Blog #99

What in me is dark, illumine.  What is low, raise and support.  That is the exhortation John Milton offered to the muse, Urania, to inspire him as he began writing Paradise Lost in 1658.  I went to school with John.  Only kidding – he was a year ahead of me.  Well, sometimes I feel that old.  You know you’re old if you tell your friend that you’re having an affair and the friend asks if you’re having it catered.  You know you’re old when you fill in your date of birth in some online application and the dropdown box hits the floor before it gets to your year.

Every writer needs an inspiration, a muse.  My muse is, of course, my wife.  Not only that, she’s most of my material, and as much as I pick on her every week, she’s pretty much a combination of Glenda the Good, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc, Martha Stewart and Lee Remick in her prime.  Well, I may have exaggerated a bit with the Joan of Arc, although Carol does like to be warm.  Even so, she’s a jewel.   Some men have an old bag for a wife, I have a sleek and compact Judith Leiber – with extra rhinestones.  What a girl, what a whirl, what a wife!  Do you remember what TV theme song that line is from?  This blog is all about memory, and this is a test.  I’ll tell you later.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope your health is good and you’re staying warm.  Much of the country is suffering through an intense cold wave.  Here in St. Louis this morning, it was in the single digits.  That’s colder than the Trump-Pelosi relationship.  It’s colder than Walt Disney’s body.  It’s so cold, I saw a politician with his hands in his own pocket.  It’s so cold, I called Al Gore and asked for more Global Warming.  It’s so cold that mail delivery was actually cancelled in the Upper Midwest.  I would have said Upper U.S. but that sounds like an Italian flipping you the bird.

My wife says I have two faults – I don’t listen and something else.  I’m pretty sure I have more than two faults.  I am moody, stubborn, quick-tempered, forgetful, moody and often forgetful.  In my 73 years, I’ve crammed so much stuff into my brain cells that other stuff had to leak out to make room.  So I am often a font of cogent and titillating information but, just as often, lost.  I recently had somebody from Arthur Murray come and paint footprints on the carpeting so I could find the bathroom. 

I am good, however, at a couple of things – storytelling and teaching.  I think, actually, that storytelling and teaching are the same thing.  You have to start your listener at the beginning, lead him along a narrow path without getting lost, and deposit him, enlightened, at the end.  Grandchild #6 is Austin.  He’s eight years old and lives here in St. Louis.  He’s a wonderful, curious child and loves to learn new things.  “Poppy,” he says to me almost every day, “teach me something.”

One afternoon this week, I taught him the Number System in Base-2.  As Tom Lehrer would say, Base-2 is really the same as Base-10 – if you’re missing eight fingers.  Austin soaked it up like a dry sponge soaks up Kool-Aid, and we had lots of fun.  Later that evening I got a text from my daughter, his mother.  It said, AUSTIN’S TEACHING ME BASE-2.  That’s my boy!

And speaking of teaching, I got a holiday gift from one of my foreign students, a young lady from Korea.  It was a very lovely decorative fan to hang on the wall.  The card said, “I can’t thank you enough for teaching me.”  Awww!  I gave her a hug. I guess I should have bowed instead.  I’ll probably get fired.

And speaking of storytelling, Grandchild #1 (Zachary) used to love my stories.  He couldn’t get enough.  Once, I remember, we were on a vacation at an island off the coast of North Carolina.  We had been sunning and playing and swimming all day.  I was exhausted.  Poppy, tell me a story.  I was just too tired.

I’m tired as a beat-up jalopy

I’m sunburned and sleepy and sloppy

A story, my man?

I don’t think I can

I’m honestly too pooped to Poppy.

Please, Poppy, Zach said, tell us about the Vampire -- you know, the guy from Pennsylvania.  Zach is 17 now and applying to colleges.  I don’t tell him stories anymore.  He’s too mature now for silly things like dinosaurs or pirates or old grandfathers.  The only time I hear from him is when he’s writing an essay for his college application and wants my help.  I understand.  I can adapt.  But I miss the stories.

When Grandchild #4 (Tyler) was little, he loved my stories as well.  He called them once-upon-a-times.  He loved to crawl up on my lap and sweetly ask,  Poppy, say a onceuponatime.  He’s 13 now and getting too old for stories too. 

One night this week Austin (Grandchild #6) asked me to put him to bed.  At eight-years-old, he still likes stories, but he prefers science, so I taught him why Uranium is radioactive and why we can’t breathe carbon dioxide.  I had to use the Periodic Table that I had bought him and which hangs on the wall above his bed.  When I was about finished, the black cat hopped up on the bed and I told him a story.  Once upon a time there was a pussycat . . .  The cat enjoyed the scratching and looked like he was paying attention.  Austin giggled.

At least I have the cat to tell my stories to, and you too.  Thanks for listening.  Now I have to go, but first, I have to tell you the TV theme song – I married Joan – what a girl, what a whirl, what a wife!  Please stay well, count your blessings and be sure to come back next week.  If you do, I’ll say a onceuponatime, and  make you giggle.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #98

The Harlem Globetrotters!  Do you remember them?  Meadowlark Lemon, Goose Tatum, Curly Neal, Marques Haynes.  Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I watched them dozens of times on television with a smile on my face the entire game.  They were in town last month and I went with my grandchildren.  When the players came out and started cavorting in a circle to the whistling of Sweet Georgia Brown, that same old smile came back to my face accompanied by a tear in my eye.  The tear evaporated, but not the smile, not for two full hours.  The players were different, even a female Globetrotter, but the old shtick was the same and the entire audience laughed and screamed.  Nobody had a better time than me.

The opponents, of course, were the Washington Generals, a team that has been playing the Globetrotters since 1952.  They lost.  In fact, the Generals haven’t won a game since 1971.  Forty-seven years without winning a game!  Kind of like Trump’s record at MS-NBC.  The Generals’ coach was interviewed, holding an old picture of the 1971 team and reminiscing about that long-ago victory:

A glorious win it was then

I wish we could do it again

It just makes me wince

That we haven’t won since

And lost Thirteen thousand and ten.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling strong and rested.  I mentioned an “old picture” above, but really that’s incorrect.  A picture from 40 or 50 years ago, when we still had the blush of youth – we should call that a young picture.  A picture of me now, with wrinkles and gray hair – that’s an old picture.

The local forecast for last weekend was a blizzard with high winds and 4-6 inches of snow.  None of that happened.  Meteorologists have an easy gig.  They just look at the weather three hundred miles to the west and assume that’s what we’ll get tomorrow.  Then they add a bunch of colored charts we don’t understand and a bunch of fancy terms we don’t understand like wind-chill factor, heat index, Doppler, El Niño, La Niña, jet stream, lake effect, polar vortex and wind shear.  After they have us completely baffled, they terrify us.  Storm warnings, hurricane warnings, category 5, tornado warnings, winter advisory, heat advisory, thirty million people affected.  They’re like snake-oil salesmen with maps!  You know what, weather people?  Stick that El Niño up your polar vortex and just tell us what the weather is three hundred miles to the west.  Then we can flip a coin and do better than you.

I got a call last night from Parker, my 7-year-old grandson from California and the next to youngest of my eight grandkids.  He had an assignment to interview someone, so he called me.  They all call me.  This is the 7^th grandchild to interview me.  So where was I born, how were things different when I grew up, how was I different as a kid, yadda-yadda.  To answer the question how was I different (as a kid) from Parker, I said I was the youngest child in my family and he’s the oldest.  I said I didn’t have computers or cell-phones.  I’m not sure he could even understand a world that primitive.  Then I asked him what he thought were the differences between him and me.  Immediately he suggested that I was wrinkled and he wasn’t.  This is now the 7^th grandchild to call me wrinkled.  Ungrateful brats, all of them.  Next year I’m sure Lucy, the youngest, will compliment me with an interview and insult me with the wrinkle-thing.  I guess that’s what Poppys are for.

Parker is 7 and Lucy is 5.  That’s a man talking, of course.  A woman would say Parker is 7½ and Lucy is almost 6.  This is a peculiar distinction between women and men.  Women cannot seem to recite an age without some qualification.  He’s 7½.  She’ll be 6 in March.  He’s almost 43.  He just turned 73.   Pay attention next time.  You’ll see I’m right.  And, of course, an infant is never one or two.  The child is 13 months or 17 months or 26 months.  I’m surprised my wife doesn’t give my age as 876 months.  It actually makes me sound younger, doesn’t it?

I’ve got a joke you can use on your grandkids.  Maybe it’ll take their minds off calling you wrinkled.  You say, “What comes after 8Q and 9Q?”  They’ll say, “10Q”.  When they say “10Q”, you say “You’re welcome.”  The kids will understand even if you don’t.  Or how about this one?  Why does a seagull fly over the sea?  Because if it flew over the bay it would be a bay-gull.

I really don’t want to bore you with a long story.  I’ll talk fast.  Carol’s iPad has 16 Gigabytes of storage and recently has been running low.  I looked and found that Words2, her scrabble game, was taking up nearly half of that storage. Yes, I discovered that!  Did you think I was totally incapable of doing anything useful?  Well, you’re mostly right.  Anyway, I Googled and found a chat room (I actually don’t know what a chat room is, but I found one) that discussed her exact problem and gave a solution.  I told her; she ignored me.  Knowing my track record, I would have ignored me too. 

So, she visited an Apple Store and the best advice they could suggest was to delete some pictures.  Since the pictures take up almost no storage, this was akin to telling a person with an elephant on her lap that if she cut her toenails, the chair wouldn’t sag so much.  I kept telling her what to do, but she ignored me and kept trying the toenail solution.  Then she somehow got an Extra-Super-Duper Genius Apple Expert to call her and confirm that her loving and clever husband was indeed (drum roll, wait for it) RIGHT.  So she swallowed her pride, and the elephant, and everything turned out fine.  Happy wife – happy husband.

So that’s it!  I’m out of energy, out of time and out of things to say.  But I do have a Humor Advisory for you.  I’ll be back one week from today, so stay away from polar vortexes, keep your jet stream clean and don’t leave the house until you’ve read Limerick Oyster.  See you then.  Oh, and stay well, count your blessings and get that elephant off your lap.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #97

Gabriel Garcia Marquez said that older folks are people whose lives are slow, who do not see themselves growing old, but who disappear little by little in their own time, turning into memories until they are absorbed into oblivion.

My maternal grandfather died when I was 21.  He lived on an eight-acre estate, and my brother and I used to sleep there often.  There was a small, shallow swimming pool, a few acres of lawn and a forest in the back, dog sheds and big dogs (collies, I think) and Claude, the caretaker, who let us ride in the back of his pickup truck.  The house was a rambling ranch, and in the hall leading to the master bedroom was a door that opened onto a stairway.  You climbed the stairway into the attic, walked above the driveway and came down inside the garage.  The place was a magical adventure for young boys.

Grandpa is dead now and his first wife and his second wife and her sister.  Claude is dead and the dogs.  The house is gone.  The forest is gone, replaced by tract homes.  But I still remember him and somehow that makes him still alive.  I want my grandchildren to remember me so that I can keep living beyond my years.  And I know they will.  Maybe they’ll even sing Dinosaur in my Diaper to their kids or grandkids.  Maybe they’ll read my letters and blogs.  I hope so.  And then I can live – with them and their kids and their grandkids – for a long, long time before I am absorbed into the oblivion Marquez speaks of.

Ok, that was heavy!  Let’s try something lighter – like Gangsta Rap.  Do your grandchildren like Gangsta Rap?  I’m not really sure what it is, but my grandchildren like it.  My, how popular music has changed!  We’ve gone from I Wanna Hold Your Hand to I Wanna Be Your Pimp.  From You Light Up My Life to You Light Up My Bong.  From Bye Bye Miss American Pie to Hello You Bitch Ho!  I made up those Gangsta Rap song titles because I looked up the real songs and the names were not fit to print.  What a world!

Hi there and welcome back.  Hope you’re staying warm and dry in this blustery January.  Next week, we will celebrate Martin Luther King Day.  Dr. King would have been 90, but he’s not because he’s dead.  You know, of all the National Holidays, only three recognize an individual – ML King Day, Christmas and Columbus Day.  I’m not sure why we have a day for Columbus, an Italian guy working for a Spanish queen who never actually set foot anywhere in the United States.  The only American who has his own day is Dr. King.  Not George Washington, not Abraham Lincoln, not Jefferson, not FDR or JFK or LBJ or Benjamin Franklin or even Michael Avenatti.

In January of 1969, the year after Dr. King was assassinated, before there was a day attached to his name, I was teaching math at Kinloch High School, a school with all black students, all black staff and all black teachers – except for me.  On his birthday, which was January 15^th back then, not some convenient Monday, the school had an assembly to mourn Dr. King’s death, and every speaker denounced the devil white people.  That was fun.  I actually hid under the bleachers.  True!  Here’s another true story.

I was in a bank recently, and I noticed the name-plate in front of one of the tellers said her name was Robirda.  I said to her, “You know, fifty years ago I taught high school and I had a student named Robirda.”  Where did you teach, she asked?  Kinloch, I said.  She smiled at me.  That was my Gran-mama, she said. 

I started the New Year by getting something done that I should have done years ago.  I completed my Health Care Directive.  You probably have one.  It’s the document which delegates the authority to terminate life support.  I do not consider this subject verboten.  It’s part of life (and death, for that matter) and needs to be addressed.  So I did it.  But I’m having a bit of buyer’s remorse.  Obviously, I named my wife as the Designated Agent to decide when to – well, let’s just say it – pull the plug.  I’m worried, though, that she’d pull the plug frivolously, like if I wore linen in October or forgot to drop her off at the door of the restaurant.

Seriously, the thing that really bothers me is that Carol is always in a big hurry.  A big hurry!  My Princess of Lickety Split has no patience for silly, mundane things like slow restaurant service, telephone wait times or recovering from a coma.  What?  His temperature went down to 98.5?  Turn off the juice!  And he’s not going to get out before my next nail appointment?  Sayonara, Sucker!

Actually, I’m not worried.  Why would Carol ever get rid of me?  I do everything for her.  One day this week we had bad weather.  My wife hates bad weather, so I made sure she could stay under cover while I ran the necessary errands.  The only time I run anymore is when I’m running errands.  It’s called being a gofer.  The pharmacy for pills, the library for a book, the grocery for two bananas (one greenish-yellow and the other yellowish-green), the gas station for a Powerball ticket. I was busier than a pickpocket in a herd of kangaroos

I know I’m the best Gofer yet

Cause I run and I go and I get

I bring her the goods

Like a good gofer should

Making sure that she never gets wet.

Yes, I know the lottery thing is a waste of money, but you never know.  I have a chance, about as much chance as Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi sharing an Uber.

All this talk about end of life directives brings up another question.  Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?  Just think about that.  They don’t exactly have retail stores up there, do they?  Like a Burlington Halo Factory or a luluheaven or J.C. Couture?  That’s probably for the best.  For once, I won’t have to check whether my shoes match my belt.  Now that’s Heaven!

But let’s not worry about that, hopefully, for a long, long time.  Just stay well, count your blessings and come back next week.  I want you here.  You light up my bong. 

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #96

On Sunday night, the night before my birthday, Carol and my daughter Abby made me my favorite dinner – Thanksgiving.  A big turkey with dressing and broccoli-rice casserole.  And lots of brown gravy!  Carol was in charge of getting the gravy at the store.  She bought a pound.  Get more gravy, I said.  She wouldn’t.  The gravy is the most important thing.  I want lots of gravy.  She refused.  This is not the first time she has pulled this Gravy Torture thing.  She does it every Thanksgiving and we never have enough.  What is her problem?  I think she has some internal fear that if there is fifteen cents worth of gravy left over, God will punish her by making her hair frizz.  You know, God didn’t have to turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.  All He had to do was break one of her fingernails.  Now that’s punishment.

Now that I’m finished giving advice to God, I’ll get back to the story.  I WANT MORE GRAVY!  She refused.  Why didn’t you exert your authority, I hear you cry?  Authority?  Over my wife?  You must be new here.  That was Saturday.  Sunday morning, I slunk out of the house like the craven wuss that I am, bought another pound of gravy and delivered it to Abby.  The dinner was delicious!  We had lots of gravy left over. I really hate it when she’s right!  She’s always right.

For dessert we had Poppy Cake.  My mother used to make ice-box cake, alternating layers of whipped cream and chocolate wafer cookies chilled in the fridge.  It was always my favorite dessert, and one time in North Carolina, when I only had three young grandchildren, I said let’s make an ice-box cake.  They said, “Poppy, what’s an ice-box?”  Those little brats have no respect for tradition.  So we made it and they loved it so much that they named it after me – Poppy Cake.  Yummy.

Then Monday was my birthday – 73.  At McDonald’s, I gave my order to a young girl whom I had never seen.  As she was punching in the order, another employee started his shift and she gave him a hug.  “What,” I said, “don’t I get a hug?”  She said of course you do and came right around the counter and gave me a big hug.  Made my day.

From there, I went to see Dr. Heart.  I had a little this and a little that and I thought I should let him look.  The first person I saw was the tech in charge of my pacemaker.  He draped a mouse over my chest and told me everything there was to know about my heart while he stood six feet away at his computer.  “Now,” he said, “I’m going to slow down your heart a little and see what happens.”  What? You can slow down my heart from over there?  He said yes.  Can you slow down my wife?  There was actually one other thing I wanted him to try while he was controlling my body, but – well, it’s a family blog.  Isn’t it?  Aren’t you my family?  Who else would put up with my stories every week?  Then he told me my battery was good for another 6½ years.  I’m not sure I am, but the damn bunny is!  Wow, 6½ years!  That’s 338 more blogs.  Can you make it?

Next, I walked across the hall to Dr. Heart.  I was expecting to get a stress test.  But they’re no fun anymore.  The last time I got one, they inserted me into an Acme Handy-Dandy Heart Stuff Detector with a picture of Wile E. Coyote on the side.  For twelve minutes the Detector circled my body looking for my heart.  I’m pretty sure after this is over, I’ll get my peanut-butter cookie.

Then they injected me with some kind of Hypo-Nuclear Radioactive Strontium Serum.  I asked the nurse to be gentle with the needle, and as I lay down she said, “Now keep breathing.”  Good advice – I was thinking about giving it up for the rest of the day until you mentioned it.  It’s such a bother.  By the way, where is my peanut-butter cookie?

Wait 35 minutes.  Back into the WayBack Machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman.  Twelve more minutes.  Then to the waiting room to get dressed. Ok, Nurse Whoosits, where’s my peanut-butter cookie?  Oh, we don’t do that anymore.  Well, it did seem a bit strange that the only fat grams I was allowed were at the Cardiologist’s office, but the only reason I come here is for the cookie.  Tough aortas, see ya!  I told you they were no fun anymore.

That was last time.  This time, Dr. Heart said I was perfect and didn’t need any tests.  Go home.  I went home.  No cookie. 

Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope your heart is happy and strong.  Does anybody remember Tom Lehrer?  He wrote wonderfully funny and topical songs back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.  One of his songs was National Brotherhood Week.  If he will allow me to update one verse, it goes like this:

Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics and the Catholics hate the Protestants

And the Hindus hate the Moslems and everybody hates the Jews

But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week

Donald Trump and Maxine Waters are dancing cheek to cheek.

You get the picture.  It’s hilarious, but also instructive.  It’s a new year, and perhaps those who traditionally hate one another could this year find common ground.  Friday is the Islamic Holy Day and the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.  Maybe these two groups, often enemies, can start on Friday to dissolve their hate.

Today I will call you my brother

And pray for your father and mother

Then I’ll pray to Allah

While you eat your challah;

Tomorrow we’ll kill one another.

My poetic hero has always been Tom Lehrer.  Tom is 90 and will never read this, but to see anything I’ve written printed on the same page as anything he’s written is profoundly humbling for me.  And while I’m in a rare state of humility, I will humbly say goodbye for now.  Stay well and count your blessings.  See you next week and 337 more weeks after that.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #95

Did you notice that December had five Mondays?  A December with five Mondays occurs only once every 823 years.  That line is directly out of a news article from 2012, the last time December had five Mondays.  Be careful relying on what you hear on the news.

But you can always rely on Limerick Oyster to bring you the truth – mostly.  Hi there, welcome back and Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope you are feeling chipper.  You have been loyal readers of Limerick Oyster all year and I’m very glad I have you with me to launch this cockeyed journey into 2019. 

On New Year’s Eve we went to a movie.  My friend Betty came over the Friday before, and she and Carol hovered over my shoulder while they forced me to buy the tickets on my computer.  I begged them not to do it.  I can never get these things done correctly and have been especially frustrated with movie tickets.  But they insisted, promising they would help me.  I warned them against it, but these women are used to getting their way.  As the writer Robert A. Heinlein said, Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. 

So I went to the website of the movie theater and was automatically shunted to a monster generic website where you can buy tickets anywhere.  That’s not where I wanted to be, but the Pushy Sisters told me everything would be alright.  Five minutes later I had purchased six tickets for the wrong date and had been charged the dreaded Service Fee.  Well, I warned them, didn’t I? 

So they took matters into their own soft and well-manicured hands and, eschewing online or telephone communications, hopped into the car and drove to the theater.  I like that kind of pre-technology initiative. If you want something done, get out there and do it!  Marie Antoinette didn’t say “Let them shop on-line,” did she?  And Juliet never said, “Romeo, Romeo, let my app track your location.”  And Joan of Arc never said, “Alexa, turn down the temperature.”  (You want more?  Just one more and then I promise I’ll stop.)  And Lady Godiva never said, “The package of clothes I bought on Amazon hasn’t arrived yet.”  (Aw, c’mon, one more?)  And Dorothy never said, “Siri, directions to the Emerald City.”

So off they went to the theater to fight the unbeatable foe.  These are two attractive women who have spent a lifetime getting any man to do anything they wanted.  Even now, when they are – let us say, older – they still have considerable face-to-face talents.  They arrived at the theater, ferreted out the manager and, by the time they were through with him, had gotten a refund for my purchase and free tickets and a coupon for free food and a booking on America’s Got Chutzpah.  Don Quixote never had women like that!  I think next, they should drive up to D.C. and straighten this country out. 

I’ve even come up with a campaign slogan for them to use in the next election:  Our Vision is 2020.  Maybe I should run.  Make that “limp”.  Would you vote for me?  Never mind, I don’t want to know.  Just vote for Carol and Betty.  I know that’s not alphabetical order, but I have to put my wife first, don’t I?  That’s if I want to live to the next election.

And I have the perfect issue for them to tackle when they get there.  There is so much talk these days about illegal immigration and THE WALL.  All I know is that the last time millions of people came here illegally, they were white Europeans, and look what they did to the Native Americans.  It’s the Indians’ own fault, of course, for letting in a bunch of pale, hairy farmers who worshipped a pale, hairy carpenter.  But it’s ok, said the ruling Chiefs.  They’ll do the work Indians won’t do and be good for the economy.  I guess that was a lot of sitting bull, wasn’t it?  And by the way, you don’t hear a lot of people speaking Sioux.

Now we’re welcoming millions more.  Bank of America says they are specifically targeting illegal immigrants for credit cards.  Bank of America!  I think they have a salesman standing in the middle of the Rio Grande saying, “Hombre, swim right over here and sign up.  You’re illegal and so are our interest rates. Came here illegally? – we don’t care.  Don’t have a social security number? – we don’t care.  Don’t pay taxes? – we don’t care.  As long as we can charge you 20% interest, you’re our kind of gente.”  Bank of America should be ashamed of itself.  Next they’ll have a special ISIS Visa Card that earns Frequent Bomber Miles.  Anything to make a buck.  Shame on you!  Shame on you twice!!

Come to the U. S. of A.

And live the American way

Si, vamonos gente

Pay twenty per cente

And maybe we might let you stay.

I’m rethinking that Frequent Bomber phrase.  Does it even make sense?  I know Frequent Suicide Bomber doesn’t.  And speaking of elections, it looks like Elizabeth Warren has thrown her feathered headdress into the ring.  I’ve already seen the bumper stickers: RUN ELIZABETH RUN.  Democrats put them on their rear bumpers, Republicans put them up front.

Last week, I told you I didn’t have any New Year’s Resolutions.  Since then, I have found one.  I resolve not to talk to my wife when she is holding any kind of iDevice.  I know she multitasks, and she’s good at it.  She can watch television, read a book, play Candy Crush and bridge and Words with Friends on line, cook, fold laundry and talk to three friends all at the same time, and still notice my shoes don’t match my belt.  But I choose not to be second or third or ninth in her queue. When she asks me how my day was while she is doing a handful of other tasks, sometimes I could say “I got run over by a moose” and she would say, That’s nice. 

Ok, enough.  I’ve got to go change my belt.  Stay well, count your blessings and watch out for moose.  Or is it meese?  And follow the Yellow Brick Road right back to me next week.  I’ll leave the light on for you.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com