Blog #220

 

My middle daughter (Stephanie) lives in California.  I know she’ll be upset with me because she loves living there, but California is as strange to me as Wonderland was to Alice or Oz was to Dorothy.  But look who’s talking – I live in St. Louis, a place with bad weather, no scenery and a murder rate higher than a eunuch’s voice.  Steph has a cat named Rags.  She’s a beautiful creature.  So is the cat, but the cat has been having behavioral issues that the veterinarian has not been able to reverse, so Steph took some advice from a friend and hired a Cat Psychologist to do an online interview with Rags.  How could I make this up!

 

It now is the conventionality

To recognize feline reality

And offer our pity

To poor little kitty

Who suffers from split PURR-sonality.

 

So the shrink actually spoke with the cat on Zoom and came up with the following:  First, the cat wants to be called Rose.  Second, the cat would appreciate if Steph would play some Barry Manilow music.  Go ahead and laugh.  I did.  Except for the limerick, I made none of this up.  I like Barry Manilow.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t (Hamlet). Cousin Rags might need some Freudy-cat shrinky-dink to tell her she’s got claws-trophobia, but I am perfectly normal.  Except for that missing leg thing.  And see, Pops?  I can make dumb cat jokes just like you can.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling great and getting outdoors to enjoy this late-spring weather.  I try to go for a walk when the weather allows.  I have a very nice route through our subdivision with beautiful trees and green lawns.  The problem arises because a day that is nice for walking is a day that is perfect for mowing lawns, and the stentorian cacophony of those machines gives me a headache and ruins my walk.  As a society, we have decided to trade peace and quiet for a three-inch lawn.  It is a poor bargain.

 

Carol and I have spent a considerable amount of time indoors at Best Buy shopping for a television.  Going to Best Buy for a television is like going to Starbucks and ordering a coffee.  There are too many choices – the size, the brand, the sound-bar, the wall brackets, the price, whip-cream or no whip-cream.  It’s overwhelming for someone so technically challenged that he thinks a hard-drive is a trip from St. Louis to Florida.  Did you know that most of the people who show you televisions at Best Buy work directly for Samsung or Sony or other makers?  They do, and they will steer you toward their own special brand.  But, finally, after three weeks of mounting confusion, on our fifth trip to Best Buy, we found Dallas, a young supervisor who took us by the hand, told us exactly what we needed and how to save money.  It felt like having a huge bowel movement after a week of constipation.  Sorry about that.

 

As soon as the TV is all set up, I’m going to try to find the Al Jazeera station.  Now that the Israeli’s and Palestinians have taken a break from bombing the crap out of each other, I’d like to see what Al Jazeera’s side of the story looks like.  I looked up their program listings on line and was surprised to find a number of Middle Eastern comedy-shows. Here they are:

 

Malcolm in the Middle East              Oil in The Family

America’s Got Taliban                      How I Bought Your Mother

Sonny and Sharia                             Jimmy Camel -- Live!

 

The set will be delivered next week.  The installation will take an hour and the instruction on how to use it will take the rest of our natural lives.  It’s too damned complicated!  When did we lose control of the thing we used to call “television”?  Now it’s not even called that.  It’s cable or multi-media or smart-TV.  And not only are the TVs smart, but there are smart phones, smart cars, smart houses, even smart toilets.  Every time I get near something that’s “smart”, I feel dumb. When did the world pass me by?  And which clicker do I use to change the channel?  Have you ever gone to babysit for your grandchildren while the parents are gone?  The mother gives you instructions on feeding, carpools, soccer practice – and all you really want to know is how to turn on the television.  You know I’m right!

 

Are you challenged, like me, with all these smart devices designed to confuse anyone who still remembers The Cisco Kid?  I have Siri and Alexa, but what do they know?  I just picked up my iPhone and said, “Hey, Siri – Oooh, Cisco.”  When she didn’t reply Oooh, Pancho, I knew she was too young for me.

 

And then there’s voicemail.  First of all, when I call you, I want to hear your voice, not Robby the Robot’s.  Please record your own voice on the instruction part.  And be brief.  I know how to leave a message.  I have a college education, a law degree, and have been using answering machines for fifty years.  I don’t need thirty seconds of instructions on what to do when it beeps.  Trust me, you don’t want to talk to someone who doesn’t know how to leave a message.

 

Last Sunday, after dinner at my daughter’s house, Carol asked the three grandkids (ages 15, 13, 11) whether they were Pro-Life or Pro-Choice.  My sweet wife has a big heart, a big personality and a mouth to match.  Not only did the kids understand the subject, they had very strong opinions about it.  The current trend among educators is to provide sex education at an earlier and earlier age.  What’s wrong with a little mystery about sex?  A little taboo?  In my time (that would be Methuselah, the dinosaurs and me) – in my time, the big thrill was to make out in the back seat of a car.  Now the kids having sex are too young to have a car. 

 

Our Weekly Word is stentorian which means very loud, as in my description of the lawnmowers.   Getting wordy here, so I’ll let you go.  I hope you enjoyed.  Have a nice Memorial Day, stay well and count those blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com