Blog #251                                         December 30, 2021

 

A lot of things happened this week, so relax; this could take a while.  First, on Christmas Eve, I celebrated my 12^th birthday.  You see, it was twelve years ago on Christmas Eve that they brought me back to life with that most delicate and clever of medical tricks – massive electric shock.  I truly thought it was all over for me then, but I’m still here and the electric shock does not seem to have had any residual effects.  Except of course that when I cough, the garage door goes up.

 

On this year’s Christmas Eve, my daughter Jennifer and her family came from North Carolina to visit us for the holidays, and she brought me a gift – arthritis pills.  I’ve been having some arthritis lately.  We all have it, don’t we?  It’s nothing serious, but Jennifer said she had some arthritis pills she could bring me.  When I looked at the bottle, there was a picture of a poodle on the label, and yes, she confessed, she had gotten them for her dogs.  The canines apparently didn’t like the pills, so she offered them to me.  What did she think I had, Irritable Bow-Wow Syndrome?  Or maybe:

 

·        Ulcerative Collie-itis?

·        Barkinson’s?

·        Dysenterrier?

·        Restless Tail Syndrome?

·        Rin Tin Tinnitus?

·        Aarfritis?

 

Message from Shakespeare:  One pain is lessened by another’s anguish (Romeo and Juliet).  Why does Pops care about doggy diseases?  Cats have problems too, like cat-aracts and purr-sitis.  I know what disease Pops has – Rhyme Disease.  Happy New Year from your favorite three-legged cat.  Purr.

 

Also this week, I took two of my granddaughters to get a smoothie.  In my day – remember my day?  My day was when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, Howdy Doody ruled the television, Twitter was the sound a bird made and nobody protested their children getting the polio vaccine.  In my day, we had milkshakes – chocolate, vanilla or strawberry with a dollop (great word) of whipped cream on top and a cherry plopped down in the middle with the stem sticking up.  Now they have smoothies, and while my granddaughters were ordering, I was perusing the menu.  There was no chocolate, no vanilla, no strawberry among the flavor choices.  Instead, they had Acai, Pitaya, Chia, Matcha, Algae.  I was ashamed to order because I couldn’t pronounce the flavors.  Actually, they did have a Vanilla with Intestinal Benefits.  I’m not making any of this up.  Just picture yourself, 15-years-old.  Girls in your poodle skirts and penny loafers, boys in your blue jeans and t-shirts.  Your parents ask where you are going.  Just down to the Ice Cream Shoppe, Dad, to get some intestinal benefits.  Our local soda-fountain was Jack ‘n Jill’s, and the only intestinal benefit you got there was that if you finished the 30-Scoop Fountain Mountain, you got a free ride to the emergency room. 

 

You almost didn’t get a blog this week.  I woke up one morning and my Microsoft Word, the program I use to write L. Oyster, would not work, so I did what any intelligent and well-balanced adult would do.  I panicked and ran screaming around the house declaring that my world had come to an end.  Or should that be “my Word had come to an end?”  I called Geek Squad and made an appointment.  They fixed it in three minutes.  Lucky me!  Lucky you!  Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you are all feeling well and ready for New Year’s Eve.  It has surely been strange the past two years.  I’d like to believe that the year 2022 will bring us back to normal, but I’m not sure what normal is anymore.  Let’s just hope for a safe and healthy year. 

 

Whenever my wife and my daughters get together, they need guacamole, but we had no limes and, it being Christmas Day, all the grocery stores were closed.  Carol said she needed her guac.  She was miserable!  When my wife mentions the word “miserable”, something had better change!  And that means now!  Like the Holiday Party we went to one year.  After about an hour, I could see that she wanted to leave more than Bette Midler wanted to leave West Virginia.  You can always tell when she wants to make an exit.  She starts to make comments like, “Do you think your remote door opener will work from here?”  Or, “Do you remember where you parked?”  Or the ever-popular, “What’s a nine-letter word starting with “m” that means if you don’t get me out of here in the next 30 seconds, I will stick a fork in your eye?”  That nine-letter word, of course, is “miserable”.   It works every time.

 

Obviously, I had to find some limes.  I discovered a Chinese grocery store called Pan-Asia that was open on Christmas, and Jen and I went shopping.  We found the limes and 10,000 other things.  If you’ll permit me a little hyperbole, the store was the size of Tibet and was filled with thousands of kinds of sauces and cookies and strange things I never knew existed.  Especially the fruit!  There was a fruit that looked like used tires and one that looked like an armadillo and another that looked like Louis Armstrong.  The store was filled with Asian folks, grocery shopping like any other day, and a few Jews looking for limes.  All the people were wearing masks.  Well, we all knew what you can get from the Chinese.

 

For eons our friends the Chinese

Have given us treasures like these

They gave us Kung Pao

And General Tsao

And also the Covid Disease.

 

Our Weekly Word is hyperbole, which means extravagant exaggeration.  I don’t exaggerate, do I?  That often?  Anyway, speaking of grocery stores, every time I drop my wife off at a grocery store or restaurant, as she gets out of the car, she says either front or back to warn me which way she is going around the car so I won’t accidentally run her over.  She’s pretty foxy.  Well, Happy New Year, Foxy Lady.  Any year with you will be a great one.  And Happy New Year to all of you.  My New Year’s Resolution is to keep writing to you every week.  And yours should be to stay well, count your blessings and come back every single Thursday in 2022.  Have fun and don’t stay up too late.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com