  Hi there and welcome back.  The government is shut down, but Limerick Oyster is still in business, so wipe off your reading glasses and let’s get started.  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying the beautiful Fall weather.  What is all this hullaballoo about Russia?  Why are we afraid of them?  And how could we ever have worried that X, Y and Z had colluded with Й, Щ and Э?  I don’t get it.  I’ve been to Russia and they have nothing to offer but a bunch of palaces built by cruel and horrible despots who killed their own people and stole all their money.  As I left Russia, I turned around, looked at their sterile, ugly and decrepit apartment blocks and their sullen, overdressed and impolite border officials and told them how I felt.

 

I’ve read about all of your Czars

I’ve tasted your strange caviars

I’ve taken your tours

And I’ve seen what is yours

And I really prefer what is ours.

 

Take that, Vladimir!

 

I get a physical exam every year with Dr. Primary, and of course they take my blood pressure. Wouldn’t it be great if Carol and I could just average our blood pressure?  Can you guess which one of us has high versus low pressure?  Isn’t it obvious?  Carol runs on so much energy, we used to call her Ethel, and I am so passive that last week I was reading at the library and somebody put lilies in my lap.  After the blood pressure, the nurse always gives me some kind of cognitive test.  What day is it?  Who’s the President?  Who’s your Daddy?  Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?  Then she asks me to write any sentence, and I always write, “I hate needles!”  Then she asks me to memorize three words.  The first time she did that, the words were – apple, penny, table.  Ok, I passed.  A year later I was back and she was back and the questions were the same.  When she said, “I have three words for you to memorize, I immediately said, “You mean apple, penny, table?”  She looked at me, then looked at her paper and said, “I guess you pass.”

 

So how about if we give you a small cognitive test?  Can you say 60 words in 60 seconds without ever repeating a word twice or using a word that has the letter “a”?  Ready? Go!  I’ll get back to you later.

 

As I have told you, we went to a charity polo match last week.  I was sitting at a table, and I asked my wife to get me a Diet Coke at the bar.  She returned; I took a sip, and long before the vile liquid reached my stomach, I said, “This is Pepsi.”  She said that’s all they had and she hoped I wouldn’t notice.  What?  Not notice?  I have had a Diet Coke every morning for four decades.  Diet Coke is as different from Diet Pepsi as 7-Up is from motor oil.  Jeesh!

 

Someone asked me the other day what Disney character I most resemble.  I know, I can hear all of you yelling Dumbo.  That’s not nice.  But I thought for a while – there’s Captain Jack Sparrow, Aladdin, Prince Charming (somehow that always reminds me of years ago when we actually had cameras and we took the film to the camera shop to get it developed; then we’d sit around the house singing “Someday My Prints Will Come”).  I finally decided the Disney character I most resemble is Geppetto.   He’s the old man in Pinocchio who uses his experience and love to help mold little boys and girls out of their rough raw materials.  With three daughters and eight grandchildren, I like to think I’ve accomplished that.  Plus, it looks like my nose has grown a lot along the way.  So, what Disney character do you most resemble?  Sleeping Beauty?  No, most of you can’t sleep.  Cinderella?  No, you don’t do windows.  Aladdin’s Genie?  I’ve seen you in a bottle.  Goofy?  Just saying.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  What’s in a name? (Romeo and Juliet).  If Pops gets to be Gepetto, I get to be Gepetto’s little tuxedo cat.  His name was Figaro.  My name is much better.  And Tabby Cats are much handsomer than tuxedo cats.  Just purring!

 

Ok, the cognitive test about saying sixty words in sixty seconds without using an “a”.  Easy, peasy!  Just count from one to sixty.  There are no “a”s.  In fact, the first number that has an “a” is one thousand.  And the first number that has a “b” is one billion.  And the first number that has a “c” is one octillion.  How’s that for useless trivia?

 

I think I’m finished with all this silliness.  Thank you for coming back.  Stay well and count your blessings.  (I’ve heard that somewhere before.)  See you next week.

 

Geppetto                                           send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

  

 

Blog #447                                October 2, 2025

 

Do you realize what an exhaustive effort goes into writing these blogs?  Have you ever tried writing a thousand-word essay every week?  I know you haven’t because you have very busy lives.  Me too!  I have to throw out the trash and squeeze the last droplet out of my toothpaste tube and do all my quotidian chores.  But I take this writing thing very seriously.  (That probably means there aren’t a lot of yucks to look forward to here.)

 

One chore I had to do this week was my Sirius call.  Every year, I get a message from Sirius Radio.  Your subscription expires on October 25 and we will begin to automatically bill you $23 a month.  Then I call and reach a person in the Philippines named Juanita and I tell her I’m only paying $7 a month now and want that to be my rate for next year.  She hesitates and fumfehs for a while and says she’ll have to talk to her manager and then comes back to tell me the $7 rate will be renewed.

 

This year was different.  I called and got this:  Hello, my name is Harmony, your Artificial Intelligence assistant.  How can I help you?  Harmony was wonderful, understood everything I said and renewed me for $6 month.  Very fast, very efficient, very sad.  What have we come to?  How is Juanita going to compete with Artificial Intelligence?  She’ll be out of a job.  What do we do when we make the world so wired up and efficient that no-one has a job?

 

That poor little Philippine sister

Was replaced by a sterile transistor

Now Juanita is gone

And the world travels on

Till we all realize that we missed her.

 

Artificial Intelligence frightens me a lot.  I mean machines named R2D2 and C-3PO were fine.  They were helpful and followed instructions.  But as soon as you give them human names like Harmony or Siri or Alexa, my pacemaker begins to heat up.  Remember HAL?  How’d that work out?

 

In honor of the Jewish New Year (5786) and Yom Kippur, which is today, our Weekly Word is the Yiddish word fumfeh, which means to mumble or speak unclearly.  I will try to hold my fumfehing to a minimum.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Fall is here as well as the Jewish New Year, and Shakespeare is bugging me to let him say something about that. 

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  O, call back yesterday, bid time return (Richard II).  I hear it’s the Jewish year 5786.  Those Jews think they’ve been around a long time, but we cats have been around much longer.  Do you know anybody named Katz?  They got that from us.  And, of course, we’re the ones who invented Yom Ki-Purr.

 

Thank you, Shakespeare.  I feel very simpatico with you today because I’m missing the use of one paw.  That’s because my left arm is in a sling.  On Monday, they sliced open my chest to replace the battery in my pacemaker and they don’t want me to pull out the stitches.  Please do not send sympathy cards.  A Mercedes would be nice or some Rolexes or maybe a Tiffany gift card.  Actually, I have recovered from the procedure quite easily and don’t need anything.  Well, the Mercedes maybe.

 

Speaking of sympathy cards, I visited Dollar Tree this week to buy greeting cards.  What, you think I spent $4.95 for that birthday card I got you?  Besides stocking up on some birthday and sympathy cards, I actually found a card congratulating you on your last colonoscopy which I guess is when you’re 75.  It reads: I ran into your proctologist the other day and your name came up.  He said “I never want to see that asshole again”.  Congratulations!   

 

When I approached the register to pay for the cards, there was an obnoxious young man arguing with the cashier about something.  He was rude and crude and I didn’t like him.  The only satisfaction in dealing with a young jerk like that is knowing that he has all his colonoscopies in front of him.  (Can you actually have one “in front” of you?  I guess not, but we have spent too much time on this subject, so let’s put it behind us.)

 

Do you have dreams?  I dream once in a while, and I always thought my dreams were different from your dreams.  But yesterday, I read a book where the author was describing a dream in which his dream person was in college and completely unprepared for an upcoming test.  Wait, that’s my dream!  How could he have my dream?  Does everybody have that dream?  Do you?  How about the dream where you are in a movie theater and discover that you’re naked?  Do you have that one too?  How about the one where the driver of a cement mixer gets out and beats you up?  Or the one with the tuba and the sheep?  Well, never mind about that one.

 

The other day I dropped my keys right between the two front seats – you know, the place where everything disappears forever.  I looked; I reached – nothing!  There I was, freaking out and reaching between the seats with two restless grandchildren in the back seat wondering what Oldilocks was up to.  I got out and felt under the front seat – nothing.  I pulled the driver’s seat as far up as it would go; then I went to the back seat to see what was uncovered.  Holy Buried Treasure, Batman!  There, in the revealed space formerly under the front seat, were nine colored markers, two straw wrappers, a Nilla Wafer, Jimmy Hoffa, the Cardinals World Series chances and a previously unknown Kardashian sister – and my car keys.  Whew!

 

This week we went to a charity polo match sponsored by the Old Newsboys Fund for Children’s Charities, a very worthwhile charity that helps children all over the area.  Did you know that all polo players are right-handed?  Did you know that I played water polo?  I only played once because my horse drowned.

 

Alright, I’m done with you now.  You can go back to your daily chores or dreaming about that sheep.  Just be sure to come back next week.  Please stay well and count your blessings.  See ya!

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com.

 

 

 

Blog #446                      September 25, 2025

 

A lot of people have told me that I should have my head examined!  Well, I did.  Twice!  The first time I had a CT scan on my brain was several years ago; the official result was “Unremarkable”.  Unremarkable?  Are you kidding me?  After twenty-one years of schooling, 400,000 pages of obscure and arcane books, fifteen hundred limericks – that’s all they can say about my brain?  Unremarkable?  I was insulted! 

 

Years later I had another brain scan, looking for a more complimentary opinion.  It came back “Normal”.  Normal?  Is reading Moby Dick seven times normal?  Is listening to Alice’s Restaurant every night for nine months straight normal?  Is reciting The Raven in your shorts every Tuesday morning with a brown-paper bag over your head while getting a tan normal?  There shouldn’t be much disagreement on that one.  If you missed the explanation of that, I’ll fill you in.  I go to Dr. Skin’s office every other Monday to stand in an ultraviolet light box for five minutes, and while I’m there, in my boxers with a brown paper bag over my head, I recite The Raven from beginning to end.  And this clown thinks I’m normal?

 

Some doctor who thinks he’s a whiz

Said my brain is as normal as his.

I read Moby Dick, Dude

And spout Poe in the nude,

And if that’s not abnormal, what is?

 

Hi there.  Are you normal?  I don’t think anybody who has suffered through this many of my looney-tune ramblings is normal, but welcome back anyway.  I hope you’re doing well. 

 

And speaking of Dr. Skin, I went to see her last week, and as I sat in the examination room, I realized I had forgotten to drink a lot of water.  Dr. Skin often takes blood to make sure the medicine isn’t affecting my liver or something and I have learned that it makes it easier to find a vein if I have drunk a few glasses of water.  I looked around for a cup and found one in a cabinet.  It read the following: “For Urine Samples”.  Well there wasn’t any alternative and, what the hell, in one end and out the other.  I drank three cups.  She didn’t take blood.

 

I just received my fourth butt-call of the week, all from friends.  I know my friends really well, and I’m pretty sure that some of them find it challenging to make a call with both eyes, a brain and all ten fingers.  How is it that they find it so easy to make a call with their ass?  And why me?  Is their phone programmed to call me when someone sits on it?  Is Apple trying to tell me something?

 

My wife just got a new Apple phone, the newest version with a thousand bells and whistles not one per cent of which she is likely to use.  But hey, she’s the love of my life and deserves all the comforts I can provide.  Me?  I don’t need a new phone.  I’ll just sit in the dark in my broken chair with my obsolete phone, a weathered old book, bad eyes and a three-legged cat.  It’s ok.  That’s good enough.

 

Do you know why the Apple logo has a bite out of the apple?  The story goes that Alan Turing, the man who pretty much invented computer science and the subject of the movie The Imitation Game, committed suicide by dousing an apple with poison and taking a bite.  So Apple, wanting to show their reverence for Mr. Turing, made their logo with the bite.  That was before they decided to direct every butt-call west of the Mississippi directly to me.

 

Disney is having some trouble now after suspending Jimmy Kimmel.  It’s not the first time that their decisions have engendered widespread opprobrium.  Some years ago, Disney decided it would be a nice and humane gesture to allow handicapped visitors at its amusement parks to go to the front of the line along with their families.  Very nice; very thoughtful.  Soon, families were faking handicaps or hiring handicapped strangers to pose as family members in order to beat the system and gain an advantage.  This is absolutely true.  It got so common and elicited so many complaints that Disney cancelled the program.  Thanks to the selfish and greedy, the handicapped suffered.  Yes, it’s a cruel world after all.  Everybody sing along with Mickey:

 

It’s a world of greed -- It’s a world of sin

Where the good guys lose -- And the bad guys win

Only babies and fools -- Seem to play by the rules

It’s a cruel world after all

 

No, that doesn’t count as a limerick.  You got a problem with that?  Go sit on your phone.  But it does count as our Weekly Word, opprobrium which means harsh criticism or censure.

 

Let’s talk murder.  First, there’s this Robinson guy who killed Charlie Kirk.  They have charged him with, among other things, Aggravated Murder.  The charge of Murder comes with the death penalty which, in Utah, is by firing squad.  What could possibly be more aggravating than that?  Well, I’ve found out.  The punishment for Aggravated Murder is that while waiting for the firing squad, you will be forced to watch a re-run of the 2025 Emmy Awards.

 

And then there is this Luigi Mangione guy.  We all have seen the video of him emerging from the shadows to shoot his victim in the back.  But he’s only charged with Second-Degree Murder.  I am a wordy fellow, as you well know, but I must say I have no words to explain how that’s not First-Degree Murder.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Tremble, thou wretch. Thou hast within thee undivulged crimes (King Lear).  Pops says I should be charged with a crime.  I bit him yesterday and he said I was guilty of Assault and Cattery.  He thinks he’s funny.  Purr.

 

Ok, we’ll end with some acronyms.  We all know SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave), but my daughter Jennifer just told me what LOL stands for -- Limerick Oyster Laughs.  I hope you’ve had some.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back to my asylum next week.  And to my Jewish friends, Happy New Year 5786.  May it be happy and peaceful.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com