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