Blog #429                                May 29, 2025

 

Ahoy there, and welcome back! This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific Ocean. And this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them to address them to Hell!

 

I have just finished my seventh voyage aboard the Pequod.  Moby Dick has prevailed, Ahab is vanquished, the Pequod is no more.  Please, don’t ever read the book.  It’s a strange compilation of recondite whaling minutia and raving madness that would interest only a very strange person.  I, of course, am eminently qualified.  Plus, I’ve already ruined the ending for you.  People who like the Grateful Dead are called Dead Heads.  I wonder what they call people who like Moby Dick. 

 

Let’s have some fun, shall we?  A quiz!  Do not attempt this quiz unless you are old enough to remember when there was only one kind of Oreos and Pluto was a planet.  What’s with that anyway?  You can’t just eliminate a planet because you have a degree in Astronomy.  Nobody can just pop up and tell me that Pluto’s not a planet!  Or that Elvis is dead!  Or that Goofy was a dog!  If Goofy was a dog, what was Pluto?  Don’t you dare say “a planet”.

 

 Ok, the quiz -- here are some lines from oldies but goodies; name the song:

 

1.     Drove my Chevy to the levee

2.     I made it with a red-haired girl in a Chevrolet

3.     Someone stole my bran new Chevrolet

4.     Got an old, gold Chevy and a place of my own

5.     I took her for granted – I was so Cavalier

6.     He’s trading in his Chevy for a Cadillac

 

I’ll give you some time to think about it.  I hope you’re feeling well today.  St. Louis suffered a devastating tornado last week.  The damage even affected the Zoo, which had to close for a couple of days.  We missed the event, as you know, because we were vacationing on Bald Head Island with my three daughters.  What a wonderful trip – my favorite island with my favorite people and my favorite book.  I even managed to send last week’s blog from there.

 

On Thursday I sent my blog post

From an island just off the East Coast

Where we had perfect weather

For a whole week together

With the people that I love the most.

Recently I got a deal from eBay.  If I listed something for sale and sold it for more than $25 by a certain date, they would give me a $50 PayPal gift certificate.  So I did and I got the certificate.  It expired in only a few days, and I began to ponder about what to buy.  I mean, it’s the World of eBay!  Every possible item made or conceived or saved or dug up by the human race since the dawn of civilization is on eBay.  I have my choice from vast and unlimited selections of electronics, art, fashion, household items, sporting goods, vacations, automotive, luxury items, jewelry, collectibles, investments, nostalgia, antiques, futuristic, leisure.  Twinkies, false teeth, rubber bands, ANYTHING!  So what did Mr. Exciting decide to buy from this unbounded emporium of riches, this galactic cornucopia of wonders, this magnificent market of multifarious marvels?  I bought a year’s supply of fiber pills.  It is a sad and curious life, isn’t it?  Fiber pills. 

Message from Shakespeare:  A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop (Henry V).  I wonder if I could buy an artificial leg on eBay.  Even Ahab in that stupid book had an artificial leg.  Maybe I could find it on that new ap for cats.  It’s called MewTube.  Or maybe I could buy Pops a new book.  I’m only six years old, and I’ve had to sniff through that book twice already.  Purr.

 

I chose multifarious to be our Weekly Word.  It means having great variety, diverse.  And as long as I am in a professorial mood, I’m going to teach you about cousins.  Are you ready?  If you have the same parents, you are siblings.  If you have the same grandparents, you are first cousins.  (Go on, pick a cousin, work it out.)  If you have the same great-grandparents, you are second cousins, and so on.  If your first cousin is Joe, then Joe’s daughter is your first cousin, once removed because she is one generation away from your first cousin.  Her kid would be your first cousin, twice removed.  Are you ready to blow your brains out yet?  Are you ready to blow my brains out?  I’d better stop.  Back to the Chevy Quiz:

 

Answers:

1.     American Pie – Don McLean

2.     Keepin’ the Faith – Billy Joel

3.     Neutron Dance - Pointer Sisters

4.     Crocodile Rock – Elton John

5.     She’s Out of My Life – Michael Jackson

6.     I’m Movin’ Out – Billy Joel

 

How’d you do?  I know -- it was on the tip of your tongue.  I have so many things on the tip of my tongue, it’s more crowded than a Taylor Swift concert.  I would let you send in your answers and then announce a winner, but winning is evil.  Didn’t you know that?  Participation is everything.  Winning is colonial, it’s master vs. slave, it’s supremacy, it’s not to be allowed.  Well, I don’t agree.  Winning is fun and a reward for hard work and preparation.  And losing is a good lesson.  It’s even ok to be pissed if you lose.  Vince Lombardi once said, “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.”

 

It’s almost golf season for me.  I don’t play much golf.  I’m pretty bad, but sometimes I hit a few good shots.  The last time I played, I hit three good shots.  But they were all on the same hole and I got a birdie.  I guess it’s better to clump all your great things together instead of stringing them out.  If a baseball player hit five home runs in a year, nobody would care.  If he hit them all on the same day, he would be in the record-book forever.  If a guy wrote one funny thing every month, no big deal.  If he wrote dozens of funny things all at once – it would be Limerick Oyster.  Don’t miss it next week.  Until then, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #428                                May 22, 2025

 

I have a question to ask you.  Have you ever spent a night in a hospital?  There’s not much worse, I think, than a night in the hospital when you’re sick and alone.  When your only companions are things that beep.  When your night nurse has the brains of a house slipper. When the simple act of going to the bathroom requires as much engineering as the digging of the Panama Canal.  When you are wrapped in mankind’s most annoying invention – the hospital gown.  And when you may or may not have a fever.

 

My wife, my daughters and I are in North Carolina now on our Island Vacation, and I’m always a bit nervous in North Carolina, for it is in that lovely state that I have three times had extended hospital visits.  The last time was for pneumonia.  The nurses would come to take my temp several times a day.  It was always 37 or 39.  Now I knew that was in Centigrade, but I wondered why.  Was I in France, Guatemala, Abu Dhabi?  No, I was in the USA, where the meteorologists tell us the forecast in Fahrenheit.  Where every recipe, every oven, every toaster contraption is calibrated in Fahrenheit.  Where water freezes at 32 and boils at 212.  So why is my nurse trying to confuse me?  If the medical community wants to conduct their affairs in the Wonderful World of Metric, great.  I don’t care.  But I would like to know what my temperature is.  Being a math nerd, I knew the conversion, but what if I didn’t or if I made a mistake?  When she told me my temperature was 39, I did the calculation and got 103.  I’m dying!  But just to make sure, I asked feverishly and politely, “What’s that in Fahrenheit?”  She didn’t know.  I asked the other nurse.  She didn’t know either.  I was too sick to yell, but really – is that nuts?  Either train the nurse or put a chart on the wall.  This isn’t the Peace Corps; it’s North Carolina.  Tell me what my temperature is!  One night they told me my weight was 75.  Now that I didn’t mind.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  We are feeling sunny and sandy and achy here on Bald Head Island.  We have been eating and wassailing, playing pickleball and taking the dogs to the beach and asking a bunch of silly questions, the kind of pointless wastes of cranial energy we call Carol Questions.  Like -- “Would you rather be an ugly tall-person or a beautiful midget?”  That one kept me up at night.  Another was, “What famous couple do you and your partner most resemble?”

 

What famous couple do Carol and I resemble?  Let’s see.  George and Gracie?  I hate cigars.  Lucy and Desi?  My wife doesn’t have red hair.  Bill and Hillary?  Carol would never be caught in a pants suit.  Taylor and Travis?  Who am I kidding?  I finally decided we most resemble Rocky and Bullwinkle.  Carol would be Rocky of course.  Rocky was small and fast and smart and made all the decisions.  Bullwinkle was loyal and steady and goofy, always getting it wrong, always getting in trouble, always getting lost.  What does a moose eat?

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Fools are as like husbands (Twelfth Night). What about Shakespeare and Bullwinkle?  I agree he’s goofy and lost, but he’s such a good Pops, and we make a great couple.  I’ll give him a big schnoogle when he gets back.  Purr.

 

Our Weekly Word today is wassailing.  To wassail is to drink lots of alcohol and have fun.  Try it!  I don’t drink, of course, not even a beer at a baseball game.

 

And speaking of baseball.  Were we speaking of baseball?  Well, we are now.  I’m a Cardinals fan.  The St. Louis Cardinals, not the Vatican Cardinals, although they might have a baseball team too.  After all, Pope Leo XIV is a White Sox fan. Who knows?  Wouldn’t it be fun to have the two teams play each other?  The Pope, could throw out the first pitch, bless the umpires and sell Pope-Corn and indulgences in the stands.  I think the Pontifical Cardinals would be pretty certain of victory:

 

The St. Louis Cardinals? Who cares!

They sin and they make lots of errors.

They don’t have a hope

Cause we play for the Pope:

Lots of hits, lots of runs, lots of prayers.

 

That was a tough limerick.  Sometimes, when I’m writing and looking for the right word or phrase, I get up and begin to pace forth and back.  It’s impossible, of course, to pace back and forth.  To go back, you must already have left the place you are going back to.  And that act of leaving is what is called going forth.  So, you have to go forth first.  In a similar vein, no-one can jump up and down.  Once you jump up, you cannot jump down – you can only fall down.  So people, when excited, are actually jumping up and falling down.  Or running forth and back.  Got it?

 

Ok, this is the time for my apologia.  I used the word “midget” before.  Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I just don’t have the energy to keep up with all the political correctness in the universe.  By now you know I bear no ill will to any human or beast (other than nurses who can’t change Centigrade to Fahrenheit).  I would have said “man or beast” just now but then I would be in trouble for that.  It’s too much for one poor old moose to remember.  Hate me, if you must.

 

And speaking of this poor old moose’s ability to remember, I do not remember where I ate dinner last Saturday night.  I certainly cannot remember what I ordered or what I was wearing.  I can only sometimes remember where I parked.  But ask me the words to any song by The Coasters, The Four Tops or The Beatles – I’m all over it.  Why is that?  “Take out the papers and the trash or you don’t get no spending cash.”  Go on, finish it.  I’ll wait.  Oops, I forgot, it’s time to end for this week.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back next week.  Or forth.

 

Bullwinkle J. Moose       Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #426                                May 8, 2025

 

“Ahab, my captain still moves before me in all his Nantucket grimness.”  Yes, I’m still reading Moby Dick, but I won’t talk about it anymore.  Actually, I’m reading a newer edition.  My older copy, through overuse over the span of the last half-century, has ceased to be considered bound. 

 

We all love to eat.  We all love to go to fancy restaurants and try new things.  I’ve had ostrich (tastes like chicken), wart-hog (tastes like pork), kangaroo (tastes like chicken).  I wonder what an Australian would say the first time he tried chicken.  “Tastes like kangaroo,” I suppose.  In each of those forays into adventuresome eating, however, I knew what I was getting.  But in some of these chichi joints, I haven’t a clue.  A few weeks ago, we went to a new place.  It was beautiful; the food was colorful and architecturally impressive, built into little hills and balls.  And then I looked at the menu and found this:

 

Cassoulet in choux pastry glazed in a cumin and mint ratatouille and topped with a chiffonade of brussels sprouts, arugula and kale.

 

Did you know there is no such thing as arugula?  Arugula is actually the sound someone makes when trying to swallow a brussels sprout.  Back to the cassoulet:  I had no idea what this stuff was and I was not about to order a wart-hog in a poke.  Restaurant people, listen up.  Tell me what I’m getting – in some form of English I can understand.  I don’t really care if the food is parboiled, blanched or bruised; just tell me what it is.  Truthfully, some of the food at these places is exotic to read and sumptuous to look at.  But eat?  Arugula!

 

This fancy new restaurant was neat

I sat in a comfortable seat

I admired the venue

Then read the whole menu

And couldn’t find one thing to eat.

 

Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you are well.  Did you know that May is National Older Americans Month?  I think most of them forgot. 

 

And speaking of forgetting, the other day I was looking through some old pictures.  Remember pictures?  We used to take pictures of our families standing in front of the World’s Biggest Ketchup Bottle or just being cute on the couch.  I have travelled with picture-crazy people who insist on having a waiter take a picture of the four of us at every restaurant.  We used to have these pictures “developed”; then we’d put them in a scrapbook or throw them in a basket.  Now everybody keeps their pictures on their phones and printed pictures are as rare as birds on Guam.  Did you know there were no birds on the island of Guam?  The snakes have eaten them all.  Am I not just a bottomless cornucopia of useless what-nots? 

 

Anyway, I still have my basket of old pics.  You should go look through your old pictures some time.  I bet I can predict exactly what you’ll say when you look at yourself ten or twenty or thirty years ago.  All you women will say, “OMG – look at my hair!”  And all you men will say, “I still have that shirt.”

 

One of those old pictures shows me wearing a big medal around my neck.  It was some fake, touristy thing.  I don’t have any real medals.  Come to think of it, though, why not?  Don’t I deserve one for 57 years of devoted service?  The Supreme Order of the Husband!  It should be beige (for insignificance) with the Latin words “votum est mandatum meum” (“your wish is my command”) emblazoned across the bottom and the semblance of a closet door with a big X over it.  A few weeks ago, my granddaughter Charley was over and she wanted something.  I said it’s in my closet.  She said, “You have a closet?”  She’s learning fast.  I’d be satisfied with just a plain medal that said, “They also serve who only stand and tinkle.”  The medals, I mean. 

 

I was with a friend the other night who was showing off his Artificial Intelligence prowess by displaying pictures of his grandkids that his phone’s AI had transformed into superheroes.  He told me to text him a picture of Shakespeare, my cat.  I did, and in a matter of seconds, he displayed Shakespeare wearing a cape and a mask.  Super Cat.  I liked the look.  Maybe I’ll give Shakey a new sobriquet.  I’ll call him Clark Cat.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been (Much Ado About Nothing).  Of course I’m a Super Cat.  I’m super cute and super soft and super lovable.  And Pops is super dumb if he says anything different.  Purr.

 

Sobriquet, our Weekly Word by the way, means a nickname.  Simple as that.  While looking that up, I found another word starting with S-O.  It was sologamy.  Now, I’ve heard of that word.  Sologamy (rhymes with monogamy) is actually a new trend.  Sologamy is the practice of choosing yourself as a spouse.  I am very pleased and totally proud to say I don’t get it.  All I know is that if I had told my mother I was getting married to myself, she would have said, “That’s nice, Dear.  At least you’re marrying someone Jewish.”  What kind of gift do you give at a sologamous wedding?  A mirror?  Batteries?

 

Next week, Carol and I and my daughter Abby are driving to North Carolina with Abby’s dog.  Chilula is a sweet hybrid puppy.  You know, money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make her wag her tail.  She is a mixture of basset, boxer, probably some poodle.  Everything has some poodle nowadays.  Labradoodle, Goldendoodle, everything has a doodle.  I think in the future, dogs will be named for the religions of their owners.  There will be Methodoodles, Buddhadoodles, Hindoodles, Muslimdoodles and even Jewdledoodles.  See, that’s what you get when you give a keyboard to an old man with a disturbed mind.  Sorry.

 

And that’s enough for one week.  I don’t want you to hurt yourself laughing so hard.  Don’t forget Sunday is Mother’s Day.  So a very happy and healthy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there and to anybody who has ever had a mother.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you in a week.

 

Michaeldoodle                         Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #425                                May 1, 2025

 

Oh!  Sweet friends, hearken to me.  As a child seeks its mother, as a river seeks the sea, as the swallows by design return ever to Capistrano, as the rosebud yearns for the sunshine, as the night follows the day, as the moth is inexorably drawn to the flame; so it is that I am drawn once again to Melville and to Moby Dick.  Carol says it is a waste of my time to read it for the seventh time when there are so many other books to read.  But do we not listen to the same familiar music because it soothes or stimulates; view the same movie because it frightens or amuses; visit the same places for their beauty or the same people for the comfort they give?  Thus it is with the wanderings of the Pequod.  They bring me the warmth and the beauty of the English language; they sooth and invigorate my soul.

 

Ok, enough of this flowery bullshit.  I like the book!  Call me silly. Call me Pisher.  Or, better yet, call me Ishmael.  It has been my habit, the last few decades, to read Moby every five years, but now for the first time, I am wondering whether this will be my last voyage.  Will I be around to read Moby Dick when I’m 84 or 89 or 94?  Well, I won’t let it worry me.  I’ll just continue to read my 30-plus books a year, adding to the accumulated knowledge in my brain, all of which will dissolve when I die.  More’s the pity.  And besides, even seven trips aboard the Pequod puts me in an elite company.  It might even be, perhaps, that I have read the book more than any other person.  I doubt it though.  Somewhere, in a gray and dusty attic, surrounded by spider webs and petrified mouse droppings, sits a wizened and wrinkled old fool with a magnifying glass, reading Moby Dick for the eighth time.  Gee, I sure would like to get there some day.

 

But I’m already 79.  I would be 84 the next time I read it and 89 the next.  I’d better stay healthy.  As a matter of fact, I had my annual physical this week with Dr. Doctor and everything looked pretty good.

 

My vitals are right on the stick

There’s no reason I should be sick

My heart is still strong

And my life should be long

Long enough to re-read Moby Dick.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are well and enjoying your Spring.  Around here, Spring is road construction time, and the roads are full of trucks, tractors, barriers, detours and orange cones.  I haven’t seen that many cones since the High Holidays.  But, as I told you last week, you must relax, be patient and follow the detours without complaint.  I usually roll down my window and thank the workers who are directing traffic.

 

Roll down my window was an interesting phrase.  I don’t think any of us has “rolled” down a window in 40 years.  Or “dialed” a number.

 

Have you guessed what our Weekly Word is?  It’s wizened, which means shriveled and wrinkled with age.  Of course, that doesn’t apply to any of us, because you look marvelous!  Thank you, Billy Crystal.

 

Here’s a strange question for you – do you look like your name?  I mean, if your name is Sally, do you really look and act like a Sally?  Or if your name is Pete, do you look and act like a Pete?  Or, if your name is Dick – well, never mind.  This all came up the other night when my wife was talking about someone named Heather and commented, “She doesn’t look like a Heather.”  Well, maybe, thought I, we shouldn’t give names to people until we can see how they turn out.  My wife could have been Brin #2 until she was 13 or 14 when someone would determine she looked like a Carol.  Actually, that method is used for assigning nicknames.  When a child becomes distinguished for some look or size or activity, he or she becomes:

 

·        Red Skelton  (you all know him)

·        Fats Domino  (I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill)

·        Too Tall Jones  (defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys)

·        Stubby Kaye  (sit down, you’re rockin’ the boat)

·        Snake Plissken  (Escape from New York)

·        Refrigerator Perry  (da Bears)

 

I think I look like a Michael.  Or maybe an Ishmael.

 

Message from Shakespeare: What’s in a name? (Romeo and Juliet.  I like my name, but I don’t look like Shakespeare.  I look like Ahab, the crazy captain in that silly book Pops always reads.  He was missing a leg, just like me.  But you can still call me Shakey.  Purr.

 

I saw some talking heads today pontificating about playing games with your young kids, and the conclusion was that, after the age of 4, it’s bad for the kids if you let them win at Crazy 8s or ping pong.  Where do they get these people?  And what right do they have to tell us how to raise our kids? These are the same pompous busybodies who for years have been telling us that there shouldn’t be any winners or losers in children’s sports.  That no-one should keep score.  That everyone should get a trophy.  Now these same bobbleheads are telling us to beat the crap out of our five-year-olds at ping pong.  Did they go to college to learn this preposterous drivel?  How is a child ever going to get interested in anything if he fails every time he tries?  “Oh, Honey, you really tried hard even though I beat you 21-0 for the 19^th time today. Wanna play again?”  What monumental idiocy!  Of course I let my girls win at cards, at ping pong, at baseball. They were five or six or seven.  Do you think they would have been anxious to play again if every time they played, their old Dad would beat their butts and chuckle?

 

And now that I’m old and can’t beat them at anything, do you think they’d let me win at pickleball or a card game?  Never.  But that’s ok, you let me win every week by reading my silly thoughts.  Don’t stop.  We’ll do it again next week.  See you then.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Ishmael                           Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com