Blog #497                                September 17, 2026

 

Happy New Year to all my Jewish readers.  It is the Year 5787 of the Hebrew Calendar.  God, why, when You made us Your Chosen People, did you also make so many people who hate us?  You must have had a reason, but I am too humble and it is not for me to know.  We pray for a better tomorrow.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  God shall be my hope (Henry V).  Pops is Jewish and Nonnie is Jewish, so I guess that makes me a Jewish cat.  You can call me Katz.  And this is my favorite holiday – Yom Ki-Purr.

 

Ok, let’s move on to what Limerick Oyster is all about – to give you a smile every week, to teach you a new word, to let you talk to my cat.  And also, to tell you what ticks me off.  Last week it was stamps with flags on them and the Lindsay Clancy trial.  This week it’s tennis.  I was watching the men’s semi-final at the U.S. Open Tennis Championship, when I noticed the Chair Umpire was a woman from France.  FRANCE!  We have 350 million people in this country.  Can we not find an American to umpire at the US OPEN?  France has a tournament too.  But France would no sooner allow an American to umpire their tournament than they would rename the Eiffel Tower and call it the Trump Tower.  I mean, what does the umpire actually do?  The machines call the lines and keep the score.  The only thing the umpire says is, “Let, first service.”  With a French accent!  We need to get an American to umpire the American tournament!

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Are you still with me?  Stick around, I’ll calm down eventually.  I hope you’re feeling well and ready for Fall.  It’s September already, and that means the schools are open and the elections are only two months away.  Who are you going to vote for?  How can you tell?  If you watch CNN you get one set of facts, but if you watch FOX you get a different set.  It’s like going to a baseball game where all the Cardinal fans thought the guy was safe but all the Cub fans thought he was out.  And all the white folks thought O.J. was guilty while all the black folks thought he was innocent.  I’m not sure truth has any meaning anymore.  But then your truth might not be the same as mine.

 

Don’t listen to their candidate

In the “What Two and Two Is” Debate

He’ll use dirty tricks

To convince you it’s six

When everyone knows that it’s eight.

 

William Blake said, “the tree which moves someone to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.”  We look at things today with such radically opposed points of view, it’s amazing that we haven’t started another Civil War.  Except, after listening to all the hate-filled and profane rhetoric on both sides, we’ll have to call it The Uncivil War. 

 

There will be some differences, however, between the old war and the new. That old one was between the North and the South; this is between the Left and the Right.  That was between the Blue and the Gray; this is between the Red States and the Blue States.  In the Civil War, both sides had guns.  In the Uncivil War only one side has guns.  Now that’s an interesting thought.  But it’s ok because the other side has poster-board and magic markers.  There’s even a new Japanese car especially designed for sign-carrying protest marchers with special compartments for cardboard and crayons.  It’s called the Toyota Crayola.

 

In 1839, Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword.  I’m not sure, however, that the crayon is mightier than the AK-47.  If it gets any worse, I might have to leave the country.  Maybe I’ll go to California.  That’s not part of America anymore, is it?

 

And speaking of voting, our Congressional representatives tend to be disappointing, don’t they?  As Will Rogers said, “Taxpayers are sending Congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back.”

 

That was the third obscure person I have quoted so far.  No more, I promise!  You might begin to think I’m not clever enough to write my own lines.  Let’s talk about my family.  My family was a bizarre anomaly.  I have spoken about my older brother many times in my blogs.  He was one of the strangest people I have ever known.  And my sister married an older guy.  She was 47 and he was 92.  It’s a long story, but absolutely true.  My sister was crazy -- half Baby Jane and half Sybil.  In fact, when I was growing up my family made the Addams Family look like Ozzie and Harriet.  It’s a miracle I turned out so perfectly normal!  The man she married was named Bill, and he was so old, he told me the first president he had voted for was McKinley. One time Bill told me that he was in the hospital recuperating from something when a member of the clergy visited his room to offer prayers for a speedy recovery.  The clergy person asked if there was anything else bothering him, and Bill responded that yes, he did have a problem.  He was constipated.  So the clergy person scribbled a prayer for him.  This is all true!  I was hysterical.  A prayer to relieve constipation?  This must be a joke, but no, I looked it up.  Here are some of the highlights.

 

The Lord is my shepherd

His figs and his prunes, they comfort me

He preparest a table in the presence of mine enemas

He restoreth my stool.

 

And, as you know, when I start talking potty, it’s time to go.  At least I didn’t talk about anything runnething over.  But I do need to talk about anomaly, our Weekly Word.  An anomaly is something that deviates from the standard, normal or expected.  Like me.  There, now I’m finished.

 

Please stay well, count your blessings and be regular.  I’ll be back next week.  Can you wait that long?  And whether it is 5787 or 2026 on your calendar, may you have a happy and peaceful week

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #496                                September10, 2026

 

I am going to start this week with the Weekly Word, even though I haven’t used it yet.  The word is pontificate, which means to speak in an annoyingly pompous and dogmatic way, a practice in which I am expert.  Don’t worry, the word will show up later.  But for now, let’s talk about stamps.

 

I went to the Post Office to buy stamps.  Eighty-two cents.  For those of you around my age, we remember when postage was three cents.  For those of you a little older, you probably remember just feeding the pony some hay and sending it on its way.  When I asked for stamps, the young man at the counter asked me if “flags were all right”.  “Are flags all right?” I gasped. “Do you have to ask if flags are all right?”  He said, “Well, some people don’t like them.  It’s a political statement.”

 

I thanked the young man, walked to my car and sat inside for a while thinking.  I’ve lived in this country for 80 years.  I’ve had the opportunity to work, save, invest, buy a house, raise a family – and vote.  I’ve voted for sixty years.  Sometimes my favorite candidate won, sometimes not.  But I got to vote in a country that elects its leaders, good or bad.  And all this time, we’ve had a flag.  It was the same flag under Biden as it is under Trump.  It was the same flag under JFK and Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama and George Bush.  It’s the symbol of this country that has allowed us the opportunity to grow, to succeed or even to fail.  I’ve had successes and plenty of failures, believe me.  But I will always support the country and the flag that is its symbol.  “Yes,” I told the young man.  “I want the stamps with the flag on them.”

 

And by the way, in my lifetime, we have elected Democrats nine times as President and Republicans eleven times.  So both sides have contributed pretty evenly to where we are today.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Are you still here?  Good.  I hope you are feeling well and staying away from doctors.  Do you realize that if you forget your birthday, you can never receive any medical services?  Every time I encounter a doctor, nurse, technician or office staff – they ask for my date of birth.  Over and over.  The person who drew my blood last week -- a nasty, evil-looking, vampiric creature – must have asked me four times.

 

The Nurse I call Lady Macbeth

Asked my date of birth with each breath

It’s ok - I let her

It’s surely much better

Than asking for my Date of Death.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  To me, fair friend, you never can be old (Sonnet 104). Nobody knows my birthday, but Pops celebrates it in April.  I think I’m seven years old now, but it doesn’t matter because they say cats have nine lives, which is fine with me as long as I can spend all of them with my Pops.  Purr.

 

I have told you many times that I know nothing about cars or anything else mechanical.  I only know about useless stuff – like Edgar Allen Poe or chemistry.  Here’s some chemistry:  Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'  See?  Useless!

 

Carol and I went shopping at Nordstrom’s.  Well, Carol was the shopper.  I was the chauffer-companion and carrier of packages.  She was looking for some jeans, but when we checked out, she commiserated with the young sales clerk that all they were showing were baggy-leg jeans.  She asked the clerk if she had sold many of them.  “No,” she replied, “and I tried some on and they made me look ridiculous.”  Let me describe the young clerk.  Her legs were all tattooed up and down; her hair was bright pink, and there was enough hardware hanging from her nostrils to crack a safe.  And she thought the jeans made her look ridiculous?

 

Well, I guess we all have succumbed to the fashion of the day.  I think the silliest men’s fashion statement I tried was the medallion.  I guess it was the early 1970s and we would wear a sport coat over a turtleneck with a heavy medallion hanging from a chain around our necks like we had just won the Nobel Prize for Stupid.

 

And then there’s the trial of Lindsay Clancy who brutally strangled her three children.  Apparently, the majority of the jury was convinced she was not guilty of murder because she was mentally ill.  Most of you are not going to agree with me here and I may lose some readers, but, as Larry McMurty said, “I wouldn’t have gone in for writing if I hadn’t liked talking to myself.”  So here’s what I think:  If it looks like a duck, feels like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a damn duck.  She murdered her three children, and if our society has come to the position that mental illness is a reason for treating that kind of horror in a less serious manner, then how soon will we slide down the slippery slope to “not guilty by reason of depression”?  And then “by reason of unhappiness” or “anger” or just “having a bad day”?  Don’t send me your counter-arguments.  I’m not in the mood for arguing.  I’m in the mood for pontificating.  It’s much more fun.  Ah, I told you the word pontificate would come up and there it is.

 

I passed a drug-rehab center today and there was a sign on the lawn that said, KEEP OFF THE GRASS.  Have you ever had a bad habit that was hard to break?  Maybe even an addiction?  I used to smoke, but I don’t do that anymore.  It was easy to stop – the 86^th time.  I used to drink, but I don’t do that either.  There’s one thing to remember about bad habits or addictions -- just because you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.

 

Time to go now.  Stay well, count your blessings and keep off the grass.   Come back next week, everyone.  Who knows what I’m going to say?  Don’t miss it; it might be about you. 

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog # 495                               September 3, 2026

 

Do you know the word mnemonic?  Let’s make that our Weekly Word.  A mnemonic is a device for helping you to remember something.  Like Every Good Boy Does Fine which, if you remember your music lessons, reminds you of the notes of the musical staff:  EGBDF.  Or HOMES which helps you to remember the Great Lakes:

 

H                Huron

O                Ontario

M                Michigan             

E                 Erie

S                 Superior

 

Except now that President Trump has changed Lake Ontario to Lake America, it’s SHAME:

 

S                 Superior

H                Huron

A                America

M                Michigan

E                 Erie

 

Our President’s got a new game

He gives everything a new name

To him it’s a sport

To rename an airport

And now the Great Lakes are a SHAME.

 

I’ll bet you think I make up these stories just so I can insert a limerick.  It’s just the opposite.  I find a weird, but true, fact or occurrence first, and for one reason or another it stimulates my wacky brain to wax poetic. 

 

Message from Shakespeare:  He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed (Othello).  I’m not letting anybody change my name, unless they change it to The Prettiest Pussycat in the World.  I like my name, and when Pops calls me, I always look up to see if he wants to play with our toys or just wants something warm on his lap while he reads.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and getting ready for Labor Day, which is a week from Monday.  Labor Day marks the end of Summer, although it doesn’t officially end for three more weeks.  Labor Day is the day we recognize and give thanks to all of you who work.  I don’t work anymore.  I read and write, do my volunteering, visit doctors, talk to my grandkids.  That’s during the day.  At night, I do whatever my wife tells me to do.  It makes life so much easier.  I also play a little poker and some bridge.  I do not play mahjong.  Do you know what you call a lady mahjong player?  A tile pusher.  A gentleman mahjong player is called a gent-tile pusher.

 

Every year, I get a physical from my doctor.  I’m sure you do too.  One of the first things they do is get your weight and height.  The English language is so bizarre that weight and height are spelled the same but pronounced differently. Weight, for most of us, goes up or down, but height is an alarming one-way street, an inexorable shrinkage leading eventually to your grandchildren calling you Ant Man.

 

After they tell you that you are half an inch closer to the carpeting than you were last year, they give you a battery of questionnaires, one of which is to determine if you are depressed.  Of course I’m depressed!  Who wouldn’t be depressed after learning that their new friends are Happy, Sleepy, Dopey and Doc?  During the physical, I told Dr. Primary that I was having some problem with my vision.  He told me to see an eye doctor.  I said, “If I could see an eye doctor, I wouldn’t need to see an eye doctor.”  Geesh!

 

I just walked into our bedroom and I smelled the unmistakable aroma of nail polish, and I immediately thought of something that happened seven or eight years ago.  It’s a good story, and you’re not going anywhere, are you?  One evening around 9:00, my heart started to race.  I remember staggering back to my bedroom and lying on the bed.  I remember a cool, soft hand holding mine.  I was certain that was my sweet Carol ministering to her frightened husband.  I was mistaken.  It was, instead, the hand of our neighbor Betty.  You see, Carol had just done her nails and couldn’t be expected to risk smudging the polish, so she called Betty to come over and hold my hand.  Look, I know my sweet wife loves me and would do anything for me, but let’s be honest -- there are priorities!  Thank you, Betty, for helping your friend by sparing her the inconvenience of doing her nails twice.  And thanks for holding my hand.  I wonder how my wife called 911.  It must have been with her toes.  When the two EMTs and the three firefighters entered my bedroom the chief EMT turned to my wife and said, “How long has he been in distress?  And, by the way, nice nails!”

 

We went to a local restaurant recently with some friends.  As the waitress handed out our menus, she took pride in informing us that all the vegetables were organically grown and all the seafood was responsibly raised.  I asked her how you responsibly raised a mussel.  Come on!  I can understand feeling sorry for a cow with those big watery eyes, or a pig with the funny snout and the cute tail, or a chicken with the pretty feathers.  I understand the “let’s not eat anything with a face” crowd.  But shellfish?  Woody Allen said, “I will not eat oysters.  I want my food dead, not sick or wounded.” 

 

So back to the question of responsibly raising a mussel.  What does that mean?  Do they sing to it, pet it, let it watch Dancing with the Starfish, paint its nails?  No, they farm raise it squashed next to a million of its cousins like sardines, then rip it off its anchorage and kill it.  To me, I wouldn’t care if they sent it to Princeton and gave it a tiny Mercedes for Christmas.  I still wouldn’t eat the slimy little thing.  Even with bacon duxelles.

 

I had already traumatized the waitress enough about the mussels without asking her what duxelles meant.  Instead, I just added the word to my list of food-related words -- like ratatouille and chiffonade – that I am pleased to live my life without understanding.  I was instantly disappointed in the chef for using such a term, and I began looking at all the patrons, trying to determine what a person who liked duxelles would look like.  Probably a rich person who likes mussels and spells ketchup with a “C”.

 

Okay, you’re excused.  Have a nice day, stay well and count your blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com