In
what has to be the most monumentally perfect end and seque into what
has got to be a better tomorrow – and this is being said with my
tongue firmly planted in my cheek, we are bidding a fond adieu to
this third quarter of 2017 and looking ahead to the last quarter of
2017 and heading into 2018, with the hopes that all of this will be
far, far better than what has gone before and I must elucidate.
Hurricane Irma, 09/06/2017 01:48 am edt. Marching up the Caribbean to Florida.
After
coming home from Japan, which was surely a highlight, it took a while
to get back into my normal routine, and as a matter of fact, I'm not
sure I ever got there. This is rather a disaster for someone like me.
I'm hard-wired to the max and it's difficult for me when I get out of
my routine; I get out of sorts and lose my appetite, have trouble
sleeping and just generally do not operate at my optimal level best,
but I soldiered on.
Things
seemed to be settling down into a normal routine, until I had two
unfortunate hospitalizations; one in March and one in late July. The
one in March was due to some atypical chest pains that were
attributed to my essential tremor, which I've grown accustomed to
experiencing, but the one in July, was a bit more difficult, as this
one was caused by my essential tremor once more interfering with my
autonomic functions, by lowering my blood pressure and this time, my
heart rate, throwing me into bradycardia and had the unfortunate
effect of leaving me with a poor sense of balance and with vertigo. I
was also having my usual trouble of keeping weight on. The upshot?
Home with physical therapy, occupational therapy, extra food, care of
Meals on Wheels and extra vitamin supplements.
My handsome viola, Wolf. He's an Italian snob and it shows in the way he looks and sounds. No wonder he doesn't want to get his feet wet!
Then,
after a few weeks of that, I came down with a case of strep throat;
only my 2nd in my entire life. I knew it was strep,
because my gums threatened to run away first. Lovely stuff. This is
on top of having had my new cell phone stolen back in May. What a bad
summer. The highlight was seeing my old and dear high-school chum of
40+ years back in May. That was 3 days of laughing hysterically over
everything. I get to see her again in the spring, along with another
cohort of ours, and I can't wait.
So,
here we are. It's September 5th, 2017 and what do we have
awaiting us? Why one week after Hurricane Harvey, certainly one of
this epoch's most destructive storms in terms of human misery and the
cost in property damage and just the scope of destruction, we have
Hurricane Irma, not just lying in wait, but what has become quickly,
a category 5 storm, with winds of 185 miles per hour, at least 3
times the width of Florida, so that it matters not where she comes
ashore, we're all at risk. And it matters not whether or not I am
ambulatory, or if I have a vehicle or not. I have a valuable
instrument, and as long as I'm in a place that is high and dry, it
behooves me to stay put. Or rather, it behooves the underwriters of
the insurance policy that hold Wolf's policy for me to stay put. Not
that I'm tempted to go and grab a boat and go punting through the
streets of Tampa anyway. Nebraska Avenue is weird enough, when it's
normal out. I can just imagine how bizarre it's gonna be with Irma's
impact. Mr. Cigaret and his “Merry Christmas” in July and Abraham
singing to the cars will have new audiences to sing to and new
patrons to greet, if FEMA and disaster relief need to make their way
to our shores. As for me and Wolf, it's highly doubtful that we'll be
singing for our suppers, but you never know. Stay tuned. At any rate,
when Irma leaves, it's time for this run of luck to change!
