Blog #346                            October 26, 2023

 

Live one day at a time.  Enjoy life to the fullest.  Wake up and smell the roses. 

If not now, when?

 

Bullshit!  All those phrases were invented by self-indulgent flower-sniffers who have relied on someone else to pay their bills while they enjoyed life to the fullest by smelling the damned roses.  We, on the other hand, the hard-working slobs of the world –we, “who lived faithfully a hidden life” have worked all our lives smelling exhaust fumes in order to take care of our families and to subsidize with our taxes and our charity the tired and huddled masses.  Live one day at a time?  You’ll starve by the end of the week.

 

Ok, I feel better now.  Sometimes you just have to let your brain explode for a second or two.  Sorry.  The quote about living a hidden life was by George Eliot.  Hey, any girl who lived in the 19^th Century and called herself George is alright by me.  Nowadays, who knows?  My granddaughter, Charley, has girlfriends named Jo, Ronnie, Danny and Sam.   I believe they do that to intentionally confuse old people.

 

I feel like writing today.  That’s what I do best, you know.  Ask me to write a poem, a song, a speech?  No problem.  Ask me to speak in front of a crowd?  I’m comfortable.  Ask me to check out at Kohl’s?  I turn into an uncoordinated, blithering fool with the Intelligence Quotient of an eggroll.   Your item, Sir, was $60.00 but it was marked 40% off, plus you have a 30% off sticker which is calculated after we take the 40% off.  Plus, you get $20 in Kohl’s cash which you can use anytime – but not today.  It all makes me feel like I’m talking to the Cheshire Cat.  “We're all mad here,” said the Cat.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue (Hamlet). The Cheshire Cat can talk, but I can’t.  Except to you of course.  For Pops, I just purr and look him in the eye and he seems to know what I’m saying: “Open the door to the porch” or “Turn on the faucet so I can drink from it”.  We understand each other.  Mostly, he’s not as dumb as he looks.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and not quite as confused as I am.  Do you have all your Halloween shopping done?  You’d better hurry!  Pretty soon dangerous ghouls and insane monsters will be roaming the streets.  No, I’m not talking about the Republican presidential candidates.  I’m talking about Halloween.  They used to give us dimes for Halloween when I was a kid.  We’d collect them for a charity called March of Dimes, and I guess that was a fine gesture, even though we were nine and hoping for a caramel-covered apple on a stick like Mrs. Steinberg used to give us.  What a disappointment!  It’s as if you were expecting to have lunch with Taylor Swift and Matt Gates showed up instead.

 

Sometimes I think it’s already Halloween.  The other day, at a fast-food restaurant, I was waited on by a young woman who had so many tattoos, she looked like the funny pages and so many metal rings and piercings, her face looked like the dashboard of a Tesla. 

 

I can’t wait to go Trick ‘r Treating this year.  At first, I thought I would wear a yellow wig and some prison stripes and go as Donald Trump, but I changed my mind and have decided to go as the Tooth Fairy.  But what should I wear?  Is the Tooth Fairy a man or a woman or some other gender?  And what difference does it make any more?  Hey, I’m in favor of dressing like you want, acting like you want and loving who you want, but – I don’t know, it’s getting so confusing.

 

Your sex I can no longer guess

By whether you’re wearing a dress

Cause now the Tooth Fairy

Is really named Gary

And Santa Claus has PMS.

 

Maybe I’ll just grab a broom and go as Joy Behar.  Or maybe I should just move to Mudville.  There is no Joy in Mudville. 

 

In the last few paragraphs, I have managed to offend men, women, gays, straights, Catholics, dentists, people who like the Republican candidates, people who like Donald Trump or Joy Behar, and the entire March of Dimes.  About now, I’m about as popular as Hamas. On the slim chance that anybody is still reading this, let’s move on.

 

Maybe it’s the anticipation and the reality of my Mohs procedure that has made me so truculent.  There’s a good Weekly Word:  truculent means aggressively defiant and quick to fight.  You know that I never call my doctors by name; I call them by the part of the body they treat or the procedure they perform.  I have Dr. Heart and Dr. Tooth and Dr. Eye and Dr. Asshole.  What should I call the Mohs doctor?  I can’t call her Dr. Mohs, because there was a Dr. Frederic Mohs (1910-2002) who pioneered the procedure.  I’ve decided to call her Dr. Scrape.

 

And if the war in Israel and the war in Ukraine and the rampant dysfunction of the United States government and all your own personal problems haven’t brought your spirits as low as a snake’s belly, there’s always the weather.

 

There’s a big Tropical Depression, unprecedented heat index, record temperatures, hurricanes, storm surges, Bomb Cyclone, flooding, forest fires right over there.  None of this weather is anywhere near you or will affect you in the slightest, but we have our reporter there, standing in nine feet of water and watching the cars blow away in the wind.  Take it away, Rex.

 

They give you all this world-wide weather drama because they honestly have no clue what’s going on “in your neck of the woods”.  If you want to know that, open a window.  But be careful when you open that window – it’s a jungle out there.

 

Time to go for now, but I want you to stay well, pray for Israel and for peace and count your blessings.  Can you remember all that?  And don’t forget to be here next Thursday.  As Alice said, it gets “curioser and curioser”.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #345                      October 19, 2023

 

My heart is devastated.  My spirit is suffocated by the volume of hatred, ignorance and evil that is everywhere.  And it’s not just Hamas or Iran.  It’s the protestors at Harvard and in New York and Chicago and even in Congress.  I am distraught and struggling to endure this much darkness.  As Eric Adams, Mayor of New York City, said in a powerful speech, “We are not alright.”

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I apologize for starting us off with such a downer this week, but thank you for being there to listen.  I know you are suffering too.  Maybe we can talk about some lighter topics for a while to take our minds off these dismal and frightening times.  First, let me assure you that I am alive and well.  Last Saturday, my wife got an email sent to few girls informing them that Michael Fox had died during the night.  That’s really what it said.  Actually, it was a man named Michael Wolf who passed away, but the sender got her canines confused.  As Mark Twain once remarked after seeing his obituary in a newspaper, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”   

 

This morning, when I opened my iPhone, I saw this message:  Last night, when we were pretty sure you were asleep, without your permission, knowledge or consent, we invaded your iPhone and changed everything.  We call this an update.  Everything that you finally learned how to do will now look totally different and you will have to call your children to show you where it all went.  Plus, you have to sign up for Apple Pay.  We don’t care if you don’t want it, don’t understand it and will never use it.  If you don’t sign up for it, we will hide the pictures of your grandchildren in a folder you will never find and post a naked picture of you on Instagram.  Thank you for using Apple.

 

Sometimes, technology frustrates me.  The other day, I was home alone, relaxing, reading and writing, when I heard a phone ring.  It wasn’t mine – mine sounds like a phone ringing, just like all phones used to sound in the G.O.D. (Good Old Days).    Carol’s phone sounds like a tidal wave splashing onto a dog who has just swallowed a xylophone.  And that’s what I heard.  She must have left her phone at home.  Either that or there was a wet, choking dog somewhere in the house.

 

Challenge #1 -- Find the phone.  This is not trivial.  In the G.O.D., you knew where the phone was.  It was attached to the wall.  Now, it could be under the covers, under the bed, in the litter box, in the trash can, in her underwear drawer.  I commenced a search for the coughing, barking object.  I started in the underwear drawer (that’s where I always start), then followed my ears until I located it on the seventh bark -- on the bed four feet from me.

 

Challenge #2 -- Turn on the phone.  Once again, not trivial.  In the G.O.D., you picked up the damn thing and spoke.  Every phone was the same.  You knew where it was, you went there, you picked it up and said hello.  Simple.  Now every phone has a pass code or fingerprint or eye recognition or yoga mantra.  I tried activating it by shouting loud obscenities at it?  I tried that several times, but it didn’t help.  And this is supposed to make our lives easier?  I threw it into the underwear drawer and went back to work.

 

I know Carol will tell me not to use the underwear drawer reference, but I was just adding a little sexual innuendo for your amusement.  And no, innuendo is not the Italian word for anal intercourse.  Shame on you.  It means a remark that hints or suggests some impropriety.  It was our Weekly Word about a year ago.  Have you forgotten already?  I did use the word distraught earlier.  It means deeply upset and agitated.  So that will be our Weekly Word.

 

Back to my frustration with technology.  My car is a 2010.  I like it.  It gets me where I want to go, even if I take the wrong exit.  It doesn’t have a touch-screen or a blue-tooth or an electric engine or a back-up camera or a remote this-or-that.  My daughter and her family were at an out-of-town wedding and I needed to pick them up at the airport.  We would not all fit in my car, but she has an SUV that would be perfect.  I was as nervous as a fly at a tarantula convention.  What if I couldn’t figure out how to start her SUV or shift gears or put on the A/C?  Some months ago, a friend who was out of town asked me to do something with his new car that had all the bells and whistles and cameras and screens.  I sat in the driver’s seat, as still as a yard jockey, feeling as useless as Will Smith’s booking agent.  I had to call my friend and have him lead me through the complicated process of starting his car and finding reverse.

 

I’ve not had a new car in years

And I can’t start it up or shift gears

I feel like a dolt

In a ’23 Bolt

And a hybrid just brings me to tears.

 

Luckily, another friend of mine volunteered to go with me to get my daughter’s SUV and make sure I could deal with it.  What an idiot I can be sometimes!

 

Message from Shakespeare:  The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! (Troilus and Cressida).  Yes, he is an idiot.  He really can’t do anything except write silly poems – and take care of me and Carol.  He’s pretty good at that.  Purr.

 

Thank you, Shakey.  A kind word from a cat is like cold watermelon on a hot day.  Well, it’s time to go, I guess.  I don’t feel like stopping, but I know if I make these too long, I’ll lose your attention.  Hey, you forgot what innuendo meant, didn’t you?  We’ll meet again next Thursday.  I hope, by then, the world will be a safer place.  Stay well, count your blessings and pray for Israel.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #344                                October 12, 2023

 

I went to a funeral last week for a man named Phil – a good friend and a good man.  Phil was constantly trying to convince me that classical music was better than Rock and Roll.  I told him that any piece of music longer than three minutes was too long, so he would send me short pieces of classical music.  I did not confess to him that, some years ago, I listened to Arlo Guthrie’s eighteen-minute-long Alice’s Restaurant song every single night for a year, but that’s just between me and my shrink – and now you, I guess.

 

Phil was 84, and besides his children and grandchildren, most of the funeral attendees were similarly aged.  Old people at a funeral, as they listen to the speeches and the prayers, naturally imagine what their own funerals will be like.  Later, some friends and I were talking about that and I confessed to them that I have already written my funeral service and left instructions on how it should be delivered.  Both friends, older than me, said they didn’t expect to survive me and wanted to hear what I had written.  Print it in your blog, they said. 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and will be feeling well for many, many more years, so we don’t have to talk about funerals.  Let’s talk about doctors.

 

I had a physical.  Dr. Doctor said I was just fine, but it was the process before I saw the doctor that was troubling.  The nurse weighed me, measured my height and told me I had shrunk another ¼ inch.  “I’m not happy’” I said.  “Well,” she said, “I don’t care if you’re Happy, Sleepy, Dopey or Doc, but you’re getting shorter.”  The only thing shrinking faster than me is the size of the laundry detergent bottles at the Dollar Store. 

 

I wonder what my Dwarf name would be.  I prefer Funny.  I know what my wife’s would be – Speedy.  When I pull into the garage, she opens the passenger door and starts to get out 20 feet before I’ve parked.  I’m thinking of installing child-restraints in the front seats.  While I’m still rolling to a stop, she shoots out of the door like a Cruise Missile and sprints to the elevator like Usain Bolt before I’ve even put the car into Park. 

 

She’ll never need a Dwarf Name though, because she hasn’t shrunk at all.   You know those little cut-out family stickers you put on the rear window of your car?  From left to right there’s always a tall cut-out father, then a slightly smaller mother, then three kids arranged by height, then a dog and finally the cat.  I can just picture ours in a few years.  In order of height there will be Carol, the cat and me. What a world!

 

Message from Shakespeare:  ‘Though she be but little she is fierce (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  Pops’ woman is little and she’s nice to me, but I can’t push her around like I do the old man.  I can get him to do anything for me as long as I look pretty and purr.  I learned it all from her.  Purr.

 

And what do I do when I get depressed by funerals and height measurements?  First, let me introduce our Weekly Word.  This week, it’s ameliorate, five syllables: uh-me-lee-or-ate. It means to make something better.  Got it?  Ok, now here’s the answer to what I do when I’m depressed:

 

When this tired and aging old chappy

Is feeling dejected and crappy

To ameliorate

My downtrodden state

I try to make somebody happy.

 

Mark Twain said, “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”  Usually, that’s as simple as driving to McDonald’s and buying Carol a small mocha frappe, no whip, no chocolate drizzle.  That makes her happy, which makes me Happy.  See, now I’m one of the dwarfs again.  Or, I can make her happy by accompanying her to Senior Day at Walgreens.  We go there to get discounts and to see all our friends.  I serve as my wife’s chauffer and mathematical consultant, calculating whether 20% off is better than buy-one-get-one-half-price.  It’s not.

 

Did you know that today marks the 531^st anniversary of the day Chistopher Columbus landed in the New World and began the slaughter of millions of indigenous people.  Chris was Italian.  Actually, he was Genoese.  There wasn’t any country named Italy back then.  I know if Carol had been on the ship, he would have arrived a lot earlier.  Step on it, Slow-Poke, we haven’t got all century!

 

Everyone believes that Columbus was sent over here by King Ferdinand to find a shorter route to the East Indies.  Actually, the whole thing was about Queen Isabella’s birthday.  Ferdinand asked the Queen what she wanted as a birthday gift.  “Oh, Ferdy,” she replied, “I need to find something new and fresh to wear.  The stuff in the stores is so 1480s.  Why don’t you send that creepy little Italian out to find me a Saks?”  And so he did.  Chris landed on the island of Hispaniola, but it was a holiday and everything was closed except the furniture store which was having a Going Out of Business Sale.  Chris was able to pick up a few Early American pieces for the Queen’s boudoir, 90 days same as bullion.  The owner of the furniture store, Uncle Montezuma, was so pleased he decided to name next year’s sale a Columbus Day Sale.

 

Have you heard that Paris is infested with bed bugs?  It’s true.  There are so many punaise (bed bugs in French) that the Olympic organizers have inserted some insect events to take the tourists’ minds off the little biters in their boudoirs.  That’s more French.  Maybe my new Dwarf Name should be Pepė Le Pew.  The new Olympic events include Waterbug Polo, Daddy Long Jump, Bugby and, in swimming, the Butterfly and the Pest Stroke.

 

It has been a depressing week with the war in Israel and the incompetence in Congress and a funeral.  Thank you for letting me vent some silliness to ease my spirit.  I’ll be back next week.  So will you.  Stay well, count your blessings and pray for Israel.

 

Funny                            Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #343                                October 5, 2023

 

I went to lunch today with three good friends.  Getting all four of us old men seated at a table was harder than getting Congress to raise the debt ceiling.  Player One wanted to sit in a booth because it was better for his back, but he wanted to sit on the aisle.  Player Two was left- handed, so he had to sit on the west side of the booth on the aisle.  Player Three was deaf in his left ear so, if he sat on the east, he would have to sit by the wall, but if he sat on the west, he would have to sit on the aisle.  Isaac Newton could not have unscrambled the ensuing tumult.  Player Four (moi) just stood there, smiling, because I knew what the first paragraph of my blog was going to be.   After a bit of jockeying, kind of like that Fifteen Puzzle game we played as kids where you had numbers 1-15 on little squares locked into a frame and you had to move them around, we managed to sort out our positions to the best of each other’s predilections.  Thank goodness the wives were not among us and we didn’t have to deal with round tables.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I have arrived once more to enliven your senses, inspire your wonder and tickle your fancy.  Or maybe just to talk a little.  I hope you’re feeling well and ready for some fun.  I have noted that many of you enjoy the Weekly Word portion of the blog.  I like that.  There are plenty of little-used, but fascinating words out there, and I like to share the few I know.  One of those is tumult, which means confusion and disorder.  Kind of like my blog sometimes, especially when I have no idea what I’m going to talk about next.

 

How about politics?  It appears that no-one is satisfied with a Biden-Trump rematch.  Everybody thinks Biden is too old.  Of course, in my poker game of ten people, Joe would be the third youngest.  There must, in a country with 330 million people, be someone better than those two.  I have a suggestion.  Let’s elect Taylor Swift.  She’s already the most famous person in the world.  She’d win by a landslide.

 

Now up to the White House we’ll send

That wonderful singer, my friend.

She’s talented, smart

And she’s got a good heart,

A good body -- and what a tight end!

 

I’ve found a new electronic item on Amazon.  It’s a smart-phone for Jews.  It’s called the Oy-Phone.  Instead of Siri, it has Schmiri, who by coincidence sounds exactly like my wife.  And you don’t even have to ask Schmiri a question; she talks to you when she wants to.  Hey, Mr. Magoo, you just passed the exit.  Are you planning to go to the grocery store or Alaska?  And step on it; I’d like to get home before Winter.

 

There’s a genetic testing service called 23andMe.  You’ve heard of it.  You take some saliva or other precious bodily fluid (I just watched Dr. Strangelove) and send it to them along with some money so you can find out if you’re related to Donny Osmond.  I, of course, have no interest.  I know who I’m related to and am happy with my place on the Tree of Life.  Besides, not everything they tell you is good.  I might find out I’m related to Joy Behar and would have to kill myself.  Plus, being a scientist of sorts, I know that 99% of human DNA is the same as that of a chimpanzee, so unless they have a picture of J. Fred Muggs in my portfolio, I pass. Did you know that J. Fred Muggs is still alive?  He is 71 years old and retired.  I think he’s related to Donny Osmond.

 

For fun, I just tried out my new Oy-Phone.  “Hey, Schmiri, how old is J. Fred Muggs?”  Oy, you’re wasting your time on some monkey?  Go buy some clothes that match.

 

Two things happen every morning – the sun rises and I go to McDonald’s.  I have my book in one hand along with the exact change I need for a Senior Diet Coke; my sunglasses and keys are in the other hand.  I look like one of those one-man bands where the guy has drumsticks in his ears and an oboe up his kazoo.  Today I placed my order at the counter to a thirty-something lady, and she nodded at my book and asked, “What are you reading?”  Dickens, I answered.  “Never heard of him,” she said.  Doesn’t know Dickens?  Ever heard of Shakespeare?  Darwin?  Lizzo?  I didn’t actually ask her any of that.  I asked her what she likes to read.  James Patterson.   I wonder how many more generations will pass until there are no stodgy hangers-on like me, reading Milton and Dickens and Shakespeare.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  What?  Did I hear my name, or was he talking about that silly old poet who’s been dead forever?  I know Pops reads a lot, and I like when he reads.  He gets in a nice-smelling chair and puts a blanket on his lap, just for me.  I jump up, sniff the book and curl up for a nap.  He scratches my neck while he reads, so I don’t give a cat’s behind what he’s reading, even that mumbling old poet who uses words like I have unclasped to thee the book even of my secret soul (Twelfth Night).  Purr.

 

After McDonald’s, I went to get a haircut.  I go to the same barber I have used for 40 years.  I started using him because his shop was across the street from where I worked.  But now that I have retired and moved farther west, I have to drive twenty miles to see him.  It’s ok, I like my barber.  “Hey Schmiri, directions to my barber.”  Oy, are you nuts?  Twenty miles to get your hair cut when there’s a Great Clips around the corner?  What, gasoline grows on trees?

 

Ok, that’s enough.  I’ll see you next week.  Stay well, read some Dickens and count your blessings.  “Hey Schmiri, how many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”  None, it’s all right if I sit here in the dark.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com