Blog #51

Things end. Let me repeat – Things End!  The Roman Empire ended; Egypt of the Pharaohs is no more; the Soviet Union is gone; The Ottoman, Mongol and Aztec Empires live only in history books.  Even Breaking Bad ended.  And the powerful and glorious experiment in freedom that is America can and will go the way of the Pharaohs.  Is that scary?  I think so, especially when watching how our government has turned into two gangs of six-year-olds shouting “Did Not” and “Did So” at each other.  Politics is corrupt and horrible!  Just look at its Latin origins:  poli meaning many and tics meaning blood-sucking parasites.

But at least out in the local governments we have reasonable people coming up with innovative ways to govern.  Like the new law proposed in California that will make it illegal for a waiter to give you a plastic straw.  I don’t need to make this stuff up.  I only need to read the news from California.

When you buy a Coke for a buck

I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck

‘Cause there’s a new law

Says you can’t get a straw.

Now only the lawmakers suck!

Want a quiz?  I know you love quizzes.  This one is about State names.  If you remove all the vowels, Mississippi would become MSSSSPP and Colorado would become CLRD.  Here are the names of four states with all the vowels removed:  HW – TH – DH – H.  What are those four states?  Oh, and what one-word state has six vowels?  Answers later.         

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.   It’s March! Change your calendar page.  Do you still have paper calendars with pictures of fuzzy little cats or waterfalls or grandchildren?  Or do you just do all your planning on your smart phone?  If I know my audience, I’m betting on the fuzzy cats.  My calendar has pictures of my grandchildren.  Which brings up a story.  If I’ve told you this before, forgive me.  Who can remember!

When Zachary, my first grandchild, was born, my office desk began to accumulate pictures of him sent by my daughter.  Some were in little frames but most were just lying helter-skelter on the desk.  We went to visit Baby Zach in North Carolina and, when I returned, I found something new on my desk.  My partner had taken all the Zachary pictures lying there and had them framed in a lovely collage to hang on my wall.  Wasn’t that nice?  I looked at all the pictures and smiled with pride until I came to one in the bottom row.  “That’s not Zachary,” I said.  “Well, who is it?” my partner queried.  “It was on your desk.”  And that started an intense investigation culminating in the conclusion that the little boy in the bottom row was the display picture that came along with one of the little frames I had.  I still have the collage – 15 pictures of my little boy Zach and one of someone else’s little boy.  I’ll bet his Grandfather loves him.

If you have flipped your calendar page, you will notice that March is full of interesting stuff.  First comes π 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!

And March means our little two-week road trip to Florida and North Carolina.  Currently, we are in Florida.  It’s a lot of driving, but always great fun.  I brought three pairs of pants and three pairs of shorts.  Carol brought 400 assorted pants, shorts, jeans, pedal-pushers, bloomers, toreadors and jodhpurs each with at least one associated top.  Matchy-matchy.

I started this blog with the words things end.  I was talking about empires and governments - have you forgotten already?  But do you know what else ends?  Microwaves.  Ours ended.  More than that, it committed suicide in a pyrotechnic flash worthy of the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  So, we measured the space and measured again and took our measurements to Best Buy, where we purchased a new microwave.  I shall call it Microwave 1.0.  It was way too small, but it worked.  It worked for two weeks, after which it started squeaking like an attractive model being squeezed by Al Franken.  Back we went to Best Buy where we replaced it with Microwave 2.0, which was bigger than 1.0 but sure to fit.  We measured, didn’t we?  Any three-year-old baboon can use a tape measure, so it goes to reason that two graduates of Washington University in St. Louis, one with a major in education and the other in mathematics, can be counted upon to use a stupid damned tape measure!  We brought it home and it fit into the opening perfectly.  We were proud.  So, we re-attached the metallic molding around the opening and guess what?

I know you can guess what happened.  I know for two reasons.  One, it’s probably happened to you before and two, you know how useless I am with intricately difficult machinery like a cloth tape measure.  The actual microwave door was too big to fit through the opening in the molding and we took it back.  We now have Frequent Microwave Mileage at Best Buy.  But, every cloud has something or other and Microwave 3.0, though a little small, opens, heats and beeps.  Whew.  It only took a month.  Where was I when they handed out the Competency Gene?  Probably reciting The Raven.

Well, I’d better go practice – once upon a midnight dreary – so I’ll let you go.  Here are the state answers:  HW=Hawaii, TH=Utah, DH=Idaho, H=Ohio and Louisiana has six vowels.  I know you got them all right.

Stay well.  See you next week.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com