Blog #129

Are you tired yet of this Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib kerfuffle?  I certainly am.  They support organizations who plot for the expulsions of the Jews from the Middle East.  They call for a boycott of Israeli businesses.  And they expect to drop in on Jerusalem and have the Prime Minister bid them Shalom and serve them knishes and a piece halvah?

There just are some things you can’t do:

·        You can’t get into the Hall of Fame if you gambled on Baseball.

·        You can’t go through a whole day without complimenting your wife.

·        You can’t buy Greenland.

·        And you can’t enter Israel if you hang out with people who want to destroy Israel. 

Makes sense to me.  Besides, they hang out with Holocaust Deniers.  And now, those same Holocaust Deniers are trying to alter history again with their new explanation for what happened. 

Of all the ridiculous jokes!

That Holocaust thing was a hoax

Now here’s the real news:

Those six million Jews

Are staying in Jersey with folks.

I think the President is working on a solution.  He has offered to buy the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and move all the Palestinians to Greenland.  Lots of space, lots of water and not a Jew in sight.  Then he’ll build a new hotel in Bethlehem, the Trump Tower of Babel.

Let’s get to something serious.  Do you have a miniature horse?  The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced that miniature horses are still officially allowed to fly as service animals on commercial planes.  Miniature horses as service animals?  Miniature horses on airplanes? I looked it up and discovered you can’t just have any horse; you have to have the right horse to fit your ailment.

If you’re in dread, choose Mr. Ed.

If you’re feeling sicka, ride your friend Flicka.

If you’ve got the flu, get Seattle Slew.

If you’re manic-depressive, get High-Low Silver.

If you have knuckle pain, choose Trigger Finger.

The whole thing started when a man and his miniature horse encountered a slightly blind flight attendant. The horse was making snuffling noises and the attendant, who thought the snuffling creature was the man’s son, asked if the boy had a cold.  “No,” said the man, “he’s just a little horse.”

My hip surgery is coming up soon.  I have been a good boy about doing my pre-surgery exercises.  I do my leg-outs and my leg-backs and my chair lifts.  Jeez, those chairs are heavy!  Last are the butt-lifts.  The instructions did not specify exactly whose butt I was supposed to lift, so I decided to lift my wife’s.  It’s much lighter, and way more fun, but she didn’t take it in the right spirit and I had to resort to lifting my own.  Pity.

After my exercises yesterday, I phoned an office at the hospital called Price Estimator and asked what my operation was going to cost.  She asked what procedure I was having.  Hip replacement, I dutifully answered.  She asked which hip.  Which hip? Is the left hip more expensive than the right hip?  I’m a smart-ass.  You knew that.  Isn’t medical pricing nuts?  If you have no insurance, it’s a trillion dollars, but if you have insurance it’s a buck and a half.  I have never understood the logic.  Here’s the story:

          Hip Surgery:  $27,130

          My insurance has a contract to pay:  $11,195

          My Co-Pay:  $250

But that’s just the hospital.  Then there’s Dr. Hip and Dr. Sleep.  But, and this is a big but (no, I did not say you had a big butt; don’t be so defensive) – but, as I said, I have a maximum Co-Pay for the year and yadda-yadda.  I’m a pretty smart guy, but this is above my pay grade.

Another thing above my pay grade is the weather.  Here’s a typical TV weather spot:

There’s a big Tropical Depression, Cold Front, Arctic Blast, Bomb Cyclone right over here – where you’ve never been.  In the next few hours, it will affect 19 million people – who you don’t give a shit about – and will travel up here – a place you didn’t even know existed.  None of this weather is anywhere near you or will affect you in the slightest, but we have our reporter there, standing in nine feet of water and watching the cars blow away in the wind.  Take it away, Rex.

They give you all this world-wide weather drama because they honestly have no clue what’s going on “in your neck of the woods”.  If you want to know that, open a window.    

Did you know there is actually a product on the market called a Concentrated Synthetic Urine Substitute?

·        You apply for a job.

·        They require a drug test.

·        You go into the bathroom to leave a urine sample.

·        But instead of urinating, you pull from your pocket a vial of this stuff, pour it in the cup and add warm water.

·        You pass!

Don’t you think that’s horrible?  What has happened to our respect for the law?  Do you want people faking the drug test when they apply to be school-bus drivers?  Or nuclear power plant employees?  This stuff is advertised on the Internet!  I think everybody involved with this product and everyone who has used it to fake a drug test should be put on a 737 piloted by a couple of guys who faked their drug tests too.  Sorry, that just makes me furious!

I have finally found a group of guys who share my idea of a pleasant afternoon – being alone!  They have joined my Hermit Club and we have all decided not to meet every Tuesday at 12:30. If things work out, we may expand it and not meet on Thursdays as well.

Oh-oh, gotta go.  I can’t miss the new TV show, Dancing With The Conservatives.  Sean Spicer is hosting and the show will include Donald Trump dancing the Swing State, Mike Pence doing a Square Dance, Chris Christie with a Belly Dance and Lindsay Graham doing the Charleston.  You see, Charleston is in South Carolina and ------ oh, never mind.  If I have to explain the jokes, it’s time to go.

Stay really, really well, count your blessings and don’t forget the Hermit’s Club doesn’t meet on Tuesday.  Don’t be there.  But be sure to be here next Thursday for more of me and my high-class drivel.  See ya!

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #128

Yesterday, I pulled out a pair of golf shorts, and, as I slid into them, out fell a white sock, a tan sock and a brown sock.  So that’s where they go.  I decided to check the rest of my shorts.  I found five more single socks, a tablecloth and a small Jamaican woman who had come to clean our house a few years ago.

That might have been a little lie.  Do you lie?  Do you lie all the time?  Have you ever lied?  You’re lying!  But a small lie once in a while can be a good thing.

You look marvelous!

I like your hair.

Yes, Sweetheart, Santa Claus knows what you want.

No new taxes.

Fat?  You’re not fat.

I have not had sexual relations with that woman.

Yes, sometimes a little lie hurts less than the truth.  But I really do like your hair. 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling great and enjoying the last few weeks of Summer.  The end of Summer always makes me think of Winter and our annual three-week drive where we travel faster and visit more places than poison ivy on a fat man.  But it didn’t used to be that way.  We used to have a second home in Scottsdale, Arizona, where we had three guest bedrooms and lots of guests.  Each guest bath was stocked with upscale soaps and shampoos that we got – well, we pilfered -- from the stuff provided at various hotels where we stayed.  Like the harmless lie, I guess that’s another little sin.  In each bathroom we put a sign:

The lotion and soap and shampoo

We stole all this stuff just for you

From places we’ve been

Like the Ritz and the Wynn

We hope you are not robbers too.

And our guests weren’t.  We never lost shampoos or soap.  A couple of towels and a flat-screen TV, but no soap.

Movie Review:  The Art of Racing in the Rain.  Never see a movie with seven words in the title.  Whatever they had to say, they’ve said it already.  This was a vapid, dog-oriented tear-jerker that was under-acted, under-written, underwhelming and should only be seen by people who actually love the taste of colonoscopy prep. 

Book Review:  I don’t do book reviews because I could never expect someone to read the bizarre and arcane books I read.  I just started Our Mutual Friend, the last of Dickens’ complete works.  Remember Dickens?  He wrote “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”  He must have been married.

God love all my friends; each one has a remedy for my hip pain.  Sleep with a pillow between my legs, hang from a door, see an acupuncturist, stick avocados in your ears, read a 900-page Dickens book.  The best suggestion was to watch old Joy Behar videos.  The pain of watching her would make me forget the hip.

I’ve met a few celebrities over the years.  Never Joy Behar, thank goodness.  I’m not easily star struck and would not go out of my way to see anyone famous, and don’t really care who they are marrying, divorcing or sexually molesting.  I’ve never asked anyone for an autograph.  On the other hand, if I’m near someone I recognize, I have no fear of starting up a conversation.  I mean, they’re no different from me really.  They probably have socks in their golf shorts too.

I’ve talked with Stan Musial, William Shatner, Jackie Mason, Matt Lauer, Donald Trump (yes), Billy Crystal, Bob Costas.  Costas was very, very nice.  I introduced my wife, and Bob and I talked about boxing while Carol surreptitiously examined his wedding ring like a KGB agent.  By the time he was gone, she could describe the ring as meticulously as if she were selling it on QVC. 

Honestly, I could talk for twenty minutes to a woman wearing Stonehenge on her finger and never notice it, but then I have the curiosity and observation skills of a rocking chair.  Carol, on the other hand, would eye a ring from twenty feet and know the Five C’s before the woman could turn around.  Five C’s, I hear you ask?  I thought there were four.  Five:  Cut, Clarity, Color, Carat and (the most important) Cost. 

Do you know what’s good for you?  And what’s not?  The question is harder to answer than who’s going to be the Democratic candidate.  Remember eggs?  First you could eat the whole egg, then you could only eat the yolk, then it was the white that was good, then the whole egg again, then the shell was good and now you can even eat the carton to get fiber.  Why did the chicken cross the road?  To find out which part of her egg was healthy.

And in the spirit of all this Healthy Food frenzy, Carol and I decided to have an Impossible Burger.  It was on our bucket list, along with kissing a zebra and finding a day when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was quiet.  So we dropped into Burger King and shared one.  You know, once you put it on a bun and cover it with ketchup, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes – it doesn’t taste that much different from their Cow Burger.  Of course, their Cow Burgers aren’t exactly winning any Michelin Stars.  The only Michelin reference you would get at Burger King is that if you eat there enough, you’ll begin to look like the Michelin Man.  A little round, a little spongy.  Fat?  You’re not fat.

And check out the latest about coffee.  If you have migraines, coffee can make them worse, but if you don’t have migraines, coffee can keep you from getting them.  The whole thing gives me a headache.  But I hope today’s blog didn’t give you a headache.  If it did, drink a cup of coffee and eat an egg carton.  The headache will go right away.

You, however, are not going away.  You have to be back next week.  I’ll be here.  Meanwhile, stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll stop now. I have places to go and people to see and Impossible Burgers to avoid.  See you next week.  And by the way, you look marvelous!

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #127

I’ve been very, very busy this week.  No time to say Goodbye-Hello.  Goodbye.  Hello, and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling chipper.  I’ve been so busy mostly dealing with my wife’s continuing birthday festival.  It appears to be never-ending.  Last week she went to three Happy Hours on three consecutive nights and left me to fend for myself.  I’m not a good fender.

                                               

My wife?  Well she’s out on the town

I miss her and I’m feeling down

Like Kate without Tracy

Or George without Gracie

I’m no good when she’s not around.

Please don’t tell her I said that.  She might get the idea I need her.  Anyway, they’re still taking her out even though her birthday was six weeks ago!  She’s been taken out more than Chinese food.

And what do you think those girls talk about in their little distaff staff meetings?  They talk about what single, senior lady is dating what single, senior gentleman.  Do you think they hold hands?  Do they sleep together.  Who can we fix up with that recent widow or widower?  It’s like they never left High School.  Then she comes home and tells me what my life is going to be like if she goes before me.  First, I’m going to get casseroles.  I don’t even know what that means, but it’s apparently some kind of ritualistic rite of passage I’ve never heard of – When you’re born you get circumcised; when you’re a teenager you get pimples; when your wife is gone you get casseroles.  Then she tells me I’m not allowed to date any of her friends.  Then she says she has someone picked out for me already.  Someone I don’t even know!

She likes to control everything I do.  She tells me how to drive, where to park, what to say.  So now, apparently, she thinks that when she’s off to that Holy Canasta Parlor in the sky where all the card tables are square, all the dinner tables are round and all the walls have mirrors – she thinks she’s still going to be able to pull my strings like some Heavenly Edgar Bergen.

Back to her birthday.  I remember that morning perfectly.  I arose slowly in the morning and waited for my brain to determine what the abrupt change from horizontal to vertical really meant.  I limped into the bathroom and took a pill for my heart.  Then I rubbed on some cream to help my dry skin and walked slowly to the study, favoring my hip.  I got my 2.75 reading glasses, took some fiber pills and a Senior Multi-Vitamin.  Carol walked in looking fresh and perky.  She had just finished the treadmill and was on her way to Yoga class.  I wished her happy birthday.  Poor girl is getting old.

My pre-hip-surgery exercises have actually given me a little more energy, so a few days ago I tried to do something helpful.  This is usually a mistake.  I noticed Carol was reading in bed with a low-wattage bulb, so I got a higher wattage bulb with the intention of brightening her life.  Have you ever heard me say, “I can’t even screw in a lightbulb”?  I screwed this one in and there was a pop and all the lights went out in the bedroom and bathroom.  I tried the circuit breaker, but that didn’t work.  The next day, I had a workman tell me I shorted out the lamp.  I unplugged it, switched on the breaker and … well, now I know how God felt on that First Day.  Except God didn’t have a wife yelling at him.  Or maybe He did.  Do you think God had a wife?  Mrs. God? 

What? You made Adam in your own image?  What makes you think you’re so hot looking?  Go right now and make a Woman.  Out of what?  Use Adam’s rib, Stupid.  The poor Schmuck doesn’t need half of that stuff you gave him, like an appendix or a baby toe or that ego.  And you’d better make the Woman look like me if you know what’s good for your holy self.  Maybe make the breasts a little bigger. 

No, don’t be nervous.  I’m the one who’s going to get hit by lightning, not you.  But just to be safe, hold your device a little farther away.

And tell Adam he has to honor and obey her.  No, she doesn’t have to honor and obey him.  If you made him in your image, he probably can’t even screw in a light bulb.  That “Let There Be Light” trick of yours blew out half the stars until I showed you how to do it.

Maybe you should move even farther away!  Or maybe you should just spend 30 seconds in my head some time.  It would freak you out. 

Now I need some rest, so I’m going to leave you.  Oh, before I do, I want to talk about movies.  When I leave a movie theater, someone always asks if I liked the movie.  I’m an honest guy, so I tell them my opinion and the next day everyone in the county knows what I said.  “Hey, I heard you didn’t like that movie.”  So I decided instead of sharing my opinion with the rest of the world, I would just shrug.  I’m kind of a loner anyway.  Then I thought, wait, what am I saying?  Every week I share with you, and anyone else bored enough to read my stuff, every aspect of my life from my inability to get from Point A to Point B to standing in my shorts with the brown paper bag over my head.  So why not just tell you what I thought about the movie?  You won’t tell anyone, will you?

We saw Late Night with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling.  I liked it a lot.  It was light and warm and non-violent and pretty much delightful.  There, I’ve done it.  Keep it to yourself!  And keep counting your blessings, staying well and coming back to me.  Next Thursday – we have a date.  I won’t have anything else to do anyway.  My wife will be out celebrating her birthday.  See you then.

Charlie McCarthy                              Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #126

I had a bad day Saturday.  I was lethargic all day, took a two-hour nap in the afternoon and went to sleep at 9:30.  On Sunday, I was waiting for Carol to ask me how I was.  Did I feel better?  Was there anything she could do for me?   My hearing is still pretty good and I’m fairly certain I did not hear any words revealing an interest in my well-being.  What I did hear was my wife asking our granddaughter how her cats were.  The cats?  Carol hates cats!  She asked about them and not her loving husband?  That made me feel about as popular as Donald Trump in Baltimore.

I tried a little subterfuge.  I asked her how she felt, thinking that would trigger a similar concern on her part.  Nope, she blew me off like the dust on an old Everly Brothers record.  Nice to see you, I’ll get back to you.  Bye, Bye Love.  For those of you who care, I am feeling much better, thank you.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and highly respected. There is a whole lot of female indignation going around these days.  What with six women running for President on the Democratic side and another four Congresswomen in The Squad, there is no shortage of voices pointing out how women have gotten the raw deal throughout history and how now is the time for them to be empowered and to fulfill their destiny.  I cannot disagree. 

And yet, somehow, I feel cheated. While my daughters were growing up, I had to work. I wasn’t worried about being empowered or about fulfilling my friggin’ destiny.  I was worried about supporting my family like my father and grandfathers and uncles did.  That was my destiny.  But I have to give it to my sweet wife.  She gave me the constant encouragement a man needs to go out and work hard. 

Go get your big butt out the door

And bring home more money – much more

Go work hard all day

So that I can play

Cause that is what husbands are for.

And she was right.  That is what husbands and dads are for, and we did it.  And I was proud to do it.  Did I ever once think I should abandon my family and pursue my destiny as a bird-watcher or a poet?  No, not for a second.  Have I ever regretted that?  No, not for a second.

Ok, enough of my complaining.  I no longer work, which gives me all the time I need to do my writing and play with my grandchildren.  It took me fifty years of working to get there, but I couldn’t be happier.  And my wife’s pretty happy herself.  This week she went to Happy Hours three nights in a row to celebrate her birthday – again.  Three Happy Hours in a row.  How much Happy does one person need?

I think bars should start having Grumpy Hour where people get together to bitch about whatever politician or governmental policy makes them grumpy.  And appetizers are half-price.  White Supremacists could be on one side of the room eating Potato Skin-Heads, Black Lives Matter on the other side ordering Pigs in a Blanket and a table of Police Officers in the middle eating Copper’s Poppers.  And all drinking Michelob Lighten-Up.  Sounds like great fun.

Back to my wife getting wined and dined.  She apparently has more friends than a rich Democratic donor, and they all want to celebrate her birthday. It’s been a month and they’re still taking her out.  She’s had more birthdays than Methuselah.  You’d think she’d have cake poisoning by now.  And what happens to me when she is out celebrating with the “goils”?  Poor, loyal, devoted and obedient me?  I stay home alone.  That’s big of me, isn’t it?  Maybe I need two wives so one can be with me while the other is out gallivanting.  That’s bigamy, isn’t it?  Oscar Wilde said, “Bigamy is having one wife too many.  Monogamy is the same.”  Oscar said that, Honey, not me.

And, by the way, I didn’t do all the working in the family.  Carol taught 5^th grade and ran some successful retail stores, and I respect her tremendously for that.  I’m not sure, however, that the respect goes both ways.  Last week we were at the AT&T store getting some new phones, and I was explaining to the salesperson what we needed.  Carol interrupted, pulled the salesperson aside and said, “My husband is a ridiculous babbling idiot and I wouldn’t believe him if he said the sun was hot.”  Now that’s not true at all – I do not babble!  Later on, she added, “My husband is a bi-polar, dysfunctional moron who doesn’t know his foot from a pastrami sandwich.”  Well, that one was pretty much true.  I never liked pastrami.  Too peppery.

ITEM:  Emperor Penguins spend nine months of each year huddled together in the 80-below-zero weather of Antarctica incubating and raising their chicks?  That’s the Catholic penguins of course.  They like to do Penguin penance.  Jewish penguins are in Miami Beach at the Four Seasons, playing canasta and pretending they’re ushers at a wedding.

 

ITEM:  It appears that The Biggest Loser is coming back for a new season.  I can’t wait.  There’s nothing more thrilling than sitting on my couch, eating butter-free, salt-free popcorn and watching fat people sweat.  Two spin-offs have already been planned entitled The Biggest Liar and The Biggest Racist.  Well, I have to find something to fill up my time.  Dr. Pacemaker has banned me from watching The View.

ITEM:  We saw the Quentin Tarantino movie with Brad and Leonardo and Margo.  All three of them were gorgeous, but the movie was awful.  The good news was that we got Senior tickets at a pretty low price.  Pretty soon we’ll qualify for the Super-Senior Price for people so old they can neither hear nor see the movie, and are there just to suck the salt off the popcorn.  Maybe they’d like to come watch The Biggest Loser with me.

Are you tired of me yet?  I am.  Are you mad at me yet?  Get over it.  Stay well, count your blessings and avoid Tarantino movies.  I’ll see you next week.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com