Blog #381                                          June 27, 2024

 

Every blog I write finds me a week older than the blog before.  But I’m trying my best to stay healthy.  We all are.  We stopped smoking, we stopped drinking, we exercised, we ate the right foods and put on sunscreen.  We ate only the egg yolks, then only the egg whites, then no eggs at all.  We switched from Coke to Diet Coke to Caffeine-Free Diet Coke to Snapple to water.  We even got on a low-carb diet which some fool named Starch Madness.  We did everything the World Health Organization, the Surgeon General and Richard Simmons told us to do in order to stay healthy so we could live a longer life.  And what are we doing with those extra years we gained by being such good little Kens and Barbies?  Hiding from rioters and carjackers, avoiding the local shootings and searching for the cheapest eggs at the grocery. Wait, are we allowed to eat eggs again? Hardly seems worth it all.  But hang in there, my friends.  As Robert Frost said, “Provide, provide.”

 

And while you’re doing all that to stay healthy, you might as well stay wealthy and wise.  I know you’re being wise because here you are reading my blog.  But wealthy?  You know how you can recognize a wealthy person?  To a wealthy person, the word summer is a verb.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  You are gluttons for punishment, so let’s see how much of it I can supply.  First, I hope you are staying well and staying cool.  Summer is officially here and it’s hot.  It’s so hot, the carjackers will only take a car with the air-conditioning on.  It’s so hot, homeless people are carrying signs that say WILL WORK FOR SHADE.  It’s so hot, there’s a sequel to the Disney movie Frozen – it’s called Melted.  It’s so hot that in tonight’s Presidential Debate, the candidates will be allowed to wear bathing suits.  Now I know for sure you’ll watch it.  I don’t know what is rising faster, the temperature or the President’s age.  Some clever cartoonist has labelled the debate the Antiques Roadshow.

 

I’m not going to engage in a long polemic here, but isn’t it sickening that these two old men are the only ones we can choose from?

 

They’re going to have a debate

With two men we all love to hate

Before it all ends

They will both need Depends

And we’ll call the whole thing Diaper-Gate.

 

“Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent and debate,” said Hubert Humphrey, but the candidates are so old, they remember when we had nine planets.  They’re so old, they remember when Tonto was allowed to call a white man Kemosabe on television.  In one episode, Tonto told Lone that Kemosabe meant “trusty scout”, but today it translates into White-Supremacist Bastard.  Actually, and this is the truth, Kemosabe is an Apache word for idiot.  Did you notice the word polemic?  It’s our Weekly Word, and means a strong written or spoken attack.

 

Politicians aren’t the only ones getting older.  My wife will be celebrating a birthday next week.  Actually, her birth date is just the start of the celebration which will last nine months and include lunches, brunches, dinners, dances, buffets, soirees and happy hours hosted by every senior Jewish woman west of the Mississippi.  Let me get my two cents in first: Happy Birthday, Honey.  You’re the best!

 

Message from Shakespeare:  A turn or two I’ll walk to still my beating mind (The Tempest).  Happy Birthday to Moms.  She’s a good woman.  Every morning we exercise together.  She does her yoga poses and stretching and walks all over the house a dozen times.  I lie on the carpet, stretch my three legs and purr.  Purr. 

 

For Carol’s birthday, naturally, I will be a reliable and loving husband and schlep to six different places to get my wife’s favorite candies, chicken salads, fruits and crackers.  There’s an old Pomak saying that goes, “It’s the thingiest thing on this earthly earth to give a soul something to eat.”  The Pomaks are Bulgarian Muslims.  Don’t ask where I get this stuff.

 

The Ten Commandments – remember the Ten Commandments?  They won the Jewlitzer Prize.  Well, they’re back in the news now that Louisiana wants to have them posted in schoolrooms and the Left has gone as bonkers as if the Commandments were the table of contents to Mein Kampf.  Did you know there were originally more than ten commandments?  Yes, poor old Moses dropped one of the tablets.  Here are some that we never got to see:

 

·        Commandment XI:  Thou shalt not wear linen after Labor Day.

·        Commandment XII:  Thou shalt not elect anyone as old as Moses to be your leader.

·        Commandment XIII:  Thou shalt not shoot your puppy, then write about it in a book if you want to be the Vice-President.

·        Commandment XIV: In Louisiana, thou shalt not abort.

·        Commandment XV:  Thou shalt not use Roman numerals for the Commandments because Rome won’t be invented for another thousand years.

 

Recently, I received an email from one of my readers practically begging me to write a book, incorporating these blogs.  I was very flattered.  James Eads said, “The love of praise is, I believe, common to all men and whether it be a frailty or a virtue, I plead no exception from its fascination.”  James Buchanan Eads engineered and built the Eads Bridge in St. Louis.  Opened in 1874, it was the first bridge across the Mississippi River south of the Missouri River.  So yes, I was flattered, but don’t worry, I’m not going to get all famous on you.  I don’t want to be famous.  I’m in a really good place -- my family loves me; you tolerate me and the IRS has lost my address.  But, as Ishmael said, I try all things. I achieve what I can.  And if you don’t know who Ishmael is, you’re in the wrong blog.

 

Were finished now.  I’ve given you quotes from Robert Frost, Shakespeare, God, James Eads, Ishmael, Hubert Humphrey and some old Pomak.  I’ve given you a limerick and five new Commandments.  And here’s one more Commandment, the most important – Thou shall count thy blessings, stay well and get your asseth backeth here next week.  Don’t you love when I talk biblical?

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com