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