The Corner Booth

Sitting at a restaurant the other night, I overheard a conversation between two men who were obviously not happy with the healthcare law or the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. They talked for a good while on this, and I didn't interject. I just sat there listening, drinking my beer and eating my penne pasta while observing the after-work discussion between these two average guys. One made the point: "We're all human beings, and I feel bad that everyone doesn't have insurance. They should. But it's not MY responsibility to pay for them." This comment made me cringe. To me, that illustrates the disconnect we have as a people on this topic. We claim to be wanting what's right for our fellow human beings, but we're too selfish to pay for it. To recognize that we ALL have the duty, as fellow people, to help each other out. At the foundation, this isn't about taxes or politics or whether one person is lazy or not and deserves...

Not so long ago, I would've cringed at the idea of getting together and hanging out socially with other people with diabetes (PWDs). Seriously. Why would anyone  want  to wear diabetes on their sleeve or get together  because  of diabetes? Especially when you have to live with it every day. But now, I crave these connections — the chance to meet up with friends, where diabetes may come up in conversation but it doesn't have to... And when it does, you know the others at the table understand. You know the sharing is all in fun and there won't be any judgment or "textbook" advice coming your way. It's a place where pumps and CGMs beep (not only yours!), and blood meters and questions about carb counts aren't outside the norm but rather the "cool thing" because everyone else has those topics on their minds, too. That's the beauty of a D-Meetup. And it's a key connecting thread of the Diabetes Online Community, which offers lots in-p...

A couple years before re-focusing my personal blog on diabetes, and at a time when the Diabetes Online Community was not yet a prevalent force in my life, the history buff in me bubbled to the surface. Family history, specifically. It started with some holiday conversations with my in-laws in 2007, and a fascinating discussion (over coffee, of course!) about their lines beginning in northern Michigan and how my mother-in-law found some historic Civil War papers on an ancestor. That got me hooked. I soon began my own examination into the Hoskins family tree. A subscription to Ancestry and some travels between Indiana, Michigan, and Kentucky took me to parts of my world that I'd never known before. I got a look at where I truly come from, and it was pretty exciting. A visit to Kentucky was probably the most exciting, where my dad and I stumbled around cemeteries search for grave markers but found an actual Hoskins Road on land once owned by our ancestors back in the mid-1800...