You heard it here first: Look for Ghislane Maxwell to be appointed head of the CDC. I can see it.
The real reason Monarez was fired is she refused to dye her hair. Per Trump: “She’s not bad looking in a doctory-sort of way, but what’s with the gray? Doesn’t she know we’re living in the 20th century? Find someone cuter like Bondi or that press girl — Levin?”
By the way, you know that cute but repulsive press secretary Karoline Leavitt? She’s 28 and got married in January to a real estate developer who is 60 years old. Yeah, you heard me. They had a son out of wedlock, gasp, last year. KL is the youngest of 4 and the first in her family to graduate from college (St. Anselm). Despite everything, Owl Chatter has a (very small) warm spot in our heart for her: her family owns an ice cream stand in Atkinson, NH.
Here she is with You-Know-Whom, enjoying Phil’s spot-on Putin impersonation.
I don’t think my fortune cookie has any idea of how old I am. It says: “You will be successful someday.” Ouch.
I’ll tell you folks, I made it through 50, 60, and 70 in one piece. Well, one piece minus a prostate. But 75 doesn’t pull any punches. I’m old now. I see people on the street who look old as hell and I find out they’re ten years younger than me. If you asked me at 55 what I thought it will be hard for me to do at 75, I would have never guessed most of it. I would not have guessed getting sleep would be hard. I would not have guessed putting my shoes on would be hard. Those ads you might think are ridiculous where Tony Romo or Howie Mandel crow about how great it is that they can just step into their Skechers — where you might think — do we really need to invent something for putting on our shoes? Yes, we do. The bending and contorting I need to do now for that task is not easy. By the time I get down there, parts of me get in the way.
Did you see that movie Free Solo about that guy who climbed up the face of El Capitan in Yosemite? You know, with the ropes? Well, they’re making the Jewish version now: it’s me climbing up the steps to my bedroom.
In the puzzle yesterday the clue at 4D was “Painting on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, with ‘The.’” The answer was 14 letters long. I could picture it, with the fingers, but it took me a bit to come up with CREATION OF ADAM. Egs came up with:
Mrs. M: Honey, would you come home and help with the kids?
Michelangelo: I’m working on The CREATIONOFADAM painting on the f***ing ceiling. Call your sister.
At 32D the clue was “Dog’s post-op wear.” The answer was CONE, but Rex said for a moment he thought it might be gown, and he posted this neat pic:
At 27D, “Library regular, perhaps” was AUTO DIDACT which I figured out must mean someone who is self-taught. (Whenever I see “self” as a prefix I think of Tom and Ray on Car Talk asking someone how long he’s been unemployed. And when the guy said he was a consultant they said: “Oh, so you’re self-unemployed.”)
Wanna hear a dirty joke? So this kid wakes up in the middle of the night from a bad dream and runs down the hall to his parents’ room. He opens the door and sees his mom dressed as a cheerleader and his dad dressed as a Viking and he’s screwing the hell out of her. The kid says “Dad! What are you doing!!” And the dad says, “Don’t worry about it, we’re just having a little fun. Go back to your room and I’ll come by soon to tuck you in.” About ten minutes later, the dad goes down to the kid’s room. He opens the door and sees the kid in bed screwing his grandmother!! The dad says “Jimmy! What the hell are you doing??” and the kid says: Yeah, it’s not so funny when it’s your mom, is it?
You know you’re in a slump when . . .
I left a small fact out of my recent description of that incredible inning in which the Yanks sent fifteen men to the plate, hit four homers, and scored nine runs. While all the fireworks were going on, poor Anthony Volpe, who has been mired in a terrible slump, made out twice — once by striking out and once by lining out. “C’mon fellas, let me in on the fun.”
Josh Naylor is one big motherf*cker, at least by baseball standards. Can you tell by this photo? He’s 5′ 10″ and weighs 235. He ranks #532 out of 546 players in terms of speed.
But get this — he’s stolen over 20 bases this year! Twenty-two, to be exact. And he’s only been caught twice — once when stealing home!! He hasn’t been caught since late April. No one his size has ever stolen over 20 bases in a season in baseball history.
“I think it’s about not being afraid to fail,” Naylor said. “Not being afraid to take a chance. That’s big for me. I try not to think about failure. Try not to think about, ‘What if I do this?’ I just like to play baseball, play hard.”
But those who’ve been paying attention say that’s bullshit and ascribe Naylor’s success to baseball acumen, preparation, and a lifelong eye for detail. “He has a good baserunning IQ, good instincts,” Guardians first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. said. “He sees tendencies and stuff.”
He has stolen off of the game’s best catchers — Gold Glove winners. This weekend he faces his old team, Cleveland, where his brother Bo is the catcher. Their parents are coming down from Canada to watch. (He’s Canadian.)
Chad Jennings, of the NYT asked: Will the slowest base stealer in the major leagues try to swipe a bag against his little brother with Mom and Dad in the stands?
“Oh, 100 percent,” Bo said. “I’d be shocked if he didn’t, to be honest.”
When he’s not stealing bases, he’s stealing hearts — well, just one — here’s his pretty wife Chantel.
I’m going to let this drop now. Thanks for coming by!
The Wellington Files 