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