CHRISTMAS LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE

While not superstitious, this is the second time, almost to the same date, that our family has gotten bad health news at Christmas time from Miami. In December 2011, his Lordship Mario Carl got his cancer news, and now Aunt Julia – the Contessa de Quejas—had a stoke. If there is to be a troika, Mr. FOG is the logical number three. With Julia being Number Two, FOG has started planning on a Chicago Christmas for 2015-the next odd year, far away from Miami. It may be colder, but safer health wise.

THE DRIVE

FOG made it to Miami in short order and in better shape than on most other trips. At his slow but steady below the speed limit driving, resting; sleeping, eating etc. it took 22 hours to drive the 825 miles from Asheville, North Carolina. Everyone, yes everyone, else passed Mr. FOG. Only a slow moving chicken farmer and a truck pulling a boat were slower. Proud to drive at a prudent 62 miles per hour, he has a slightly lower gas bill, and saved $5.43 to be exact, as his reward. However next time there is a family emergency and there is the need to get somewhere fast; FOG will ask Nurse Sherry to take the wheel.. She has a fashionable Prada lead foot and knows how to use it when necessary.

Aunt Julia’s heath news is mixed, but better than what it could have been. I spoke with her cardiologist by phone when I was an hour away in Ft. Lauderdale and the diagnosis was that she had a stroke. I had been told for two days that she just had a bad fall and a blow to the head, since the CT scans did not detect a stroke. On Friday night or really Saturday early morning around 4:00 am, she blacked out and fell down while going to the bathroom. She was able to call on a neighbor who rescued her around 6:00 am and by mid afternoon on Saturday was in the emergency room. Yes she had a stoke(s), but perhaps they were minor one(s) and perhaps there is little or no permanent damage, only a temporary condition that should improve. Let’s see if this is the case. Presently she is actually OK. She was an incomprehensible “Tower of Babel” on Monday and improved to dyslectic on Tuesday afternoon. Her speech is improving, and I can now understand some of what she is saying. I am not interested in most of what she has to say. I have heard all of this so many times before.. Little puppies are shown being abused in a TV commercial to get you send money, so she cries. Obama is running this country into the ground. Why can’t life be as it was in the 1950’s when the United States was a role model for the world? Regardless of the topic, we are having semi-lucid conversations, but as have been our phone conversations for sometime now, she rambles about extraneous topics we have covered so many times before. This is not a stroke symptom, but has been Julia's new "normal" for sometime now. These life events inspire some self reflection, and I suppose my own idiosyncrasies would also be suspect. Please kids, I am actually really sane, in my own way, and there is no need to send Mr. FOG, although he may in a fog at times, to Shady Acres, just yet.. If you have to send him somewhere -- a round the world cruise would be a much better choice.

FOG’s NEW TEMPORARY JOB For the short term, a few weeks at most; I plan to stay in Miami and help her back from the hospital and transition back into her own home. They probably will send her to rehab or some sort of therapy as well and give me a break. As I know more about Aunt Julia’s condition I will share. You may remember her from the Blog as the Contessa de Quejas (the Countess of Complaints).. FOG is finding out that it is a rough job market and you have to take low paying jobs, well-below one’s capabilities, often with diffulcult bosses. He had been a chauffer/man servant/butler .to his Lordship at the Vinings Mountain Castle. This was a position of dignity that he performed well and had good job references. Just recently he was a world traveler and foreign travel correspondent. However it seems as if Mr. FOG has accepted the position of scullery maid for the Contessa de Quejas. You may read more about the Contessa in our December 2012 Blog -- Cruise Lifestyle Issue ... More on Mr. FOG’s new temporary job as a Contessa’s Cinderfellow will be reported in future Blogs as he vents about his "employer". Surely ,"Take This Job and Shove It" will be a future Blog topic. Hopefully it will later and not sooner.