An Open Letter to Donald Trump on the Art of Sarcasm:

Dear Donald Trump,

I am writing this to you because today, July 28, 2016, you tried weasel out of ownership of the invitation you made to the Russian government of Vladimir Putin to breach United States Cyber-Security and aid you in your quest to steal the White House from the people of this nation.

I say weasel, because, Donald, that is what you are - a big orange weasel with mange.

See, Donald, you have this habit of saying appalling things like you mean it, because you know that you will get press, and then after everyone around you tells you to shut the *uck up, your modus operendi is - and you share this with other people who are also borderline personality types - to say something like "I was just kidding," or in this case "I was being sarcastic."

Here's the problem with that back down, which is what it is, because no one, and I mean no one knows sarcasm like a gay man.  Teenage girls might act like they know what it is, but they have not honed their fine skills by 13.

So let me ask you, Donald, (oh, but I can't call you Don because I understand that you don't like that, or Donnie, either), what was your immediate thought when you read that last paragraph? "This asshole doesn't know what he is getting at?"

Then you don't have a clue about sarcasm.

If you were bright enough to get sarcasm, your response would have been "really."  Not "really?"  But just "really."

According to Webster, you traitorous son of Scotswoman, Sarcasm is defined as:

In other words, Donald, one needs to have "wit" to deploy sarcasm.  And some things, like wit, cannot be bought, Mr. QT. 

Face it Donald, it is something that you don't have.  So you can't claim it.

Sarcasm means that you are still in the light of day, but standing the shade of a tree on a hot summer day.  You deliver sarcasm with a roll of the eyes, the deadpan on your face.  It is cutting, but never at the expense of yourself.  Sarcasm is verbal linguistics that highlight how vapid something is.  Sarcasm is wielded like a bullwhip, with an extra loud CRACK.  

So let's go back to that statement you made, shall we?   

The day after it was made known that Wikileaks was going to release texts of emails, just happened to be the opening day of your rival's party convention, and it was also made known some time ago that the Russians - either at the order of man paying your debt bills, Vlad the Putin - who is also a former KGB agent or by some Russian hacker trying to get ahead in their world - were the ones who hacked into the server.   Then you take to the stage and open your big yap, and step into a great big pile of betrayal by INVITING A NATION THAT HAS BEEN OUR MORTAL ENEMY FOR 70 YEARS to compromise the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, a nation that you hope to lead. 

And you do this after saying that if the Russians were to go into the Baltic States, you would have to look at whether or not Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had made good by paying the U.S. back for everything that they owed us.  Owe us?  When the iron curtain crumbled we celebrated their independence, now you want to throw that accomplishment in world history under the Kremlin again? 

Hello?  (If you guessed that "Hello?" was sarcasm, you might be onto something.  If not, you still don't have what it takes, do you Donald.) 

Now, in middle America, in a farm someplace in the heart of our support strong hold, a Republican and his loyal Republican wife are sitting down to a cup of coffee and a bowl of shredded wheat and they turn on the TV, to FOXNews, which is "Fair and Balanced." (That Fair and Balanced?  That was  Roger Ailes being sarcastic - because FOXNews is neither, and some people get the joke, other's don't.  That's because Roger Ailes is a real bitch.  Don't cross him, because it turns him on. Ask Gretchen Carlson.  She'll tell you.)  

And after hearing you speak that invitation, guess what.  It's not a question Donald, because I am going to tell you.  Clyde turns to Wanda and says "Did that son of bitch Trump just invite the Commies to invade America?"

And Wanda, taking a drag off her Winston cigarette says, "Sounds like it to me."

Now Clyde has a problem.  His father was killed in Korea fighting for the United States, against the commies, and he has voted for every damn Republican since Goldwater because the Republican's are tough on Commies, and now he has a bumper sticker on the back of his Chevy Truck (which is as American as "baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet") with your now Commie loving name on it. 

See the problem, Donald.  

Didn't think so. 

Clyde's problem is that he was planning on voting for you stupid son of bitch because Republican's keep the Russian's out of United States and it's stuff.  That's what Goldwater campaigned on, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and both Bushes, you arrogant prick.  Now you come along and not only invite them in, but you are too much of a chicken shit to own your words, coward. 

Here's the problem you giant gasbag, there is only one crime mentioned in the Constitution, which, God forbid you will have to swear to uphold against all enemies FOREIGN (That means the Russians that you just invited in) and domestic.  And that crime is Treason - the aiding and abetting of enemies of this nation to work towards overthrowing the duly elected government of the U.S.

And voters like Clyde and Wanda are your supporters - Conservative whites who you have made fearful of Communism and Socialism and every other "ism", are blinded by that fear you are peddling.  Otherwise they would see you for the obnoxious putz that you are.  

And every jaw of every American that paid attention in Government class just cringed when your pie hole spewed out that chestnut. 

So now you come out, all macho and trumpylike, and you say "oh, I didn't mean it.  I was being sarcastic" as if that is going to fix this. 

And Clyde and Wanda are wondering how the hell they just sold out the country they love by buying the load of Trump Shit you are selling. 

Let me tell you Donald Trump, Clyde and Wanda and every other American with an ounce of education didn't chortle at that crack.  It wasn't clever.  You weren't joking, and it certainly wasn't sarcastic.  It was a very definitive invitation for the Soviet Union to re-emerge and break down our security that controls everything from the lights in your gold plated toilet room to the protocscope that your doctors use to examine your brain. 

Linda Ellerbee once said that "Ideas off the top of one's head are a lot like dandruff - small and flakey."

Abraham Lincoln once said "It's one thing to be thought a fool, its something else to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Do you see what I am getting at Trump?

No, because your head is so far up your ass that your borderline personality disordered personality just comes back up your throat. 

Donald, you are bad news.  You are bad for this nation, and now you are bad for the world.  And I hope to God that when you lose in November you go the fuck away.  How about the Crimea?  I think Putin would love to sell you a nice villa for your golden years, you putz. 

Very Truly Yours,

Me

Shakey Shenkman Alert: Amazon really does sell everything, almost.

So, I get a message from my friend, Susan, and it says: "Cookie, what would you do if you found this Christmas morning under your tree?"

So I clicked the link to Amazon and this pops up:

So I look, I rub my eyes, and I verify this is for real.

And reader, it is.

"It comes with six shmeckles, says my friend.

"For this price?  It should come with more."

I respond to to Susan: "Well, under the Hanukkah bush yes, but this Christmas tree?  Isn't that a bit much?  I mean the Christ child has theoretically just been born.  So I could use the seven days for practice, but..."

Susan responds: "Would you like it in "White" or in "Medium"?

Evidently, "Medium" equals "brown" which means "black".

Reading further, I found a one line description: "Manufactured with care by Nasco in the United States, this Infant Circumcision Trainer, White is an excellent addition to your classroom! Shipping weight is 5 lbs."

"But I don't teach," I reminded Susan.

"The description says it also makes an excellent door stop," she replied.  "Besides, if David Sedaris has a 200 year old medical model of a vagina inset with real pubic hair, why can't you have this?  Think of this of it as a conversation starter."

I thought.  She had a point.  But what kinds of conversations could be started with this thing?

Guest: "What in the world is that?" they would ask, or maybe they would ask if E and I were taking up the art of circumcision like some couples who take up stamp collecting, or bridge.

And I would reply "Oh this?  This is an infant circumcision practice model."

I could then regale them with tales about my own bris.  "According to my Godmother, Rabbi Sol Shenkman did my bris.  He was known in Cleveland Jewish circles as 'Shakey Shenkman' because he was aged and had a tremor."

I once asked my mother who she could have handed me over to an old man at the beginning stages of Parkinson's to handle something so delicate.

"Sol," she began, "did beautiful work," as if he made draperies, or was a master painter.  This was followed by silence.

"And," I asked in a leading way.

"And," my mother replied "nothing.  He asked for the business, brought me flowers and was known for his talents."

"Talents?" I asked.  "Spinning a basketball on one's finger is a talent.  Selecting the right fabrics to get a total design in a room is talent.  Talent is playing Bach by ear.  SKILL is what you want in a moil, not people with Parkinson's."

"Of all the men you've "seen", who has the nicer circumcision, you or they."

This conversation drifted where I certainly didn't want it to go.  But she did have a point.  The Cookie Monster is well done, while some of the men that I have found myself with had messy work done.  The worse seems to be with men who were circumcised by the military when they were in the army, navy, air force or Marines.

Still, I didn't think anyone would want in on this story when they dropped over to collect money for the progressive dinner door prize, or over cocktails (until much, much later) in the evening.

I told Susan that while her offer was generous, that the trainer would be more fitting in her house, a house that had a Mezuzah  in every door into every room.  "It would part of your theme."

And now Susan waits for her knicknack, and she promises to save me one of the six penis that comes with the model.

Oh, boy! Hours of fun await.

I am still here, just on summer break...

You may have asked, what is Cookie up to?

Well, the sad, simple truth is not much.  Mother Nature has settled her great big fat ass right on top of Baltimore and it is HOT AS FUCK.

As my mother's mother would say, fanning herself in the stiflingly hot house that she and my grandfather lived in, "The weather today is 'close.'"  Never mind that she had an air conditioner that would have dropped the whole first floor to meat locker cold, she's sit in her chair with a fan from Denzer's Funeral Home and just rock in her chair.  Or, she'd be cooking over the stove, with that same fan in her hand, suffering in silence.

But in the Mid-Atlantic, it is not a dry heat.

OH FUCK NO.

This morning at 9AM it was 80 degrees and 87% humidity.  Yesterday it was so miserable that air was 90% humidity, and when that happens, and its hot, something's gotta give.  So ever hour or so the skies would just release heavy rain that came down in huge droplets for a minute or two and stop, and then a half hour later, it would repeat. And again, and again.  Finally at about two it just rained for about a half hour as the worst of it got it out of its system.

Still, its gross.

So we hide indoors.  With the AC.  And the dogs.

Just as you know that you are fat when the crotch on your caftan is tight, you know that the dogs want no part of this weather.  The dogs charge out the door gallop halfway through the back yard, pee and then gallop right back in, and they lay on the floor as if they have been at play all afternoon.

In other news, I am planning a solo trip to the Ohio's in August.  If you don't know why I call it the Ohio's plural, it's because while it is a legal state, Ohio is no longer homogeneous.  Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo and Columbus are wonderfully liberal - which makes me scratch my head as to why the RNC chose it instead of Cincinnati for their dreadful convention - which the rest of Ohio is red as a raw steak.

Simply put, I need a break, a chopped liver infusion and SHHS is planning a 35th reunion, so I will actually be doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights for  a couple days.

After that, I will be schlepping down to Columbus to be surrounded by friends.

The husband, meanwhile, will be "bach'ing" it here, missing me.

And when I get back, I will be even more appreciative of all the blessings in my life.

Things found apart, but should be together.