Blog #198

 

It’s Christmas Eve.  When my daughters were little, their Nana, my mother, would celebrate the secular joys of Christmas.  She would make waffles for breakfast, serve a deli buffet for lunch and make a fabulous turkey dinner for extended family and friends -- and in the interstices of all that eating, we had presents, lots of presents.  Each present was wrapped by my brother who was 5½ years older than me and a graduate of the Washington University School of Fine Arts in dress design.  All the presents, no matter the size or cost, were wrapped with such intensity and flair that we were sad to open them.  They were like a collection of Fabergé eggs displayed for the Tsarina, each with a unique and intricate bow so perfect as to be worthy of a museum.  We took pictures of the wrapped packages.  My brother died from cancer at the age of 61.

 

Those celebrations are long gone, but Hanukkah celebrations are even better because the children get to open presents for eight nights.  My grandchildren are getting older now – they range from 19 to 7 – but I remember when I had little toddlers come to visit for Hanukkah.  The games, the fun, the chaos!  It took no time at all before every floor, table and counter-top was covered with toys, diapers, diaper bags, sippy cups, bottles, clothes, Kleenex and other noisome collections of indefinable detritus.  What fun!  I miss it. 

 

I apologize if all that was a little wordy.  Let’s get the Weekly Word out of the way and then we can get started.  Interstices are intervening spaces, gaps between a series of things, like the spaces between your toes where you put your toe-spreaders.  At least you girls.  And maybe some of you boys have toe-spreaders.  Who knows?

 

All right, hi there, welcome back and Merry Christmas.  I hope you are all well.  My favorite (and only, so far) Hanukkah present was a six-pack of Bombas white socks.  They are comfortable and the perfect size and they’re all the same, so you never have to worry about matching them when they come out of the drier.  The laundry is actually one of my wife’s jobs along with cooking, cleaning, doing the dishes and watching every vapid television program on the air.  I have my job too.  I watch bird videos with Shakespeare.  Well, someone has to do it.  And I write to you.

 

I wore my Bombas the other day and was walking out the door to go to the grocery store when Carol said, “You’ve got those socks on wrong.”  My wife should work for the CIA.  Maybe she does.  There is not a thing that goes on in her world that she doesn’t know about.  She reads minds, foresees the future and would notice if an M&M was missing from the bowl and know which color it was.  She noticed my socks. “You’ve got them on wrong,” she reiterated.  What?  They’re all the same – same stripes, same BOMBAS on the toes, same black reticulated pattern on the top of the foot.  But, she pointed out, there is a logo on the side of each sock.  So what?  Well, according to my little Diane Von Footsenberg, those logos must be displayed on the outside of the foot, not the inside.  Who knew?

 

By now surely everyone knows

The troubles I have with my clothes

But this aging Fox

Even screwed up his socks

By putting them on the wrong toes.

 

Well, this old dog can still learn a new trick, I suppose, and I shall henceforward wear my socks properly.  I might even make the cover of Cos-toe-politan.  Which reminds me that it’s time to start making New Year’s resolutions.  I have a few thoughts:

 

·        I will never go out with anybody named Fang Fang.

·        I will learn to speak Turkish so I can watch all the series on NETFLIX.

·        I will always wear my socks on the right feet.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe (Romeo and Juliet).  I will always wear my socks on the right foot.  That’s because I don’t have a left foot.  Come to think of it, I don’t have any socks either.  Maybe Pops will buy me one shoe.  That way, I could be Puss in Boot.

 

Last Friday, I was watching the Nightly News, and there were Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell all getting their Covid Vaccine shots.  Did I not tell you?  Am I not your own personal Nostradamus?  In Blog #193, five weeks ago, I foresaw that the first people to get the vaccine would be the politicians.  And there they were, reinforcing my belief that the only people in the country that politicians care about are themselves. 

 

And what happened to the elderly getting the vaccine because we were the most vulnerable?  I am not hearing anything like that anymore.  Now it’s healthcare workers.  And minorities of course.  And essential workers.  We are not workers and we are not essential.  Oh, and prisoners.  Please tell me in what Lewis Carroll Cuckooland do Bill Cosby and Sirhan Sirhan get vaccinated before you and me!  Plus, I just heard the Surgeon General say that all illegal immigrants need to be vaccinated.  Chinese spies will get vaccinated before we do.  Rabid dogs will get vaccinated before we do.  We have become the non-essential, non-minority, non-important, burdensome elderly who will be forgotten in the vaccine wars and allowed to die without even the respect of having someone come to our funerals.  But hey, Nancy Pelosi got hers, so all’s right with the world.

 

Ok, I got that off my elderly and non-essential chest.  I’d better stop before I set off my pacemaker.  It was eleven years ago today, Christmas Eve, that my heart stopped and I needed that little fellow implanted in my chest.  We’re both doing great.  And I hope you’re doing great as well.  Have a happy and safe Christmas and count your blessings.  And remember what Mother Teresa said, “The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.”  See you next week.  That’s me who will see you next week, not Mother Teresa.  Oy, if you see Mother Teresa next week –well, I hope they get Limerick Oyster in Heaven.

 

Michael                Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com