Can You Believe I Forgot My Leftovers?? Grr!

On Thanksgiving, we packed Suzy in the car and drove 93 miles to my folks' house. Traffic was awful the entire way, and it took us an extra hour to get there, but we arrived safely and were glad to see everyone. Once we arrived, Suzy made a bad impression by peeing on the carpet twice and pooping in the living room once. Hoo-boy. She never does that at my house. Thank goodness for my parents' heavily Scotchguarded carpet is all I can say! I kept Suzy on her leash during dinner so I could keep an eye on her while I ate. Later, I let her off-leash to hang out with my baby sister's dog, Woody, and the two of them had a great time. Woody is very sporty and active, and Suzy is more of a homebody, but she did enjoy following Woody around and sniffing the place out, to the point that I often found myself if she'd gotten stuck somewhere -- normally she stays glued to me, but she seems to be developing some confidence. The kiddo and I had a great time with our family and my baby sister's girlfriend (who's part of the family), my sister made margaritas per my request -- I'd been jonesin' for one for about four years! -- and the kiddo and I spent the night there before driving back the next morning to meet the kiddo's dad at 10:00 a.m. (The kiddo and his dad always get a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.)

My sister-the-shrink took the train to San Diego on Friday and we hung out. We tried to get to Hillcrest (for brunch) from the train station, reasoning that since Hillcrest is a very gay town and (we joked) "the gays love dogs and brunch," * we had a good chance of finding a dog-friendly brunch place and wouldn't have to leave Suzy in the car. However, I got lost and we wound up in Normal Heights ("gay-adjacent"), where we found a very cute cafe on Antique Row with some outdoor seating. The food was great, the atmosphere was relaxed; Suzy was pleased, and so were we. I'm sure I'll be back there soon.

After brunch, we went back to my house for a while, where Sis showed me the scans of the family photos she'd brought from my Chicago aunt's house on a recent trip. Wow -- lots of great, old photos. We talked for a while about many topics, some light and some heavy, then took Suzy for a little walk before heading off to the animal shelter for a tour. Sis wanted to see the place, since I'm always taking the kiddo there. We had to leave Suzy in the car, but by then the outdoor temperature was very cool, so she wasn't in danger, although she did cry, poor thing. Later we drove about a mile to Old Town to poke around the shops. I bought a few Mexican(-style??) handmade items including an ocarina for the kiddo's Christmas stocking, and after dinner, I took Sis to the train station for the trip back.

Now the kiddo is back from his dad's house and we're having an extremely lazy day, although I feel like we need to get outside, although none of us (I'm including Suzy) is particularly motivated. We shall see. Maybe we'll stay home and play video games and just watch TV movies. Maybe we'll go to the dog park. The kiddo seems to like this plan, seeing as we'll have to stay in the small-dog section and he won't have to deal with big, slobbery dogs jumping on him like he did last time. Oh, and I have some work to do. *yawn* Better get to that.

Hope everyone is doing something they enjoy! :-)

* I hope no one interprets our jokes in a negative way. Our baby sister is gay and we love her, her girlfriend, her friends, and all the gay boys we (okay, I) dated in college. Yay gay. I'm just sayin'. :-)