Blog #292                                October 13, 2022

 

 

Since Covid, I have been doing most of the grocery shopping.  A year ago, I was paying $1.29 for a dozen eggs.  Today they were $3.99. That’s triple the price!  C’mon you lazy cluckers, get your feathery butts in gear.  Stop playing and start laying.  I just booked a flight to North Carolina.  It’s cheaper to go visit my grand-chickens and raid their coop than to buy the eggs here.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen (Othello).  He has grand-chickens?  I think he has grand-dogs and grand-cats too.  But there’s only one Shakespeare, and he loves me the best.  I guess I love him too, but don’t tell him that.  I like to stay aloof.  Ooh, can that be the Weekly Word?  I’ve always wanted to do one.  Aloof means unfriendly, cold and distant.  Purr-fect.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I am doing fine, recovering from eye surgery.  Thank you all for your good wishes and warm encouragements.  My Dr. Retina is from India and the Dr. Sleep who gave me versed is from China.  They’ve changed the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, you know.  It now reads Give us your tired, your poor, your Anesthesiologists.   The operation went well and the recovery was only a minimal annoyance.  Even so, going under the knife makes you contemplate your final disposition.

 

Carol and I have been vacillating between buying some cemetery plots or doing the cremation thing.  There is a plot for me next to my parents and Carol has one next to her parents, but it just seems like we should be buried next to each other, doesn’t it?  She’ll have the plot closest to the bathroom.

 

Or, there’s composting.  I told you last week I would talk about Human Composting.  It’s the newest rage.  Now, in addition to the options of having your body buried in a box, cremated, donated for medical research, frozen or shot into space, you can have your body composted and turned into nutrient-rich soil available for planting.  So, when you lose a relative, plant a garden.

 

Whenever you’re ready to plant

You can’t forget compost, you can’t!

A niece would be nice

Or a cousin for spice

Or maybe an old saucy aunt.

 

The next time you eat a Granny Smith apple, just remember:  Granny might actually be in there.  By the way, if you ever think that I have died but you’re not 100% sure, just place my body in front of a TV playing Dancing with The Stars.  If there’s any life in me at all, I will get up and leave.

 

It seems like I’m always complaining about inflation and violence, but even little things aggravate me nowadays – like toilets.  Now, as I walk away from a public urinal or seat, it flushes itself.  Then at the sink I just pass my hand under the soap dispenser and soap comes out.  I wave my hands under the faucet and water comes out.  I approach the towel dispenser and towels come out.  If they could just figure it out so that if we waved our hands behind us, crap would come out, then we wouldn’t have to swallow fiber pills and laxatives.

 

And most annoying of all is politics.  It’s October already and the elections are less than a month away.  Who are you going to vote for?  How can you tell?  Barbara Kingsolver said, “The most impressive capacity of man is his skill for lying.”  If you watch CNN, you get one set of facts, but if you watch FOX, you get a different set.  It’s like going to a baseball game where all the Cardinal fans thought the guy was safe but all the Cub fans thought he was out.  And all the white folks thought O.J. was guilty while all the black folks thought he was innocent.  I’m not sure truth has any meaning anymore.

 

But then your truth might not be the same as mine.  William Blake said, “The tree which moves someone to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.”  We look at things today with such radically opposed points of view, it’s amazing that we haven’t started another Civil War.  Except, after listening to all the hate-filled and profane rhetoric on both sides, we’ll have to call it The Uncivil War. 

 

There will be some differences, however, between the old war and the new. That old one was between the North and the South; this is between the Left and the Right.  That was between the Blue and the Gray; this is between the Red States and the Blue States.  On the surface, it seems to be lopsided.  The Left controls the broadcast news, the newspapers, the entertainment industry, the major universities, the social media, the education system and all the large corporations.  All the Right has is one news channel and a guy who sells pillows.

 

But, the Right has all the guns.  That could be important.  In 1839, Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword.  I’m not sure, however, that the crayoned protest-poster is mightier than the AK-47. 

 

And speaking of voting, our Congressional representatives tend to be disappointing, don’t they?  As Will Rogers said, “Taxpayers are sending Congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back.”

 

Wow, Will Rogers, Barbara Kingsolver, William Blake and the ever-popular Eddie Bulwer-Lytton.  Sounds like a bridge game, but it’s just a few quotes I thought you’d like.

 

I passed a drug-rehab center today and there was a sign on the lawn that said, KEEP OFF THE GRASS.  Have you ever had a bad habit that was hard to break?  Maybe even an addiction?  I used to smoke, but I don’t do that anymore.  It was easy to stop – the 86^th time.  I used to drink, but I don’t do that either.  There’s one thing to remember about bad habits or addictions -- just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.  Well, there’s one habit that’s impossible to break – Limerick Oyster.  There’ll be another one next week and I know you’ll be there.  You’re addicted.  Stay well and count those blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com