Diary of a KAD

Caring for an elderly cat Picture this - you saved and scrimped for almost 15 years for the puuuuurfect celebration. The Quinceañera for your beloved cat is winding down. And now as you look into the future, you realize you’re caring for an elderly cat. I have tips. Mine is 21 and I want to share what I have learned. Eating: Try to give your cat the same amount of food every day so you can monitor if he loses or gains, or if he stops liking his food. At 17-ish I had to start giving him prescription food because he wouldn’t eat anything else… and I think I tried 9 million different varieties. Bathing : I don’t recall if it was all at once or a little at a time - he stopped grooming himself. I think partly because he had trouble reaching areas of his body and partly because he stopped caring. More of the former because when I took over, he seemed to really enjoy it. I comb him almost every day (gently because an old cat’s skin is like tissue paper), and I use dry cat shampoo occasionally...

No one wants to hear about my weight loss “journey” because I don’t have 100 pounds to lose. My journey is uninspiring. I've obsessed about my weight my entire life - just like almost everyone else. I tried a lot of different methods and diets - just like you. After Christmas, I decided to lose nine pounds. I told a few friends I wanted to lose eight. I was somewhat embarrassed by the number nine. Because my weight loss story is so uninspiring, I’m calling this my weight gain journey, which started roughly 12 years ago.  If you are rolling your eyes or thinking “if I stop drinking beer for two weeks, I’ll lose nine pounds. SO WHAT??” Then you are one of the lucky ones. Lucky that a minimal sacrifice can garner amazing results, and lucky that I haven’t come to your house to punch you. This is what the last 12 years of my life have looked like: counting calories, eating like one brownie a year, averaging 4-5 hours of exercise a week, spending more time with my FitBit than anyone in m...

Remembering my Aunt and Father One evening in the mid-late 1930’s, a soft-spoken young woman, Violet Jones, went on a blind date arranged by her brother. That night, her date Harry Kaelin, an outgoing angler and friend to many of the NY Yankees, proposed. As the story goes, Violet told him he was crazy. The next day, he sent her a huge bouquet of flowers – addressed not to Miss Violet Jones, but to Mrs. Harry Kaelin. They were married two weeks later. Violet and Harry had two biological children. He (my Father) was the most talented artist I have known, and she (my Aunt) was the most forgiving. They spent their younger years dancing, water-skiing in the Long Island sound, driving to lower Manhattan to join the Beats, and illegally night-riding the golf carts at the country club.  As adults, they brought their families together practically every week, graduating to adult  hi-jinks , enjoying the swimming pool, a Thanksgiving feast, or just to “drop by.” My Father and ...

Normally, I don’t take to rhyming because I think it’s gimmicky and campy.  Another thing that’s gimmicky is a lot of (awful) wine labels.  Novices are drawn to catchy names or fun looking bottles if they don’t know what to buy. So, here’s a little guide if you are just getting started, or fancy yourself an expert who enjoys an "every day" cost for an every day bottle.  Tip:  do not buy wine called “Bitch, Fat Bastard, Flirt, Goats do Roam” or anything else that sounds like it should not be wine.  Most wines you would want to drink sound pretty boring – the label should list the name of the wine (if there is one), the type of grape (sometimes referred to as the varietal), the vintage (if there is one) and the region from which the grapes are grown – that’s it.  Ya, it’s pretty boring, but when you open the bottle, the fun begins. Of course prices may vary, but I live in Arlington, VA where the cost of life has a 20% uplift – so these wines may c...

Years ago, I saw a movie called “Pay it Forward” that was terrible.  But, I love the concept because not enough people do good deeds (in my humble opinion).  You can’t really blame them because there is that saying about getting punished for good deeds; such as performing CPR on a choking man, only to have him sue you for ruining his Armani tuxedo jacket. I like stories about families reuniting.  Maybe because I was adopted or maybe because my estranged biological sister will likely stay that way forever.  Everyone knows the story of the Kansas City homeless man (Billy Ray Harris) who returned a woman’s engagement ring after she accidentally dropped it in his cup, while making a donation.  You may have even heard that the owner of the diamond ring started a fundraising page for Harris, raising almost $183,000.   But the real story is that Harris is back in touch with his family, from whom he was estranged for the last 16 years.  While t...

I’m relieved and grateful that Congress is seriously talking about immigration reform, but it really burns me when they focus the discussions solely on Mexican immigrants.  Because the national political stage has this tunnel-vision view of immigration, otherwise intelligent people (sometimes friends) tell me I don’t count… that I’m not really an immigrant.  I was born in Korea & am now a resident and citizen of the USA.  Yes, I am an immigrant, as defined by Webster (immigration, noun, the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country).  Still, I do think this is good news, in the sense that our government is talking about the possibility of maybe trying for a solution. Photo credit:  Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press This topic is extremely sensitive for me, and I get passionate when people talk about it, but have no idea how little they know – the unconsciously incompetent.  When people assume immigrants want to live & wor...