Blog #138

I received a lot of comments saying that last week’s blog was dark or depressed or hateful.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Maybe I was a little more bitchy than normal, but, after all we’ve been through, if I can’t be bitchy with you, who can I?  And hateful?  I don’t hate anybody.  Well, maybe a few people, but they’re the same people you hate too.  They include:

·        The person in front of you driving too slowly

·        Anybody who works for your cable company

·        The person behind you driving too fast

·        Your proctologist (Dr. Asshole)

·        The guy who invented the child-proof caps for pill bottles that none of us old people can open.

Otherwise, I’m as mellow as Jell-O.  Except maybe for some stress.  Has your doctor ever told you to avoid stress?  Dr. Heart once told me that very thing.  “Ok, Doc,” said I, “I just put three kids through college, the real estate market is tanking, my health-care premium just tripled and my golf game sucks.  So, sure Doc, I’ll avoid stress.  But can you somehow convince stress to avoid me?”

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling fine and unstressed.  My nine-year old grandson plays on a soccer team sponsored by a Catholic School.  The Catholic Church has a long and rich tradition of supporting soccer in St. Louis, so there are many such teams.  Last week his team played a team from another Catholic school, and of course there was a prayer before the game.  It was my boy’s turn to say the prayer, and he asked me to write one for him.  It was stressful, but I did it.  Here it is:

Lord, you restoreth my soul

Salvation in each holy scroll

I’ve come here today

To kneel down and pray

Please let me score one God-Damned goal.

Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways His goals to score, because we lost.  I guess the other team had a better prayer.

Aren’t you glad we got the limerick over with early?  I am.  It gives me more time to concentrate on lifting your spirits and tickling your fancy.  I hope that I do from time to time.  My spirits need a little lifting actually.  Sometimes I feel lower than Jill Stein’s poll numbers and as useless as a snake with a typewriter.  I can’t explain it.   Maybe it’s the shortening daylight or the political landscape or Dennis Quaid’s engagement to a woman 40 years younger than him.

Now don’t get me wrong -- I certainly am not jealous.  I have a wonderful, smart and beautiful wife (don’t mention this to anyone).  Besides, what would I do with some Gen Z chick?  Twitter?  Instagram?  Watch her count my wrinkles?  Let her teach me how to use Netflix?  Maybe I could let her cut my pills in half.  Just the fact that I have to ask the question shows that we would have as much in common as Mother Teresa and Harvey Weinstein.

And why do we have to cut our pills in half?  In 2018, the top ten drug companies took in 427 billion dollars.  With all that money, can’t they make the pill in the size my doctor prescribes?  Apparently not.  So we have to sit there, with reading glasses, fitting the little thyroid pills into a miniscule slot and plunging the blade down to cut them in half like some ancient and near-sighted sushi chef.  Even if we’re careful, most of them get flipped onto the floor or in the toilet.  Instead of taking half a pill every day, why don’t we just take one every other day?

I’ll tell you why.  Because we won’t remember!  We can’t remember our passwords, our next doctor’s appointment or our youngest grandchild’s name.  We can’t remember who was with Kelly Ripa before Ryan Whatshisname.  We can’t remember – well, I forgot.  So how are we supposed to remember to take a pill every other day?

Here’s another thing that stresses me out – getting dressed.  I once read a humorous line that said, “If the Fashion Police really existed, you’d be serving a life sentence.”  What do they mean if ?  The Fashion Police does exist.  It sleeps next to me every night and then, every morning it looks at me like I was a duck with two bills.  I shiver when I get dressed – not because I’m cold, but because I’m frightened that the socks don’t match the belt or the socks don’t match the shoes or the socks don’t match each other or that there’s linen somewhere.

Some days, she tells me, “If you’re planning to leave the house dressed like that, here’s my divorce attorney’s number.  Give her a call.”  Other days, when she’s feeling charitable, she’ll just look at me and say, “Did the mirror break?”

MOVIE REVIEW:  I grew up with Rock ‘n Roll, so my favorite female singers were not Ella Fitzgerald or Peggy Lee or Sarah Vaughn.  My two favorites were Karen Carpenter and Linda Ronstadt.  There’s a new documentary about Linda Ronstadt’s life, and it’s packed with her gorgeous face and magnificent voice.  The face and the music and the nostalgia of tunes from the 60s – well, I had tears in my eyes.  It seems like I cry at a lot of movies.  Maybe I was crying because I didn’t want it to end.  See it!  Linda Ronstadt is still alive and suffering from Parkinson’s. 

Happy Halloween, by the way!  May your tricks be clever and your treats be fat-free.  Are you ready for the rush of little Halloweeners?  We live in a condo building and don’t get any tricksters, so tonight we will be as lonely as Matt Lauer’s booking agent.  Maybe I’ll grab a broom and go to a Halloween party as Joy Behar.  (I used that last week, but I liked it.)  Enjoy your spooky self, stay well, count your blessings and avoid stress.

But don’t avoid me.  I’ll be back next week.  Be there or I’m hiding your Halloween candy.  And don’t forget to set your clocks back Saturday night.  If you don’t, next week’s Oyster will come an hour late.  Or is it early?

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #137

Live one day at a time.  Enjoy life to the fullest.  Wake up and smell the roses. 

If not now, when?

Bullshit!  All those phrases were invented by self-indulgent flower-sniffers who have relied on someone else to pay their bills while they enjoyed life to the fullest by smelling the damned roses.  We, on the other hand, the hard-working slobs of the world –we, “who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs,” have worked all our lives smelling exhaust fumes in order to take care of our families and to subsidize with our taxes and our charity the tired and huddled masses.  Live one day at a time?  You’ll starve by the end of the week.

Ok, I feel better now.  Sometimes you just have to let your brain explode for a second or two.  Sorry.  The quote about living a hidden life was by George Eliot.  Hey, any girl who lived in the 19^th Century and called herself George is alright by me.  Nowadays, who knows?  My granddaughter, Charley, has girlfriends named Jo, Ronnie, Danny and Sam.   I believe they do that to intentionally confuse old people.

Ok, back to writing.  That’s what I do best, you know.  Ask me to write a poem, a song, a speech?  No problem.  Ask me to speak in front of a crowd?  I’m comfortable.  Ask me to check out at Kohl’s?  I turn into an uncoordinated, blithering fool with the Intelligence Quotient of a pot sticker.   Your item, Sir, was $60.00 but it was marked 40% off, plus you have a 30% off sticker which is calculated after we take the 40% off.  And you get $20 dollars in Kohl’s cash which you can use anytime – but not today.

It all makes me feel like I’m talking to the Cheshire Cat.  “We're all mad here,” said the Cat.   I never shop at Kohl’s without my wife.  It makes perfect sense to her somehow, but it makes me feel as if I had fallen into an Abbott and Costello routine.  What’s in Men’s Clothing?  No, What’s in Kitchenware.  It’s almost as bad as dealing with your cable company.  I want to drop HBO.  Yes, Sir, you can do that but it will cost you more money because you will no longer be on a package.  Curiouser and curiouser.  I wish I could just make the cable people talk to the Cheshire Cat.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and not quite as confused as I am.  Do you have all your Halloween shopping done?  You’d better hurry!  Pretty soon dangerous ghouls and insane monsters will be roaming the streets.  No, I’m not talking about the next Democratic Debate.  I’m talking about Halloween.  They used to give us dimes for Halloween when I was a kid.  We’d collect them for a charity called March of Dimes, and I guess that was a fine gesture, even though we were nine and hoping for a caramel-covered apple on a stick like Mrs. Steinberg used to give us.  What a disappointment!  It’s as if you were expecting to have lunch with Michelle Obama and Sarah Huckabee Sanders showed up.

I can’t wait to go Trick ‘r Treating.  At first, I decided to wear a blonde wig and stripes and go as Felicity Huffman.  I couldn’t find a wig, so I decided to wear nothing but a trench coat and a whip and go as Matt Lauer.  Then I thought about putting on blackface and going as the Prime Minister of Canada, but that might be too edgy, so I decided to go as the Tooth Fairy.

But what should I wear?  Is the Tooth Fairy a man or a woman or some other gender?  And what difference does it make any more?  Hey, I’m in favor of dressing like you want, acting like you want and loving who you want, but – I don’t know, it’s getting so confusing.

Your sex I can no longer guess

By whether you’re wearing a dress

Cause now the Tooth Fairy

Is really named Gary

And Santa Claus has PMS.

Maybe I’ll just grab a broom and go as Joy Behar.

In the last few paragraphs I have managed to offend men, women, gays, straights, Catholics, dentists, people who like the Democratic candidates, people who like Sarah Sanders or Joy Behar, and the entire March of Dimes.  About now, I’m probably as popular as Bill Cosby. On the slim chance that anybody is still reading this, let’s move on.

Sometimes I think it’s already Halloween.  The other day, at a fast-food restaurant, I was waited on by a young woman who had so many tattoos, she looked like the funny pages and so many metal rings and piercings, she looked like a suicide bomber – after the explosion.  Maybe it wasn’t even a woman.  I’m so confused

MOVIE REVIEW:   Downton Abbey.  If you watched Downton Abbey on TV (the telly as they say in Jolly Old), then it’s a must.  You’ll love it.  If you didn’t, you’ll be lost and confused.

I just heard my wife talking on the phone with one of her friends.  The friend must have had a juicy tidbit to relate, because I heard the phrase “just between you and me.”  I had to smile, because I know what that means between girls.  Just between you and me translates into you’re the 19^th person I have told since breakfast and I’m only up to F in my address book.

In case you think this whole blog was about sunshine and lollipops, now comes the bad news.  You really have no idea if your doctor is competent.  You have no idea if your therapist is competent.  Or your hairdresser, dentist, lawyer or garbage collector.  But scariest by far is that you have no idea if the person driving in the other direction is competent or sober or awake.  Have a nice day.

Well, at least you know that the silly old man who writes to you every Thursday morning is supremely and utterly competent.  Stay well, count your blessings and your Halloween candy and remember: this is just between you and me.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #136

The Turks are slaughtering the Kurds.  The President is being impeached.  And what’s on the news?  Matt Lauer.  Makes sense, right?  That’s where our interests really lie – sex, scandal and smut!  I met Matt Lauer once.  I was trying on a pair of shoes in a New York store and he was next to me trying on a pair as well.  We talked for a while, and he seemed like a pleasant fellow.

This morning, when I opened my iPhone, I saw this message:  Good morning.  Last night, when we were pretty sure you were asleep, without your permission, knowledge or consent, we invaded your iPhone and changed everything.  We call this an update.  Everything that you finally learned how to do will now look totally different and you will have to call your children to show you where it all went.  Plus, you have to sign up for Apple Pay.  We don’t care if you don’t want it, don’t understand it and will never use it.  If you don’t sign up for it, we will hide the pictures of your grandchildren in a folder you will never find and post a naked picture of you on Instagram.  Thank you for using Apple.

Sometimes, technology frustrates me.  The other day, I was home alone, relaxing, reading and writing, when I heard a phone ring.  It wasn’t mine – mine sounds like a phone ringing, just like all phones used to sound in myyyyy day.  I like old things.  Carol’s phone sounds like a tidal wave splashing onto a dog who has just swallowed a xylophone.  And that’s what I heard.  She must have forgotten her phone.  Either that or there was a wet, choking dog somewhere in the house.

Challenge #1 -- Find the phone.  This is not trivial.  In myyyyy day, you knew where the phone was.  It was attached to the wall.  Now, it could be under the covers, under the bed, in the microwave, in the trash can, in her underwear drawer.  I commenced a search for the coughing, barking object.  I started in the underwear drawer (that’s where I always start), then followed my ears until I located it on the seventh bark -- on the bed four feet from me.

Challenge #2 -- Turn on the phone.  Once again, not trivial.  In myyyyy day, you picked up the damn thing and spoke.  Every phone was the same.  You knew where it was, you went there, you picked it up and said hello.  Simple.  Now every phone has a pass code or fingerprint or eye recognition or yoga mantra.  I tried activating it by shouting loud obscenities at it?  I tried that several times, but it didn’t help.  And this is supposed to make our lives easier?  I threw it into the underwear drawer and went back to work.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  Did you have a nice Columbus Day?  Everyone believes that Columbus was sent over here by King Ferdinand to locate, subjugate and exterminate all people of color in the Western Hemisphere.  Actually, the whole thing was about Queen Isabella’s birthday.  Ferdinand asked the Queen what she wanted as a birthday gift.  “Oh, Ferdy,” she replied, “I need to find something new and fresh to wear.  The stuff in the stores is so 1480s.  Why don’t you send that creepy little Italian out to find me a Saks?”  And so he did.  Chris landed on the island of Hispaniola, but it was a holiday and everything was closed except the furniture store which was having a Going Out of Business Sale.  Chris was able to pick up a few Early American pieces for the Queen’s boudoir, 90 days same as bullion.  The owner of the furniture store, Uncle Montezuma, was so pleased he decided to name next year’s sale a Columbus Day Sale.

Nowadays, if we want to go to or from Europe, we fly.  Do you know how many different airline charges there are?  Various airlines will charge you extra for luggage, overweight luggage, oversize luggage, carryon luggage, pets, Wi-Fi, drinks, snacks, unaccompanied minors, seat selection, MAGA hats, priority boarding – even bathroom usage.  But now I think they’ve gone too far:

If we’re losing pressure up there

We’ll tell you just how to prepare

The masks will all drop

Don’t touch them, first stop

And pay us five dollars for air.

As much as I hate technology, some of it is pretty amazing.  Under my bed is a machine the size of an apple pie, the kind with caramel on top and a little cinnamon.  It is connected to my Pacemaker by radio waves.  My Pacemaker, besides making paces and threatening to whap the crap out of me should I need it, records my heart activity on a continuous basis.  Wait, I had to stop there and think about the difference between continuous and continual.  Continuous means non-stop without interruption.  The Moon revolves around the Earth continuously.  Continual means over and over again.  My wife continually criticizes my driving.

So, the thing under my bed continuously records my heart activity.  Every three months, without my help or knowledge, it transmits a record of my heart activity by telephone to Dr. Rhythm.  Easy-peasy!  But there is also an option where I can manually transmit to the doctor.  Last Thursday and Friday, I noticed some twinges that felt to me like the pacemaker was doing something.  The method for manual transmission is perfectly simple.  You pick up the mouse-like device from the machine and you begin immediately to see cartoon instructions that a hamster could follow.  Press this button, put the mouse over your pacemaker, wait, put it back, you’re done.  I’m sure the hamster could have done better, because I screwed it up the first time, but I got it to work on the second try.

Then I called Dr. Rhythm, and you know what?  It worked!  They received the transmission and it showed no episodes of activity.  Everything’s good.  Have a nice day.  Pet the hamster.  I did!

I hope that you have a nice day too, and if reading my stuff makes it a little nicer – well, that makes me happy.  Be happy, stay well, count your blessings and try a little cinnamon on your apple pie.  You’ll thank me.  See you next week.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #135

Two things happen every morning – the sun rises and I go to McDonald’s.  When I was using my cane, it occupied my left hand while my right held exact change, my key-ring and my book.  I looked like one of those one-man bands where the guy has drumsticks in his ears and an oboe up his kazoo.  I placed my order at the counter to a thirty-something lady, and she nodded at my book and asked, “What are you reading?”  Dickens, I answered.  “I don’t know him,” she said.  Doesn’t know Dickens?  Ever heard of Shakespeare?  Darwin?  Felicity Huffman?  I didn’t actually ask her any of that.  I asked her what she likes to read.  James Patterson.   I wonder how many more generations will have its ancient, stodgy hangers-on like me, reading Milton and Dickens and Shakespeare.

Hi there and welcome back.  I have arrived once more to enliven your senses, inspire your wonder and tickle your fancy.  Or maybe just to talk a little.  I hope you’re feeling well and ready for some fun.

There’s a genetic testing service called 23andMe.  You’ve heard of it.  You take some saliva or other precious bodily fluid and send it to them along with $150 so you can find out if you’re related to Donny Osmond.  I, of course, have no interest.  I know who I’m related to and am happy with my place on the Tree of Life.  Besides, not everything they tell you is good.  I might find out I’m related to Joy Behar and would have to kill myself.  Plus, being a scientist of sorts, I know that 99% of human DNA is the same as that of a chimpanzee, so unless they have a picture of J. Fred Muggs in my portfolio, I pass. For those of you who care, I looked it up and J. Fred Muggs is 67 years old and retired.  I think he’s related to Donny Osmond.

I had a physical.  Doctor Doctor said I was just fine, but it was the process before I saw the doctor that was troubling.  The nurse weighed me, measured my height and told me I had shrunk another ¼ inch.  “I’m not Happy’” I said.  “Well,” she said, “I don’t care whether you’re Happy, Sleepy, Dopey or Doc, but you’re all getting to be about the same size.”  Next, they asked me if I was depressed. “You’re damned right I’m depressed,” I said as I began studying the lyrics to Follow the Yellow Brick Road and checking job-placement websites to see if Snow White was hiring.

I wonder what my Dwarf name would be if Snow hires me.  I prefer Funny.  I know what my wife’s would be – Speedy.  When I pull into the garage, she opens the passenger door and starts to get out 20 feet before I’m parked.  I’m thinking of installing child-restraints in the front seats.  While I’m still rolling to a stop, she shoots out of the door like a Cruise Missile and sprints to the elevator like Usain Bolt before I’ve even put the car into Park.  This woman could cook a three-minute egg in 48 seconds.  That’s why she doesn’t sleep.  She doesn’t have time. 

She’ll never need a Dwarf Name because she hasn’t shrunk at all.   You know those little cut-out family stickers you put on the rear window of your car?  From left to right is a tall cut-out father, then a slightly smaller mother, then three kids in order of height, then a dog and finally the cat.  I can just picture ours in a few years.  In order of height there will be Carol, a cat and me. What a world!

Three weeks after hip surgery I gave up my cane.  Don’t need it any more.  Plus, I’m giving up my bell, the one Carol gave me to call her when I was convalescing.  I didn’t use it very much, but it sure was fun, tinkling the bell and having her fly into the room like a super-charged BMW (Beautiful Marvelous Wife).  Anyway, she made me give it back. 

Well now that you’re perfectly well

You no longer need the damn bell

So if you give that thing

One more ding-a-ling

I’m sending you both straight to Hell.

Actually, she didn’t say it that nicely.  It was more like if I used it again, she would put it somewhere where I would need a different kind of doctor to find it.  I liked my bell.  So did Paul McCartney.  He even named his – Michelle, my bell.

I haven’t given you a movie review in a while, because I haven’t seen one, but last weekend we went to see JUDY with Renée Zellweger.  All the women thought it was fabulous because Renée was such a fine actress, but all the men thought it was boring and depressing.  Instead of showing what a wonderful, talented performer Judy Garland was, the show highlighted the darkest, most dismal and depressing parts of her life and all the abuse she endured from others and from herself.  So Girls, go see it.  And Guys, stay home and watch the baseball playoffs. 

This week was the Jewish Day of Atonement.  At the Temple, the Rabbi went through a list of sins arranged alphabetically.  I like that.  It’s pretty anal to list your sins alphabetically, but it’s organized and concise.  We have a list of names that we guys use for our wives – A you’re adorable, B you’re so beautiful.  And a list of names they use for us – A you’re aggravating, B you’re boring.  So why not sins?  As the Rabbi read the list from A to Z, Carol was next to me, and every time he read a sin of which I was guilty, she turned and glared at me the same way Nancy Pelosi glares at Donald Trump.  By the end, she had a crook in her neck.  So, I apologize for the alphabet soup of sins I have committed in the past year.  I apologize to God.  I apologize to my wife.  Maybe I should have put her first.   Actually, my sins weren’t that bad, so you can come back and visit me next week.  Please do.  I’ll be good.  Meanwhile, stay well and count your blessings.  I’m sure counting mine.  

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #134

Remember Monopoly?  Now Hasbro has released Ms. MONOPOLY where women players get $240 for passing Go while men players only get $200 and where, instead of buying real estate, players buy chocolate-chip cookies.  I promise you, I have not made this up.  The concept has annoyed me a little, so I have decided to create some male-oriented board games.

Games for Guys:  While the girls are playing CLUE, the men can play CLUELESS, a mystery game where the men try to decide what belt to wear with a pink shirt.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling pert and healthy.  I feel great, recovering nicely from hip replacement.  In preparation for my surgery, I had to do lots of things, things like grocery shopping for the lunch stuff and snacks that I like.  So I went to Schnucks.  Yes, that’s the name of our local grocery chain.  Kind of like calling a store Asshole Hardware or Loser Laundry.

I was limping the aisles when I felt a figure approach me from the rear.  I turned around and there was a tall, thin, silvery body with huge black eyes.  No, it wasn’t Cher, it was a robot.  Is Cher still here?  I thought she promised to leave the country after the last election.  I guess if Trump wins again, she’ll leave the planet.  Baby, don’t go!  Pretty Baby, please don’t go.  

This robot was spookily anthropomorphic.  I guess it (he? she? them?).  Can robots pick their own pronouns?  Anyway, it was apparently vacuuming the floor or doing some other job no longer suitable for living creatures to perform..  It passed me by, didn’t even say, “Pardon me, handsome Human,” and rolled into a corner where it turned itself off.  It made me think of Star Wars, Wall-E and I, Robot.  It both spooked me out and warned me of the unfamiliar future that is on our doorstep.  I’m sure the robot will save Schnucks lots of money, at least until some limping, old man trips over it and sues for $10 million.

One of the nice, thoughtful messages you sent me following my hip replacement was a hope that I’d be running a marathon in a month.  Well, a marathon is not exactly my style.  In fact, if my body is ever found on a jogging trail, you’ll know that I was murdered somewhere else and dumped there.  The marathon was a nice thought, but I’m just hoping to go back to Schnucks and make it from the bananas to the milk without tripping over R2D2.  I call the distance from bananas to milk and back to bananas one Fruit Loop.  You know, like a Light Year or a Nautical Mile?  Seniors do Fruit Loops.

Pretty soon I’ll be graduating my recovery period and getting back to my assigned place in the grocery store world, following Carol around like a strip of toilet paper stuck to her heel and catching food items she flips over her shoulder.  The woman can shop faster than the House Intelligence Committee can issue subpoenas.

We always start shopping from the artsy-fartsy foods like kiwis, kale and cumquats and work ourselves over to the real foods like Lactose-Free Fat-Free Milk, caged and antibiotic-filled eggs and Pasteurized processed cheese spreads.  Does anybody shop in the other direction?  Maybe in Israel.

Besides, it’s getting harder and harder to figure out which product to buy.  There’s low-fat-no-carbs, lotsa-fat-no-sugar, fat-free-extra-protein, gluten-free-extra carbs.  And that’s just the laundry detergent!

Games for Guys:  While the girls are playing SORRY! the guys are playing Oh my God, Honey, I’m So SORRY! where the men have to spend an entire week circling the board because they didn’t notice their wives’ new hair color.

I’ve had to skip a couple of my light treatments during recovery.  You remember my light treatments, standing in a tanning booth with a brown paper bag over my head reciting the Raven?  Did you know that the state of California prohibits any person under the age of eighteen from using a tanning salon without written parental permission?  I’m pretty sure you can get an abortion at any age without permission.  I’m pretty sure you can live in a public park at any age without permission.  But you can’t get a tan.  Well, good for California for protecting its youth.

Take all of the drugs that you can

Abortions are fine, there’s no ban

You’re never too young

To get studs in your tongue

But make sure you don’t get a tan.

And don’t go outside either.  It’s curious that the same people who are so concerned with saving the pristine forests and mountains and wild creatures won’t let their kids go out and enjoy them. 

Games for Guys:  While the girls are playing CANDY LAND, the men are playing BEER BELLY, comparing how far forward they have to lean before they can see their shoes.

Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends. Carol has been cooking for the Jewish holidays.  She just called my name from three rooms away, “Michael, I saved a cookie for you.  It was broken.”  That’s really all I’m worth – broken cookies, fatty pieces of brisket and undersized matzoh balls.  The streetable food, the good-looking food – well, I’m under a Family Holdback Order, so I’m stuck with the broken cookies and undersized balls.  Don’t you dare make a joke!  That’s my job. 

Games for Guys:  While the girls are playing Chutes and Ladders, the men are playing Fish and Chips, where each participant chooses among menu items, the winner being the one who amasses the most cholesterol.

Games for Guys:  While the girls are playing Dungeons and Dragons, the men are playing Headaches and Cramps, trying to avoid penalty cards like:  Sorry, your wife has a headache.  Go directly to Sleep, do not even get close to GO.

I should stop now.  I’m not sure how much more trouble I can into in one week, but I feel like I’m on the edge.  Stay well, count your blessings and be sure to come visit next week.  Where else can you get this kind of stuff?

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com