Blog #246                                         November 25, 2021

 

Happy Thanksgiving Day to every one of you.  Thanksgiving is a unique and introspective day where we give voice to all the blessings we have.  We are truly thankful for our family and friends; I don’t need to tell you that.  And as for those that we have lost and sorely miss, they are blessings as well. “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”  That’s a quote, believe it or not, from Dr. Seuss, my favorite poet, and it should remind us to be grateful for the memories that mean so much to us.  We are also thankful for our own lives.  Yes, we may have health issues -- aches, pains or more serious challenges – but look at it this way: we’re doing the best we can, we’re still here and we are way better off than the turkey.  And, yes, there are people who are richer, younger, better-looking.  But we have love and warmth and a wonderful meal to share.  Have a good day, and thank you for giving me the chance to talk to you every week.

 

And speaking of carving a turkey, I just read that Germany has officially declared circumcision an act of “bodily harm” and has banned the procedure.  The article goes on to say that Germany’s 4,000,000 Muslims and 100,000 Jews are protesting the decision.  100,000 Jews?  That’s all Germany has?  I wonder why.  Maybe it’s because the Germans murdered all their Jews.  So now Germany joins San Francisco in banning circumcision.  I have no axe to grind here (wow, that’s an ugly metaphor under the circumstances) but it seems that 6,000 years of circumcision haven’t hurt the Jews much.

 

I am writing this from North Carolina where I am currently visiting my daughter Jennifer.  Right now, she is down at her chicken coop, which in Haiti would be a six-family.  One of her chickens has lately been exhibiting signs of depression.  The technical term, I think, is “Down in the Dumplings.”  So Jen is wish-boning up with a textbook on chicken psychology.  The book is called Freud Chicken.  I have more chicken jokes than Andrew Cuomo has victims.

 

Jennnifer always buys us a present when we come to visit.  This time she got us something marked Dead Sea Mineral Soap.  I don’t mean to burst any of her soap bubbles, but it is as a result of those minerals that nothing can live in the Dead Sea.  Hence the name DEAD.  I want soap with minerals from the Really Alive and Thriving Sea.  I mean why should I want to rub myself with stuff that causes instantaneous death to any marine creature it touches?  But that’s just me. 

 

Hi there and welcome to the Thanksgiving Edition of whatever this is.  I hope you’re feeling well and exceedingly hungry.  I am both of those things and also very thankful for a spectacular family, great friends and good health.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks (Twelfth Night).  I’m in St. Louis – alone.  I am very thankful to have a warm house, three good legs and a loving family, even though they’re leaving me alone on Thanksgiving.  But I’m also thankful for my nice neighbors who will come play with me.  Purr.

 

Of course, I am very thankful to be alive.  I have many friends who use the old line that goes, “I read the paper every morning and if my name is not in the obituaries, it’s a good day.”  I don’t bother reading the obituaries.  I figure if I’m dead, somebody’s going to tell me.  And besides, reading the obits depresses me.  It makes me realize how many people I didn’t know.  If I shook hands with a stranger every second, 24 hours a day, it would take me 236 years to shake hands with every person on Earth.  And I still wouldn’t find anybody else who has read Moby Dick five times. 

 

And now that it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas is just a big credit-card bill away.  I’m beginning to hum Christmas songs already.  There are so many new songs this season, that there’s a Christmas Special next week just to introduce all the new carols.  Here’s the lineup:

 

·        Joe Biden sings All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Trillion Dollars

·        Joy Behar sings You’re a Mean One, Mr. Trump

·        There’s the Progressive Singers with Oh Ka-ma-la Faithful

·        And the KKK Khorus singing I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

·        Cheech and Chong sing Angels We Should All Get High

·        AOC hums It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Russia

·        The Portland City Council sings Jesse Jackson’s Coming to Town

·        Mitch McConnell sings Nancy Got Run Over by Joe Manchin

·        Even my cat Shakespeare will sing We Need a Little Christmas Meow

·        And the finale will include the entire staff of CNN singing Rittenhouse Roasting on an Open Fire

 

Just getting your Christmas gifts will be tough this year.  If you think the intractable supply chain is a problem, just think of what Santa has to put up with:

 

Delivering gifts is a task

That this year is too much to ask

I hear the bells ring

But I can’t see a thing

Because Rudolph is wearing a mask.

 

As long as we’re being festive with Thanksgiving mellowness and Christmas fun, how about a joke?  Young Billy was taking his heifer to the neighbor’s farm to be serviced by their bull.  Once he had put the heifer in the bull’s corral, he sat on a fence post, whereupon the farmer’s daughter, Ginnie came from the house and sat close next to him.  As they watched the bull and the heifer doing what they were doing, Ginnie pressed against Billy’s side and said, “Billy, ain’t this exciting?”  Sure is. says Billy.  I wished I were doing something like that.  “Well, Billy,” said Ginnie, “you can do anything you want.  It’s your heifer.”

 

Have we done the Weekly Word yet?  I guess not.  Let’s make it intractable which means hard to control or work with, unmanageable.  I can be that way sometimes, but mostly I’m a pussy cat.  Purr.  Wait, that’s Shakespeare’s line.

 

Ok, stop laughing.  Go eat your turkey and have a nice day.  Oh, stay well and count all those blessings.  It’s Thanksgiving.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #245                                         November 18, 2021

 

Is math not your thing?  Have you always thought that Isaac Newton was famous for making cookies?  Do you have trouble counting up the number of Barbra Streisand’s Farewell Concerts?   Do you think a square root is a scalp condition?  Well, I graduated Washington University with a degree in Mathematics, so you would expect me to have a facility with numbers.  Last Sunday, Charley, my 8^th grade granddaughter, called me.  “Poppy, I have a test tomorrow on the different forms of writing an equation, and I need help.  I failed her!  I really didn’t remember this elementary part of Analytic Geometry and I was confused and unable to give her much help.  I felt terrible, old, obsolescent, antiquated, ancient, archaic, useless – and excessively wordy.  If you can’t trust your Poppy for help in math, what’s the world coming to?  I called her the next day after school.  She got a 99 on her test.  She takes after me.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Good luck lies in odd numbers (Merry Wives of Windsor).  And I have lots of odd numbers – 9 lives, 3 legs and 1 Pops.  That’s all the good luck I need.  Purr.

 

As long as I’m talking about grandchildren, I was just thinking about a time ten years ago.  I know I talk about the past a lot, but for someone my age, there’s just so much of it.  Ten years ago, my wife was in California ushering in my youngest grandson (Parker).  I was alone, so Tyler, a St. Louis grandson who was six then, slept over to keep me company.  We had a wonderful time – movies, pancakes, games.  Back then, Tyler slept with a little blanket he called his Lovie.  When we climbed into bed, he asked me, “Poppy, where’s your Lovie?”  “In California,” I replied.

 

I really hate it when my wife is out of town.  The last time she left me alone, I decided to cook my own dinner, so I took a pizza out of the freezer.  That’s cooking, isn’t it?  I read the box:  Pre-heat to 450^o.  Ok, I located the oven, but there was no ON switch.  Fifteen buttons on the control panel, but not one that said ON. 

Why don’t they have an ON button?  After ten minutes of frustration, I called my oldest daughter.  She has a husband and children.  She must cook.  She answered the phone and, with her assistance, we executed the Herculean and highly technical task of turning on the oven.

 

When the inside reached 450^o, it chimed and I inserted the pizza.  So far so good.  After a while I went back to check on it, but I could not locate a LIGHT button and was reduced to shining a flashlight through the glass front.  It looked ready, so I took it out and went to turn the oven off.  I bet you could have told me that there would be no OFF button.  Why is there no ON/OFF or START/STOP or even HOT/NOT?  Using an oven should not be a Princeton entrance examination.  Push ON – it gets hot and cooks your food.  Push OFF – it stops and you eat.  I can see my epitaph now:

 

Poor soul, with his wife on vacation,

He met his Eternal Salvation

The ignorant schnook

Was too dumb to cook

And died on the floor of starvation.

 

They should teach you how to work an oven in Middle School, which my generation called Junior High.  It would certainly be more useful than Analytic Geometry.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and getting ready for Thanksgiving.  It’s only a week away, and Carol and I will be celebrating in North Carolina.  This past week, we were in California.  Parker is ten now and his little sister, Lucy, is eight.  We had a lovely time with my daughter and her family, enjoying the nice weather and the beautiful scenery, but the food is always a challenge there.  In Missouri, we measure our food by taste and volume.  In California, they do it by looks and description.  In the Midwest, we get a big helping of delicious.  On the Coast, they get a small portion of wordy and beautiful.  I’ll take delicious.  Lucy and Parker are the only two grandchildren left who still like my stories.  I love telling stories, and I know you do too.  Here’s one:

 

Getting to and from California, or anywhere nowadays, is an adventure in itself.  I wound up with a window seat on the flight there.  Gazing from the window of a jet plane at night is spectacularly boring.  Although, there is a serious amount of awe in flying over the western states and looking down at basically no-one.  The emptiness is magnificent.  Then you’ll see a large, lonely, lambent glow that you think is Denver.  But who knows?  Maybe it’s Salt Lake City.

 

Carol and I did not sit in the same row.  I was not happy.  I always try to hold her hand when we take off or land.  I don’t mind dying in a crash as long as we do it together.  I’m fairly certain she does not share that vision of the future.  I think her vision includes living in a condo in Florida, playing canasta with the rest of the widows and dusting off an old picture of us on the mantel.  She’ll choose the picture of us where she looks the best.

 

The trip home was about 4½ hours in the air and a comparable time in the airports.  Waiting in the Denver airport is as much fun as root canal.  First, I bought a 4 oz. cup of Diet Coke for $3.95.  Immediately, the announcer told us our gate had changed from 30 to 49.  At gate 49, I went to throw my cup away.  There were three disposal-bins with pictures and instructions in English, Chinese, Spanish and Esperanto.  You need a graduate degree from Stanford to decide where to throw your garbage.  I tried to read the English version, but the mask fogged up my reading glasses.  Oops, the announcer is back.  We’ve been shifted to Gate 17.  Isn’t this fun?

 

Our Weekly Word is lambent, which means glowing or gleaming with a soft radiance.  And with that, our dance card is full:  new words, new stories, new laughs (I hope).  See you next week.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #244                                         November 11, 2021

 

I’m not working at the Zoo during cold weather, and the jail and English classes where I used to volunteer still don’t want us to come back, but I keep busy playing bridge and reading and writing to you.  How do you do it?  Every week another blog?  I get that question all the time.  You know, writing the blog is a lot like cooking.  You start with a large cup of humor, add a freshly-picked weekly word, a plump limerick, throw in a saucy message from Shakespeare and stir it all up.  Add a little salt, maybe even something hot and spicy.  And there you have it – simple as apple pie.  Maybe it makes you smile.  Maybe it upsets your stomach.  Let’s see what we can cook up today.

 

I want to tell you about an incident I had at a retail outlet of a major national chain.  I won’t mention the name, because that wouldn’t be fair, but it starts with BEST and ends with BUY.  Last May, we bought a new TV.  It was one of those huge beasts that they measure not in inches, but in yards, and my wife just had to have it so she could count the pores on Hoda Kotb’s face.  Hoda seems to be on at least 23 hours every day.  Anyway, Carol’s happy now.  She has two smart TVs and one dumb husband.

 

When we bought the thing, the salesman told us that, if we signed up for the chain’s eponymous Visa card and charged the TV on that, we would get a credit of 10% of the price to be used on our next purchase.  Sounded good, so we did.  Today we went back to the un-named chain to make another purchase.  We found what we wanted, made the selection, scheduled the installation and told them to apply the 10% credit from the TV.  Sorry, we were told, it had expired after 60 days.  What?  Nobody had ever mentioned an expiration to me.  Never.  I was unhappy.  I was incensed.  I was as furious as a Southwest Airlines passenger the day they decided that flying was too complicated.  I asked for the manager, a snotty little bastard who was younger than my belt, and angrily recited all the details.  He looked at me like I was Rain Man, said there was nothing he could do, and arrogantly suggested I call the 1-800 number.  I went home, called the number and spoke with four Filipinos.  Can someone please tell me why a person from the Philippines (with three Ps and no F) is called a Filipino (with only one P and an F)? 

 

It seems that, nowadays, every 1-800 number goes directly to the Philippines.  It used to be India, but now it’s the Philippines.  They must work cheaper, but I don’t like it.  First, every Filipino sounds like he or she has his or her head inside a crock pot.  (I hate this his or her crap.)  Second, when they put you on hold, they play Filipino music.  I sincerely apologize to any Filipino readers out there, but your music is crap.  It all sounds like Peewee Herman and Wanda Sykes singing two different songs at the same time while being bitten by cats – in a crock pot.

 

Anyway, after an hour, the fourth Filipino, Sheila, felt my pain and said she would reissue the credit.  We went back to the store where they honored the credit, I think.  We’ll see when the bill arrives, and, although I felt no contrition at all, I told that same supercilious creep that I regretted our little set-to of the day before.  He said, “Oh, I’ve had worse than you.”   Really, I said?  Next time I’ll try harder.

 

Weekly Word:  A supercilious person is one who behaves as though he or she thinks he or she is superior to you.  Please, can I stop with the he-or-she and just say he?  Or she?

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re staying well and warm.  Did you remember to change your clocks?  Fall back?  Now we’re on Central Standard Time (CST).  The problem is that, instead of waking us up at 6:45, Shakespeare now wakes us up at 5:45. 

 

The person who cleans our condo was not available, so Carol and I cleaned.  She did the dusting and the countertops and polished every surface in sight while listening to Broadway music, reading a book, playing bridge on line and watching Hoda Kotb.  I was in charge of vacuuming.  In 1997, when I was released from the hospital after my heart attack, I asked Dr. Heart what restrictions I had.  He said there were three:

 

·        No vacuuming

·        No playing craps

·        No sex with an unfamiliar partner

 

Well, this week I vacuumed.  I’m thinking about the other two.  Is a goat an unfamiliar partner?  See, there’s that little pinch of something hot and spicy.

 

Vacuuming is really hard.  It’s not the effort of pushing and pulling.  It’s the stupid cord that I keep stepping on or pulling out of the wall or tripping over.  Then you have to find another outlet in the next room and wind the cord around your wrist so you won’t trip over it and – whoops, I just pulled it out again.  Maybe I could teach Shakey to do it.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Out damned spot! (Macbeth).  What is Pops talking about?  Me vacuuming?  I think that machine sucked out some of his brains by mistake.  And why does he have to change his clocks?  There’s only one time – Central Animal Time (CAT).  Purr.

 

And speaking about damned spots, we all get spots as we age.  Mirrors don’t lie.  Mine chuckles!  To deal with my skin, I keep an arsenal of salves, balms, lotions, potions, unguents, ointments and elixirs that I rub, apply and variously douse upon the affected parts of my body.

 

There’s unguents and gels and a geyser

Of Miracle Skin Moisturizer

I’ve got me a salve

For each rough spot I have

And a big Thank You Greeting from Pfizer.

 

I brought in some Chinese food this week.  Inside my fortune cookie was the following: YOU WILL HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHINE THIS WEEK.   I hope this was it.  If not, there’s always next week.  Gotta go now.  Where’s that damned goat?  Oh, there she is.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog # 243                                         November 4, 2021

 

It started off as a reasonably calm week.  The Autumn weather was turning the trees inro glorious towers of scarlet and gold, Dave Chapelle was in trouble again and they can’t count votes in New Jersey.  What could be more normal?  And just when I was feeling comfortable – Bam! -  the next dreaded iPhone update came along and added a thousand tiny, sinister changes to all the things I had finally learned how to do.  I don’t want any more updates.  Stop it!  Leave me alone.

 

Apple, we all appreciate what you’ve done.  You have made our lives happier and easier with your iPhones.  But now that I’m happy, lose my number!  Just give me a smart phone.  It doesn’t have to be Einstein-smart.  Betty White-smart is good enough.  I just want to text, take pictures and make calls.  That’s all, period!  And no more updates – ever.  Let me learn how to do the three things I want and then go away.  I’m not a teenager.  Just give me a simple phone for me and my generation.  And call it the iMold. 

 

And speaking of unmanageable electronic devices, one night this week, around 11:45, I turned off the bedroom television.  You know, the 400” extra-wide, mind blaster that my wife just had to have so she could enjoy high-class and educational programming like Squid Game.

 

We got a new HDTV

It’s sixty-eight-inch LED

The smart LG clicker

Will drive you to liquor

Unless you are from MIT.

 

I have as much cyber knowledge as a South American tree sloth, but I got lucky and was able to turn the behemoth off.  The room darkened and Carol leaned over to give me a kiss goodnight.  Awww!  I like my kiss goodnight. As she rested her hand on my chest and put her lips to mine, we heard a three-second tone coming from the area of her hand.  She was wearing her Apple Watch.  Of course!  The human race has managed to go to sleep for 200,000 years without wearing an Apple Watch, but now, somehow, it has become essential.  I asked her, “What does that sound mean?”  She told me it was not coming from her watch.  Well, it was obviously coming from her watch because no other electronic device was near there.  Except, well, there was a device right next to her watch.  We just couldn’t see it.  It was my pacemaker-defibrillator snugly embedded in my chest.

 

Immediately, my chest started feeling a little uncomfortable.  It was probably because I’m a big, whiney, malingering and psychosomatic baby.  Nonetheless, the first thing I did the next morning was to ask the internet if an Apple Watch could interfere with a pacemaker.  There was some literature saying that it could, but the internet also has literature confirming that the Earth is made of Betty Crocker Pancake Mix, so I called Dr. Rhythm and explained my crazy story.  “Let me check if we received any alerts.”  Apparently, my device contacts the doctor instantly if there is a problem.  That’s reassuring, isn’t it?  She said there had been no alert and there was nothing to worry about.  I wonder if they know when I eat a hotdog.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and recovering from all the KitKat bars you ate on Halloween.  My wife and I did nothing for Halloween.  No dinner at my daughter’s, no friends to go out with.  And no trick-or-treaters ever come to our building.  We dressed up as two abandoned old people and ate some frozen burgers.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets (Julius Caesar).  I dressed up as a three-legged cat.  Don’t I look good? 

 

 

 

Trick or Purr.

 

For twenty-four years, I have been keeping a sort of diary by sending my daughters a weekly letter telling them what’s been going on in my rock-star life.  Naturally, the strange, compulsive, bizarre and anal person that I am, I have kept copies of all those letters – more than 1,200 of them.  Sometimes, I will read an old letter looking for some good stories for you.  Here’s one from when I was in the real estate business, and it’s absolutely true.

 

A lady came to my office.  She was six months behind in her rent and had bounced numerous checks, so we had started an eviction.  She was in my office asking for two more months.  This was Standard Operating Procedure for people who never paid but always swore that they were about to receive a judgment or that the Publishers Clearing House was knocking on their door.  She came in with an envelope full of family pictures.  “Let me show you my pictures,” she said.

 

No, I don’t want to see your pictures.  Your pictures won’t help you.  I’ve got pictures too.  I have pictures of my grandchildren and my grandchildren’s dogs.  I’ve got pictures of my daughters and my cat and my wife and every other thing.  The pictures don’t change that you are six months behind.  You have to be ruthless with people who haven’t paid you in six months.  She picked up the picture on my desk that was nearest to her.  It was of my wife.  “Oh, is that your daughter?  She looks like the I Dream of Jeannie girl.”  I gave her the extra two months.  So much for ruthless.  She never paid.

 

When Zachary, my first grandchild, was one-year-old, I started writing him letters too.  I only did it for six months, but I thought it was cute.  In the first one, which his mother read to him, I told Zach that I wanted to take him to movies like Snow White.  Here’s how I described the movie:  It’s a story about a girl who just hangs around waiting for her pictures to be developed.  While she’s waiting, she sings Some Day My Prints Will Come.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t laugh.  I’m pretty sure you didn’t either.

 

Weekly Word:   A malingerer is one who exaggerates or pretends illness to escape work or other activity.  Gotta go now.  I’m feeling a little sick, but I’ll be back next week, hale and hearty and hopefully humorous.  You’d better be there.  Stay well and count your blessings.  It’s good practice for Thanksgiving.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com