Blog # 94

I’ve talked about a lot of things in 90-plus blogs – doctors, pills, computers – but never about Laundromats.  How often do you go to a Laundromat?  We haven’t gone in decades, but Carol had a bedspread that needed washing, and it’s too big for our machine, so she decided on a Laundromat.  Now you might think we doddering oldsters are technically incompetent, what with computers and iPods and such – and you’d be right, but we know nothing about Laundromats.  The first problem was finding one.  We were on our way to dinner one night and had the spread in the back seat, so we drove around looking for one, unsuccessfully.  But then I turned onto a side street in order to make a U and Carol yelled “There’s one!”  Nothing gets by my observant little woman.  Of course the LAUNDROMAT sign on the roof of the building was the size of Belgium.

We entered, where it must have been obvious that we didn’t know a washing machine from a hippopotamus, because we were quickly greeted by the proprietress.  I use the feminine loosely, because I’m not altogether sure she was a woman.  She looked more like a cross between a pirate and road kill.  She smiled, flashing her tooth, and took immediate control.   She picked out our machine, loaded our blanket, loaded the Tide, promised to move the blanket to a drier when ready and told us to go to dinner.  First, she said, load $3.75 into the washer.  Carol opened her purse and pulled out 15 quarters.  Who runs around with 15 quarters?  I’ll give you four possibilities: 

A:      A kid addicted to gumballs

          B:      The Tooth Fairy

          C:      A really cheap whore

          D:      A woman who consistently wins at mahjong.

Here are some hints:  my wife doesn’t chew gum, does not believe in any fairy princess other than herself, and is not cheap.  Well, it worked!  We returned after dinner and there it was – clean and dry.  We were so proud!

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling perky today.  Did you have a nice Christmas?  I was very happy waking up Christmas morning – until I drove to McDonald’s and discovered they were closed.  Bah, humbug!  Do you know all these Christmas songs?

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer--Let It Snow--Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire--Sleigh Ride--There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays--Little Drummer Boy--You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch--Jingle Bell Rock--It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year--Santa Baby--I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas--A Holly Jolly Christmas--Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree--Silver Bells--Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland--I’ll Be home for Christmas--Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas--Santa Clause is Coming to Town.

Do you know what they all have in common?  They don’t mention Jesus.  That’s because they were all written by Jews.  All of them.  One Jewish composer said, “I’m not stupid.  Why would I write a song that 3% of the people would buy?  I want one that 97% of the people will buy.”

During Christmas week we went out to dinner with another couple.  He drove.  Not only did his wife tell him which route to take and which parking place to take and what food to order, she told him he wore the wrong coat.  I felt right at home.  Listen – Guys, every once in a while your wife needs to hear you say four words: Honey, you look great.  And Gals, your husband needs four words as well: Honey, you know best.  I believe if most of you gals told your husband he knew best, he’d think he was in the wrong house.  But c’mon, it’s a small thing, give your partner the common decency of a little compliment, even if it’s a lie.  It’ll make you both feel better.

Happy New Year, everyone.  My calendar’s days are numbered and I guess it’s time to make a New Year’s resolution.  Have you made yours yet?  I am having trouble coming up with one.  I don’t drink or smoke or take drugs, so I can’t resolve to stop.  I’m not fat.  I’m not mean.  I do everything my wife wants.  I do three different volunteer jobs.  I don’t have any bucket list items that I am physically or financially able to do.  I’m not saying that my life is perfect.  I’m just saying I’m not sure if there’s anything I can accomplish with a resolution.  I guess you’d say I have my life in order.  It’s taken me a long time to get there, and as Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, “Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”  I suspect he’s right.  But if you think of something I need to change, you can send your suggestions of a New Year’s Resolution for me to www.mindyourowndamnbusiness.com.  Be gentle. 

I told my wife that I had no resolution and she was all over me like ants on a Snickers.  You need to exercise more, she said.  Now I know all of you walk-walk-walk and bike-bike-bike. You lift weights and do Pilates and eat yogurt.  Death has occurred to you, but you hope if your body looks good, God might give you a few extra weeks.

I really can’t do much exercise with my back.  I’d do it without my back, but then where would I put my shirt?  I tried doing a little walking. Two miles a day; that’s not much.  But I ran (or walked) into a problem:

Five days in a row did I roam

It’s easy as writing a poem

Two miles a day

I’m feeling ok

Except that I’m ten miles from home.

Old joke, but I bet you’ve never seen it rhyme.  Look, Dr. Back tells me exercise will do nothing for my back, and besides, a tortoise never moves more than half a

mile an hour and lives to be 150.  This argument has tired me out.  I think I’ll go rest my case.  I just have enough energy to wish you a happy 2019 during which I want you to stay well, count your blessings and come back here every week.  And by the way, you look great.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #93

I remember the good old days when online was where you hung your laundry.  When spam was a canned meat spread, cookies were sweet and tweet was the sound a little bird made.  When yahoo was a low and ignorant human creature from Gulliver’s travels, face-book was what the police made you look through to identify a criminal, a virus gave you a cold and spyware was Maxwell Smart’s shoe-phone.  Oh well, those days are gone, and now I’m sitting at my desk surrounded by enough wires to reach to Sweden and so many different passwords I have to keep a printed list of them on my desk, which sort of negates their usefulness. 

I don’t know a ROM from a RAM

Don’t know about Cookies or Spam

Those bytes and those bits

They give me the fits

It shows you how clueless I am.

So you can imagine with how much trepidation I resolved to buy Carol a Sirius Radio subscription for Hanukkah.  I was as nervous as a fly at a tarantula convention, knowing that I had to deal online with some techie.  But what choice did I have?  I found a phone number for Sirius and prepared to call them for help, a feat of communication only slightly easier than contacting L. Ron Hubbard.  I had resolved to do it myself rather than letting Carol do it.  She’s better at computer stuff than I am, but I have more patience.  A pack of piranhas has more patience than my wife.  An ice-cream cone on a hot day has more patience than my wife. 

Surprisingly, however, it took only thirty seconds to contact a helpful representative named Svetla who was born in Serbia, lived in Belize and sounded like Bela Lugosi on Librium.  We exchanged some information, pressed some buttons, chose some passwords and twenty minutes later had accomplished nothing except to find out that the weather in Belize was beautiful.  “I need my crisis team,” she said.  “I’ll put you in the queue.”  When the queue ended thirty minutes later, I was in Manila, where a very nice young man named Ron (or woman named Red, it was hard to tell) proceeded to hook me up in about one minute.  I was so thrilled that I forgot to ask how the weather was in the Philippines.

But when I went to the car to check it out, it didn’t work. Vana, what do we have as a Booby Prize for this pathetic loser?  Trying to guide me through the intricacies of technology is like playing Monopoly with a Communist.  It’s like teaching a pig to sing.  Robert A. Heinlein said “Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”  But I called the Philippines back and we somehow worked it out. I was so proud!

Hi there and welcome back.   Christmas is around the corner.  I am always glad when Christmas has arrived because it marks the end of Christmas music on the radio.  I have now listened to Johnny Mathis sing We Need a Little Christmas 427 times, followed closely by Feliz Navidad (Jose Feliciano) and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer (Burl Ives). 

What is it about music that soothes us or excites us or makes us dance?  From an evolutionary perspective, it probably comes from birds and monkeys using sounds to attract mates.  So even the most ancient members of our species probably “sang”.  Of course, back then before the invention of the wheel, it wasn’t Rock n’ Roll, it was Rock n ’Rock.  I wonder who their big singing stars were.  Probably Sheryl Cro-Magnon, Rolling Stonehenge, The Monkeys, and Dinah Sore (see the USA in your Pterodactyl).

Have you finished your Christmas shopping?  I just bought my last three presents and mailed them off.  I bought Bernie Sanders a sweat shirt that says AMERICA LOVES PRESIDENTIAL FUNERALS.  ELECT AN OLD PERSON.  I got Donald Trump a throw pillow embroidered with MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN.  And I got Steph Curry two posters, one of the Moon and one of the White House, two places he has never been.

Is anybody still there?  Stick with me; you knew I was weird.  If lack of political correctness is a sin, send me right down to Hell.  And send a bunch of Prozac with me.  Satan and I can pop pills and talk about what might have been.  Satan once said, “Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”  He may have been right.  I’m not really sure I want to go to Heaven.  None of my friends are there.  Am I rambling?  Get over it.

I’m not sure, actually, that I could even find my way to Heaven.  It seems that everywhere I go I take the wrong exit and get lost.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  All I know is if I had been with Columbus, we couldn’t have discovered the Pinta, let alone America.  If I had been with Neil Armstrong, we would have landed in Omaha. If I had been with Billy Graham, he never would have found Jesus.  I’m convinced one of my ancestors was with Moses and talked him into turning left so we wound up with all the sand and none of the oil.

How can I not get from Point A to Point B without screwing up?  I am pretty good at reading maps.  I can analyze the equations that define the trajectory.  I can give accurate directions.  But if I actually have to do it, I have less chance than of Stevie Wonder sinking a twelve-foot putt.  That just means I have a lot of knowledge and no wisdom.  Let me give you an example: Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

A 92-year-old lady wanted to commit suicide.  She called her doctor and asked, “Doc, where exactly is my heart?”  It’s two inches below your left breast, he replied.  So she shot herself in the kneecap.

Is anybody still there?  Well you don’t have to put up with this much longer.  I have insulted my wife, Bernie Sanders, President Trump, Steph Curry, blind people and old women.  It’s hard work and it has made me tired.  I think I’ll go to bed, if I can find my way there without getting lost.  I hope you don’t get lost on your way back to Limerick Oyster next week.  Just follow all the giggling old people.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings and Feliz Navidad!

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #92

As I walked to the County Jail for tutoring, I saw a glove nestled against a parking meter post.  It was white and blue and dirty.  On closer approach I saw that it was a left glove made of white mesh with a blue wristband.  This glove must have a story, I thought.  Why was it there?  Where was its partner?  A mesh glove – not very practical in cold weather.  Maybe it was a golf glove; that would explain the absence of its partner.  Maybe it was Michael Jackson’s.  Just a lonely, abandoned piece of flotsam in a lonely and disturbed world.  It was the stuff of a Chekov story or a Poe novella or a Robert Frost poem.  Or a Limerick Oyster paragraph. 

I have a wife named Carol and I have several friends named Carol.  It’s Christmas time and you can never have too many Carols.  One of my Carol friends recently suggested that my weekly greeting to you of “Hi there” should properly be placed at the beginning of each blog, not in the middle.  Thank you, Carol.  I respectfully considered your suggestion.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re staying warm and well.  There’s only a week and a half until Christmas, and so, if you are celebrating, go out and get your shopping done.  Maybe “go out” is no longer the right phrase.  It should be “get out”.  Get out your iPhone or get out your iPad and click a few buttons and whatever you want will be delivered tomorrow.  It’s actually frightening.  The world has changed so much in the last 25 years, just imagine what it will be like 25 years from now.  I’m sorry I won’t be here to see it.  Maybe I’m glad I won’t be here to see it.

My wife and I went to a movie called The Green Book and liked it very much. It is well worth seeing.  When I go to a movie and settle back in one of those new plush seats, I always have a reflexive impulse to strap on a seat belt.  Does that ever happen to you?  No?  Well, strap yourself in right now and let’s see how much trouble I can get into.

I was reading a book today and the main character was talking about his dream where he found himself naked at the mall.  I have that dream too.  How can he have the same dream that I have?  Then he mentioned the one where he was taking a big test and he hadn’t studied.  I have that one too!  What’s going on here?  I wonder if he has the one about not being able to find your car.  Or the one about the cement mixer parked in front of your house and the driver getting out and beating you up.  Or the one about the Viennese barmaid and the sheep and – well, never mind.

I just looked at my Driver’s License, I mean really looked at it, and you know what I found?  My sex, height, weight, birthday, eye color and a picture that was fifteen years younger and twenty pounds heavier.  At my age, that’s not what I want on my primary identification card, the card the first responders will look at if I’m in an accident.  I want my ID Card to list three things -- the phone number of my cardiologist, the serial number of my pacemaker and directions to the nearest McDonald’s. 

In my English class this week I had a Buddhist from Thailand, a Muslim from Syria, a Christian from Ethiopia, one old but lovable Jew (moi) and an atheist from China.  Atheism, as you know, is a non-prophet organization.  And you know what we talked about?  Religion and religious persecution.  We were supposed to talk about cats, using a list of insipid questions from a book.  Have you ever had a cat? Do you like cats? Do you know what cats eat?  Gag me!  I am fearless and have never used the suggested topics.  I’ll get fired one of these days, but somehow they all want to be in my class.

Carol, the wife, sent me to the grocery store for some vanilla ice cream.  En route, she called me:

You’d better FaceTime me when you get there.

It’s vanilla ice cream. I couldn’t possibly mess that up!

Just FaceTime me.  And wear The Sign.

Please, not The Sign.

Wear The Sign.

Yes, Dear.

When I arrived, I went to the trunk and removed The Sign, a white cardboard rectangle with a rope used to hang it around my neck.  On it, she had written the following in large black letters:

THIS PERSON HAS LESS BRAINS THAN AN ARTICHOKE AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH ANY DECISION HARDER THAN ADAM CHOOSING A WIFE.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU SELL THIS PERSON ANY ARTICLE OF CLOTHING OR ANY OTHER ITEM MORE TECHNOLOGICALLY SOPHISTICATED THAN CHEWING GUM.  IF THIS PERSON BECOMES UNCOOPERATIVE, PUT A HAND ON HIS SHOULDER AND SAY, “HONEY, I’M MISERABLE.”  HE WILL SAY, “YES, DEAR” AND DO ANYTHING YOU TELL HIM.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?  I hate The Sign.

When my grandchildren were little, I used to sing them songs.  I even wrote two songs for them – There’s A Dinosaur in My Diaper and A Pirate Has Stolen My Cookie.  Where’s Casey Kasem when you need him?  And I told them stories I would make up on the fly.  Naturally, I was a big hero to them:  Look, it’s Poppy Man – faster than a rhyming dictionary; able to tell tall tales in a single night.  And who, disguised as a mild-mannered Jewish husband with no closet, fights a never-ending battle for fun, pirate stories and Scooby-Dooby-Doo.

He’s given us so many joys

He plays with our games and our toys

We know, truth be told,

That he’s wrinkled and old,

But to us he’s just one of the boys.

They’ve forgotten the songs and the stories by now, but have acquired the ability to wrap me around their fingers and get me to buy them anything they want, so they still like being with me.  And I guess you still like being with me, because here you are again.  Come on back next week and we’ll do it some more.  But I’m not singing you any songs.  Until then, stay well, finish your holiday shopping and count your blessings.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

  

Blog #91

I have told you before that men and women are different.  You may have already known that.  Here’s another example.  Do you know how a man eats candy, like from a Russell Stover assortment box?  He picks out a piece, eats half of it and then, if he likes it, will eat the other half.  Even if he doesn’t like it, he more often than not will eat the other half.  A woman, on the other hand, uses her finger nail to gouge out a tiny chunk of chocolate from the bottom and looks inside.  If she likes what she has discovered, she will eat the candy.  If not, she replaces the piece in its little fluted-paper nest and moves on to the next.  Men, being by nature chivalric creatures, always allow the women to have their go at the box first.  That leaves us the sloppy seconds which consist of cracked and fingered chocolates with creams and jellies leaking out of holes in their bottoms.  You know I’m right.

My router stopped working.  Now I have suffered through episodes where my heart stopped working and episodes when my eyes stopped working, and believe me, those were only slightly more traumatic than the router.  I mean what are you supposed to do without Wi-Fi?  The human race was born, survived and evolved for 100,000 years without the Internet, but we have somehow arrived at a point in the history of our species where we can no longer exist without instantaneous access to everything.  Seriously!  How are we supposed to survive if we can’t go on Amazon and buy something we didn’t need and have it delivered two weeks before we didn’t need it?

After a period of weeping, I decided to act like an adult and call the Linksys customer service line.  I was put in a queue.  I hate being in a queue.  I hate even spelling a queue, but after 43 minutes I was connected with my friendly, local tech assistant who lives in Pakistan and speaks as if he had spoons in his mouth.  We talked for hours!

I thought that the tech was a shoo-in

To help me with what I was doin’

But first I got queued

And then I got screwed

And wasted my whole afternoo-in.

I absorbed that failure and did what any rational, intelligent, seasoned citizen should do.  I called my daughter Abby and begged her to fix it, which she did.  I guess I should have thought of that first, but I didn’t want to aggravate her with my time-consuming, childish problems.  But then I thought, Hey, I’m the guy who changed her diapers and told her stories and sang her songs (even at her wedding) and helped her with all her childhood problems. What goes around comes around; do unto others; cast your bread upon the waters, and all those other Golden Rulish phrases.  The least she can do is repay the effort.  Except the diaper thing. 

Hi there and welcome back.  Google tells me there are approximately 15 million Jews in the world, a number which coincides with the number of ways to spell Hanukkah.  So if you celebrate it, have a Happy.  I hope you are feeling well and making plans for enduring a long winter.

You know I have a bad back.  Every old man has a bad back.  Serves us right for standing up for ourselves!  Every once in a while, it flares up and I go to Dr. Back, and I present to him all the unscientific remedies my friends have recommended since my last visit.  They come in three categories:

·        Exercise:  Lie down, sit up, hang from a door, you name it.  Dr. Back says you can exercise all you want. The disks in your spine are bogus; exercise will do absolutely nothing to change that.

·        Diet:  Orange juice, painkillers, caffeine, pot.  Dr. B just laughs.

·        Creative:  Lie down on the floor, put live snails in your ears, have a yak step on your balls.  Pasadena!

I remember my last flare.  I was aching like a whore the day the fleet came in.  It was before my pacemaker, so I could still have an MRI.  I checked in at the hospital and they told me Joe would take me to the MRI room.  I looked where they were pointing and there was Joe, a volunteer only slightly younger than Stonehenge.  In my worst pain, wracked with spasms and passed out, I could walk faster than Joe.  I could crawl faster than Joe.  Mold could grow down the center of the hallway faster than Joe.  The Arctic Ice Sheet is melting faster than Joe.  I could not stop laughing.

I wonder what Carol would have done, Miss Inahurry of 2018.  Yes, the Princess of Lickety Split would probably have tripped the old coot, stepped on his back and found the damned thing herself.  And demanded an MRI machine near the window – and warm bread.  I love that woman!

This has been a bit of a bitchy letter.  I’ve already complained about my candy boxes, my router and my back. Well, as Roseanne Rosanna Danna said, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”  But, as long as I have you here, I have one more complaint.  I am suffering from Makeup Creep.  Do you know what that is?  Makeup Creep is the slight but inexorable encroachment of the woman’s paraphernalia onto the man’s side of the sink.  Now, I must admit that I have my own stuff -- lotions and potions, pills and creams, brushes and blades.  But I pretty much keep what is mine in the drawer and cabinet allotted to me.

But every week, little by little, the stuff that belongs to my wife, whom I lovingly call Estee – the brushes and files and bottles, the instruments whose usage I cannot fathom -- moves just a bit closer to my sink so that eventually there will be no room for my stuff or, for that matter, me.  The woman has more makeup than RuPaul! 

Are you fed up with my complaining?  I’ll stop.  Come back next week and I’ll complain some more.  You don’t want to miss it.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings and don’t let a yak step on your balls.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com