Archives for 2021

Don’t Worry, all is good…NOW.
I woke yesterday morning and something was definitely wrong.  I felt off; blah. That’s all I could think: Blah, blah, blah.

Stomach, head, feet, skin, all blah.  Food tasted blah, toothpaste not its normal minty self, coffee might as well have been tepid water, BLAH!  Fortunately the doctor on duty happened to be a geriatric specialist and had seen this many times before.  He placed an empathetic hand on my shoulder and said. “I’m not going to insult you by beating around the bush. I’ll give it to you straight. You have a persistent and protracted case of “the blahs.” Fortunately it’s treatable and I think we can knock it out in one day.  I am writing you a prescription and giving you detailed after-visit instructions.  Follow them to the letter.  Cancel any plans as you will not be able to leave the house or operate heavy equipment.”

I stopped at the drug store to fill the prescription: a six-pack of juice boxes and gallon of chocolate ice cream.  The, as instructed, I spent the entire day watching the SpongeBob SquarePants Marathon on Nickelodeon.

This Morning, Life is Beautiful again!

They were an unusual pair in that Big Banana was so much larger than his work-mate, Little Banana.
They ordered two Yuppie Daiquiris and talked:
Little Banana:  It must be great to be you, so big and firm.  Did you get that way by working out?
Big Banana:      No, just the luck of the draw.  Why are you so hung up on size? It doesn’t matter.  It’s about how sweet and firm you are.
Little Banana:  Easy for you to say.  You drive a Prius and do great.  I had to compensate for my size by leasing an expensive sports car I can’t afford.
Big Banana:    Being a Big Banana has its downside, try to find a comfortable pair of jeans and more annoying, whenever I run into anyone, they automatically think I’m glad to see them. 
Little Banana:  All the same I’d rather have your problems than mine.
Big Banana:  Look at it this way.  Your problem is minor compared to that guy. 
He looks across the bar as Big Banana points to the pair sitting at a table in the far corner.  Little Banana nods his head in understanding as he watches the Foot-long consoling his friend, the Cocktail Weenie.

      It was the first day of school for the 5 year old children in the ancient remote village of Guilin, located in the Guangxi Region of China, nestled among the ethereal beauty of the limestone mountains bordering the Lijiang River.  As with every child in every country around the world, the boys and girls were apprehensive, excited and almost impossible to get under control.
     Their Teacher Miss Rei-Lee was trying, as she did each New Year, to match the names of the children with their faces. She watched and listened as the school nurse checked temperatures and recorded vital statistics such as height:  Kra-Kah 105 centimeters (cm); Si-Yah the tallest at 111 cm, 104; Lay-Tah, 110 cm; The new boy in the village with an Iranian father and Chinese mother, Ali 108 cm; Dye-Ahl 104 cm and her cousin Wy-Ahl 106cm; lastly the twins, Gae-Tah 107.5cm and Ahf-Tah 107cm.

     Miss Rei-Lee, in search of a method to bring some order to this chaos in a way young children would understand, devised a brilliant plan. Each morning, when the first bell rang alerting the students it was time to enter the classroom, they would line up according to height, a way they can visually comprehend and do without much supervision.  Then for roll call each child would simply state their name.  This solution seemed to work to take roll and teach responsibility to the developing minds.

     Miss Rei-Lee patiently explained the procedure and told the class to line-up by size and then, in order tallest first, to state their names.  It worked well at the beginning: 

“Si-Yah, Lay-Tah, Ali, Gay-Tah, Af-Tah, Wy-Ahl, Krah-Kah, Dye-Ahl.”

But after a few months, as the children grew at different rates, chaos ensued!

Linda and I were fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit and dine with so many friends around the world.  We loved tasting the favorite local dishes as we ate our way around and through the world. 
Among our (mostly mine) favorites: 
Vienna Hot Dogs with bright green relish and celery salt in Chicago;  Corned Beef at the Carnegie Deli in NYC;  Sacher Torte (dry Chocolate cake) in Vienna; Adobo and Pancit in Manila; Dim Sum in Hong Kong;  Drunken Shrimp in Beijing; Soup Dumplings in Shanghai; Sweet holiday tamales in Mexico; Falafel in Jerusalem; Ramen in Japan; Gelato in Venice, a lot of Gelato, also in every city with a gelato shop (Linda’s #1 food in the world);  Crêpes aux Fraises in Paris; Soda Bread and Irish Stew on the Quay in Westport;  1/4 Meter Bratwurst in Regensburg; Pannekoek in Victoria; Fish and Chips in London, (plus a special treat, Sunday Roast from Ginny’s Kitchen);  Pad Thai in Bangkok; Street food in Singapore; Pho in Vietnam and Palačinky in Prague.

As the Covid-19 pandemic hopefully wanes we will be back on the road.  One possibility is Palm Beach, Florida.  We hear that the Big Mac with Supersized fries is the local favorite. Yum!

HAPPY SHAVOUS, the joyous festival that commemorates God’s giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses.
(Yes, it is fashionable to use the Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation shah-voo-awt but I identify as Ashkenazy so shuh-voo-uhs it is.

Shavuos holds a special meaning for me.  After seeing the 1970 film “The Boys in the Band”  Shavuos became a euphemism for NEVER!  When the party was over Donald said, “Good night Harold, see you again sometime,” to which Harold cynically replied, “Yeah, how about a year from Shavous?”  You did not have to be Dick Tracy to understand that Harold had no desire to see Donald again.

From then on for me and eventually, by association for Linda too, Shavuos was a time never to come since nobody knows when it occurs. “Should we invite the Trumps over for dinner?”  “Yeah, how about a year from Shavuos?”

The problem is that now I know when it is, in one year I will have to see about 150 people I have put off until a year from today.  How do I get myself into these things?

Ever since the day I watched in horror as the New York soup nazi refused service to Elaine Benes simply because she inadvertently deviated from the onerous litany of his unpublished rules of soup ordering, I have been unable to sleep, consumed with answering two intricately philosophical and life-altering questions:

1. Should we as a society stay silent and be complicit in injustice when unfair punishment is meted out to the proletariat class in an establishment owned by an odious member of the corrupt aristocracy?
2. More than 2500 years ago Sun Tzu advised us if a battle cannot be won, do not engage.  Is soup worth the fight?

What are your thoughts, Hobson?

Complete this Sentence “Winning Isn’t Everything…”
Then choose your answer and discover your Personality Equivalent!

A:  It’s the only thing!   Uninspiring athletic coach.
B.  It’s how you play the game.  Loser!
C.  Getting a six figure salary for minimal work is!   A Millennial.
D. If our child gets a Participation Award.  Parent of a non-athletic or “indoor” child.
E.  Who Cares?  Retired old curmudgeon.
F.  Yes it is!  I only lost cuz they cheated!  Sociopathic Politician.

SPOILER ALERT!

On this week’s episode of reality series “Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital’s E.R”. Delilah Q. Mockracy, (insert cheesy pun here), known to her friends as Dee Mockracy,  abruptly sails into eternity from a subdural hematoma (SDH), a type of bleeding in which a collection of blood—usually associated with a traumatic brain injury that gathers between the inner layer of the dura mater and the arachnoid mater of the meninges surrounding the brain.

It appears that Dee was sitting in front of the television watching “Tucker Carlson Tonight’ on Fox when her brain spontaneously exploded.

Did you ever go to the bottom on an unwanted email, click “Unsubscribe here” and then actually be taken off the list?

Me neither.