I still can’t quite believe my mother is gone. She survived so much, but in the end, it was something as simple as the flu and pneumonia that she could not survive. We had the sad task of cleaning out her small room at Lakeside Assisted Living. I wanted to rescue her art and her…
Author: kittyireland
Paying attention to attention, psychology, habits, art, writing, literature, mysteries, nonsense, addiction, humanism, humor and cake.
My Mom’s Nine Lives
I recently read that the average lifespan for a person diagnosed with schizophrenia is 69 years. That’s a whole decade less than the average American life span. Mental illness cascades into physical illness for many reasons. Those who have trouble functioning in the world are less likely to get preventative care, more likely to live…
Gluten-free in NYC
Pub fare When we arrived at our Chelsea hotel, it was already after 8 p.m., and we needed a meal. We took a moment to appreciate the spectacular view from our 45th-floor room and then did a quick Google for restaurants within a few blocks that might be open for dinner. We decided on a…
Use Artificial Intelligence for Good
Some people are afraid of AI. Maybe they took the movie The Terminator a bit too seriously, or perhaps they know something I don’t. I find it difficult to be intimidated by something that cannot form an independent thought and lacks the ability to desire anything. AI can barely figure out how to search the…
Can I go back to my childhood home?
Over the past month or so, we have started to consider moving out of our townhouse in South Seattle and going somewhere else. We’re exhausted by the mailbox thieves, arsonists, and alley scavengers. New construction on our block was set on fire, and the house next to the blaze caught fire, but the residents escaped….
Unscathed: The story of a very bad week
Fired? I’ve worked in tech or tech-adjacent for close to 25 years, so the specter of layoffs lurks in my peripheral vision like a mean ghost. I held my breath during the big tech layoffs a couple of years ago. Would I be next? I’ve been laid off five times before, but I’ve always known…
Take me to church
Religion is not my thing. My whole family—both sides and as many generations as I’m aware of—have never taken up religion. Or maybe, at some point, someone gave up religion in favor of more personal freedom, or maybe there weren’t churches in the Pacific Northwest logging camps and homesteader communities where my ancestors found themselves….
SE Asia Part Two: Year of the Dragon
I wasn’t thinking about Chinese New Year when we booked our trip to SE Asia, but when we discovered that it was occurring during the first week of our trip, I was both delighted and apprehensive. Would there be big public events to seek out, or avoid? Would it make transportation a hassle? Would there…
Hold the soy sauce: GF in Asia
Traveling in Southeast Asia may sound like a dream for gluten-avoiders. All the rice! And rice noodles! But alas, there is one major stumbling block to GF dining: Soy sauce, made from wheat, in a travesty of inaccurate branding. Sadly, many Asian dishes are cooked with soy sauce, and requesting tamari as a substitute is…
Free to be, you and me
Why be normal? That was a bumper sticker you’d see on the back of VW Rabbits in the early 1980s. But my mom, P’Tricia, knew that wasn’t even the right question. There’s no such thing as normal, she told me, over and over. The heteronormative nuclear family wasn’t “normal,” in her eyes. It was toxic….
Plumb Wonderful 