Blog #417                                March 6, 2025

 

Wow!  Blog #417!  It’s really awe inspiring to have you as my loyal readers.  It’s like I am the Master and you are the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Wait, that’s immigrants.  Well, what difference does it make?  I don’t believe all this immigrant nonsense anyway.  They say California is overrun with Hispanic immigrants.  I’m not buying it.  I think it’s the street signs that make everybody talk with an accent.  My middle daughter lives in the Berkeley area, and to get from her house to the nearest McDonald’s I had to drive down Cerrito, left on Solano, right on San Pablo.  By the time I got to McDonald’s I was talking like Speedy Gonzalez.  “Cerrito solano san pablo.  Àndale àndale epa epa!”  They gave me some very strange looks – and a Diet Coke, so I must have said it right.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you had a nice Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday and are feeling lovely.  Don’t forget that on Saturday, you will need to change to Daylight Savings Time.  I’m not really good at either Springing Forward or Falling Back, although I am becoming an expert at Lying Down.  So when I get up on Sunday, I won’t be sure whether it’s 6:30 or 8:30 or even Sunday.  In Arizona, they don’t change the clocks.  They know how to keep time in Arizona.  And it’s a dry time too.

 

I am now back from my little trip.  Well, I can’t call it a trip.  It was a cruise.  You see, you have to learn a whole new vocabulary when you go sailing or suffer draconian consequences.  The first thing I asked was what floor we were on.  The nice cruise employee gave me an icy look and a lecture:

 

You call it a deck, not a floor

Your room is a cabin, what’s more

For the time you’re afloat

You say ship, and not boat

Or we’ll throw your dumb fat ass ashore.

 

The ship was the size of Delaware, only taller.  One morning, I watched the captain maneuver this behemoth into port in Nassau.  Now, I don’t know the actual dimensions of the ship, but one afternoon after lunch, I walked from the dining room to my cabin and arrived just in time to leave for dinner.  The captain must have owned a pickup truck, because he backed the ship into a slot between the dock and another ship and left it two feet from the dock—perfect!  I can’t parallel park my Corolla into a space big enough for an eighteen-wheeler, so I was impressed.

 

We all, our group of twenty, had a very nice time on the cruise and behaved as was expected for a group our age – no-one ever put on a bathing suit and we all were in bed by ten.

 

Our Weekly Word today is draconian which means extremely severe or cruel.  Like corporal punishment or the death penalty or being forced to watch Trump’s speech last Tuesday.

 

As I said, I’m home now, but Carol is not.  She stayed a few days extra with some friends, so for three nights it was just us boys -- a three-legged cat and a two-footed fool.  Of course I missed my wife, but it was also nerve-racking to know that if something went wrong, there was no-one there to help me.  But really, what could possibly go wrong?  I mean, was I going to break a glass on the kitchen floor? (That happened the first night.)  Or pull the faucet handle off the sink? (Second night.)  Or cut myself and start bleeding on my khakis?  (Yes, the third night.) 

 

And besides, she had the hair-dryer.  But I improvised and was very proud of my bad self.  I have a small space heater in the bathroom, so I turned it on and let it blow hot air on my head while I brushed.  Did it work?  Damned straight!  And so was my hair.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Journeys end in lovers meeting (Twelfth Night). I’m so glad Pops is home.  I was lonely.  Now I have a warm lap to sit on and a warm body to sleep next to.  It’s too bad he had a good time.  That means he might go away again.  Purr.

 

Every week, besides the Weekly Word, I like to share a piece of fascinating and useful information with you.  Here it is.  According to Fermat’s Second to Last Theorem, it is mathematically impossible to get all of the little rings out of a can of SpaghettiOs.  No matter how much time, strength, energy and guile you apply, there will always be at least one little sucker stuck to the side of the can or dangling from the rim.  Believe it.

 

I love books and read all the time.  One morning, I was reading at McDonald’s when a woman approached me.  “Oh,” she said, “you’re at the end.  That’s always the best part.”  I don’t think the end of a book is the best part, unless you hate the book and are glad that it’s over.  The best part of a good book is the beginning.  That’s where the author grabs you and seduces you and twirls you about his finger and shows you something you’ve never seen before or never seen quite that way.  It is where you open a book, caress its pages in excitement and anticipation and read “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” or “Call me Ishmael” or “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal.”  The end of a good book is almost never the best part.  It’s where the mystery that has been tantalizing you for hundreds of pages disappears.  It’s where the characters you have grown to love or to hate or to fear or admire all say goodbye forever.  It’s where the true joy you have had for days or weeks ends.  But there’s always the next book.

 

And there’s always the next blog.  Don’t you dare miss it.  And, while you’re waiting, stay well and count those blessings. The opening lines of books I mentioned above are from A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick and the first Harry Potter book. 

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

  

 

Blog #416                                February 27, 2025

 

I got on an elevator the other day along with another man – tall, big, 40ish.  In other times, you would look at the person, smile, nod your head, maybe say an innocuous word or two.  Not anymore.  Now, you can’t even make eye contact because everyone is reading a device.  They are reading their texts or their emails or their Twitter or Limerick Oyster.  What have we become when we no longer interact with the people around us?  We have become a sad and robotic society.  Social media has made us anti-social.  Obviously, Mr. Big-Tall-40ish and I did not communicate.  His loss.  Maybe mine too.

 

But, later that day, I went to get a blood test.  I hate blood tests.  Even somebody else’s blood test!  When the young man began to take my blood, he asked me about my book.  I had a book. Is there ever a time when I’m without a book?  Is there ever a day when a mattress is not on sale?  I sat with this young man for 15 minutes after he was finished.  We talked about books and his job and his trip to the Grand Canyon.  What a pleasure.  I didn’t want to leave.  He didn’t want me to leave.  Simple, friendly, social contact.  If you’re ever down on people and need a lift, just go get your blood taken.  It’s fun.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Tomorrow Carol and I are going to sea.  No, not a three-hour tour on the Minnow with a rotund and jolly Skipper.  Not a three-year voyage on the Pequod with a wretched and maniacal Ahab.  We will be embarking instead on a three-day cruise to Key West and the Bahamas.  I am certainly relishing a chance to get away from the freezing winter in St. Louis, but I do harbor (there’s a nautical term for you) a good deal of trepidation about traveling.

 

Carol and I travel almost every year to Naples to visit friends, then to Carol’s sister in West Palm and up to my daughter in North Carolina, but it always makes me anxious when I go out of town.  And for good reason.  Once, when I was out of town, I had quadruple bypass surgery.  Another time I was in the hospital with pneumonia.  Another time I was hit with a urinary infection.  I think I have a new plan:

 

Whenever I travel I dread

Winding up in a hospital bed

I’m thinking next year

I should leave my wife here

And take all my doctors instead.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave I am! (Hamlet).  Why doesn’t he take me?  I hate being alone.  My neighbors come by and feed me and pet me, but I’m so sad.  Send him home soon.  Purr.

 

You know, everything I tell you here is the truth.  Sure, there is an obvious joke here and there, but the stories I tell you are true.  And I know you can tell they are.  There is something about the truth that makes itself understood.  I don’t have to make up funny things; much of life is funny.  You just have to listen.

 

For instance, I heard a funny thing on the TV the other day.  It was Princess Kate advising other women how to be a good mother.  We all love Princess Kate, don’t we?  She’s pretty and the kids are cute and – they’re Royalty.  Here in the Colonies, we love the English Royalty.  I mean -- Downton Abbey!  We loved Princess Di; we adored her as if she were our own Princess.  And now we adore Princess Kate.  But not satisfied with pretty little princesses from across the Pond; we try to create our own royalty.  When I was growing up, we worshipped Elvis Presley, so we called him The King.  And John Wayne – he was the Duke.  Even today, well, would you go to see a singer named Stefani Gaga?  Of course not!  But call her Lady and she’s a star.  How about Dana Latifah?  No chance.  But call her Queen and she makes the big bucks. 

 

But I digress.  I passed up the major point which was:  Princess Kate is telling us how to raise our children!  Are you kidding me?  Her children are never woebegone.  Their only trauma is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays they have to share the same palace.  Raise her children?  She doesn’t raise her children; they have nannies, maids, tutors, riding coaches, voice coaches, piano teachers and, of course, royalty coaches.  And besides, they’re grandfather is the King.  Kate is the only person in the world whose father-in-law, husband and son are all a King or in line to be a King, and she is presuming to “relate” with the common woman?  Nobody in my family is a king, although I do have a queen and a few princesses.  And I am the poor Court Jester, just a silly fool in a funny hat.

 

Weekly Word:  Woebegone means sad or miserable.

 

I finished a book the other day, and the ending made me cry.  I’m not embarrassed.  A lot of things make me cry:

 

·        The ending of Puff the Magic Dragon

·        The ending of The Miracle Worker

·        Every episode of The View.

 

Now I’m looking for a new book.  I have a bad back.  Do you have a bad back?  I hope not, but if you are vertical long enough, your back gets messy.  So I looked on Amazon for books about bad backs.  Here’s what I found:

                            

Moby Disc                                         Frankenspine

A Farewell to Backs                           Bonfire of the Vertebrae

Atlas Limped                                     Up the Down Steroids

Fifty Shades of Ouch                         The Andromeda Pain

 

Have you noticed that this is Blog #416?  Do you know what that means?  Well, to those of you who thought 2^nd Grade was the best three years of your life, let me explain:  416 blogs in 416 weeks; divide by 52 weeks in a year and you have eight years of blogging and whining and rhyming and scolding.  How could you have put up with it all?  You deserve a medal.  And I deserve a rest.  But no, your indefatigable correspondent will faithfully plod onward and be back next week.  Be there.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #414                                February 13, 2025

 

I’ve been having this cough for months now and it is made me languorous, listless and languid.  Many of you well-meaning and loyal readers have offered various diagnoses: pneumonia, long-Covid, bronchitis.  I appreciate the concern and the helpful advice, truly, but even so, I went to see Dr. Lung this week.  And you know what?  All of you were wrong.  Acid reflux!  That’s what he says.  I don’t believe him, but he seems to be a knowledgeable and very pleasant fellow, so we’ll see.  He prescribed an inhaler.  At least he’s not making me eat kale.

 

My daughter, Jennifer, eats kale.  She loves kale.  She calls it a Super-Food, and I have figured out why it’s called kale.  You know who Superman is.  Remember?  The it’s a bird it’s a plane guy?  Well, Superman’s real name on Krypton was Kal-El.  Sounds pretty much like kale, doesn’t it?  If you want a super-food, name it after Superman. 

 

Jennifer makes salads of kale and fries it in olive oil for a snack and tries to sneak it into my food.  I’m not interested.  I’m not excited about reinventing the wheel, or the salad for that matter.  Any bowl filled with something that looks like a divot is not for me.  They tried kale once before, a couple of hundred years ago during the French Revolution, and it didn’t work.  You know, of course, that Marie Antoinette actually said, “Let ‘em eat kale!”

 

The peasants were starving for bread

When Marie Antoinette rudely said,

“I hate when they wail

“Just let ‘em eat kale.”

And that’s when they chopped off her head.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death (Richard III).  In one of my previous lives, I was Meow Antoine-Cat and I said “Let ‘em eat cat-food.”  That’s when they cut off my leg.  That was supposed to be a joke, but I’m only a cat and not very funny.  Neither is Pops most of the time.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I know you watched the Super Bowl.  Here are some of my thoughts:

·        If you were an Eagles fan, you were as happy as a small flea on a big dog.

·        If you were a Chiefs fan, you were as miserable as Kamala Harris watching the returns from the battleground states.

·        If you were neither, the game was pretty much over at half-time.

·        I didn’t watch the half-time extravaganza.  I don’t know who Kendrick Lamar is.  No-one will remember Kendrick Lamar in 50 years, but I still remember the Dinah Shore Chevrolet song.

·        In recent years, Super Bowl commercials have all been We love rainbows and puppies and raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, but you never knew what they were advertising.  This year’s were better. My favorite was the Harry Met Sally scene for Hellmann’s Mayonnaise.  My second favorite was the Budweiser ad with the little Clydesdale who they said was too small to pull the wagon.  Poor little thing.  But then he saw a barrel fall off the wagon and pushed it himself all the way to where it was supposed to go.  I cried.  I actually did.  Such a pretty little horse.

 

Are you ready for Valentine’s Day?  It is because of Valentine’s Day that you are reading this.  Did I mention I have three daughters?  You know how dads are with their little girls, and when they were young, Valentine’s Day was my special thing.  Candy and sweets and cookies for my girls.  We all ignored the “They don’t need that crap” from their mother and everybody was happy.  Then they grew up and went to college and I had to mail all the sweeties to their dorms or apartments.  When my youngest was a sophomore at Indiana, my wife told me that they all had secretly begged her to make Dad stop sending them that fattening stuff every February.  So I stopped.  On February 15^th I got three phone calls.  “Where’s my candy, you disloyal old coot?  What kind of father are you?  Don’t you love me anymore?”  So I wrote a letter of apology and sent a copy to each daughter begging forgiveness.  I kind of liked writing the letter, so I wrote another the next week and now have done so every week for twenty-eight years.  Twenty-eight years – over 1,400 letters. 

 

Eight years ago, my wife suggested I turn that letter format into a blog.  I refused.  She called me stubborn.  Then she noodged, cajoled, browbeat, intimidated and thoroughly stampeded me into doing a blog and I resisted and fought and refused.  Until one morning when my granddaughter said, “C’mon, Pops, I can help you.”  And, my wife was right.  She usually is.  Sure, I write the songs and the poems.  I even wrote her college papers for her.  And yes, I get more of the Final Jeopardies than she does.  But she’s the one with the brains, if you know what I mean.  And, of course, the looks.  So there it is, the story of the blog, and here I am and there you are.  And no, I’m not sending you any candy.  I’m too busy sending stuff to my three daughters, eight grandchildren and Carol.

 

Carol consistently calls me stubborn, and I have finally determined what it is she means.  A man is “stubborn”, according to women, when he does not do exactly what his wife tells him to do:

·        Eat some kale. -- I don’t like kale. -- You’re so stubborn.

·        Read this Holocaust book. -- I don’t like Holocaust books. -- You’re so stubborn.

 

See what I mean!  It’s pretty simple – if you open your mouth and the first two words you speak are not “Yes Dear”, then you’re stubborn.

 

You remember “listless, languid and languorous” from the first paragraph?  Of course not.  How could you?  Let’s make languid our Weekly Word.  It means weak from illness or fatigue.  And that makes me want to rest, so I’ll say goodbye.  But before you go, I want you to take a deep breath and sing the Dinah Shore Chevrolet song.  C’mon, I know you want to.  Nobody’s listening.  Sing it loud.  It’ll make you feel young again.  C’mon!  No?  You won’t do that for me?  You’re so stubborn.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #413                                February 6, 2025

 

I asked you last week to find the only number that, in English, has its letters in alphabetical order.  The answer is FORTY.  To those of you who got it, good job.  To the rest, well, there are many things more important than mathematics.

 

Like being helpful.  I was heading out for Walmart the other day, and I wanted to see if there was anything my wife needed.  I found her on the phone talking to a girlfriend.  By the way, for those of you my age (somewhere between King Charles III and Methuselah), don’t use the term “girlfriend” with your granddaughters.  To a teenaged girl, “girlfriend” means a lesbian relationship.  Anyway, I quietly interrupted my wife and asked in a whisper if she needed anything.  Yes, she said, get me some triple-washed Greenleaf lettuce.  I agreed and began to leave, when I heard the lady on the phone ask Carol who she was talking to.  I stopped and waited to hear my loving wife respond, “Oh, that’s my wonderful, loyal, helpful, talented, handsome and devoted husband.”  Well, I didn’t have to wait that long, for she said nothing of the sort.  Her brief answer was, “Oh, that’s my shopper.”  Well, as John Milton almost said, “They also serve who only go and shop.”

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  And I hope my good friend is feeling well.  He just called me from a Florida hospital.  He’s having his appendix removed.  What!  He said he started getting a pain and knew it was his appendix. What!  How did you know it was your appendix?  He said everyone knows where his appendix is.  What?  I wouldn’t know my appendix from a hockey puck.

 

I know my appendix is there

With the spleen and the liver somewhere

But where they all go

Is not my job to know

That’s why we all have Medicare.

 

I guess I should find out where that sucker is.  The appendix, not my friend.

 

Message from Shakespeare: If she must teem, create her child of spleen, that it may live (King Lear).  Do I have a spleen?  Or an appendix?  They probably took those away when they cut my leg off.  Well, whatever I have left must be good enough, because Pops adopted me and takes care of me.  Purr.

 

Last week we had snow here in Missouri, and now it is raining.  Actually, it is pouring – really, really pouring.  I’m about to go out and look for two aardvarks.  I know, of course, that Carol is not going to join me.  She promised to love me in sickness and in health, but not in the rain.  It reminds me of the time we had planned a driving trip with another couple to Arkansas and Tennessee.  We had maps and reservations and everything, but the forecast said RAIN!  My wife had consulted the National Weather Service, NASA, the Pope and L. Ron Hubbard and decided that the weather in Arkansas 96 hours hence would not be propitious, so we cancelled.

 

Thank goodness my sweet wife was not on the ship with Columbus.  “Hey, Chris.  Did you know it was raining?  You better shut this ship up, Little Captain.  Nothing’s gonna get discovered today.  Uh-uh.  I’m not getting my hair wet for a bunch of Indians.  You can discover something tomorrow if the sun’s out.  And by the way, see if you can discover a Nordstrom’s.  These Jimmy Choo’s are killing me.”

 

My friend called back.  It wasn’t his appendix.  It was something else less serious.  I feel better – he doesn’t know his appendix from a hole in the ground either.

 

Carol and I belong to a club.  It’s a golf and social club, but we don’t play much golf anymore.  We do, however, still love to go there for dinner.  The staff knows us and they treat us like celebrities.  When Carol and I show up for dinner, they treat us like we were Taylor Swift – and Taylor Swift’s shopper.  Am I behaving like an oversensitive, long-haired, leaping gnome?  It just seems so subservient to be called a “shopper” – like I was just some unselfish, loyal slave whose only mission was to love, honor and obey.  Well, I guess, if the grocery bag fits, wear it.

 

It has been a very slow week so far, which has given me lots of time to think of erudite, illuminating and humorous things to write for you.  But I didn’t, so we’ll have to stick with the same old drivel.

 

My oldest grandson, Zachary lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin.  His job keeps him very, very busy.  Too busy, apparently, to call his aging grandparents.  We try to contact him, but he always responds that he can’t talk now; he’s busy.  So, imagine my glee when I received a text: POPPY, I WILL HAVE SOME TIME TO CALL YOU THIS WEEK.  That was two weeks ago.  Have you heard from him?  Me neither.  So today I sent him a text:  ZACH, I’M WORRIED ABOUT NONNIE.  SHE HAS LOST A LOT OF WEIGHT.  I ASKED HER WHY SHE’S NOT EATING.  SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T WANT HER MOUTH TO BE FULL IN CASE YOU CALLED.  I know that’s an old joke, but he probably has never heard it, because it worked.  He called and we had a great talk for 45 minutes.  He’s such a good boy!

 

Everybody has an Alexa.  That’s the little tubular machine that answers your questions and follows your orders.  “Alexa, what time is it?  Alexa, play James Taylor”.  Carol has programmed ours to give me my own personal messages:

 

·          When I open the bedroom door in the morning, it says:  Are you really going to wear that?  The mirror is to your left.

·          If I ask for the address of the nearest Dairy Queen, it says:  I’m not telling you.  Have a carrot.

·          If I say, Alexa, I’m running short on Diet Coke, it says:  You’re the shopper.  Shop!

·          If I’m finished with the blog, it says:  You forgot the Weekly Word.

 

Oops!  Our Weekly Word is propitious.  It means indicating a good chance of success; favorable.  And I’m hoping the chances of your coming back next week are propitious, so stay well and count your blessings.  I’m certainly counting mine.

 

Shopper                                   Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #412                                January 30, 2025

 

Here I am, spending another week in cold and boring St. Louis.  At the Zoo, one time, I had a couple from Denmark.  “Ah,” I said, “I have been to Copenhagen and I thought it was a truly beautiful city.”  They looked at me as if I were as crazy as Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Of course, to a tourist, Copenhagen consisted of the old, charming port area with the multi-colored houses, the classic old boats and the wonderful outdoor restaurants.  But it’s a big city and this couple probably lived in a row house by the train station and think the city is dirty and old and boring.  Perspective can be everything.  A tourist to St. Louis sees the Arch, the Old Post Office and the Zoo and they come away thinking the town is magical. 

 

Did I tell you it was cold?  Man, is it cold!  It’s colder than a witch’s tin whistle.  It’s colder than my Neptune or Uranus.  It’s colder than a stethoscope.  But wait, what did I just see?  It’s sunny!  O, joy!  Whoopee!  No, I’m wrong.  It’s not getting warmer.  Carol just turned on The View.  How can women with such happy names like Sunny and Joy and Whoopi be so angry and aggravated?

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re not angry and aggravated.  I’m not.  I’m so happy, I’m ready to tell you a joke.  Our friends, the Goldmans, just hired a housekeeper from Sweden named Inga.  Last week, Mrs. Goldman told Inga to set the table for four because the Schwartzes were coming for dinner.  When Mrs. Goldman returned later that afternoon, she noticed the table was set for eight people.  “Inga, I told you the Schwartzes were coming and to set the table for four.”  Ya, Miss, Inga replied, but Mrs. Schwartz called and said they were bringing the Blintzes and the Knishes.”

 

I do Wordle every morning.  It’s part of my morning routine, and the morning after I wrote the paragraph about Sunny, Whoopi and Joy, the Wordle was SUNNY. That’s pretty spooky.

 

And speaking of spooky, my cough just won’t go away.  The doctors can’t figure out what it is, so I went to the most revered resource of knowledge available.  No, not the Internet; I’m talking about the Yenta-Net, specifically the YNUD, the Yenta Network of Untrained Doctors, which consists of my wife and all her friends who think they know everything.  Their consensus diagnosis is that I have Long Covid.  I looked it up.  It cannot be diagnosed, has a list of symptoms that everyone in the world has, and cannot be cured.  That’s just great.  Can you imagine hearing that from a real doctor?

 

You’ve got a condition, I hear

It must be Long Covid, I fear

I don’t know for sure

And I don’t have a cure

So suffer and call me next year.

 

Maybe it will go away by the end of Award Season.  Are you enjoying Award Season?  The Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice, Grammy, Tony, SAG, Oscars.  I don’t know 90% of the nominees anymore.  I mean who is Mikey Madison?  Is that a person or a Musketeer?  My wife and her friends watch every award show, mostly just to see the ubiquitous Red Carpet.  Who are you wearing?  What kind of question is that?  Actually, Joan Rivers introduced the phrase in 1994.  But tell me this -- why is it that all the guy interviewers on the Red Carpet are 5’3” and all the girl interviewers are 6’3”?  Once I saw Ryan Seacrest interviewing Charlize Theron; it looked like a squirrel trying to climb a giraffe.

 

Carol and I don’t always see eye to eye.  That’s because I am 5’10” and she is her little 5’3”.  Ok, I lied -- I may no longer be 5’10”.  I’m getting shorter it seems.  I don’t feel it; I don’t see it, but the nurse tells me I’m shorter every time I have a physical.  I always thought my grandchildren were getting taller, but now I realize it was me getting shorter.  It’s inevitable, I suppose.  I can just picture the future as I continue my vertical vanishing act and go from Munchkin-sized to Hobbit-sized until, eventually, I will qualify as a Happy Meal toy.  Or an interviewer on the Red Carpet.  Charlize, would you like fries with that?

 

We need an award show for old people, but all the good names are taken.  The Grammys would have been an apt name or, at our age, SAG is reasonably descriptive.  Maybe we’ll just call it the Oldies.  We could get Dick Clark to host it.  He must still be alive somewhere.  Oh, he’s dead?  Perfect!  They could give awards for the Oldest Tie or the Most Organized Pill Carrier or the Longest Number of Days Without Losing Your Reading Glasses.  And “who” would all these famous oldies be wearing?  Probably Donna Medi-Karan or Oscar de la Yenta.  I don’t know who I’ll be wearing, maybe Jewish Dior, but I know who I’ll be eating – Colonel Sanders.  And I know what movies I’ll be rooting for – No Closet for Old Men and the unforgettable I Remember Whatshername.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them (Hamlet).  I could be an actor and win an award.  I could be in Slum-Cat Millionaire and A Few Good Cats and, my favorite, Shakespeare in Love.  Purr.

 

Don’t forget that Sunday is Groundhog Day.  The only time my sweet little groundhog exits her burrow is for her monthly pilgrimage known as Senior Day at Walgreen’s.  And I assure you that no snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night would have stayed my little Princess from her appointed discount.  Did I call you a groundhog, Honey?  No, I didn’t call you a groundhog.  I did?  Oy, am I in trouble!  Can a husband be impeached?

 

I’d better go.  It’s time for a hiatus.  That, our Weekly Word, is a pause or gap in a sequence or process.  Stay well, count your blessings and don’t trip over any groundhogs.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Here’s a puzzle for you while you’re waiting for next Thursday to arrive.  What one number, when spelled out in English, has its letters in alphabetical order?  Answer next week.

 

 Blog #411                                January 23, 2025

 

My wife makes chop suey.  It’s delicious; pieces of chicken breast, brown rice, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, Chinese noodles, bean molasses, some other stuff.  Yummy!  She made it last week for dinner, and there was enough for two nights.  On another night, Carol went out with the “goils” and I picked up some orange chicken at Panda Express.  More Chinese food.  On Friday, we celebrated my granddaughter’s 17^th birthday at her favorite sushi restaurant.  Then on Saturday, we went with friends to a popular Chinese restaurant called Yen Ching.  Chinese food every night, six nights in a row.  I felt like doing laundry.

 

Now that was a tasteless, hackneyed and racist joke, but it’s going to lead me into a story.  Do you remember, growing up, all the stereotypical allusions we learned?  The Chinese ran laundries, the Irish were drunk, the Scottish were stingy, the Polish were stupid.  And the Jews?

 

From 1968-1970, I taught high school math at Kinloch High School.  Kinloch was a small, very poor, all black community in northern St. Louis County.  I had been hired in June over the phone with no personal interview.  They needed a math teacher; I needed a job.  When I showed up for orientation in August, the principal looked at me like I was a three-toed sloth.  “You’re White,” she said.  “Yes, Ma’am,” I replied.  I even remember her name – Lucie T. Balou.  I was the only White person, student or staff, in the building, but that was fine.  Several of the teachers were young black men and we would hang out at lunch or after classes.   I didn’t hide that I was Jewish, of course, and it came up one afternoon.  One of the young teachers asked, “Why is it that all you Jews like money so much?”  I looked him straight in the eye and replied, “We don’t like it any more than you do.  We’re just smart enough to get it.”  He smiled; I smiled.  So much for stereotypes.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and I hope you realize how much I appreciate your coming back here each week to hear my stories.  Did you watch the inauguration?  And the rally afterwards?  We’ve gone from a President who can’t talk to one who can’t stop!

 

I hope you’re in a warm spot.  It is very cold here in St. Louis.  The ground is covered with snow and the streets are still dangerous.  But I needed to do an errand.  Carol told me not to go but I went anyway.  Neither wind nor rain – well, you know the drill – and off I went.  I drove carefully, assiduously and with unerring attention to the sparse traffic and the blustery conditions, and I arrived unscathed – at the wrong place.  Well, you didn’t expect me to drive safely and accurately at the same time, did you?  Neither did Carol. 

 

And, by the way, hackneyed, our Weekly Word, means something that is not fresh or original.

 

I was recently talking with a friend of mine, a widower, and he was telling me that he was engaged in making a list of all the attributes he was looking for in a woman to be his companion.  It seemed to me, I told him, that a list is an interesting mental exercise, but you never know when there will be a connection, and if the sparks fly, screw the list.  But what do I know; I’ve fallen in love only once.  Even so, I thought it would be fun to try making a list of all the qualities I want in a woman, and it took me a while.

 

The time that I spent was a lot

To list what I want and do not

And the list made me see

That the best girl for me

Was the one that I’ve already got.

 

I am truly a lucky guy.  And, of course, that’s the story of the Piña Colada song where the guy puts out an ad for someone who likes everything he likes -- piña coladas, getting caught in the rain, etc. – and who shows up?  His own lovely lady.

 

One thing for sure, though, is that if a woman ends a sentence with a preposition, she is not someone I want to spend my life with.  But I would like a closet.  Why can’t men have closets?  We knew a couple who lived in Phoenix in a grand and gargantuan house on top of a mountain.  The wife had a closet complex the size of Delaware.  She actually had one closet just for her Judith Leiber bags.  If you don’t know what a Judith Leiber bag is, just imagine a purse with the price-tag of a Tesla and the size of an English muffin.  I asked the husband to show me his closet.  He led me into his study and pointed to a corner where there was an open suitcase and a large cardboard box that used to hold Charmin.  The girl’s name, I remember, was Jill.  I don’t remember his name, but then why should I remember the name of a man who doesn’t even have a closet?

 

You see, in my world, the world I signed onto when I said “love, honor and obey,” husbands sometimes get treated like an unmatched sock.  It’s the truth!  Even Joe Biden didn’t get a closet.  That’s why he had to hide all those classified documents in the garage.  We husbands need a better lobby, and I don’t mean like in a hotel.  Nobody fights for our rights.  I’m hoping President Trump will fight for us.  If Melania lets him.

 

Message from Shakespeare:   Robes and furred gowns hide all (King Lear).  Pops does have a closet.  It’s a little one in our room, which he calls the study.  The closet is big enough for me, and I like to sleep on the top shelf curled up with one of his sweatshirts.  Purr.

 

Alright, I’m leaving you now.  An unknown author said, never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it.  But I’m only leaving you for a while.  Stay well, stay warm, count your blessings and don’t go too far, because I’ll be back in a week.  See you then.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com