Blog #189

 

Well, I really can’t think of anything to say.  Is this it?  Has the Muse left me?  Have my creative juices dried up like a runny nose on Claritin?  I guess I’ll just say goodbye for now.  But first, I have one or two things to tell you.

 Did you see Martha Stewart last week?  She was on the Today Show making some cakes or something.  Every time I see her, I just can’t believe she was sent to prison.  I don’t even remember what she did.  What crime could you possible send this exemplary homemaker to prison for?  Drunk and orderly?  Driving while perfect?  Baking and entering?  I’ll bet she was the only person who ever looked good in stripes. 

 Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and staying safe.  Are you tired and aggravated with being locked up and locked in and living in a mask?  Of course you are.  My week used to be packed with fun things to do -- teaching math at the jail, teaching my ESL class, working at the Zoo, a poker game and three bridge games.  Now all of that is gone because I’m not supposed to be with people.  The kids can’t go to school – wait, now they can go for two days – wait, maybe not.  Wear a mask – oops, masks don’t help – oops, yes you have to wear one.  Only 50 people can get together – oops, only six people can get together – oops, you shouldn’t even be with your family.  Stay six feet apart, stay twelve feet apart.  What are we supposed to do when even the experts keep changing their minds? 

 

I no longer work at the Zoo

And all of my card games are through

And old Dr. Fauci

Is making me grouchy

Because I don’t know what to do.

 

Ok, I feel better now that I’ve rhymed Fauci and grouchy.  What else is going on?  Well, many of our Senators have spent the last week trying to convince us that Amy Coney Barrett will take away our health care, drown our puppies, make us eat kale and cancel Dancing with the Stars.  Well I’m already on Medicare and I don’t watch Dancing with the Stars and I don’t have a dog.  But I emphatically refuse to eat kale.  I might have to move somewhere where they don’t have kale – like Texas.

 

Or China.  Do you even realize how big China is?  If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end.  Let’s check that one out.  Let’s assume one Chinese citizen can walk past you every five seconds.  That’s 6,307,200 pilgrims a year.  For those of you who think a square root is a turnip, just trust me on the math. There are 1.4 billion Chinese and during the five seconds it takes you to meet one Chinese, three more will be born.  This presumes, of course, that the Chinese can copulate, conceive and give birth while standing in line.

 

On my walk today, I noticed a little, fuzzy caterpillar – rust-colored and black, about two inches long and fat.  He was crawling along the top of a concrete barrier about three feet tall.  I stopped, took a picture and went on my way.  I came to the end of my path, turned around, walked some more and came back to the caterpillar.  He had made some progress along the barrier, but was not going to reach any vegetation in the near future.  Wait, you’re not going to get all pronoun-frazzled about a caterpillar, are you?  No, I don’t know whether it was a he-pillar or a she-pillar, but I’ve chosen to treat him as masculine because the poor thing was obviously lost.

 

Men are so stubborn about asking directions.  I used to see it at the Zoo all the time.  Some guy is looking over a map while his companion (wife? girlfriend? parole officer?) watches.  I walk up and offer my services.  No, the man says, I have it figured out.  I then turn toward the distaff half and say, “Men never accept directions.  Come see me when you’re lost.”  C’mon, men, you know I’m right.  We never take directions. “Siri be damned, I know how to get there.”  Really?  You don’t know where your reading glasses are.  You barely know where the bathroom is.  And how many times have you lost your car in the parking lot?  We, as husbands, have learned how to say yes to everything.  Yes. Dear.  Yes, Honey.  Whatever you want, Cupcake.  Except, “Let’s ask directions.”  We would sooner be spayed than ask directions.  I’m a man!  I know what I’m doing!  And what do we do when we finally and inevitably get lost?  We start yelling at our wives, as if they had anything to do with our galactic idiocy.  I’d better stop; my wife is calling.  Yes, Dear.

 

Anyway, I picked up the lost little caterpillar and laid him in the grass.  As Martin Luther King said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”  Besides, I like little fuzzy things.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin (Troilus and Cressida).  I am very glad he likes little, fuzzy things because I’m little and fuzzy too.  Actually, I think he likes any creature that starts with C-A-T. 

 

I hope you don’t believe everything Shakespeare (the cat) has been telling you all these months.  He’s a bit of a mythomaniac, someone who lies all the time.  That’s our Weekly Word, of course, and you have my permission to use it to describe the politician of your choice.  As Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, “One must not believe demons even when they speak the truth.”  In any event, take whatever Shaky says with a grain of catnip.  And speaking of mythomaniacs, don’t miss tonight’s debate.

 

I, however, your fearless blogger, am not a mythomaniac.  Everything I tell you is true, almost true, mostly true, or just kidding around, and there will be more of it next week, so don’t miss it.  In the interim, stay well and count your blessings.  Well look at that -- I guess I did have something to say after all.  What a shock!  Bye for now.

 

 Michael                         Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com