Blog #466                                February 12, 2026

 

Do you remember our Weekly Word last week?  It was philippic, and it meant a bitter attack or tirade. Well, I’m about to go on one.  Fasten your seatbelts.  The Winter Olympics have begun, but I can’t get excited about them.  Here’s why:

 

·        I am currently at home watching Olympic Curling.  That’s the event where they slide a big rock (which they call a stone) down the ice while sweeping its path with a broom (which they call a broom).  It’s played like Shuffleboard or Bocce and has all the excitement of a Lawrence Welk accordion solo.  I know you have to be good to compete, but would you call that “athletic prowess”?  Should darts be an Olympic sport?  Or chess?  How about canasta?  To me, Curling is a Winter Olympic embarrassment. 

·        And some of the newer events are too strange and silly for me.  Seriously, skiing should be one event – Downhill.  The one who gets there first wins.  I like things simple.  But now there is skiing with little zig-zags, skiing with big zig-zags, skiing over bumps, skiing over bumps while doing somersaults.  There’s skiing and shooting.  Now there’s a sport for you! It’s called Biathlon.  Ski for an hour, then start shooting the guy ahead of you.  That’s what the Darwinian spirit is all about.  It certainly isn’t about survival of the sweeper.

·        Many Winter Olympic events, Bobsled, Luge, Ski Jumping are nothing but a combination of nerve and gravity.  I know they take skill, but they’re just not interesting to watch.

·        Snoop Dog is an honorary torch bearer.  Yes, the same Snoop Dog that gave us the lyrics "Bitches ain't sh*t but hoes and tricks” and other wholesome and memorable obloquies.  Maybe we should let Harvey Weinstein sell T-shirts and Bill Cosby give out the medals.

·        I don’t like sports that are decided by style and grace.  Ice skating, for instance.  The Olympic Motto is Faster, Higher, Stronger.  It is not Cuter, Biggest Smile, Best Hair-do.   The gold medal for the downhill skiing event is given to the skier who gets to the finish line the fastest.  Nobody cares what he (or she) is wearing, or whether he’s got his fingers in his ears or his hand up his ass.  Get there first and you win!

 

While curling contestants are sweeping

It’s Snoop Doggie’s lyrics I’m bleeping

If I have to choose

Between watching the Luge

And taking a nap – I’ll be sleeping.

 

And what does my wife think?  It’s always fun watching the events with Carol.  We were watching the figure skating last night.  The announcers – you know, the blonde lady and the guy whose hair looks like a pineapple?  Well, these announcers were describing the triple flippers and the quadruple moocows and the quintuple lollipops.  The skaters were magical, flying down the ice and soaring through the air.  And you know what Carol said?  “I don’t like her outfit.”  These skaters have practiced for thousands of hours – exercised, suffered, sacrificed.  They are superb and seasoned athletes.  But one polka-dot out of place?  Get the hook!

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  That is my home of love (Sonnet 109).  Cats have a winter sport.  It’s called Purr-ling.  We slide a dead mouse across the kitchen floor until it gets stuck under the refrigerator.  I’m not good at Purr-ling because I’m missing a leg, but I used to like watching the other cats play back at the shelter.  I’m really happy to be away from the shelter and living in my wonderful home.  Thank you, Pops.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  Did you enjoy the Super Bowl?  How about Bad Bunny?  Or was it Kid Rock?  What have we come to in this country?  We cannot have a State of the Union address by the President without having a Response by the opposition.  Now, we can’t even have a Super Bowl halftime show without having an alternative performer on a different station.  Do we have to protest everything?  Is it just because Bad Bunny speaks Spanish?  Well, actually, Football is basically an American sport, though they play a version of it in Canada, and the Super Bowl is one of the most celebrated days of the year.  I think it was pretty strange to have the halftime entertainment in Spanish.  I’ve heard that next year, they’re planning to sing the Star-Spangled Banner in Spanish.  It starts:  Jose, can you see?  To tell the truth, who cares what language he performs in?  He could speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese or Esperanto and I still wouldn’t know what he was talking about. 

 

Here’s something I care about –shingles.  A friend of mine just got shingles.  I’ve had it before. What a ridiculous name for a disease!  It sounds like some kind of building material, as if the doctor said you had acute drywall.  Or hardening of the concrete or a pain in the asphalt.  There actually is a medical condition very much akin to construction, and a lot of my friends have it.  It’s called having a screw loose.

 

And speaking of names for diseases, I think history will come to show that constant cell-phone usage will prove to have been a mistake.  I see those teen-aged thumbs texting and clicking and clacking four miles a minute and I just know in a few years there will be some disability attributable to it all.  So naturally I have begun to come up with some names.  It pays to think ahead.   How about:  Thummy-ache or Digitalis or even Textually Transmitted Disease?

 

Back to the Super Bowl.  It’s just me, I’m sure, but I couldn’t seem to understand what the Super Bowl commercials were trying to promote.  There were a lot of graphics and movement and music, but when it was all over, I didn’t know what they were selling.  Except the Budweiser ad, of course.  I loved the little Clydesdale.

 

Obloquy, of course, is our Weekly Word.  An obloquy is strongly condemnatory and abusive language.

 

I have to go now; I’m exhausted.  Being clever and witty tires me out.  And thank goodness I can’t hear any of your smart-aleck comments to that!  Maybe I’ll write next week’s issue in Spanish.  Let’s see how you like that, mis amigos.  Hasta luego, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Conejito Malo                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #465                                February 5, 2026

 

I had a slice-and-dice session with Dr. Skin.  It was a basil-cell thingy and she sliced it off and cauterized the wound.  Her young associate actually performed the procedure, and had asked me beforehand if I had a pacemaker or defibrillator.  You see, they were going to cauterize the wound by using an electric charge.  I said, “Whoa, Hoss.  I have (pointing to my chest) a pacemaker, a defibrillator and a 26-inch flat-screen in there and if you set one of them off, it will not be pleasant.” 

 

Your fancy electric device

Might shock me and that isn’t nice

My heart will go boom

And I’ll light up the room

And my body will turn cold as ice.

 

Dr. Skin said she thought it would be alright, and it was.  It is a sobering fact to realize that the beating of my heart is controlled by a device assembled by the lowest bidder.  Plus, the defibrillator has an internal siren that sounds like a Nazi police car and comes out of my chest.  They test it every once in a while, and, believe me, it is very spooky to hear that Gestapo sound coming from your own chest. I hate the Nazi siren.  I would rather have music; even Nazi music would be better. 

 

Oh no.  I knew this was coming! Now he is going to come up with some stupid list of Nazi songs that he made up.  It’s bad enough we have to read his dumb limericks, now we have to suffer through this stupid thing.  Exactly!  Get over it.  Here they are – Nazi songs!

 

Well It’s Bad, Bad Eva Braun, We’re So Sorry Uncle Adolph, Hitler With Your Best Shot, and yes, I have a favorite: Come On Baby Light My Fuhrer.

 

Welcome back, everyone.  I hope you are feeling well.  Are you fed up with all the political squabbling?  I am, but let’s forget it all for a while and look forward to Spring.  That’s right, it’s February, and that means Spring is around the corner.  Which reminds me – Monday was Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil peeped his furry little head out of his hole.  Let’s see if I remember the rules:  if Phil sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of Winter.  If he doesn’t, it means an early Spring.  If he sees Tom Homan’s shadow, he’ll be deported to Guantanamo Bay.  Do they have groundhogs in Cuba?  Maybe not.  Anyway, Phil popped out, saw his shadow and scurried back in immediately to avoid being interviewed by Don Lemon.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humor.  (The Tempest).  Why an ugly, old groundhog?  Why not a beautiful cat?  We could have Cat Day and I could be St. Louis Shakespeare and everyone could pet me.  Purr.

 

I don’t know what to talk about this week.  No funny stories, no goofy poems, no vitriolic philippics.  Oh, there’s a story actually.  I was reading a biography of Winston Churchill, and the word philippic was used.  I had never encountered that word, so I looked it up.  It means a bitter attack or denunciation, the kind of thing I launch into with you once in a while.  It was such an unfamiliar word, I decided to share it with you as our Weekly Word, which I have just done.  Then, Sunday night, as we – wife, daughters, grandchildren – congregated on Zoom to destroy the Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle, we came upon a clue.  Philippic, it read.  No-one had ever heard of it, and neither had I until a few days before, so I told them the definition and we came up with the answer of tirade, which fit nicely into the puzzle.  I thought the coincidence was spooky.

 

I am also reading another book, a novel, and it has a very religious undertone.  God, of course, is referenced as HE.  In last week’s edition, I mentioned God and employed HE.  Carol previews each edition of my blog before I send it to you to make sure I don’t make too many stupid mistakes.  When she read last week’s, she said, “Can’t God be a SHE?”  No, I replied, I’m pretty sure God is a HE.  But there was a Mrs. God.  SHE was the one sitting around reading a book one day when she said, “Honey, it’s really dark in here.  Can’t you turn on a light?”  Let There Be Light boomed out God, and the rest is history.  And don’t ask me what book Mrs. God was reading.  How should I know?

 

Maybe SHE was reading a magazine.  Can you guess the magazine with the largest subscription?  It’s AARP The Magazine.  In second place is AARP Bulletin.  They each have about 23 million readers.  By contrast, Time, National Geographic, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated and Readers Digest each have about 3 million readers.  It seems that AARP has the Old People market under control.  What we need are magazines for Dead People.  Here are a few proposals: Good Hearsekeeping, Corpse Illustrated, Better Plots and Gardens. 

 

I had lunch with a friend yesterday.  Naturally I got there early and, as I patiently sat, reading my book and sipping an iced tea, a lady (my age I suppose) came in and sat at a nearby table.  She told the waiter, “I’m waiting for one more -- short, balding, glasses.”  Is that how we talk about our loved ones when they’re not around?  With some trio of defining characteristics?  Is that how Carol would describe me to a waiter – gray hair, carries a book, Nazi siren coming out of his chest. 

 

When I describe her, it’s always in glorious and adoring superlatives – I’m waiting for a beautiful dark-haired woman.  I would never say, “I’m waiting for one more – short, walks fast, won’t like the table.”  Anyway, when this lady’s husband came in, I knew him immediately from his wife’s description.  He was short and nondescript and lost and generally husband-looking.  I almost just waved at him and pointed him to his wife’s table.  But he found her.  We always do.

 

That’s all, folks.  Another normal week – Nazi music and magazines for dead people.  And you keep coming back?  There must be something wrong with you.  See you next week.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #464                                January 29, 2026

 

Doesn’t anybody care about their privacy anymore?  They put their whole lives on Facebook.  They put naked pictures of themselves on You Tube.  They twitter their every thought to the whole world.  They live in a fantastic goulash of continuous and interminable connection to as many other lost souls as they can. I want my privacy and I want my solitude.  The younger generations want to be connected to as many people as possible for as much time as possible and they don’t care who knows what.  I don’t get it.  Doesn’t anybody ever want to be alone besides me and Greta Garbo?

 

Now that I think of it, if I am so passionate about my privacy and my solitude, why am I vomiting up all the secrets of my life to you every Thursday?  I mean, you know everything about me – about my naked light treatments with the brown paper bag over my head; about my obsessive morning visits to McDonald’s; about my utter technological ignorance; about my urine sample.  Have I told you about my urine sample?  Maybe not.

 

A while ago I had to give a urine sample to the lab.  All I had to do was deliver it, but when I arrived, there was a line at the receptionist’s desk.  I caught her eye and held up the filled vial, whereupon she pointed to the back of the line and said:

 

Good afternoon, Sir, I can       C

You’ve brought in a bottle of    P

If we could ask                        U

To stand in the                         Q

We’ll take you as soon as can  B

 

Well, at least I haven’t posted any naked pictures.  Hi there and welcome back to my latest episode.  I hope you are feeling well and staying warm.  I have readers in California, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Mexico.  They are probably warm, but here in St. Louis it has been really cold.  It’s so cold, I saw Rachel Maddow and Tom Homan hugging. It’s so cold that Donald Trump just booked a cruise to Venezuela. 

 

As I write to you, I am looking out the window of my study at a winter blizzard.  The snow is falling like confetti at a Macy’s Parade, and the prediction is for 18 inches.  We have enough food in the house.  Carol and I, after all, eat like birds.  Shakespeare has enough food. It’s warm enough and I have plenty to do – write to you and read my books.  My only fear is if we lose power.  Well, no point in worrying about something I cannot control.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:   Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where (Sonnet #5).  All that white stuff looks like fun, but Pops never lets me outside.  Oh, look, there’s a stupid dog dragging his human around getting all sloppy and dirty and cold.  I think I’ll stay inside.  It’s warm and the food is good and Pops plays with me and I get to sleep on his bed.  Purr.

 

Is all this giving you a headache?  In my youth – you had a headache, you took aspirin.  You went to the corner drugstore -- Bert & Jeanette’s on Clayton Road next to Lake Forest Bakery.  Mmmmm, the smell of butter cookies wafting through the air!  Where was I?  Aspirin!  There were two kinds – the small bottle of Bayer and the large bottle of Bayer.  The large bottle had twice as many pills and cost twice as much.  And if it didn’t work, the only other course of action was – lie down; it’ll get better.  Now it’s different.  Recently, I went to get something for a headache.  The pain reliever aisle at Walgreen’s was three miles long and the Tylenol section had 100 different kinds, mixtures, sizes and configurations of Tylenol.  They had a pineapple-flavored Tylenol.  They had a Free-Range Tylenol.  And for each one, there was a Walgreen’s store-brand version that was exactly the same.  That made 200 different choices.  And that’s just Tylenol!  Then there were 200 kinds of Advil, 200 kinds of Aleve, 200 kinds of Motrin and yes, there was actually aspirin.  What was I to do?  It’s enough to give you a headache.

 

I just went to get the mail.  Getting the mail is a routine, but very important part of the day.  To many, it is almost a holy pilgrimage to trek to the mailbox or Post Office each and every day without fail.  Our letter carrier (I almost said Mailman which would have been horrible.  After all, it could have been a Femail Man.) – our letter carriers let neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

 

The mail is where you get your bills, wedding invitations, holiday cards and magazines.  I go each day to the mailbox with the same thrill of anticipation and aura of mystery that a five-year-old has when opening a birthday present. Today there was only one item, an invitation to an Open House at the new Senior Lifestyle Community down the street.  Is that sad?  To find nothing but a reminder of how old you are?  Last week I got a catalog displaying the latest in Cremation Urns.  How do they know I’m old?  Do they read my blog?  The older I get, the more I understand why roosters just scream to start their day. (I stole that line from a list my friend Paul sent me.  Shame on me, but it was funny.)

 

While out driving today, I saw a pickup truck with a sign.  Jesus Landscaping, it read.  I’m totally serious.  Jesus Landscaping!  Was the tithe a little short this month, Big Guy?  What do you specialize in, cross-breeding?  How about Walk-On-Water Lilies? Rosary bushes?  I’d better stop before I get hit by a holy roller.  Or lightning!  Actually, I’m not worried.  I’m only joking and I’m pretty sure God has a sense of humor.  He made Donald Trump, didn’t He?

 

Well, it’s time for my ending peroration, but not before our Weekly Word.  We might as well use peroration.  It is the concluding part of a speech, intended to inspire enthusiasm.  And here it comes – stay well, stay warm, stay positive and count all those blessings.  I’ll be back with you next week.  See you then.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 Blog #463                                January 22, 2026

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

Michael sent a blog post detailing his struggles

replacing a bathroom light fixture and his

wife’s refusal to help.  Michael complained

 about the overly complicated, frustrating

 technology in a recent Los Angeles hotel room.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

These tablets will act as a cure

Please take before bed to make sure

Dilute with some juice

‘Cause repeated use

Will cause you to be very poor.

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

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

 

X  X 

X     X

   X  X

 

 

 

 

Blog #462                                         January 15, 2026

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

I don’t juggle or do magic tricks

I just sit here and write limericks

I’ve written you rhymes

One-point-five thousand times

In two years, it’ll be one-point six.

 

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

 

To follow the man she sought

She went to the store and bought

A box of Depends

It’s perfect, my friends

To cover your astronaut.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #461                                January 8, 2026

 

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

 

I really do read quite a lot

And learn things more often than not

I learn, I might say,

Something new every day

To replace all the stuff I forgot.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Hey, it is what it is.  Purr.

 

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

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com