Blog #488                                July 16, 2026

 

Have you been enthralled by the World Cup?  It’s down to Spain and Argentina for the final game on Sunday.  I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm of the fans and the professionalism of the logistics which have gone into the planning and execution of an event encompassing 104 games in multiple cities in three countries over five or six weeks.  I am very proud of the way America has welcomed the fans and organized the games.  Remarkable!  I hope it’s not the last World Cup I get to see.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus?(Comedy of Errors).  Hold on, Pops.  You’d better be here for lots more World Cups.  Who else is going to watch with me?  I wish I could play, but that missing leg is a problem.  If I had all my legs, I’d be another Messi.  They’d call me Pussi.  But I can root for the Persian Cats and the Siamese Cats.  Of course, Persia has changed its name to Iran and Siam has changed to Thailand.  Oh well, next time I’ll just root for Purr-u.  Meow.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I love when you come back.  Are you still celebrating the Fourth of July?  I think we should move the holiday to the middle of December.  In December, we could start the fireworks at 5:00 when it gets dark, eat some ribs and be in bed by 8:00.  In July, it doesn’t get dark until 9:00 and we get home way too late.  I need my beauty sleep.  Don’t you dare send me a snarky little response to that!

 

I hope in your celebrations you were abstemious and didn’t get burned or drunk or fat, and that you’re feeling fine, but if you’ve recently been to a kid’s birthday party, I’m worried for you.  I will never forget my granddaughter’s birthday party a few years ago.  There were about 15 kids plus their parents all huddled in the basement sharing pizza, coughs, cupcakes, sneezes, air and bodily fluids.  It was great fun.  I had door duty and greeted the parents. 

 

Thanks for your presents and sneezes

The sniffles, the coughs and the wheezes

We’re glad you could come

With your bacterium

And share your infectious diseases.

 

Naturally, my granddaughter got sick.  The doctor said it was Fifth Disease.  Have you ever heard of that?  Google has, so it must be real.  I wonder if there is a Fourth or a Sixth disease.  Hang on, I’ll be right back.  Shazam!  Google tells me that there is a sextet of numbered children’s diseases.  Here they are: First Disease – Rubeola; Second Disease – Scarlet Fever; Third Disease – Rubella; Fourth Disease – Filatov-Dukes’ disease; Fifth Disease – Erythema Infectiosum; and, Sixth Disease – Roseola.

 

Weekly Word:  Abstemious:  marked by restraint, especially in food or alcohol.

 

Carol told me she had been trying to get a refund on something she bought and the woman on the phone had given her a hard time.  “You talk to her”, she said, “a man does better than a woman.”  She thinks I can get this woman to give in where she could not?  Me, who has been browbeaten, ordered around and basically enslaved by my wife and three daughters for so long that the sight of a lipstick makes me shake more uncontrollably than the thought of wearing linen in October?  She thinks I can convince a female on the phone to do what I want?

 

But I will try – yes, this strong, persuasive epitome of dominant manhood will do exactly as his diminutive wife tells him to do.  And after that mean old woman on the phone tells me I can’t have my refund and my clothes don’t match, I’ll let my oldest daughter do it.  That phone lady will be in trouble then!

 

If a man speaks in a forest and there’s no-one there, is he still wrong?

 

I do get my way sometimes.  The last time was my birthday – in January.  Our friends were going to take me out and Carol said we could go anywhere I wanted.  After all, it was my birthday.  I said I really like XYZ.  “Well,” she said, “XYZ is noisy and doesn’t have a round table for ten, but ABC does.  You like that, don’t you?”  Well, sure, I said.  At least she was happy, and you know that our marriage is a success because we have the same goal in life – to keep her happy.

 

I decided to take my two local grandsons to a movie, Jurassic Park XXXVII.  Go to the movie early, wait in line, buy the tickets, enjoy – right?  Not anymore.  No, I had to go online, sign up for some kind of Dango something, pick my seats, the size of the screen and how many dimensions I wanted.  I had less options on the last car I bought. Then I had to come up with a password, give them a credit card, pay a service fee and tell them who my fifth-grade teacher was (Mr. Diamond).  I could have applied for citizenship to North Korea in less time.  By the time I was done, I no longer wanted to see the movie, or a computer, or my grandsons!  Why is everything so ridiculously complicated?  I want my world back.

 

In my world, we went to see two movies at once.  We sat in a seat with gum stuck to the bottom and ate popcorn with butter.  Today, the seats recline, heat our behinds, massage our feet, blow cold air on our hair, rub our necks.  In my world, there were places that did all that, but they didn’t show movies and not even my father was allowed to go there.  And now I can’t even get butter on my popcorn or the Cholesterol Police with tell my wife.  I want my world back.

 

And I want you back too, so make a note to come see me next week.  Or, if you’re such a hi-tech, modern smart-ass, put it on your Google Calendar.  However you do it, be back a week from today and see who I’m mad at then.  I hope it’s not you, so you’d better behave.  In the meantime, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #487                                July 9, 2026

 

We all just celebrated the Fourth of July, Independence Day. the 250^th birthday of the United States of America.  We celebrated our flag and our Constitution and our national Anthem.  Do you have a problem with any of that?  Well, some people do and they show it with protests and demonstrations.  But just like other things, protests just aren’t what they used to be.  In the 60s, we had real protests – fiery protests.   Feminists burned their bras, young men burned their draft cards, anti-war activists burned the flag, students burned the ROTC building, blacks burned Watts and the occasional Buddhist burned himself.  Those were the days!  Everybody had a Zippo and they knew how to use it.

 

Nowadays, people don’t burn anything on the Fourth except the burgers.  But be careful!  The golf, the fireworks, the barbecue -- they could all kill you.  Especially golf!   I used to play golf twice a week.  I was never great.  I was never horrible.  But as the years go by and my age becomes four times my handicap, I play less and worry less about my score.  My friends are the same.  Why worry about pars and birdies when you can worry about tripping over your putter and breaking a hip.  Or being thrown from a cart and gouging your leg.  Or driving into a lake and drowning.  Or having a heart attack from the heat.  It’s a par-72 jungle out there!  Now, a good day at golf looks like this:

 

At golf today nobody died

And nobody fainted or cried

No back pain, no scars

No birdies or pars

So all that was hurt was our pride.

 

Another dangerous summer activity is boating.  Riding a boat is great fun and brings out, mostly in men, some ancient instinct that has come down to us from Ulysses that makes us believe we actually know how to tie a knot and steer a boat.  Of course I can’t do any of that.  I’m Jewish!  If Jews could sail a boat, God would not have had to part the Red Sea.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well, and I hope you had a great holiday celebrating our country’s semiquincentennial celebration.  Yes, that’s a word, our Weekly Word in fact, and it means, obviously, a 250^th anniversary.  None of us, most likely, will ever see that word again, but if you do, remember who taught it to you.

 

Often, I have a reader ask me, “why don’t you ever mention me in your blog?”  It’s really simple, I tell them.  Just say something outrageously stupid and that may get you in.  Usually that ends the conversation.  But recently, I did have a friend say something that shocked me.  He said he didn’t think America was the best place to live.  Ok, here’s where I stand, for better or worse.  I’m a proud American.  I think it’s the best country in the world and I will always root for the Americans.  Certainly, there are times when I don’t like the President or the laws that are passed or the decisions that are made.  But that’s Democracy!  I get to vote, and if I lose, I live with it.  And that’s what America is about.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself (Macbeth).  And I’m a Yankee Doodle Pussycat.  Some of the Founders were related to me, like James Catison and Catrick Henry.  But one relative I’m not proud of – Aaron Purr.   Meow.

 

I just received an email from a high-school friend, a psychiatrist from Philadelphia.  He told me he was writing a book about mental illness and wanted to use a poem I had written back in high-school.  Why he has saved one of my 60-year-old poems till now, I can’t say.  Maybe he had a crush on me.  I won’t bore you with the poem, but it was a 12-line rhyming version of the following joke:

 

A man took his wife to a faith-healer.  “Guru,” he said, “my wife is sick.”  The Guru looked into the woman’s tired and swollen eyes and touched her pallid, shrunken skin and said, “No, my friend, your wife is well.  She only thinks she’s sick.”  A week later the man saw the healer again.  “Well,” said the Guru, “is your wife better?”  “She’s worse,” said the man.  “She thinks she’s dead.”  It figures -- I finally get a poem published and it’s in a book about mental illness!

 

Did you notice I used the word till two paragraphs earlier?  The word is actually until.  For a while, I tried writing ‘til, the apostrophe being my sacrifice to the Grammar Gods, but I have decided to give in to the common usage of till.  I feel somehow dirty and weathered by that decision, but life goes on, the language changes and we old dinosaurs of diction must adapt or become extinct.

 

And speaking of words, a friend told me that some woman on the TV used a word with a C that was not rated G.  There’s a limerick there somewhere, but you only get one a week.  Yes, my friend said, she used the dreaded C-Word.  “What,” I exclaimed, “Constipation?”  Well, each generation has its own forbidden words.  When I was young, Hell, Damn and Bitch were forbidden in my house.  Lucy and Desi were not allowed to share a bed.  And “gay” meant lively and carefree.  Things are certainly different today!  As the Wicked Witch of the West would say, “What a world!”  Besides constipation, there is another dreaded and forbidden word for those of the older generation.  It’s the F-Word – Fried Foods.

 

And you know what else has changed?  Toilets.  Now, when I walk away from a public urinal or seat, it flushes itself.  Then at the sink I just pass my hand under the soap dispenser and soap comes out.  I wave my hands under the faucet and water comes out.  I approach the towel dispenser and towels come out.  If they could just figure it out so that if we waved our hands behind us, crap would come out, then we wouldn’t need laxatives.

 

Ok, I’m talking about toilets again, and that means it’s time to leave.  See you next week.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@ gmail.com 

 

 

 

Blog #486                                July 2, 2026

 

When I was growing up, there was a restaurant in St. Louis called The Parkmoor.  Some of my friends turned the letters around and called it the Krap-Room, but it was great.  Slimy burgers and delicious onion rings and root beer.  The menu of the Parkmoor had a cartoon picture on it that showed the restaurant building with a parking lot filled with customers arriving in every kind of conveyance you could imagine.  Cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles, canoes, boats, horse-drawn buggies, ocean liners, trains, super-sized airplanes, space ships, helicopters, dirigibles, parachutes.  Thousands of them, all wanting to get a taste of Parkmoor.  And every time it’s my wife’s birthday, that’s what it reminds me of.  Yes, today is my lovely wife’s birthday and thousands of her admirers are busting the seams and breaking down the doors to schedule luncheons and breakfasts and parties.  Soirees, jamborees, buffets, dinners, functions, celebrations, get-togethers and cornucopic jamborees.  Is that enough words for you?  I even made some of them up.

 

The birthday rush started a few days ago and will last for about ten months during which I shall see little of her at meal times.  But, what can I do?  I might as well throw my hat in and wish my bride a lovely, crowded, hectic and happy birthday.  She deserves it.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  There was a star danced, and under that was I born. (Much Ado About Nothing).  I never get taken out for my birthday.  I never get taken out for anything, except to get my nails clipped.  I hate that.  Pops grabs me and stuffs me into a carrying bag and we drive away.  It’s not that it hurts or anything.  It’s just that when he puts me in the carrier, I always think he’s going to give me back to the shelter.  I would die if he did.  I like it here.  Oh, I guess I should wish Carol a Happy Birthday.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome to this hot, canicular weather.  What does that mean?  Well, canicular, our Weekly Word means relating to the period between early July and early September when hot weather occurs.  And besides that, it’s an election year. Are you sick of political ads yet? I’m already nauseous.  It’s only July, but with primaries and special elections – well, watching television is no fun anymore.  The late-night shows have nothing but political ads and commercials for male enhancement pills.

 

Now all those commercials I viewed

Have totally soured my mood

They’re all for elections

Or pills for erections

And, Man, either way you get screwed.

 

I have a great line that I use at the Zoo when one of the big snakes, the anaconda or a boa constrictor, is not on exhibit.  “Where’s the snake,” some little urchin asks.  “It’s got reptile dysfunction,” I tell them.

 

When I work at the Zoo, I’m usually handing out maps and giving answers to highly intricate and technical questions like Where’s the bathroom?  When I handed one tourist a Zoo map with the words ZOO MAP clearly emblazoned thereon, she asked me, “Is this a map to the Zoo?”  Dumb as a pot-sticker.  “No,” I replied calmly, “it’s a map of Venezuela in case you’re planning to visit there later.”  Jeesh!  Another tourist, upon receiving his map, handed me a $5 tip.  Wow, I must really have looked old and decrepit!  I refused and told him to buy his daughter an ice-cream instead.

 

Everybody says that retail is dead, but I’m not so sure.  Now trending are small stores that specialize in only one or two items.  It makes life so simple.  For instance, if you need bags, go to Sacks.  If you need bagels or donuts, go to Hole Foods.  And if you need dice, go to Seven-Eleven.

 

I went to a funeral.  Dozens of cars were guided into the cemetery grounds by the funeral home employees and lined up in a tight parking queue.  As I turned my engine off, one of these employees walked up to the car and I rolled down the window.  Stop the story!  I did not actually “roll” down the window.  Ford introduced the power window in 1941, and although some of us may remember driving a car with windows that you had to “roll”, pretty much we haven’t rolled any windows since Phineas T. Bluster was Mayor of Doodyville.

 

So I lowered the window, whereupon the funeral person asked me what I considered to be a patently unnecessary question.  He said, “Are you here for the funeral?”  There I was, with fifty other cars parked in an immovable line in the middle of a cemetery.  “No,” I calmly replied, “I was wondering when the Jennifer Aniston movie started.” 

 

If you’re depressed, go to Lows.  If you want to buy marijuana, go to Quick Trip.  And if you want to take your first wife to lunch, go to Fed Ex.

 

If you need cheap landscaping, go to Dollar Tree.  If you need help in doing a blog, go to Write Aid.  Or if you’re looking for a boorish, insulting and obnoxious man, go to Dicks.

 

I got a letter today addressed to Resident.  Here’s what it said, word for word, no joke: Dear Jesus, we pray that you will bless someone in this home spiritually, physically and financially.

         

Do they think Jesus lives here?  Who knows?  I looked everywhere.  I even looked in the bathtub.  He could be taking a walk.  I’ve heard of Dear John letters and Dear Santa and Dear Abby, but Dear Jesus?  I should be careful what I write about Jesus.  He could sneak out of wherever he’s hiding and read it.  And my luck – I’d be the first person he doesn’t forgive.

 

Well, you’ll forgive me, won’t you, if I apologize for anything I’ve said in the last 486 weeks that has shocked, insulted, scandalized or disappointed you?  I’ve been married fifty-nine years, so I’m good at apologies.  Come to think of it, I retract it all.  I am who I am and you get what you get.  I’m not apologizing to anyone.  Except Carol.  So come back next week and be shocked and scandalized some more. I know you love it.  Count your blessings, stay well and watch out for the heat.  I’ll see you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@ gmail.com