Blog #458                                December 18, 2025

 

I have not seen a Marmatod in fourteen-hundred years.

A Marmatod is like an ox with feathers in its ears,

But somehow still it hears.

 

Well, it’s not really like an ox because it has four eyes,

A dozen antlers, sixteen legs, two flippers and it flies.

At least it really tries.

 

I think that I remember what a Marmatod has got,

But it’s been fourteen-hundred years and that is quite a lot,

So maybe I forgot.

 

That is probably my favorite poem.  It’s whimsical and silly and all the things that I’m not, at least on the surface.  On the surface I’m logical and organized and practical and reserved and dull.  But underneath, somewhere, is a Marmatod, writing poetry and trying to get the feathers out of his ears and looking for someone to play with.

 

Hi there.  Wanna play?  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying the Christmas music.  Yes, radio stations everywhere are playing Christmas songs non-stop.  We all love Christmas songs, but sometimes I just get overloaded with them.  I mean, how much Burl Ives can one person take?   I think we need some Christmas songs for old people.  You knew that was coming, didn’t you?  How about Grandma Got Run Over by a Wheelchair or All I Want for Christman Is Some New False Teeth.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Give thanks for what you are today (Twelfth Night).    I like Christmas music too.  I’m Dreaming of a Cat Christmas.  Santa Paws Is Coming to Town.  Litter Drummer Boy.  Pops bought me a present, some little thing that shakes and rolls around on the floor.  I don’t like it.  My best present is just to have my Pops to take care of me.  Purr.

 

I hope you all are enjoying the December holiday atmosphere?   Are you out shopping?  My wife loves to shop.  I mean she loves to shop, and when she’s really on a roll, you couldn’t pry her away from the stores with Shaquille O’Neal’s shoehorn.  Now, Carol does everything fast.  She plays cards fast, cooks fast, cleans fast, walks fast.  We even have a special nickname for her -- The Princess of Lickety Split.  I think I have it figured out why she does everything fast.  It’s to make more time for her favorite thing. 

 

She’s moving at light speed non-stop

Her pace – well it makes my jaw drop

I found out at last

Why she does things so fast:

It leaves her with more time to shop.

 

It’s nearing the end of the year, and I have a whole gallimaufry of unused thoughts that I need to express before their use-by dates – things like toilets, llamas, famous Jews and cabbages and kings.  But first, I have to tell you what our Weekly Word, gallimaufry, means.  A gallimaufry is an unorganized collection of various things, like a hodge-podge.  I bet you didn’t know that one.

 

Let’s start with the public toilets, by which I mean toilets in restaurants or Walmart or the airport.  FIRST: What happened to flushing?  Is that one of those jobs that “Americans won’t do”?  Was it such a complicated process that we had to turn it over to an intricate and expensive droid?  I want to flush when I’m finished, not when R2P2 has decided I am far enough away?  SECOND:  I want some soap and water.  What happened to faucets?  They’re gone.  Instead, I have to wave my hands under a spout and wait for water to come out.  It doesn’t work the first time – or the second.  Sometimes, I have to conduct the entire 1812 Overture before a brief gush of water comes out.  THIRD:  What happened to towels?  I want a towel, not hot air.  I get enough hot air listening to talk radio.  And besides, the only thing that hot air does is turn the cold water on my hands into hot water on my hands.  What could be more simple than to have a bathroom with a toilet, a sink, some soap and some paper towels?  But instead, we have a fully-automated factory that whisks you in, flushes you out, soaps you off and blows you out.  I hate public toilets.

 

As you know, my oldest daughter has chickens, and she is always concerned about hawks and foxes and other predators.  Recently, some so-called bird expert told her to get a llama, and that would keep the predators away.  A llama!  You see, those animal-specialist types live in their own dream world where crickets sing to puppets and white rabbits wear pocket watches and llamas grow on trees.  Where exactly do you go for a llama, Llamas R Us?  Nacho Llamas?  I remember years ago when a Great Horned Owl showed up on my porch, and I called one of these animal guys and asked what I should feed the creature.  He asked, “Do you have any dead mice?”  Sure, I said, I keep a box in the freezer in case Monty Hall drops by.

 

I read a lot of history, and from my readings I have painstakingly compiled a list of historical figures who, though you didn’t know it, most certainly were Jewish.  You can tell just by the things they said.  For instance:

 

We knew King Arthur was Jewish when he said, “I want a round table.”

We knew the Wicked Witch of the West was Jewish when she said, “I’m not going out in the rain and getting wet.”

We knew Joan of Arc was Jewish when she said, “I’m cold.  Can we turn the heat up?”

We knew Attila was Jewish when he said, “Yes, Hun.  Whatever you say, Hun.”

We knew Venus de Milo was Jewish when she said, “Damn, I broke a nail.”

We knew Helen of Troy was Jewish when she said, “Menelaus, take me to Paris.”

We knew Goldilocks was Jewish when she said, “This bed’s too hard.  I want a new room.”

We knew Little Red Riding Hood was Jewish when she said, “We’re going out with the Wolfs again tonight.”

 

Well, have I wasted enough of your time?  I know that was silly, but it’s the holiday season and I knew you would tolerate a little of my goofiness.  And what about the cabbages and kings?  Maybe next week.  Goodbye for now.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #457                                December 11, 2025

 

I was just at Whole Foods and noticed something called Dead Sea Mineral Soap.  I don’t mean to burst any of your soap bubbles, but it is as a result of those minerals that nothing can live in the Dead Sea.  Hence the name DEAD.  I want soap with minerals from the Alive and Thriving Sea.  Why should I want to rub myself with stuff that causes instantaneous death to any marine creature it touches?  But that’s just me. 

 

Good morning.  It’s Thursday.  I wonder who got fired this morning for sexual harassment.  Have you heard the new Christmas song?

   

♫ So long ye merry gentlemen – P. Diddy and Matt Lauer

♫ Jeff Epstein too and Charley Rose, we caught you in the shower.

♫ Now men in every walk of life had better watch themselves.

♫ Cause we caught Santa playing with two elves – Comfort and Joy

♫ Yes we caught Old Santa playing with two elves.

 

I’ve come up with a scale on which to grade these creeps.  When the number of accusers exceeds the number of letters in “PERVERT”, then the guy should no longer be classified as Homo Sapiens.  Ah, I can just imagine one of you saying, “How about Homo Erectus?”  Now that’s really a filthy, low-class, disgusting thing to say.  I’m so glad I came up with it before you did.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and getting ready for all the December holidays – Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve, Maxing My Credit Card Day.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humor (The Tempest).  What about all the cat holidays?  There’s Hanu-kat, Pet-erans Day, St. Cat-tricks Day. Purr-im and even Black Cat History Month.  Meow.

 

Last week, as I sat in my daughter’s kitchen in North Carolina, I heard Lance entering the room.  Lance is the pillow-sized automatic vacuum creature that starts up whenever it wants to and roams around the house sucking up dirt and old men.  I told Siri to kill it, but she told me she was non-violent, which reminded me of one of my favorite movies (Forbidden Planet, 1956).  It describes a society whose technology became so advanced that it reached a level where every person could just wish for something and the Central Computer would make it happen.  Want a Mocha Frappuccino?  Boom, it’s there.  Swimming pool in your back yard?  Bam, you got it.  Whatever wish you had would instantly become reality.  But as soon as that new “ap” came on line, everyone unknowingly and subconsciously wished for the death of someone they hated or envied, and the entire populace was wiped out in a single night.  Is that where we are heading?  The technology is racing ahead too fast – certainly too fast for me.  Why can’t they just stop for a while and let us rest?

 

Apple, we all appreciate what you have done.  You have made our lives happier and easier with your iPhones.  But now that I’m happy, lose my number!  Just give me a smart phone.  It doesn’t have to be Einstein-smart; Betty White-smart is good enough.  I just want to text, take pictures and make calls.  That’s all, period!  And no more updates – ever.  Let me learn how to do the three things I want and then go away.  I’m not a teenager.  Just give me a simple phone for me and my generation.  And call it the iMold (I’m old).  And just once, when I try to remember my password, can’t you just say “Close Enough”.

 

I have many friends who use the old line that goes, “I read the paper every morning and if my name is not in the obituaries, it’s a good day.”  I don’t bother reading the obituaries.  I figure if I’m dead, somebody’s going to tell me.  And besides, reading the obits depresses me.  It makes me realize how many people I didn’t know.  If I should ever choose to take on the Sisyphean effort of shaking hands with a stranger every second, 24 hours a day, it would take me 254 years to shake hands with every person on Earth.  And I still wouldn’t find anybody else who has read Moby Dick seven times.  I saw somewhere that of the eight billion people on the Earth, only 150 million are older than me.  But this number can only go down, every hour, every day.

 

It’s scary how clearly I see

The truth about mortality:

Every night someone dies

So each day when I rise

There’s less people older than me.

 

That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?  Oops, now it’s 149,999,999.  I’m depressed.  I need to rest.  And read the obituaries.  I know life sucks sometimes, but, as my Dad always said, “I count my blessings.  My cup runneth over.”  So let’s count our blessings and try to find a smile once in a while.  Let’s see, how can I make you smile today?

 

Weekly Word:  Yes, it’s Sisyphean, which describes a task that takes tremendous effort but gets no results. 

 

Do you have a Spellchecker?  Of course you do.  That’s the program that corrects the spelling and punctuation on your computer or iMold.  I have a Spellchecker on my Microsoft Word program.  That’s the program I use to write this thing.  I call it Speedy the Spellchecker, and Speedy tries to correct all my spelling and punctuation miscues.  I say “tries to” because I do not accept most of his corrections.  I want it the way I want it, and I normally do not bow to the commands of some impersonal collection of zeroes and ones known as a computer program.  For instance, in the paragraph above, I used the word runneth.  Speedy, having apparently never read the Bible, had a conniption and told me I couldn’t do it.  Well, Speedy, kisseth my asseth!  I’m going to use it anyway.  If Shakespeare had had a Spellchecker, Juliet would have been forced to say Romeo, Romeo, where the hell are you?  And when Shylock said, “If you prick us do we not bleed,” well, I can’t even tell you what Speedy did with that one.

 

There, I bet I made you smile. I’ll try to make you smile some more next week, so stayeth well, counteth your blessings and cometh back.

 

Michael                                    Sendeth comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

 

 

 

Blog #456                                December 4, 2025

 

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?  We certainly did.  Thanksgiving is the only day when you actually want people to give you the bird.  Now it’s time for dessert.  Have you noticed that most of the sweet things in life start with C.  For instance: Cookies, Cake and Cupcakes; Candy, Chocolate and Caramel; Cocoa, Custard, Cream and Carob.  And, of course, my main sweet – Carol.  “It is an extra dividend,” Clark Gable said, “when you like the girl you’ve fallen in love with.”

 

Gee, last week he quoted Dr. Seuss and now it’s Clark Gable!  What’s the wordy bastard going to come up with next?  Settle down now, have another cookie.

 

What I’m going to talk to you about now is the most important part of the holiday – shopping!  I hate crowds and am too timid to shop on Black Friday, and I’m too technologically backward to shop on Cyber Monday.  Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday!  We need Senior Saturday where no-one under 65 is allowed in the store, and where we can amble leisurely through the aisles picking up Senior Saturday Specials on reading glasses, space heaters, melatonin, Ensure, low-salt potato chips, laxatives and CoQ-10, or just to have a desultory stroll through the aisles to pick up some steps.

 

Our Weekly Word is desultory, which means lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm.  I have no such condition.  I always have a plan – to make my wife happy and to keep you entertained.  Hi there and welcome back, my friends.  I hope you are feeling well.  Did you go to a movie over the holiday?  I like movies.  I like to be entertained.  What I don’t like is to be depressed.  Make me laugh, make me smile, frighten me, make me think, make me guess, make me cry – but don’t depress me.  I can’t watch any more children being loaded into Nazi freight trains.  If I want to be depressed, I’ll just stay home and watch the news.  And don’t charge me a car-payment for a bag of popcorn.  People, can you not go two hours without a popcorn and soda that cost $14?  I know you can. 

 

And now they have movie seats that recline.  Very comfortable!  Too comfortable, if you ask me.  I go to a movie to be entertained (I may have said that already), not to sleep.  I go to the Opera to sleep.  Just give me a comfy seat, a pillow and a bunch of Italians hollering their meatballs off, and I’ll be happy as a witch in a broom factory.

 

We were in North Carolina for Thanksgiving and, one day, my daughter was treating a couple of her chickens for depression. The technical term, I think, is “Down in the Dumplings.”  She had a reference textbook on chicken psychology.  The book was entitled Freud Chicken.  I have more chicken jokes than Harvey Weinstein has victims. 

 

We flew home Monday night.  It was a wonderful few days, but, considering the horrible weather all over the country, we were considerably nervous about getting home.  But I refused to reschedule to the next day because I knew my little three-legged buddy missed me.  And I missed him too.  Actually, right now, as I write, I don’t know where Shakespeare is.  I’ll go look.  Don’t go away; I’ll be right back.  Found him—he’s sound asleep on the top shelf of my closet.  Yes, I do have a small closet generously allocated to me by my Princess and the top shelf has a few sweaters that are apparently irresistibly comfortable to a cat.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  I miss the old you (Othello).  Yes, I miss that old fart when he goes away, especially if he takes his old sweaters I like to sleep on.  I’m glad he’s home.  Don’t tell him that.  Purr.

 

Anyway, our plane left Raleigh-Durham on time and arrived precisely on time – 10:00 pm on a snowy, blustery night in St. Louis.  We got our luggage and called Uber.  The app informed me that the Uber ride home would cost $110 plus tip and the nearest Uber would pick us up in 40 minutes.  What?  I decided to take a cab.  We walked to the cab stand and waited for about ten minutes.  There were not very many taxi or Uber drivers challenging the snowstorm.  We drove home slowly, but without incident, and the total fare was $62 without tip.  The next time you have a choice, try the taxi.

 

I’ve come to a decision.  I know that’s frightening, but bear with me.  We need to shift a couple of holidays.  Thanksgiving should not be in November.  First of all, it’s flu season and these big family gatherings are full of coughing and sneezing and spreading of disease.  Second, the weather sucks.  Why would you schedule the largest mass exodus of the American population in late November when it could be (and was) snowing all over the place and delaying and endangering everybody?   Thanksgiving should be in the Summer when it’s warm and everyone is feeling well.  We can swap with Independence Day which should be in the Winter when it gets dark at 5:00.  Then, we could start the fireworks early and get to bed early instead of waiting until 9:00 for it to get dark.

 

Now listen up folks and remember

That Christmas is still in December

But Thanksgiving soon

Will be moving to June

And the 4^th of July to November.

 

It’s December now, and we all must be thinking about Christmas.  Glittering trees and rotund Santa’s, candles and carols and mistletoe.  But not in Washington, D.C.  Congress has just banned nativity scenes in the capital because they couldn’t find three wise men. 

 

And December means it’s getting colder.  It’s getting so cold, in fact, that today I saw a politician with his hands in his own pocket.  So, pack up your golf shorts and canasta cards and head for Naples or Scottsdale.  Carol and I are staying here, but don’t worry – wherever you are, every Thursday, I will find you.  That is, until I run out of things to say or until you run out of patience with me.  It’s likely you’ll run out of patience first, but not before next week.  Be there, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com