Blog #423                      April 17, 2025

 

One night this week, my wife went out to dinner with “the girls”.  It was Happy Hour at the gas station or something.  For a bunch of old women who can barely tolerate half a glass of wine, they sure don’t miss a Happy Hour.  Which makes me think of cemeteries.  You probably have figured out by now that I have a warped and unpredictable thought process.  Some people have a train of thought; I have a train wreck.  Anyway, it occurs to me that most people really don’t want to trudge out in the weather to visit an old grave in a depressing cemetery.  I sure don’t.  So here’s the light bulb!  Let’s bury our loved ones indoors, in a big warehouse, and then turn it into a bar.  Every night we could have a special memorial time called Sad Hour where we pay respects to Grandma and eat half-priced calamari at the same time.  Hey, that’s where I want to be when I’m gone.  At least I know my widow will be thinking of me over a chilled Chardonnay and a fried artichoke.  “C’mon, girls, I need a drink; let’s go visit what’s his name.”   And though she may not be lachrymose, at least she could drink a toast to my memory while laying shrimp tails and mussel shells on my nameplate.  We’ll call the place “Shots & Plots” or “Tears with Beers” or something goofy like that.  I told you I was warped.

 

But at least I’m on time.  “Punctuality is the politeness of kings,” said Louis XVIII, and here I am just like every Thursday morning.  Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well. Tomorrow is Good Friday and then, of course, comes Easter Sunday.  So may all my Christian friends and readers have a joyous Easter celebration.  And Good Friday?  Well, while you followers of Jesus are religiously busy on Good Friday, we Jews are shopping.

 

While Catholics all worship together

We’re buying some jeans and a sweater

They pray like they should

So their Friday is Good

We shop, so our Friday is Better.

 

Last week, as you know, Carol and I celebrated Passover.  Part of our celebration was watching the movie Fiddler on the Roof.  Yes, I know that the appropriate movie to watch on Passover is The Ten Commandments with Charleton Heston, but Fiddler has better music.  Maybe they should remake The Ten Commandments as a musical.  I already have some song suggestions:

 

·        Pharoah’s opening number:

See the Pyramids Along the Nile

Having Lots of Slaves Just Makes Me Smile

You’re Not Leaving for a Long, Long While

Jews Belong to Me.

·        Then the plagues, and Pharoah sings I’ve Got the Boils in the Morning and the Frogs at Night.

·        And the crossing of the Red Sea, where Moses sings Any Sea You Can Cross, I Can Cross Better.

·        Safely on the other side, all the people praise Moses with Matzo, Matzo Man

·        And once to the Promised Land, the whole cast sings The Days of Wine and Moses.

Let’s see, Donald Trump could play Pharoah and Sterling K. Brown could be Moses.  What, I hear you cry, a black man as Moses?  Well, that seems to be the thing nowadays.  In every production of Hamilton, black men play the parts of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, and that seems to be ok.  I can’t really understand it, because I’m pretty sure that if they did a remake of Porgy and Bess with Hugh Jackman as Porgy and Nicole Kidman as Bess, they’d burn the theater down.  Ok, if there’s anyone still left that I haven’t offended, let’s move on. 

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I’ll so offend, to make offense a skill (Hamlet).  I’m still here, Pops.  I don’t think you’re offensive.  It’s just that sometimes, you’re just not funny.  And why can’t I be in a show on Broadway?  I could be in The Lion King or Cats.  Or Pops and I together could be in Beauty and the Beast.  I, of course, would be the Beauty.  Purr.

 

If you still remember the first paragraph, I used the word lachrymose, which is our Weekly Word.  It means tearful or weepy.  And I was lachrymose myself the other day.  I was with my seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Charley.  She is all grown up and very glamorous, and she was putting on some lipstick when she looked up, struck a pose and said, “I’m just like Nonnie.”  That’s my wife, of course.   I told her, “You’re a very lucky little girl if you’re just like Nonnie.”  And she replied, “That’s because I get to marry someone like you.”  It was all I could do to keep from collapsing into a puddle.

 

I try every week to make this blog fit into three pages.  Remember pages?  We used to have pages to measure the size of a book or an article or a spectacularly clever and humorous blog.  Most likely you are reading this on your smart-phone or iPad.  You start at the top and, if you have the stomach for it, read to the end.  There are no pages.  My wife reads books on her iPad, and when I ask her what page she is on, she replies, “I’m 30% through.”  Now I suppose that’s informative, but it sounds so – modern.  It’s like something my grandchildren would say: “Oh, Poppy, you silly old man, there are no pages anymore.”  And yet, every week I look at my blank computer screen and realize that I have to fill up three pages, about 1066 words, with something that will entertain you.  And boy, are you tough!  When I’m finished and have posted the blog, I print out those three little pages and stack them with the previous installments.  Silly?  Old fashioned?  Retro?  Guilty!  But when Kim Jong Whatever hacks into our internet and fries all our computers as crispy as the special at KFC, there I’ll be – with all my pages.  So if your computer starts smoking and smelling like Kimchi, just come over to my house and I’ll read to you right from the beginning.

 

And that’s it.  I hope you enjoyed my three pages.  Come back next week or just come over to the house for my post-apocalyptic reading.  Either way, stay well and count your blessings. 

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com