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