Blog #38

Good morning.  It’s Thursday.  I wonder who got fired this morning for sexual harassment.  Have you heard the new Christmas song?

   

🎼So long ye merry gentlemen – Al Franken and Matt Lauer

🎼John Conyers too and Charley Rose, we caught you in the shower.

🎼Now men in every walk of life had better watch themselves.

🎼Cause we caught Santa playing with two elves – Comfort and Joy

🎼Yes we caught Old Santa playing with two elves.

I think I’ve come up with a scale on which to grade these creeps.  When the number of accusers exceeds the number of letters in “PERVERT”, then the guy should no longer be classified as Homo Sapiens.  Ah, I can just imagine one of you saying, “How about Homo Erectus?”  Now that’s really a filthy, low-class, disgusting thing to say.  I’m so glad I came up with it before you did.

I am writing some of this in North Carolina where I am currently visiting my daughter Jennifer.  She is currently down at her chicken coop, which in Haiti would be a six-family.  One of her chickens has lately been exhibiting signs of depression.  The technical term, I think, is “Down in the Dumplings.”  So Jen is boning up with a textbook on chicken psychology.  The book is called Freud Chicken.  I have more chicken jokes than Harvey Weinstein has victims. 

I am at this moment sitting in Jen’s kitchen trying to avoid Lance.  Lance is the pillow-sized automatic vacuum creature that starts up whenever it wants to and roams around the house sucking up dirt and old men.  I told Siri to kill it, but she told me she was non-violent, which reminded me of one of my favorite movies (Forbidden Planet, 1956).  It describes a society whose technology became so advanced that it reached a level where every person could just wish for something and the Central Computer would make it happen.  Want a Mocha Frappuccino?  Boom, it’s there.  Swimming pool in your back yard?  Boom, you got it.  Whatever wish you had would instantly become reality.  But as soon as that new “ap” came on line, everyone subconsciously wished for the death of someone they hated or envied, and the entire populace was wiped out in a single night.  Is that where we are heading?  The technology is racing ahead too fast – certainly too fast for me.  Why can’t they just stop for a while and let us rest?

I have an iPod and an iPhone.  Carol has an iPhone and an iPad.  My grandkids all have iPhones or iTouches or iWatches.  iGiveUp!  I like my phone.  I like the photos and the calling and the texting. I learned how to send messages to my daughters, and once I had that mastered, somebody came up with emojis.  Did I need that?  Does it enhance my ability to communicate by adding a Happy Face or a heart to my texts?  ❤

But, I adapted and learned how to send emojis.  Then it was bitmoji, and the images or just a plain Happy Birthday had to include a cartoon likeness of my old face.  Clever, I guess, but childish.   👻

But, I learned that too and then how to add balloons or fireworks to the message.  What a juvenile waste of my time!  And just when I was comfortable – Bam! -  the next dreaded ios update came along and added a thousand tiny, sinister changes to all the things I had finally learned how to do.  I don’t want any more updates.  Stop it!  Leave me alone.

Apple, we all appreciate what you have done.  You have made our lives happier and easier with your iPhones.  But now that I’m happy, lose my number!  Just give me a smart phone.  It doesn’t have to be Einstein-smart; Betty White-smart is good enough.  I just want to text, take pictures and make calls.  That’s all, period!  And no more updates – ever.  Let me learn how to do the three things I want and then go away.  I’m not a teenager.  Just give me a simple phone for me and my generation.  And call it the iMold. 

Jen just went to Whole Foods and came back with something marked Dead Sea Mineral Soap.  I don’t mean to burst any of your soap bubbles, but it is as a result of those minerals that nothing can live in the Dead Sea.  Hence the name DEAD.  I want soap with minerals from the Really Alive and Thriving Sea.  I mean why should I want to rub myself with stuff that causes instantaneous death to any marine creature it touches?  But that’s just me. 

I have many friends who use the old line that goes, “I read the paper every morning and if my name is not in the obituaries, it’s a good day.”  I don’t bother reading the obituaries.  I figure if I’m dead, somebody’s going to tell me.  And besides, reading the obits depresses me.  It makes me realize how many people I didn’t know.  If I shook hands with a stranger every second, 24 hours a day, it would take me 236 years to shake hands with every person on Earth.  And I still wouldn’t find anybody else who has read Moby Dick five times.  I saw somewhere that of the 7.4 billion people on the Earth, about 380 million are older than me.  But this number can only go down, every hour, every day.

It’s scary how clearly I see

The truth about mortality:

Every night someone dies

So each day when I rise

There’s less people older than me.

That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?  Oops, now it’s 379,999,999.  I’m depressed.  I need to rest.  And read the obituaries.

Hi there.  Welcome back, and don’t be depressed.  I know life sucks sometimes, but, as my Dad always said, “I count my blessings.  My cup runneth over.”  So let’s count our blessings and try to find a smile once in a while.  Let’s see, how can I make you smile today?

Do you have a Spellchecker?  Of course you do.  That’s the program that corrects the spelling and punctuation on your computer or iMold.  I have a Spellchecker on my Microsoft Word program.  That’s the program I use to write this thing.  I call it Speedy the Spellchecker, and Speedy tries to correct all my spelling and punctuation miscues.  I say “tries to” because I do not accept most of his corrections.  I want it the way I want it, and I normally do not bow to the commands of some impersonal collection of zeroes and ones known as a computer program.  For instance, in the paragraph above this one, I used the word runneth.  Speedy, having apparently never read the Bible, had a conniption and told me I couldn’t do it.  Well, Speedy, kisseth my asseth!  I’m going to use it anyway.  If Shakespeare had had a Spellchecker, he would have been forced to say Romeo, Romeo, where the hell are you?

There, I bet I made you smile. I’ll try to make you smile some more next week, so stayeth well and cometh back.

😀                                       Sendeth comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com