Blog #383                                                   July 11, 2024

 

Do you have something named after you?  I have a cake.  My grandkids call me Poppy and the eponymous cake is called a Poppy Cake.  No, eponymous does not mean yummy; it means named after someone.  Simple as that.  The cake is alternating layers of chocolate wafer cookies and Cool Whip Lite.  My mother used to make it and it was a favorite for me and my three daughters.  Back then it was called an ice-box cake and used real whipped cream, but times have changed.

 

The first thing that changed was the whipped cream.  It has too much fat and too much cholesterol and too much cream and too much whip and is banned from my family tree and all its branches.  So now, instead of wholesome natural cream, we use an industrial paste mixed with air bubbles and sugar.  It’s delicious!  And we use the Lite variety to convince ourselves that chocolate cookies surrounded by some Noxzema-looking slime is good for your diet.  And the Cool Whip people can’t even spell lite rite.

 

The next thing that changed was the name.  You can’t serve something called Ice-Box Cake to a generation who thinks that Ice-Box is a form of Norwegian martial arts.  No, the ice-box is a thing of the past, as dead as the rotary phone, the typewriter and Regis Philbin.  My grandchildren love this cake and, since Carol always makes it for my birthday, they call it Poppy Cake and ask for it on their birthdays as well.  I know for a certainty that sixty years from now, my grandchildren will be making Poppy Cake for their grandchildren and telling them who Poppy was, and each time they do, I will smile.  I have never asked for anything in return for giving everything.  All I want is not to be forgotten.  So go ahead, go from anonymous to eponymous.  Name something after yourself – Grandma’s Cookies, Uncle George’s Secret Handshake, Sally’s MAGA Hat.  But not the chocolate cookie and Cool Whip cake.  That one’s mine.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be more cakes (Twelfth Night). I need something named after me.  I know Kitty Litter and Cat Nap are taken.  How about a little collar that says MAKE AMERICA PURR AGAIN?  No?  Well, since I only have three legs, what if I make a spicy seafood dish and call it Limp Creole?  Purr.

 

The quote about not wanting to be forgotten is from Kapka Kassabova.  I know that sounds like a new disease, but is, in fact, a young Bulgarian woman who writes wonderful books.  Only me, right?  I do my best not to be forgotten.  I save on paper everything I have ever written – poems, stories, letters, blogs, songs – so that when I’m gone, they’ll either have a lot of things to remember me by or the

biggest bonfire since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling ebullient.  That’s our Weekly Word and it means lively and enthusiastic.  Have you decided yet who you’re going to vote for?  Trump, Joe, Kamala, Elmer Fudd?  I think we should all vote for Jill Biden.  It would save the government a lot of money.  They wouldn’t even have to change the sheets.

 

I checked my emails yesterday and found one from a person I didn’t know, thanking me for renewing my subscription to McAfee for $350.  McAfee is a legitimate computer security company, but I did not have a subscription.  It must be a mistake.  I thought I’d clear up the confusion by calling the number provided.  I got a gentleman with an Indian accent and calmly explained to him that I didn’t have a subscription and was certainly not renewing one.  He began to describe the process which I would have to go through to cancel the order – texted ID codes, visits to websites, recitations of tantric mantras.  I, demonstrably less calmly than before, interrupted him and told him I was doing none of that and admonished him not to contact me again.  He responded, in his lilting, charming Indian voice as follows: “Go to hell, asshole!” after which he hung up on me.  Not very customer friendly.  Two more comments:  first, that was an absolutely true story, word for word and second, “hanging up” on someone is pretty much archaic now, isn’t it?  I mean, we don’t hang up anything to end a call; we just push a button.  So from now on, I won’t say he hung up on me.  I’ll say he buttoned me.

 

Rotten Oysters:  The movie we saw was called One Life and starred Anthony Hopkins.  It is a true story of the rescue of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion of 1938.  It is a Holocaust movie, a tear-jerker and a feel-good movie rolled into one, and it is very, very well done.  I recommend it highly.

 

I often use Google on my phone, and each time I open the app, it shows little articles of interest, some newsworthy, some just strange.  Here’s one:

 

OKLAHOMA WOMAN THROWS ABUSIVE HUSBAND’S ASHES IN THE TRASH.

 

I immediately yelled, Right on, Sister.  There’s no reason we have to say nice things about a bad person just because he’s dead, is there?  I know one day I’ll go to a memorial service and the wife will take the microphone and tell us what a beast her deceased beast was and that she’s thrilled he’s climbing the Stairway to Heaven – or wherever.  Well, this Oklahoma woman did it.  She wanted nothing to remind her of that creep.  Well, actually, she did keep a small memento or two.

 

I burned George’s body to ash

Then I threw the whole thing in the trash

But although he’s in Hades

I kept his Mercedes

And four-hundred thousand in cash.

 

Ok, I’m ashamed, so I’m sending myself to my room.  But I’ll be out by next week to send you more nonsense.  Be there.  Stay well and count your blessings please.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Just a note about your comments.  Please continue, I love them, but when you do, make sure you use REPLY, to send the message to me only.  Do not use REPLY ALL, which sends the message to everybody.  They don’t love you like I do.  See you next week.