Blog #229                                                       July 29, 2021

 

When I work at the Zoo, I’m on my feet for 2½ hours, handing out maps and talking to everyone.  I would never ask tourists where they were from, but when I heard a young woman and her kids speaking what sounded to me like Russian, I did ask.  She said she was from Ukraine.  I smiled and said dobri ruta which, in Ukrainian, means either “have a nice day” or “your zebra plays the clarinet”.  I’m not sure which.  I used to teach English as a Second Language to foreign adults.  That was BC, Before Covid.  I had students from 30 different countries and, though I could not speak their languages, I at least learned how to say good morning in each language from Amharic (Ethiopia) and Tamil (India) to Korean and, yes, Ukrainian.   I apparently remembered the Ukrainian greeting well enough to make her laugh and give me a big smile.

 

If you’re from Sudan or Peru

From Singapore or Timbuktu

From Spain or Iran

As best as I can

I’ll say, “Hi, good morning to you.”

 

Hi, good morning to you and welcome back.  Buenos dias, Ni hao, Shalom, Salaam alaikum.  I hope you’re feeling well.  We have two sinks in our bathroom, and when we moved in, after some weeks of intensive study and energetic debate, we decided that Carol should have one and I should have one.  Each is of pearly white porcelain.  I have noticed however that mine is sometimes marked with little black pieces of something or other.  Here’s what I think is the cause.  Carol likes her sink to be clean, so whenever she has to use eye-liner or eye-shadow or whatever eye-schmutz she uses, she moves over to my sink and gets it dirty instead of hers.  Her sink is as white and brilliant as Beyoncé’s teeth, whereas mine looks like the nesting place of a family of seagulls.   I don’t mind; her eyes look great, and I am a loving husband.  And besides, it’s Gorgeous Grandma Day.

 

You know I like to research special days.  Last week we had National Wrong Way Day and National Hammock Day.  Well, last Friday was Gorgeous Grandma Day, and I’m sure all you Grandmas out there qualified.  My wife certainly did!

 

Message from Shakespeare:  If I could write the beauty of your eyes, … the age to come would say this poet lies (Sonnet 17).  I asked my Pops when it would be Gorgeous Three-Legged Cat Day.  He said in our house, every day is Gorgeous Three-Legged Cat Day.  Purr!

 

And last Saturday was Tell an Old Joke Day.  So I will.  A monkey had escaped from the Zoo and was captured by a police officer.  The officer was about to take the monkey back to the Zoo when he got a call that a serious crime was in progress, so he went up to an old man sitting on a park bench and said, “Do me a favor and take this monkey to the Zoo.”  The next day, the officer saw the same man sitting on the same bench with the same monkey.  “I thought I told you to take this monkey to the Zoo,” said the officer.  “I did,” said the old man, “and we had such a good time that today we’re going to Six Flags.”

 

Every man who read that just now is shaking his head thinking that’s such an old joke; I’ve heard it a thousand times.  And every woman reader is thinking that’s really cute; I’ve never heard that before.  Am I right?

 

Aren’t the Olympics fun?  Like everyone, I always wanted to win an Olympic medal.  I just couldn’t figure out what event I should enter.  I tried Water Polo, but my horse drowned.  I thought my wife and I could enter the Synchronized Pancake-Flipping competition, but we don’t move at the same speed.  Carol has such high energy, we used to call her Ethel.  And me?  Well, the last time I was sitting in McDonald’s, a nice young woman put some lilies in my lap.

 

I’m waiting for them to have Limerick Writing as an event, although there would have to be judges to choose the best poem.  I don’t like the events with judges.  I like Faster-Higher-Stronger, the original motto of the Olympics.  The person who wins the 100-meter dash is the one who gets to the finish line first.  It isn’t the one that some judge thought had better form.  Dick Fosbury would never have been allowed to compete in the High-Jump without the approbation of some judge who thought his flop was pretty.  Now all high-jumpers use the Fosbury Flop.

 

Faster-Higher-Stronger.  That’s why I like Track & Field the most.  I also love Table Tennis.  My middle daughter was a six-time National Table Tennis Champion, so we played a lot of table tennis in our house.  Here’s an Olympic Quiz:

 

1.     If the table tennis ball is the lightest ball used in the Olympics, what’s the heaviest?

2.     What Olympic object has sixteen feathers from the left wing of a goose?

 

And did you know that there were many Olympic athletes who became actors?  Here are a few:

·        Johnny Weissmuller won five Gold Medals in swimming and starred in 34 Tarzan movies.

·        Buster Crabbe won Gold in swimming and played Flash Gordon in the movies as well as Tarzan.

·        Harold Sakata won a Silver in weightlifting and played Odd Job in the James Bond movie Goldfinger.

·        O. J. Simpson won Silver for Hurdling Suitcases in an Airport and Gold for Knife Slashing.  Actually, OJ at one time held the world record as a member of the USC 440-yard relay team. 

 

Ok, let’s tie up some loose ends.  The heaviest ball in the Olympics is the one in the Shot Put.  The men’s shot weighs sixteen pounds; the women’s about nine.  And what Olympic object has sixteen feathers from the left wing of a goose?  The shuttlecock used in Badminton.  And our Weekly Word is approbation which means approval or praise., both of which I try to earn here every week.

 

And here’s another special day: Today is Tell Everybody to Stay Well and Count Their Blessings Day.  Well, at least it is to me, so do both of those things and I’ll see you next week. 

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com