Koshaking Out

If you don't want to hear about my weird blood, stop here.



Got a look at my medical records today. I was looking for something specific. I didn't find the specific tests I was looking for, but I did see that my ANA factor goes on and off like a broken lighthouse (currently off.) So I'm more like Mum than I thought, except I actually bothered to test positive in the last 20 years. Once. In about a thousand tests.

The only thing that said anything on the matter of my blood being weird was a notation that it was a little thick and I should take a baby aspirin (I vaguely remember this.) I have been told fifteen billion times at least that blood does NOT thicken in cold weather and thin out in warmer, but I dare any doctor who reads this to figure me out. A month after I arrive in warm weather or the weather gets warm around me, almost to the day, and if it coincides with my menses, down I go. I get sick. It happened twice in high school, and in England in 2008. If it doesn't land smack on my menses, I usually feel mildly sick. The spring one (going cold to warm) is always worse than the fall one (going warm to cold.) The spring one at its mildest can nauseate me for a couple of days, but I've always pushed through the fall one without slowing down.

Then there's the blood sugar. Warm or cold weather (more in warm) I constantly worry about my blood sugar. Had an incident with it today where I started shaking because I hadn't eaten when my transport said I should. I don't usually let it go beyond the hands shaking and cold hands-the one time I accidentally let it get bad, I was seeing lights on the edges of my vision and I felt like crap for hours even after I got fuel in my system. Not worth it, not ever. I always carry granola bars in my purse for emergency situations where I'm not going to get to eat for at least two hours. Mum has blood sugar issues, too, but hers are far better than mine. We think (no proof to this theory) that since my blood is weird in the first place, it doesn't transport the blood sugar as well. I watch it like a hawk.

I wish the answers had been there, but I know better than most that you're unlikely to figure out what the hell is going on from a bunch of tests, especially since my mother has had issues for decades and still really doesn't have anything but treatment for symptoms. I always hope that there's a doctor out there who'll look at me one day and say, Why, dear, you have this, but that's about as likely to happen as me winning a huge pile of cash, so I guess I just chug on.

Interview tomorrow!

Ta,
Bec

800th Post!

Streamers, Streamers, Confetti and Streamers!

Ahem...

It's been a rough week here at the Koshak household. Spirit left us on Monday, as you all saw, and I got rejected for a couple of jobs, one of them being Leicester, and I scored an interview somewhere in Wisconsin for a Library Director job. Interview is on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, we may be getting a baby around here. By April. Honestly. It is possible that by the day our dear Sprite would have turned 14, we may have her successor (not replacement. Never replacement.) It's still being set up but she looks like a sweet baby. I'll post pics when things are finalized.

It may seem rather quick, but as I said to Mum last night, Sprite was going downhill for months before she went. I didn't realize how much of her personality had gone until it was gone, and we've been talking about getting a new baby for two years almost (since Whisper left.) Sprite's departure left the house so empty. We need a baby around here.

Mum, of course, is telling me not to spoil her. I remind her every time that it was her who spoiled Sprite and Whisper both, so she's one to talk.

And yes, this is my 800th post. 5 1/2 years of posting. Oi. Where does the time go?

Kitty is sleeping sitting up on the couch. Mum went to town to do stuff. Dad's at work. Not much going on around here today. I have to go boil potatoes.

I am preparing to redo my Reichenbach notes from the ground up, mostly because one posting apparently has everything the other does not and vice versa. They're starting to shoot series 3 this week (squeals of joy from millions go here) and so I felt it was a good time to review and clean up my notes. They'll be posted sometime next week.

Gotta go boil them taters.

Ta,
Bec

Spirit

Spritey,

You were the smallest, most annoying pain in the butt this family had ever seen.

While your sheltie predecessor Ginger was textbook of the breed, you were absolutely not. You were small, for one thing. Ginger had ten pounds on you. You were also mouthy, pushy, rude, standoffish, vain, and completely greedy. Your antics made me laugh more in a week than most dogs would manage in a month.

I'll miss your drivebys, where you ran yourself along the edge of the couch hoping for a head scratch/butt rub. You always got tangled in the blankets. I'll miss you banging into our legs when we didn't move fast enough, or your pulling the water bowl across the floor with your foot in anger when we ignored your need for a drink.

You loved to eat. You ate everything in sight-egg shells, lettuce, popcorn, Listerine Pocket Packs (the look on your face when you realized this wasn't food sent your three human sisters into peals of laughter.)

You had no idea how to hunt. Hunting required stealth. You'd see movement and go ballistic. You'd see bronze bulls and go into maximum defense mode. We had to cover your eyes at the 4th of July parade or risk you trying to take on a horse 100 times your size.

You didn't know the meaning of fear. You took on bunnies, deer, cows, horses...didn't matter. You'd take 'em all on and beat them up. I called you the Cowardly Lion because you were all shout and puff but no real backup. If you'd ever faced a real bull head-on you'd have gone running for help.

Quiet? You didn't know the meaning of the word. If you weren't snoring in your sleep like a grizzly bear, you were blowing doors open at 7 in the morning with your head and demanding attention. You were trilling. You were clicking your little feet through the house and coming to find me. You were landing like your body weighed a ton of bricks in the kennel when you didn't get your way. You were throwing a temper tantrum when you got locked in the kennel during meal time.

You demanded attention. You required it. You hated hugs, hated affection or being held or cuddled, but attention was something else. You loved people, and people loved you. They'd smile at you, perched on someone's lap in the car. They'd go out of their way to pet your little head. They'd comment on how beautiful you were, how pretty that little dog was. You never lived with little kids and yet you were a magnet for them, and they always exclaimed how soft the cute puppy was.

You loved scootching up against my feet at Christmas, pushing me back and back and back, until you had 3/4 of the couch claimed and I was smushed in the corner. Remember when you kicked me in the back all the way from Milwaukee to Rhinelander because you thought you needed more space to sleep in?

You hated us being more than ten feet away from you. If I went around the side of the car, you'd cry. If we were doing laundry outside, you'd howl till we noticed you. You would stand under the porch and banshee away until we asked you to shut up.

You were beautiful, my girl, and you knew it. From long silky fur to your golden-tufted ears (first thing I noticed about you,) to your little raccoon face and your golden eyebrows, you were the most gorgeous dog I've ever seen. Not that you liked having that beauty maintained. Your appearance as a floaty, lovely thing took work, and Mum made sure you always looked your best.

It didn't help you when you lost to that ferret, but still. You never got gray. You were practically 14 and still looked half that age. You were bouncy until your very last week, outrunning me when I tried to escape you being in the lead and biting my ankles to control your "sheeple."

You were hilarious. From the two ceramic bowls you backfooted off the porch within a month, to the metal ones you threw across the room every night, to the time you got stuck in the grate in front of the door by your collar, to getting stuck on the chair rung in the kitchen, you needed constant help in getting out of scrapes. Feet stuck through chain links. Stuck around the porch with your outside rope five times a day, and on your leash, wound around my legs so tight I almost fell on my butt.

You covered pancake batter that fell on the ground with dirt pushed by your nose. You shoved bowls until they tipped their contents everywhere. You landed on Whisper's stomach and caused everyone in the house to chastise you for it. Then there was the time you went pushing under Whisper's feet in your desperation to get to a biscuit and suddenly popped up next to me.

You trampled Grandpa Koshak's paper in your need for attention-ran through it, ran under it, ran over it. He finally gave in and cuddled you (you always did have him suckered, right from the very beginning.)

You loved car rides and walks. You went crazy if you saw me put on my socks. You adored snow. How many times did I have to wipe your face off when you came inside the house?

You were our little star. We told people you were a menace, but I realized as I typed this that I missed all your little ways and habits, your tiny fairy feet clicking through the house, your familiar ebony body in one of the bedrooms.

You had about fifty nicknames, most of them due to me. No one seems to be able to remember how you got the name of Poo (possibly Pooh?) but I called you some of these (forgive me if I can't remember them all...)

Strawberry Shortcake
Napoleonic Powermonger
Opportunistic Bitch
Lion Puppy
Tiny Dancer (the name of one of your siblings, but it fit you, too)
Un Peu (French for "a little.")
Poozie
Poozietron
Pain in the mikta (basically pain in the ass in Jaffa)
Sprite
Spritey
Spritey-Poo
Sprit
Spoo (Sprite and Poo together)
Spirit Marie (mostly in exasperation when you got tangled)
Snowbup
Big Girl (mostly had to do with your ego)
The Birthday Present that Really Bites (you were Mum's 40th birthday present, but most of the time, I was the one you bit. Remember when you ripped the leg of my jeans because you were hanging onto the back?)


It is too quiet here without you. It really is. I had no idea how much noise you actually made until you weren't here making it.

I know your obit isn't as good as Whisper's, but I couldn't leave out the important things you had done in your life; the little things. You were so much and it's hard to contain you down to words.

You drove us crazy and scared us half to death. The night you disappeared as a baby and turned up down the road, the time Whisper unintentionally caught her leash around you and nearly choked you to death, the two major times you were ill, the time you chased that damn deer, the Pit game last summer when you were terrified of our shouting...you reminded me that life is for the seizing, no matter how long it is.

When I kissed your nose for the last time yesterday, I swore I'd remember you for the rest of my life. How could I forget such a force of nature, a person (or shuman, if you want to get technical about it) who lived up to her name so distinctly that no other could ever carry it?

I hope you and Whisper are up there someplace, shooting the breeze and sharing a bowl of never-ending biscuits, which you take more than your share of and Whisper lets you. I hope Pookie is there, too, cuddled up next to you and undestroyed by Whisper's teeth.

Rest in peace, my sweet girl, our Spirit (Marie) (Hurricane) of the Great Northwoods.

We will love and miss you always.

Spirit of the Great Northwoods
4.2.99-3.11.13

Muse!

Chris during his song, "Liquid State." Keep up the good work, Chris!



During the period between the FIRST encore and the second (there were two because no one wanted Muse to go) everyone pulled out their smartphones or cell phones and lit them up.



Dom saying goodnight in his pink whatever-it-was. Very nice. Almost tops the Spiderman outfit, Dommie...



Matt threw his guitar over a couple of screens and it landed on the floor. Lucky me that I took a picture right then before someone got it off the stage so Chris wouldn't trip over it...



Here's a photo of the screens down, and look over the top of the date stamp. Matt's guitar. Lying on the floor.



During Animals. Matt, Dom, Morgan. (Chris is too far over to be in this shot.)



Matt looks like an angel. A small, dark, screamy, instrument-wielding angel.



The whole big setup from afar. Next time (and there will be a next time because I totally am gonna need this again) I will get closer and I will have better pictures.



Written just before things got started last night...

Muse are playing here tonight, and I am with them. Despite all the shit the last year has thrown at me, despite the 4 jobs I got rejected for yesterday, in this moment, there is no emotion to describe this but keysmashing, stupid, blatant happiness...only probably improved by a jar of maraschino cherries smothered in dark chocolate.

And this is my thoughts on it today.

Matt chucked his guitar over two sets of screens.

Matt walked into the front row and started hanging out with the fans (probably scaring the living crap out of the security guys.)

Dom wore a pink leotard.

There was a purple monster dancing on the screens during one song.

Matt had an argument with Dom and called him a liar just before they played Sunburn.

These are the little details I'll remember when the rest of this concert has faded into the background. For now, I think I'm still registering a mild case of shock and a whole lot of awe.

I can't single out one moment that was the best, because it was ALL the best. Every inch. Every moment. There were only around 8,000 people in the room (including myself) but it didn't matter. They played like it was Wembley or Glastonbury or something. Their heart and dedication was astounding, and while I was sad to see it end, I understand that Matt's knees probably weren't.

Long live Muse. You knocked it out of the park last night. Bravo. I will see you again next tour, and that is a promise.

Ta,
Bec