The Corner Booth

Penned in August 2007, this story appeared in our county humane society's newsletter and was written about a month after we adopted Riley and brought her home. We've now been together for five years. By Riley Hoskins Sometimes, it’s funny how a newspaper can change your life. That’s how mine took a turn for the better, paving the way for a forever family and permanent home. Just call me Riley. Everyone else does. In a way, the name almost reflects the uncertainty surrounding the first chapter in my life. Memories of my early days are fuzzy, but it’s tough to describe the little I remember as bad when it led me to where I am today. They say I may have been abused as a puppy, but no one knows for sure. We don’t even know for sure when my real birthday is, though that V-E-T says I was about 1-year-old when brought home. All I know for certain is that the mysterious chapter of my life ended one fateful day when I stumbled into a Center Grove neighborhood at the tail end of 20...

You may remember my past post about the origins of my family history work started several years ago. This is a continuation of that, as part of my series publishing my past genealogy research and writing outside of the Ancestry.com world.  - - - - - - - - - -  When I was tracking the name Hoskins through the generations, I had a solid line dating back to the early 1870s before there was any question. My 2nd great grandfather didn't actually ever talk about his own father, and so that's when it became unclear who was in our line from that point back. Birth, death and marriage records - along with land ownership and wills - helped connect the dots going back to 1790, when there was again uncertainty. I couldn't confirm that my ancestor apparently born that year was actually related to a line of Hoskins dating back to the Civil War days and possibly even to the pre-colonial days. No documents seemed to exist, since the War of 1812 meant that any historical records fr...

We all need a little perspective sometimes. Mine came on the heels of a week of diabetes conference activity and advocacy talk, and it was a reality check that slapped me upside the head while screaming at me about how much bigger the world is than diabetes. One phone call was enough to remind me that, in the grand scheme, diabetes isn't that big of a deal. Really. There are a whole lot of worse conditions and diagnoses that trump the "incurable but manageable" classification of diabetes any day of the week. Especially those that carry the terminal disease tag. I've been living with type 1 diabetes for most of my life, going on three decades. But I have no idea what kind of hell and devastation is involved in many other disease states such as Lou Gehrig's, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and more. No clue. Given that, I'm lucky to be living with an autoimmune condition that I can keep "under control" for the most part and not be stopped fro...

Sometimes, I just want to scream at my endocrinologist. I'm not a textbook diabetic! Don't say I am "uncontrolled"... I'm living with diabetes every day! No, I DON'T know why that number from three weeks ago was 400...! I'm not checking my blood sugars as much because I'm burnt out, and it's not like I can just flip a switc h to make myself feel better! The Diabetes Online Community understands... why can't you?! You just don't get it, doc! Some variation of these pretty much come to mind every time I visit my endo, which is typically every few months. Ever feel that way? You might say my endo and I have a rocky relationship . We don't see eye-to-eye on everything, but she knows her stuff and is highly qualified to do what she does. And she helps me when I need it. Yet I am still frustrated... obviously. I've been with this endo for more than five years now, after discovering her within a 10-minute drive from my house a couple year...