I had a nice visit with my dad and stepmother Monday/Tuesday. As with Thanksgiving, the 3-hour trip there and back was non-eventful, meaning, no traffic issues.

We had a super-wonderful Japanese lunch Monday shortly after I arrived; it was just the 2nd time I've had Japanese. I really like the seaweed salad, plus i had a chicken teriyaki Bento box and red bean ice cream for dessert.

Later, i went with my step-mother and her dog, Lily, for Lily's final exam at therapy dog training school. There were lots of much bigger dogs there, including a standard poodle, a shaved down English sheepdog and a Dalmatian, but she passed and K. was quite pleased.

She wants to start bringing her to a local hospital. The dog trainer gave her a 2-page list of hospitals, nursing homes, hospice centers and public libraries that have dog programs. Amazing it's gotten that big. And she wants to put her other dog, Bailey, through the same training.

Monday night we had dinner at the Bonefish Grill, my first time there as well. The place was packed. What recession? I had the tilapia.

Tuesday a.m. we ate breakfast at their favorite diner. (Yes, they eat out a lot.) We ran into a few of my dad's old crony friends there. Afterwards, I stopped to fill up on NJ's cheap gas ($2.35/gallon), which is ending in 2010 cus the state needs to balance its budget with gas taxes, and I headed north on the Parkway listening to New York talk radio.

Step-mom kindly sent me packing with some home-made beef stew, pumpkin soup and a big glass jar full of blackberries and gooseberries, which i plan to bake tomorrow with their strawberries in a gargantuan berry crisp. All these berries are taking up too much room in my freezer. I never seem to eat enough fruit in the winter, so here's my chance for redemption.



Today I created another blog for job search purposes and so I now have 3 blogs to post to at least a few times each week. That's a lot of blogging, but for the first time ever, I'm using a variety of topic-specific blogs as a job search tool to help showcase my writing.

I also finally finished writing a pro bono fundraising letter for a local environmental group. I had been procrastinating on that one.

Aside from running to the bank to deposit checks, I drove nowhere today. Spoke again to my friend/neighbor H., who still sounds quite sick on the phone, so i guess she won't be coming over New Year's eve.