Blog #64

Did you have a nice Memorial Day Weekend?  Memorial Day means that Summer is here, but not officially of course.  Summer officially begins June 21st at 5:07 a.m. CDT.  At that instant, the North Pole will be tilted closest to the sun and those in the Northern Hemisphere will experience the longest day of the year.  It’s called the Summer Solstice.  Ok, all that mysterious drivel is swell, but haven’t you ever wondered why Summer isn’t just June, July and August?  June should start on the day of the Summer Solstice and August should end at the Autumnal Equinox (more arcane weather-speak).  Then Autumn can be September, October and November just like everybody thinks it is.  When Aristotle or God or Donald Duck or Pope Gregory XIII decided to make the calendar, why didn’t they ask us?  We would have made it so simple.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and staying out of this heat.  Even though the official start of Summer is three weeks away, the weather has been sizzling.  How hot is it?  I’m so glad you asked.  Relax, grab a cold drink and I’ll tell you how hot it is.

It's so hot, Kim Jong Un has decided to stand in Trump’s shadow.

It’s so hot, J-Lo traded Marc Anthony for Ice T.

It’s so hot, cows are giving evaporated milk.

It’s so hot, Charley Rose is taking more cold showers.

It’s so hot, the trees are fighting over the dogs.

It’s so hot, I saw two squirrels fanning their nuts.

It’s hotter than Joy Behar’s tongue.

It’s too hot for playing or talking

The birds are too hot to be squawking

I saw a dog that

Was chasing a cat

And both of the poor things were walking.

I was going to play golf on Memorial Day, but the heat made me wimp out.  Besides, my wrist hurts.  I’m afraid that’s going to limit my golfing this summer.  I’m sure it’s one of those Repetitive Motion Injuries – probably Writer’s Cramp from writing to you every week.  I remember when the only repetitive injuries were Writer’s Cramp and Tennis Elbow.  Then came Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Tendinitis and Golf Elbow and Trigger Finger.  Now there’s a whole slew of new ones that some very famous people suffer from.  OJ Simpson has Throat-Slashing Wrist, Bill Cosby suffers from Girl-Drugging Elbow, Anthony Weiner has Porn Photo Finger, Al Franken suffers from Breast-Cupping Syndrome and of course there’s Trump Twitter Thumb.  Take some Ibuprofen.

There are so many TV, cable, Netflix, Hulu and other sources of programming that there are literally thousands of new shows to choose from.  Yet, there are some shows that have been around seemingly forever.  The longest running scripted show that is still on the air, The Simpsons, has run for 29 seasons.  I have never seen one episode, but I’m guessing Bart Simpson has never matured.  Neither, most likely, have the people who watch it.  But there are plenty of programs that have grown older and have decided to change their names to reflect their extreme longevity.  Modern Family is now Ancient Family.  Blue Bloods has been changed to Thin Bloods.  Walking Dead has become Barely Alive.  There’s Hawaii Nine-O, Grey Haired Anatomy and Wheelchair of Fortune.

And besides old TV shows, there are old jokes.  Here’s one.  An Amish family decided to go to the city for the first time and visited a department store, a place they had only heard of in whispered rumors.  The mother went in one direction, the father and son in another.  Minutes later the father and son were standing in front of a pair of silver doors with lights above them.  An old lady with a walker came up to the doors and pushed a button.  The silver doors magically opened and the old lady went in.  The doors closed, the lights went up up up and then down down down.  The silver doors opened again and out walked a beautiful young woman.   The man turned to his son.  “Go get your mother,” he said.

I had to borrow my grandson’s pickup truck the other day.  This is the truck that’s so tall I need a Sherpa to get in.  Once in, however, I was tooling along nicely, feeling like your average American Redneck, when I decided to turn on the radio.  This is a 16-year-old boy’s ride, and I prepared myself for the Death Metal Burn in Hell Kill Your Parents and Take Some Drugs station.  But you know what I got?  National Public Radio.  My grandson listens to NPR?  I was impressed!  Until, that is, they started a piece on why some lizards have green blood.  No wonder our teenagers are so messed up!  They listen to NPR!  I would have enjoyed the Death Metal station more.

Speaking of grandchildren, last Friday was National Poppy Day.  I was so proud.  I dressed up in my new slacks, a nice golf shirt and my best loafers and waited for all my grandchildren to come visit their Poppy.  Wasn’t that sweet to have a day just for me?  They never showed up.  They didn’t call; they didn’t write.  Not a tweet!  Maybe I had the date wrong.  I looked it up.  Here’s what I found - National Poppy Day is the day veterans wear a red poppy to honor the fallen of WWI.  I shrugged, changed my clothes and looked up when Grandparents Day is.  It’s September 9^th.  I guess I can wait.

I don’t believe in omens or fortune-telling or parapsychology or magic.  I’m a scientist, after all, and yet – well, something happened today that has me a bit shaken.  A couple of years ago, my son-in-law Robert bought me a bobble-head made to look like me, standing in a golf shirt holding my putter.  That’s PUTTER!  You have a filthy mind.  Today I moved the little figurine from one spot to another and the head fell off and rolled under my chair.  The head that looked exactly like me!  It was very spooky!  Does that mean this is my last blog?  Who knows?  I will try to be very careful this week. You should be careful too.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you next week.  I hope.

Michael                                            Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #63

Do your kids or grandkids play a musical instrument?  Do you remember when they were in 3^rd grade and it was time for the class recital?  There they were, my little angel and 43 brats who couldn’t possibly be as cute as mine.  Each one had a violin.  They were eight.  How horrible was this going to be?  Did I bring enough cotton balls to shove into my ears?  The Music Director walked onto the stage, accepted the applause of the anxious parents and addressed his mini-Paganinis, Perlmans and Heifetzes.  Here were his instructions:

Please take your position right now

And fiddle as if you knew how.                   

At the start of the show

You will all take a bow;

At the end you will all take a bow.

Welcome back, everyone.  I hope you’re feeling fine and were able to read that limerick.  It is always a challenge to write a limerick, but sometimes it can be an equal challenge to read one.  If that limerick didn’t sound right to you, if the rhyme scheme didn’t work out – well, you read it wrong!  Try it again.  Here’s the clue:  the first “bow” rhymes with show as in violin bow.  The second rhymes with now and how.  I thought it was clever.  Oh, who cares!

And by the way, those cute little violinists sounded pretty good.  I was surprised.  Besides going to violin concerts, I go to my local grandkids’ sporting events.  It’s baseball - softball season now and every Saturday and Sunday there are a couple of games.  I have three daughters and all of them were sensational softball players in their day.  Two of them still play, and I went to watch Abby, my youngest daughter, play in a co-ed game.  They’re all in their 30s and 40s.  The first time up she took a wimpy little swing at the first pitch, so all the guy outfielders, thinking she was “just a girl”, came closer in.  Then she launched the next pitch over their heads for a triple.  What a sneaky, devious and dishonest thing to do!  That’s my baby!

How are you at song lyrics?  I must admit I’m still pretty good for songs from the late 50s through the 70s.  But sometimes, you just get something in your head that’s wrong, but sticks anyway.  For instance, you know the Do-Re-Mi song?  “Do, a deer, a female deer”.  For years I thought one of the lines was “Ti-A drink with Jan and Fred.”  Seriously.

Well, the other day, Carol was watching Jeopardy or playing HQ or something.  Isn’t that HQ guy obnoxious?  Would you buy a car from that slimy creep?  Would you let your daughter marry him?  He must be friends with Eric Schneiderman.  Anyway, Carol shouts, “Who sang, Hold me closer, Tony Danza?”  It was Elton John, I said, and it’s “Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer”.  I think he wrote that song right after he wrote Pop goes Vin Diesel and Here we go ‘round George W. Bush, George W. Bush, George W. Bush.

I told my daughter Abby about the Tony Danza story and she said that happened on an episode of Friends.  Well, it happened with Carol also.  Funny!

Do you know what grillage is?  It’s pronounced gree-yuj and is French for toast.  I know this because Carol went out to dinner with some friends.  I was left alone and hungry, usually not a problem.  I can always find something to put in the microwave, turn the timer to 45 seconds and push START.  When it catches fire, I push STOP and open the door.  Even Queen Elizabeth could figure that out.  Did you watch the Royal Wedding?  It was a little early in the morning for me.  Besides, I have my own Princess.

 

Where was I?  The microwave.  I didn’t use the microwave because I just felt like sardines.  Yes, slimy, oily, disgusting sardines!  That’s alright, make fun of me.  You could fill the Rose Bowl with people who have made fun of me before you.  I opened the can and placed the sardines on my plate which somehow looked kind of empty.  Toast – that’s what it needed.  I found some bread and put two pieces in the toaster oven.  Then I looked for the START button.  There was no such thing.  There were, however, a bunch of French words next to a corresponding number of English words placed around two circles.  There were also some large numbers which I assumed were temperatures.  Some were in Fahrenheit and some in Centigrade.  There were not, however, any buttons for off, on, stop or start and no timers.

So I started playing and was able to make two things happen – light and sound.  The light was accompanied by heat and the sound was most likely a fan.  I somehow made them go on at the same time and, in a short while, my bread became toast.  Easy enough.  Then I tried to turn it off.  I could not find any combination of dials or buttons that would cause both the light and the sound to go off at the same time.  Do I know anybody who speaks French?  Do I know anybody who speaks Centigrade?  “There is no-one so lost as he who searches for a way where there is no way.”  I thought about calling my wife and asking her how to turn the damn thing off, but if I called her, then all the girls at dinner would laugh at what a fool I was.  Instead, I unplugged the entire contraption, ate my dinner and ran to the computer to write this so that all of you would laugh at what a fool I was.  What a fool I am! 

My Princess came home, noticed the unplugged appliance and said, “Couldn’t figure out the toaster oven, could you?”  God, I hate when she’s right!  “No, I could not figure it out,” I said. “It’s French!”  “Well, maybe it’ll make a funny story for your blog.”  God, I hate when she’s right! 

That's enough for me.  I'm going to play with the toaster again.  Stay well, count your blessings.  I’ll be back next week. 

Michael                                            Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #62

The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910.  Good things – old things – things that shouldn’t change!  But they do, and now the Boy Scouts will be just The Scouts.  You know, I could see it coming.  The girls want to join the Boy Scouts because the Girl Scouts are fumbling and fading and out of money.  I could tell just from reading the cookie box.  I mean, what kind of lesson is it for these young women to be selling cookies that have four grams of fat per cookie?  Just to make a buck?  The Samoas will bloat you up like the Hindenburg, the Thin Mints will make you fat, the S’mores will make s’more of you and the Tagalongs will make you bigger than Eric Schneiderman’s bag of lies.  And all to make money!  I recently acquired a leaked Girl Scout internal memo.  Well, everybody else is getting leaks.  Why not me?  Here it is:

Now listen up Girl Scout Cadets

These cookies will pay all our debts

They’re poison we know                   

But we need the dough

And next year we’ll sell cigarettes.

I knew if they were that desperate for money, they’d be gone soon and now the girls have nowhere to go but the neutral-gender Scouts.  And so the name change.

I’ll tell you another organization that needs a name change -- the NAACP.  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is one year older than the Boy Scouts.  It’s about time, I believe, to change the “colored people” designation to “African Americans”.  Don’t you agree?  That will make it the National Association for the Advancement of African Americans, NAAAA, the N Double-A Double-A.  It’s still a catchy name, and I sent a letter to the organization asking if they’d like to make the change.  Their answer --  “Naaaa”.   Well, I tried.

Welcome back, you gluttons for punishment.  I’m so glad you’re here and hoping you are well and happy.  Do you feel smart today?  Do you feel like Sherlock?  If you said “Sherlock who”, skip this section.  My student at the County Jail last week was Steve.  His left arm was completely tattooed with Cardinal logos and other stuff.  His right arm had no tattoos.  Can you find a logical explanation for that?  More later.

Do you like dogs?  I like dogs.  On my last trip to North Carolina, I took one of my daughter’s dogs to my granddaughter’s soccer game.  There were lots of dogs there and the routine is always the same.  My dog sniffs your dog; your dog sniffs my dog and then we exchange breeds.  Mine is an Australian Shepherd kind of mutt, I volunteered.  She’s a rescue dog.  “Oh, mine is a Gerberian Shepsky,” the haughty, short-haired woman replied.  A Gerberian WHATSKY?  Is that the name of a dog or a hockey goalie?  “A dog,” she replied without the slightest display of a sense of humor, “It’s a mix of a German Shepherd and a Siberian Husky.”

Well, excuuuuuse moi!  You know, it used to be we’d show off our wealth with an expensive purchase.  “Have you seen my new 911 Carrera or my 300-SL?  Do you like my Judith Leiber or my Jimmy Choos?”  Now the glitterati among us show their hifalutin bona fides by mixing up a batch of doggie genes in a blender.  And when they blend the dogs, they blend the names.  No longer do they have collies or poodles or cocker spaniels.  Now they have Yoranians, Chiweenies and Double Doodles.  They have Cockapoos, Corgipoos and Labskies.  They have Bassadors, Cavapoochons and Pitt Plotts.  These are real.  How could I make these up?  Now, instead of hearing “Hi, what a cute dog”, I hear “Would your Double Doodle like to sniff my Chiweenie?”  I just want to go up to these people and scream, “Kiss my Bassador!  Save the two thousand bucks and adopt a rescue dog.”  And Cockapoos?  I haven’t heard that since I was toilet-training my first grandchild.

Names change, dogs change, even the Bible changes.  I don’t like talking about religion to you because I don’t want to step on anyone’s sacred toes so I’ll be brief.  Carol and I were at Friday evening services at our Temple.  There was a Bible in the pocket in front of my seat, and I picked it up.  I went right to the beginning because at the beginning is, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Simple enough; I can understand that.  We have heard that all our lives.  We get it.  But that’s not what I found.  What I found was, “When God was about to create heaven and earth”.  What was wrong with in the beginning?

And what was wrong with “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want?”  Now it’s “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing”.  And “My cup runneth over” is now “My cup overflows.”  Nothing is like what it was.

I’m almost in tears right now, or should I say, “My eyes runneth over.”  My youngest St. Louis grandchild, Austin, just presented me with a flower.  I asked him what the flower was for.  He said, “It’s Teacher Appreciation Day and you’re my teacher.”  Whenever I drive him somewhere he says, “Poppy, teach me something.”  And I do – chemistry, evolution, the Periodic Table.  He’s in 2^nd Grade and he laps it all up and understands most of it.  My dream is that someday Austin will discover the 135^th Element and name it Poppium.

It's strange that I used the name Judith Leiber before, because I just discovered she passed away last month at the age of 97.  I wonder if they buried her in a tiny, little heart-shaped coffin covered in rhinestones.

Whenever I start talking about coffins, I know it’s time to end.  Except for the Case of the Tattooed Left Arm.  The answer, which you all should have gotten, is – he did the tattoos himself and he’s right-handed, so he could only tattoo his left arm.  I didn’t get it either.  I asked Steve if it hurt.  He said yes!

Now I’ll let you go.  I hope you enjoyed.  Count your blessings, stay well, hug your Chiweenie and come back next week.  I’ll be here.

Michael                                            Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #61

As you may remember, we were recently in North Carolina with our three oldest grandchildren.  They are 16, 15 and 12, so all they need is for us to feed them and stay out of their way.  That’s fine, but feeding them is a challenge.  My daughter Jennifer, before she left on her trip, filled the fridge and cupboards with food, but she is very particular about what she buys.  Basically, she has turned into Rachael Ray on Ritalin and everything she buys is organic and natural and fat-free and whole grain with no fructose or GMOs or fatty this or artificial that.  I mean she is the only person I know who has both curds and whey in her kitchen.  Well, I can’t deal with it.  I need chicken.  I stay away from red meat, but I am by nature a carnivore and crave some form of animal protein.

With tofu my heart will stop tickin’

And eggplant will cause me to sicken

No quinoa or curd

Just flip me the bird

This carnivore’s stickin’ with chicken.

So I was forced to order in some Chinese food.  What could possibly be more American than Chinese food?  I found a local place and pulled up the menu on line.  I’m such a techie.  Then I called and told the nice Chinese lady that I wanted a Number 7 with chicken.  Ok, she said.  And a Number 16 with shrimp.  Ok, she said.  Plus a Pork Fried Rice.  Ok, she said.  Then I asked her how long.  “How Long not hee today,” she replied.  I said ni hau and gave her my address.  Ni hau means good morning in Mandarin.  Or maybe it means “there is yak dung on your nose.”  I’m not really sure.  In any event, the food arrived and was spectacular.  The only glitch was when I opened the fortune cookie.  It read “Those who insult other people’s noses may die from food poisoning.”

Hi there and welcome back.  I trust you are feeling well.  I hope it’s not one of those days for you.  You know what I mean, a day when everything is wrong, hopeless or broken.  It seems like a lot of days are one of those days nowadays.  I’m feeling it too.  Maybe it was the Pork Fried Rice.  Or maybe it’s just my weekly angst over finding something that will entertain you.  I mean it’s been 61 weeks and often I worry where the next thought is coming from.  Sixty-one weeks!  That’s longer than any of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands lasted.

But I decided not to worry.  Worry is like a rocking chair – it’s something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.  Besides, I’ve come to feel confident that some bizarre concoction of insanity and foolishness will pop out of my strange head if I squeeze hard enough.  Let’s see what’s hiding up there.  How about Presidential assassinations?  That should cheer us all up.

In 1975 Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme pulled a gun on President Gerald Ford and pulled the trigger.  The six-shooter she held had four bullets, but the chamber she shot was empty.  Otherwise she would likely have killed the President.  She is now free and living in New York.  In 1981 John Hinckley fired four rounds into the Presidential limousine, hitting President Ronald Reagan in the chest and wounding three others.  He is now free and living with his mother.

Pardon my complete ignorance, but isn’t shooting the President a bad thing?  I thought it was.  Then why are Fromm and Hinckley running around free?  Of course!  I get it now -- Ford and Reagan were Republicans and in Washington, shooting a Republican isn’t considered such a terrible crime.  You’ll notice that the guy who shot a Democratic president was dead two days later.  I’m convinced that if Sharon Tate had been a Republican, Charles Manson would have served six months – top.  Hey, in California he might even have been elected Governor.

I’ve got it!  A terrific new business idea!  I’m not kidding here, so listen up.  Have you ever had a cat that became unruly or incontinent?  You don’t want to put poor old Fluffy down, but what choice do you have?  What we need is an old folk’s home for cats.  Don’t laugh – yet!  For $99 a month we will board your cat, feed him his favorite food, and let him tinkle anywhere he damn pleases.  You can visit him and play with him.  You can even Facetime him.  We’ll have a vet on call and a cemetery out back (a nice plaque is extra).  We’ll call it Feline Gardens or Meow and Later or Tom & Geriatric or something.  Think about it.

My sixteen-year-old grandson is going to the Prom.  Of all the members of the family, the one most obsessed with the Prom experience is Carol.  She has been urging and cajoling Zach for months about asking someone to the Prom by telling him how happy he would make the girl’s mother.  I’m trying to remember if, when I asked Carol to our High School Prom, I was thinking of her mother.  Let’s move on.

Luckily for Grandma Busy-Body, the Prom was the weekend we were in North Carolina, and Carol was peppering Zach for days with tips and suggestions about how to behave.  He was very receptive to all the suggestions except the one about the step-stool.  You see, Zach drives a pickup truck.  Everyone in North Carolina has a pickup truck, and his is a big one.  It is so tall off the ground that I cannot get into the thing without a Sherpa.  Hence, the step-stool so the girl won’t have to pole vault into the truck with her high heels and tight dress.  I mean, how happy would the girl’s mother be if the girl broke her leg before dinner?  It’s all about the mother.  Anyway, he rejected the idea, so Carol enlisted Zach’s twelve-year-old sister to do a dry run.  She put on some of her mother’s heels and gave it a try.  She made it.  It wasn’t elegant, but it worked.

Well, it looks like I found some things to talk about after all.  Chinese food, assassinations, proms, my mother-in-law.  Which reminds me – Happy Mother’s Day to all you Happy Mothers out there.  I wonder if there’s a Sad Mother’s Day.  I hope not.  Stay happy; I’ll be back next week.  And while you’re waiting, count your blessings and stay well.  And think about your mother.

Michael                                            Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #60

I had five grandchildren in town for a week and keeping track of them all was harder than keeping track of all the reasons CNN thinks that Trump should be impeached.  One day we decided to go to a Cardinals baseball game.  Ten of us!  I had to pay for parking the car at the train station; buy train tickets (a mass-transit thing called Metro-Link); buy admission tickets; hotdogs, sodas, peanuts.  Do I look like a Kennedy?  The weather was absolutely perfect and we all had fun.  The Cardinals lost.  

On a day that was perfectly sunny

We thought that a game would be funny

The results were so bad

At the end all we had

Was no hits and no runs and no money. 

And besides, they spit.  Not my grandchildren, the players.  What’s with the oral fixation of American baseball players?  And by American, I mean the Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Koreans and Japanese who make up most of the American National Pastime.  They spit, they chew, they expectorate.  They fill their mouths with nuts, gum, tobacco, candy and pebbles and constantly and continuously pollute the dugouts and the field with filth.  Am I over-reacting?  It’s disgusting. Basketball players don’t spit.  Football players don’t spit.  Bowlers don’t spit.  Teachers don’t spit on the classroom floor.  Even the announcers are commenting on the action:  Yadier Molina just set the new record for spitting forty-two bags of pollyseeds onto home plate during a nine-inning game.   It’s disgusting!  Did I say that already? 

Pollyseeds, for those of you who have grown up and forgotten when you were a kid, are what we used to call sunflower seeds.  Urban Dictionary, another electronic resource no human being can do without, suggests the name came from the fact that parrots eat sunflower seeds and all parrots are named Polly. 

I had a friend who bought a parrot.  On the first day, the bird said a dirty word and, as punishment, my friend stuck the bird in the freezer for twenty minutes.  When she took the parrot out, it shivered uncontrollably and said, “I’m so sorry.  I’ll never say a bad word again.  But let me ask you something -- what did the chicken do?”

You see, back in 2009 as I was recovering from bypass surgery in North Carolina, my daughters flew in to be with me (well, you never know when the old man is going to kick it).  Carol, to liven up the atmosphere in the ICU, made everyone come with a parrot joke, and that was one of them.  Here’s another.

A young woman bought a parrot even though the pet-shop owner warned her that the bird had spent the last three years in a house of ill repute.  That’s a whore house to those of you who like when I talk dirty.  The woman didn’t care where the bird had been and so she bought it.  Well, at least she didn’t care until her husband came home and the bird looked at him and said, “Hi, Fred.  Haven’t seen you in a while.”

For the next episode of Poppy Patrol, Carol and I have flown to North Carolina to spend ten days shepherding our three oldest grandchildren (16,15,12) while their parents are off on a bicycle trip.  We are occupying the master bedroom and I have just noticed that they have a new toilet.  I noticed it because as I approached the little toilet room, the seat went up, a light came on inside the bowl and water started spraying from the rim.  It scared the . . , well, it scared me enough that I almost had to use it.  I’ve been closer to rattlesnakes without being that frightened. 

But, you gotta do what you gotta do and you gotta poo when you gotta poo, so I grabbed a plunger for protection and cautiously approached this flashing contraption (or should it be con-crap-tion).  It was peaceful, so I decided to find out what it does.  First, I had to sign in.  That’s right, R2Pee2 wanted to know if I was User-1 or User-2.  I am totally serious.  This was crazy!  Was I going to have to fill out an application?  Height?  Weight?  Did I use a diuretic?  And who exactly was going to approve me?  The NAACPee?  And why do I need my toilet experience improved?  I thought I was doing fine.

Welcome back, everyone, to my wacky world of talking birds and flashing toilets.  I hope you are doing well. Tell me, why is everything so complicated?  Using the toilet should not have 64 options on a remote-control device.  Even a glass of water is complicated nowadays.  It comes from the refrigerator door now with bubbles or no bubbles, crushed ice or cubed ice, lime flavor or orange flavor, chilled or room temp.

Even plain old eggs are now organic, cage-free, hormone free, antibiotic free, non-GMO, natural light, free range eggs.  Seriously?  And don’t get me started about coffee.  I was at Starbucks and the lady in front of me ordered the following:

A Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended, One Sweet'N Low and One Nutrasweet, and Ice.

That is an actual thing available at Starbucks.  I looked it up.  But what confuses me is this:  once you’ve ordered the chocolate brownie iced vanilla with whipped cream, does adding the Sweet’N Low make you feel like Marie Osmond would be proud of you?

Did you know that Florida resident William L. once ordered a 101-espresso-shot latte at his local Starbucks that cost $83.75 and came with 17 pumps of vanilla syrup, mocha and green tea matcha powder served with steamed milk?  Starbucks will close all 8,000 of it’s US stores on May 29^th to give their employees sensitivity training.  Man, if I had to deal with people that wired on caffeine and sugar, I wouldn’t want sensitivity training.  I’d want a flame-thrower.  

All these new things – I just don’t know.  I’m just a stick-in-the mud who clings to the old ways.  There’s an old maxim that says “willingness to change is a sign of maturity and excellent mental health.”.  Well I have the maturity of my youngest grandchild and the mental health of a Crab Rangoon, so I guess I’ll just stick to my old habits.  Like sending you another blog next week.  Can you handle it?  There might be another parrot joke.  And in the meantime, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                            Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com