The Magic Number is 15

Numbers are great. Just ask my son, who can tell you that a quadrangle is a polygon with 4 sides, and has many varieties: rectangle, rhombus, square, parallelogram and trapezoid. G-ZUS! I can't believe they're teaching this shtuff to 5th graders nowadays. But all props to the fine concerned folks over at his elementary school, they're truly a great group.

When I was a kid, for some reason I always got #13. No matter how much I told myself that 13 isn't a cursed number, I plainly SUCKED at basketball. So if you think 13 is just another number, change your errant ways and avoid all things 13. And take a look at the elevator panel the next time you're at a hi-rise hotel.

Magic Johnson is one of those cool dudes I really would like to meet. 32 is a number I will forever associate with His Greatness. Man, my Spartans were awesome back then. They didn't look anything like that today.

Today, we finally saw the sun after 15 days without a single second of sunshine. 15 days people! Living this close to Big Blue, we come to appreciate the moderating effects of all that holy water during the summertime, but in the winter we really have to pay some bills. We were getting some giant snow until just before Christmas and then someone turned up the heat and all that stopped. I have to apologize to Jason and Beth for blaming all our melting snow on their Christmas trip to Nebraska, I was out of my mind. Strangely, the wind calmed and clouds just kept coming. Sadly, I was looking forward to another day of Cloudcuckooland as this would be day #16, tying or breaking the record depending on who you ask. I'm a firm believer in SAD, and it was painfully obvious as I was psychotically gleeful in the bright moments following old Sol's re-emergence. I was clinging to the hope of another 24 hours without sunshine so I could participate in a record-breaking event, and I could look back over the years and recall how I was there that day, January 8th, 2006, when many were convinced there really is no God.

The hits just keep on comin'

So yesterday was my family's Christmas thing, and it started surreal enough. After driving almost 2 hours in freezing rain leftovers, unpacking all the goodies from our car, parking it and finally getting my butt inside, I made the rounds exchanging pleasantries with the 20 or so members who were already there. Nearly finished with my loop I spy my dad at the end of the drive , one foot in the road, waving to a fire truck to turn into our driveway.

"Odd," methinks. "Why is a firetruck pulling into the drive?" I ask. Well, the answer was my Uncle had fainted. As the paramedics were tending to him he went down again and they could barely find a pulse. An ambulance came and they struggled with the gurney as he was in the kitchen at the table. The good thing was one of my brothers is a P.A. and was taking good care of him til the help arrived, and also knew quite a bit of his medical info. I'm not sure if this was because of a close relationship with my Uncle, or if this was a result of other negatives in my cousin's family recently, but I don't really care.

The crazy thing is just over a week ago, one of his sons had some pain in his chest and went to the hospital; they found 5 blockages and operated on him the very next morning. My brother said to me a few days ago that he told each member of their family to get some tests done as this type of heart issue is genetic- my uncle's first heart-attack came at the age of 32. He's had 2 or 3, and at least 2 heart surgeries. The scary thing is one of his siblings has already had the tests after speaking with my brother, (he won't tell me what the results were, but he's also sworn me to secrecy that I even know the cousin had the test at all.) I hope for the best, but at the same time I'm a bit uneasy with the serious undertones of the secrecy. With luck, maybe the risks can be greatly reduced through diet, exercise, and our good friend chemistry.

Uncle is feeling much better, but will probably need to have a pacemaker. Thankfully, everyone was able to keep the kids distracted; I would hate for them to have had a strong memory of a bad thing happening at Christmas.

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