Blog #200

 

Holy shit!  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that, but today is my 75^th birthday.  Seventy-five years old.  Don’t send me any presents; you’re already too late.  But if you want to send me a Mercedes, I’ll overlook that.  If I had spent all 75 years counting one person a second, I would have counted about one-third of the people on Earth.  And, if I had spent the last four years writing silly, wordy letters to you, I would be up to 200 blogs.  Two hundred blogs?  Holy shit!  Sorry, I’m beginning to sound like a doctor examining the Pope’s stool specimen.

 

Ok, I’m over it.  I’m 75.  It is what it is.  I am what I am.  I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.  I’m rambling here, but just let me go on; it usually works out well.  I know you think there is method to my madness, but, mostly, there is just madness.  Let’s see where this takes us.  Actually, I do resemble Popeye in one aspect.  Can you guess?  No, I do not like spinach.  No, I don’t smoke a pipe.  So what do we have in common?  Popeye and I each have a closed eye.  His is the right eye; mine is the left.

 

Hi there and welcome to Blog #200.  Have you read them all?  If you have, then you have read more of my words than there are in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy combined!  I’m not trying to make a point here, only that I’m a bigger blabbermouth than Moses.  Anyway, thank you for reading.  I hope you are feeling well.  Did you have a nice New Year’s Eve?  We stayed at home, naturally, caring less about ringing the new year in than about making sure the old one left.  I remember one New Year’s Eve going to the opening of a local art museum dedicated to modern art.  Carol and I were all dolled up and looked great, but I must admit that I felt uncomfortable.  I don’t understand or like modern art.  But I tried. 

 

This piece with the colors and curves

I grant it the praise it deserves

Who is the creator?

I asked the Curator

He said, “That’s a plate of hors d’oeuvres.”

 

 

 

I’m feeling ok, very little pain, doing well.  You see, this week has included the eerie juxtaposition of three personally momentous and numerical events.  My 200^th Blog, my 75^th birthday and my 6^th eye operation.  The operation was a bit exotic, or perhaps ex-optic, and Dr. Eye is one of only two doctors in the state licensed to perform it. The procedure is difficult to describe, so I won’t, but I’m doing great.  When we arrived home from surgery, Carol got out her little Convalescent Bell and put it by the bed.  When I need her, all I have to do is tinkle (the bell, of course) and the Princess of Lickety Split will speed into the room before the second tintinnabulation hits the airwaves.   It’s good to be the King.  Just don’t tell the Queen.

 

Our Weekly Word is tintinnabulation, a word invented by Edgar Allan Poe for his poem, The Bells.  It means a ringing or tinkling sound.  There’s that tinkle thing again.

 

My last eye operation, six years ago, was performed by Dr. Blinder.  That’s his real name; I’m not making it up.  It was a little unsettling to have a man with that name chopping around my eyeball, but I was assured by some friends that there are plenty of doctors with strangely inappropriate names.  Let’s see if I can remember some.  There’s a dentist named Dr. Payne, a surgeon named Dr. Butcher and a Dr. Fingers who is either a proctologist or a gynecologist.  I forget which, although I suppose if he had been my doctor, I would have recognized the distinction.

 

Have I made you laugh yet?  My New Year’s Resolution was to make you laugh at least once.  Let’s try this:

 

Frank and Kevin, best friends, are having a beer.

Frank:  Kev, you look depressed.

Kevin:  You know, I’m pushing 30 and I want to settle down, but every time I find a nice girl and bring her home, my Mom hates her.

Frank:  Take my advice, find a girl that’s exactly like your Mom.

Kevin:  I tried that.  I found a girl who looks like my Mom, talks like my Mom, even cooks like her.

Frank:  Did your Mom like her?

Kevin:  Of course, but my Dad hated her.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Under the greenwood tree, who loves to lie with me and turn his merry note unto the sweet bird’s throat (As You Like It).  While Pops has been recovering, I’ve been watching my bird videos, but there’s something I don’t understand.  These videos are hours long, and they’re only for cats.  So why, every once in a while, is the video interrupted by a commercial?  Do they actually believe that a three-legged cat is going to buy motorcycle insurance?  Maybe they believe that some crazy human is sitting there watching birds and squirrels eat nuts.  Well, sometimes, Pops does sit and watch with me and scratch my head, but he’s pretty strange.  Purr.

 

Did I tell you it’s my 75^th birthday?  I don’t need a calendar to remind me I’m old.  Father Time reminds me every morning when my hands are a little more numb and my back is a little more sore and my joints are a little more creaky and my eye is a little worse.  As I stand, looking in the mirror and orienting myself to another day, there’s old Father Time looking over my shoulder.  “Hey, Michael, remember me,” he asks?  “I’m still the same old guy I used to be and you’re not.  Have a nice day.”  And the day will move along and I’ll do my thing and enjoy my wife and my family and my cat and all of you.  I’ll go to bed and wake up the next morning. “Good morning, Father Time,” I’ll say.  Just a couple of old friends starting a new day.

 

And you and I are old friends by now, aren’t we?  After 200 damned blogs, we ought to be.  So good morning, old friend.  Have a nice day.  I’ll see you next week, at least out of one eye, so stay well and count your blessings.

 

Popeye                                     Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com