Within minutes of joining our family as an adoptee six years ago, Kumba attacked the nicest dog in the community, and we were confronted with a dilemma: return him to Labrador Retriever Rescue of Florida, or put a muzzle on him and surround him with strong, consistent love to help him find a way forward.…
we have the privilege of being welcomed into an assisted living and memory care facility every Thursday at two near our South Florida home.
our rescue lab and therapy dog, Kumba, con, visited with residents of a nearby assisted living and memory care facility this week Here are some exchanges.
Here’s the beginning of my first draft of A FAMILY FOR KUMBA. Comments are welcome! November 8, 2015Carolina, Puerto Rico The black puppy slips into the world and onto the squirming pile of brothers and sisters, all mewing, blind, helpless. His mother’s tongue seeks him out, lapping the birth membrane away, leaving him looking like…
Omg you ran 5k next to the hospital where you learned how to walk again, what a special moment that must have been! Gemma, my Amsterdam physiotherapist, July 2023 https://videopress.com/v/7nRrgJBn?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&posterUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fembassykid.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F05%2F8235c702-5f00-437a-948c-00f4406f833c_mov_avc_240p.original.jpg&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true Four years ago, when six weeks in an Amsterdam ICU had fully depleted my fitness-instructor muscles, I would have been thrilled simply to be able…
The Tooth Fairy and the Christmas witch, La Befana, were scary when I was a little kid in Italy, but now they have teamed up forces to appropriate my grown-up teeth and my money and leave the cash my dentist’s pocket.
The Amerson-Cardenas Gang One Saturday afternoon in 1965, when I was 10 and we were about halfway through my father’s three-year assignment at the American Embassy, I was doing my homework in my room when I heard clanging in the street and looked out. A small group of street children—Bogotanos called them cochinos, dirty pigs—was on the…
For the first time, my husband and I did not have turkey for our Thanksgiving meal, choosing instead butter-soft filet mignon for our dinner-for-two this year. However, tradition is much on my mind. As US embassies, foreign service families, and ex-pats of all kinds celebrate America’s national holiday abroad, the events of the day are…
On Friday, November 22, 1963, when I was nine years old, my family was in the final days of a week in Washington DC between my father’s US Information Agency posts in Rome and Bogotá. My father completed his morning briefings on the Kennedy administration’s Alliance for Progress, the president’s key economic development initiative for…
As I completed EMBASSY KID, I tracked down my 7th grade best friend down to let her know how much she meant to me.
