Blog #63
Do your kids or grandkids
play a musical instrument? Do you
remember when they were in 3rd 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.
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