Blog #72

I’m reading a Larry McMurtry book in which one of the characters says, “Old age is a worthless damn thing.”  I can’t agree.  I believe my senior years are filled with great opportunities to add and contribute.  And I don’t mean reading more books or going to classes or visiting places I’ve never seen.  Whatever I might gain from those things will be gone when I’m gone.  No, I mean the opportunities to leave behind some of yourself in the things you teach, in the care you take of others, even in the entertainment you might provide.  “It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.”  Helen Walton said that, and Helen should know.  Being the wife of Sam Walton, and the richest woman in America at one time, she gathered and scattered more than most.  Helen is also famous for another quote:  Marriage is a relationship where one is always right and the other is always the husband.

Ok, now that the serious crap is out of the way, let’s get started.  I love my doctors.  I love them so much that I have forgotten their names.  That’s why I call them Dr. Heart and Dr. Skin and Dr. Back.  I do have one criticism of doctors – they all seem to be in love with their titles.  On every list – donors’ list, membership list, guest list – their names have to have the DR in front.  Nobody else has his or her occupation permanently affixed to his or her name.  Geez, I hate that “his or her” phrase.  From now on, I’m just saying “his”.  That will save two words.  You don’t like it, send me a note.

So I was at a funeral (yes, another one) and there, on the marble walls lining the chapel, were names memorializing the deceased.  And on one, instead of Joe Schmo, it said Dr. Joe Schmo.  Seriously?  I thought death was the Grand Equalizer.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  I guess now it’s dust to Dr. Dust.

My favorite doctor is Dr. David, my son-in-law in North Carolina.  Not only is he a radiologist, but he has his own rock n’ roll band.  He has some goofy name for the band, and I don’t like it, so I gave him a list of names appropriate for a radiologist’s band.  Here they are:

The Rolling Bones, X-Ray Charles, Cat Scan Stevens, The Mammograms and the Papagrams, Donnie & MRI, Jethro Skull and, of course, Pelvis Presley.

I love lists.  Hello and welcome back.  I hope you are doing well in this super-heated Summer we’re having.  Summer means golf and swimming and vacations.  I remember one Summer, my North Carolina family was vacationing in Orlando, when I got a call from my granddaughter.  “Poppy,” she said, “I got splashed by a whale!”  She was not excited at all.  On the contrary, she was wet and cold and bummed.

That whale was much bigger than me

And jumped up right out of the sea

He splashed all my clothes

From my head to my toes

He did it on porpoise, you see.

When my little granddaughter first told me she had been splashed by the whale, I responded with the dumbest question of the year:  Was it a big whale?  A big whale?  Of course it was a big whale, you ignorant old poop.  They don’t make little whales.  That’s why they call them whales!  The book’s not called Moby Little Dick, is it?  She’s precocious. 

I have many faults.  One is, according to my wife, not driving fast enough.  I know I don’t drive as fast or aggressively as she’d like, but I look at it this way – in the car I can adjust the temperature precisely as I like, listen to whatever kind of music I want and rest comfortably in a cushioned seat.  I’m happy!  Do I need to go faster?  Do I need to get to the doctor’s office two minutes earlier so that I can wait forty minutes?  Do I need to race home so I won’t miss the opening minutes of The View?  What’s the hurry?  Relax and enjoy the Summer.  I could eliminate her criticism of my driving just by letting her drive, but she makes me nervous when she’s behind the wheel.  First of all, she sits too far forward.  She’s closer to the steering wheel than the guy who painted it.

And second, my wife is good at everything -- except waiting.  She is starting now to time the red lights and is majorly unhappy if they are too long.  And she has zero patience for anyone that is in her way.  “I’m going around that person. Who allows them to drive?  I’m not stopping for that light.  MOVE!”  She’s like a Maxine Waters who has skipped her Ritalin. 

Last week, near the end of the blog, I said I hoped that I brightened your Thursdays.  That’s a pretty slimy way of begging for a compliment, isn’t it?  It was gratifying to learn that none of you would fall for a cheap trick like that.

You men know what begging for a compliment is.  It’s when your wife says, “Honey, do you think this dress makes me look fat?”  A husband must either know how to respond to that properly or have a good orthopedic surgeon.

Actually, I did receive a few responses that said, “Yes, you do brighten my day.”  Thank you, Sheila and Joyce and Fern and Carol and Nancy.  That was truly very sweet.  I wonder if my wife is upset that I talk to so many of my limerick girlfriends via email.  Just to be safe, let’s keep it among ourselves.  If she got mad and stopped picking out my clothes, that would be a bad thing. I’d leave the house half the time looking like Clarabell.   

And if you remember Clarabell, you’re my kind of people.  Thanks for visiting with me today.  You know I like it when we talk.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you next week.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #71

I am writing to you from the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri where we are spending a few days with some friends.  Today we boated on the large, beautiful lake, three senior guys and their wives.  As we pulled away from the dock, the friend who was driving handed me a map of the lake.  Now I could show you on a globe where Djibouti is, or Komodo or the Andaman Islands or Timbuktu for that matter.  But with directions – well, not so good.  Men, although they will never admit it, are just not good at directions.  Let me put it this way – if they dropped me on first base, I couldn’t find second base.  But, we puttered around while the girls enjoyed the outdoors by sitting in the part of the boat farthest away from the sunshine and the water and discussing the color of their toenails and whether Donald and Melania will stay married.

The guys ignored the girls (isn’t it cute that I call these 70+ women “girls”?), because we were too busy obsessing over the multi-million-dollar mansions crowding the shoreline.  That one must cost $3 million.  Look at that one.  It looks like a castle.  I just don’t get a thrill ogling an $8 million mansion, knowing that I can’t afford the light-fixture in the 9^th bathroom.

I used to be rich, and it was good to be rich for a couple of years, until it all went away.  But I can’t say I spent my life that much differently.  I just spent it in different places – Hawaii, France, Italy, Martha’s Vineyard, Russia.  Talking about getting lost, that Russia trip was a challenge.  We started in Stockholm on a cruise ship and visited Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany and Denmark.  By the sixth day, I was totally confused.

There’s so many places I’ve been

I don’t know what country I’m in

I cannot determine

A Swede from a German

And can’t tell a Pole from a Finn.

Poor Poland!  Being stuck between Russians and Germans for a thousand years makes Dante’s Inferno look like Canyon Ranch. 

Hi, everyone and welcome back.  I hope you’re well and hanging in there.  I apologize if last week’s edition came out a bit late.  There I was, Wednesday night about 9:00, back at home, ready to post all my wacky thoughts to you when – BAM! – my heart started acting up.  Shortly thereafter I was in an ambulance headed for the hospital, and you know what?  The driver got lost.  I told you, didn’t I?  Men couldn’t find their way out of a McDonald’s bag if you left them a trail of French fries.

When I arrived, they didn't call my cardiologist.  Instead, they called the technician who worked for the pacemaker company.  He showed up with his little computer, and, without actually touching me, read my heart activity and adjusted my internal device.  Isn’t that amazing?  I’m not sure exactly what he did, but now I can make popcorn pop in my mouth.  When he was done, he informed the desk that he had spoken to my doctor and I could be released.  Well, that didn’t happen quickly enough for my little Princess.  What could?  So she grabbed a sheet of paper and a magic marker and wrote a sign which she taped to her shirt.  It said:

I am currently in PRE-BITCH mode.  You do NOT want to be here when I upgrade.

It worked, and Mr. Patient and Mrs. Im-Patient were discharged instantly.  When my speedy little woman is in a hurry, the rest of the world had better move.  We got home after midnight and I posted my blog. 

And speaking of unspeakable things like hearts and hospitals, do you read the obituaries every morning?  Most of my friends do.  Not me.  I’ll learn the bad news soon enough.  My good friend Deb in North Carolina says the obituaries are beginning to look like her address book.  That’s the price we pay for aging.  So let’s all try to stay healthy.  Laughter is good for your health, they say, so I’ll try to make you laugh.

Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Mike Pence were flying on a plane.  Donald looks out the window at the wide expanse of America.  “You know,” he says, “I could drop a thousand hundred-dollar bills out the window and make a thousand people happy.”  Ivanka says, “Yes, Daddy, but I could drop two thousand fifty-dollar bills and make twice as many people happy.”  Then the Vice-President says, “And I could drop a hundred thousand one-dollar bills and delight many more of my flock.”  At which point the pilot turns his head and says, “Well, I could drop all three of your asses out the window and make half the world ecstatic.”

There, I made you laugh!

I don’t have to tell you that America has a large population of obese people as well as a large population of hungry people.  Isn’t there a way to work that out?  That’s what we call in the Literary Biz a rhetorical question.

Wait a minute, that was pompous, wasn’t it?  Me, calling myself literary?  Silly poems and letters are hardly literary, so I apologize for the hubris.  The question we were talking about was rhetorical because I wasn’t asking you for an answer.  That’s because I (there’s that pomposity again) have the answer.   It’s called the Food Transfer Management Association (FTMA), lovingly shortened to “Fatty Mae”.   Everybody who is overweight by some reasonable measure will be forced to pay a Fat Tax.  The tax will be paid not in dollars, but in nutritious food which will then be distributed to the needy.  So, for those who want to fill themselves up like the Hindenburg, fine, but it’s going to cost them.

I guess I’m finished for this week.  Stay well, count your blessings and be sure to come back next week.  I’ll be here.  Neither rain nor snow nor ventricular fibrillation will keep me from brightening your Thursdays.  I hope I do brighten them.  See you then.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #70

Have you noticed that on every corner, they’re building a new Senior Citizens Residence Center?  Do you know who they’re building them for?  All those people who rode bikes without a helmet when they were kids.  All those people who drank water from a hose, played outside without sunscreen, put butter on their popcorn and rode with nine other kids in the back of the station wagon with no seatbelts.  All those people who played with dirt and acorns and bugs, ate hotdogs every day and swam in the quarry.  And all those people who stared for hours at Howdy Doody and Lash Larue while double-dipping their spoon in the Peter Pan jar.  I wonder how we all made it this far.

But I’m glad we did.  Hi and welcome back.  Hope you are feeling spiffy!  Carol’s out celebrating her birthday for the 23^rd time, so I have some time to chat.  We made it this far, they tell us, by eating healthily.  By “they”, I mean the ever-increasing accumulation of supercilious busybodies who think they know how to run my life. Well, I have a bulletin for them – there is only one person who knows how to run my life.  Carol.   And she does not need your help!

I pay some reluctant lip-service to the Gods of nutrition, but I have to like what I eat, don’t I?  Since Carol’s out, I decided to go to the grocery store and buy some stuff for dinner.  Nothing appealed to me, and I decided if nothing turned me on, I might as well eat something healthy.  I bought a package of zero fat, zero cholesterol veggie hot dogs.  I got home and put them on broil.  While they were so engaged, I sliced up a pickle and splashed a dollop of mustard on a plate and opened a can of sliced pineapple.  My faux frankfurters began to sizzle and I turned them over.  I poured some tea and set up my dish and silverware all ready for a delicious hotdog dinner.  Then I let my little gardenwurst burn a bit and accumulate a black crust.  I have learned an important lesson in life and this is something you should remember.  A burnt carrot tastes the same as a burnt pig.  So I ate my overcooked veggie wieners with pickles and mustard and they were just fine.

There are, however, some things I just cannot abide, one of which is popcorn with no oil and no salt.  It tastes like packing peanuts.

You probably can tell that I love telling stories.  Most of my stories have been told to my grandchildren.  Tyler used to sit on my lap and say, “Poppy, say a onceuponatime.”  I tried telling stories to Carol, but it didn’t work out.  She’d always be working a crossword puzzle, reading a book and Candy Crushing all at the same time and still was able to butt in and correct everything.

Forget that Rapunzel woman.  Nobody wears their hair that long anymore.

Who would name a kid Rumpelstiltskin?  That’s ridiculous.

Seven dwarves?  I think the girl has a fetish.

Glass slippers are out!

The tortoise beats the hare?  That’s stupid.  The damned tortoise is too slow.

Gotta go now.  Thanks for the story.  Next time talk faster.

Maybe I’ll do better telling you a onceuponatime.  Once upon a time, 51 years ago, a skinny little boy (21) married a beautiful girl (21).  They saved her wedding gown for over 30 years thinking their first daughter, Jennifer, would wear it, but Jennifer was taller than her mother.  Besides, a bride wants her own dress.  I’m surmising this, of course, never having been a bride or being in possession of even the smallest sliver of fashion acumen.  (Or is it acu-person now?  They’ve changed everything else.) Anyway, Jennifer got her own wedding gown and we saved that and then there was Abby’s wedding dress and we saved that too.  And that made three. Stephanie was married at a ranch in the wine country of California, and the wedding attire was more blue-jean than white.   

I’m rambling here, but it’s making me think of the time years ago when one of my employees told me her granddaughter was getting married and they were doing everything without spending money.  Grandma was doing the cooking and a friend had offered their house for the reception.  In the spirit, I told her we had three wedding dresses in the cedar closet and I’d be happy to let her granddaughter choose one.  I don’t think it would fit, Grandma said; she’s 8 ½ months pregnant.  Wow, I said, I hope she doesn’t have the baby while she’s walking down the aisle.

The wedding was slightly belated

The bride was already dilated

We sang “Here Comes the Bride

Eight centimeters wide

To get herself wed, then sedated.”

And they all lived happily ever after.  And so, it seems, is my cough.  It has gone on for too long, so I took myself to Dr. Primary for another look-see.  I didn’t get to see the M-D.  I didn’t get to see the P-A or even the R-N.  But I did see the N-P, and she was O-K by M-E.   She was actually terrific, and, in my best Alfonso Bedoya impersonation, I told her, “We don’t need no stinkin’ doctors!”  She gave me a regimen of over-the-counter stuff to take, some in the A-M, some in the P-M.  And I won’t need the E-R.

Or GERITOL.  Do you remember Geritol?  That was the 1950s product advertised to cure iron-poor blood.  It was 12% alcohol, so it really didn’t matter whether it cured anything or not.  I haven’t heard of that since I was a kid.  Back then there was also SERUTAN, which is Natures spelled backwards.  I think it was a laxative, but I was ten then and didn’t care about such things.  Little did I know!  But I did like the backwards-spelling idea.  I think more medicines should be words spelled backwards.  If you’re throwing up, get some FRAB-ON.  If you need an anti-depression medicine, use ELIMS.  Or, if you need a laxative, try POOP.

See, whenever I start talking toilet, it must be time to go, and so it is.  Please come back next week.  I’ll tell you another story if you do.  And in the meantime, stay well and count your blessings. 

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #69

I’m throwing out a suggestion about the Fourth of July.  I think we should move it to the middle of December.  In December, we could start the fireworks at 5:00, eat some ribs and be in bed by 8:00.  In July, we don’t start until 9:00 and we get home way too late.  I need my beauty sleep.  Don’t you dare send me a snarky little response to that!

Hello and welcome back.  I love when you come back.  Are you still celebrating the Fourth?  I hope you didn’t get burned or drunk or fat, and that you’re feeling fine, but if you’ve recently been to a kid’s birthday party, I’m worried for you.  I was at my granddaughter’s birthday party, or as I like to call it, This Is Pus.  There were about 15 kids plus their parents all huddled in the basement sharing pizza, coughs, cupcakes, sneezes, air and bodily fluids.  It was great fun.  I had door duty and greeted the parents. 

Hi, glad you could come, how are you?  I’ve got 103 fever, cold sweats and I’ve been bleeding from the eyeballs, but I can stay for a little bit.  Hi, Little Joey looks a bit pale.  He’s been throwing up all night, but I think he’ll be all right.  Hi, I see your wife in the car. Is she coming in?  Well, she’s covered with black, pustulating buboes and smells like rotten chicken, but she can come in for a while.  Glad you could make it.

Thanks for your presents and sneezes

The sniffles, the coughs and the wheezes

We’re glad you could come

With your bacterium

And share your infectious diseases.

I guarantee you I am now a carrier of every spore, virus, bacterium and parasite known to modern medicine.  I have lime disease, bird flu, Zika, tapeworm and rickets.  I have bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, cholera, shingles and mad cow.  I’ve got African sleeping sickness, Japanese swine flu, Malaysian jungle rot and acne.  I’m not even sure you should read this blog without dousing your device with antiseptic. 

Naturally, my granddaughter got sick.  The doctor said it was Fifth Disease.  Have you ever heard of that?  Google has, so it must be real.  I wonder if there is a Fourth or a Sixth disease.  Hang on, I’ll be right back.  Shazam!  Google tells me that there is a sextet of numbered children’s diseases.  Here they are: First Disease – Rubeola; Second Disease – Scarlet Fever; Third Disease – Rubella; Fourth Disease – Filatov-Dukes’ disease; Fifth Disease – Erythema Infectiosum; and, Sixth Disease – Roseola.

Well, ‘Tis the Season.  Carol’s birthday season has begun.  She will get wined, dined, feted, gifted and lavishly entertained for at least the next nine months.  It’s gotten so outrageous that last night when she told me she was being taken out for her birthday, I replied, “This year’s or last year’s?”

Before she went out, she told me she had been trying to get a refund on something she bought and the woman on the phone had given her a hard time.  “You talk to her”, she said, “a man does better.”  She thinks I can get this woman to give in where she could not?  Me, who has been browbeaten, ordered around and basically enslaved by my wife and daughters for so long that the sight of a lipstick makes me shake more uncontrollably than the thought of wearing linen in October?  She thinks I can convince a female on the phone to do what I want?

But I will try – yes, this strong, persuasive epitome of dominant manhood will do exactly as his diminutive wife tells him to do.  And after that mean old woman on the phone tells me I can’t have my refund and my clothes don’t match, I’ll let my oldest daughter do it.  That phone lady’ll be in trouble then!

If a man speaks in a forest and there’s no-one there, is he still wrong?

 

I do get my way sometimes.  The last time was my birthday – in January.  Our friends were going to take me out and Carol said we could go anywhere I wanted.  After all, it was my birthday.  I said I really like XYZ.  “Well,” she said, “XYZ is noisy and doesn’t have a round table for ten, but ABC does.  You like that, don’t you?”  Well, sure, I said.  At least she was happy, and you know that our marriage is a success because we have the same goal in life – to make her happy.

I decided to take my two local grandsons to a movie, Jurassic Park XXXVII.  Go to the movie early, wait in line, buy the tickets, enjoy – right?  Not any more.  No, I had to go online, sign up for some kind of Dango something, pick my seats, the size of the screen and how many dimensions I wanted.  I had less options on the last car I bought. Then I had to come up with a password, give them a credit card, pay a service fee and tell them who my fifth-grade teacher was (Mr. Diamond).  I could have applied for citizenship to North Korea in less time.  By the time I was done, I no longer wanted to see the movie, or a computer, or my grandsons!  Why is everything so ridiculously complicated?  I want my world back.

In my world, we went to see two movies at once.  We sat in a seat with gum stuck to the bottom and ate popcorn with butter.  Today, the seats recline, heat our behinds, massage our feet, blow cold air on our hair, rub our necks.  In my world, there were places that did all that, but they didn’t show movies and not even my father was allowed to go there.  And now I can’t even get butter on my popcorn or the Cholesterol Police with tell my wife.  I want my world back.

And I want you back too, so make a note to come see me next week.  Or, if you’re such a hi-tech, modern smart-ass, put it on your Google Calendar.  However you do it, be back a week from today and see who I’m mad at then.  I hope it’s not you.  In the meantime, stay well and count your blessings.

Sorry to say we have one less blessing to count this week.  Our beautiful friend Diane has passed away.  A truly lovely and classy woman.  We will miss her.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com