Blog #484                                June 18, 2026

 

I’m back.  And so, apparently, are you, so let’s get started.  I came home the other day and was met by my lovely wife.  We started to compare stories of the day, but after ten seconds her phone rang.  She answered it, said “Hold on” to whoever it was, and looked at me.  You see, I like talking to my wife.  I like to tell her about the people I have met or how many times I took the wrong exit on the highway.  What I hate most is getting shoved aside by a phone call from one of her over-talkative friends.  You know who you are.  She recognized my feeling and started to tell the caller she’d call back.  But instead, she looked at me and asked, “Are you going to change clothes?”  Change clothes?  Did I look messy?  I was chapfallen.  But, after almost six decades of marriage, I knew how to translate that simple question.  Are you going to change clothes? translates to, “I really would rather talk to this person than you, but I know you don’t like it, so if you have something to do, do it now.”

 

Hi there, everyone, and welcome back.  I hope you are well today.  If you have read even a small sample of these blogs, you know that I talk about my wife a lot and that I sometimes pick on her.  Making fun of your wife is as old as Adam and Eve.

 

“She’s always nagging at me, God -- something about those damned apples.  She probably thinks an apple a day keeps the Devil away.  Women! And now she wants clothes! Clothes?  Who needs clothes?  And she wants to know on what day You’re going to create Skechers. Her feet hurt.  Plus, she thinks You’re a woman.  Seriously, God? What were You thinking? You could have just created three other guys and a golf course”

 

But although I make fun of her, you all know I would do anything for her, even change clothes just so she could yabber with her friends.  You still know who you are.  Or give her my socks.  We went to a movie and Carol reached into her purse for a pair of hospital socks to keep her feet warm.  You must have some of those, don’t you?  They’re the ones with rubber on the bottom so when you walk around in the hospital you won’t slip and break something that you haven’t broken already.  I love long sentences. She has at least one pair of every color of these socks, and the sad truth is that she got them all from the various times I was in the hospital.  “How do you feel? When are you getting out? Grab me a few pairs of socks. I like pink.”  But when she searched at the movie, she realized she had forgotten socks so I removed mine and handed them to her.  Is that love or what?  I have a warm heart.  And cold feet.

 

The Weekly Word is chapfallen.  It means cast down in spirit; depressed.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore (Sonnet 60).  I’m glad that Pops is home from the beach.  I let him know how happy I was and how much I missed him by keeping him up the whole first night he was home.  I wonder if he missed me.  Purr. 

 

We had a wonderful time on Bald Head Island.  Pickleball, beach, card games, food.  The weather was great and the company, my family, spectacular.  One night, six of us entered a trivia contest at the local pizza joint – Carol, me, one daughter and her husband and two kids.  We won, and it was a nice prize -- $30 gift certificate to the pizza joint.  We were proud.  Here are a few of the questions:

 

1.     How many minutes does it take sunlight to travel from the Sun to the Earth?

2.     What was the first toy ever advertised on TV?

3.     How many different color M&Ms are in a standard package?

Answers later.  Summer officially begins in three days, June 21st at 3:24 a.m. CDT.  At that instant, the North Pole will be tilted closest to the sun and those in the Northern Hemisphere will experience the longest day of the year.  It’s called the Summer Solstice.  Ok, all that mysterious drivel is swell, but haven’t you ever wondered why Summer isn’t just June, July and August?  June should start on the day of the Summer Solstice and August should end at the Autumnal Equinox (more arcane weather-speak).  Then Autumn can be September, October and November just like everybody thinks it is.  When Aristotle or God or Donald Duck or Pope Gregory XIII decided to make the calendar, why didn’t they ask us?  We would have made it so simple.

 

Even though the official start of Summer is three days away, the weather has been sizzling.  How hot is it?  I’m so glad you asked.  Relax, grab a cold drink and I’ll tell you how hot it is.

 

It's so hot, Iran’s ayatollah has decided to stand in Trump’s shadow.

It’s so hot, cows are giving evaporated milk.

It’s so hot, the trees are fighting over the dogs.

It’s so hot, I saw two squirrels fanning their nuts.

It’s hotter than Joy Behar’s tongue.

 

It’s too hot for playing or talking

The birds are too hot to be squawking

I saw a dog that

Was chasing a cat

And both of the poor things were walking

 

“Hey, God.  It’s Adam again.  That woman you made just gathered some fruit and wants me to ask if You have a round table.  There’s only two of us on the whole planet and she thinks she needs a reservation!  Oh, and she wants it not too near the serpent.  Jesus Christ!  Oh, You like that, God?  That Jesus Christ thing?  I just made it up.  You like it so much, you’re going to name Your Son that?  Now that’s catchy.”

 

Ok, it’s about time for me to get hit by lightning.  I’ll see you next week.  Please count your blessings and stay well.  Oh, and below are the answers to the trivia questions.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

1.     8 minutes

2.     Mister Potato Head

3.     6 colors

 

 

Blog #483                                June 11, 2026

 

Do your kids or grandkids play a musical instrument?  Do you remember when they were in 3^rd grade and it was time for the class recital?  There they were, my little angel and 43 brats who couldn’t possibly be as cute as mine.  Each one had a violin.  They were eight.  How horrible was this going to be?  Did I bring enough cotton balls to shove into my ears?  The Music Director walked onto the stage, accepted the applause of the anxious parents and addressed his mini-Paganinis. Here were his instructions:

 

Please take your position right now

And fiddle as if you knew how.                  

At the start of the show

You will all take a bow;

At the end you will all take a bow.

 

By now, you should be very adept at reading limericks, so I shouldn’t have to tell you that the word “bow” in the above rhyme has two different meanings and two different pronunciations.  Should I?  Well, I thought it was clever.

 

Movie Review:  Michael, the story of Michael Jackson was terrific.  If you are of my generation or younger, you cannot deny what a phenomenon Michael Jackson’s stardom was and how compelling was his music.  The actor playing Jackson, Michael’s actual nephew, was sensational.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I have two things to celebrate with you today.  First, today is Carol’s and my 59^th anniversary.  Can you believe that she has put up with me for so long?  I can’t.  I am very, very lucky to have been allowed to spend six decades with that beautiful woman.  My love for her is amaranthine.  Second, we are on Bald Head Island, just off the coast of North Carolina.  When I say “we”, I mean 15 of us, children, spouses, grandchildren.  Oh, and a dog.  So, let’s see, 15 times 2, carry the four and divide by π – that makes 34 feet puttering, pattering and prancing around one large rental house.  It’s been crowded, but great fun.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  O pardon: since a crooked figure may attest in little place a million (Henry V).  They didn’t take me, probably because I have an odd number of legs, so I’m home alone all week.  But they took a dog.  Scruffy, stupid dog.  I hope he gets sand in his tail.  Purr.

 

Yes, amaranthine is our Weekly Word.  It means undying, never-ending.

 

Carol and I flew to North Carolina, and as we were boarding the plane, walking down the aisle to our seat, Carol grabbed some young man sitting in an aisle a couple of rows forward of ours.  “Young man, could you help my old, decrepit, useless husband to lift his carry-on bag to the overhead?” she sweetly asked.  Of course he did.  He was very nice.  In fact, when we landed, he got up, walked back to our row and asked if he could help get my bag down.  Wasn’t that nice?  Then some lady behind us asked if he could help her too.  Then another.  I think he’s still on the plane.  No good deed goes unpunished, right?  That’s not true, of course.  Every good deed is rewarded by the goodwill it engenders and the good feeling it leaves with the doer.

 

Did you know the longest running scripted show that is still on the air?  It’s The Simpsons, which has run for 37 seasons.  I have never seen one episode, but I’m guessing Bart Simpson has never matured -- or have his viewers.  But there are plenty of programs that have grown older and have decided to change their names to reflect the extreme old-age of their audiences.  Modern Family is now Ancient Family.  Blue Bloods has been changed to Thin Bloods.  And, for the extremely old, there’s Hawaii Nine-O, Grey Haired Anatomy and Wheelchair of Fortune.

 

How are you at song lyrics?  I must admit I’m still pretty good for songs from the  50s through the 70s.  But sometimes, you just get something in your head that’s wrong, but sticks anyway.  For instance, you know the Do-Re-Mi song?  “Do, a deer, a female deer”.  For years I thought one of the lines was “Ti-A drink with Jan and Fred.”  Seriously.

 

Well, the other day, Carol was watching Jeopardy or playing bridge online or something.  Anyway, Carol shouts, “Who sang, Hold me closer, Tony Danza?”  It was Elton John, I said, and it’s “Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer”.  I think he wrote that song right after he wrote Pop goes Vin Diesel and Here we go ‘round George W. Bush, George W. Bush, George W. Bush.

 

I told my daughter Abby about the Tony Danza story and she said that happened on an episode of Friends.  Well, it happened with Carol also.  Funny!

 

I had to borrow my granddaughter’s pickup truck the other day.  This is the truck that’s so tall I need a Sherpa to get in.  Once in, however, I was tooling along nicely, feeling like your average American Redneck, when I decided to turn on the radio.  This is a teenager’s ride, and I prepared myself for the Death Metal Burn in Hell Kill Your Parents and Take Some Drugs station.  But you know what I got?  National Public Radio.  My granddaughter listens to NPR?  I was impressed!  Until, that is, they started a piece on why some lizards have green blood.  No wonder our teenagers are so messed up!  They listen to NPR!  I would have enjoyed the Death Metal station more.

 

I don’t believe in omens or fortune-telling or parapsychology or magic.  I’m a scientist, after all, and yet – well, something happened the day before we left that has me a bit shaken.  A couple of years ago, my son-in-law Robert bought me a bobble-head made to look like me standing in a golf shirt holding my putter.  That’s PUTTER!  You have a filthy mind.  Today I moved the little figurine from one spot to another and the head fell off and rolled under my chair.  The head that looked exactly like me!  It was very spooky!  Does that mean this is my last blog?  Who knows?  I will try to be very careful this week. You should be careful too.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you next week.  I hope.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #482                                          June 4, 2026

 

Well, I fell.  I was getting ready for my afternoon nap by removing my slacks while standing, a common exercise for men which is accomplished by imitating a flamingo who is also an idiot.  So, the foot got caught and I went down, landing on my right knee and my pacemaker, two apparently indestructible organs.  I was unhurt, but I did scream, in fear and embarrassment, more than pain.  The scream drew no-one.  Carol was not home and Shakespeare, though only three feet away, was enjoying his afternoon torpor and apparently did not care that his loving Daddy was on the floor screaming.  Oh well, no harm, no foul.  Just a warning.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Hereditary sloth instructs me (The Tempest). I weigh eight and a half pounds and have three legs.  How did he expect me to help him up?  The poor fool was just frightened and embarrassed.  I went over and licked his face and rubbed my head against his.  That’s all I can do.  He’s fine.  And what kind of word is “torpor”?  Purr.

 

Weekly Word:  Torpor is a state of physical or mental inactivity; lethargy.  And now that the Word, the Cat and my Confession are out of the way, we can talk.  Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and ready for some sweet revenge. What goes around comes around. What am I talking about?

 

Do you know how many times my grandchildren have pointed out to me that the most advanced technology I could master was a toothbrush?  Ah ha!  I got ’em back today.  I loaned my grandson my car, and I got a phone call.  Poppy, the air-conditioner doesn’t work.  Austin is 16.  So is my car, and on that old a car the fan is mobilized by turning a knob.  Today’s children don’t know from knobs, just screens.  So I got to teach him something.

 

With iPhones, I know I’m a dunce

And computers, I don’t know a bunch

My kids tease me in play

But I got back today

When I was the expert for once.

 

Next week, I’m going to bring him pictures of telephones attached to the wall with squiggly, twisty chords and cars with little ventilation windows.  He’ll freak out.  Which reminds me of the time I was visiting my daughter.  In the morning, I asked if I could borrow her car to go to McDonald’s.  She tossed me the keys.  I caught them.  You see, in my house as my kids were growing up, we threw things and caught things.  My three girls were (and still are) superb athletes.  If you threw them something, they caught it.  If you pitched a baseball at them, they hit it.  If you slammed a ping-pong ball at them, they slammed it back.  We tossed things everywhere, all the time.  In the living room, in the kitchen, during dinner.  Carol hated that.  My young daughters knew two things:  1) I was haptodysphoric, which means I hated the feeling of peach fuzz, and 2) that if they tossed me a peach, I would catch it, initiating my childish reaction to peaches.  Anything to get Dad.

 

Where was I?  Oh, I caught the keys to my daughter’s car and headed out to McDonald’s.  Her car was new, and therefore unfamiliar to me.  About a quarter of the way to McDonald’s, I realized that my bottom was heating up as if I were sitting on a barbecue grill.  I surmised that the seat warmer was on.  I don’t have a seat warmer in my car, and I could not locate any button, switch, knob or console that would turn it off.  Half-way to McDonald’s, my buns reached medium-well and my chestnuts were roasting on an open fire.  About three-quarters of the way, I stood up.  Have you ever tried to drive a car while standing up?  And why do these new-fangled, spoiled, over-indulged youngsters need a seat-warmer?  Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting the car to drive itself!

 

Last week, one night, Carol was out for dinner and I decided to have sardines.  Yes, slimy, oily, disgusting sardines!  That’s alright, make fun of me.  You could fill the Rose Bowl with people who have made fun of me before you.  I opened the can and placed the sardines on my plate which somehow looked kind of empty.  Toast – that’s what it needed.  I found some bread and put two pieces in the toaster oven.  Then I looked for the START button.  There was no such thing.  There were, however, a bunch of French words next to a corresponding number of English words placed around two circles.  There were also some large numbers which I assumed were temperatures.  There were not, however, any buttons for off, on, stop or start and no timers.

 

So I started playing and was able to make two things happen – light and sound.  The light was accompanied by heat and the sound was most likely a fan.  I somehow made them go on at the same time and, in a short while, my bread became toast.  Easy enough.  Then I tried to turn it off.  I could not find any combination of dials or buttons that would cause both the light and the sound to go off at the same time.  “There is no-one so lost as he who searches for a way where there is no way.”  I thought about calling my wife and asking her how to turn the damn thing off, but if I called her, then all the girls at dinner would laugh at what a fool I was.  Instead, I unplugged the entire contraption, ate my dinner and ran to the computer to write this so that all of you would laugh at what a fool I was.  What a fool I am! 

 

My Princess came home, noticed the unplugged appliance and said, “Couldn’t figure out the toaster oven, could you?”  God, I hate when she’s right!  “No, I could not figure it out,” I said. “It’s French!”  “Well, maybe it’ll make a funny story for your blog.”  God, I hate when she’s right! 

 

Alright, making fun of myself is tiring.  I’m leaving.  Count your blessings, stay well and get back here next week.  We’ll find something to talk about.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com