Blog #366                                         March 14, 2024

 

I have watched quite a few State of the Union Addresses in my 78 years.  They all have pretty much the same theme and probably have all been written by Alan Jay Lerner.  He wrote, “It’s true, it’s true, the Crown has made it clear, the climate must be perfect all the year.”  Every year, the President, be he an R or a D, tells us what a spectacular job he has done against stubborn and ignorant opposition.  Then he promises everything:  a chicken in every pot, an electric car in every garage, better climate, lower prices, more jobs, tax the rich, yadda yadda.  It all sounds great.  President Biden, last week, even promised us more potato chips in the bag.  I’ve never heard that one before.  One thing they never talk about is how they intend to pay for all this noble largesse.

 

I’ll raise all the rich folks’ taxation

Raise wages and lower inflation

I’ll honor our flag

Put more chips in the bag

And bankrupt the whole friggin’ nation.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and remembered to change your clocks last Saturday.  If not, you’ll have to wait another hour before reading this.  Or, perhaps, you live in a place that does not change its clocks like Arizona, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands, all of which have such lovely weather that residents never want anything to change. 

 

Last week, I promised you I would tell you the story of when I lied to my father.  But not yet; I have so many other things to talk about first.  Are you ready for Spring?  It’s March already and Spring is only a week away.  March is Irish-American Heritage Month.  It is also Women’s History Month.  Plus, I believe it’s Jeffrey Dahmer Recipe Month.  His favorite was Leg of Sam.

 

I received a text this morning from the hospital informing me that the estimated cost of my gland operation will be $28,458, but I will only have to pay $250.  This is worse than a furniture store going-out-of-business sale:

 

St. Patrick’s Day sale – get any gland removed and receive a FREE sectional.

 

 

Or a late-night television ad:  Buy a Popeil Pasta Maker for $39.99 (plus shipping and handling) and get your gland removed F-R-E-E!

 

Time for a joke.  Two senior golfers met in the 19^th Hole:

 

Hi, Bill.  What’s new?

Well, I got new dentures last week.

Oh, my, do they hurt?

Yesterday I played golf and some crazy person behind me hit a ball that hit me in the crotch.

What does that have to do with your dentures?

Well, that’s the only time they didn’t hurt.

 

I guess I have to talk about the Academy Awards.  The Red Carpet started at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon.  Who are you wearing? Who are you screwing?  Who does your hair?  Who does your toes?  Who’s your Daddy?  Who gives a flying Fitz’s Root Beer?  Did you know that one of the nominees is the first Indigenous American to be nominated?  And did you know that I am the first 78-year-old Jewish limerick writer to turn his clocks ahead 7 hours so I could pretend it was all over and I could go to sleep?   

 

I really have no interest in this cinematic folderol, but I watched it because I know all of you did.  It’s a bunch of ultra-ultra-rich people who dress in hundred-thousand-dollar clown suits, drive $300,000 cars, live in $10 million houses, fly in their private jets to Cannes for the Film Festival and believe this qualifies them to tell the rest of America how to live our lives.  It’s preposterous and embarrassing.  Why do we watch?  Because movie stars have always been the royalty that we created to replace the English royalty that we fought to get rid of.  The British have Kings and Queens and Dukes and Princesses.  We had John Wayne and Elvis -- The Duke and The King.

 

 Shakespeare wants to say hello.  Shakespeare The Cat – eleven letters, nine lives and three legs.  He’s a pistol!  Saturday will be the 4^th anniversary of Shakespeare and me adopting each other.  I got him an Anniversary cake with a frosting cat on top. Four candles and three paws.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us paws (Hamlet).  I only have three paws, but that’s enough to wave hi.  Come back next week.  My Pops likes to talk to you and I’ll have another quote.  Purr.

 

Ok, the Dad story.  My father liked to drink vodka, which he ordered by phone from a local liquor store.  He knew their number and would call every few weeks.  Remember, he was blind and living in a senior place.  His vodka order was always personally delivered by the store’s manager, a 30-year-old who apparently liked my dad.  Everybody liked my dad.  The manager would bring the order, then sit and talk for about 30 minutes.  Mostly, my dad talked about getting a lower price on the booze, but the manager stayed anyway.  What a nice young man.

 

Three or four days a week, late in the afternoon, I would visit.  I’d pour each of us a drink -- vodka on the rocks for him, chilled chardonnay for me -- and we would sit and chat.  He would never have his drink before I arrived.  And then, one day, I stopped drinking completely.  I just did.  I knew my dad wouldn’t have his drink if I wasn’t joining him, and I didn’t want to start a kerfuffle over it, so I never told him I had quit.  I just poured him his vodka and poured myself a wineglass full of water.  So I guess, in a way, I did lie to him then.

 

Weekly Word:  A Kerfuffle is a fuss or commotion.

 

Saturday, besides Shakespeare’s Anniversary, will mark the passage of seven years of Limerick Oyster.  Seven years – wow!  Will you stay with me for another seven years?  I hope you do.  For now, it’s time to find an ending to this jumbled and busy issue.  Stay well, count your blessings and may your home always be too small to hold all your friends.  See you next week to start our eighth year.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com