Blog #316                                         March 30, 2023

 

Today is opening day for the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Team, always a big celebration in St. Louis.  On the local news last night, the St. Louis Police Department alerted us that they would be deploying dozens of extra officers to guard against car break-ins and street violence.  They suggested the following:

 

·        Do not drive to the game.  Take the local mass transit trains instead

·        Leave your valuables at home

·        If you drive, do not leave anything in the vehicle

·        When walking to and from the parking lot, walk in groups

 

This is what life has come to.  It sounds like one of those post-apocalyptic movies where the streets are controlled by Zombies.  The schools are not safe.  We can’t answer the phones because of criminals using Artificial Intelligent scammers.  And we can’t drive a Kia.  And the people we pay to protect us freely admit they cannot do it.  We have to take responsibility for protecting ourselves and our property.  What can I say!  Enjoy the game.  Be careful.

 

Hey, can I borrow a twenty?  No?  You haven’t got any cash?  Well, who does?  I owed my daughter some money, and she said for me to just send it on Venmo.  What’s Venmo?  Is that some new superfood like kale or chia seeds?  I tried eating some chia seeds once and they caused a hirsute image of Pat Sajack to grow on my tongue.  No, she explained to me, Venmo was an electronic currency thing-a-ma-jiggy.  My children have Venmo and PayPal and Bitcoin and Apple Pay and I don’t know what any of that means.  I asked her if sending her a check would be too medieval.  She said, “What’s a check?”

 

Weekly Word:  Hirsute means hairy.  So, I hear you cry, why not just say hairy?  Because when I use strange words, it makes you think I’m smart.  Doesn’t it?

 

In The News:  Usain Bolt’s world record for the 100-meter dash has been shattered.  Prince Harry saw a TV camera 100 meters away and got there in nine seconds flat.

 

Last week was the first day of Spring.  There is some disagreement, however, as to which day it was.  The people on television say it was Monday the 20^th, but I really don’t care about them anymore.  To me the seasons change on the 21^st.  I am a scientist and I understand the Vernal Equinox and why it occurred on the 20^th, but I have so few anchors left from the ancient days of my youth that I’m hanging on to the 21^st.  Cash is no longer acceptable, the Boy Scouts have changed their name, Rice Krispies are organic, Pluto is no longer a planet and my grandchildren have never heard of Princess Summerfall Winterspring.  We have to have something solid and unchangeable from our past, don’t we?  So I’m sticking with the 21^st.  Happy Spring!

 

Message from Shakespeare:  The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre observe degree, priority and place (Troilus and Cressida).  I thought Pluto was a dog that was owned by a mouse named Mickey.  How can a mouse have a pet dog?  Humans are just goofy.  Wait, that name sounds familiar too.  I’m confused.  And what’s a planet?  Purr.

 

Do you remember a phone called the Princess Phone?  Well, Carol’s new phone is an updated version, the iPrincess.  First of all, when she picks it up and says Mirror, Mirror in my hand, who’s the fairest in the land, it turns into a mirror and says, You, of course.  It predicts the weather and likelihood of precipitation for every second of her daily itinerary.  Her Siri calls her Precious and, every two hours, tells her that her hair looks nice.  Her phone has been instructed not to respond to my voice.  I’m used to that.

 

You respond to my voice, don’t you?  Good, let’s get started.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and getting ready for April Fools’ Day, which is Saturday.  I do not celebrate April Fools’ Day – Carol says I am a fool every day. 

 

My life is a boring old song

I’m lost and do everything wrong

So all I can say

On April Fools’ Day

Is that I’m a fool all year long.

 

A fool with no closets.  Our master bedroom has two closets.  Our second bedroom has one.  All three of those belong to my wife.  I can’t complain; I agreed to it at the wedding – For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and you don’t get any closets.  I cope

 

And since I don’t have to clean out my closets, what do I do to keep busy?  I go to get the cable bill adjusted.  Where to start?  I just wanted to cancel my land line.  Who needs a land line?  The calls are all to sell me hearing aids or convince me to donate to the Gwyneth Paltrow Go-Fund-Me Page.  So I wanted to eliminate the line and to get rid of HBO and Showtime, which I can get on Netflix.  Simple, right?  Arranging lunch with Kim Jong-un is simpler!  First of all, new customers get a $25 discount on this and a $15 discount on that, but loyal customers who have been with the company for twenty years get treated like a urine sample.  And then there’s the business practice invented by cable companies that says, “If you add a service, it costs you more, but if you delete a service, it costs you more.”  Because I was on a PLAN.  Did I wake up in a Lewis Carroll novel?  I told the Jabberwocky waiting on us that I was going to cancel all service.  He said that was fine, but it wouldn’t reduce my bill.  Because I was on a PLAN.  I was about to tell the Marquis De Sade into what dark realm he could shove his plan when my better half (actually my better four-fifths) stepped in and saved me from committing a felony.  Although I’m not sure strangling a cable company employee is a crime.  Maybe Assault with a Deadly Clicker. 

 

I have to go now – I’m on a PLAN.  Can you live without me for a whole week?  I bet you can.  Just promise to stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll be back before you know it.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog # 315                                         March 23, 2023

 

O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? – Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

Percy certainly had it right.  Spring is here, and with Spring come blossoms, warm showers, longer days, protests.  Students around the world skip school to demand action on climate change.  Paris students protest retirement laws.  Am I missing something?  When did we decide that we should encourage 13-year-olds to take over the world?  Think about that.  Teenagers?  Vaping, drugs, twitter, messy rooms, rings in their eyebrows, Spring Break in Miami!  We want them making decisions for the planet?  They can’t even find two socks that match.

 

When I was thirteen, my mission was to realize how much I did not know and to do my best to learn some of it so I could earn a living and raise a new generation.  Now, it seems to me, children are taught that they can do anything they want, be anything they can be and that it’s ok to spend their lives sitting in a puddle, painting eggshells while other people pay for their food and internet access.  

 

And what sort of parents allow their teens to skip school and march with profane signs and get arrested?  The people who should be out there marching and carrying signs are us old folks.  Signs like GREY IS BEAUTIFUL, OLD LIVES MATTER, or my favorite -- WE’RE OLD AND WE’RE COLD – WE LOVE GLOBAL WARMING.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  In springtime, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing (As You Like It).  I love the Spring because Pops opens the porch windows and I get to watch and listen to the birds.  Birds are beautiful, especially fried.  Purr.

 

Congratulate me, my student loan was approved.  Do you get those phone calls?  My student loan was approved, my credit card is compromised, hearing aids are on sale and there’s an old woman in Nigerian who wants to send me two million dollars.  How do they find me?  They must think I’m one sandwich short of a picnic. Maybe they found out that each Monday I stand in a tanning booth at Dr. Skin’s office, in my boxers, reciting The Raven.  Seriously, what lunatic fool would memorize 108 lines about a ghastly, grim and ancient bird who could only say one archaic word?  Now you know what you’re dealing with. 

 

Last Monday, however, I didn’t go because I awoke not feeling too great – a little sour stomach and what not.  It was the kind of morning that if I were nine or ten, I would have whined, “Mommy, I don’t feel so good.”  Actually, I was a precocious little nerd and would have used the word “well” instead of “good”.  My mother would have let me stay home from school, and if she thought it was bad enough, she would have called the doctor.  Doctors made house calls back then, but I wasn’t afraid of the doctor.  I was afraid of Nadine.  She was the nurse who showed up at my house and chased me around the bed with a needle.  I was petrified of getting a shot, but Nadine always won.

 

I’m over my fear of shots now.  After all, I’ve had dozens of shots in my eyes alone.  But I still am anxious about having my blood drawn.  The nurses are nice and get me to talk about my grandchildren to take my attention away from the needle, but even though they are young and friendly, any woman with a needle reminds me of Nadine.

 

Have I said hi there and welcome back?  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying March Madness.  No, not protest marches.  March Madness means basketball, in case you’ve been living in the back seat of an Edsel for the past 60 years.  My daughters attended Duke, Princeton and Indiana, all of which had teams in the tournament, so there was plenty to root for.  Go Blue Devils, Tigers and Hoosiers.  All three won their first game, but now only Princeton is left.  My family has over 40 years of higher education among us, and all we care about is basketball.

 

And who publishes the brackets and keeps track of our special Fox NCAA Pool and even donates the prizes?  Me, of course.  Keeping track is what I do best.  It’s my métier -- keeping track, keeping score, keeping records.  I am the Count of Accounting, the Prince of Precision, The Earl of Anal.  Long live the Earl.

 

Weekly Word:  Métier is a great word.  It means an occupation or activity that someone is very good at.

 

I’m feeling better now.  My sour stomach is gone, but I’m becoming a bit nervous about the news.  Every day is an escalation of the war in Ukraine, and every day brings more news about the instability in the banking industry.  It’s beginning to feel like the crisis of 2008, which was about as much fun as having your fingernails pulled out.  Money talks, doesn’t it?  It’s a shame all mine ever said was “goodbye”.  And I honestly don’t trust our government to tell us the truth, let alone come up with a solution.

 

We’re sending Ukraine all our tanks

We have no more trust in our banks

It’s worse every day

What does Washington say?

More Government! I say no thanks.

 

I just bought Lucy a birthday present.  Lucy is Grandchild #8, lives in California and will be 10.   Did I go to three toy stores, walk up and down the aisles, choose something and take out my credit card, schlep the package home, wrap it up, attach an address label, drive to the post office, wait in line and pay $20 to ship it to California?  No, I pushed six buttons with my formerly nicotine-stained fingers and it was done.  Five minutes, free shipping.  And that’s why TOYS Я US Я GONE.

 

I have a box with cut-out newspaper headlines I thought were interesting.  I found one (and it’s real) that read:  FOUR DEAD WHEN SKYDIVING PLANE CRASHES AT GEORGIA AIRPORT.  It was a skydiving plane -- why didn’t they jump out?  I guess they were too busy reading my blog.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back next week – unless you are skydiving.  If you are, stay away from the Space Needle and the Empire State Building.  Ouch!

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #314                                March 16, 2023

 

Often, in the middle of the night, as I lie in bed accompanied by my warm, loving wife, who lies geographically and politically to my left, and by a small, fidgety, three-legged creature who thinks my body is a pillow – my warped and fertile mind will begin to play with words.  Why, for instance, is the game of chess, whose goal is to move your pieces on a board until you get to “check”, not called checkers?

 

Also, to piss means to eliminate liquids from your body and to poop means to eliminate solids.  But why do the past tense, pissed and pooped mean infuriated and exhausted?  All this eliminating of liquids and solids is very important.

 

Which brings us to the toilet.  The original toilet was invented in the late 19^th Century by Thomas Crapper (true!) and his daughters Fulla Crapper, Pisa Crapper and Pyla Crapper.  My North Carolina son-in-law has an ultra-modern hi-tech monster-toilet created by Elon Flush!  When you walk into the bathroom, the toilet automatically raises its lid like some water-filled Audrey II.  Then it sprays you, warms your privates, tells potty jokes and sings Feed me Seymour all at the same time.   Plus, it has a remote-control device with as many buttons as a South American general’s uniform.  Maybe if I used the toilet remote, I could get Netflix.  I worked so hard trying to figure out his space-age contraption that I became pooped and ultimately pissed off.  Aha, maybe that’s where those words came from.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Today marks six years since the first Limerick Oyster leaked out of my brain, and now I’m back to start year number seven.  Thanks for sticking with me.  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying Lent, the Christian religious observance commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert.  Now, no-one really wants to suffer too much for their religion and not everyone has a desert handy, so the Christians have decided that, instead of fasting for 40 days in the desert, maybe skipping meat on a few Friday nights will be acceptable to God.  Sacrifice is sacrifice, and God loves you and appreciates your effort.  One of the local restaurants, Tucker’s, has decided that as long as you’re going to force yourself to eat fish on Friday nights, we might as well make it lobster, even though that’s not fish.  On the seven (I think) Fridays during Lent, Tucker’s offers two lobster tails, a salad and a baked potato for $39.95.  Nobody said Jews weren’t allowed, so we went.  My wife adores lobster, and if Christians are going to suffer with lobster tails, she’s all over it.  She got the lobster special; I got a hamburger pizza for $12.  Well, forty bucks sounded like a lot for dinner and I decided to be cheap.  Money can’t buy you happiness, but it’s more comfortable being sad in a Porsche.

 

Did you watch the Academy Awards?  I used to, but now the bedazzled panoply of celebrities is mostly unfamiliar to me, and I haven’t seen any of the movies anyway.  Being old, I guess.  I did see a few recognizable famous people arriving to the event.  I saw Harrison Ford and Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis.  And there, behind all the cars, I’m pretty sure I saw Will Smith shining shoes on Hollywood Boulevard. 

 

I don’t believe the awards are based on merit any more.  They’re based on wokeness and diversity, so it was no surprise that the Asian movie won everything, everywhere, all at once.  Carol had it taped, so on Monday, we decided to watch it. Movie Review:  We made it through one hour, and that was way too much.  It was slapstick, confusing and not remotely entertaining.  But anti-Asian discrimination has been much in the news lately, so this movie won it all.  That’s ok, a gesture of love and inclusivity.  Starting next year, no movie can be nominated for Best Picture unless the film’s Screen Representation, Creative Leadership and Storyline pass a difficult diversity standard.  True! I always thought the Best Movie award should go to the movie that made the most money.  Sorry, I must be stupid.

 

To those of you who are Irish; to those of you who are green; to those of you who will gladly get plastered at the drop of a shamrock – Happy St. Patrick’s Day, which is tomorrow.  I myself have never liked green popcorn, green bagels, green beer, avocados or kale.

 

What I do like is receiving comments from you.  I got one this week from a new reader who said he was glad to have joined my posse.  Posse – I like that.  It makes me feel like Hopalong Cassidy.

 

Message from Shakespeare: When well-apparelled April on the heel of limping Winter treads (Romeo and Juliet).  What’s with the Hopalong thing?  Is he making fun of me because I limp?  And before that he called me a small, fidgety creature.  Is he mad at me?  No, he can’t be mad.  Today makes three years since Pops brought me home.  That was the luckiest day of my life.  Purr.

 

Right now, I am sitting at my desk, my left hand on a cat, my right hand on a mouse.  It’s a computer mouse, of course, and the cat is asleep, with his head resting on the edge of the keyboard.  I’m scratching his neck, but I don’t think he knows that.  Sound asleep.  Such a good boy.

 

I just discovered that there is actually a line of clothing called Osama Bin Laden which was started about ten years ago by the infamous terrorist’s family.  This is absolutely true.  You can buy it on the internet.  I think they’re even going to open their own stores:  Banana Dictatorship – Bombingdale’s –Anthrax Fifth Avenue – Hijack and Jill’s.  You’d better buy some before Terrorist Chic becomes all the rage:

 

Get rid of those Tommy Bahamas

The only “in” clothes are Osamas

With purses by Saddam

Make sure that you’ve got ‘em

And pink and white Yasser pajamas.

 

I warned you I was weird.  Our Weekly Word is panoply, which means a magnificent or impressive array.  And you, my loyal panoply of readers, are much appreciated.  Stay well, count your blessings and please come back next week.  We’ll start Year #7 together.

 

Hopalong                                          Sent comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #313                                March 9, 2023

 

I was watching a new cable channel, the Catholic Game Channel. They have some great shows -- Dancing with the Saints, Vatican Squares, The Pope is Right and Who Wants to be a Pedophile.  Between shows, they had a commercial about what foods are a cardinal sin.  Bacon is bad and coffee and eggs and now sugar.  I would rather live less years with more sugar than more years with no sugar.  Did that make sense?  Everything is free range and organic and cage-free and gluten-free and sugar-free.  Diet Coke is bad for you and Big-Macs and the Boy Scouts and the Governor of Florida!  But now they’ve gone too far.  They’ve made Rice Krispies Multicultural!  The names of the three little guys have gone from Snap, Crackle, Pop to Juan, Amal, Mao.  Well, if you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amal.  And what about Cap’n Crunch?  There’s a white supremacist for you!

 

We just got some mail regarding our upcoming 60^th high-school reunion.  Carol and I graduated together, high-school sweethearts, aww!  Included was a registration package requesting a picture and a summary of my life.  Ridiculous!  Forget the picture.  The only way anyone is going to be attracted to my face after 60 years is if it looks older than theirs.  And the life resumé -- they all look the same:  Married with four wonderful children and six beautiful grandchildren.  Have travelled extensively.  Love to read!

 

Where do I start?  Let’s start with the six beautiful grandchildren.  I have eight of my own, but grandchildren are like slobbering dogs.  I can tolerate mine, but keep yours at a very healthy distance.  And your travels?  Do I really care if you have a coconut autographed by Don Ho’s drummer?  And the reading part?  If I remember my class correctly, there are a few who would surprise me if they could read at all.

 

C’mon people, I know you agree with me.  We don’t care what all those old classmates look like and we don’t care what they’ve been up to for all those years.  Lose the picture and the synopsis and give us what we really want – a list of your medications.  I mean how much fun would it be to learn that Ken (yes, we actually had people named Ken back in the days when women would rather burn their Poodle skirts than name a child Apple or Jayden or Snoop) – how much fun to learn that Ken was taking Prilosec?  It serves him right, by the way; he was such a pain all those years.

 

And what about knowing that Freddy is taking Melatonin?  I’m convinced the reason he can’t sleep now is because he slept through Mrs. Kimmel’s Geometry class in Sophomore year.  And did you know that Sharon is on Zoloft?  I’m not surprised.  If I had to live with that Klingon she married, I’d be depressed too.  I’ve learned a lot of words in those 60 years, and my favorite is Schadenfreude.

 

Look, I’ve got issues of my own, and naturally if I read that someone was on some bad medication, I would suffer for them and pray for them, but wouldn’t that be the perfect information to help me empathize and re-connect better than knowing that their son works for Google or that their six-year-old took second in a regional oboe competition?  And do I really care that they had their picture taken standing on the Great Wall next to Pat Boone’s grandson?  Save all that for the obituary.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Do you know what time it is?  I’m so confused.  I think we’re supposed to change our clocks this weekend because it’s getting lighter in the morning but darker in the evening.  That is, until Sunday when it will become darker in the morning and lighter in the evening, except in Arizona and Indiana where they have enough good sense to ignore this dance of the dials.  What’s the point?  I’ve forgotten.  As the old Indian said, “Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom and wind up with a longer blanket.”

 

And which is the “real” time anyway, Standard or Daylight Saving?  Why not just get rid of the Standard time altogether and make it Daylight Saving time all year round and put Arizona into the Pacific Time Zone and let Indiana secede?  I’m so discombobulated.

 

Weekly Word: I bet you thought the Weekly Word would be Schadenfreude, which means the delight you get from seeing someone else suffer, but that was our Weekly Word way back in Blog #186.  Don’t you keep a list?  I do.  No, this week it’s discombobulated, which means confused.  I’m discombobulated because I’m supposed to change this coming weekend, but am I switching to Daylight Saving, or back to Standard?  And is it backward or forward?  And who can stay up that late?  I need help.

 

I’m writing this cute little rhyme

To tell you that Saturday I’m

Going to spend the whole day

Changing clocks, but which way?

Please tell me, if you have the time.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I wasted time, and now doth time waste me (Richard II).  I don’t need a watch.  I don’t even have a left wrist to put it on.  Besides, I always know what time it is – nap time, breakfast time, nap time, lunch time, nap time, bite Pops time, nap time.  Life is easy.  Purr.

 

I’ve got an idea.  All of you who vote for Democrats move your clocks forward and those of you who vote for Republicans move them backward.  A couple of hours difference couldn’t make us any farther apart than we already are.  But at least at the Early Bird Special, we’ll know who’s who.

 

I’m only teasing.  Of course I know what time it is.  It’s time to say see you next week.  I’ll try to be an hour earlier to make up for the time change.  Or later.  I’m so confused.  But don’t you be confused.  Just be here on time, count your blessings and stay well.  Can you do all that?  Multi-task! 

 

Michael

(Married with three wonderful children and eight beautiful grandchildren.  Have travelled extensively.  Love to read!)

 

Send comments (please no pictures or resumés) to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

 

 

Blog #312                                         March 2, 2023

 

Yesterday, I pulled up to the back gate of my subdivision where I noticed a paper cup from Burger King lying on the ground.  I got out and picked it up of course.  How can people litter like that?  Do they have no sense of anything?  Do they just hate their world and their lives so much that anything they can do to defile themselves and their surroundings brings them the glory of defiance?  Disgusting! Am I over-reacting?  Good, that’s how you make a point!  M.L. King said, The time is always right to do what is right.  Do not litter, my friends, and please recycle your old paper.  Paper does not grow on trees, you know.  Well, it does actually, but you know what I’m saying.

 

Sorry for starting out in such a splenetic mood.  Let’s just make splenetic our Weekly Word.  It means bad tempered and irritable, which brings up another thing that is bothering me.  Every time that President Biden goes on a trip, the news cameras film him climbing the stairway onto Air Force One, and if he stumbles, it makes all the news and is used as evidence that he is too old.  He is always climbing alone.  Why isn’t anyone helping him?  Why don’t they engineer an escalator to get him up there?  He’s the President.  Yes, he’s 80, and if you want to criticize him for what he says and the way he says it – fair game.  But being the President isn’t an athletic challenge.  Franklin Roosevelt was president for more than twelve years in a wheelchair, and he seemed to have done his job well.  Why not let somebody help him?  He’s the President, not a mountaineer.  Who cares if he needs some help climbing all those steps?  Would you stop reading my blog if I fell down?  No, because you care about what I write.

 

Wow, I just set a trap for myself.  I’d better write a good blog here or you’ll say I’m too old.  And I’m three years younger than Joe.  Let’s get started.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and taking care of yourself so you can live longer.  Carol is reading a book called Jellyfish Age Backward.  It’s all about what you can do to live a long, long life.  Well, forget all that.  Forget the fish oil and the yoga and the Keto diet and the 10,000 steps.  I know the single thing you can do to guarantee you’ll live to be a hundred – kill somebody in a state that has the death penalty.  I guarantee you it will be 35 years before they get around to pulling the switch.  This week, Florida executed a guy who committed murder in 1990.  That’s 33 years between, as Dostoyevsky would say, crime and punishment.  I’m 77.  If I get sentenced to death now, I’ll be 110 before they get around to me.  I’ll be on Blog #2028.

 

It was time for Shakespeare’s annual physical.  He was a good boy and got his shots and Dr. Cat said he was purr-fect, but he could use his teeth cleaned at some time.  The bill for the physical and trimming his three legs worth of nails was $100, and they gave me an estimate for the teeth.  When I got home, I looked at the estimate -- $925.  What?  To clean his teeth?  You could clean Imelda Marcos’ shoes for less than that.  Imelda is still alive, by the way.  She’s 93 and still kicking – with a different pair every day.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Money is a good soldier (Merry Wives of Windsor).  That does sound like a lot of money for my teeth, but I don’t make Pops spend too much money, certainly not for my toys.

 

I don’t need expensive cat things

Like a bird with some shiny blue wings

Just give me some socks

And an old cardboard box

And a torn plastic bag and some strings. 

 

My poems are better than Pops’, aren’t they?  Purr.

 

I’m pretty sure that, because of my eyes, we’re not making it to Florida this year, but that’s ok.  Florida can be a dangerous place.  If it’s not hurricane season, when just walking outside could cause your remains to be washed up in Morocco, then it’s Red-Tide season when the act of inhaling within ten miles of the ocean can cause your lungs to explode.  And then there’s coconut season when the palm trees shed their coconuts – from thirty feet up.  It’s like walking down the street while it’s raining Buicks.  Plus, a Florida woman was eaten by an alligator this week.

 

Florida!  You go there for the sunshine and Dr. Skin tells you to stay inside.  You go there for the food and Dr. Heart tells you not to eat it.  I’ll have the hamburger but I can’t have any salt, cheese or bread.  And salad with no oil, extra vinegar, no salt, extra pepper, no olives, no tomato, no onions.  Last week, at some fancy new place in St. Louis, it took six of us forty minutes to order.

 

Part of what made ordering so difficult was that it was a “New Age” restaurant.  On the menu, right in the column of things that were supposed to be edible, was the following: Deconstructed Vada Pav with Chutney in a Molecular, Edible Plastic Pouch.  Plastic?  That was enough to convince me that NEW AGE food is not for OLD AGE people.  We should open a restaurant that serves traditional comfort food specifically for the elderly.  We’ll call it Food You Remember -- To Eat with People You Don’t.  Pot roast, macaroni and cheese, rolls with butter, fried chicken, Jell-O, apple pie.  Reservation for two, please.  Me and Whatshername.  5:00 is fine; we have to be back by 7:00. During the meal we talked non-stop about our health or lack thereof.  The procedures and the doctors and the side-effects were flying so fast and furious, the waiter actually thought we had ordered an enema for dessert.

 

And on that wholesome image, we’ll end today’s interesting, yet splenetic, ride.  And now you know what splenetic means.  I’ll be back next week with another blog, another strange word and another snarky remark from the cat.  See you then.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #311                                         February 23, 2023

 

Did you ever feel like you were holding all the cards, then realized that the world only wanted to play chess?  It makes you feel lower than a bad dog’s tail.  That’s how I felt this morning, still struggling with my vision; still not driving.  So, to cheer myself up, I listened to some old rock ‘n roll on a cable music channel.  I remembered every artist and every lyric from 60 years ago, even though I can’t remember where my glasses are.  Let’s see how good your recall is.

 

These are three opening lines of songs that start out by telling you when:

Long long time ago

It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday

Just yesterday morning

 

And these are some that start out by telling you where:

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans

On a dark desert highway

On a warm summer’s eve on a train bound for nowhere

 

See if you can remember the songs.  You should get most of them unless you have spent the last sixty years watching Susan Lucci and Judge Judy.  You know who you are.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and watching the skies for more balloons or whatever those things are.  Our government doesn’t know what they are, or so they say.  I’m skeptical.  We have satellites that can read the license plate on your car.  We can calculate within an inch how close some asteroid will come to hitting the Earth.  Didn’t you ever watch Homeland?  The government knows everything.  They just won’t tell us.  That’s why there are so many classified documents lying around in everybody’s house.

 

We’re pretty sure these things are not space aliens, they tell us, because we waved to them and they didn’t wave back or start flashing “PHONE HOME” signs.  Maybe it’s just Lizzo drying out her underwear or a new way for the Pillow Guy to deliver his merchandise. We don’t care.  Just stop lying to us and tell us what they are.

 

You know, by the time the next L. Oyster arrives, it will be March.  March is full of interesting stuff.  First comes  Day, the 14^th of March.  You see, March 14 is otherwise written as 3/14 and since π starts out 3.14, some mathematically inclined and otherwise unoccupied clown decided it would be a good day to celebrate π.  I don’t exactly know how they celebrate, but I’m guessing they eat pecan π and πnapple and all kinds of sπcy foods. 

 

Right after π Day comes the Ides of March, the day when Brutus brutally (see the connection?) stabbed Julius Caesar.  The event sparked widespread rioting to encourage the Roman Senate to pass Knife Control legislation.  Half the Romans wanted to ban knives completely, but the RKA (Roman Knife Association) wanted to make sure everybody had a knife.  Wasn’t that silly?  Anyway, on the 15^th of March, watch out for anybody named Brutus.  Then on the 17^th, watch out for little green men.  Yes, the 17^th is St. Patrick’s Day.  So in the short space of four days, you could get a π in the face, a knife in the back or an Irishman passed out on your couch.  March is a great month!

 

Last Sunday, my printer ran out of ink, so I installed a new cartridge and ordered a replacement from Amazon.  Two hours later the package arrived.  Two hours!  That is some serious Fairy Godmother shit.  Just snap your fingers and there it is.  I went back on Amazon and ordered a pair of glass slippers and four mice.

 

Message from Shakespeare: Not a mouse stirring (Hamlet).  Mice?  I told him I would not allow any more pets in my house.  And if he expects me to eat them, he has another mouse coming.  I eat salmon patė, not filthy rodents.  Purr.

 

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and the day before was Fat Tuesday, which I always remind you is Mardi Gras in French.  I think they should make Valentine’s Day and Fat Tuesday the same day.  Makes sense to me.

 

What doesn’t make sense to me is having a five-year-old girl bring a loaded gun to school.  Did you hear that egregious story?  Where did she get the gun?  Did it come with her Serial Killer Barbie?  Did she get a My Little Colt for Christmas?  I know I’m making jokes, but this is just stupid!  I guess now we need a security guard to frisk every kindergarten student.  Less money for teachers, but what difference does it make?  The City of Baltimore reported 24 of its schools do not have a single student “proficient” in math.  What kind of generation are we raising?

 

It really should not be a shock

That Zach came to school with a Glock

Or five-year-old Suzie

Showed up with an Uzi

They’re armed and they’re dumb as a rock.

 

Movie Review:  It’s been a long time since we’ve been to a movie, but this weekend we saw A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks.  It was marvelous!  I read the book and saw the movie made in Swedish.  They were both named A Man Called Ove and were terrific.  Go see this one.  You’ll smile.  You’ll cry.  It’s a good one.

 

It’s already time to give you the song answers.  I know you got them all right.

 

Long long time ago – American Pie – Don McLean

It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday - Piano Man – Billy Joel

Just yesterday morning - Fire and Rain – James Taylor

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans

          Johnny B Goode – Chuck Berry

On a dark desert highway - Hotel California – Eagles

On a warm summer’s eve on a train bound for nowhere

(You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em)

          The Gambler – Kenny Rogers

 

No?  Too much Judge Judy?  Well, I certainly know when to fold ‘em, and that would be right about now.  Besides, the mice just arrived and Shakespeare looks angry.  I hope this week’s blog hasn’t been too egregious, which, of course, is our Weekly Word.  Egregious means outstandingly bad and shocking.  Are you writing all these down?  There’ll be a quiz.  Anyway, stay well and count your blessings, but never count your money when you’re sitting at the table.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #310                                February 16, 2023

 

Grandchild #3 (Alyssa) has been accepted into college.  She’s first in her high-school graduating class of 650, so I wasn’t worried about her.  Hey, it’s my blog and I can brag about my grandchildren.  I texted her congratulations.  She texted back that she was still waiting to hear from a few other schools.  She said she hoped she would get into Washington University here in St. Louis so she could be close to me.  I said “That’s great!  You could major in Bullshit.”  I guess that would be a BS Degree.

 

Hi there, welcome back and Happy Valentine’s Day.  I hope you are feeling well and staying warm.  On the radio this morning, they said, “The temperature is 33, but it feels like 27,” so I called up the weather service and asked them what 27 felt like.  They said 22.

 

Did you get a lot of Valentine’s candy from your Sweetie?  I have a Valentine story to tell you.  I’ve probably told it to you before, but it is 100% true, and a little . . . well, embarrassing.  One Valentine’s Day, many years ago, I went out and bought Carol all her favorite candy and a gushy, frilly, loving card.  She got me a pair of boxer shorts, no card.  The boxers were pink with dozens of little red hearts.  Ok, we hugged and I threw the shorts in a drawer while she ate her delicious candy.

 

Six years later.  I had been alone for five days.  Carol was at a spa somewhere in Utah, but from there she was flying to Phoenix and I was going to meet her for a little vacation.  The night before I left, I finished packing and went to bed early.  In the morning when I began to dress, I noticed that all my underwear was either in the laundry or in the suitcase except for one folded-up pair of boxers scrunched at the back of the drawer.  I grabbed it.  It was pink with little red hearts.  Well, shoot!  All the rest were packed and nobody was going to see them anyway.

 

Four hours later.  I landed in Phoenix and was picked up by my friend Frank.  Before dropping me at my hotel, he first wanted to pick up something at his house.  We got there, and when he opened the front door, Rosy, his seventy-pound killer Rottweiler, lunged past him and immediately bit me in the butt.  Frank was beside himself with concern.  He begged me to pull down my pants so he could see if I was bleeding.  Well, I didn’t care if I was bleeding!  I didn’t care if I had rabies!  I didn’t care if Lon Chaney Jr. jumped out of a potted plant and told me I was going to turn into a werewolf!  All I cared about was that I was wearing pink underwear with red hearts and I was not about to expose them to Frank or anyone else.  He insisted; I refused.  Did your mother ever tell you not to wear torn underwear?  You might get hit by a bus and the doctor will see, she would say.  Mother was always right about those things.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  If I had my mouth, I would bite (Much Ado About Nothing).  Just show me the animal that bit my Pops and I will scratch its eyes out.  Yes, I do bite my Pops sometimes, but he’s mine and I have to train him.  He’s a good boy.  Purr.

 

Are you becoming frightened with all these balloon objects floating over our country?  They just found another one – white, huge, floating over the Canadian-US border.  Air Force pilots reported it was a life-sized effigy of Donald Trump wearing a hat that read MAKE AMERICA FLOAT AGAIN.  The pilots claim to have shot it down.  Trump denies it.

 

I get so many nice comments from you, and I am very appreciative and humble to receive them.  I got one last week from a reader who said she was “addicted” to Limerick Oyster and just had to have it every Thursday.  Wasn’t that nice?  An addiction is usually not good, but I don’t think that a few jokes and a limerick every week could be so terrible.  Here’s one of those limericks.

 

Do not get addicted to weed

Or heroin, pain pills or speed

No booze and no porn

But each Thursday morn

It’s Limerick Oyster you need.

 

And, at no extra charge, you learn a new word every week.  Our Weekly Word is effigy, which means a sculpture or model of a person.  There are plenty of effigies of our nation’s 46 Presidents.  Actually, there have only been 45, but Cleveland gets counted twice because – well, why not?  Monday, of course, is Presidents Day.  When I was younger (in Grover Grover Cleveland Cleveland’s day) I used to hold these men in awe.  The glorious iconic leaders like Washington and Lincoln and Eisenhower.  To me, they were heroic, trustworthy, brave.  Now I am older, and I have been often disappointed with the more-recent Presidents.  Some have been moral midgets.  Some have been mental midgets.  All we need is Snow White.

 

On Presidents Day, we commemorate the day in 1778 when George Washington sold his first sofa and lounge chair to James Madison. Free delivery and no payments until 1780.

 

Next Tuesday is the day after Presidents’ Day, which is significant in its own way.  On this day in 1778, the first return in American history occurred when James Madison brought back the sofa and lounge chair to George because they were damaged in delivery.  Madison had no trouble transporting the furniture.  He used his Dolly.

 

I know you often think there is method to my madness, but sometimes, in truth, there is just madness.

 

The Super Bowl was entertaining.  The halftime show, not so much.  Look, I admit Rihanna is not in my music era.  My music era began with the Everly Brothers and ended with the Zombies, but I suppose her music is popular.  But a superstar, performing on stage while rubbing her butt and her pubic areas is, in my humble and aged opinion, repulsive.

 

I’ll leave you with that wholesome image and hope you come back next week.  You have to – you’re addicted.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com