Blog #307                                January 26, 2023

 

The local forecast for yesterday was for a blizzard with high winds and 6-10 inches of snow.  Stay inside, shoot a moose, pay your heating bill, don’t even open the door.  Everyone panicked, of course.  The schools closed. The St. Louis Zoo shut down.  Worst of all, my wife’s mahjong game was cancelled.  And what happened?  Nothing!  A piddly little inch of snow.  It didn’t really affect me.  I’m not scheduled to search Joe Biden’s refrigerator for classified documents until next week, but it did make me snicker.

 

Meteorologists have an easy gig.  They just look at the weather three hundred miles to the west and assume that’s what we’ll get tomorrow.  Then they add a bunch of colored charts we don’t understand and a bunch of fancy terms we don’t understand like wind-chill factor, heat index, Doppler, El Niño, La Niña, jet stream, lake effect, polar vortex and wind shear.  And the new one they made up for the rain in California – atmospheric rivers! After they have us completely baffled, they terrify us.  Storm warnings, hurricane warnings, category 5, tornado warnings, winter advisory, heat advisory, Global Warming, thirty million people affected.  They’re like snake-oil salesmen with maps!  You know what, weather people?  Stick that El Niño up your polar vortex and just tell us what the weather is three hundred miles to the west.  Then we can flip a coin and do better than you.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Fair is foul and foul is fair (Macbeth).  Bad weather is good for me.  If it makes Pops stay home, that means more play time for me and a warm lap in the afternoon.  Pops still can’t drive, so Carol had to drive us to Dr. Cat’s office to get my nails clipped.  I get a discount.  I only pay ¾ of the usual price.  Purr.

 

My recovery from eye surgery will make it unlikely that we will take our annual peregrination to Florida this year, but that’s ok.  It’s dangerous down there, especially on the golf course.

 

When golfing a Florida venue

You hit your shot quickly and then you

Run fast as a wizard

‘Cause some ten-foot lizard

Is thinking you’re part of the menu.

 

Peregrination, our Weekly Word is the act of travelling or wandering around.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  It must be Thursday. I know I have some new readers, so let me welcome you with the information that we will always have a limerick, a weekly word and a message from Shakespeare, my three-legged cat.  So let’s get started on our weekly journey through nuttiness and hopefully some humor.

 

I hope you’re all feeling well and enjoying the NFL playoffs.  It’s interesting to me that football is the most popular sport in America, but only if the men are playing.  Women’s football has never been able to build any popularity.  They used to have a league, and I remember watching a game where they put a microphone in the huddle.  I remember the quarterback calling the play and listening to the feedback from her teammates:

 

·        This helmet is destroying my hair.

·        I think the huddle should be round with the Q-Bitch in the middle.

·        Why am I the Wide Receiver? I’m skinnier than that Tight End.

·        I want water with no ice.

 

It was never going to work anyway.  No woman wants to be seen with ten other women who are wearing the same outfit.

 

I had an appointment with Dr. Pacemaker this week.  He draped an electronic mouse over my chest and told me every possible thing about my heart while he stood six feet away at his computer.  “Now,” he said, “I’m going to slow down your heart a little and see what happens.”  What? You can slow down my heart from over there?  Can you slow down my wife?  There was actually one other thing I wanted him to try while he was controlling my body, but – well, it’s a family blog.  Isn’t it?  Aren’t you my family?  Who else would put up with my stories every week?  Then he told me my battery was good for another 6½ years.  I’m not sure I am, but the damn bunny is!  Wow, 6½ years!  That’s 338 more blogs.  Can you make it?

 

A visit to Dr. Pacemaker always makes me think about my Health Care Directive.  You probably have one.  It’s the document which delegates the authority to terminate life support.  Obviously, I named my wife as the Designated Agent to decide when to – well, let’s just say it – pull the plug.  I’m worried, though.  Carol is always in a big hurry.  A pack of piranhas has more patience than my wife.  An ice-cream cone on a hot day has more patience than my wife.  She abhors waiting for silly, mundane things like slow restaurant service, traffic lights or her husband recovering from a coma.  What?  He’s not going to get out before my canasta game?  Sayonara, Sucker!

 

Actually, I wasn’t really                                                                                                  worried at all before I had this eye trouble.  Why would Carol ever get rid of me?  I did everything for her -- the pharmacy for pills, the library for a book, the grocery for two bananas (one greenish-yellow and the other yellowish-green), the gas station for a Powerball ticket. I was busier than a pickpocket in a herd of kangaroos.  I was busier than Joe Biden’s lawyers looking for classified documents.  But now that I’m not driving, well, I’d better be a good boy.

 

Yes, I know the lottery thing is a waste of money, but you never know.  I have a chance -- about as much chance as Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi sharing an Uber.

 

All this talk about end-of-life directives brings up another question.  Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?  Just think about that.  They don’t exactly have retail stores up there, do they?  Like a Burlington Halo Factory or a luluheaven?  That’s probably for the best.  For once, I won’t have to check whether my shoes match my belt.  Now that’s Heaven!

 

Ok, enough.  I’ve insulted all your favorite politicians and made fun of my darling wife.  Sounds like a good day’s work.  She’s such a good sport   Besides, I’ve got to go change my belt.  Stay well, count your blessings and be sure to peregrinate your butt back here next week.  You wouldn’t want to miss it.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #300                                December 8, 2022

 

That’s right, Brothers and Sisters, Uncles and Aunts, Red-Staters and Blue-Staters – this is Blog #300 in a string of sometimes silly, often serious and occasionally lyrical adventures into filling up an otherwise dull Thursday morning.  It’s been a long ride.  Thanks for sharing it with me.

 

After 300 blogs, I feel I have earned the right to go off on a rant.  I apologize in advance, but the recent lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has me hopping mad.  And I’m not a good hopper.  The tree was a 90-year-old, glorious, stately and magnificent 82-foot Norway Spruce, one of God’s noblest and most beautiful creatures, home to literally millions of birds, insects and small mammals.  It was, that is, until they chopped it down it to decorate NBC’s Plaza.  Hoda and Savannah often weep and bemoan the destruction of the planet’s forests and all its creatures, and yet the slaughter of this poor, defenseless life doesn’t bother them a bit.  The poor spruce and I have much in common – just two of God’s simple, old creatures living their lives with dignity, providing a home for other creatures and propagating new generations. 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and staying warm.  As I am starting to write this week’s exercise in foolishness, it is very cold here in St, Louis.  In fact, much of the country is experience wintry weather.  It was so cold I saw Nancy Pelosi wearing a fur cap with horns that was left in her office.  It was so cold I saw Donald Trump warming his hands in front of some burning classified documents.  It was so cold I saw Al Gore begging for more Global Warming.  It was so cold I saw Kanye West wrapping himself in a nice, warm Nazi flag.

 

There’s just something wrong about Kanye, isn’t there?  I’m pretty sure the wheels on his bus do not go round and round.  Some people are like clouds – when they go away, it becomes a nice day.  He is the epitome of moral turpitude!  Maybe they should have chopped him down and hung tinsel all over his ass?  You can tell I’m aggravated. What we all need is a Happy Hour to cheer us up.  The problem is that at our age, we don’t drink much anymore.  I drink never, my wife almost never, my friends not much at all.  So we have to find other ways to get happy, like signing up for a new Cellular Plan that saves us $2 a month.  Now that’s happy.  What we really need is a Miserable Hour.  We’ll all congregate at a restaurant that has an Early Bird Special and bitch about our health and politicians and the price of medications and our daughter-in-law’s parents and why it is that our neighbor is paying $5 less for cable than we are.  That, and half off on a chicken sandwich will make us about as happy as we’re going to get.  See you there.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Make the coming hour o’erflow with joy (All’s Well That Ends Well).  My happiest hour starts about 2:00 every afternoon.  I find Pops reading in his favorite chair with a blanket on his legs.  I hop on and curl up in his lap.  I sniff the book to make sure it’s ok and he starts to rub my neck and my forehead.  Pretty soon I’m asleep and I think he is too.  Now that’s happy.  Purrrr!

 

Turpitude will be our Weekly Word.  It means depravity, decadence, corruptness – all good words for Kanye.

 

Here’s something happy to talk about - crime.  I heard on the radio today about a man who killed his wife.  The Prosecuting Attorney said he had been charged with aggravated murder.  What exactly is “aggravated murder”?  I mean how much more can you aggravate someone than by murdering her?  Is aggravated murder worse than plain old murder?  “Not only did Mr. Smith murder his wife, Your Honor, he aggravated her.” 

 

There is so much crime going on, it’s frightening just to leave the house, but my wife reassures me that I am the least likely person to get mugged.  She says the way I dress, I look like I’ve been mugged already.

 

That’s really not fair.  My wife is always wonderful to me.  She even promised to save me if I was about to be hit by a train.  Really!  Well, depending on the weather.

 

I’d pull you from under a train

As long as it’s not in the rain

I’ll save you, that is,

If it won’t make me frizz

Or cause me the least little pain

 

Aww, true love is a wonderful thing.

 

I have some Thanksgiving thoughts to share with you.  On Thanksgiving morning, I was in my study calling some friends when I noticed that the noise from the bedroom was exceedingly loud.  My wife had turned up the bedroom TV loud enough so she could hear the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while she did her hair in the bathroom.  Who listens to a parade without watching?  It’s like listening to a dog show, which she actually did after the parade.  It’s like listening to fireworks.  It’s like listening to the Miss America Pageant.  Do they still have those?

 

Years ago, each Thanksgiving, I would listen to my favorite Thanksgiving song, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  The song takes fully twenty minutes, but I liked it.  I liked it so much that I began to listen to it every night.  Every single night, rain or shine, no matter what, twenty minutes.  You thought reciting The Raven with a paper bag over my head was weird?  Well, the Alice Obsession was weird enough that it took my shrink six months to cure me of it.  But I still sneak it in on Thanksgiving.

 

Did you know that in Maryland you need a license to be a fortune teller?  It’s true.  First you have to take a test that checks your ability to predict what will happen in the upcoming week.  If you pass, you get a Fortune-Tellers’ license.  If you fail you become a meteorologist.  Here’s my forecast for next week: you’ll come back to read the next episode of Limerick Oyster.  I’ll be waiting for you.  Till then, stay well and count all your blessings.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #305                                         January 12, 2023

 

I started this edition more than a week ago and finished it last Sunday.  You see, I had a cornea transplant in my right eye this past Tuesday, and I figured I wouldn’t be able to write to you for a while after the surgery.  So I’m writing to you two days before the surgery and you’re reading it two days after the surgery.  I’m as confused as you are.  But I’m fine, or I guess I will be.  Anyway, the reason I sent last week’s blog out early was because I wasn’t seeing well and needed to make sure it got out properly.  This will be (or was) my 9^th eye surgery, and I just found out I will need another cornea transplant on my left eye in the coming months.  Well, I’m not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself?  I don’t have time for that.  I have to spend all my time feeling sorry for Meghan.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  ‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind (King Lear).  I just caught Pops sitting on the floor talking to a bronze cat in the TV room.  He thought it was me.  The poor old fool is lost.  He needs cheering up.  I think I’ll write him a limerick:

 

                             My Pops is as blind as a bat

                             He just doesn’t know where he’s at

                             He can’t find his pants

                             And he’s talking to plants

                             And he thinks that old statue’s a cat.

 

I’ll go give him a bite to let him know who the real cat is.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying 2023.  Since I’m writing this early, I’ll just throw in a bunch of stuff – a smorgasbord, a hodgepodge, a mishmash, a veritable cornucopia of variegated flotsam that have been loitering in the remote recesses of my eerily unusual brain.  Wow, my tongue hurts from that sentence.  The translation is -- I’m going to unload a lot of shit on you.  Ouch, that furball just bit me.  And the Weekly Word is cornucopia: a great amount or source of something

 

I had a birthday last Saturday.  Seventy-seven, 77, LXXVII.  I feel like an old Roman.  I talked to all my children and grandchildren and friends.  Very nice.  And I treated myself to all the foods that are bad for me – hamburgers, French fries, Diet Cokes, chocolate cake.  By the time my daughters read this blog, it’ll be too late for them to yell at me.  I ate hot dogs and fast food and drank Coke all my life and look at me!  So there!  Maybe that was a bad example.  I should find an example who doesn’t have a pacemaker, an artificial hip and is as blind as Mr. Magoo. 

 

My birthday was the deadline for renewing my driver’s license.  My vision was terrible and I wasn’t driving, but I got it renewed anyway.  That goes to show you how our system works.  If I hadn’t gotten it renewed on time, when I got my eyes working again, my license would have expired and I would be required to take the driving part of the test.  If they saw me parallel park, they wouldn’t allow me to walk, let alone drive. I’m optimistic that soon after my surgery, I’ll be back to driving again.  You’ll be able to recognize me; I’ll be the one who just got off at the wrong exit. 

 

I received the new license already, and I took a good look at it.  It included my sex, height, weight, birthday, eye color and a new picture which makes me look as horrible as the last picture, only older. At my age, that’s not what I want on my primary identification card, the card the first responders will look at if I’m in an accident.  I want my ID Card to list three things -- the phone number of my cardiologist, the serial number of my pacemaker and directions to the nearest McDonald’s.

 

Carol and I visited the Geek Squad at Best Buy last week, where two very nice young men helped her with some iPad problems.  We were so innocent and clueless about electronics that we had them laughing.  “I’ll bet you get a lot of people like us,” I said.  Yes, they replied, but they said we were the most entertaining.  And then it hit me.  A Travelling Senility Show, like the old Royal American Freak Shows.  20 and 30-year-olds would come to see what their grandparents’ lives had been like.  We could show them Flash Gordon comic books and sing them some Patti Page songs and let them try talking on a phone that was attached to a wall.

 

You know I don’t like impersonal hi-tech commerce.  I like going to the bank and talking to the tellers.  I like buying the product at the store, not on-line.  And I certainly don’t like buying movie tickets on-line.  The last time I tried that, I wound up with two tickets at a theater in Poughkeepsie – and a service charge.

 

So Carol got in the car and drove to the theater.  My wife is an attractive woman who has spent a lifetime getting men to do anything she wanted.  Even now, when she is – let us say, older – she still has considerable face-to-face talents.  She arrived at the theater, ferreted out the manager and, by the time she was through with him, had gotten a refund for my purchase and free tickets and a coupon for free food and a booking on America’s Got Chutzpah. 

 

If you want something done, get out there and do it!  Marie Antoinette didn’t say “Let them shop on-line,” did she?  And Juliet never said, “Romeo, Romeo, let my Google Maps track your location.”  And Joan of Arc never said, “Alexa, turn down the temperature.”  (You want more?  Just one more and then I promise I’ll stop.)  And Lady Godiva never said, “The package of clothes I bought on Amazon hasn’t arrived yet.”  (Aw, c’mon, one more?)  And Dorothy never clicked her heels and said, “Hey Siri, directions to Kansas.”

 

And you won’t need to click your heels to find Limerick Oyster next week.  Just follow the laughing people.  I hope to be able to find you.  We’ll see.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #306                                          January 19, 2023

 

This week, we celebrated Martin Luther King Day.  Dr. King would have been 94 this year, but he’s not because he’s dead.  Of all the national holidays, only three recognize an individual – ML King Day, Christmas and Columbus Day.  I’m not sure why we have a day for Columbus, an Italian guy working for a Spanish queen who never actually set foot anywhere in the United States.  The only American who has his own day is Dr. King.  Not George Washington, not Abraham Lincoln, not Jefferson, not FDR or JFK or LBJ.  Not even Meghan Markel.

 

In January of 1969, almost one year after Dr. King was assassinated, before there was a day attached to his name, I was teaching math at Kinloch High School, a school with all black students, all black staff and all black teachers – except for me.  On his birthday, which was January 15^th back then, not some convenient Monday, the school had an assembly to mourn Dr. King’s death, and every speaker denounced the devil White People.  That was fun.  Being easy to spot, I actually hid under the bleachers.  True!  Here’s another true story.  I was in a bank recently, and I noticed the name-plate in front of one of the tellers said her name was Robirda.  I said to her, “You know, fifty years ago I taught high school and I had a student named Robirda.”  Where did you teach, she asked?  Kinloch, I said.  She smiled at me.  That was my Gran-mama, she said.  Talk about feeling old!

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are all feeling well.  Thank you for your kind wishes and concerns.  After my eye surgery. I spent most of five days lying on my back.  Some days it was 22 hours.  It was torture, as endless as waiting for a hockey season to finish, as frightening as being stuck in an elevator with the My Pillow guy, as boring as sitting in a Corvette in Joe Biden’s garage for six years guarding his documents.

 

Ok, just warming up here, exercising the old funny bone.  One of my friends suggested I trade in my cat for a seeing-eye dog. Kind of like trading in a car with only three wheels.

 

Message from Shakespeare: I count myself in nothing else so happy, as in a soul remembering my good friend (Richard II).  Seeing-eye dog!  That’s not happening.  You think he’s going to have a Message from Stupid Fido in every blog?  And I don’t care if he can’t see me.  I can always find him.  He’s the one whose clothes don’t match.  Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of him.  Purr.

 

In addition to Shakespeare, of course, my loyal bride is taking care of me as well.  As soon as we got back from the surgery, she placed a bell on my night-stand.  Do you remember the Ed Sullivan show where some Swiss milkmaid would appear with a row of bells?  The bells were lined up in order of size, and Heidi would grab them to play Somewhere Over the Rainbow by shaking them with strength and enthusiasm as if she were servicing a group of shepherds in the . . . wait, maybe different people have different images of her act.  Ed must have liked it; he invited her back four more times.

 

Where was I?  All these Heidi images have confused me.  The bell.  My bell was the littlest one, the final I in why oh why can’t I.  If I needed anything, I would ring the bell and Nurse Speedy for the Needy, Nurse Quick for the Sick would whoosh in like a mama hawk to see what her baby needed. I don’t know about Heidi, but Carol has always rung my bell.

 

I do have trouble reading a book, so I tried listening to music on the radio.  But somehow all I could get were Gangsta Rap stations.  Do your grandchildren like Gangsta Rap?  I’m not really sure what it is, but my grandchildren like it.  My, how popular music has changed!  We’ve gone from I Wanna Hold Your Hand to I Wanna Be Your Pimp.  From You Light Up My Life to You Light Up My Bong.  From Bye Bye Miss American Pie to Hello You Bitch Ho!  I made up those Gangsta Rap song titles because I looked up the real songs and the names were not fit to print.  What a world!

 

What is it about music that soothes us or excites us or makes us dance?  From an evolutionary perspective, it probably comes from birds and monkeys using sounds to attract mates.  So even the most ancient members of our species probably “sang”.  Of course, back then before the invention of the wheel, it wasn’t Rock n’ Roll, it was Rock n ’Rock.  I wonder who their big singing stars were.  Probably Sheryl Cro-Magnon, Rolling Stonehenge and Dinah-Saur (see the USA in your Pterodactyl).  If I can’t read or listen to music, maybe I’ll be like Don Quixote and “withdraw into the mountains in the company of a hermit.”  Except that one hermit plus another hermit do not make two hermits; they just make two guys who were not very good hermits at all.  And yes, to all you grammatically observant busy-bodies out there, “do not make” is correct.  I think.

 

And how, you might ask, am I writing this highly entertaining and informative blog if my vision is impaired?  It is because I have changed the size of the type on my computer screen from Lilliputian to Brobdingnagian.  What?  Our Weekly Word shall be Brobdingnagian which means gigantic and refers to the giants in the book Gulliver’s Travels as opposed to the tiny creatures called Lilliputians.  I guess I’m somewhere in the middle, between gigantic and tiny, except for one part:

 

I’m sorry to say, but my parts

Are midway on medical charts

Except for the best

‘Cause right here in my chest

Is a big, Brobdingnagian heart.

 

You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you?  Shame on you.  But I love you anyway.  You light up my bong.  I trust that all you Brobdingnagians and all you Lilliputians and everyone in between will stay well, count your blessings and find your way back here next week.  I’ll leave breadcrumbs.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #304                                                   January 5, 2023

 

Yes, I sent this out on Wednesday night.  Don’t get all bent out of shape. Adapt.  Deal with it.  I’ll explain it all next week. Let’s get started.

 

The Duchess of Boo-Hoo is at it again.  Meghan is still on her Pity Tour and has now gone so far as to write a limerick to let us know how badly she’s been treated by the Royal Family:

 

                             The Royals are all full of malice

                             They’re vicious and haughty and callous

                             I had Bentleys, it’s true,

                             But I only got two

                             And they gave me the littlest palace.

 

I hate having a small palace, don’t you?  I was reading a book today and the main character was talking about his dream where he found himself naked at the mall.  I have that dream too.  How can he have the same dream that I have?  Then he mentioned the one where he was taking a college exam and he hadn’t studied.  I have that one too!  What’s going on here?  I wonder if he has the one about not being able to find your car.  Or the one about the Mexican barmaid and the sheep and – well, never mind.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Is anybody still there?  Stick with me; you knew I was weird.  As the Cheshire Cat said, “We are all mad here.” I hope you had a nice New Year’s celebration and are feeling chipper.  Do you have dreams like the ones I mentioned?  Do you dream about going to Heaven?  I’m not actually sure that I could even find my way to Heaven.  It seems that everywhere I go I take the wrong exit and get lost.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  All I know is if I had been with Columbus, we couldn’t have discovered the Pinta, let alone America.  If I had been with Neil Armstrong, we would have landed in Omaha. If I had been a pilot for Southwest Airlines – well, I’m not sure they could do any worse.  I’m convinced one of my ancestors was with Moses and talked him into turning left, leaving the Jews with all of the sand and none of the oil.

 

How can I not get from Point A to Point B without screwing up?  I am pretty good at reading maps.  I can give accurate directions.  But if I actually have to do it, I have less chance of hitting my target than of Stevie Wonder sinking a twelve-foot putt.  That just means I have a lot of knowledge and no wisdom.  Let me give you an example: Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.  I’m not sure I really want to go to Heaven anyway.  None of my friends are there.

 

That was callous, wasn’t it?  I’ve used that word twice now, so I guess we should make it our Weekly Word.  Callous means insensitive and cruel.

 

I’ve talked about a lot of things in 300-plus blogs – doctors, pills, computers – but never about Laundromats.  How often do you go to a Laundromat?  We haven’t gone in decades, but Carol had a bedspread that needed washing, and it’s too big for our machine, so she decided on a Laundromat.  Carol and I know absolutely nothing about Laundromats.  Problem One was finding one.  We were on our way to dinner one night and had the spread in the back seat, so we drove around looking for one, unsuccessfully.  But then I turned onto a side street in order to make a U and Carol yelled “There’s one!”  Nothing gets by my observant little woman.  Of course, it helped that the LAUNDROMAT sign on the roof of the building was the size of Belgium.

 

We entered, where it must have been obvious that we didn’t know a washing machine from a hippopotamus, because we were quickly greeted by the proprietress.  I use the feminine loosely, because I’m not altogether sure she was a woman or even human.  She looked more like a cross between a pirate and road kill.  She smiled, flashing her tooth, and took immediate control.   She picked out our machine, loaded our blanket, loaded the Tide, promised to move the blanket to a drier when ready and told us to go to dinner.  First, she said, load $3.75 into the washer.  Carol opened her purse and pulled out 15 quarters.  Who runs around with 15 quarters?  I’ll give you four possibilities: 

 

A:      A kid addicted to gumballs

          B:      The Tooth Fairy

          C:      A really cheap whore

          D:      A woman who consistently wins at mahjong.

 

Here are some hints:  my wife doesn’t chew gum, does not believe in any fairy princess other than herself, and is not cheap.  Well, it worked!  We returned after dinner and there it was – clean and dry.  We were so proud!

 

I wonder if Shakespeare has anything to say today.  Where is that furball?

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Of course I have something to say.  And don’t call me Furball. I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a New Year’s gift (Merry Wives of Windsor).  A dog?  Who is that goofy poet who has my name?  New Year for me means I have another year with my own goofy poet, my Pops.  He gives me a home and lots of food and a warm lap.  Happy New Year, Pops.  Purr.

 

Thanks, Shakey.  I have some New Year’s resolutions to suggest to my readers.  Guys, every so often, say these three words to your wife: You look great!  And Girls, say these three words to your husband: You know best!  The truth isn’t important; it’s the warmth and tenderness of the thought.  Try it.  I told Carol I had no other resolutions, so she gave me one.  Well, she does run my life.  She told me I needed to exercise more.  I told her a tortoise never moves more than half a mile an hour and lives to be 150.  This argument has tired me out.  I think I’ll go rest my case.  I just have enough energy to wish you a happy 2023 during which I want you to stay well, count your blessings and come back here every week.  And by the way, you look great.

 

Furball’s Dad                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com