Blog #90

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?  We had a lovely time at my niece’s house.  I’ve noticed another sinister sign of aging – when Thanksgiving passes on to a new generation.  It’s no longer at your house or your sister’s or your cousin’s.  It’s at your son’s or your niece’s.  When it gets to be at your granddaughter’s house – well, just sit quietly in the corner and enjoy whatever food they bring you.

On Thanksgiving morning, I was in my study calling some friends when I noticed that the noise from the bedroom was exceedingly loud.  My wife had turned up the bedroom TV loud enough so she could hear the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while she did her nails in the bathroom.  Who listens to a parade?  It’s like listening to a dog show, which she actually did after the parade.  It’s like listening to fireworks.  It’s like listening to the Miss America Pageant.  Do they still have those?

Years ago, each Thanksgiving I would listen to my favorite Thanksgiving song, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  The song takes 20 minutes, but I liked it.  I liked it so much that I began to listen to it every night.  Every single night, rain or shine, no matter what, twenty minutes.  You thought reciting The Raven with a paper bag over my head was weird?  Well the Alice Obsession was weird enough that it took my shrink six months to cure me of it.  But I still sneak it in on Thanksgiving.

After a busy and festive holiday, I’m back now to a normal week filled with the “rust of routine”, as G.G. Marquez says.  Monday’s rusty activity was bridge with my 80-year-old friends, as opposed to Tuesday which is bridge with my 85-year-old friends.  But, as God said to Methuselah, “IF YOU CAN MAKE IT TO 800, YOUR CHANCES OF REACHING 900 ARE PRETTY GOOD.”  You have to make God’s words capital, you know.  It says so on Page 4 of the Writer’s Manual – “In quoting God, you must use capitals to distinguish from lesser gods, like Oprah.”  That’s what it says.

Now that the weather is turning cold, I sometimes get a little down.  You know the feeling – like the world is too much with us, too many things disturbing the tranquil and comfortable nest we have tried all these years to create for ourselves and that, by this time, we feel we deserve.  Some days you feel like the big dog and some – well, you know how the saying goes:

When the world’s coming down on your head

And you wish you had just stayed in bed

Just remember this phrase:

“You’re the big dog some days

“But on some you’re the hydrant instead.”

Hi there and welcome back.  Sorry for the little downer.  What we all need is a Happy Hour.  The problem is that at our age, we don’t drink much anymore.  I drink never, my wife almost never, my friends not much at all.  So we have to find other ways to get happy, like signing up for a new Medicare Drug Plan that saves us $2 a month.  Now that’s happy.  What we really need is a Miserable Hour.  We’ll all congregate at a restaurant that has an Early Bird Special and bitch about our health and robo-calls and the price of medications and our daughter-in-law’s parents and why it is that our neighbor is paying $5 less for cable than we are.  That, and half off on a chicken sandwich will make us about as happy as we’re going to get.  See you there.

Here’s something happy to talk about - crime.  There is so much crime going on, it’s frightening just to leave the house, but my wife reassures me that I am the least likely person to get mugged.  She says the way I dress, I look like I’ve been mugged already.  I tell it like it is, she says.  That’s the phrase she always uses when she insults me.

Then I heard on the radio today about a man who killed his wife and two children.  The Prosecuting Attorney said he had been charged with three counts of aggravated murder.  What exactly is “aggravated murder”?  I mean how much more can you aggravate someone than by murdering her?  Is aggravated murder worse than plain old murder?  “Not only did Mr. Smith murder his wife, Your Honor, he aggravated her.  And you know what the penalty is for aggravated murder?  Being forced to listen to reruns of The View.

I’m going to bet that if you are a guy, you refer to my wife and me as Michael and Carol, but if you’re a gal, you call us Carol and Michael.  Isn’t that pretty much accurate?  It’s because men and women have a different filter through which they view life.  Rudyard Kipling said, “God fashioned Man on one day and Woman on another, in sign that neither should know more than a very little of the other’s life.”  Now that’s twice I’ve mentioned God already.  Is that too much?  I promise to ignore God for the rest of this blog.  Sorry God.

It is not Politically Correct to talk about anyone as fat.  Instead, we invent little euphemistic sillinesses like, “He’s not fat, he’s just easier to see.”  I was just in a shopping center doing a little holiday browsing.  You know, if you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.  And in every mall, there are plenty of people who are “easier to see”.  I mean how can some of those people be that overweight?  I saw one woman so fat, her belly-button didn’t have lint in it; it had furniture.  I saw one teenaged guy so fat, if he had gone missing, they would have had to use all four sides of the milk carton.  There was an old woman so fat that when Columbus discovered America, he discovered her first.  Go ahead, cancel my Politically Correct Membership Card.  I never liked it anyway.  I tell it like it is.

But don’t cancel your subscription to my Oyster.  I need you.  Who else would listen to this foolishness?  So stay well, count your blessings and show up next week.  Or else!

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com