Blog # 329                               June 29, 2023

 

Happy Fourth of July to everyone.  It was in 1776 that our Founding Fathers, “preferring hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp” decided to declare independence from England.  We wanted our own government, our own laws, and our own version of American Idol.  The quote about “preferring hard liberty” is from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a tough read, but worth it in spades!  I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.

 

The Fourth of July is coming up next Tuesday.  It celebrates our flag and our Constitution and our national Anthem.  Do you have a problem with any of that?  Well, some people do and they show it with protests and demonstrations.  But just like other things, protests just aren’t what they used to be.  In the 1960s, we had real protests – fiery protests.   Feminists burned their bras, anti-war activists burned the flag, students burned the ROTC building, blacks burned Watts and the occasional Buddhist burned himself.  Those were the days!  Everybody had a Zippo and they knew how to use it.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and getting your rest, because you know you will have to stay up late on the Fourth.  I’m throwing out a suggestion about Independence Day.  I think we should move it to the middle of December.  In December, we could start the fireworks at 5:00, eat some ribs and be in bed by 8:00.  In July, we don’t start until 9:00 and we get home way too late.  I need my beauty sleep.  Don’t you dare send me a snarky little response to that! 

 

And you’d better rest up, because next week is Carol’s Birthday, an unending Bacchanalian fête lasting the length of a hockey season, during which she is taken to lunches, dinners, brunches and snacks by every woman, it seems, in North America.  There are so many cakes and candles that I believe it affects the global temperature. 

 

Bacchanalia is a good word, good enough to be our Weekly Word.  It means a drunken revelry, not exactly descriptive of a lunch with Carol and her friends, but a good word nonetheless.

 

The almost-birthday girl is at this moment in the other room doing the Sudoku, reading a book and watching a talent show.  She watches them all – America’s Got Talent, The Voice, Idol, Dancing With the Stars.  She doesn’t miss any of them, and now the library of talent shows is expanding rapidly.  She’s already started to tape two new ones.  The first pits the two front-running candidates for President in 2024.  It’s called America Doesn’t Have Talent.  The other features a bunch of young Vietnamese women competing against each other and is called So You Think You Can Polish.

 

Have I shared with you my research into what historical figures were Jewish?

 

·        Guinevere was Jewish.  Why do you think King Arthur had to have a round table?

·        Cleopatra was Jewish.  She would never admit she was growing older.  That’s why they called her the Queen of Denial.  (If you didn’t get that one, well, I don’t know what to say.)

·        And then there was the Wicked Witch of the West.

 

Of course she is one of the Jews

It’s clear if you follow the clues

She’s afraid of the rain

Has her own private plane

And she’d kill for a pair of red shoes.

 

I was at Walmart the other day, and I saw a guy with a parrot on his shoulder – a small, colorful and well-behaved parrot.  I have seen them before.  It must be a support bird.  So now I have to tell you my favorite parrot joke.  A woman buys a parrot and brings it home.  When she takes the covering off the cage, the parrot looks around and says, Awk, this place looks like shit.  The woman immediately grabs the parrot and throws him in the freezer.  Two hours later, she takes him out and puts him back in his cage.  He is shivering miserably.  She asks the parrot if he knows why he was punished.  Awk, it was because I said a bad word.  I promise I will never do that again, but I have a question – what did the chicken do?

 

Message from Shakespeare:  My lungs began to crow like chanticleer (As You Like It).  If I could talk like a parrot, Pops could carry me around on his shoulder and I could tell everybody that I’m the smartest three-legged cat in the whole world.  Purr.

 

Last Thursday, we flew to Florida.  It was a very strange adventure.  As we waited in St. Louis to board the first leg to Houston, we were informed our plane was delayed by an hour.  We needed to make a 3:00 flight in Houston, but still had time.  Then I began getting emails from Southwest Air telling me that the 3:00 flight from Houston to Fort Lauderdale was delayed to 5:00, then 8:30, then 9:30, then 3:00 then 5:30, then 3:30.  All of these emails came in a period of half an hour.  Then I heard an announcement – Would Michael Fox please come to the counter.  I advanced to the counter and was told I’m not going to make the connection and need to be re-routed.  I became confused.  Then the agent became confused.  Then a young man came up to the counter and said he was Michael Fox.  That was freaky.  Two of us on one flight.

 

We got on the plane, and I decided that we needed to sit up front and get off the plane as soon as possible to make our connection.  Carol sat in the first row, center seat between two slim men.  I took the first row, center on the other side between Mothra and Godzilla.  The woman on my right needed a seat-belt extender and the one on my left needed a crane.  I seriously could not sit straight back, but had to turn my body sideways to squeeze between the world’s biggest salt and pepper shakers.  What a flight!  After all of that, we landed in Florida right on time.

 

As my favorite Wicked Witch would say, what a world, what a world.  No, I’m not talking about Carol.  Shame on you.  Stay well, count your blessings and may the Fourth (of July) be with you.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com