Blog #312                                         March 2, 2023

 

Yesterday, I pulled up to the back gate of my subdivision where I noticed a paper cup from Burger King lying on the ground.  I got out and picked it up of course.  How can people litter like that?  Do they have no sense of anything?  Do they just hate their world and their lives so much that anything they can do to defile themselves and their surroundings brings them the glory of defiance?  Disgusting! Am I over-reacting?  Good, that’s how you make a point!  M.L. King said, The time is always right to do what is right.  Do not litter, my friends, and please recycle your old paper.  Paper does not grow on trees, you know.  Well, it does actually, but you know what I’m saying.

 

Sorry for starting out in such a splenetic mood.  Let’s just make splenetic our Weekly Word.  It means bad tempered and irritable, which brings up another thing that is bothering me.  Every time that President Biden goes on a trip, the news cameras film him climbing the stairway onto Air Force One, and if he stumbles, it makes all the news and is used as evidence that he is too old.  He is always climbing alone.  Why isn’t anyone helping him?  Why don’t they engineer an escalator to get him up there?  He’s the President.  Yes, he’s 80, and if you want to criticize him for what he says and the way he says it – fair game.  But being the President isn’t an athletic challenge.  Franklin Roosevelt was president for more than twelve years in a wheelchair, and he seemed to have done his job well.  Why not let somebody help him?  He’s the President, not a mountaineer.  Who cares if he needs some help climbing all those steps?  Would you stop reading my blog if I fell down?  No, because you care about what I write.

 

Wow, I just set a trap for myself.  I’d better write a good blog here or you’ll say I’m too old.  And I’m three years younger than Joe.  Let’s get started.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and taking care of yourself so you can live longer.  Carol is reading a book called Jellyfish Age Backward.  It’s all about what you can do to live a long, long life.  Well, forget all that.  Forget the fish oil and the yoga and the Keto diet and the 10,000 steps.  I know the single thing you can do to guarantee you’ll live to be a hundred – kill somebody in a state that has the death penalty.  I guarantee you it will be 35 years before they get around to pulling the switch.  This week, Florida executed a guy who committed murder in 1990.  That’s 33 years between, as Dostoyevsky would say, crime and punishment.  I’m 77.  If I get sentenced to death now, I’ll be 110 before they get around to me.  I’ll be on Blog #2028.

 

It was time for Shakespeare’s annual physical.  He was a good boy and got his shots and Dr. Cat said he was purr-fect, but he could use his teeth cleaned at some time.  The bill for the physical and trimming his three legs worth of nails was $100, and they gave me an estimate for the teeth.  When I got home, I looked at the estimate -- $925.  What?  To clean his teeth?  You could clean Imelda Marcos’ shoes for less than that.  Imelda is still alive, by the way.  She’s 93 and still kicking – with a different pair every day.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Money is a good soldier (Merry Wives of Windsor).  That does sound like a lot of money for my teeth, but I don’t make Pops spend too much money, certainly not for my toys.

 

I don’t need expensive cat things

Like a bird with some shiny blue wings

Just give me some socks

And an old cardboard box

And a torn plastic bag and some strings. 

 

My poems are better than Pops’, aren’t they?  Purr.

 

I’m pretty sure that, because of my eyes, we’re not making it to Florida this year, but that’s ok.  Florida can be a dangerous place.  If it’s not hurricane season, when just walking outside could cause your remains to be washed up in Morocco, then it’s Red-Tide season when the act of inhaling within ten miles of the ocean can cause your lungs to explode.  And then there’s coconut season when the palm trees shed their coconuts – from thirty feet up.  It’s like walking down the street while it’s raining Buicks.  Plus, a Florida woman was eaten by an alligator this week.

 

Florida!  You go there for the sunshine and Dr. Skin tells you to stay inside.  You go there for the food and Dr. Heart tells you not to eat it.  I’ll have the hamburger but I can’t have any salt, cheese or bread.  And salad with no oil, extra vinegar, no salt, extra pepper, no olives, no tomato, no onions.  Last week, at some fancy new place in St. Louis, it took six of us forty minutes to order.

 

Part of what made ordering so difficult was that it was a “New Age” restaurant.  On the menu, right in the column of things that were supposed to be edible, was the following: Deconstructed Vada Pav with Chutney in a Molecular, Edible Plastic Pouch.  Plastic?  That was enough to convince me that NEW AGE food is not for OLD AGE people.  We should open a restaurant that serves traditional comfort food specifically for the elderly.  We’ll call it Food You Remember -- To Eat with People You Don’t.  Pot roast, macaroni and cheese, rolls with butter, fried chicken, Jell-O, apple pie.  Reservation for two, please.  Me and Whatshername.  5:00 is fine; we have to be back by 7:00. During the meal we talked non-stop about our health or lack thereof.  The procedures and the doctors and the side-effects were flying so fast and furious, the waiter actually thought we had ordered an enema for dessert.

 

And on that wholesome image, we’ll end today’s interesting, yet splenetic, ride.  And now you know what splenetic means.  I’ll be back next week with another blog, another strange word and another snarky remark from the cat.  See you then.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com