Blog #3

Hi.  How are you?  This is the third edition of the blog and I figure if you’re back for a third time, that makes you part of the family.  Welcome.  Did you have a good week?   Mine was ok.  I always manage to keep busy.  I write my letter to my daughters; that goes out on Sunday.  And I write to you and that goes out on Thursday.  I play bridge a couple of days and I volunteer a couple of days and, of course, doctors.  I have so many doctors that I don’t even try to learn their names.  I just call them by their specialty.  I have Dr. Skin and Dr. Lung, Dr. Back and Dr. Knee, Dr. Blood and Dr. Pain and Dr. Heart.  And you can only imagine what I call the guy who gives me a colonoscopy.  I have more doctors than you can shake a thermometer at.  It all comes with the advanced years.  I played bridge today and I asked for a show of hands on anyone who had a doctor’s appointment this week.  All hands went up except for the guy with the torn bicep who couldn’t raise his arm.  Then, of course, I have three grandchildren in town to take up my time.  What a glorious treasure! 

I want to tell you something that happened in February.  My wife and I were on a road trip and were in the midst of a long, 18-hour leg.  We made periodic stops along the way at McDonald’s to pour liquid in one end and tinkle it out the other.  At one stop late in the afternoon she decided she needed some exercise, so she began walking around the McDonald’s – weaving through and around the booths and the chairs and the tables.  And not slowly.  My wife is 71, slim and in great shape.  She does nothing slowly.  We call her the Princess of Lickety Split, and there she was, flying around the store at 4.0 miles per hour – past the counter and the soda machine and the cardboard cutout of Ronald like a skinny Pac-Man on meth.  It was fantastic!  Everyone was staring at her.  People at the counter were making bets as to how many times she would pass the Iced-Tea dispenser before their Big Macs arrived.  I could not stop smiling.  What a woman!

Carol and I take this road trip every year --  we drive to Naples to visit friends, then to Carol’s sister in West Palm and up to my daughter in North Carolina.  It always makes me anxious when I go out of town.  And for good reason.  Once, when I was out of town, I had quadruple bypass surgery.  Another time I was in the hospital with pneumonia.  Another time I was hit with a urinary infection.  I think I have a new plan:

Whenever I travel I dread

Winding up in a hospital bed

I’m thinking next year

I should leave my wife here

And take all my doctors instead.

When I was talking about Carol’s road race in the McDonald’s, I guess I should have said Pac-Person instead of Pac-Man.  I apologize.  My daughters have schooled me to say:

·        firefighter, not fireman

·        police officer, not policeman

·        Congress person, not Congressman

·        Pac-Person, not Pac-Man

·        Worker, not workman

·        Letter carrier, not mailman

We have a lady letter carrier, and I don’t see what the big deal is.  You’re either a mailman or a fee-mailman.

The comments and suggestions keep coming in.  Except for the few that mention arsenic or self-immolation, I do appreciate them.  My favorite suggestion came from Carol’s Cousin Paula.  She thought if I called a nursing home and offered to read my blogs to the inmates, I could get a free room in exchange.  I love it!  I called a few to see what was the best deal I could make.  Well, the free room is out.  The most I could get in exchange for readings was a cup of cherry Jell-O, no whip.  I love cherry Jell-O.  When my oldest grandson, Zachary, was 13, he decided to do a good deed and perform magic tricks at a senior center.  In the first room he entered, he asked the elderly lady to pick a card.  She memorized it and placed it back in the deck.  He went through a few tricky gyrations of the deck and came back with her card.  “Is this the card you picked?” he asked.  “I don’t know,” she exclaimed.  “I forgot.”

I receive a lot of feedback that it is too hard to make comments at the bottom of the blog.  God love you, you’re as low-tech as me.  I don’t have the first clue.  When it comes to computer tech, Carol and I are like two snakes trying to design a shoe. Call the nearest nine-year-old.

Besides lots of doctors, my generation has lots of pills.  I make a list of all my meds and keep a copy in my wallet.  Then, when I go to a doctor, I just give them the list.  You should do that.  One time I want to play a game when I have six or eight old folks together.  I want each to put a list of their meds in a bowl.  Mix it up, pick out one list at random and try to figure out whose list it is.  It’s kind of like Senior Clue.  Colonel mustard in the bathroom with the stool softener.

On Thursdays I tutor math, but last week was Spring Break.  Of course where I tutor we are encouraged not to use the word “break”.  You see, I tutor at the St. Louis County Justice Center, a wonderful euphemism for the “slammer”.  My guys, the most violent felons in the building, are trying to get their High School Equivalency, and it is always interesting.  One time I was dealing with an inmate on a word problem that asked for the product of two numbers.  I asked my student if he knew what “product” meant.  He said, “Product?  You mean like cocaine?”  Sad, but true.

Ok, it’s over.  Don’t forget to fill out the “follow blog” box in the upper right or at the bottom.  And click on the submit.  It’ll ask you to do a few benign things and then you’re on the list.  You can do it.  I have faith in you.  (Call the nine-year-old.)  And have that grandchild help you to comment.

And please stay well.

See you next week

Michael

Blog #2

I’m back, and, obviously, so are you.  That means you must have liked Blog #1.  Nice!  This may be the start of a long friendship.  And of course it means that my wife was right.  She noodged, cajoled, browbeat, intimidated and thoroughly stampeded me into doing a blog and I (they do call me “stubborn”) resisted and fought and refused.  Until that morning when my granddaughter said, “C’mon, Pops, I can help you.”  Yes, my wife was right.  She usually is.  Sure, I write the songs and the poems.  I even wrote her college papers for her.  And yes, I get more of the Final Jeopardies than she does.  But she’s the one with the brains, if you know what I mean.  And, of course, the looks.

But even though she has the brains, I must admit that I do not like her taste in books.  She and her friends all read the same books, and they all sound the same:  The Dressmaker’s Cousin, The Lieutenant’s Niece, The Butcher’s Son-in-Law, The Bishop’s Third Cousin.  And every book is either a Holocaust book or a book about a poor orphan wretch who has been abused, mistreated, malnourished, drawn, quartered and forced to watch reruns of the Perry Como show.  Even so, the poor wretch always grows up to be something special, like a contestant on The Bachelor.  Holocaust?  Abused children?  Do the women really need to wallow in that much misery just to make them see how great their lives are?  That’s called “schadenfreude”, and it’s a great word, but a pretty depressing way to spend a few hours.  If they want to know how wonderful, stress-free and privileged their lives are, all they have to do is ask their husbands.

I have received a lot of comments regarding Blog #1, all very warm and complementary.  I’m excited!  I have also received my share of “helpful” suggestions.  It’s too long – it’s too short.  It’s too wide – it’s too narrow.  It’s too dark – it’s too light.  You should do it twice a week – you should never do it again.  I appreciate all the help, but for now I’m going to leave it like it is.  I told you I was stubborn.  Carol, that’s my wife, and our friend Betty consistently call me stubborn, and I have finally determined what it is they mean.  A man is “stubborn”, according to them, when he does not do exactly what his wife tells him to do:

Eat some kale. -- I don’t like kale. -- You’re so stubborn.

Read this Holocaust book. -- I don’t like Holocaust books. -- You’re so stubborn.

See what I mean!  It’s pretty simple – if you open your mouth and the first two words you speak are not “Yes Dear”, then you’re stubborn.

We flew home from North Carolina to St. Louis last week and had a layover in Atlanta.  I took a little walk in the airport and came across a Starbuck’s.  That, of course, is not a shock, but I stopped to overhear a few customers ordering their drinks.  Now back in my time –  wait, let’s hold it right here.  I realize that I have readers in my grandchildren’s generation and readers in my daughters’ generation, but I’m pretty sure that the majority of you are in my generation.  And here’s how I can tell:  if you can sing the Dinah Shore Chevrolet jingle, you’re there.  So when I say back in my time, most of you can relate.  Now I’m not a coffee guy, but I do remember when the only choices when ordering coffee were:

            Black                                      Cream, no sugar

            Sugar, no cream                 Cream and sugar

Just four.  Then came the world-shattering and confusing new option:  Decaf.  Overnight the menu went from four choices to eight, sending many insomniacs into asylums with overworked synapses.  Now – well, the permutations are incalculable.  I heard one lady order a large decaf mocha Frappuccino, two pumps, split quad shots, one raw sugar, two short sprinkles of cinnamon, no whip.  It took longer to order it than to drink it.  It took this lady one hundred yards of walking down the airport concourse to finish the drink.  And what do you know – there was another Starbuck’s, perfectly placed to reel her in for another shot.  I grabbed a napkin to blow my nose and headed back to my seat.

When I got to the gate, I spotted a trash grouping which had five containers – paper, plastic, cans, old Neil Diamond albums and landfill.  I was perplexed, but I decided a snot-filled napkin qualified as landfill.  I reached for the container and noticed a green LED shining from the top.  I paid no attention, but when I reached to push the little door open, it opened by itself.  Cool, I thought, but to what purpose?  Maybe they presume we are too weak to push a ¼ inch sheet of aluminum open?  No, I get it now – it’s so you don’t have to touch the container.  Right, avoid the germs.  This is a perfect thing to have in an airport so that you can throw your stuff away without risking contact with a germ and then spend two hours in a closed metal tube with 250 people coughing and sneezing and inundating you with pathogens for every communicable disease known to the human race.  Makes sense to me.

Thank God you did not touch the trash.

                                    But you’ll still get the mumps and a rash

                                    You’ll get plague, you’ll get flu

                                    And a hemorrhoid or two.          

And besides that– we might even crash.

But at least you didn’t touch the container.  Thank you for flying Southwest Airlines.

I guess I’m finished here, but before you click off, I want you to do two things for me.  First, go to the upper right of the blog and enter your Email in the box that says “Follow Blog by Email”; then click “Submit” and you will be notified automatically every time I post a new blog.  Can you handle that?  Good.  Second, I want you to take a deep breath and sing the Dinah Shore Chevrolet song.  C’mon, I know you can do it.  Nobody’s listening.  Sing it loud.  It’ll make you feel young again.  C’mon!  No?  You won’t do that for me?  You’re so stubborn.

And, hey!  Don’t forget to tell everybody you know about the blog.  The more, the better.

 

Stay well.  See you next week.

Michael 

Blog # 1

“What the Heck is this?” I hear you cry.  You probably said “What the Hell is this?” but I didn’t want use a bad word and offend your tender sensibilities in the first sentence, so I waited until the second sentence.  Consider yourself warned.  So what is this?  It’s just me talking to you.  They call it a Blog, and by “they”, I mean the entire 90% of the world that is younger than me.  Ok, I am a 71-year-old guy with a wife, three daughters and eight grandchildren.  That’s all you get to know right now.  As we wander through this blogging thing together (if we wander through this blogging thing together) we’ll get to know each other better.

Did I mention I have three daughters?  You know how dads are with their little girls, and when they were young, Valentine’s day was my special thing.  Candy and sweets and cookies for my girls.  We all ignored the “They don’t need that crap” from their mother and everybody was happy.  Then they grew up and went to college and I had to mail all the sweeties to their dorms or apartments.  When my youngest was a sophomore at Indiana, my wife told me that they all had secretly begged her to make Dad stop sending them that fattening stuff every February.  So I stopped.  On February 15^th I got three phone calls.  “Where’s my candy, you disloyal old coot?  Don’t you love me anymore?”  So I wrote a letter of apology and sent a copy to each daughter begging forgiveness.  I kind of liked writing the letter, so I wrote another the next week and now have done so every week for twenty years.  Twenty years – a thousand letters.  They must like them because now they, and mostly my dear wife, have been pushing me to write a blog.  So this is it.

I live in Missouri, but I write you today from North Carolina where my oldest lives with her husband and three kids (15, 14 and 11).  My daughter, Jennifer, eats kale.  She loves kale.  She makes salads of it and fries it in olive oil for a snack and tries to sneak it into my food.  That’s why I like to go out for dinner.  My position is that if mankind has not discovered a food in its first 10,000 years, I’m not interested.  I’m not excited about reinventing the wheel, or the salad for that matter.  Any bowl filled with something that looks like a divot is not for me.  Maybe for Trigger, but not for me.  They tried kale once before a couple of hundred years ago during the French Revolution and it didn’t work.  You know, of course, that Marie Antoinette actually said, “Let ‘em eat kale!”

                        The peasants were starving for bread

                        When Marie Antoinette rudely said,

                        “I hate when they wail

                        “Just let ‘em eat kale.”

                        And that’s when they chopped off her head.

That was a limerick.  I am not famous for much, but I do kind of write funny songs and poems for friends’ anniversaries and 75^th birthday parties.  Remember those thousand letters I mentioned?  (If you don’t, stop right here.  Your attention span is that of a shitszu.)  For every one of those thousand or so letters, I wrote a limerick.  Did you notice the name of this blog?  Limerick Oyster?  Pay attention – you had to be expecting something.

When I finally submitted to this blogging thing, I of course had no idea how, what or where?  So I asked my 14-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, and she helped.  Isn’t that how it always is when one of the following happens?

·        My printer won’t work

·        I lost my emails

·        The ringer won’t ring

·        Why don’t I have emojis?

·        What is an emoji?

·        It won’t let me delete my notes

·        I lost my notes

Just call the grandchild that actually talks to you and promise something very expensive or fattening in exchange for information that every 6-year-old knows.  Thank you, Zoey and thank you Abby (my youngest daughter) for polishing it up.  All this technology is daunting and depressing.  I know nothing.  I mean I have a smart phone and can text and take a picture (and even emoji), but other than that – nada!  I guess now I can blog.  Who knew?  One of the new techy trends is Echo.  That’s Amazon’s little tubular machine that answers your questions and follows your orders.  “Alexa, what time is it?  Alexa, play James Taylor?”  Abby has one and my sister-in-law has one and even some of my friends. Now Amazon has a new version called Apesta which talks to you whether you like it or not.  Here’s a few of its programmed messages:

·        When you open the bedroom door in the morning:  Are you really going to wear that?  The mirror is to your left.

·        Every hour on the hour:  Stand up straight.

·        When opening the front door to leave:  The temperature is 58 degrees.  Put on another layer.

·        Apesta, where is the nearest Dairy Queen?  Don’t mumble.

·        Apesta, where is the nearest Dairy Queen?  I’m not telling you.  Have a carrot.

·        Apesta, call Bill.  He’s no good for you.  I found this number for a dating service.

·        Goodnight, Apesta; wake me at seven.  You only have 9,612 steps.  Walk to the kitchen and back three times.

I don’t think I’m going to buy one.  I don’t need it; I have my wife.  I’m leaving you a bad impression of my wife.  She is glorious, beautiful and sweet.  (“Did you get that, Honey?”)  But she can be pushy and controlling as well.  (“I love you, Cupcake.”)  I’ll tell you more about her next week; you’ll love her.  I do.

So that’s it.  We talked for a while; I wrote you a limerick; and, who knows, maybe you’ll come back and read next week’s version.  Hey, you’ve only got 999 more to go to catch up with my kids.  And no, I’m not sending you candy on Valentine’s Day.

As I was writing, my daughter just announced (I am not making this up) that she was giving the leftover broccoli quiche to the chickens.  Sure, they won’t eat the kale.

See you next week (I hope)

Michael