Blog #181

 Well, NASA has not changed the names of the planets as I warned in last week’s episode.  Not yet, anyway, but they have changed the name of the Eskimo Nebula.  A nebula, as you all know, is a cloud of gas and dust in Outer Space.  In any event, no more Eskimo Nebula.  Now it’s called NGC 2392.  Catchy, don’t you think?  I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want an object in space named after your people.  My people have one.  It’s called Jew-piter, which is a huge ball of gas.  I think they named it after my Uncle.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are all feeling well and staying safe and being kind to each other and to animals.  I have a lot of animal stuff to talk about today.  First, we went to Lone Elk Park this week.  Lone Elk is one of those drive-through nature preserves where, from the comfort of your car, you can view bison, the occasional elk and packs of raccoons begging for food scraps.  Now, my wife is a very smart woman.  She’s math smart and book smart and street smart and people smart, but when it comes to animals, she’s a couple of lionesses short of a pride.  She asked me if there was a chance the bison would eat us.  And she doesn’t like raccoons.  I can understand that.  Bison and elk are regal and impressive and non-threatening.  Raccoons are evil little thieves who would sell their mothers for a French fry.  But they are truly adorable.

 

But that’s the way of the world, isn’t it?  You can tip over trash cans, nest in people’s attics and carry rabies, but if you’re a cute raccoon, people will still throw you food.  Or, you can lie, cheat and bribe the rowing coach at USC, but if you’re a beautiful TV star, you get a few weeks at camp, a little community service and a book deal.  The best service that Lori can provide to the community would be to move to NGC 2392.  And take her pain-in-the-asteroid husband with her.

 

Traffic Report:  A slowdown east of Imperial, Missouri was caused by cattle on the highway.  Well, that’s something you don’t hear about every day, but it is an actual news report.  I wonder what kind of cars the cattle were driving.  Probably a Cattle-Ac.  Or maybe a B-M-Double-Moo or a Toyudder or a Cowdi.

 

See, I told you this would be about animals.  Let’s talk about my cat.  At night, Shakespeare sits on the bed (on his special blanket) and watches television until Carol gets under the covers.  We don’t have a king-sized bed.  We have a King Kong sized bed. There is more than enough room for me, my lovely wife, Shakespeare and the Ohio State Marching Band.  But when Carol gets under the covers, Shaky mistakes her toes for a family of mice and attacks.  This is obviously unacceptable behavior and some little creature has to spend the night on the porch.

 

Our bed is sufficiently wide

But the cat Carol cannot abide

Cause the cat wants her toe

But my wife says No-No

I hope she likes sleeping outside.

 

No, of course it’s the cat that goes on the porch, at least for now, but don’t worry.  It’s an indoor porch all fitted with shelving to climb on, boxes to hide in, soft cushions to sleep on and an open window to enjoy the cool night air and the birdsong in the morning.  I think Carol will like it.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  What’s done cannot be undone.  To bed, to bed, to bed (Macbeth).  I guess I shouldn’t play with her toes, but I’m missing a whole foot-full of toes and I thought she had a few to spare. 

 

A few days after the bison and raccoons, we went to the Zoo.  I asked Carol what she wanted to see.  She said the Big White Thing.  I wasn’t sure whether she meant the polar bear or Donald Trump.  Hey, that gives me an idea.  Let’s do a straw vote.  Just send me a message at mfox1746@gmail.com with your vote for either Biden or Trump and I’ll give you the results next week.  C’mon, it’ll be fun and I won’t hold you to it.  Please don’t write-in yourself or Lori Laughlin – just Biden or Trump.

 

I had dinner last Sunday at Abby’s house.  Abby is my youngest daughter.  She lives seven minutes from our house (four if Carol’s driving) and invites us over every Sunday for dinner.  What a joy that is!  It’s always great food and fun with the kids.  Last week, after dinner, a neighbor came over to tell us there was a big, injured snake in the road, so the kids and I went to check it out.  I guess you could say that an injured snake has reptile dysfunction.  It was a slender, black, reticulated snake about two and a half feet long.  I looked it up when I got home.  It’s a Black Rat Snake; eats birds’ eggs, frogs, rodents; is preyed upon by hawks and other snakes and raccoons.  The poor thing was bleeding but still alive.  Most likely, it had been run over by a car.  The kids and the neighbors wanted to leave it alone, but I didn’t want it to die there in the street.  It was moving very slowly so I just picked it up (one hand on the throat and one on the body) and laid it in the grass while all the spectators cringed.  I checked an hour later and the snake was gone.  Maybe it recovered or slithered away to die or maybe it was eaten by a hawk.  But at least it didn’t die in the street.  Don’t let me die in the street.

 

And don’t miss next week’s blog.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings and send in your vote.

 

Oh, let’s not forget the Weekly Word.  Some of you really like this feature, so we’ll keep it going.  This week’s word is reticulated, which means in a diamond pattern or web-like pattern like a rattle snake or that Tommy Bahama shirt my wife won’t let me wear.  See you next week.

 

Michael                Send comments (and votes) to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #180

 

In 1960, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon were both in their 40s, two Young White Men vying for the Presidency of the United States.  Now, sixty years later, it’s another election year and who are the candidates?  Two Old White Men in their 70s.  It doesn’t seem like our country has made progress; it just seems like it has grown old.

So let’s talk about old people.  I seem to do that a lot, but giraffes have giraffes, apples grow on apple trees and old people talk about old people.  For instance, I’m sure you have noticed that old folks, to a large degree, are slow drivers, and I want to explain to you why we are.  It’s not that our eyes are blurred or our reflexes are poor.  No, the real reason we drive slowly is that we are no longer in a hurry.  Where do we have to go, Senior Day at Walgreens?  It can wait.  When you’re young you want everything to come fast.

        ·        I can’t wait to get a driver’s license

·        I can’t wait till I get rich.

·        I can’t wait till my kids are grown and I have some time to myself.

·        Just ten more years and I’ll have it made.

 

I have never heard a senior say, “Just ten more years and I’ll have it made.”  We can wait.  We have nothing else to do but wait.  Besides, what could I possibly be looking forward to in ten years – Caitlyn becoming Bruce again?  Barbra Streisand’s 88^th Farewell Concert?  What difference does it really make if I miss that green light?  I’ll just get to the Dollar Store thirty seconds later.  So don’t honk at me.  Relax, slow down, take a breath.  One of these days you won’t be in such a hurry any more.

Hi there and welcome back.  I trust you are feeling chipper today and fighting the boredom of a world devoid of most common social activities.  No movies, no sporting events, no dining out, no poker games.  But there are still fun things to do, like going to Costco to get a jar of mixed nuts which weighs 40 pounds and costs more than filling up your car with gas.

 

Actually, we are getting movies back.  AMC Theaters are opening today and charging only 15¢ for a ticket.  Of course, the popcorn costs more than the mixed nuts at Costco, but still, it’s a sign that maybe something normal is happening.  The theaters in my neighborhood are opening with a Bris Festival which includes movies about the Jewish circumcision ceremony.  A strange choice to me, but the titles sound intriguing.  First is the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan classic You’ve Got Mohel followed by Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro in Circumcise This.  The festival ends with a new Star Wars spin-off called May the Foreskin Be With You.

 

I have often told you that I am technologically challenged, but I have recently discovered a quote by Elbert Hubbard which gives me some spirit:  One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.  So there.  Maybe in my next life, I’ll come back as somebody technically ept.  Is that a word?  Isn’t it the opposite of inept?  Who would you be in your next life if you had a choice?  A beautiful movie star?  A sensational athlete?  Pee-wee Herman?  To me, it’s an easy choice.

 

Reincarnation?  Well, gee

It’s obvious who I would be

For my second life

I’d come back as my wife

Then I could be married to me.

 

Trump and I have the same humility coach.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o’ the dead may walk again (Winter’s Tale).  They say that cats have nine lives, so I’m coming back more times than acid indigestion.  Or Barbra Streisand.  I think next time I’ll come back as a black cat.  I hear that black cats matter.

 

All right, let’s see where your peripatetic reporter wants to go now.  Peripatetic, our Weekly Word, means constantly moving around from place to place or, in my case, from subject to subject.  So let’s go straight to NASA which announced last week it would begin reviewing and, where necessary, changing the names of astronomical bodies that are deemed racially insensitive.   Ok, People, they’ve torn down our statues, changed the names of football teams, military facilities, government buildings and pancake syrup, and now they’re coming after our planets.  And, of course, in today’s jabberwocky world every planet is offensive.

 

Mercury is a poison that corporations dump into the ocean to poison our fish.

Venus rhymes with penis which is gender-specific and sexist.

Mars is named after the God of War.  We should never talk of war – or God.

Jupiter is the King of the Gods and that reeks of royalty and colonialism.

Saturn has rings and rings are where boxing occurs and boxing is violent.

Uranus – I mean, are you serious?

Neptune is the God of the Sea and the seas are polluted with mercury and plastic.

Pluto is a planet only to old people who don’t matter anymore anyway.

 

You might as well start learning the new planetary names now.  Here they are:  Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Bashful, Sneezy – and Earth.

 

Here’s another new subject, and I just know I’m going to get in big trouble here, but what the Hell!  What can they do to me, make me watch The View?  I want to know why more and more girls and women have what were traditionally boys’ names.  I have a granddaughter Charley.  And her girlfriends are Ronnie, Sam, Jo, Madison, Morgan,  Sydney and others.  But there are no boys named Phyllis.  Moby Dick does not begin Call Me Edith.

 

And women yearn to wear what traditionally were men’s clothing -- jeans, cowboy hats, boots, vests.  But I have never thought about wearing an off-the-shoulder gown.  Well, there was that one time in Phoenix, but . . . never mind.  I’d better go now before my wife cuts my clothing allowance.  But I’ll be back in a week.  Can you wait that long?  Until then, stay well and count your blessings. 

 

Edith                              Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #179

 Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor HURRICANE shall stay this courier from the swift completion of his appointed blog.  We’ve come home to St. Louis now and the quotidian reality of gun violence, Covid and children without schools. Hurricane Isaias was frightening, but only a temporary dip in an otherwise glorious week on Bald Head Island.

The Island hierarchy had bitten their sand-filled fingernails all weekend about whether to evacuate the island or not.  They decided against it.  Monday was a beautiful day until Hurricane Isaias struck a little after 7:00 p.m.  We sat on the porch watching the wind and rain – me, Carol, two daughters, two sons-in-law, six grandchildren and two dogs.  At 8:00, the power went out.  By 10:00 we had been forced inside to hunker and wait it out.  It rained all night – HARD!  You’ve heard of raining cats and dogs?  Well, this was raining Fords and Ferraris.  Was it frightening?  Well, not as frightening as being locked in a room with Joy Behar, but pretty scary nonetheless.

We managed to sleep, and in the morning awoke to a beautiful, sunny day.  The power was restored by 11:00 a.m. and the crews began clearing the fallen trees and branches from the paths.  By 1:00, we were back on the beach enjoying perfect weather and an energetic surf.  Piece o’ cake, as they say.  Worrisome, nerve-wracking, dangerous, but thankfully brief.  Even the news that, during the night, a tornado had touched down only two blocks from our house didn’t slow us down. 

On Bald Head Island is a place called Frying Pan Shoals.  It is here that the warm Gulf Stream from the south smacks into the Atlantic waves from the east and drops its load of sand to make an 18-mile series of submerged sand bars in the shape of a frying pan.  The shoals have been so dangerous to shipping for centuries that the whole area is called Cape Fear.  From the tip of the island, you can walk a long distance on the sand bars and be hit by fierce warm waves on one side and strong cold waves on the other while standing in 6-8 inches of water.  It is a spectacular and unique experience.

As you stand out there, splashed by waves from two continents, it is interesting to realize that some of those drops of water landing on your knees may have been part of a rain-shower over the Amazon forest or have rolled off the back of a Blue Whale grazing krill off the coast of Antarctica.  Some droplets could have been drunk by George Washington or been part of a Triceratops’ spit.  This is what it’s like being inside my head.  I’ve warned you.  Some people have a train of thought; I have a train wreck!

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and staying busy.  I know some of you think our Weekly Word is going to be quotidian, but that was the Weekly Word in May.  Have you forgotten already?  It means daily or routine.  No, our word this week is krill which are tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans that live in the ocean.  Transparent, smaller than your thumb, they weigh less than an ounce, but all the krill in the ocean together weigh more than all the people on the planet.  A Blue Whale can eat about four tons of krill in a day.

This past Sunday, my North Carolina family, home from Bald Head, experienced the largest earthquake the state has had in almost a century.  So in the space of one week, they were in a hurricane, a tornado and an earthquake.  If I lived in North Carolina, I’d be moving up my hair appointments.  You don’t want the world to come to an end with your hair looking bad.

That daughter lives near Ft. Bragg, the largest U.S. Army base with a population of over 270,000 people.  It is the home of the 82^nd Airborne and the 75^th Ranger divisions.  When the earthquake hit, my daughter heard jars rattling in her kitchen and thought it was the regular bombing practice at Ft. Bragg.  That’s pretty spooky in itself, isn’t it?

When the house started shaking, my Mom

Said, “Children, you must remain calm.

“Come sit over here

“There’s nothing to fear

“I’m sure it was only a bomb.”

 

The fort is named after Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general, so I’m sure a name-change is being considered.  They’ll probably change it to Ft. Lollipop or Ft. Butterfly or something appropriately menacing to our enemies.

As you know, I often dwell on funerals and burial options.  Here are my latest thoughts.  Most people really don’t want to trudge out in the weather to visit an old grave in a depressing cemetery. We should bury our loved ones indoors, in a big warehouse, and then turn it into a bar.  Every night we could have a special memorial time called Sad Hour where we pay respects to Grandma while eating half-priced calamari.  Hey, that’s where I want to be when I’m gone.  At least I know Carol will be thinking of me over a chilled Chardonnay and a fried artichoke.  “C’mon, girls, I need a drink; let’s go visit what’s his name.”   And she could drink a toast to my memory while laying shrimp tails and empty mussel shells on my plaque.  We’ll call the place “Shots & Plots” or “Tears with Beers” or something goofy like that.  I told you I was warped.

I like the idea of people gathering over drinks and food and remembering their loved ones.  Things like:

 “Wasn’t Grandma terrific!”

“My Mom was such a good cook!”

“My Michael sure had a train-wreck for a brain.  Pass the horse radish.”

 Well, some memories are better than others.

 Message from Shakespeare:  Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear (All’s Well that Ends Well).  I don’t remember much about my last family except that when I broke my leg, they left me all alone at the front door of the animal shelter.  But now I’m the luckiest cat in the world.  Mom calls me Lucky Shaky Shakespeare.

Sorry if I didn’t make you laugh much today, but I knew you wanted to hear about our hurricane.  I’ll tickle your fancy next week, or any other part you prefer.  Stay well and count your blessings.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #178

Do you have something named after you?  I have a cake.  My grandkids call me Poppy and the eponymous cake is called a Poppy Cake.  No, eponymous, our Weekly Word, does not mean yummy; it means named after someone.  Simple as that.  The cake is alternating layers of chocolate wafer cookies and Cool Whip Lite.  My mother used to make it and it was a favorite for me and my three daughters.  Back then it was called an ice-box cake and used real whipped cream, but times have changed.

 The first thing that changed was the whipped cream.  It has too much fat and too much cholesterol and too much cream and too much whip and is banned from my family tree and all its branches.  So now, instead of wholesome natural cream, we use an industrial paste mixed with air bubbles and sugar.  It’s delicious!  And we use the Lite variety to convince ourselves that chocolate cookies surrounded by some Noxzema-looking slime is good for your diet.  And the Cool Whip people can’t even spell lite rite.

 The next thing that changed was the name.  You can’t serve something called Ice-Box Cake to a generation who thinks that Ice-Box is a form of Norwegian martial arts.  No, the ice-box is a thing of the past, as dead as the rotary phone, the typewriter and Regis Philbin.  My grandchildren love this cake and, since Carol always makes it for my birthday, they call it Poppy Cake and ask for it on their birthdays as well.  I know for a certainty that sixty years from now, my grandchildren will be making Poppy Cake for their grandchildren and telling them who Poppy was, and each time they do, I will smile.  I have never asked for anything in return for giving everything.  All I want is not to be forgotten.  So go ahead, go from anonymous to eponymous.  Name something after yourself – Grandma’s Cookies, Uncle George’s Secret Handshake, Sally’s Covid Mask.  But not the chocolate cookie and Cool Whip cake.  That one’s mine.

The quote about not wanting to be forgotten is from Kapka Kassabova.  I know that sounds like a new disease, but is, in fact, a young Bulgarian woman who writes wonderful books.  Only me, right?  I do my best not to be forgotten.  I save on paper everything I have ever written – poems, stories, letters, blogs, grocery lists, songs – so that when I’m gone, they’ll either have a lot of things to remember me by or the biggest bonfire since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and staying safe.  We are on Bald Head Island, a glorious little island off the coast of North Carolina that has no cars, three beaches, one grocery store and a pickle-ball court.  We got here on Friday and went to the beach.  The wind was so strong, the grains of sand stung as they hit you, and the waves were very dangerous.  Hurricane Isaias is blowing up a storm, as they say.  I can’t even pronounce that name – Isaias – but I think it’s a boy’s name.  That should make it a Him-icane, shouldn’t it?  On the island, we have the storm and sunburn and jellyfish and Covid.  Plus, it’s shark season!  But who cares?

The hurricane might blow right through us

Or a shark could just grab us and chew us

And drowning’s a thing

Or a jellyfish sting

But it’s still safer here than St. Louis.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Every cloud engenders not a storm (Henry VI, Part 3).

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for you to ignore it and wrong too often for you to trust it.  I don’t care about the weather because I never go outside, but I hope that hurricane blows them home.  I miss my Pops.  The cat-sitter comes every day and gives me food.  I just hide under the bed.  When are they coming home?

 

We drove here and had WAZE guiding us from my phone.  We stopped at a gas station so everybody could use the bathrooms.  WAZE was a bit ticked-off and started chattering from the phone in my pocket about changing the route, but she gave up after a couple of minutes.  I went to the Men’s Room and was using the urinal when, from my pocket, came a female voice that said, “Make a U-Turn.”  The guy behind me was not happy.

As I said, my Mother made wonderful Ice-Box Cake, but she didn’t make fools.  At least that’s how the saying goes.  My Mama didn’t raise no fools.  Did you ever use that phrase?  Even though the grammar is terrible, I bet most of you have said it.  I’ve used it a few times, and each time, Carol looks me in the eye and says, Your mother raised three complete fools!  She is right, of course.  Fool #1 was my older sister, who was nuts.  She thought she was smarter than everyone else, including doctors and never went to one.  She died at the age of 63 from a curable disease.  Fool #2 was my older brother, a lovable and outrageous eccentric.  He never went to a doctor because that would be admitting that he might, someday, get sick.  He died at the age of 61 from a different, but curable, disease.  Fool #3, of course, is me.  My wife says the only smart thing I ever did was marry her.  Her humility overwhelms me.

Well, the hurricane hit us Monday night and a tornado as well.  No power, no internet, the grocery is closed and the paths are blocked by fallen trees.  

Now it’s Tuesday, and I know this is going to sound like the Hello Muddah – Hello Faddah song, but the power just came back on and the weather is perfect and the grocery is open and everybody is happy.  

I apologize for making fun of Regis Philbin’s death. That was mean.  He was a good man, and I’m ashamed, so I’m sending myself to my room.  But I’ll be out by next week to send you more nonsense.  Be there.  And tell Shakespeare we'll be home Friday.

 Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com