Blog #361                                         February 8, 2024

 

I had “coffee” at McDonald’s one morning this week with a very good friend who had just returned from a cruise to the Panama Canal.  A man, a plan, a canal – Panama.  Do you know that if you read that phrase backwards, it reads the same?  It’s a palindrome, or maybe a canalindrome.  Anyway, my friend was describing all the intricate mechanisms of the canal locks.  Then he mentioned that there were a lot of Jews on the ship.  “Of course there were,” I replied.

 

Just under my shirts and my socks

There are bagels I packed in a box

They’re a “must” on this cruise

‘Cause they told all the Jews

The Canal was just loaded with lox.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Like Elmo, I’m just checking in with you.  How is everybody doing?  I hope you’re feeling well and looking forward to a loving and candy-filled Valentine’s Day next week.  This will be our seventh Valentine’s Day together, you and me, so you’ve heard all my Valentine stories already.  There was the story about the day I was bitten in the behind by a friend’s dog.  The friend begged me to pull off my pants so he could see whether the bite broke my skin, but I refused because I was wearing my wife’s Valentine present, a pair of pink boxer shorts with red hearts, and I was too embarrassed to reveal them.  I was too em-bare-assed to become bare-assed.  That’s probably where the word came from.

 

Then there’s the story of how a Valentine miscue led to the start of my writing letters to my daughters, which led to these blogs.  And the story of the Valentine’s Day, when I was sixteen, that I spent with my libertine English teacher and her very naughty python.  But you’ve heard all of those already.  Oh?  You missed the python story?  Too bad.

 

I looked back over some of those Valentine’s Day blogs I shared with you, and I found one about a party Carol and I went to.  It was four years ago.  The food was great; many of our friends were there; and the music was Rock ‘n Roll!  We sang along for hours.  It is remarkable how I can faithfully sing all the lyrics to a song I haven’t heard in sixty years but can’t remember where I parked my car twenty minutes ago.  Sometimes, I believe my memory is so bad I could plan my own surprise party.

 

Not only did we sing at the party, we danced the jitterbug like teenagers.  I like dancing with my wife because I get to lead.  It’s the only time she lets me get my way.  A Japanese proverb says, “We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.”  It was so much fun, I was as excited as a Vietnamese chef at a dog park.  What a great party!

 

My wife was cute and fun and a lissome dancer.  See, I say nice things about my wife.  You all think I pick on her, but it’s just the opposite.  She’s the one who picks on me.  She picks on the way I dress and the way I drive and the way I don’t know which glass of water is mine at the dinner table.  She taught me to make a little b for bread with my left hand and a little d for drink with my right, but sometimes I forget.  How is it that none of my teachers ever taught me that?

 

Lissome (sounds like miss-em) is a good Weekly Word.  It means graceful and flexible.  Ok, now that that’s out of the way, what else shall we talk about?  Did it ever occur to you that one day I might run out of things to say?  Me neither.  Let’s talk about what you’re going to be buried with.  You know, Egyptian Pharaohs, as well as other wealthy Egyptians, were buried with all sorts of items which would be useful or decorative or valuable in the after-life.  I asked Carol what she would choose, and she instantly told me she wanted to be buried with a hair-straightener.  Well, you don’t want to frizz up in Heaven, do you?  Although, if it’s really Heaven, there should be no humidity, but what do I know?    I’m never getting there.  Carol, however, was taking no chances that some Heavenly Angel would see her hair curled up and send her straight to Hell, a place with no mirrors and only square tables.  I told her it wouldn’t be so bad for her in Hell.  It’ll be warm and all the people from The View will be there.

 

I actually heard a strange burial request from a long-time Jewish husband.  “Bury me standing,” he said. “I’ve been on my knees all my life.”  That’s actually an old Gypsy phrase, but I borrowed it.  As for me? You can just bury me with a copy of Moby Dick and a pair of reading glasses.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave (Romeo and Juliet).  All I need to be buried with is Pops’ warm lap.  I’d be happy there forever.  Sorry, Pops, I guess that means the rest of you has to go too.  Purr.

 

Carol and I are leaving today to spend a week in Florida.  Shakespeare will be guarding the house alone, but our wonderful neighbors will visit and tend to him.  I have already sent out all my valentine treasure early to my family -- one wife, three daughters, eight grandchildren.  I had Amazon send them a variety of cheap, stale, sweet and salty garbage that is really not good for you.  They all loved it.  Amazon delivered most of it the same day, some the next day.  Amazing.  Or Amaz(on)ing!  NASA should give up on its Mars program and just send the astronauts there by Amazon.  They’d arrive in time to watch Jeopardy at 4:30.

 

I will write next week’s blog from Florida.  I wouldn’t want you to miss a week of this useless gibberish, and let me send a special thanks to all of you serial readers who keep showing up each week for this kind of punishment.  Stay loyal, stay well, count your blessings . . . yada, yada.  See you next week.

 

Elmo                                        Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com