Kidney Wolf

Greetings, everyone.

My apologies for the late post.  There's been a lot happening this week, and frankly I lost track of time.

There are always wolves at every door.  Sometimes they're little wolves, and they howl about credit ratings, bounced cheques, and going to the right college.  Sometimes they're larger, baying about eviction notices and homelessness.  Sometimes they're sized akin to Fenris himself.  Those ones sing of firing squads, power plant meltdowns, and kerosene-soaked tires set alight around your neck.  But no matter the size they're always nearby, and how loud they seem depends on what you've been through before.  Or, if you have a good enough imagination and the brain to use it, what others have been through before you.  The worst you know is always the worst you know, and they love to make you afraid.

So, let me start out by punting one yappy little cub out of the way to say that yes, my appeal was successful.  I am no longer on academic suspension, though they're keeping me on probation for some reason, and I have my federal funding again.  Though I confess it is still somewhat amusing to me to refer to such a thing as "mine".  I got a letter in the mail and everything.  They were in enough of a hurry that they forgot to sign it or include all the other documents it said it would contain.  But I understand that there is a lot of this going on right now, and they're a little swamped.



Comics fan.  Old school.  I apologize for nothing.

And in other news, my oldest, my Lioness, is preparing to move out at last.  JobCorps beckons, hidden in the wilderness of a faraway state.  Not that I won't miss her, but sometimes, when life has gotten too damned confining, adventure is called for. When she was an infant, we we had no air conditioning so we would set her on her back and fan her.  She would tuck in her legs and flap her arms, smiling.  Well, lion of my heart, the time has truly come.

  

There's the cliff.  Fly.



And now the really, really big news: the Dormouse has a new kidney!



For those of you who do not know, the Dormouse is husband to Lauren Scharhag, my writing partner (see links to your upper right) and a a fine fellow in his own right - as well as dispenser of precious treacle when our plot lines run dry.  He had been in end stage renal failure for years, doing home dialysis and slogging his way through any number of various torments in the hopes of getting a new kidney, and the liberties that come with it.

Well, last week a viable kidney arrived.  Young, arrogant, and full of spunk.  It wheeled up on its Vincent Black Shadow, still yelling at its last host, "Oh yeah!  Fine!  I don't need you anyway!  I know there's a body out there for an organ like me!  A body that's ready for new dreams, new ideas!  A body that's ready for the future!"  It wasn't even wearing a helmet.

It screeched to a halt in front of the ER doors.  "Hold on there, young fella," started the cop on watch, "You can't park that here--"

The kidney tossed him the set of keys.  "I'm not," it said.  "I'm giving it away.  Park it where you want it."  Then it raced into the operating room and fairly leapt into the Dormouse's abdomen.

"Whoa, wait a minute," the doc exclaimed, "I'm trying to perform surgery!  Just what do you think you'e doing?"

"Oh, a college guy, eh?" the kidney sneered.  "Bite me, frat boy.  I'm running this show."  And it sewed itself in in half the normal time.



So the Dormouse was up and about in a matter of hours, chewing nails and spitting bullets, running laps through the renal ward while the nurses stared after him, amazed, fanning themselves.

Lauren and I got to spend some time with him last night.  We wrote on her laptop while he watched Big Bang Theory on his own.  I haven't been living with the struggle all this time, nor with the success that this week has finally brought.  So rather than winge on about how great this was - which they both know far better than I - I just enjoyed their company quietly and looked forward to the future.  The Dormouse is fit and in the pink, and Sydney the Kidney is doing fine as well, full of sass and ready to take on the world.

The wolves are still there, of course, growling and sulking in the shadows.  They are always there.  They lie at the very heart of humankind, and to be free from them is the essence of madness and Illumination.  But  sometimes they can be fought off, laughed at, even killed.  You can take an axe to them, cook them when they slide down your chimney, or trick them into eating stones and drown them in the river.

And for a moment, at least, there are a few less baying at the door.



Sometime again,
--Coyote


(first wolf photo courtesy of artandhockey.blogspot.com; Swamp Thing is (c) DC Comics; lioness courtesy of thelifebehindthecoach.typepad.com; vincent black shadow courtesy of classic-car-history.com; royal fanfare courtesy of britisharmedforces.org; wolf at the chimney courtesy of parentheticalasides.blogspot.com.  All rights reserved by the rightful owners, and all that.)