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