Blog #324                                May 25, 2023

 

At McDonald’s this morning I noticed for the first time a Fire Evacuation Route Chart hanging on the wall.  The chart is apparently required by OSHA and shows a diagram of the seating area with an arrow pointing to the front door.  Simple!  A customer would have to be a functional moron to consider doing anything but walking the six steps to the front door and exiting the building.  In fact, anyone who stops to read the diagram would be the only one to die while everyone else was out in the parking lot wondering what happened to old Hal.

 

Do you have more than one remote for your television?  I have two separate remotes and I want all the functions consolidated into one device.  Televisions are supposed to be smart and simple. Changing channels should not be as hard as finding Will Smith a job.  Remember Will?  He used to be an actor.  All I want is to be able to turn my television on and off with slightly more ease than it takes to launch an aircraft carrier.  So I called the Dreaded Cable Company and they sent someone out.  How nice of them.  The guy was young and pleasant and a master of clicker-ology.  I was confident he could solve my problem.  I was wrong.  He couldn’t do it.  Gave up.  That means I still have to use one remote to turn off The View and a different one just to change the channel.

 

I don’t really have anything against The View except that the show mainly consists of two comediennes telling us their version of news and politics.  Comediennes!  Can you imagine, back in the day, if, instead of Huntley and Brinkley, we had Rowan and Martin telling us who to vote for?  Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Jon Stewart, Jon Daley, Bill Maher -- that’s who many people listen to.  Comedians, all of them!  Clowns!  It seems to me that if you have clowns telling you how to think, you begin thinking like a clown.

 

I’m so bad with arcane devices like televisions and iPhones and computers.  Teaching me to work anything electronic is like teaching a snake to knit.  It doesn’t work and only annoys the snake.  I had a laptop that died about a year ago, so I bought a new one.  It was great except the keys had some kind of glue which was so delicious that Shakespeare, my three-legged cat, ate half of them.  So now I hide my computer when I leave the room.  That works fine, except Shakey can’t watch bird videos any more.  But yesterday, I noticed the old, dead laptop in a corner of the closet.  I took it out and plugged it in.  Lights came on.  I tried Google.  That worked.  I pulled up his favorite bird video and there it was.  So now, Shakespeare is the only cat in America with his own computer.  He doesn’t eat the keys on that one, so I can let him watch videos for hours when we go out.  Such a good boy.

 

Message from Shakespeare.  The play’s the thing (Hamlet).  Now that Pops gave me a computer, I’m as happy as an elephant in a peanut factory.  Maybe now I can write stuff.  Maybe plays like that other Shakespeare guy.  A leg, a leg, my kingdom for a leg.  That’s sounds catchy.  To purr or not to purr.  I think I’ve got the hang of this.  My first play is going to be called Ro-meow and Juliet.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  My Weekly Word is arcane, meaning understood by few; mysterious or secret.  Like iPhones and computers.  I hope you’re doing well.  Do you have anything in your pocket?  Do you remember the show Let’s Make a Deal?  Monty Hall would start by prowling through the audience saying things like, I’ll give $20 to the first one to hand me a pepper shaker.  Or $100 to anyone with a life-sized statue of Lawrence Welk.  Sure enough, some woman with a purse the size of Nebraska would come up with one and scream for joy.  Let’s move on to my oldest daughter – you know her, North Carolina, chickens.  She went on a trip to New York with some friends and, having checked the forecast, grabbed a raincoat and shoved it in her back pack. When it rained in New York, as predicted, she donned the coat, put her hands in the pocket and discovered – you guessed it, an egg. Monty Hall would have been ecstatic.  And the little egg’s mama hen was very proud:

 

My poor egg is gone, what a pity

This whole world is lonely and shitty

But here’s the great scoop:

When my boy flew the coop

He landed up in New York City.

 

I asked my daughter what she did with the egg?  She said she hard-boiled it, brought it back to North Carolina and had it for breakfast.  During the days when I drank, I think I went to New York once and got hard-boiled myself.

 

Have you got your Memorial Day plans all set?  Hotdogs and burgers and hockey playoffs!  Memorial Day is the traditional start of the Summer Season.  The swimming pools are open and everybody’s out playing golf and tennis.  My tennis career is over, although I have played Pickle Ball recently.  Pickle Ball is tennis for dwarfs, but it’s a terrific game.

 

And there’s always golf.  Golf for my generation is an exercise in frustration.  The equipment gets better and better and you get worse and worse.  It is a sign of old age when you’re leaving the house to play golf and your wife doesn’t say, have a nice game.  She says, don’t hurt yourself.  Plus, my generation no longer can play in the really hot weather we get in St. Louis.  But I find a way to tolerate it – I play in the shade.  My ball’s always under a tree.

 

All right, folks, it’s time to say goodbye.  Have a safe Memorial Day.  Don’t get sunburned, stay well, count your blessings and remember – it’s never too late to become what you want to be, unless you want to be younger.  Be sure to come back next week.  Just click your heels and say “There’s no place like Limerick Oyster.”

 

Your Favorite Clown                         Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #323                                May 18, 2023

 

The world is gaga over Martha Stewart’s appearance on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.  At 81, she’s the oldest Swimsuit Edition cover-model and the first convicted felon.  Does anybody remember that?

 

She’s beautiful, clever and able

She’s got her own brand, her own label

Though she’s just an ex-con

With a bathing suit on,

The old broad can sure set a table.

 

But who cares?  We all love Martha, don’t we?  She knows everything.  I didn’t even know which side your water glass goes on until Carol taught me a trick.  Curl your index fingers into your thumbs with the other three fingers on each hand pointing up.  Your left hand will make a lower-case b and your right hand will make a lower-case d.  That’s the only way I know that the bread goes on the left and the drink goes on the right.

 

But I think it’s great having someone from my generation on the cover of a magazine.  We ought to have our own magazines, like National Geriatric or The Old Yorker.

 

Have you noticed that anything which is childproof is also senior-proof?  Pill bottles are, of course, the obvious example.  In fact, my doctor told me I didn’t need to go to the gym anymore; just opening the pill bottles was enough exercise. When it got to the point that I was holding the bottle between my knees and squeezing the sides in with my hands while holding a wrench in my teeth – well, I just gave up.  I went to the pharmacist and asked for the Senior Friendly pill bottles.   Now, thankfully, I can get to my pills easily, but I’m still working on the pickle jar I bought three years ago.

 

Are you staying at home today?   We humans are a very social species.  We have always been used to leaving our homes every day and reacting with many other humans.  And what do we get for it?  Hurricanes, floods, Covid.  Car jackings, gang violence, Marjorie Taylor Greene.  School shootings, synagogue shootings, cable companies that offer a discount to new customers but not to loyal ones.  Each day it is getting more frightening to leave the house.  And how has our society reacted?  By staying at home. 

 

We don’t really need to go out anymore, do we?  We can already work from home, get books on line, have groceries delivered.  Amazon will deliver anything, anywhere in the world.  Pizza is delivered, Chinese food is delivered, the newspaper is delivered.  There’s no reason to leave home. Even Limerick Oyster is delivered to your phone every Thursday morning!  Oh, oh – it’s Thursday!  We’d better get started.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  The only thing I cannot get at home is my grandchildren.  I was with Grandchildren #5 (Charley, she’s 15) and #6 (Austin, he’s 13) the other day.  I was telling Charley that she had her Nonnie’s genes and so would grow up to be beautiful, fast and would hog all the closets.  Then Austin said, “And I have your genes, Poppy, so I’ll grow up to be a wrinkled, old smart guy.”  Yes, Austin actually said those exact words.  Grandchildren are brutal, but wonderful!

 

My oldest grandchild, Zachary, just graduated from college.  We were down in North Carolina last weekend to see him graduate from Duke.  It made me feel so proud, and so old.  Well, I won’t get maudlin on you.  It was a very happy occasion, although Shakespeare was unhappy when he saw us getting ready to leave.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Now I see the mystery of your loneliness (All’s Well That Ends Well).  I hate seeing suitcases.  Is he leaving me alone again?  I know he’s coming back.  He loves me, and my neighbors Betty and Buddy take care of my food and everything.  They’re nice, but it’s not the same.  I have the old fool trained perfectly on where I like to be scratched and how I want him to sleep so I can snuggle up.  Purr.

 

And we came back and Shakey was happy to see us.  Durham, NC is a college town, and college towns are different.  Take the restaurants, for example.  I learned that the town forced the Panda Express to close because it used peanuts.  That’s not woke enough for the liberal elites who run the university!   Now the town is full of new eateries sponsored by famous liberals.  There’s Col. Bernie Sanders Socialist Fried Chicken and AOC’s Green New Meal and Elizabeth Warren’s Come On In And Pull Up A Cherokee.   At least they have a variety.  All the Extreme Right has is White Castle.

 

I have no sons, only wonderful daughters, and somehow I feel it must be traumatic to see a son graduate from college.  You have a kid, buy him toys, send him to pre-school and to camp, private school, violin lessons, sports gear, Duke for four years and what do you get for your half a million dollars?  A boy who gets a job a thousand miles away and will call you once a year.  Maybe.  Girls are better.

 

Movie Review:  While visiting North Carolina, we watched The Whale on Roku or Dipstick or whatever it is.  I truly did not like it.  I understand the film won a few awards, but in my opinion, the acting was poor and the script and the characters.  If you saw it, I hoped you liked it.

 

Our Weekly Word today is maudlin, which means self-pitying or tearfully sentimental.  Sometimes I get maudlin, mostly when I think of old age.  Like the other day when I saw an ad for an elderly-care facility.  It was attempting to attract new residents by announcing that it would be showing the 1959 movie Gidget in the facility’s theater.  It just seems to me that if you’re old enough to remember Gidget, you’re too old to remember Gidget.

 

Ok, it’s time for me to get back to my reading, so I’ll leave you.  I'm reading a book about Anti-Gravity and I just can't put it down.  Stay well, count your blessings and don’t be maudlin.  Oh, and don’t forget - There are three kinds of people, those who understand math and those who don’t.  I hope you’re not one of them.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #322                                May 11, 2023

 

Sunday is Mothers’ Day, the day we hug our Moms if they’re around and remember them if they’re not.  My Mom was very loving and very smart.  She taught me to play Bridge and Canasta and Mahjong and Hearts.  She went bowling with me.  She taught me to look up a word if I didn’t understand it.  To the end of her life, if she and I disagreed about the use of a word, the night would not end without getting a call from my Mom.  She had looked it up in the dictionary (remember dictionaries?) and wanted to tell me who was right.  It was usually her.  She died when I was 49.  Hi, Mom.

 

I was her favorite, of course, but that wasn’t very hard.  My competition was a lovable, eccentric, artistic older brother who was probably gay, although none of us knew about such things back then, and a lunatic older sister.  My brother married a woman my mother hated, and the loveless marriage lasted six months.  My sister, when she was 45, married a 94-year-old man.  It’s a long story.  But her perfect child was me, and I brought her an absolutely perfect daughter-in-law and three adorable grandchildren on whom she doted.  Did I say hi, Mom?  Hi, Mom; happy Mother’s Day.

 

My parents and siblings are gone now, but I have four mothers in my family, my wife and three daughters, and they are all fabulous.  So happy Mother’s Day to all of them too, and in honor of all mothers everywhere, I’ll give you one of those Rock ‘n Roll quizzes you all hate.   Hey, we don’t have to like the same things.  My wife loves The View and watches it religiously.  I watch it religiously too – I get down on my knees and pray that the cable goes out.  I know many of you love The View, and I’m guessing there are plenty of things I like that you don’t, like Moby Dick and The Raven and those little canned wieners we used to call Vienna Sausages.  They’d come five or six in a can packed in some slimy goop.  You’d grill them on a piece of aluminum foil, turning them over after they started to blacken.  Then cut them in half and slice up pickles so the pickle was the same size as the wiener pieces.  Fork a pickle and a wiener together and plunge them into your mouth.  Heaven!  My wife thought they were disgusting.

 

 

 

 Here's the quiz, finally.  In what song will you find these lyrics?

 

1.     Mama Pajama rolled out of bed

2.     Mama Leone left a note on the door

3.     I told your mama that you’d be in by ten

4.     Mama, just killed a man.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  There are other special days this week besides Mother’s Day, including National Eat What You Want Day, which is today, and National Limerick Day, which is tomorrow.  I am not making any of these up.  Since I have written, in my letters and blogs, a total of 1,357 limericks so far, they’ll probably name me the honorary King of National Limerick Day.  I’d rather eat what I want.

 

My eye issues have kept me away from volunteering at the St. Louis Zoo for quite a while, but last week I went for the first time in nine months.  I went to see a preview of the new bird show.  The preview was for employees and volunteers and was being held in the Sea Lion Arena, something in the shape of the Hollywood Bowl, only much, much smaller.

 

The show was named Winging It and starred a red-tailed hawk, a barn owl, a night heron, an African gray parrot, a white-bellied stork and a huge bald eagle, each appearing alone and flying from trainer to trainer over the audience.  Very impressive, especially the gorgeous eagle.  But there was a problem.  The arena is surrounded by large trees which are home to birds called grackles, black birds that look like crows and hang around the Zoo stealing French fries from the tourists.  It is springtime now, so it’s likely that Mr. And Mrs. Grackle have a few little gracklettes in the nest that they need to protect, so every time one of the show’s raptors took flight, it was attacked by two or three grackles who would peck at the larger bird’s tail and try to drive it away.  We all felt terrible for the stars of the show, innocently performing their tricks while being harassed by these grim, ungainly, gaunt and ominous birds of yore (a little Raven there).  I suppose there is no solution except relocating the grackles to a safer neighborhood.

 

I had a wonderful time at the Zoo, and when I got home and described the whole adventure to my wife, she said, “What is that?”  I looked at the shoulder of my nice white shirt and discovered a splotch of eagle-poop.  Hey, it’s a jungle out there.  But the birds were magnificent! 

 

They gambol and swivel and swoop

And fly round your head in a loop

Then finish their game

By taking dead aim

And hitting your face with some poop.

 

That makes 1,358.  I’m tired now, tired as a centipede’s pedicurist, so let’s get some important things out of the way so we can wrap up.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Is the jay more precious than the lark, because his feathers are more beautiful? (Taming of the Shrew).  What’s all this love affair with birds?  Doesn’t he have the most beautiful, lovable, loyal and smart animal right here in his house?  You bet your fur he does.  Purr.

 

Movie Review:  We saw Air, starring Matt Damon.  It was terrific.  True story, feel-good flick, great acting.  Nothing not to like here. See it.

 

Gambol is a great Weekly Word.  It means to skip and dance around in play.

 

Here are the answers to the quiz:

 

1.     Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard – Paul Simon (1972)

2.     Movin’ Out – Billy Joel (1977)

3.     Wake Up Little Susie – Everly Brothers (1957)

4.     Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen (1975)

 

Now that all that’s done, we can say goodbye.  Stay well, count your blessings, remember your Mom and get your butt back here next Thursday.  I’ll be waiting.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #321                                         May 4, 2023

 

My granddaughter has a job this summer working in the kitchen of a very fine, up-scale restaurant in North Carolina.  I have eaten at this restaurant many times, and they usually include on the menu some exciting and unfamiliar dish.  I have tried their ostrich entrée and, on another occasion, a kangaroo entrée, so it was not a surprise when Zoey told me that this week’s menu included Cricket Tacos.  Crickets, according to Zoey, have no particular taste but are crunchy and provide a lot of protein.  Yummy.  You know by now that I have a particularly bizarre and unpredictable mind, and it did not take that mind long to concoct an entire menu of insect-related items for my new restaurant called Star-Bugs. Here’s the menu:

 

·        Soups: Split Flea Soup or Beetle Borscht

·        Entrée: Pot Roach with Basmati Lice

·        Dessert: choice of Ladybug Fingers or Gooey Butterfly Cake

·        And for the kids: A Bee-L-T with French Flies

 

Does that make you hungry?  How about some bagels?

 

Bagels!  After trying the new bagel place four times last week with no success, I decided I wasn’t going back.  I am not stupid!  But I am married, which, trust me, overrides stupid every time.  Carol wanted bagels.  I told her the place would be too crowded or sold out, but she insisted.  Tolstoy said “The only certain happiness in life is to live for others” and he knew a lot about marriage.  He wrote War and Peace, didn’t he?  So I impersonated Paul Riser’s older brother, Early, and got up at 7:15, did my morning ablutions, fed the cat, scooped his litter and headed out on my quest.  To dream the impossible tzitzel!  I arrived at 8:00 and parked.  I had a book with me, prepared for a long wait, but when I opened the door there was only one customer there and I was able to buy my bagels.  Carol was pleased and I was happy to confirm that we have a successful marriage because we have the same goal in life -- to keep her happy.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping (Much Ado About Nothing). Pops and I have the same deal; we both try to make me happy.  It seems to work for Carol and it works for me too.  And I guess it makes that old fool happy just to make us purr.  Purr.

 

There’s a saying – a bad day eating bagels is better than a good day doing anything else.  Ridiculous!  Donuts maybe.  I actually don’t know why she needs the bagels.  She was born without the gene for hunger.  Eating to her is like going to a movie.  If there’s an interesting flick playing, she’s in.  Otherwise, she can wait.  I, on the other hand, am a creature of habit, the calendar and the clock.  I am such a creature of habit that some of my friends call me Sister.  I need to eat at 11:30 and 6:00.  But it doesn’t always happen.

 

I think that tonight we’ll skip dinner

‘Cause I can’t find a dish that’s a winner

And as for my Hubby

He’s grown a bit chubby

He can stand to be one dinner thinner.

 

She doesn’t cook dinner that often anyway.  Jewish women do not cook on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Tibetan Yak Appreciation Day, Mardi Gras, Election Day, Super Bowl, the night before a trip, The Academy Awards, Saturdays and any one of Barbra Streisand’s Farewell Concerts.

 

I’m only teasing.  Carol does cook often and well.  Just the other day I was out doing errands and my phone rang.  What do you want for dinner, fish and a baked potato or tuna-noodle casserole?  Now of course I knew it was Carol, but still, wouldn’t you expect a person to say hello first?  Not my wife.  She jumps right in, excess wordage being a waste of her time.  So I answered:

 

I don’t care.

Well, pick one.

Ok, the fish and potato.

I think I’ll do the casserole.

Glad I could be of help.

 

When Carol and I talk, I always get the last word.  In fact, she allows me to get the last two words, as long as they’re “Yes, Dear.”  But I’m used to it.  Having a wife and three daughters has conditioned me to the female voice.  Lately, however, I have had a new female voice in my life – Alexa.  I’m sure this cylindrical sister would be very helpful to me had not my wife gotten hold of her first and trained her how to deal with me.  Alexa now either pretends not to hear me or just ignores me completely as not capable of having a worthwhile thought.  She makes me feel right at home.

 

But even though she doesn’t talk to me, Alexa is listening to me when I talk.  How do I know?  Well, the other day I coughed three times and when I got back to my computer there was a pop-up ad for a funeral home.  At least one woman in my house is listening to me. 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Are you listening to me?  I hope so, and I hope you’re feeling well.  It’s graduation time.  Grandchild #3 is graduating high school this year and visiting colleges.  Students, parents, even old grandpas are very sensitive about what college to choose.  “A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D. or Ph.D.  Unfortunately, they don’t have a J.O.B.”  You know who said that?  Fats Domino!  Yes, the same Fats Domino who gave us other pithy and intellectual sayings like “Goodbye, Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh” and “Eeny-meeny and miney-mo told me you didn't want me 'round no more.”  You can always trust Fats.

 

Let’s get the Weekly Word out of the way.  Ablutions are the things you do to clean yourself.  To me, morning ablutions include tooth brushing, pill taking, ointment spreading, eye dropping, lip glossing, rinky-dinky-doo.   Dat’s vhat ve learnt in der school.  I told you my mind was bizarre and unpredictable, like a small-town garbage dump.  You never know what you’ll find under that old mattress.  Come back next week anyway.  Gotta go now; I think I hear Carol purring.  Stay well and count your blessings.  Adios.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com