Blog #373                                May 2, 2024

 

I think I have you all figured out.  Most of the comments I get from you are not about the contents of the blog.  Most are just wishing me a happy birthday or a safe trip or good luck on a surgery.  That’s nice, like one big family.  In a week when no such stimulus exists, I get much fewer comments.  This week, I’m going to Timbuktu to get a brain transplant on my birthday.  Let’s see how many comments that scares up.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope the sunrise has found you where the sunset left you last and you are feeling spiffy and bright.  What’s your favorite day of the week?  Besides Thursday, of course, when Limerick Oyster arrives.  Mine is Sunday.  That’s the day we usually have dinner at my daughter’s house and then do crosswords on Zoom with all three of my girls.  Sunday has always been the day for family gatherings.  Even the Cavemen (sorry, I should have said Cave-People) would relax from their quotidian and prosaic routines to enjoy a Sunday evening get-together.  The men would barbecue a Woolly Mammoth while the kids played Hunt and Gather in the clearing nearby.  The women would fetch water and discuss the latest fashion in leg hair.  It was a simple and primitive time.  And how, you might ask, did they even know it was Sunday?  That’s easy – the Chick-Fil-A was closed.

 

Weekly Word:  I suppose you might think quotidian would be the weekly word.  Quotidian means something routinely done every day.  But it’s not because it was already the weekly word back in Blog #168.  What, you think I don’t keep track of all of this?  I keep track of everything.  Today’s word is prosaic, which pretty much means the same as quotidian – dull, boring, routine.  Aren’t you glad?

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  My favorite day of the week is the day he comes home.  I have a simple life.  I just need food and water and a warm lap.  When the lap goes out of town, I’m sad.  But he’s back now, so Purrrr.

 

Yes, Shakey, we’re back from California now after a lovely visit with my daughter and the kids.  To me, California is a very bizarre place.  I realized that instantly when the plane landed in Long Beach and, instead of an orderly exit at the front, half of us were plopped out the rectal end of the aircraft like --- sorry, an old fool’s tongue will run away with him sometimes.

 

First of all, the architecture is different.  In the Midwest, a home is likely to be very similar to the homes on either side.  Not in the Golden State.  One house looks like it was designed by Peruvian potato farmers and the one next door looks like it was beamed down from the planet Arkon.  And all the streets begin with either LOS or EL or SAN.  But the biggest difference is the foliage.  My daughter lives at the northern shore of San Francisco Bay, and as we walked along the water, we were charmed by the shrubs and flowers that were totally unlike anything in St. Louis.  So beautiful!

 

One morning, a perfect day to take a walk, I dressed and walked into the front of the house where my sweet and adoring wife greeted me with these loving words: “Those shorts are too short,” was all she said.  Sometimes, I think I am so low on my wife’s priority list that it would take legal-sized paper to find me.  But, I admit the shorts were old.  When I bought them, Pluto was still a planet.  I dutifully took them off and promised to give them away so that next year, some poor fellow in an impoverished village in Southern Sudan can wake up, put on the same shorts and hear his delightful wife say, “Where did you get those skimpy-assed shorts?” 

 

Rotten Oysters:  We watched a movie on TV while we were there.  It was called Zone of Interest, and I don’t remember much about it except that it was really slow.  At least the first three weeks of it were.  I’ve seen stalactites grow faster.  It was glacial.  It was viscous.  Get the picture?  Well don’t get this picture.  It was slow.  So, if you have a choice between watching this movie or going to Timbuktu and having your brain transplanted -- take the latter.

 

And speaking of having a brain transplant, I just heard that the Pro-Palestinian protestors on college campuses have demanded that their student loans be forgiven.  That way, they’ll have more money to buy flammable American flags.  Tell me – when did we decide to let masked, tablecloth-wearing antisemites run our universities?  Oh wait, I forgot – they already do.

 

With the nice weather, I’m anxious to get back to my job at the Zoo.  I’m feeling great, as fit as a crotchety old fiddle and ready to greet the tourists and answer all their questions.  Where’s the tiger?  Where’s the bathroom?  Where’s the Starbucks?  They just have to get their Starbucks!

 

A tall mocha latte – decaf

And throw in some mint for a laugh

Oh Hell, make me happy

And make it a frappe

With extra low-fat Half ‘n Half.

 

Remember when it was a Cup-a-Joe and cost 30 cents?  Now, their prices are so high I think the name should be changed to Star Ten Bucks.  Starbuck, as you may know, was the First Mate on the Pequod, the ship Captain Ahab led to kill the White Whale.  Just a little Moby Dickiness there.  My wife always says, if a person who loves the Grateful Dead is called a Dead Head, what do you call a person who loves Moby Dick?  On the other hand, as political satirist P.J. O’Rourke said, “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” 

 

Ok, this blog is over.  As the Carpenter aboard the Pequod mused.  It started at the beginning, reached the middle midway through and came to an end at the conclusion.  We’ll try again next week.  Be there!  In the meanwhile, stay well, count your blessings and apply to Columbia University.  You might get in.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com