Blog #145

You’ve all heard of the Me Too Movement.  Now, there’s a new one started by Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.  It’s called the Who Me Movement.  How many times do we have to catch them cheating before we reject their “Who Me” excuses?  Bill has even started a new magazine called Cheater’s Digest.  It’s one of a crop of trendy new magazines that include:

·        Martha Stewart’s tips on how to decorate your prison cell.  It’s called Big- House Beautiful.  She has another called Better Homes and Wardens,

·        Peep-Hole Magazine by Harvey Weinstein,

·        Torts Illustrated by Alan Dershowitz,

·        And Fifteen, edited by Prince Andrew.

Guess what’s coming up.  Hanukkah, that wonderful Jewish holiday that comes between Thanksgiving and Christmas and celebrates the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  It also commemorates the Hanukkah Miracle by which a small amount of oil, enough to give light for one day, miraculously lasted eight days.  My granddaughter suggested that was akin to having your cellphone work all day on 1% battery charge.  She’s very modern.

The celebration lasts eight days, which allows you to spell Hanukkah a different way each day and to receive eight different presents.  Which is why, with all due respect to my Jingle Bell friends, Hanukkah is better than Christmas.  You see, if on Day One of Hanukkah you receive a present from a loved one that is way better than the one you gave her, you have seven more days to go shopping and buy her something appropriate.  But if that should happen on Christmas, you’re out of luck and you’ll be in more trouble than Donald Trump.

I have been very busy with my Hanukkah shopping, and I know I’ve spent way too much money.  Presents are for kids.  Like my grandchildren, like my children, like me.  Women tend to be more mature, so I only got my wife one little thing – one little, practical, inexpensive, useful, boring thing.  She’ll hate it of course.  She probably already knows what it is and wants to return it before I waste my time wrapping it.  She always hates what I get her.  Too bad, because it’s really fun buying people presents.  I saved the receipt. 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and full of cheer for the holiday season, whether it’s Hanukkah or Christmas or anything else.  I also hope you are somewhere warm and away from the snow we have had here in St. Louis.   I hear people singing Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, so at least they’re happy.  There are other versions of that song, you know.  Audience members at a strip-club sing Let it Show, men with prostate problems sing Let it Flow and House Democrats sing Let it Quid Pro Quo.

I’m going to escape the cold next week, and spread goodwill for the Holiday Season as well, by going to California to nurse my daughter back to health.  Stephanie, the middle of my three precious girls, is having a little hip surgery, outpatient stuff.  I guess her hip takes after mine.  At the same time, Daughter Jennifer is coming to spend Hanukkah with us and Daughter Abby.  You have that all straight?  There’ll be a test later.  Well, we apparently don’t have it all straight because that causes a conflict.  But, as Burnham’s Law states, “If there’s no alternative, there’s no problem”, so Carol will stay here for Hanukkah and I will go to El Cerrito, CA for a few days.  I already told my daughter that if she expects me to cook, we shall both surely starve. 

I cook about as well as our President combs his hair, but one thing I can do is keep track of everything. I’ve been a collector and record-keeper all my life, and have a list of all my credit-card charges and how much I’ve won at poker and the books I’ve read and anything else I can think of.  That’s just me.  The last book I finished raised me to 330,000 pages read since 1979.  That’s one page for every person in Riverside, CA.  Thought you’d like to know.

Another thing I can do is play games.  I can play almost anything.  When we were last in North Carolina, Carol was recruited to give mahjong lessons to my daughter and some of her friends.  When one had to leave, I was drafted to fill in.  Mahjong is a frightening game!  Dragons and Jokers and Winds, oh my!  But was I afraid?  Nope, I grabbed my dots and cracks and bams, my dragons and flowers and winds and I stepped up.  Just call me Bam-Bam.  Wasn’t that a Flintstone kid?  Was that the girl or the boy?  I looked it up.  You can look up anything nowadays.  Bamm-Bamm Rubble was Barney’s adopted son.  The girl was Pebbles.  Anyway, as I said, I can play anything.

In Bridge I know how to bid slam

In Mahjong I play crack and bam

Each week I play Poker

And Canasta with jokers

It shows you how useful I am!

Rotten Oysters:  The movie this week was A Beautiful day in the Neighborhood.  I was expecting to see Tom Hanks playing Fred Rogers.  Instead, I saw a boring and predictable family drama that I could watch every day on any soap opera.  Who thought up this useless way of making a movie about Mr. Rogers?  However, for the 25% of the movie when I was watching Mr. Rogers (no, Tom Hanks didn’t play Mr. Rogers; Tom Hanks was Mr. Rogers) – during those scenes, I was mesmerized, hypnotized, seduced by this perfect, saintly, unreal person who was full of unselfish goodness and understanding.  It truly made me want to be a better person.

And I’ll start being a better person by ending this so you can get back to your lives.  Stay well, count your blessings and have a wonderful holiday.  May the star on your Christmas Tree shine with love and may your dreidel spin forever.  And be sure to come back to me next week.  As Mr. Rogers said, “There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.” 

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com