Blog #370                                         April 11, 2024

 

I bought some cat litter for Shakespeare and had it delivered to the front door.  I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy just yet and the container weighs 20 pounds.  It’s not that far from the front door to the porch, but still.  I went to the porch and looked around.  My grandchildren used to love playing on my screened-in porch, which is still packed with their toys, but now that Shakespeare has taken over the porch, I’ve begun to throw out some of the older toys – worn, plastic contraptions with buttons and pull things that used to make noise.  I cannot bring myself to throw away the little red vacuum cleaner that Zachary (now 22) loved when he was two, but there, in a dark corner, was an old stroller that the girls used for their dolls -- faded, useless, dusty, a veteran of eight grandchildren.   It’s time to throw that old thing away.  But then an idea occurred to me.  I rolled the poor stroller to the front door, and it was the perfect size to transport the litter container out to its storage destination. It goes to show you that old and useless things, your humble servant included, need not always be discarded.  I dusted off the ancient and decrepit doll-stroller, cleaned it with some Windex and found it a nice, bright and prominent spot in the sunshine.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and getting ready for Passover, when Jews celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt.  Passover is when God used ten plagues to convince the Pharoah to let the Jewish people go.  I have recently begun to notice a disturbing similarity between the ancient plagues of Egypt and certain current events.  For instance,

 

·        One of the plagues God used was called murrain, a disease of livestock, and what do we have now – bird flu, which is causing poultry producers to destroy millions of chickens.

·        Egypt had darkness, and we just had a solar eclipse.

·        Egypt had hail.  Did we not recently have horrible hailstorms in the Midwest?

·        And what about locusts?  This year, 2024, will mark the Double-Cicada Emergence during which trillions (yes, trillions) of locusts will descend upon the United States.  I am not making this up.

·        Still another of the ancient plagues was the turning of the Nile into blood, and don’t we have the Middle East awash in the blood of the Israelis and Palestinians?  That’s enough coincidences for me to order an extra bowl of matzo-ball soup.

 

And what about bridges collapsing in Baltimore and all these earthquakes?  A recent earthquake in Taiwan shook large buildings off their foundations and left them awkwardly askew.  Then there was an earthquake in New York.  In 1990, if any of you remembers, there was a self-proclaimed climatologist named Iben Browning, an avuncular-looking old gentleman, who predicted that there would be a huge earthquake centered around the New Madrid fault in Missouri.  Bridges over the Mississippi would collapse, the river itself would run backwards and the Midwest would be devastated.  And all of this would happen precisely on December 3^rd.  Most people realized this Browning character was a nut, but others panicked.  Schools in five states closed on December 3^rd, and many people fled St. Louis in fear.  December 3^rd came and went, nothing happened, and everyone went back to focusing on the important news of the day – Jane Fonda’s engagement to Ted Turner.

 

I hope you didn’t mind that little history lesson.  And how about avuncular as our Weekly Word?  Avuncular means looking or behaving like a kind and friendly uncle, like a person who would have a porch full of toys. 

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Here is none of my uncle’s mark upon you (As You Like It).  I like all those dusty toys on my porch.  Sometimes I even curl up on that old stroller.  It’s the purr-fect size.  Meow.

 

Shakey is a good little cat.  People ask me why I chose a three-legged cat.  Well, the three-legged elephant wouldn’t fit in my car. 

 

Did you enjoy the eclipse?  I admit I didn’t give it much attention:

 

They say it’s a wonderful sight

To watch the moon blocking the light

But what’s so unique?

When each day of the week

I can watch it get dark every night.

 

How about a joke.  A Jewish man goes sailing.  Wait, that’s already funny.  Jews don’t sail.  If Jews could sail, God would not have needed to part the Red Sea.  Ok, sorry, back to the joke.  So he sails out and gets shipwrecked on a Desert Isle.  Now that sounds more like a Jewish man – lost and useless.  This schmuck is on the island for two years until, at last, a rescue ship arrives.  The rescuer says, “I see you have built three buildings out of driftwood.  A Jewish man building?  I can’t hang a picture without breaking the frame, the wall and my thumb.  “What are these buildings for?” asks the rescuer.  The guy replies, “That one’s my home.  Next to it is my Synagogue and the other one is the Synagogue I wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

 

I will now digress into a grammatical diatribe for the express reason that my Spellchecker has informed me that the above sentence that includes “how about a joke” is a question and should be followed by the appropriate punctuation.  To me, a question is an utterance that seeks information in the form of a response.  Some series of words that look like questions really are not asking for an answer.  They are called Hypothetical.  Like Who knows, or Is the Pope Catholic, or What the f**k!  

 

I am reading the part of Milton’s Paradise Lost where Adam (Remember Adam?  He was the first chauvinist.) is talking to one of the Angels.  I will paraphrase.  He says, “I understand that nature has made the woman inferior in the mind but excellent in outward appearance.”  I told you he was a chauvinist.  I guess that means he’s not going to be chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate.  I think Joe and Adam graduated together.

 

Well, you’ve put up with enough of my history lessons and strange words.  Will I be back next Thursday?  Is the Pope Catholic?  Stay well, count your blessings and watch out for locusts.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com